We have been using a paper-based game to help our freshmen transition from high school to college.  It consists of a series of quests that require them to

  • learn about the support facilities on campus,
  • manage their time and assignments,
  • learn to find alternative sources for course materials in our library and online
  • learn how good students study and prepare for labs, quizzes, and exams

In order to make this experience more engaging, we are building an MMO RPG to contain this game.  When it is complete, they will start with similar quests in the game.  Success online will lead them to real life quests which will feed back to give them points in the online game.

The game currently supports:

  • Quests and Adventures that require students to do things in the game and across campus
  • Chat
  • QuizBot – an NPC that quizzes students on course content
  • Interactable Objects – things the players can touch to initiate actions

And it looks pretty cool: