A WoW-coholic's Magical Menagerie of Musings

Charles D. Ulrich III

Dr. C

FYS—From Memex to Youtube

1 December 2010

Social interaction is a part of everyday life.  Be it, school, work, or leisure time, there is usually something going on between two or more people.  In many ways, social interaction is such a basic part of life that we tend to take it for granted and forget how crucial it can be to everyday life.  However, in the realm of video games, social interaction takes many forms that you cannot find in the “real” world, and because of this, many choose to turn the confusion and ignorance they feel towards these alien practices into disapproval.  Well, today folks, I am here to set the record straight when it comes to social interaction in gaming, and will show that the chaotic and misunderstood virtual world is actually rife with quality social experiences.  Through looking at the makeup of the most stereotypical social interactions online, and then the true depth they can achieve in the guild system, it will be shown how a society in games can be every bit as real as one in our earth’s environment.

The most stereotypical cultures present in video games are usually the more shallow ones.  From FPS games to similar social structures in other games, there is a stigma that true community cannot develop in a virtual environment.  In order to understand how this is so completely incorrect however, these frowned upon groups must first be explored.

FPS games do not rely on many different types of interaction; a team of people try to kill another team of people.  Because of this, most FPS games have a more lean social structure when compared to more versatile games like World of Warcraft (abbreviated WoW).  Although they may have a social structure primarily called the clan structure, they focus more on the prowess of players, and members rarely interact.  The clan name serves as a title, showing the skill a player possesses rather than showing the community that they are a part of.  There is no Social group, and the society of most FPSs devolves into shallow and usually violent confrontation rather than true interaction.

Also, the social structure of the FPS is conducive to Sherry Turkle’s persona theory.  The as you play Pac-Man, “You are Pac-Man” (Video Games 501) idea can be used for any game with a single-minded goal.   When playing a game involving such a simple premise, people usually take on the persona of a trained killer.  Instead of a thirteen year old, you have a concentrated soldier with the vocabulary of a sailor and the one-mindedness of a vengeful criminal.  This segmented singular personality leads to the more stereotypical interactions between people that result in shouting matches and duals of skill instead of normal relationships just taking place in a different setting.  This was seen in Habitat, an early MMO, when they implemented killing in the game.  “Is Habitat murder a crime? Should all weapons be banned? Or is it all “just a game”?” (Habitat, 672).  After surveying people, half thought that killing was wrong, and the other half decided that it was “something fun to do”, an action that they couldn’t do in real life but wanted to indulge in.  Although Habitat was an MMO, little was capable other than killing, and therefore, a monoculture like FPSs started to develop at least in 50% of the populace.  These people chose to chase after fantasies and don personas over more constructive, real activities.

In a very un-Habitat like way, FPS culture also has a place in present-day MMORPGs, and calls itself the PUG, or Pickup Group, culture.  These people participate in group activities similarly to FPS groups, getting along in a game by collaborating with random people who share a common goal.  Though PUGs will do more community-based activities involving raiding and grouped battlegrounds, they are people that will probably never meet again, and choose to keep the relationships they could have cultivated unrealized.  To them, the game is just a tool, an extension of the mind.

One anomaly in the social structure of video gaming is the Troll culture.  These people are sociopathic, taking part in virtually none of the usual game content, sometimes not even trying to play at all.  Instead, they derive amusement from the game by using a persona that makes others suffer, generally annoys them, and just causes trouble.  Trolls spend the majority of their time accumulating wealth and using text-chat systems inherent in the game.  They generally have no friends outside of other Trolls, and live to make enemies out of anyone and everyone they can offend.  To my knowledge and to the research I have accumulated, no true reason could be found for why they behave this way, other than they just do.  However, even with all of these problematic social structures, a shining beacon of hope exists—one not suffering from splintered personas or unlinked groups—the guild culture.

In order to understand why the guild structure is so important, you first must learn how a guild is structured in order to understand the complex society present.  The social structure of a guild can be broken down into three main groups of players: “densely connected core members, loosely connected fragments semi-periphery members, and an outer ring of disconnected periphery players” (Social Roles, 20).  Core players are those players that have been in the guild the longest, usually since its inception, and have formed a tight-knit circle with one another.  They are usually the leaders of the guild, since they know its inner-workings the best.  Also, because core players have been in the game world the longest, most of their interactions shy away from asking for help and lean towards giving it instead.  As a core player, you have to not only aid new players, but keep things in the guild from falling apart.  These two things are quite different, and out of the need two major subgroups have emerged: Knowledge and Social Players (Social Roles).

Knowledge players are the people in the guild that “know the ropes”. They are the ones that are usually involved in higher-end content and more technical aspects of the game like raiding and premade (a full guild group) Player vs. Player (abbreviated PvP).  Knowledge players tend to stick together, leading to a monoculture inside of the guild proper.  They are not against new members, however, aiding them in the more technical aspects of the game: questing, items, leveling, etc.  The prowess and skill of these people helps “contribute to the expansion of the guild community” (Social Roles 21).  However, if all a guild has is external attractiveness, there is no staying power.  Social players try to fix that. Instead of tackling technical aspects, they act more as the “Guild Moms” as they are lovingly known, and make sure that people get along and understand basic rules.  “Social players…contribute by nurturing a friendly and welcoming atmosphere inside the guild community” (Social Roles 21).  Depending on the quality of the Social players, a guild may have a large, close-knit group or many fragmented sections that tend to show animosity towards other inner-guild groups.

On the other end of the spectrum from the Core Players are Periphery Players.  This group tends to consist of people either very new to the game, or the guild itself.  Because of this, they tend to have fewer connections to people than most elder guild members, and are less included in activities (Social Roles).  Usually, Periphery Players are just in a transitional phase until they are accepted as members of the guild proper, for they have the highest “death” rate, or rate of unexpectedly dropping from guild, of any other group.  There is a division also present in this group, separating the Noobs from the Freeloaders.

Noobs are people just starting out in the game.  They join a guild and, unlike knowledge Players, have to ask for help much more than they can give help.  Because of this, Noobs tend to gravitate towards core players to try and learn the ropes as fast and as in-depth as possible.  Stemming from this, almost all outgoing interaction from Periphery players is directed to Core Players.  Contrary to Noobs, Freeloaders do not join a guild to get help; they join for primarily selfish reasons.  “What differentiate(s) a freeloader from a newbie are their skills and the types of help they ask” (Social Roles 21) in their quest for free stuff: money, cosmetic items, or free prestige. Freeloaders tend to try and hang out with Core Players as much as possible, in order to get into endgame content.  If they succeed at infiltrating the Core structure, they will quickly use their position to get free items from raids, or money from the collective guild bank.  This practice of stealing is known “fondly” as ninja looting.  Unsurprisingly, once they steal what they were set on, they leave to find another guild to parasitically attach to.

In between Core and Periphery players are the Semi-Periphery Players, those who have been in the guild long enough to understand the inner-workings, but not long enough to be included in the Core monoculture (Social Roles).  They tend to form microcosms inside of the guild, which usually fall apart or are added to the collective Guild core.  Although they communicate with Periphery and Core players, the Periphery and Core don’t address the Semi-Periphery on their own.  Until they are chosen to move up or choose to leave, Semi-Periphery players are left out of the fold.

Once a person becomes part of the Guild core or is held in esteem enough to be allowed to participate in endgame content, they join a raiding or PvP team.  First I will discuss raiding.  Raiding is the act of gathering 10 or 25 people together, and coordinating the group to take down enemies too strong or complex for smaller groups to handle.  ”Almost 70% of players always use voice communication while raiding” (Hack, Slash) because of the intricacy involved in raiding actions.  The reasoning behind this is that WoW is largely a mouse-and keyboard game, and raiding leaves little time to type whatever you have to convey.  Boss abilities are quick, so you must have a quick communication system to match.

Because raids require so many people to be online at one time, they are usually scheduled. From personal experience, raiding usually takes place on weekday evenings for 2-3 hours, and totals around Ten hours a week (Alone Together?).  Because raids are so difficult, players usually have to do training outside of the raid proper to prepare not only the character’s skills and armor for battle, but to learn the most efficient spells and rotations (spell chains) to use in order for maximum effect.  Once a person becomes a full-time raider, their time online increases, and their interaction with the guild core increases.  Raiders usually have a strong social bond with one another, for they spend a large amount of time together.  This can make the entire game more fun, for relationships forged in raids usually extend to all aspects of the game.

Like raiding, Player-Versus-Player content can be very intricate.  PVP matches can take anywhere from 2-5 (arena) to 10-40 (Battlegrounds) people, and are just as complex as raiding.  However, it is very easy in the current incarnation of WoW to get PVP groups together without help of a guild, making it a less social activity.  The overall voice communication software usage of PVPers is just 15% due to non-guild groups communicating much less than guild-only groups (Hack, Slash).  However, the next expansion is adding rated battlegrounds, which hopes to get more guilds actively involved in the group-PVP scene, making it a much more social environment like raiding is currently.

As an avid raider, I have had access to the more social interactions in WoW, and I have found that many times, raiders become almost like an extended family.  After a few months together, my friends and I got on a first-name-basis (real names) and began to learn about not just in-game aspects of our personality, but who we were as whole people.  There are married couples, engaged couples, brothers, sisters, friends from real life, and friends that were made through the game.  My group, like many others I have met, is as diverse, intricate, and wonderful as any real life group of people.  In order to reach this level of the game, you have to leave behind the personas and shells that are so present in lesser forms of communication. Man and machine must be connected in the way Turkle describes, where “players describe the experience of being with one (a video game) as less like talking with a person and more like inhabiting someone else’s mind” (Video Games 502).  One must look into the game, and instead of inhabiting someone else’s mind, one must look within through the game and inhabit themselves.  The game persona you don becomes not just a part of your personality, but an extension of your soul itself, making the character and the person one and the same.  I could honestly not tell you which relationships that I have (In-game or real) are more “real” because although I have never met them, I have still seen their souls bared to me, and that is as personal if not more personal than most face-to-face meetings I have had.

Social structures in real life are convoluted, complicated, and sometimes all around odd.  Likewise, in-depth virtual worlds have similar complicated social systems that evolve in and around them. From the Pseudo-families that core players in guilds experience to the completely impersonal relationships that PUGs and FPSs favor, there is a social aspect that appeals to any personality or desire.  Though I loved being part of a group of people that could be who they were to one another, others choose Habitat-esque personas to hide behind in order to experience the game in a way different from how they experience real life.  Relationships in the virtual world can be messy, confusing, and just plain weird, and if that doesn’t make them real, than our own social interactions aren’t either.

Bibliography

Ang, Chee Siang and Zaphris, Panayiotis(2010) ‘Social Roles of Players in MMORPG Guilds’. Information, Communication & Society, 13: 4, 592-614

Ducheneaut, Nicolas, Nicholas Yee, Eric Nickelli, and Robert Moore. “Games and Performances“Alone Together?” Exploring the Social Dynamics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games.” CHI 2006 Proceedings. Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University. 2006. PDF.

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium Is The Message.” The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. Print.

Morningstar, Chip, and F. Randall Farmer. “The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat.” The New Media Reader.   Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. Print.

Suznjevic, Mirko, Ognjen Dobrijevic, and Maja Matijasevic. “Hack, Slash, and Chat: A study of players’  behavior and communication in MMORPGs.” University of Croatia publications. Print.

Turkle, Sherry. “Video Games and Computer Holding Power.” Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. (1984): 64-92. Print.

~ by shadoxalon on December 2, 2010.