This research topic can only be taken by Thesis route and Project route student. This research topic include the following project development. The project outcome needs to be examined by well-designed experiment for quanititative and qualitative data analysis (for Thesis route student) and pilot testing for usability and technology acceptance analysis (for both Thesis and Project students).
In the past, we have developed a chessboard like Web-based Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game and done some pilots on it. The game allows learners role playing in the chessboard like world (in which many continents, cities, towns, villages, and dungeons). The players can choose more than one profession and pick up general and profession relevant quests from the quest givers (i.e., NPCs). Currently the game has administration portal for adding new NPCs, items, quests, buildings, and landscapes as well as expanding the size of the world (and cities, etc.). NPCs in the game can not only prepare quests for players and give players necessary items, but can also sell players things they need. The game now needs PvE gaming function so players can interact with animals, monsters, bosses in the fields as well as in the dungeons. Players can benefit from the items (including gears, equipment, potions, quest items etc.), money, and experience points dropped and gained from killing it. Such PvE gaming function can make players have better and fun game experience. Furthermore, the function can also make the solution of quests vary.
Tasks of this project also include:
The student needs to design and implement PvE gaming interface (as well as necessary editors for entering all necessary data), mechanism, and function with PHP and AJAX. In addition, the student also needs to do (1) the design of monsters (include humanoid ones), animals, bosses, and elites; (2) the action and reaction that different mobs may have in and out of combat; (3) the design of flexible and extensible database schema for storing the skills (and its effects and cooldowns), the equipment, the drops, the characteristics, the stats, the reactions, the words, and the battle strategies that different mobs have; (4) the effect and the calculation principle of different actions such as defending, backstab, rushing attacking, etc. may cause; (5) the learning, reaching and training (leveling) ways for different skills that players may have; and (6) the relationships among skills and the prerequisites that different skills may have such as assassin/rouge and thief and the strength and the dexterity/agility requirement for the use of particular swords and bow.
Learning outcomes:
The student can learn how to design and implement real-time web-based PvE gaming function with HTML5 (HTML/CSS/JavaScript), AJAX, and PHP techniques. Also, the student can know how to design a pilot (or a complete experiment for thesis students) to gather the perception that players may have toward the game and to do usability analysis for the game (in addition, for thesis students, they can learn how to design research model, make hypotheses, verify the causal relationships amongst factors, do quantitative and qualitative data analysis). Skills of designing and evaluating a questionnaire's validity and reliability can be learnt either.
For taking this topic, the student is better to have the following skills or knowledge:
Having experience in playing any kind of RPG and MMORPG, e.g., World of Warcraft, Diablo, Dungeon & Dragon, etc.
Having experience in playing web-based multiplayer games
Familiar with HTML/XML, CSS, and Java Script
Familiar with PHP and SQL commands
Information collection, re-organization, summarization, and reports
Using screen capture software and video editing software/tool to creating instructional video clips |
