#20 Expectation Management & The Witcher 3

 Today I'll introduce to you a perspective on the design of any experience - that is, of course in particular quest experiences. To be concrete: We'll look at expectation management starting from concepts adapted from fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. Through that lense I'll afterwards look on my Witcher quest and continue developing it.

Expectation Management

I guess, if I replaced this section with "The 20 best Memes on Tumblr today" and then a list of twenty cat memes unrelated to quest design, any reader would be at least confused or even consider stop reading this post. That is because I would have broken my promise of delivering a design-oriented explanation of a concept. The progress of the blog wouldn't match and so the payoff (even though maybe enjoyable in another context) would have no value here. 

However, memes integrated in the blog post in order to serve the original purpose - delivering on the promise - are allowed:

Sudden, unexpected moments and far-fetched connections
are the heart of many funny experiences (link to a corresponding video). Source

So setting up expectations and confirming/denying them in the right way is important - and can lead an experience to ruin if not done properly. Here'll list some types of expectations:

1) Promises at a beginning - I'll call them meta-promises - have a special place, as they need to give the player (reader/..) an introduction to tone, playstyles, genre, themes, arcs/plot and so on of the whole experience. In video games, this first section of promises is called the tutorial. In films we know of the "cold open", in books the "hero leaving the village" is almost a cliché. Or think about how the start of the portuguese ESC song immediately sets up the whole mood of the song.

2) A second subcategory of promises is world knowledge, with which I mean informations on places, political situations, past events (including what happened to the world while the story progressed!) and so on - everything produced by worldbuilding and -evolvement. If e.g. worldbuilding informations are given to the player, then he'll usually expect them to not be twisted too often. There has to be a basis, on which the whole dynamic of the story can evolve, and while the world might change, its inner rules should not.

3) Another subcategory consists of any hypothesis, a player belief about something yet unconfirmed - it is less about long-term but short-term expectations. Take for example a situation, in which a player approaches a medieval village where he can see from afar a house burning. He'll (albeit unconsciously) set up the hypothesis that something terrible has happened for the house inhabitants. Approaching the house this hypothesis might be confirmed by crying people or denied by the inhabitants telling him proudly of how they burned their home down to expel the demon dwelling within.

I think all of expectation management fundamentally breaks down to the gaps between

1. how it really is
2. what informations are presented/revealed
3. what is understood - player's mental model
   

In an ideal world the last too would be fully in sync. Level designers, for example, are mainly concerned with getting the player's mental model of the space in a state such that the player finds the existing, intended paths through the level. Storytellers on the other hand may use the gap between points 1. and 2./3. to make a story more compelling through interesting reveals at the right time (pacing) and subversions.

Let's evaluate this knowledge/hypothesises on my Witcher quest.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy - Lecture #2: Plot Part 1 Link
  Here you'll find more on promises, progress and payoff.

• Paweł Sasko: Life, Love and Quest Design. Anatomy of Quests in The Witcher 3 Link
  From this video the idea of confirmed/denied hypothesises stems.
  

• Understanding your Level: Mental Mapping | Games Industry Talk with Max Pears Link
  

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 9: Expectation Management

I've continued writing on the quest design document which I began earlier. To be precise, I concretized the section "The Village" which happens directly after Alene and Geralt's meeting with Alvin. In particular, it comprises walking to the village and the introduction of the father, Aisker. At the end the most importnant decision of this quest has to be made - whether to get involved in family matters or not. Here are some screenshots of what I wrote (here is the full file):

You can see in these images how I played with the player hypothesis "there's something un-good behind Alene's story" after the meeting with Alvin, first giving the player a breather and then funneling him (while he progresses) into the tense and uneasy mood, escalating in the scene with the father (payoff). It is, by the way, this scene which I started implementing in a previous post in The Witcher 3.

Ideas for Feedback

• What are other/additional useful concepts concerning expectation management?
• How could I improve this funneling effect I intended for the section before meeting the father?

Conclusion

Managing expectations seems like a very important element of design in general. We can find similar ideas in Don Norman's books aswell, who is concerned with the design of "everyday things". And if I think about it, then you really have to ensure something very similar  for e.g. doors, portemonnaies or controllers: Their function has to match expectation.

I had already used this method kind of intuitively in my first QDD draft, so writing a new section with these things in mind now wasn't that hard. And I feel like this is were my heart wants to be - there is an excitement in preparing, constructing a quest with such tools. I'll try to continue down that path, so you'll probably see those topics in other posts too.

Until then, have a good time!