Miles Brady
Tae Jung Oh
Evan Rosenthal
Patricio Legras
Andrew Dai
Introduction
The concept of status has existed in human civilization for many centuries. As we now reach an era of electronic communications, of cyber communities, and of virtual worlds, this concept of status remains a prevalent factor in our lives. Even if a community has escaped the tangible materialistic values of the concrete world and only exists in an online game, the distinction of status has followed into such online communities. How is status measured in a virtual world, outside of the social classes that separate us in our daily lives? How do we compare two players and find out which one is more respected by others? Where are we going to dig up traces of prestige amongst players when a person’s last name or educational history has no meaning in this online community? This paper focuses on finding the answer to how status is recognized by the players in online games, particularly within the genre of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs).
Within most MMORPGs, the concept of the game is to level up an in-game character or avatar, and defeat the various numbers of bosses located throughout a virtual world with that character. Despite usually having a common general theme, these games are usually incredibly different from each other due to the differing art styles, difficulties, in-game economics, group play requirements, and many other factors. Status is commonly defined as a position in a social system, and sometimes also includes the honor and prestige that are attached to such a position. This definition remains true in the online virtual communities as well. However, without accurate measurements of wealth and net-values for each player in the community, without ascribed status that is inherited to a person based on family and birthrights, and without ranked governmental titles such as mayors, governors, presidents or chairmen, the position a player holds in the online community becomes considerably harder to measure.
Thesis
We now live in a new technological era where online games have grown so much as to have developed their own online virtual communities. Within these communities, there have been various understandings of how status is established for their players. Having various means of measuring status in online games proves status to be one of the most misunderstood concepts in today’s cyber communities. Many people mistakenly associate characters levels and fancy avatars as a symbol of high status, when, in reality, status is only truly recognized by the veterans of the games. Certain games have already taken action to alleviate the difficulties of status recognition with their own ranking systems, but many are flawed and inaccurate. In order to truly measure the status of a player in an online virtual community, we have conducted an extensive anthropological research process to aggregate the opinions and expertise of the players within these communities in hope to educate and enlighten both the virtual and the non-virtual worlds about what really matters when it comes to the recognition and effects of status inside the communities of MMORPGs.
Methodology
Our research team consisted of many experienced gamers. Being very experienced in gaming myself, a lot of this research paper is based on our personal expertise. Personally, I have thoroughly played through the endgame content of World of Warcraft, Maple Story, Diablo II, Ragnarok Online, and many more MMORPGs. I have also competitively played other genres of games such as Counter-Strike, StarCraft, Defense of the Ancients, Heroes of Newerth, and even Super Smash Brothers: Melee on the Nintendo GameCube. The rest of the research team all have, under their belts, many years of experience with a lot of these online gaming communities, and our collective expertise proved to be very much in line with many of the research.
Having a collective expertise has proved itself to be a sufficient source of information. In the article “Experts at Play: Understanding Skilled Expertise” by Stuart Reeves, Barry Brown, and Eric Laurier, a majority of the research is done by “extensively [observing] one ‘expert’ player, recording videos of them engaged in the game, alongside discussions with them to clarify the recordings.” For our research, we ourselves can be considered “experts,” and much of the research can be supported through our own personal experiences.
In the paper titled “Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as ‘Third Places’” by Constance Steinkuehler and Dmitri Williams, it was stated that:
“The statistical evidence was buttressed by a complementary participant observation phase during which the investigator played the game and conducted 30 random interviews with other players over a period of one year. In semi-structured interviews, players were asked about their motivations for playing, their in-game social networks, and about their life outside the game.”
Therefore, despite having a plethora of personal experience to pool from, the main approach of our research process is also through participant observation. We personally dove into three very different games ourselves to not only re-experience the current game play and the modern day influence of various statuses of players in the community, but also to conduct personal interviews with the recently active players within these communities.
The three games we chose for this research project is World of Warcraft, Maple Story, and Median XL.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft (WoW), first released in 2004, is currently the largest and most played MMORPG in the world. It is a pay-to-play online game, meaning that players must pay a subscription fee in order to play the game. The current subscription fee is $15 per month, and the game has over 11 million subscribers. WoW has been voted the best PC game of the year for both 2005 and 2006, and has remained the most popular MMORPG up until now. It currently houses 2 sides to choose from, the Alliance and the Horde, with each side having 5 different races each. There are also a total of 10 different classes within the game to choose from. WoW is an MMORPG with a level cap, and the cap is at level 80 for the current expansion.
The choice of WoW as one of our games to research is an obvious one. Having the biggest online community, and being the most active online game to date, WoW is a primary candidate for many research topics involving online games. The extremely high population density will prove to be extremely beneficial when looking for various levels of status amongst the players, as well as possible candidates for interview for our participant observation researchers.
We deployed two researchers for to go inside WoW and engage in participant observation. One of the two is a veteran of the game, has been playing WoW for quite a while, and will conduct his research with his existing high-level character. The other, however, has never played WoW before, and is conducting the research with a new character. Our experienced WoW player will focus on the upper class of the community, and mainly interview with others of similar or more experience of the game. Our novice WoW player will focus on the starting classes within the game, researching about the expectations of new players as they start their journey, and the initial reactions of the novices that have recently begun their trek.
Maple Story
The second game we chose is Maple Story. Released for the U.S. in 2005, is another mainstream MMORPG with an extremely high player count. This 2D side-scrolling MMORPG is free-to-play, therefore does not require a subscription fee, and has a very childish art style. The central population of Maple Story consists of a younger audience. To balance its lack of subscription fees, a cash shop exists in the game where player can use real money to purchase in-game items. Maple Story also has a level cap, and is currently set to level 200.
Choosing Maple Story as our second game to research provides us with a completely different population of players. A younger audience also can lead to a different perspective of in-game status. Also, being free-to-play, the level of importance of the game may also be different compared to WoW players who must continuously invest their money in the game. This difference in personal investment can add another layer in the interpretation of status within the community.
One researcher, who has never played Maple Story before, was deployed to partake in participant observation in Maple Story. Given the limited amount of time for our research process, we could not imagine trying to obtain level 200 in the game and conduct research on the end-game content. Also, since the majority of the players in Maple Story are younger, we assumed that they would take the game slightly less seriously than those that play World of Warcraft, and that the low-level population would prove to be sufficient for our research purposes.
Median XL
Our third and final game is Median XL. Median XL, released in 2008, is a mod based on the popular game Diablo II. This mod uses the same character and item models as Diablo II, but has completely revamped the game play, character skills, and item attributes. The current level cap for Median XL is level 120.
The reason we would choose a modded game is because we wanted to target a very specific audience. Players of a modded game are usually more experienced with the gaming scene in general. Also, a mod tends to have less of a population density compared to the other two mainstream games. We are also assuming that a smaller community often means a smaller variation of opinions. Median XL has a very concentrated amount of experienced gamers, and we find that specific concentration of expertise to be a valuable source for our research. Luckily for us, we have a researcher amongst our group that is very involved in Median XL. We were able to dive right into the community and engage in interviews with high-level veterans as well as low-level novices.
Aside from engaging in participant observation, we also conducted a lot of outside research from published scholarly papers, as well as included a certain amount of information from personal experience. However, most of our research material was the product of our participant observation.
Misconstrued Perceptions of “Status”
High Level Avatars
In modern day MMORPGs, it is common for many people to assume that if a player controls a top level avatar, then he or she is automatically granted high status in the game. This concept is often validated by certain games where it is extremely difficult to reach the top levels. Almost every MMORPG of the modern era have a level system where characters must level up in order to progress in the game. The amount of time that must be invested to level up these characters is most likely exponential as the characters’ level increases. Having invested the necessary amount of time to gain a high level character equates to a higher level of experience for the player, and can often be translated into a more respected player. The concept of a higher level character, in reality, only translates to the amount of time spent in that particular character. I refrain from stating that the amount of time spent is by that particular player because of the existence of gold farmers and character leveling services. Much like in the article “Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer” by Julian Dibbell, the level of a character cannot equate to the experience of the player that owns that character. Even if the players did level their characters themselves, the amount of time spent in a game does not automatically grant them a high status in the game.
Having a high level character includes only one factor: time. Having spent a lot of time in a game to get a high level character cannot automatically grant that player a high status because it does not measure how much a player has learned throughout his or her leveling process. One factor that does provide a player with recognition is through a byproduct of the time he or she has spent: skill. Time itself does not prove anything other than how long a player has been playing the game. While many consider having high level characters to be a legitimate factor of status, and though it is enough to impress the novice and inexperienced players of the game, it is nowhere near enough to grant a player the recognition of the veterans in the community.
Beautification of Avatars
In certain MMORPGs, armors and weapons are displayed nicely on the avatars and are distinct and, sometimes, very fancy in appearance. For some games, the better the attributes of an item are, then the better that item would look on your avatar. This flashiness and beautification of the avatar has often mistakenly been carried over to other games. Although this form of status recognition can be somewhat accurate for few games, it should not be taken as a standard.
Many games currently incorporate a cash shop, where players can spend real money to purchase in-game items. These so called cash shop items are often times much more aesthetically pleasing than other in-game equipment. Paired with the mistaken belief that beautified avatars equates to high status, a player can simply purchase a few items from the cash shop and receive wrongfully credited recognition from the inexperienced population.
Amongst an interview conducted by our researcher in Maple Story, when asked the question “Do you think avatars tell others about status?” The response was, “no because you can disguise your gear with cash shop clothing (unless you look at their info)”. This seems to be a common response within the Maple Story community, as the cash shop items allowed for a fashionable avatar without the prestige.
Game developers have also realized the possibility of misleading avatar aesthetics, and many games have included a “inspect equipment” function for when looking at other player’s avatars. This feature is to let players know exactly what the attributes of another player’s items are. Many cash shop items focus primarily on aesthetics that they often do not carry any real bonuses for the player, and often includes in their item descriptions that they are bought from the cash shop. While simply looking at an avatar can often impress certain players, the beautification of avatars cannot serve as a determinant for a player’s status in-game.
What Actually Matters for Status?
Factors that Exist in Most MMORPGs
In most MMORPGs, status can be summed up in two categories: skills and gear. The skill of a player – not the level – definitively determines how others recognize that player. However, having the required skill is not enough to persuade the masses into recognition. MMORPGs are not designed in a way where skills alone make a character good. The gear of that character also factors into that character’s abilities. The goal of MMORPGs is to be able to defeat something in the game. That something, whether it would be a boss or other players, come with attributes of their own that must meet a match before they can be defeated. Gear is not only used to defeat bosses and players, but also serve as a sign that a player has acquired good enough items to contend with the game’s best. Being skillful and well geared marks a player as better, more useful, more competent, and more reliable. These traits are all factors that demands respect and recognition, and having these traits often grants a player the ability to own the respect and recognition of others, and obtain status in the eye of the entire community.
Skills
As mentioned earlier, a high level character cannot equate to a high status character because of the hidden factor of skill. Skill cannot be measured by time. A player who has played a game for 10 years does not mean they are better than another player who has played the game for 2 years. Skill levels can also differ within the same character levels. Not all level 80s in WoW are of the same skill as other level 80s. Skill cannot be measured by one factor alone, but rather the balance of multiple factors such as the player’s movements, knowledge, speed and efficiency, specialty, and flexibility.
Movements
Perhaps the most important factor in other people’s recognition of a player is that player’s display of his or her skills. The first impression a player leaves for others is how that player moves. Movement is, thus, strongly influential towards a player’s status.
Highly skilled players know how to move their avatars. As a game is released and played by the public, the meta-game for that release continuously evolves as players start to figure out how to more efficiently play the game. Movements are a big part of that meta-game. With more trial and error, players start to understand which sets of movement are the safest, which sets of movements are the fastest, and perhaps most importantly, which sets of movements are the worst for their characters. This understanding of the movements of the game not only improves a character’s game play, but also displays to others a player’s intelligent grasp of the game’s mechanics. In “Video Games and Embodiment,” James Paul Gee refers to this term as the “sweet spots” in effective game play:
In a game, the virtual character’s powers and limitations mesh with the way in which the game’s virtual world is designed in quite specific ways so that the virtual character’s goals can be accomplished better in some ways than others. Finding this mesh or fit—“sweet spots” for effective action—is, of course, one of the key skills required in playing a video game (Gee 2008:8). Conversely, a lack of fluidity, intellect, and purpose in the movement of a player immediately brands that player with novice-like titles. In other words, only players who are able to master the “sweet spot” of effective action can be branded as skilled players.
The concept of movement can be seen within all three games we have researched. In WoW, a movement such as walking backwards is an immediate branding of a player’s inexperience and lack of knowledge. In Maple Story, skilled assassin class players are able to jump while attacking with their throwing knives, and utilize their Flash Jump skill with the highest efficiency. In Median XL, certain levels are created where a player must carefully trek across a dungeon in a very short time without coming too close to roaming enemies.
To master the movements inside a game and incorporate that into a player’s daily game play is a constant reminder for all other experienced players around him or her of that player’s level of skill. Of course, as mentioned above, the skill of a player is the balance of many different factors, and movements along is not enough as a determinant for a player’s skills or status.
Knowledge
Aside from displaying a mastery of the game’s movements, another factor to measure a player’s skills is that player’s knowledge of the game. Without the knowledge of where to go or what to do when at the destination, having mastery of the movements becomes instantly useless. Knowledge comes from the experience of both failing and succeeding, and as history demonstrates, the wise (e.g. philosophers, inventors, scientists) are often more respected.
The following is a conversation that transpired between two players in World of Warcraft concerning a raid, which is when a group attempts a tough dungeon using well planned teamwork:
[Exi] whispers: why do you only come with when I lead raid?
To [Exi]: cuz you know exactly what to call
To [Exi]: and people listen to you
[Exi] whispers: lol, you know it too, you should lead
To [Exi]: I don’t have the rep you have as raidmaster, can’t get good pubs
In this conversation, the main concern revolves around why Exi’s friend only tags along when Exi is leading the raid. From the response, it seems that the knowledge that Exi has of the raid has propelled him or her into a recognized status in the community. The “rep” mentioned in the last line is short for “reputation”, and refers to Exi’s reputation in the community as a good raid master.
Speed / Efficiency
With a combined expertise of both the movements as well as the knowledge of a game, a player can surely be able to snatch a few looks of recognition from the rest of the community. However, despite having fluid movements and great knowledge of the game, players’ speed and efficiency in finishing tasks is another factor that helps measure their skills.
Speed refers how quickly a task is done, and matters very little if that task is done poorly with little efficiency. Efficiency refers to how affective each motion was during the process of the task, and means very little if that task is done sluggishly with little speed. These two factors go hand in hand, and closely represent the balance that must be achieved by all the others. When a player has mastered how to finish tasks quickly and efficiency, that player will gain more recognition from his or her peers and therefore acquire more status.
Specialty
In addition to the general factors of skill expected from all players of high status, a player can also develop his or her status by improving on a certain specialty. MMORPGs are created with different races and different classes to choose from for each character. This variance enables the players to choose a specific role to play in the game. How good a player gets at their respective roles can also elevate a player’s status. While not being the best at everything, narrowing down the categories and being the best at one category is still being number one at something, and being number one at anything provides a certain prestige to be recognized.
In WoW, for example, players not only choose an alliance, a race, and a class, but also choose two specific item creation talents to develop. Having this many categories in one character grants the player a lot of choices to choose a specialty. The player can either be the best at a specific item creation talent, or the best of his or her class, or the best of within the race, and maybe even the best within the alliance. Each of these has an increasing difficulty to achieve, but each achievement grants more and more status.
Specialty does not only apply to the character a player controls, but also for the player. Having specialized at a certain role, a player acquires more skill towards that specific role of the game. With that level of specialized skill, a player can prove to be more competent and reliable, traits to be recognized and appreciated.
Flexibility
On the other hand, not focusing on any specific specialty and finding optimizing a balanced character provides the player with a lot of flexibility in the game. Having flexibility, though not necessarily better or worse than specializing in one area, is nonetheless a desirable trait.
Flexibility is strictly a skill level that applies to the player. Being able to quickly adapt and respond to different kinds of situations makes one player a much dependable person when the situation is unfamiliar. Dependability is another trait which helps a player gain recognition and status.
Top Level Gear
Having a good set of skills and no tools to display renders those skills useless. In addition to having the required skill for recognition by others, status also depends on a character’s gear. The gear of a character refers to the equipment and items that a player has obtained for a specific character. In almost every MMORPG, the characters and enemies all have their own statistical attributes, or “stats”. Whether a character can defeat an enemy depends on if that character’s stats are good enough to overcome the enemy’s. The equipment placed on a character increase a character’s stats, and can prove to be great help for the character when it comes to defeating enemies.
Many MMORPGs are created where there are enemies of which a character, no matter at what level, cannot defeat without wearing some decent gear. The top level bosses of the game, therefore, would often require a much high level of gear for that character in order to be defeated. Enemies also drop gear that can be used by the player. Stronger enemies will drop stronger equipments, and stronger equipments will then allow a character to defeat even stronger enemies. The hardest enemies in the game, therefore, will usually drop the best gear of the game. A character with the right gear is the only sufficient tool for a player to demonstrate his or her skills, and a character with the best gear is the only sufficient display of his or her skills to grant a player the status and recognition he or she deserves.
Factors that Apply to Some MMORPGs
While skills and gear are the two major factors that are used to measure status in most MMORPGs, there are many other influential factors that appear more specific to certain games. Since all online games carry their own unique attributes, and a plethora of differences appear between different games, status in these games can also be affected by game-specific factors.
In-game Wealth
One popular factor that can exist in some MMORPGs but not all of them is the variable of wealth. While being virtual communities, most of these communities have invented their own form of currency. In games such as WoW, in-game wealth can be measured in the amount of gold, silver, or copper a player has. Median XL, on the other hand, only carries gold as it sole form of currency. Maple Story, set in a completely different virtual universe, carries “mesos” as its form of currency.
While most games do have a way to measure how much money a player has, not all games find this factor to be important. For example, in WoW, if a player owns thousands or tens of thousands of gold on one character, that player is recognized as wealthy. His status is slightly heightened because of this wealth since obtaining gold in WoW is a tiring task. However, players in Median XL can max out their gold limit per character at 2.5 million gold, but not raising a hint of awareness from other players.
In-game wealth can be a determinant of status for certain games where wealth is a tough thing to achieve, but it can also become meaningless in other games. For many games, the economy has evolved past its form of currency into gear. Often times, a player can immediately become the wealthiest player in the game by selling a few pieces of the top level gear, and vice versa, players can also immediately become poor after a few purchases. Wealth is often measured in conjunction with gear to measure a player’s net worth, very similar to measuring a person’s net worth in the physical world by counting that person’s assets in addition to his or her money.
PVE/PVP Abilities
As mentioned earlier, MMOPRGs are almost always created with the theme of killing a certain target at the end of the game. This concept is more commonly known as “Player versus environment”, or PVE for short. A majority of MMORPGs are created to be a PVE-centric game style, and players that are able to complete the game by killing the endgame monsters are credited with the status of being better those that cannot.
Because of the introduction of a multiplayer dimension into these games, hence the term “MMO”, a new way of measuring accomplishments is introduced. Player versus player, or PVP, has become a dominant source of activity for many MMORPGs. When players are able to defeat the endgame bosses, they sometimes seek a greater challenge. If the game’s environment does not present an opponent to test a player’s skills, what better challenge awaits than the other players? In games such as WoW and Median XL, PVP is a serious issue amongst players of the highest caliber. To prove oneself better than the game’s bosses, but also better than the other players, one can hope to achieve perhaps the highest form of status in their community: being number 1 in the game.
The prowess displayed by players in either their PVE or PVP roles do not share the same importance across all MMORPGs. While offering a great way to measure one’s abilities and obtain the recognition of other players, certain games such as Maple Story do not enable PVP in its game play. PVE and PVP abilities can serve as a great way to obtain status, and is also often the primary goal for many players who wish to get better, but it remains a factor that only exists in some MMORPGs.
Effects of Different Status Levels
After obtaining a certain level of status, the experience a player feels also changes. At the beginning phase, when a player has yet to gain any recognition in the community, that player is pretty much on a solo journey through the early stage contents. As a player gain more status and recognition, a player also gains popularity. When asked the question “How would you define status?” during an interview inside Maple Story, a player responded by saying that “status is the same thing as popularity just with a fancier title.” This response caused us to look at what the actual effects of a higher status means and how it compares to similar factors such as popularity.
In Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson’s paper titled “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior”, the results show that “the appearances of our avatars shape how we interact with others. As we choose our self-representations in virtual environments, our self-representations shape our behaviors in turn.” As a character gains more status in an online virtual community, the player’s interactions with others are also affected.
Interactions between Players
Steinkuehler’s paper mentions the importance of conversation and player interactions:
For most gamers, constant conversation through myriad chat channels is not only necessary to navigate the virtual world's diverse challenges (e.g., to barter virtual goods, to organize collaborations, to share information) but is the very fodder from which individuals create and maintain relationships of status and solidarity and, in part, in-game community and cultural norms. (Steinkuehler et al 2006b)
The need to organize collaborations with other players is an immensely important task most gamers should accomplish. In order to succeed in organizing collaborations, a player should first be recognized by fellow players within the community.
As mentioned before, when a player obtain status in the online virtual communities, that player also obtains respect and recognition from his fellow players. This recognition helps propel a player into the multiplayer scene and away from the solo journey that new and low status players must endure. In the three games that we researched, although all of them provide lots of solo play content, there is still a variety of group play content that is encouraged and required in order to complete these games.
In WoW, solo play content is merely a small part of the larger whole. There are 5-man dungeons that require at least 5 players to work together in order to complete. This is where the “party plays” comes into play.
“Strangers and Friends: Collaborative Play in World of Warcraft,” by Bonnie Nardi and Justin Harris briefly describe what party play is:
A party, composed of 2-5 players, has its own chat channel. Party members may or may not know one another. For example, a party may set out at half-strength with players who know each other. They begin a quest and then add new members as needed as they meet other players doing the same quest. If party members enjoy playing together they may share their other quests. Quests are normally obtained from a computer character but quest-sharing allows players to continue to play together after the initial quest that brought them together is complete. If they like one another, players add each other to their friends list for future play (Nardi et al 2006:4).
There are also 10-man dungeons, 25-man raids, and even 40-man raids. With such a range of multiplayer content, each member of a group must be able to contribute to the group. In order to gain the trust and reliance from the other team members, a player’s status becomes a huge factor. Recalling that earlier in the paper, status is largely determined by the level of skills and gear of a player. The status of a player reflects the capabilities of a player, and therefore marks one as more reliable and competent. Players with high status will have a much easier time finding others to form a party or raid, and will also find more people wanting to become friends and join up in parties and raids in the future. It is this cyclic series of events that helps increase the number of friends for those with high status, and therefore, can easily translate status into popularity.
Conclusion
Throughout this research, we looked at how the principles of status are commonly overlooked, how they should be properly measured, and how status can affect players’ interactions in the online communities. We addressed the concern in our thesis of finding out the recognition and effects of status within MMORPGs through interviewing the current players within the communities themselves, as well as pooling expertise from certain veterans of these communities.
High level and beautified avatars are often related to a player’s status but should not be considered a determinant in the veteran player base. Skill level and gear are the most common two determinants to help a player gain status, and even these simple sounding factors include multiple layers of complexity to measure. Skill alone is divided up to be a balance of several other aspects, including a player’s movements, knowledge, speed, efficiency, specialty, and flexibility. In addition to just skills and gear, certain games add even more variables into the equation, such as wealth, PVE, and PVP abilities. No factor alone can stand as a measurement for how much recognition and status a player deserves or has obtained, for all of these factors work together as the proper measurement for a person’s status in an online virtual community.
When a player’s status can be properly recognized, then that player’s interactions with others evolve as well. Players who are of a higher status than others often also have more popularity within the community, as status is a display of reliance and competence, a good reputation for communities anywhere.
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