MULTIPAYER ONLINE ROLE-PLAYING GAME BASED ON HISTORY

History is a compulsory subject in the education syllabus in Malaysia. Historical learning plays a vital part in developing a student, in terms of spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual growth. There are numerous studies conducted which shows the lack of interest in learning history among students. History is perceived as boring by students with numerous facts and texts to be remembered and memorized. The lack of pictures to depict the events happened in the past do not help, either. However, interactive contents are able to help students understand and learn history better. Students, who are usually teenagers and young adults, usually fare better when they can learn in an interactive environment. Digital game can enable a student to “relive” history by telling its storyline. Computer games are immersive, interactive and sometimes addictive. The interaction between player and the game components, such as hardware and software, defines these qualities. A game is highly immersive if it can capture a player‟s imagination in its interactive world with different characters, storylines, strategies and design. In this paper, a finding is done from a preliminary analysis on problems faced when teaching and learning history, students‟ response and reaction for game-based learning and the ability. An investigation is carried out using questionnaire and interview, involving 40 respondents, which are mainly student and parents from different schools in Ipoh, Perak. The key findings from this investigation are problems faced by students when learning history and their reaction towards game-based learning (GBL). The product of this project has been developed and successfully tested by users from various students.