The Daedalus Project

Slideshow #3

What follows are screenshots submitted by readers of The Daedalus Project. I had asked players to submit screenshots that showed interesting things they had encountered or just simply showed what it is they enjoy about MMOs. Here are some of the most interesting images I received. Below each image, I have included the description that was given by the person who submitted it. You can submit images of your own on the last page of this article.

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I'm looking to gather some more visual data points of all the interesting social phenomema happening in MMOs. If you have any screenshots that fall into the following categories, please consider submitting them. Any images you submit will be credited to you if they are ever displayed on The Daedalus Project.

In particular, I am looking for the following kinds of images:

- Emergent Behavior: Interesting social behavior that emerged in game, whether this is a vigil, a funeral, a wedding, or someone crashing your party.
- Strange Bugs: Like the recent WoW Plague.
- Funny Moments: Humorous moments in your MMO adventures.
- Others: any other screenshots that you think are interesting but don't fall into a category above.

Please send your screenshot as a JPG file. Screenshots that are well-composed and where the interface elements are hidden are much appreciated. Please note that there is a file size limit of 800k per image.

Love is in the Air

We hear a lot of anecdotes of players who met their romantic partners in an MMO, but how prevalent is this? In a recent survey, I asked players about their experiences in a variety of courtship stages to get a general idea about the prevalence of romance in MMOs.

Many players have at one point or another flirted with another player. About 80% of female players and 60% of male players have flirted with another player. There were almost no age differences except for the lower rate of flirtation among male players in the 12-17 range.

About 50% of female players and 22% of male players have developed romantic feelings for another player. These percentages largely did not change with age. Players from 12 - 40 and above were just as likely to develop romantic feelings for another player.

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About 40% of female players and 15% of male players have told another player about their romantic feelings for them. Again, we see very few age differences.

And finally, about 29% of female players and 8% of male players have physically dated someone who they first met in an MMO. Again, it’s hard to discern a strong age difference. Both these percentages feel very high, and the only other data point I have comes from the 2000 survey on EQ players, where the corresponding numbers were 15% and 3% (so almost double of what was found 6 years ago). Now, the other thing may just be that the survey respondents are skewed towards more involved players who are thus more likely to report relationships. So I tried to see if the likelihood of physically dating someone increased dramatically with hours played per week. The correlation came out at r = .07, not strong enough to have a dramatic effect. In other words, even if heavy time involvement was a general sampling bias among the respondents, it has only a mild impact on these particular percentages.

Question for readers: Do you know anyone who is dating (or has dated) someone they first met in an MMO? If you’ve played MMOs for a few years, have you noticed an increase in these kinds of relationships?

Note: If you've physically dated someone who you first met in an MMO, please consider taking some time to tell me about your experience in this survey.

The Protocols of Role-Playing

One way to understand role-playing is by asking role-players to describe what counts as good role-playing and what the etiquette of role-playing is. Responses to this question were surprisingly similar, with a key set of attributes articulated over and over again by many players. These guidelines fall roughly into three aspects of role-playing: 1) character interaction, 2) textual communication, and 3) story-telling.

The primary set of guidelines that players articulated revolved around how a player’s character should behave and interact with others.

Character Interaction

Stay in Character

The most common guideline given was that good role-players “stay in character”. There are two layers of meaning in this phrase. The superficial one is that role-players should avoid making out-of-character comments (OOC).

But the underlying assumption is that good role-players can stay in character because they have a character personality that has sufficiently depth and can deal with a wide range of scenarios.

In this second reading, a player breaks character because of a limited behavioral repertoire. A good role-player is not only consistent, but draws from a coherent character story or psychology to react to a wide range of scenarios.

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Accommodate Others

As we’ve noted elsewhere, many players try so hard to be extraordinary that it becomes banal because everyone has a woefully tragic past. In other words, many role-players want to be in the spotlight. But in anything that resembles a story, there can only be so many lead characters. The “drama queen” is a recognized part of the role-playing community.

Thus, what marks good role-players is their willingness to accommodate others, whether this means playing a support role or being responsive to the quirks of other characters. In sum, it is the ability to share the spotlight.

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Develop Character Over Time

As we’ve seen, static and inflexible characters are frowned upon largely because they suggest a lack of imagination or a resistance to interact with other players.

On the other hand, good role-playing allows for character development. In other words, these characters are open to interacting with other characters and changing because of significant interactions.

A corollary of this is that good role-players develop relationships to make these character developments visible to others and to create the potential for these developments. After all, no one knows you have changed (or can provide a context for you to change) unless they have known you for a while.

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Textual Communication

The second set of guidelines described by players revolved around expectations of writing skills and the conscious effort to bracket off out-of-character comments.

Writing and Spelling

The primary pet-peeves of role-players are poor spelling, grammar or incessant abbreviations. Specifically, leet-speak is very much frowned upon.

Mark OOC Comments

Secondly, consistent with the importance of staying in character, the deliberate separation of out-of-character (OOC) commentary is also seen as necessary. In an environment where all communication is textual, this means developing strategies to explicitly mark OOC comments. This is commonly done via bracketing.

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Story-Telling

We’ve looked at guidelines that players described related to character interaction and communication. We’ll now turn to what players noted were unacceptable ways of story-telling in the context of an ongoing plot or role-playing event.

Don’t “God-Mode”

Above all, role-playing is a shared consensual experience among players. Thus it’s important that actions are not forced on other players. Breaking this rule was referred to either as “god-moding” or “power-emoting” by respondents.

Don’t “Meta-Game”

And finally, echoing the early guideline to stay in character, players noted that it was important that players are consistent with what their characters know and do not know about the world. This was referred to by respondents as “meta-gaming”.

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What is Role-Playing?

One internal conflict I’ve side-stepped so far is what actually counts as role-playing. Many respondents commented that perspectives of what counted as role-playing vary from player to player and is a constant source of tension. Given this underlying tension, it is actually interesting that a coherent set of guidelines could be extracted from role-players. Indeed, the most common source of tension did not involve the guidelines themselves, but rather, from how strictly and how often they were to be followed.

In other words, for some role-players, having strict guidelines and enforcement diminishes the spontaneous fun of role-playing. The rules begin to constrain, rather then enable, creativity.

And finally, I’ll leave you with one interesting “is it role-play?” dilemma that several players articulated.

See Also:

- Introduction to the Role-Playing Series
- The Demographics of Role-Playing
- Faces of Role-Playing

Faces of Role-Playing

Character Creation

When role-players are asked to describe some of their most memorable characters, three types of characters seemed to emerge. These character types are also largely corroborated by the role-players themselves in a latter question asking them to describe the range in and any common tropes or fads they observe among role-played characters. Roughly, these three types are the Tragic, the Zany, and the Interaction-Scripted.

They killed my parents, my sister, my dog, and my entire village

One pervasive theme among created characters was having a tragic past (the “Tragic”). Descriptions of slain parents, loved ones, and pillaged towns during early childhood were common in the background stories of many characters.

To a certain degree, this mechanism might serve to avoid the possibility of having to deal with a certain category of people. As one player put it succinctly:

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This “parental exclusion” mechanism could be thought of as a move of symbolic liberation, but more often than not, this background plot serves to explain a psychological burden or flaw (typically emotional insecurity or general distrust) that the character currently bears. What’s interesting is that both elements tend to sever relationships (both past and future).

When players are asked about common tropes or character types they see, the Tragic is indeed the most well-described type, however, it is also the type that is thought to be most banal due to its prevalence.

We will return to this theme later on when we talk about drama queens among role-players in the etiquette article, but for now we’ll move on to the next character type.

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Another class of character types are deliberately humor-driven (the “Zany”). These characters typically do not have elaborate background stories as much as they have incredibly quirky characteristics or beliefs (typically comically delusional). And even when background stories are invoked, they are almost never tragic or emotionally scarring, but serve to better explain the character quirk.

This character type is recognized by other players and is sometimes seen as the polar opposite of the dramatic types with tragic pasts, both of which can become stagnant when role-played poorly.

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Who I am is the accumulation of all the decisions that I have made

The final category of characters that emerged were those of players who deliberately created characters with unremarkable personalities and allowed the ensuing role-playing to guide their character development (the “Interaction-Scripted”). Beyond some basic set of personality quirks (seldom overly traumatic or heroic), these players allowed their interactions with others to shape who their characters became. In a sense, this category isn’t a “character type” as much as a method of character development. Whereas some players prefer to script their characters up-front, these players leave those characteristics loosely scripted and open to change.

Indeed, some of these players emphasized that their character might have turned out very differently had they experienced a different set of experiences in the game world.

These three character categories suggest two underlying axes. First, there’s a spectrum of character personas that might be roughly described as Tragic to Comic. And secondly, there’s a spectrum of character development that might be labeled as Prescribed to Open-Ended.

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Tropes

Drama Queens

It was also interesting to ask players about any tropes or fads in role-played characters they’ve seen. As I’ve mentioned before, the Tragic is the most type that is most commonly referred to as overdone and banal. Other players commented that too many players strive for high-strung drama.

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Ultra Heroes/Villains

Another character type that is seen as overdone are personas who are described as heroic and valiant to the point of being flawless, or those that are purely evil and without any redeeming qualities or nuances. The ultra hero/villain is frustrating for other players because they are implicitly inflexible character types that typically do not change or develop over time. In other words, they are seen as easy-to-play one-dimensional personas.

As another player points out, these ultra-villains typically do not even do a good job of being evil in the first place.

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Blessed with Elune’s Grace

One theme we’ve seen in the previous examples is that role-players look down upon character personas or qualities that are absolutes or flawless. It then comes as no surprise that another area this is often seen is in descriptions of physical attractiveness.

I think the main source of frustration with these tropes is that they render the extraordinary as conventional. It gets tiring to live in a world where everyone’s family was slaughtered, where everyone is tragically beautiful, and everyone you meet is either an ultra-hero or an ultra-villain. Thus, ironically, it is the ordinary (i.e., lepers or bakers with interesting personalities) that oftentimes sticks out as the extraordinary in role-playing. After all, being a princess is special only when everyone else is not a princess.

See Also:

- Introduction to the Role-Playing Series
- The Demographics of Role-Playing
- The Protocols of Role-Playing

The Demographics of Role-Playing

In the multiple-choice section, respondents were given a loose, working definition of role-playing. Respondents were told that role-playing referred to “creating a novel persona for your character that fits in the context of the game world and interacting with others through that persona”. Individual questions then explored in detail how elaborate their role-playing experiences have been. I began by asking respondents whether they had ever role-played in an MMORPG. Overall 60% of players (N = 2467) replied that they had role-played at one point or another. Female players were not significantly more likely to have role-played than male players, nor was there a significant difference with regard to age (except for the slightly lower responses in the 12-17 age range).

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I then walked through a variety of possible role-playing activities to gauge how involved players were in this space. I started by asking respondents whether they had ever created a detailed background story or history for any of their characters. Overall, about 44% of the respondents indicated that this is something they’ve done. Female players are slightly more likely to have created background stories for their characters.

Another point of interest is whether these background stories involved another player’s character. This would be one way to gauge whether players tend to create these stories alone or deliberately weave other player’s into their own character’s stories. Overall, about 28% of players have background stories for their own characters that involve another player’s character. Female players were about 50% more likely to have directly involved another player’s character in their own character’s background story than male players.

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I then wanted to get a better sense of how regularly players role-played. After all, it could be the case that many players have created background stories for their characters, but very few actually role-play regularly. Overall, about 20% of players indicated that they role-played at least once a week in an MMORPG. We see a negligible gender difference in the response to this question, but a very mild age trend emerges. The likelihood of regular role-playing increases slightly with age (r = .08).

About 28% of players indicated that they belong to role-playing oriented guilds. There were no significant gender differences, but again we see the dampened response rate in the 12-17 age group that we’ve observed throughout this data set.

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Finally, I was interested to get a sense of how large these role-playing activities were. Overall, about 24% of players have role-played a scene/event with a group of at least 10 players (including themselves). Female players were slightly more likely to have done so than male players.

Overall, it would appear that the majority of players have at point or another tried to role-play (around 60%), but regular role-players consist of a smaller cohort (around 20%). There is a consistent age difference where players in the 12-17 age group are less likely to have role-played, but almost no age difference exists beyond that. Female and male players appear to enjoy role-playing just as much and role-play just as often, but female players are more likely to involve other players into their role-playing (both in their character’s stories and the number of people they role-play with at the same time). This gender difference might largely to due to the differing social access points into these games.

See Also:

- Introduction to the Role-Playing Series
- Faces of Role-Playing
- The Protocols of Role-Playing

Introduction to the Role-Playing Series

I had always assumed that the “RP” in MMORPG was ironic. After all, most MMORPGs have had to deliberately set aside designated role-playing servers, and these have always been in the minority. This suggested that role-playing wasn’t something most players wanted to do in an MMORPG. At the same time, it was clear that a role-playing subculture existed that operated with its own rules and etiquette. In the most recent survey phase, I decided to explore this player subculture.

I knew from the start that defining what “role-playing” is would be difficult, and yet without a working definition, it would be even harder to figure out what the results meant. So I approached this in two ways. I used an open-ended survey to explore the role-playing space, and in the multiple-choice portion, I presented a loose, working definition of role-playing. Respondents were told that role-playing referred to “creating a novel persona for your character that fits in the context of the game world and interacting with others through that persona”. As we’ll see, even among self-described role-players, what counts as role-playing can be contentious subject, but overall, a coherent set of guidelines and etiquette do emerge from the open-ended responses.

For some, role-playing is a spontaneous act between two or more players who play out a short scenario on the spot. These players typically do not have background stories and have a low likelihood of interacting again in a role-playing context.

On the other side of the spectrum are elaborate, sustained interactions between a network of players, each of whom has a background story, some personality quirks, and a set of psychological motivations. The stories amongst these players typically develop over time in a combination of planned and spontaneous scenarios.

And of course, there are players at different points on that spectrum. Because I was interested in the specific player subculture amongst the group of players who self-identify as role-players, I emphasize the guidelines and etiquette of the more elaborated role-playing rather than that of the spontaneous role-playing. The data from the surveys is presented in 3 articles:

1) The Demographics of Role-Playing: Quantitative data on how many MMO players role-play, how often they role-play, and whether there are gender or age differences.

2) Faces of Role-Playing: Qualitative data on the personas that role-players create.

3) The Protocols of Role-Playing: Qualitative data on the guidelines and etiquette of role-playing and player’s responses on what constitutes good role-playing.

Note: It is also worth noting that role-playing also technically does include sexual role-playing such as in the case of Furry Sex or the sub/dom culture in worlds like Second Life. I think these forms of role-playing are equally interesting and valid, but they are not reported here because, with the exception of one respondent (among 215 respondents in the open-ended responses), no one described participating in role-playing in a sexual context. This may be because role-playing in a fantasy MMO has a particular meaning, and role-playing in a sexual context becomes bracketed off instead as “cybering”.

Welcome to The Daedalus Project

It's the end of my third year in my Ph.D. program, and that dreaded four-syllable word known as "dissertation" is appearing more and more often in my meetings with my advisor. It's like grinding master bio-engineering or revered AV rep, except much much worse.

Thanks to all of you who help spread the word of this site and those who continue to participate in the surveys. I really do appreciate it. As always, feel free to drop me a note here or email at contact@nickyee.com

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