March 20, 2007
Slideshow #6
I am deeply sorry for the 'mess' on this screenshot of Ragnarok Online, but it truly captures the chaos of the wedding. During a short period of time over the Holidays, there is a half-off wedding service officiated by Santa Claus himself. There is a catch however; the weddings are as short as a Las Vegas nuptual (with long lines to boot) and Santa summons a gaggle of monsters at the end of the ceremony for your guests to kill or be killed by. There was even a 1/16 chance of Santa summoning a boss monster, but thankfuly that did not happen at our ceremony.
-- Sara S.
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Haloween 2003 in SWG. Location somewhere far from a NPC city on Corellia. This was one of over 20 Haloween parties that were held by the players on 1 server alone in SWG in 2003. This is what happends when you have a community in a game that was not all about kill, loot, repeat.
-- Wolfmann31
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One of the saddest moments of my WoW experience. One of our guild members passed away unexpectedly after a year-long struggle with a real-life infection. She loved playing WoW, and was a joy to quest/raid with. We all knew her well, and a few of us knew her outside of the game too (which is how we learned of her death). Since she loved the game so much, we organized this in-game funeral/memorial for her. We each took turns saying a few words about her... recounting our good times together. After this ceremony, for about a week, we continued to have short "moments of silence" for her before raids would begin.
-- Shayel
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In this one free MMORPG called Fly for Fun [or flyff for short] I used to be picky about making my guild members sit in a circle for guild meetings. No matter how far from a main town we would go, and no matter how obscure the place was [this was on one of the desolate islands in the sky] someone would come by and go, "OMG a circle! i wanna join!" or "guild event? I join guild plz." My favorite was someone claiming that we invaded his island and now had to pay a fee.
-- Cerise
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This was taken during the AOL Cup event on Phantasy Star Online. Not wishing to waste advertisement opportunities for the event sponsor, Sega decided to throw in a room full of Delsabers spouting off AOL slogans and copyrights. I have not seen anything funnier on PSO since.
-- Sara S.
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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.
December 2, 2006
Slideshow #5
My guild organized a procession to the Shrine of the Fallen Hero. The event was well-attended by guild members and people who decided to join spontaneously. At the shrine we held a ceremony. We knelt and listened to speeches from our leaders about heroism, honor, community, friendship, and rememberance of those lost to us. The ceremony bridged the virtual and real worlds. We were encouraged to remember not only friends whom we had lost from the game, but also people we had lost in real life. We concluded with a dance to celebrate life, friendship, and the memories of the fallen.
-- Ironsinger
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I have attached my signature. Signatures are used in the boards and reflect a lot of game culture and larger social/game culture.
-- Merc88
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I've attached a screenshot from City of Heroes, which I've been playing almost exclusively since it appeared last year. Not sure if you're familiar with CoH, but one of the unique aspects is the concept of "costume contests." A high-level hero will announce a contest and award a large amount of influence (CoH's economic unit) to the hero with the best costume. Participants line up around the edge of the monument to the fallen hero Atlas (this is the same on every server I've checked). Much excitement (and server lag) ensues when a contest is announced.
-- R. Tim Barber
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My undead mages only guild decided to take an educational trip from Undercity to Ironforge at walking speed. Was a lot of fun and roleplaying along the way. We also picked up some undead friends along the way.
-- Zharra
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This picture was taken back in September of 2002, when Anarchy Online was big. The game included a nightclub called "Baboons" and players turned it into a true party scene. There was an internet radio station with DJ's to provide the grooves and "nano programs" for the light show. Note that there are no NPCs in this shot, these are all players.
-- Hirebrand
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There is a group that enjoys creating wookiee synchronized-dance troupes on different servers. I'd run into them the first time on the Eclipse server one day outside the Mos Eisley Starport entrance on Eclipse. I found them again one day at the Mining Outpost on Dantooine on my home server shortly after the "New Game Environment" had been announced. Their presence gave me a much-needed bit of comic relief.
Iakimo, SWG/Bria Server
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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.
August 29, 2006
Slideshow #4
Our guild hosts occasional events in game that are just for fun. On St. Patrick’s day, we held "The Great Gnome Race". Guild members and others from friendly guilds created level one gnomes, were all given a green shirt, and from the gnome starter area had to race to Booty Bay. Rewards were giving to the first 3 to make it there. Crossing several high level zones with such low levels was certainly entertaining! You can see a few high level people who volunteered to ride along with the gnomes and make announcements about who was in the lead.
--- Aroura
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Ironforge is a major gathering place for people looking for group, buying and selling goods and services, or just hanging out. For some reason, people occasionally just start lining up. This happens at least once a week, and random people tend to join in. These formations will stay around, growing and shrinking as people leave and join, for up to an hour. I don't know why it happens, but I find I usually want to join it for a minute or two every time I see it.
--- Aroura
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We have a guild meeting once a month, generally going to a different location in Azeroth each time. The officer in charge of fun and games often organizes activities for after the meeting, such as costume contests or dueling contests. Sometimes though, entertainment springs up on it's own. Here, all our druids decided to line dance for us, displaying the new bear dance blizzard had recently implemented.
--- Aroura
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Thought it was funny to find an Imperial captain NPC crawling on the ground in Star Wars Galaxies, with his squad lined up normally.
--- Tarot
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Me and my boyfriend took off at the same time and created the 'riding double'-bug or feature - depends...
--- Astrid
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No shirts, no gloves, no weapons. Many rogues have come to this spot by Ravenholdt to participate in the fight club session. However, by posting this I've broken the first two rules, don't tell anyone. =p
--- Jack
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sisonpyh gettin' jiggy wit' it!
====
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.
June 7, 2006
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.
SWG - "Morpheus Que" - There was a room in one of our guild member's house that just emptied into this null space. Unfortunately I don't think it gave him the unlimited storage one would've hoped for.
Delaney
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This is a screenshot in FFXI that I took on the day that a new quest was implemented that could allow you to summon an NPC to fight with you. All of these people are waiting in line to fight a monster that is part of the quest. Even though it was possible to bypass the line and complete the quest before everyone else, people acted civally and waited their turn. There were over 200 people waiting in line.
Dalenn
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I discovered a vast unfinished area of "World of Warcraft" simply by swimming and riding to the top of the Eastern Kingdoms. The area was partially textured and not properly terraformed, resulting in strange seams and jagged, 90-degree cliffs. More info can be found
here.
Tony Walsh
ClickableCulture.com
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My troll hunter Inuzuka tries on some Paladin gear. The advent of the wardrobe feature in WoW let players see races in armour that was never meant for them. Interesting that Blizzard still made the items to fit.
Julia
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We have a variety of events in-game and in forums, but this is one of the most quintessential. The "Creativity Benefit Auction" was a way to encourage artistry between characters. Creative services were put on the auction block, and the highest bidder won. The artist got the gold, and the bidder got the original drawing, portrait, poem, psychotherapy counseling, or whatever. For more such events, visit
here ...and feel free to get involved!
Azi
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This is a gathering we did for a well established guild member's birthday. As she had this obsession with pink, we organised a conga line of players all dressed in that colour. We managed to get a suprising amount of guild members online for this and I think it was at least 50 resulting in a huge line! As we progressed, we switched zones to the newbie starting area and proceeded to parade about Atlas Park, even going to the statue in the middle and forming a full moving circle around it. As time went on, more and more random players from other guilds we didn't even know joined in and soon the line grew to huge proportions! It was good fun, and finished with one poor soul choosing to start a costume contest in a very small space and getting an entire guild dressed in pink cramming in to the City Hall where it was being held.
Arson Wulf
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My girlfriend and I sharing a "cute moment" with our characters.
My RL girlfriend and I, got into the habit of lying down together on an in-game bed before logging out for the night.
Norm
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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.
March 20, 2006
Slideshow #2
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.
In real life there is an event in June where gay men and women go to Disney World in Orlando Florida all dressed in red for one day. The idea behind "Gay Day" is to show that gay men and women make up every walk of life and to show that there are more than just a few here or there. Back in 2004 I was playing City of Heroes and thought it would be really cool if there was a gay day in Paragon City. A day when the gay and lesbian heroes put on a red outfit and met to show they weren't just a few here or there. So I created Gay Day in Paragon City. The following picture is a group shot of the heroes that participated in the event. More can be seen at
http://icandies.org/gday/gayday2004.htm
Rene Rivers
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This is a holiday gathering in Guild Wars. The city of Lion's Arch is decorated, and we are awaiting the appearance of Dwayna (goddess of life and air) who will spread goodies (i.e. holiday themed gifts) as we enter the New Year.
Dawn Stormborn
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Sony Online's announcement of the "New Game Environment" for Star Wars: Galaxies left Creature Handlers feeling devastated. Many of us conducted private farewell ceremonies for our virtual pets. This is a shot from my own event. I'd given up my Creature Handler profession months before this scene was captured in order to pursue my Jedi profession, and so I had to recruit a Master Creature Handler to help me summon my pets one last time. She is seen standing next to my spider in this scene. Appropriately, this Creature Handler was a member of BEAST/Bria, a multi-server guild dedicated to the Creature Handler profession. One by one, I traded my animal companions to her. She would then summon them and give them a command that allowed me to command the pet as though it were still my own. I would then ask the pet to do it's tricks one last time for me, and then I would order them to attack a NPC at a random camp that had spawned nearby, just over the brow of a hill. As the pet scuttled over the hilltop and out of sight, I asked the Creature Handler to delete the pet-control device, causing the pet to disappear forever from the game. The effect was a satisfying simulation of setting the pet free and watching it run off. Later, I described the scene on the SWG Forum. Dozens of former Creature Handlers let it be known that my message brought tears to their eyes, as we shared our grief at the loss of one of the funnest, most enjoyable professions in this game.
Iakimo, SWG/Bria Server
This is my last original pet from my Creature Handler career. She was one of the first pets I tamed; later I mount-trained her myself. Shortly before the NGE went live, I had a Creature Handler I met on Lok rename her, "Hope," as a symbol of the hope that one day the Creature Handler profession would be reintroduced to Star Wars: Galaxies.
Iakimo, SWG/Bria Server
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During the guild meeting or the Forsaken Crusaders, a few of them took a potion that turned them into pirates. They proceeded to dance in boy-band style.
Aviv
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One of my favorite screenshots from the World of Warcraft Beta, this shows how...different things were back then. This photo shows a Dwarven Mage and a Night Elf Rogue astride Velocraptor mounts. Dwarven Mages were removed at the end of the Beta test to balance out the class distribution between the Horde and Alliance sides. The Velociraptor mount is the racial mount for the Trolls, and should not have been accessible to Alliance characters. During Beta, Priests could mind control vendors that were part of the opposing faction. Under their control, Alliance players could purchase from the vendors. Always intersting to see what emergent stuff shows up in a Beta test.
Michael Zenke
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This is right after my guild first downed Ragnaros, the boss mob in Molten Core. It took months of wipes and hundreds of gold in equimpent repair costs, but we finaly managed to bring him down. If only you could hear the screams over ventrillo.
Danwood
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ingame wedding.
Bury (Argent Dawn)
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I'm always a sucker for the holiday/special events that WoW puts on. This picture shows my sister's gnome and my gnome after we had completed a quest for "Valentines" day. We are both wearing outfits obtained by completing the quest. We had also "shot" each other with arrows thus blessing each other with "Cupid"-goblins and used a "bouquet of roses" on each other, which are sprinkling from the sky.
Guenevere
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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:
- Player Gatherings: protests, demonstrations, vigils, etc.
- Guild / Avatar Portraits: images of your guild (posed or not), or well-composed screenshots of your avatar
- Raid / PvP Combat: well-composed screenshots that show the chaos and intensity of raids or PvP combat.
- Strange Bugs: like the recent WoW Plague
- 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.
January 3, 2006
Slideshow
In the last issue, 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.
The guild Ancient Vengeance pre-raid time in the Cazic Thule instance. We're casting our buffs and getting ready for the 7-8 hour long haul. (Yes, that's how long that raid can last.)
Korina Noctiferre
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we were bored one day and started thinking about Redridge and how the whole area is basically farmland. We got to thinking farther and decided that it would be a blast to get dressed in Blue coveralls and russet hats and go smack lowbies with fishing poles, brooms, shovels, blacksmith's hammers, and pitchforks. This turned into a weekly event with many people going and gearing up when the higher lvl's started showing up to defend the town. It eventually got so out of hand that one guy put Fiery enchant (worth about 50 gold) on his shovel. Anyway heres a group photo of us in the process of gathering for the raid.
Farmers Unite raid
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My guild mates find it interesting that I take screenshots every time I level up. To me, it's like a birthday party; you take pictures to capture the moment.
Aeiou of Aurora Spirits
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Running into the cathedral in Stormwind (WoW) I nearly collided with a guild initiation ceremony. The initiates had come to a point in their guild career when they had earnt the right to a guild tabbard. After watching a moment, I completed my quest and left quietly, thinking that I didn't want to disturb them. However it had a great impact on me - I thought I was privaliged to have seen such RP in action, 6 or 7 people meeting in a virtual cathedral to proudly accept their guild tabbard and congratulate the new members. Coming from a D&D background, I've always liked the RP side of the game, but this has inspired me to role play more. Very moving.
Blayse
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This is very important to me because it's my new guild breaking the castle of my old guild. I left because of their corrupt leader... and winning this castle from them means a lot to me.
Lucca Ashtear
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An invasion in Ironforge of the Argent Dawn RP realm by players from the Blackrock PvP realm. The Blackrock players created a swarm of naked Gnome characters to "protest" stability issues with their server (it was down at the time.) Many of the players spammed channels such as Yell and General with messages either ridiculing roleplayers, espousing their dislike for Blizzard, or with pure nonsense; others quietly hopped around the city. The invading players even created a guild called BLACKROCK EXILES which nearly all of the players involved joined. Some time during the event a train of protesters formed and I decided to follow them around "in costume" and silently observe. A large number of native Argent Dawn players attempted to "fight back" by submitting complaints to GMs, and many Warlocks attempted to summon Infernals to kill the invading Gnomes. Eventually the Blackrock server came back online and the protesters began to disappear.
Sean
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This is my favorite City of Villains character, the Desperate Housewife. She is the technology mastermind class and has a number of robots she controls plus a secondary powerset of poison. This all plays well into her backstory, which is that she tinkered with her household appliances and cleaning products to develop her terrible powers.
Lisa
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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:
- Player Gatherings: protests, demonstrations, vigils, etc.
- Guild / Avatar Portraits: images of your guild (posed or not), or well-composed screenshots of your avatar
- Raid / PvP Combat: well-composed screenshots that show the chaos and intensity of raids or PvP combat.
- Strange Bugs: like the recent WoW Plague
- 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.
