MMORPG

2. MMORPG • Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game • RPGs came first, and not on the computer

3. Table Top RPG • Dungeons and Dragons – 1974 • Character attribute sheets, numerical characteristics • Dice rolling, calculations to decide outcomes of encounters • Human game master present to guide the adventure

4. Computer RPG • Colossal Cave Adventure 1972 • Mazewar 1973 • First person perspective • First networked game, modified to play on ARPAnet • Spasim 1974 • Graphical • Up to 32 users

5. MUDs and MOOs • Multi-user Domain (later ‘dungeon’) 1978 • Entirely text-based • Explicitly multi-user • Persistent environment without an explicit ‘game session’ • Automated the calculations of D&D

6. Birth of the MMORPG • Islands of Kesmai 1984 - $12 per hour • Habitat (Club Caribe) 1988 • Commodore64 System • Graphical avatars combined with chat • Ultima Online 1997 • MMO adaptation of earlier RPG • Lineage 1998 – Hugely popular in Korea • Everquest 1999

7. World of Warcraft 2004 • As of January 04, Lineage I counted 3.25 million subscribers • WoW counted roughly the same at that time • Now World of Warcraft counts over 10 million subscribers • www.mmogchart.com/Chart1.html

8. Playing at Identity Online • Sherry Turkle – MUDs and MOOs • T.L. Taylor – Everquest • Mark Poster – Post-modern Identity

9. New Questions • Turkle “Who Am We?” • Taylor “What are you?” • “We are moving from modernist calculation toward postmodernist simulation, where the self is a multiple, distributed system.” Turkle

10. Screen Shot • Character Page

11. Player Identity Cycle • Stage One: Identify With • Stage Two: Identify As • Stage Three: Craftsman stage

12. Stage One:With • Stage One: Learning the game • Creating a Character • Explicitly constructing an alternate identity

13. Character create SS

14. Stage One:With • Like a single player game, experienced between avatar and player • Empathy is learned quickly • Solo Play • Orienting to the controls, environment

15. Lowbie zone screen shot

16. Stage Two: As • Moving out of ‘lowbie zones’ • New environments include cities and dungeons where social play is inevitable • Players take on the mantle of their avatar and conduct conversation from the reference point of their current character

17. City SS

18. Instance SS with party

19. Stage Three: Craftsman • Shards of personality, selves to cycle through • Each character is a fraction of a whole ‘player’ who crafts each avatar with knowledge and skill • The sum of the characters’ power equals the total player • Not all characters are directly associated with the player*

20. Shards of Personality • Mark Poster – Not a ‘games’ researcher • Suggests that a post-modern (contemporary) identity is made up of shards of data • Fingerprints, ID numbers, user names, to be collected and redistributed to represent what is ‘I’ in different contexts

21. Cycling in WoW • Players cycle through roles/characters regularly • Filling different slots required in different groups, to achieve different goals • “People often create several different characters that they then deploy contingent on whatever specific conditions – social and event based – they encounter,” Taylor

22. Craftsman Cycling • Not everyone has the option to cycle • Not all characters are equal • It takes time to develop a character, to ‘level up’ to 70 and to ‘gear up’ after that • So, only those with skill and experience (and time) can switch from their 70 tank to their 70 healer • The oscillations are part of a social responsibility to make the game playable

23. Social Networking • ‘While EverQuest certainly can be played alone, the solo game is only a partially realised experience.’ Taylor • Warcraft requires significant social groups • No one character is ever strong enough to proceed to ‘end game’ content without a large group of allies

24. Raid SS

25. Social Features • Responsibility • Perceived vs Accepted • Expectations of Others • Reputation • Builds from fulfillment of responsibility • Trust • Implicit trust that a party member will ‘do his job’ once that job is agreed upon

26. Responsibility • Expectations to be a ‘good player’ • One is not born a good Warcraft player, one becomes so. • ‘Theorycrafting’ www.elitistjerks.com • Mastering the rules of the game and outfitting your character to match his/her class is a sign of skill • Taylor describes this as ‘instrumental play’

27. Details

28. Technical Features • Formal features of the game that create social networks • Groups/Parties/Raids • Guilds • Friends List • Ignore List

29. Groups/Parties/Raids • From 2 up to 40 members • 5-man Dungeons form backbone of Warcraft • Currently, end game raids are 25 members • The game will not allow an inappropriate group to enter an instance • The Group must be balanced to succeed

30. Guilds • Raids generally require skill, co-ordination and practice. • Guilds are persistent associations of people who will party & raid together • Your in-game ‘family’ • Most support will probably come from your guild

31. Friends & Ignore • In-game ‘buddy list’ to keep track of people not in your guild. Now has a note space for each person • Ignore: the opposite, a list of people who bother you – silencing them

32. Stage Three: Craftsman • Shards of personality, selves to cycle through • Each character is a fraction of a whole ‘player’ who crafts each avatar with knowledge and skill • The sum of the characters’ power equals the total player • Not all characters are directly associated with the player by everyone*

33. Escaping the Network • No one has to know who you are • Characters are not denoted in-game as belonging to a particular player/account • Each server is totally discreet, disconnected from the other • The need to occasionally escape the pressures of extant social network strikes almost everyone

34. Other Interests • MMO Economies • CastronovaSynthetic Worlds • DibbellPlay Money: Or, How I Quit My Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot • MOD culture • Addiction • Race/Gender/Class Portrayal • Especially in Lineage vis-a-visKorean Culture

35. The End For Now…