A10: Neverwinter Knights

Neverwinter Nights 2 was a very good game, but I always thought “Hrm, this would make a good coop(eration) mission.” While the characters are very well done, it doesn’t beat having friends taking up the slack. This weekend, I finally started up the Neverwinter Nights multiplayer and played on a Story server, which allows all the players to participate in the single player campaign together. I created a human character, as a paladin/divine champion class, who was as tall as he could be and somewhat attractive. Initially, I was the sole tank (read: meat shield) of the party of mostly spell casters, and we played for a few hours of the first chapter.

The attractiveness of my character was very subjective, considering that many of the NWN2 visages are less than appealing, with a more drab, dull look. Also, I saw your characters face often, since it shows up every time I opened up my character sheet, but other players would have to zoom in and pay attention to my character in order to see his face. It makes it even harder, since the camera focuses in on your character and not anyone else, and typically, players are always moving about. This actually would lower the behavioral confirmation, since, regardless of whether my character looks attractive or not, other players would not treat me more warmly if I was and cooler if I wasn’t if they don’t often see at my character’s face. This, in turn, would mean that I would not alter my behavior subconsciously to adhere to the expectations of others.

In addition, the player characters of the party were all male, and thus, the attractiveness of my character would not have as much of an effect as if some or all of the other party members were female. In Yee and Bailenson’s study, they chose their confederate to be the opposite gender of the participant. During my time playing NWN2, this was not the case, and thus, the Proteus effect was not in full force; that is, I did not walk as close to other players or disclose more about myself as I would if there were more female players. There is also the fact that I pay little attention to the distance between characters, excluding a rush to an enemy or a subsequent retreat toward a doorway. The fact that the Lee/Bailenson study had participants using VR googles made facial attraction and virtual physical proximity a larger factor, while avatars in most roleplaying games do not often have or use such an close and intimate perspective.

With respect to my height ingame, however, I was especially aggressive while engaging mobs. Lee and Bailenson predicted that, as the tallest character a player can be, I would be more aggressive, but my behavior could also be explained by my role in the party. I was the sole tank toward the beginning of the game, and with a party of spellcasters, it behooved me to engage as early as possible so that everyone else wouldn’t die. Later, when a NPC fighter (non player character) joined us, I actually became more cautious, because the enemies were becoming more potent, which is the opposite of the results of Lee/Bailenson study, which resulted in a more aggressive stance over time. As a lawful good character, I spent a lot of time trying to convince the party to choose more morally upright decisions, partly for role playing reasons and mostly for self preservation (an evil or chaotic paladin no longer has access to his abilities). Thus, I made my opinions about each decision very vocal, and even though it wasn’t always heeded, it was often heard. So, although the first two hypotheses of Lee/Bailenson about attractiveness did not affect my game playing experience, my height did seem to have a significant impact on my inter-group interactions.

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