I’ve been interested in MMORPGs for a long time. Something about the combination of fantasy, friends, and magic was so enticing to my younger self. These games, however, are known for being incredibly complex and time-consuming. When I tried out a few popular MMORPGs, the endless skill trees, complicated crafting recipes, and branching quest lines were overwhelming.
There was one MMORPG that stood out from the rest: Wizard101. I’d seen the commercials on TV, and I wanted to give wizard school a try. Before I knew it, I was hooked.
I played Wizard101 for many years, stopping somewhere around the middle of high school. Going back to play the first hour of the game today was both nostalgic and an opportunity to view a game into which I’ve sunk hundreds of hours from a new perspective.
Kingsisle released Wizard101 almost 20 years ago, but graphical and content updates added significantly to the original game. For most of its life, the game was exclusively on PC/Mac, though I hear it has recently made its way onto consoles. Like most MMORPGs, the game is “massively multiplayer” yet only one player can play on each machine. Even though you can play concurrently with a large number of players, most activities are designed to be completed in teams of 1-4 players. Players of all ages can join Wizard101, but the game is rated E10+, and social interactions are limited the younger you are. Regardless of age, players who enjoy magic, roleplay, and cooperative challenge and exploration should definitely give Wizard101 a try.
My care for this virtual world is predicated on nostalgia more than anything else; I spent so many hours of my childhood on this game that I can’t help but look back fondly and appreciate the game and its story. For new players, there are still plenty of reasons to lean into this game. Wizard101 places the player in a world both familiar and unknown, realizing the player’s fantasies while grounding them in a narrative environment they can relate to. Players are drawn to this world where they feel powerful and important, saving the world while having fun with their friends.
It is unclear what the average age of the current player base is, but Wizard101 was certainly designed for a younger audience. The game has cartoon graphics and filtered chat, but it lacks mature content like profanity and realistic violence. The game isn’t just designed to be safe for children; the whole thing is crafted in a way that makes children’s imaginations come to life. In the game, you play as a magical student who has just arrived in Wizard City to attend wizard school. You soon realize that there is trouble on campus, and it’s your job to save the school!
An academy is a familiar environment for kids who go to school every day in the real world. Some of those kids (the ones who might enjoy a game like Wizard101) go outside for recess and play pretend with their friends. It’s not hard to imagine a group of children on the playground roleplaying “What we would do if monsters overran the school and we had magic powers?” Wizard101 brings that fantasy to life by choosing a student to be the protagonist and a school to be the setting.
Even as you leave the school and venture to other worlds to fight more powerful enemies, you always maintain this feeling of learning as you go. There are teachers in each world who grant you more powerful spells, like Alhazred, the Professor of Balance, in the desert world of Krokotopia. Getting more powerful in Wizard101 is achieved by learning new things (spells), and that theme is consistent throughout the game.
As we’ve learned in class about the role of architecture in games, creating unfamiliar spaces can give the player a feeling of unfamiliarity. Wizard101 does the opposite; by creating a familiar space (a school), the game creates a feeling of familiarity, making it easier for children to get immersed and invested in an environment that is not completely foreign. Still, the wizarding school in Wizard City is far from a normal school. The castle-like architecture and mythical iconography, including dragons, unicorns, and living skeletons, are an architectural cliché that informs the player that their studies at this school are not going to include traditional subjects. This school of magic invites kids to leave the concept of real school behind for a moment and enter a world where you get to fight monsters instead of going to class.
Besides transporting the player to a world of their dreams, Wizard101 also excels at making the player feel extremely important. As is the case in many MMORPGs, everybody needs your help, and I mean everybody! Despite being an underage wizard who has just arrived for their first day of school, the player is suddenly sent out to battle monsters in the street. NPCs beg for your help at every turn, asking you to deliver messages, collect items, and defeat enemies to solve their problems. When you complete each quest, you are often praised greatly for your efforts.
Even though you are playing concurrently with many other players, the game doesn’t really address the fact that other wizards are doing the same tasks that you are. After completing a task with a group of friends, you are always thanked individually as if you did it alone. The game awards badges like “Savior of Wizard City” and “Hero of Krokotopia” once you finish the main questline in each world, further branding you as a savior character who is uniquely capable of helping everyone you meet.
Wizard101 is an enacted story. You are the savior; you are the only one who can help everybody; all hope is lost until you show up. Every player gets to be the legendary “young wizard” who is known across the land and predestined to repeatedly save the world by completing quests and progressing in the game. The overarching objective in Wizard101 is to “save the Spiral,” the term for the in-game universe, and making you the singular person capable of that task means that everybody is constantly in your debt. People will ask you to help them with even the most basic tasks. Such a dynamic is not realistic, but this unreal kind of societal importance probably feels good and invites players to keep coming back to a world where they matter.
As I think back to the first time I played this game, I remember experiencing things differently. Although it is clear to me now, I remember being confused as a kid about the difference between Ravenwood (the academy) and Wizard City (the surrounding area). Was the city a part of the school? Were the guards? You don’t actually visit the dorms or classroom spaces until after completing your first quests out in the city, and I think that contributed to my confusion. Since the game is geared towards younger kids, I think it could do a little more narrative handholding to ensure players get what’s going on. Instead of having you clear monsters from the nearby city, what if your first post-tutorial battle took place in your dorm room right as you’ve settled in? When my team created our card game, Weasel, earlier in the quarter, we had to take extra care to differentiate things clearly so that younger kids could follow along and not get confused. I think the same intention would help out in the early moments of Wizard101.
Beyond this aspect of confusion, there is another piece of the game’s beginning that should be addressed. A lot of what I’ve discussed above has to do with the player’s connection to the game world and its story. Part of that connection is the player creation menu. Customizing a player’s in-game appearance to match the player is one way to help them feel more like a part of the story rather than the pilot of an avatar. Adding this kind of customization to an MMORPG is a good thing, but it quickly becomes an ethical concern when certain players can’t properly represent themselves. For many years, Wizard101 forced you to choose “Boy” or “Girl” as your gender, and certain hairstyles (specifically very long and very short hairstyles) were gender-specific. Once you have selected your gender and name, you can not change either without creating a new character from scratch.
Just a few years ago, changes were made to address these concerns. “Boy” and “Girl” were replaced with “Style A” and “Style B” in the creation menu, and the game added the “Magic Mirror” that allows you to change your gender and name later in the game (your character’s “style” is still referred to as “gender” here). The concern is that this feature isn’t open to all players. You must reach level 50 before you can use the Magic Mirror, a level only achieved after a significant number of hours of playtime. Additionally, once you unlock the Mirror, you must use the game’s monetized tokens (called crowns) to purchase a name/gender change. There are ways to earn these crowns for free, but the fee still creates a barrier where there doesn’t really seem to be a good reason for one.
Finding ways to get your player personally invested in your world will keep them returning for more. Feeling connected, familiar, and powerful helps make the world a place where the player wants to be, and spending more time in that world only deepens their appreciation for it. Designers should be careful about how they connect with their players, as certain features like player customization can leave certain players out. Wizard101’s long life is evidence that the Spiral is a special place that keeps players coming back, but there is more to be done to make that world a special place for everyone.
