I feel that the MMO genre is the greatest genre ever due to many factors including the amount of content they have, the interactions and the longevity of the games under this genre. The games that I will mention, talk in depth about are Destiny and Elder Scrolls Online (ESO).
The first game that I will talk about is Destiny as this is the game that I have most experience with out of the three. I play this particular game weekly as this is when all the games activities reset. Destiny is a MMO/FPS (First person shooter) set far in the future which has a huge player base on both Xbox and Playstation due to many things such as replay-ability, being social and leveling up/getting better gear. The main narrative of the Destiny is that you are a guardian who has been brought back to life by a ghost which is your companion throughout the whole game, you then have to complete missions, defeat bosses and collect items to achieve the main goal which is to push back/destroy the darkness before it consumes the entire planet. The gameplay in Destiny can be repetitive with missions being similar, bounties being the same every few weeks. However Destiny is meant to be a grind meaning that you have to do certain aspects over and over again to get better gear to level you up. Once you are a high enough level more activities and events are available to you such as strikes which can be done with a team of 3, you fight your way through waves of enemies before confronting a boss and these strikes have a chance of dropping legendary gear each time you do them, also at the end of the strike you get legendary marks with are coins you can use to purchase things such as weapons, armour, class items, etc. This gives purpose to strikes instead of just doing them once and that's it because then the game would lack content and players would easily get bored. After completing strikes and leveling up you will be able to do a raid, in the base game before any DLC there was only one raid called that "Vault Of Glass" which you can only get rewards from once a week on your character or characters. Although this is a long time the rewards from the raid can be extremely good if you're lucky enough as you can get armour, weapons and class items that can only be obtained from the raid and nowhere else and this also helps to give the game replay-ability as you won't get everything from the raid the first time, it way take 100 times before you get what you wanted. There is also a hard version of the raid which gives double rewards but challenges the players in many ways with the enemies being harder, certain areas changing. The raid can be completed with a fireteam of 6 people (max) and they take a lot of teamwork and communication with a group of friends or random people that have got together just for the raid. Another huge aspect of destiny is PvP (player vs player) which can also drop weapons and armour, doesn't matter if your team won or lost that certain game, there are lots of gamemodes to choose from and lots of maps to play on. PvP is most popular when the "Iron Banner " even is on of the week as this brings weapons, armour, shaders and class items that can only be obtained during that weekonly until the event come around again. Up to now there have been 2 DLC's for the game with both including new missions, quests, strikes, raids, PvP maps, weapons, armour, shaders and much more. My personal experience with this game is that I really enjoy playing it, taking part in special events and meeting new people on there, I am not the biggest fan of PvP as I just don't enjoying playing it on my own because communication is important on certain gamemodes. However when playing a raid with random people it has both it's advantages and disadvantages as I get to meet new people all the time and everyone will be talking, having a laugh but also be communicating about things that are happening in the raid, sometimes you can just fly through the raid with a random team killing each boss first time. However the opposite side to that is that you can get into a game with someone that is incredibly bossy or moody, you get stuck on a certain part making people frustrated and causing them to leave the game meaning we'd have to find someone else.
The second game I will talk about is ESO which I also have personal experience with as I have played the game for multiple hours. This game is set in the past around medieval time and the main goal is to stop Molag Bal who is a demonic prince that wants to harvest the souls of all mortals. However, to get to this point you have to complete a lot of main missions and you can also do side missions to get better gear and gain experience to level up. While roaming the land there are also public events called "Dark Anchors" that give the players involved good experience and loot drops with a chance of better gear to wear. This game also has PvP in it where the three factions go to war with hundreds of people on one server fighting to capture castles, farms, blacksmiths, etc. To me the PvP in this game is more fun compared to destiny due to the scale of combat and the teamwork needed.
Although these games are different in ways the core mechanics and story are the same as you play the hero trying to save the world. Teamwork is always important in MMO's as killing bosses, completing raids and dungeons require good communication and I feel that this is the main selling point of the MMO genre. Another must have in this genre is that they are all a grind in the way that you have to play repeatedly to get better gear and weapons to make your character better.
Monday, 16 November 2015
Task 1 - Glossary
The Hypodermic Needle Model:
This is a way in which the audience of a media text can receive the information given to them. With this method the media text can either be positive or negative which will then make the audience respond in a certain way. This method is only short term and the audience is seen as passive meaning that they don't question the media text, they just except it for what it is.
The Inoculation Model:
During this method the audience is repeatedly shown the same media text making the audience immune to media text of the same subject or anything like this. This means that they will no longer feel any emotions when reading, watching or playing the media text as they have been through every possible feeling already. The audience are again seen as passive during this method.
The Two-Step Flow Model:
This method suggest that peoples opinions on a piece of media text were influenced by someone higher than them or in a leaders position, this means that opinions and information is relayed to the audience second hand and they just take this opinion on board and stick with it. However with this method the audience are semi-active meaning that they are actually thinking about their opinion and what they think.
The Uses & Gratifications Theory:
This theory shows that people are now choosing what media text they consume with a understanding of what they will actually get out of it at the end. This moves away from what the media does to the audience and focuses on what the audience does with the media instead. The main purposes why people use media text is for information, personal identity, integration/social interaction and entertainment.
The Reception Theory:
This final theory deals with how things such as gender, age, class, religion and ethnicity can affect how a person reads and interprets the piece of media text.
Monday, 12 October 2015
Task 1 - Glossary
Media Text:
Media text is a generic term for any product that is created by a media outlet such as newspaper, radio, TV, books, Comics, etc. All these are similar in certain ways such as they are all created with the purpose of being consumed by the general public in different ways.
Semiotics:
Semiotics is the term for how people interpret the media text that they are either reading, watching or listening to because every person will have different opinions and feelings towards a piece of media text.
Genre:
A genre is a term for the different categories that games are put in depending on how they play and the content that they contain. There are many different genres in games such as MMO, FPS, Strategy, etc. Determining a games genre helps the consumers to find the type of game they want to play and what they would most enjoy. However genre isn't just used in gaming it is used throughout all media types. For example TV shows have many different genres such as Drama, Soaps, Documentary, etc. Radio puts music into different genres such as Rock, Metal, R&B, etc. Films have genres such as Comedy, Thriller, Horror, etc. Finally books also have many genres like Crime, Fantasy, etc.
Selection Of Content:
This is when you decide what content the media text will actually contain, when choosing the content you have to be aware of things such as religion, race, ethnicity, etc so that you don't offend or upset anyone that comes into contact with the media text. Also you would thing about what would most appeal to the target audience that you are trying to reach out to so that they are more attracted to your piece of media text compared to others.
Construction Of Content:
Construction of content refers to the layout of the media text, if this media text was a magazine then the cover must have the most eye-catching and appealing image and/or headline to grab peoples attention and to pick up your media text.
Codes and Conventions:
Codes and conventions are aspects of a certain media text or genre that are the same throughout a range. For example there can be many different games but if they come under the genre of first person shooter then the core mechanics of the game will be the same in each one. However they can look different, sound different, etc.
Modes of Address:
Modes of address is how the piece of media text actually speaks to the audience that it using it, this includes things such as first person, third person, monologue. It can also be what type of language you use weather is formal or informal depending on the audience and what the piece of media text is about because that might mean informal language is the most appropriate.
Thursday, 3 September 2015
Task 1 - Glossary
Quantitative Research:
Quantitative research deals with the statistics, numbers and percentages. One way in which this research is conducted is by letting people answer a questionnaire that you have created to find out specific aspects of your target audience such as age, gender, etc. This type of research contains closed questions meaning that there are set options that the person can choose as an answer, its either one or the other, although the participant cannot give in detail answers. However this is done on purpose because that information would be irrelevant to the company conducting the research. There are companies that puts this information out for the entire world to see.
Quantitative research deals with the statistics, numbers and percentages. One way in which this research is conducted is by letting people answer a questionnaire that you have created to find out specific aspects of your target audience such as age, gender, etc. This type of research contains closed questions meaning that there are set options that the person can choose as an answer, its either one or the other, although the participant cannot give in detail answers. However this is done on purpose because that information would be irrelevant to the company conducting the research. There are companies that puts this information out for the entire world to see.
- BARB: Broadcasters' Audience Research Board deals with stats involving TV. This company shows which TV shows are most popular in the UK by showing the percentage of people viewing a certain show compared to others.
- RAJAR: Radio Joint Audience Research Limited does the same thing as BARB. However RAJAR does this with radio stations and analyses how many people are listening to a certain radio station.
- ABC: Audit Bureau of Circulations deals with which companies/how many companies are buying advertising space in certain newspapers.
Qualitative Research:
Qualitative research revolves around collecting many different responses to an idea by using such things as surveys, looking at reviews or focus groups. A focus group could be made up of industry specialists, your work colleges, your target audience or even a mixture of all three. The type of questions asked in this style of researched are open meaning that the interviewer wants the participant to go into as much detail as possible so they can get a better understanding of how this person feels about the game and how it makes them think. A focus group is a really good choice for this type of research as you are face-to-face with the person themselves, you know exactly who is answering the questions asked, also if they give a short answer such as "yes" you can always ask why but with something like an online questionnaire you wouldn't be able to do this so the answer would be nowhere near as in-depth.
Audience Profiling:
Audience profiling is something that all forms of media have to do when creating/releasing a new product. This system put everyone into a certain category but there are many factors that have to be considered such as age, race, gender, disposable income, etc. One way in which this can be done is by looking at the demographics of their target audience (this basically looks at what jobs people have) so they can get an idea of what their disposable income would be like.
This is the scale that is used to determine what demographic a person applies to, most of the general population will either ally to C1, C2 and D.
The next method of profiling an audience is by looking at their psychographics which is how a certain person will think/behave, this isn't as simple tho as many people will apply to at least 2 or more of these so you couldn't narrow down which one most applies to them.
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