A Large-Scale, Longitudinal Study of User Profiles in World of Warcraft

@_jon_bell_WiC May 14, 2013
A Large-Scale, Longitudinal
Study of User Proﬁles in
World of Warcraft
Jonathan Bell, Swapneel Sheth, Gail Kaiser
Columbia University, NewYork, NY USA
PROGRAMMING SYSTEMS LAB
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
http://www.psl.cs.columbia.edu/
enable(vt):to make possible, practical, or easy
1

Motivation
2

Motivation
• We’re a group of Software Engineers.
2

Motivation
• Recently studying Gamiﬁcation of Software
Development
2

Motivation
Development
• What principles can we carry over from
game design to apply it to non-game
contexts?
2

Motivation
Development
• What principles can we carry over from
game design to apply it to non-game
contexts?
• Why not look to real games?
2

Game Studies
3

Game Studies
• Qualitative Research:
• 100’s-1000’s of samples [Debeuvais; Yee]
• Personalities, demographics, etc
3

Game Studies
• Qualitative Research:
• 100’s-1000’s of samples [Debeuvais; Yee]
• Personalities, demographics, etc
• Quantitative Research:
• 10,000’s-100,000’s of samples
[Duchenaut; Lewis]
• In-game demographics, etc
3

WoW: Quantitative
Data
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• In-game “Demographics”
• Guild, Class, Race, Level
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
• Professions
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
• Professions
• Raids
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
• Professions
• Raids
• Companions
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
• Professions
• Raids
• Companions
• Mounts
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
• Professions
• Raids
• Companions
• Mounts
• Titles
5

WoW: Quantitative
Data
• Quests
• Achievements
• Professions
• Raids
• Companions
• Mounts
• Titles
• Reputation
5

Methodology
7

Accessing the Data
• Blizzard’s API allows you to retrieve this
per-character
• No option to list all characters
• How do we discover the characters?
8

Character Discovery
9

Character Discovery
• Blizzard does list characters by guild
9

Character Discovery
• Several popular websites have listings of
guilds and characters [e.g.WarcraftRealms]
9

Character Discovery
• Several popular websites have listings of
guilds and characters [e.g.WarcraftRealms]
• Solution: Find all guilds belonging to these
characters.And ﬁnd all members of all
identiﬁed guilds
9

Fetching the Data
• Blizzard API is rate-limited per-IP
• Solution: use a cluster of 60+ IPs to crawl
the API
10

Fetching the Data
• Blizzard API is rate-limited per-IP
• Solution: use a cluster of 60+ IPs to crawl
the API
MySQL
Crawler
Nodes
(60+)
Management
Console (Normal PC)
Retrieve "todo-list"
Store results
Starts Nodes
Runs Analysis
10

0"
200000"
400000"
600000"
800000"
1000000"
1200000"
1400000"9/29/2011"
9/30/2011"
10/1/2011"
10/2/2011"
10/3/2011"
10/4/2011"
10/5/2011"
10/6/2011"
10/7/2011"
10/8/2011"
10/9/2011"
10/10/2011"
10/11/2011"
10/12/2011"
10/13/2011"
10/14/2011"
Characters)
Date)
Crawler)Performance)
11

Raw Data
• Found approximately 12 million characters
with basic information
• Complete data for half of these
Basic information
12

Other MMORPG Study Sizes
1"
10"
100"
1,000"
10,000"
100,000"
1,000,000"
10,000,000"
100,000,000"
WoW:"
Debeauvais"
2011"
EverQuest:"
Williams"
[2008]"
Everquest,"
Ul<ma,"
Camelot,"SW"
Galaxies:"Yee"
[2006]"
WoW:"
Harrison"
[2011]"
WoW:"Lewis"
[2010]"
WoW:"Bell"
[2013]"(1)"
WoW:"Bell"
[2013]"(2)"
Sample'Size'(Log'Scale)'
Sample'Size'of'MMORPG'Studies'
13

1"
10"
100"
1,000"
10,000"
100,000"
1,000,000"
10,000,000"
100,000,000"
WoW:"
Debeauvais"
2011"
EverQuest:"
Williams"
[2008]"
Everquest,"
Ul<ma,"
Camelot,"SW"
Galaxies:"Yee"
[2006]"
WoW:"
Harrison"
[2011]"
WoW:"Lewis"
[2010]"
WoW:"Bell"
[2013]"(1)"
WoW:"Bell"
[2013]"(2)"
Closest: 136,047
13

1"
10"
100"
1,000"
10,000"
100,000"
1,000,000"
10,000,000"
100,000,000"
WoW:"
Debeauvais"
2011"
EverQuest:"
Williams"
[2008]"
Everquest,"
Ul<ma,"
Camelot,"SW"
Galaxies:"Yee"
[2006]"
WoW:"
Harrison"
[2011]"
WoW:"Lewis"
[2010]"
WoW:"Bell"
[2013]"(1)"
WoW:"Bell"
[2013]"(2)"
Closest: 136,047
Us: 6 (12) Million
13

Research Questions
14

Research Questions
1. Can we cluster characters into proﬁles
based on the type of goals that they
complete in game?
14

Research Questions
complete in game?
2. Do characters' play proﬁle evolve as they
level?
14

Research Questions
complete in game?
2. Do characters' play proﬁle evolve as they
level?
3. Do characters with different play proﬁles
play through the game content at different
rates?
14

RQ1: Creating Player
Proﬁles
15

Proﬁles
• Within WoW, players complete
Achievements
15

Proﬁles
Achievements
• Our dataset contains each achievement
each player earns, with a timestamp
15

Proﬁles
Achievements
• Our dataset contains each achievement
each player earns, with a timestamp
• Proﬁle players based on the types of
achievements they complete
15

Categorizing
Achievements
• Draw on motivation categorizations
described byYee
Achievement Social Immersion
Advancement Socializing Discovery
Mechanics Relationship Role-Playing
Competition Teamwork Customization
Escapism
Categorization of play motivations,Yee
16

Categorizing
Achievements
17

Categorizing
Achievements
• 1000 Conquest Points
17

Categorizing
Achievements
• Earn 1000 conquest points -> Achievement
17

Categorizing
Achievements
• Archavon the Stone Watcher
17

Categorizing
Achievements
• Defeat Archavon the StoneWatcher in 10 player mode
-> Social
17

Categorizing
Achievements
-> Social
• It’s Happy Hour Somewhere
17

Categorizing
Achievements
-> Social
• Drink 25 different types of beverages -> Immersion
17

Categorizing
Achievements
-> Social
• Arrested Development
17

Categorizing
Achievements
-> Social
• Arrested Development
• Allow all three of Corla’s zealots to evolve, then defeat
Corla after slaying the evolved zealots in Blackrock
Caverns on Heroic Difﬁculty -> All three
17

Four Distinct Player
Proﬁles
Generalists Achievement Loners Socialists
Size (Millions
of players)
Social
Immersion
Achievement
1.6 1.4 1 1
12% ± 6 7% ± 8 1% ± 3 28% ± 6
38% ± 6 20% ± 7 38% ± 29 31% ± 5
66% ± 4 87% ± 6 35% ± 24 61% ± 4
18

RQ2:Achievements per
level
0"
20"
40"
60"
80"
100"
120"
140"
160"
180"
0(9"
10(19"
20(29"
30(39"
40(49"
50(59"
60(69"
70(79"
80(84"
85"
Number'of'Achievements2
Level2
Achievement"
Immersion"
Social"
19

level
0"
20"
40"
60"
80"
100"
120"
140"
160"
180"
0(9"
10(19"
20(29"
30(39"
40(49"
50(59"
60(69"
70(79"
80(84"
85"
Level2
Achievement"
Immersion"
Social"
Mostly get achievements after ﬁnishing most game content
19

level
0"
20"
40"
60"
80"
100"
120"
140"
160"
180"
0(9"
10(19"
20(29"
30(39"
40(49"
50(59"
60(69"
70(79"
80(84"
85"
Level2
Achievement"
Immersion"
Social"
Very few do social achievements early on
19

level
0"
20"
40"
60"
80"
100"
120"
140"
160"
180"
0(9"
10(19"
20(29"
30(39"
40(49"
50(59"
60(69"
70(79"
80(84"
85"
Level2
Achievement"
Immersion"
Social"
Had to be social to progress?
19

RQ3: Leveling by
Primary Motivation
• “Primary” motivation - whatever the player
did most
• Look purely at time to reach level 85
(maximum level)
20

RQ3: Leveling by
Primary Motivation
0!
1000!
2000!
3000!
4000!
5000!
6000!
7000!
8000!
9000!
10000!
Achievement! Immersion! Social! Overall!
TotalHourstoLevel!
Character Classiﬁcation!
21

RQ3: Leveling by
Primary Motivation
0!
1000!
2000!
3000!
4000!
5000!
6000!
7000!
8000!
9000!
10000!
Achievement! Immersion! Social! Overall!
TotalHourstoLevel!
Character Classiﬁcation!
Players that “stop to smell the
roses”
21

Bonus RQ: Has Blizzard
made the game easier?
22

Studying Game
Difﬁculty
• Modeled based on how long it takes to
level
• Measured in real-world time
• Compare time-to-level from before Nov
2011 to post Nov 2011
23

Leveling by Start Date
0!
500!
1000!
1500!
2000!
2500!
3000!
3500!
20! 30! 40! 50! 60! 70! 80! 90*!
Hoursbetweenlevels!
Level!
Pre-Cataclysm!
Post-Cataclysm!
24

Leveling by Start Date
0!
500!
1000!
1500!
2000!
2500!
3000!
3500!
20! 30! 40! 50! 60! 70! 80! 90*!
Hoursbetweenlevels!
Level!
Pre-Cataclysm!
Post-Cataclysm!
Abandoned characters
24

And there’s so much
more.
25

What’s the most popular
character name?
Name Count
(Normalized)
Shadow 922
Nightmare 839
Nemesis 831
Loki 772
Hades 722
Pandora 707
Lilith 672
Lucian 660
Wolverine 657
Holycow 656
Luna 644
Kratos 642
26

WoW: Social Data
• Guild
• Achievements (surprise!)
• Co-completions of group achievements
• Huge network of players
• Over 100 million edges
27

Contributions
28

Contributions
• Gathered the ﬁrst massive dataset from the
MMORPG, World ofWarcraft
28

Contributions
• Deﬁned player proﬁles in WoW
28

Contributions
• Showed that these proﬁles are not static, and
players evolve over time
28

Contributions
• Showed that these players advance through
content at different paces
28

Contributions
• Showed that these players advance through
content at different paces
• API Scraper: http://code.psl.cs.columbia.edu/
28

A Large-Scale, Longitudinal
Study of User Proﬁles in
World of Warcraft
Jonathan Bell, Swapneel Sheth, Gail Kaiser
Columbia University, NewYork, NY USA
PROGRAMMING SYSTEMS LAB
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
http://www.psl.cs.columbia.edu/
enable(vt):to make possible, practical, or easy
29

A Large-Scale, Longitudinal Study of User Profiles in World of Warcraft

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