Players against Developers

Beneath the Cuteness of Dragon Nest

Co-operative gameplay is rather common in most online games nowadays. This co-operative gameplay mechanics seek to enhance interaction between the players, differentiating online games from single-player games. Unconsciously, gamers may develop a violence nature as coordinating a kill becomes somewhat similar to plotting a murder or a coordinated attack in a military context.

In Dragon Nest, level designers design the game mechanics in a way that requires players to work together as a group to win. For instance, the design of PVP maps:

The Red Dots on the all maps symbolizes spawning points with the exception of the center red dot which represents the center of the map. From the maps, we can see that there are many ways in which the players could approach their enemies. This results in players strategizing their attacks which are similar to that of a military unit. Regardless of the composition mix of the teams, commands such as “Cover Fire”, “Flanking”, “Backup”, “Focus Fire”, “Lure (Decoy)” etc. are often used by teams to co-ordinate their attacks. Real-Time adaptation of strategies that are common during military exercises are also commonly seen during the PVP matches when team tries to counteract to their adversaries.


One explanation for such similarities between the Gaming World and the Military maybe due to the similarity of both having objectives. In the Gaming World, the objective is given by the level designers who decides the winning objective of the game. In military, objectives are in the forms of missions. As such, in order to complete the winning objectives/missions in the most efficient manner, both groups of people (players and military personnel) will then use the same tactics. Because the history of military dates back much longer as compare to online games, there is a perception that most online gameplay incorporated military elements in the game.

Other occasions which players make use of military strategies are in dungeons such as the Dark Lair and Nests. In the Dark Lair, players are required to protect a central monument from waves of monsters and the teams that succeeds are often the ones that co-ordinate the best. Players group together as well to beat the Nests which are dungeons of much harder difficulty. However, the strategies which players use in the above two example is rather standard and less varied as compare to the group PVP matches. This Is because the strategies that AI monsters used is similar every time. For example, there are guides on the internet available for teaching new players how to beat the level (A Doctor’s Online Gaming Life, http://mhauckonline.blogspot.com/2011/12/dragon-nest-apocalypse-nest-guide.html ;Forums Guides, http://forum.cherrycredits.com/forum/topics/view/apocalypse-nest-guide/page:1). Nonetheless, players cooperate to beat the game in these two scenarios.

Challenging the Terrain – Situationist Gameplay in Dragon Nest

As mentioned in my previous post, game modification is limited in Dragon Nest. Therefore, the actions of hacktivists are somewhat limited. There is not much freedom involved when it comes to changing the contents of the game. However, there are still ways of having Situationist gameplay without adding new contents into the game.

In Dragon Nest, I belong to a guild known as Exceeds. In order to keep things interesting for the guild members, some members of the guild decides to organize Events.

These events add new game elements into the existing world without modifying or adding contents such as the examples that are given in the reading (eg. Velvet-Strike). Similarly, it allowed playing another game within the game from another perspective. The Mystery NPC, it is an event that adds a detective/investigative game element in the game as players are required to find out who the mystery NPC is in the game with hints given by the event creators.

In the online world such as Dragon Nest, the virtual space in which the players move around is limited, restricted by the designs of the level designers. However, players are able to develop their own type of games using the game world features with their creativity. Even though the game focuses on militaristic and competitive gameplay, such events presents the game from another perspective.

Thus, this brings me to my question for the seminar: Would Situationist style of gameplay trivialize this gaming world that is dominated by militaristic gameplay (Violence and Achievement orientated).