MMORPG: What Is It Really?
The topic our group has chosen to study is Muti-Massive Online Role Play Games. We are focusing on the popular online games known as World of Warcraft and EverQuest by comparing them and also how non-gamers learn about them due to their pressence throughout popular culture.The reason we feel that this topic needs to be studied is because MMOPRPGs are becoming a major social trend. A large part of the world’s population is joining in on these games and some even becoming addicted to the point of losing their loved ones, and all their valuables. Our goal is to educate the class about what makes these games so appealing and the effects they can have not only on the players, but the world around them. There are a few questions we have about MMORPGs that we feel are very important. The first question we are looking to answer is if online games are really bad for you? or if online gaming itself isn't neccessarily bad. And what else online gaming lead to or be lead from? These are the main two questions we are focusing on. Aside from that we are looking to see the differences and similarities between the two games. We want to know the types of social interaction they contain, the attraction factors that keep people in the game and how the games themselves run on what sort of storyline and differences they use to keep players interested. We will also define key words that are often used on online games like faction or guild to better educate the public about how online games work.
We plan to conduct our research in three different ways textual analysis, ethnography, and auto-ethnography. The way we will find our research through textual analysis is by looking over the websites made for the game to gather information. We will also look for forums, wikis, and fan based websites, videos, and maybe even apps and how they spread MMORPG’s out even further into the public eye and how they help shape it as well.
Through the use of ethnography we will interview people who play the games using both in-game and out-of-game interviews. We will try to engage them in their own settings and along forums and areas of common place for the gamer. We will take in how the online games can slip outside of the game itself and into other areas like Face book, YouTube, etc and how games can become greatly affected by the fans themselves.
We will use the Auto-ethnography as well. A few of our members are already, or have been involved in online gaming, through their play we will learn more about how the game works and interview them as well to see what keeps them attracted to the MMORPGs, and how they interact differently in social settings in the game as opposed to outside.
While working on this topic we hope to find a connection between the two games. We are hoping to link the two different styles of Multi-Massive Online Role Play Games together through their similarities and differences. We want to find out how people interact on the games and how they are affected. We also hope to find out what some of the major reasons people are attracted to online games, and how their attraction can lead to distraction, addiction, and sometimes suicide. A few of us, being gamers and online players, hope to disprove the idea that video games are only bad for you, as that tends to be generally what society believes.
Some of the things we think we may find on this topic are how people are affected by the online social interaction both in and out of the gaming world. We believe the way people act on online games can be different from the way they act outside of games. We also think we will find a connection between people in creative jobs who play and interact on these games. We hope to find that online games add to cultural participation and maybe even dig a little deeper into the history of what led to online gaming like tabletop games.
A lot of our theories will come from Chapter nine of our text book which is about social media. We will discuss all the ways online gaming is like social media from discussion boards, forums, wikis, blogs (Pavlik 262-5). We will discuss how online games form social networks both inside and outside the game can create ties (Pavlik 268-70). We will talk about how online games can generate users to not just be consumers but become produsers either directly towards the game or on outside networks were mass amounts of people, both players and non-players can view (Pavlik 273). There will also be discussion of legal and ethical issues regarding the bits on people’s privacies (Pavlik 274-5). It will also go over how people begin to modify and ‘steal’ from the online gaming world without ever leaving their seats.
The project will be taking shape in two ways, the first way is with a video presentation and the second way is through a blog (Like what you are looking at). The video presentation will consist of Yvette, Anastasia, and Isaac being in the film. They will be portraying some typical kinds of online game players to a new game. All three will also go by online screen names to better sink them into their characters and make it believable. It will show how it can be an addictive source, how not everyone is always a participant in the online game, how people socialize, and even a bit of how people can do illegal things while on online games.
Christine, during presentation day, will further go over what the video is portraying and explaining in a bit more detail about what is going on, the definitions, and clear up on what they are speaking about in the video. Our final format will be on a blog it will have all our gathered research and information on our research questions. It will hold this proposal, and an explanation of the film. We will also answer if we found what we were looking for and post up a blooper reel from our filming. We will use sources, photos, videos and screen shots from the game and maybe use and find articles for our research. We may also have an array of fan made items and even some from our own collections.
