IRL level progression

[Peter Mosur]

Hey Everyone,

Another concept which we need to think about is the level progression that we plan to implement into the IRL plugin.

The reasoning behind this concept is that users need to feel like they are progressing and accomplishing something, especially if there are rewards that we plan to give.  

Essentially we need to figure out:

1. How many levels to include.
2. How many tagged pictures needed per level.
3. Will these levels reset for every new disaster?

Personally I believe that there should be 10 levels per disaster, with the max level requiring 500 tagged pictures. The max level would unlock the big reward for players.

These levels are then what external game company partners will use to calculate rewards for a helping during a particular disaster. Total lifetime tags will also be calculated, but will be a different systems.

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks,

Peter

 

[mad_cat]

This ties in with the idea I had about gamification and the website.

Now my first question is about the 500 tagged pictures.  Are you saying that they have to tag 500 pictures total from level 1 - 10?  or to go from 9 to 10 you have to tag 500?

For now I am assuming the former, 500 pictures is a hard metic to do.  Like all leveling systems, the first 3 level should be easy to get and then it gets harder and harder.  I went ahead and calculated what it would look like:

1: 1
2: 3
3: 6
4: 10
5: 15
6: 25
7: 45
8: 75
9: 120
10: 200

This equals up to 500.  Given that each picture will take between 1 - 3 minutes, it would take a person 8 - 25 hours to get to level 10.

[Peter Mosur]

I was actually thinking 10 tags for the first level, and then scaling up to 500 for the final level (so the total would be above 500). I

I think 10 for the first level is reasonable because of the time that it would take to tag a picture (a few seconds).

I think that to finalize anything concrete we would actually need to test it out (Which hopefully soon we will be able to).

One other concept we can talk about is possible throwing in breaks into the tagging work? Possible at every level up you see a picture of a kitten? Or possibly chat rooms? We could implement social media in this regard.

[mad_cat]

The thing is, that with an element with leveling up, you want people to get addicted to being successful.  Start with a few quick levels and before they know it, they have a few ranks for what they've done.  Then it starts to get a little harder, but by this point, they are wanting to get to the next level.  I do not see 10 being reasonable, and I would hope people spend more than a few seconds on a picture, especially when they need to make an important decision.  I could see a 30 seconds to a minute.  Usually the first few levels are regarded as tutorial levels, and perhaps that is what the first level can be is tutorial.  Given the short attention span of our current gaming market, if we don't capture their attention fast, they may move on.  Getting them excited early is a good way of getting a lot of attention.

Not everyone will appreciate a picture of a kitten, so I don't think that will really work, unless you are speaking of LOLCats, but even then, that won't reach everyone.  I don't see what chatroomsor social media would accomplish for something that is meant to be a quick experience.  Something we learn in mobile development is that you have to take into consideration that when someone uses an app, they will likely use it for 1 - 3 minutes, unless it is a game, and it can be up to 5 minutes most of the time.  Now of course people do play games longer on mobile devices, but not all the time.  Given this is a volunteer program, we should assume that people might spend 5 - 10 minutes in this and go back to their game.  We'll have to test and see, but having elements that keep them in the plugin longer I think is the wrong direction to go.

Now we could do something where there is a picture with 10 pieces on it and as they get a level, they are able to remove a piece to reveal a special picture.  I'm not sure what, but it also helps give them incentive to level up to uncover the other pieces.  maybe a special in-game code to get special prizes from the developers or something.

[Peter Mosur]

How about the first picture is always a tutorial (unless you login to your account), and then to attain the first level up would be 5 tagged pictures? Or is that still too long?

And as for the breaking up the content ideas, I agree on the pictures of cats and the social media; just spouting ideas (although honestly who doesn't like to see pictures of kittens lol). I was thinking of something along the idea of a "Your're doing great, here's a picture of a kitten" screen every once in a while just to give people a quick breather. The revealing of a picture idea sounds interesting, if not too gimmicky for my tastes. I like the idea though, kind of fusing a puzzle element into the whole thing somehow. How about something like word puzzles that maybe could then be incorporated into social media where only people doing IRL would understand the secret meanings? (I'm sticking to the social media idea also because I'm beginning to think that making IRL go viral would be a huge helper)

For the quick refreshers though, how about something like a screen that shows you some quick statistics? Like how many people are currently tagging, how many pictures have been tagged, or the total amount still needing to be tagged. Or even we could show them a snapshot of the map that IRL would be generating. These things could also be shown during the level screens to break up the tagging then, instead of half-way through a level. 

While most people will only spend around 5 minutes on the app, I definitely think that we would raise that percentage with the rewards. And for that reason I say we add these breathers. I feel like people would definitely appreciate it more rather than having us just trying to squeeze the most tags out of them in the limited time that they have.

[mad_cat]

I've given this a bit more thought, and we can estimate the time it takes, but until Beta testing, it is just a guess.  I think 5 pictures for the first level is good.

I can agree with breaking up the monotony, and using statistics could do that, showing them what their efforts are doing and how they compare with others.  To do Kittens, I would target the female demographic for that, and try to do something different for males.  But perhaps a webcomic could be in order as well.  Like VG Cats.

Perhaps this puzzle we are talking about reveals a QR code.  That would be something where getting to level 10 would be required to get all the pieces removed.  Once they get the QR code, they scan it and it gives them a word.  We maybe have 10 different words that describe something in game, and if a guild works together, they can uncover a bigger prize than those who get to level 10.  A secret bonus prize.  Most likely what would happen is a few guilds would figure it out for themselves, then others would post on a forum somewhere the words they got and eventually someone would tell them the answer to the puzzle.  But it does give an element of not only trying to get individuals to do this, but to get groups of friends or guilds to work together.

[mad_cat]

We can also introduce a new hidden prize each week to prevent players from sharing with others on the forum.  It will still happen anyways.  To do this, we need to determine what the puzzle will be, whether just a word or a poem that points to a location or a receipe to follow.

In SWTOR, there was a special crystal we could get for our lightsabre.  It required you to go to Tatooine and get a buff.  Then to go to Hoth and with the buff you a special item "Pure shockfrozen water" which then you went to Ilum and clicked on a crystal, fought a monster and got Magenta colour crystal.

This would require the game developers to create something special like this, but if they are willing, it would be fun to do.  If we couldn't do something elaborate, we could do it as a simple word puzzle as well and then the team emails the results to us and we given them the special prize whether it is ingame currency, special gear, or a vanity item.

Also, instead of 10 levels, we can do 20 levels, and every 5 levels gives you a different QR code, so that way an individual can still participate in case his guild or friends doesn't join them.  This way he gets 4 QR codes.  We would need to determine how many QR codes you need to solve the puzzle, after we figure out the puzzle.

[Peter Mosur]

Good ideas here! We will definitely have to experiment once we begin testing.