What accounts for World of Warcraft’s unprecedented success? More than anything else, it’s the feeling of “blissful productivity” that the game provokes.
Blissful productivity is the sense of being deeply immersed in work that produces immediate and obvious results. The clearer the results, and the faster we achieve them, the more blissfully productive we feel. And no game gives us a better sense of getting work done than WoW.
— Jane McGonigal / Reality is Broken
There’s our model, Visitor. Now, let’s work together to refine and improve our Crusade.
Multiple Mastery: Do not claim mastery unless I confirm that your idea is worth adding to the Crusader’s Council Plans page. Once confirmed in the comments, you may claim the extra 75 Miles and 30 Gold for this Epic Quest. Each additional confirmation will earn you an additional 75 Miles and 30 Gold.
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I’ll get the ball rolling. Add your epic ideas in the comments sections below.
Badges and Achievements
We’ve been trying to figure out how to incorporate this for a while now. Rough ideas to build on:
- X Quests Mastered (At increments of 25?)
- X Minutes Logged (Long story, cool system)
- Locations and/or Miles Recognition
- App Specific Awards
- Special Epic Quests
- Work Featured on the Site / Best of the Best
- Jobs for Real-World Clients
- Student Mentoring (student created video lessons)
Lots of other possibilities. Your suggestions?
Throughout using the Creative Crusade website, I have noticed a few things that I personally find irritating/confusing and I also have a few things that though they aren’t affecting my learning my experience on this website, they would be fine features to have in terms of making it easier/more fun, to learn:
– Possible “Milestones” where after working past a certain quest or certain amount of EXP you can get a gold bonus or something related to that.
– Though Highland Ranch High or yourself MAY not have the correct recourses to do this, I think it would be very very interesting if we could make a sort of avatar for Creative Crusade. I understand we made one back in the boot camp, but it wasn’t for our site, it was its own site dedicated to making its own avatars.
– This slightly connects to the pervious idea I made, but it could be a good idea to add a little bit more customization for our profiles. Maybe adding a few more themes for the site, and maybe backgrounds for the site. I find the monotone white always looking back at you no matter where you go can get very repetitive.
– If someone hasn’t already suggested this, I feel like a sort of black market FOR the site would be very compelling. Adding a feature where we could trade items or buy other peoples work for GOLD. That could add a lot of more potential for Creative Crusade.
– But, most importantly, the biggest problem with the site that I have is when I load up a video to watch occasionally the media player will crash resulting in the lose of your spot and you will have to then close the video, reload the page, and restart the video and find the spot where you left off. This is SUPER annoying and I’m sure other people are experiencing this to. I strongly ask you to look into this bug and try very hard to fix it because its largely impacting my experience at Creative Crusade. Thank you. 😉
Great suggestions Zac. Milestones are on the horizon as badges that will be earned at certain points I just need to work on getting them implemented. As for your avatar you should be able to use whatever avatar you created with the hero creator at the beginning of the semester meaning it is completely customized. The gravatar website is jsut what allows your avatar to show up on your account.
We also already have many themes available if you want to jazz up your site. I just haven’t created a quest to show you these options. i’ll get that done but for now look at the appearance tab in your dashboard if you want to switch it.
I have been working on the video bug and it will be better in the future but to repair it I have to replace all of the videos and that will take some time.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll give you MASTERY for you suggestion of the Themes options being valuable.
A possible way to make the game better is to reward the people that are on task 90% and up on the Class Dojo. The students who are above the required could be allowed to purchase select items in the class market that the others cant. Some rewards could be a 5$ itunes card, free bathroom pass, and 1 period to listen to music devices while working. I believe that in doing this, students will be more motivated to stay on task and get their work done because the prizes are only for those who work towards being successful and putting all their effort into it.
Absolutely. I plan on reward these students with bonus XP and gold which can then be used as they want in the market. While I love the idea of iTunes cards, I could never afford those so we have to be creative with the rewards available. We already have the bathroom pass available for purchase in the market but allowing a student to purchase the use their own music device for a price is definitely something I will add to the market ASAP.
You may claim mastery!
My thoughts on improvements
-Possibly a prize after mastering a quest or maybe after you level up.
-Market items that you have to be a certain level to be able to purchase.
-Maybe being able to start clans and work in groups with other classmates.
-Maybe being able to customize your own avatar and can be rewarded items for your avatar after a quest such as; armor, helmet e.t.c.
-Maybe a competitive team system
-Probably an online system where you can see what quests or whatever your classmates are doing.
The game so far is already great and everything seems to be working fine. I mean I’m having fun doing quests and mastering some of them. I really like the mastery idea its kind of my motivator to finish quests to get experience and gold. It feels pretty good. But the main thing I really want to see is like a team or clan system where you can work in a group with your classmates. That would really wow me. It would make this class more fun than it already is for me.
The prize for mastering a quest is gold then you choose your prize. I know we ned more options for the store but we need new ideas that are affordable. Any ideas? Teams quests will be coming but we have to have skills sets first. The avatar items to add is a possibility but then I would have to control the hero machine options at the beginning. Market items available to certain levels is a great idea.
Claim mastery for that one.
I feel that the game is going well so far but could be more engaging for the students in class who may not like what we are doing or just don’t like the class. I think that we should find a way to get these students excited about coming to class and working on Creative Crusade and Illustrator.
A way that I think students could get excited is to get them involved with the other students in the class. Maybe they will perform better if they are interacting with others and are not sitting at the computer all class.
Possibly allow groups to create/work on/design work that contributes all of their ideas into one piece of work. Students might see their potential and want to work deeper into this class if they do this.
Make it so that students have something to achieve at the end of each quest so that they are motivated to complete the quest. I like the ideas of XP and Gold but some students might not see this as enough motivation. Maybe something outside of class that they could earn after completing a quest? I don’t really know what just something that will motivate students to complete quests and go deeper into Creative Crusade.
I agree with all of your thoughts however we must gain a skill base before we can jump into group projects. I am hearing more people wanting to work in teams so hopefully we will get to the team aspect but it will take time.
I am always open to new incentives for the store to make gold more desirable but we have to be creative with what we have available as we can’t spend lots of money on physical items for purchase. I definitely want to always create as much motivation as possible so if you have any detailed ideas let me know. As we get into the epic quest something must be created if that is what you mean by achieved, If not what ideas do you have that would qualify as achievements to complete a quest?
Easier way to earn back minutes. Quests are geared to users skill level. Users can edit quests. Exchange gold for minutes
Minutes aren’t meant to be easy to earn, thats why it is so important to be in class every day.
Quests are already geared towards students skills they have likely learned.
Users editing quest intrigues me. What would they edit and Why? This might have potential..expand on this idea.
You can already purchase minutes in the store but they are expensive.
Badges or achievements for independent projects outside of class.
In advanced levels there are quest available for independent quests but I do like the idea a badges for quests finished entirely outside of class time. I don’t know how could monitor work done inside class versus outside though. Keep brainstorming.
I think a cool idea for a badge would be a badge for every 10 pieces of artwork that you complete and put on your blog/print out. This would be cool because you could see how many pieces of artwork you have completed over the semester.
That sounds great although 10 is a lot of artwork maybe miletsones like your First, 5th, 7th. I have a request similar to this in for the programmers to get a badge for the number of completed toolbar quests but as of now we don’t have the ability in the game yet.
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What about an online planner for each student? We could have another page on our blogs for planning, when we come to class, we could make our weekly post, then make a planning/goal post. It would be about what we plan to do for the day, or the week; it would also have our goals for the day, then goals for the week, and if we achieved them.
That’s definitely a good idea, though not one that I think we should require. I don’t think people would want to work on more required posts. I think that could be a fantastic addition to your weekly posts and perhaps something I will suggest although not require in future classes.
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Ideas For Improvement:
-Make It So That We Can Request Quests.
-Have A Quest Where You Make Whatever You Feel Like.
-Support Other Projects Students Want To Do.
-Make It So That There Is More Projects And Not So Many Sidequest.
-And Have Fun!!
My thoughts on how to improve this game are limited because this game is going great so far but here is my idea –
1. Don’t charge currency for the bathroom passes, if people choose to go to the bathroom, however long they go for is time they have to make up. So if they choose to stay out for an extensive period of time, then they have to make that time up in academic assistance or after or before school.
That could almost encourage ditching as there is no penalty at all then is a student leaves for 20 minutes which is not acceptable. Because bathroom pass is a privledge gamers can choose to pay with minute OR gold as both options are available in the store. The minute portions is a mandatory 15 minute makeup though. You always have choices including taking care of bathroom needs before class.
An idea I have for this game is to make a special item you can unlock from going to certain pages that can be exchanged with gold. I feel this would make people look around the website more and not just do what is told.
Absolutely, I want to try and create some “hidden” quests and perhaps some bonus quests that expire if not completed in a certain time frame.
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The game is pretty good as it is but I think you could add something such as, teams or guilds, promote working together, and encourage students to share what they know with each other. Add team items in the store that team members can buy together such as graphics for their clan or names and different things.
The Teams or Guilds opportunity is in the works. Can you expand more on what kind of things team member would WANT to purchase?
First of all this game is fantastic. I just enjoy all the quest and I am really excited to get more into the asymmetrical quest.
– In this game I’ve noticed that we earn gold that we use to purchase things, but no one is using them. Personally I find it pointless to have if you are not forced to spend it. So to put the gold into action I think it would make the game more exciting if we had to spend some of the gold in order to move on in a quest.
– Since there are students in the class that work harder than others, I think it would be fair if the top 5 students got extra gold for working so hard.
Great Ideas. Claim Mastery.
I am going to look into making quests available for purchase this week. I am also trying to figure out how to determine the “top 5 agents” to award the bonus to. Any suggestions? I’m also always looking for suggestion of thing that are more enticing to purchase?
Though this game is pretty advanced into how things are already working, I think there could be some more things added. One thing that I would add is a guild system. Guilds adds another competitive experience. Being in a guild you work as a team to strive to the top. By having guilds you could create guild quest, in guild quest you would have to work as a team to obtain a certain goal.
I love the idea of creating Guilds and another aspect for rewarding team success. What is the certain goal though that would require a team? I just want to make sure the guilds don’t create the opportunity for slackers to let the top Agents do all the work.
I have a few ideas that would be pretty cool if it was added to the game. The idea of being in a group of people with different ideas and make a design for a project would be awesome. Being able to be in a group of people and create a piece of art with different types of design that show off each persons personality and creativity would be a great way to learn different techniques from the other person. Group projects would also allow a group of students to build on their creativity with new and better ideas. I also think it would be a great idea if later on in the game we could create our own project. A project that we can create whatever we want with no limits. The project would be great for students because it would give them a chance to think and create their own ideas without being told what to make. The students with more creativity can go wild with it, and the students that feel they don’t can discover that they do once they create a project all by themselves.
I agree completely. Still just looking for a great cooperative project to jump into. Any ideas.
Freedom of defining your own quest is actually in use but that kind of freedom can’t be given before skills and understanding are shown. Since this class is only a semester, creating your own quest is something that is meant more for students that come back for successive levels or semesters in “the CIA”
To make this game better, I think a few group projects would be fun! The game is already great as it is, but I think it could be more fun. With a group project, that allows us to interact with different people, and get different ideas that maybe we have never thought about before. With that, I think that we should be able to choose what we want to do for a few of our quests. Following guidelines is great, but you can test what a student truly knows when they have to do it themselves.
Group quests are definitely something I want to incorporate. I just haven’t come up with a good idea for a quest that would utilize teams well. Any ideas?
Freedom of defining your own quest is actually in use but that kind of freedom can’t be given before skills and understanding are shown. Since this class is only a semester, creating your own quest is something that is meant more for students that come back for successive levels or semesters in “the CIA”
I think a good “Duel” of sorts would be to see who can design a creature of sorts and then have them list damage and stuff, and that way the gravatar its self is sort of like a god, but then the “Pet” is the fighting incarnate of said avatar, To make this feel more like a game it should be something like that, though that is a lot of coding to do within a single day,
So, two people create characters to “duel” with “damage and stuff”. How is it judged and what is the outcome? How are these characters created? I like the idea of competition but I am more curious how it would work.
Well the way it would work out, is basically think pokemon stats, You have your basic speed, strength and defense, but minus the s.defense. s.strength etc, Who ever had the best stats, as in lets say your creature has a speed of 10, and the other had five, and your creature had a defense of 30 the other had 25, and your attacks against them did about 24 your attack would be asbored but they would be left with one defense, and so on.
That sounds fun but far to complicated for our game and we still need it to tie into the design quests not be a game separate from Creative Crusade.
Suggestions –
1. Quest-Awarded Goodies
You could award hall passes or gaming time for certain amounts of completion. Students do enjoy the creative time, but sometimes, much like with other school work, students’ brains need a rest. Game time or music time is always a nice break and maybe after ten to fifteen minutes students will feel a little more rested and ready to work
2. Possible side- creations
By this idea, I mean that some students would like to design logos or other ideas for companies, friends, etc. Also, students do not always have Photoshop, Illustrator, or other software brands of these types to create these ideas at home or on their own. With certain off periods and a social life calling outside or in different parts of the building, students do not have the time, availability, or schedule to come in and design. Not all students would like to come in to log extra miles. They look to come in to be creative before, after, or during school. So to make it short: a reward, or goodie, to create something in Illustrator or Photoshop outside of all quests and class work! You could title it something like: “Free Design” or “Free Project.” Whether students want to print it or not is their choice. Printing can cost gold or miles.
These are my two ideas of how the class could be expanded.
1. With the Market already available the earning and use of gold my mastering quests already give student the option to purchase those goodies as they would like.
2. I will absolutely be adding a quest for personal client jobs. I had thought of that a while back but that one is a valuable asset several student might want to take advantage of. Claim Mastery for this one.
The game acts like an achievement based quest. I propose that after students reach a certain amount of miles, they can attain surnames that act as a ranking system. For example, people who reach 100 miles, they receive the title recruit. Then, someone who reaches 1000 miles receives the title master, and someone who reaches say 2000, or some large number is given the title “jedi” or something that symbolizes success. If this was accompanied by putting a list of people who reached the highest title possible on the wall, I believe it would incentivize people to work much harder.
Ideas for improvement :
-Give the captain and all of the other “helpers” on the site a face rather than just a name.
-Try to implement some type of competition among the students rather than just a race to more gold, xp, ect.
Maybe you could set up a tournament tree to promote competition at the beginning of the class and have the students battle out creating some type of artwork based off a topic you give them and by the end of the year the tournament narrows down and the winner gets some type of prize.
-I also like the idea of an avatar store where at the beginning of the year everyone is given an avatar without any cool clothes on but after you complete a quest then you are given a present of some sort that has a item that you can put on your avatar to personalize them.
The game is going great so far in my opinion but there is always room for improvement.
My thoughts include:
* From what I’ve been reading above everyone seems to be including in their ideas that they would like to see the ability to exchange miles for gold and gold for minutes. This would make the game more interesting as students could risk there hard worked miles and gold for a little extra time. It is a simple idea but is potential to affect the game in a big way.
* I really enjoyed our Winter showcase quest and all the features that went into it. I liked how there was a winner and in someway it was like a competition. At the end of every quest there should be a top 3 and those 3 should be rewarded with some thing special. Also, I liked the deadline that was put in the Winter showcase quest. It made things go along a little fast and I like learning new things all the time, not just staying on the same project for 2 or 3 weeks at a time.
* I also think it would be an interesting idea to add an online setting. It would be use to see who is online and see where they are on the journey.
* Going along with my last idea I think it would had a little more excitement into our game if we added a feature at the end of every quest where you could play a simple game against another student to risk our gold or miles for the ability to take the opponents. This would add more fear and risk into the game which would make game more exciting.
* In the game right now I noticed that no one is currently using their gold and miles to purchase anything. To me the gold and miles are pointless in the game if they are not going to be use. I realize that it is good to be working for something but if you aren’t forced to spend it, there is no point in having it. There should be some quests where you have to purchase something to be able to move on. This will make students work harder for their ability to advance.
Miles are not meant to be a currency of any kind. They are about advancing in the game and as I develop the game further there will be quests and purchases that will be locked unless you have advanced far enough via miles. The option to purchase minutes with gold is already available in the store.
I am glad the due date worked for you however one of the staples of our classroom is everyones option to move at their own speed. Certainly due dates can convince some people to move faster but ultimately you have the option to always move as fast as you would like. I do realize we need more options available for you to choose from. That is on me to make more available. Hopefully I will be able to improve in the area of quest offerings for you to choose from.
I would be interested to hear more about the “online setting” you are referring to. Would you prefer the leaderboard so the level/location gamers are at rather than their miles? Unfortunately I have not found of anyway to that our website can access a list of who is currently logged into the game although I will throw it out there to the greater powers that be.
Battles? Challenge Duals? Interesting idea. I would love it if you could help me come up with any examples of small games or challenges that could be proposed. They could become available at certain intervals in the game and challenges could never be denied by a gamer ranked higher?
i definitely need to find a way of tying the gold into the game to be for intriguing. I might offer the ability to purchase certain quests, font packs, brushes, tools. I don’t want to prevent a student from progressing in the game however because of used up gold from other purchases. I really just need a lot more exciting purchases available!
Claim Gold for the battles at certain levels idea, but help me come up with a “game or challenge” idea or two!!
You could have hidden links to secret quests hidden on certain pages throughout the website. These quests couldn’t hurt you but depending on the location of the link or what the quest entailed would the determine the amount of XP you got. This could be a great way to have students actually look at the variety of resources on the website, that I’m sure some people ignore.
Maybe have a convert gold to XP option in the shop.
The hidden quests are in the distant future for use but I like the idea of placing them in unusual areas to entice gamers to search the site for other resources and “easter egg” rewards.
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The game it self is fantastic already!
My Ideas:
With the miles and the different destinations after each destination there should be some kind of story. Like something that you would want to get farther in miles to continue the story. So that there is something along with the miles not just a destinations. Or even add a MMO RPG aspect to the game. Certain parts of the location in which you are in are like dungeons. Example: I going to be in london soon with my miles. So when I arrive I would get a background such as ” The weather was gloomy and damp…” Followed soon after instead of gaining miles for my next destination to be another country it could be a land mark turned into a dungeon. Like Buckingham Palace, when you complete the miles for Buckingham Palace you get extra gold because it was a “Dungeon”.
Great idea. When you say background are you referring to the game background or your computer screen? We wouldn’t have the capabilities to have the game background change with levels although the idea is awesome. Perhaps a desktop Background download could be cool? I definitely agree there needs to be more of a store to go along with the travels. I just need to spend more time to generate that story as to why you are at your new location. Great reference of adding the MMO RPG. The other teacher’s classes using this game have mentioned the same thing. Tell me more about the Dungeon idea sometime! Claim Mastery!!
I don’t have nearly as many ideas as some of the people that have already commented on this quest but when you told us to think of what we like in your favorite game my mind went to a game that I personally spend a lot of time on and thats League of Legends or LOL for short. The point I want to bring up with LOL is that the key factor to winning the game is teamwork! So I was thinking that there might be a way to implement that into Creative Crusade. Maybe have something like a teamwork quest where multiple students work on a single quest in groups and their grade would be based off of how well you work with the other students in your group and also the end product of the quest. So maybe grade it on creativeness, simplicity, the weight in the different parts of the project, things that we have learned in past quest’s and seeing how well we use it at a later date together. The way to get multiple people working on the same quest would maybe have something like google drive where you share the document with the other people and then multiple people can work on the document at the same time.
Fantastic! Collaboration or possibly “guilds” will create better brainstorming and offer individuals with different skills to work together. How we create the teams since most players are at different points in the game is what I can’t figure out. Maybe the first four to reach that point are automatically put into a new guild together for at least that epic quest. Claim Mastery!
My ideas for improvement:
– A page including all of the student’s recent projects
– Store purchases you can only obtain after certain quests
– Buy a pencil through the store
– Purchase miles via gold
– The top few students, in terms of miles, earn extra gold each day they are in that rank
– Donate gold to friends
– A page including all of the student’s recent projects
Galleries will eventually come however they are only the best of the best. Maybe I can find a way of creating an auto-gallery for allwork created during the current semester. Thats something I will need to investigate.
– Store purchases you can only obtain after certain quests
Purchases are always based on having enough gold. I can make the purchase price ultimately high enough you can’t get until later in the game. I really just need things that you thing would be worth the enough to give you incentive to be able to buy it. I will be adding awards, badges, and easter eggs later on as our game get some updates coming later this semester.
– Buy a pencil through the store
YES and Sketchbook?
– Purchase miles via gold
Minutes yes Miles no. Gotta do the work for those.
– The top few students, in terms of miles, earn extra gold each day they are in that rank.
interesting idea. However it could be incentive to instead go fast than do quality. I am going to offer extra miles and gold for students that are above and beyond the required minutes though instead.
– Donate gold to friends
Yep. But in order to transfer gold to a friend you will have to pay a transfer fee if it is truly worth it for you.
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Other Ideas :
-Custom Avatars
-Avatar items shop
-Quest-rewarded items
Avatar Items? Quest-rewarded items? Give me some examples.
For each time you Level Up you get a certain “prize” or privilege. This may encourage gamers to remember to keep Completing and Mastering Quests. So People at Homebase maybe just play the game but, people who have tons of levels past that get things that otherwise could be bought in the Creative Crusade Store.
I like it! As always my toughest part of this is what are the items that are desirable enough to make it worth it? I like the idea of getting certain rewards at points in the game that would otherwise be purchased but what could I offer you that is enticing?
Ideas For improvement :
-Featured Blogs for the possible “Student Tutoring or Mentoring”
-The Rotating images on the main page could show students “best of the best” work, and lead to a page dedicated to other student works
-A random “Free Creation Quest” every now and then
-A button which leads to student-mentoring blogs after completing a quest, if people need to learn more about the quest’s subject
I like the featured student blog idea. That could be on the home page perhaps.
The rotating images are student work but yes I should have one direct you to the student galleries.
The “Free Creation Quest” will be in the works. Unfortunately we aren’t advancing as fast as I was hoping this semester. This quests will likely be a more siginificant part of Graphic Design 2.
I think that so far, the game is going great.
My ideas for game improvement:
The ability for students to submit and see their best work on a website. Creative Crusade Agent Design Work kind of thing. Where outside people could vote on projects, and 3 winners are chosen. I think this would encourage students to produce their very best work, and to give every design their very best.
The top three students of each class (as far as miles go) would get together with the top three of the other classes to design a special Epic Quest. This could motivate students to do gain mastery, to become one of those top three to design their very own quest!
I think it would be kind of cool to have little bundles available in the store. For example, you could offer a Golden Homework Pass, and voucher for 60 minutes bundles together. Something along those lines, I don’t see many people using the store, so I think someway to attract people to use the store would give the game something extra.
What if each student had their own little website, with their own Portfolio, and Agent Profile. A simple template could be created through WordPress, then built on as each “Agent” see’s fit.
Along with that, I notice that the little JS Slider doesn’t ever change in the images it rotates. What about adding some student art (with their permission of course) to the front page, or the slider. To get people to say “hey, who has art on the front page of the website today, or this week.”
I do like the idea of creating galleries of current student work on current project. Selecting best of the best is for permanent galleries is still something that is done on an individual basis to make it into the permanent galleries.
I am definitely on board with grouping leading scorers to create new epic quests to offer!
I do need to try to make the store more enticing however I don’t know that bundling pieces is the answer. More offerings, better incentives are probably the key.
As far as each student having their own portfolio, you already do. Its you blog. I need to find a plugin to easily assist in creating a gallery portfolio page on your blog. Soon there will be links available to access everyone else blogs too. Its in the works so we can see what everyone is doing.
Updating the slider every week is just a time consuming thing. The images on there are artwork from past students but its not the easiest to rotate out, so those are kind of a semi-permanent solution for permanent headlines to the site.
Awesome Ideas-CLAIM MASTERY
Okay! Sweet, thanks. I will keep thinking.
Ideas for improvement
. Store items can be earned through quests
. Anyway to speed up the website
. Ability to earn minutes back through quests
. Exchange gold for minutes
. Exchange XP for minutes, or gold
. Bonus XP for finishing more quests in a class period
. Students can design their own quests
. More creating your own artwork type of quests
“Bonus XP for finishing more quests in a class period.
Students can design their own quests.”
Definite potential – Claim mastery!