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to the online questionnaire were publicized at well-known websites
that catered to MMORPG players, such as the Lore, Stratics,
and IGN Vault networks, over the period of 5/17/02 to 5/30/02.
Players of EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Acheron's
Call, and Anarchy Online were asked to participate. A total
of 3407 responses were collected. Of these, 1990 were EQ players,
572 were DAOC players, 603 were UO players, 134 were AC players,
and 107 were AO players.
These stories were solicited using a fairly
open-ended question: "Tell me about a memorable experience
you've had in the game. This experience might be good or bad,
moving or infuriating, or it made you realize something important.
It might have to do with someone you met in the game, or a
particular interaction with an individual, or an unforgettable
experience in a group, or even someone you play the game with
in real-life."
These stories are presented verbatim except
for minor spelling corrections.
Because of the low response rate of
AC and AO players, their responses were excluded in the data
used to plot the Gender / Age Range charts presented below.
In addition, responses from DAOC and UO players were weighted
to reflect the known proportion of current subscribers - around
400k for EQ, and around 200k for DAOC and UO. This was to
prevent the data from EQ players to heavily skew the outcome
because the proportion of EQ respondents was much higher than
the known proportion.
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