For this assignment, I chose to play Lord of the Rings Online: a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. While I’m not a devoted player, I do play on occasion and am familiar with its mechanics. In this game, you create a character in Tolkien’s Middle-earth that serves as your avatar. Unlike most MMORPGs, there is no player-verse-player combat (using your primary avatar), as all the characters are on the side “good” and therefore PvP would be anachronistic. In order to have PvP combat, a special mode is available where you take control of a generic “evil” creature to fight other players in a designated area. As a result, LOTRO lacks the type of player who finds enjoyment in ruining others’ experiences. Players are generally helpful and polite.
Recently I’ve been using a male Elf “Hunter.” The character has a fairly typical appearance; he has long dark hair and is average size. My experience with this character contrasts with an older character (who I’ve spent much more time as). The other character is a male Dwarf “Guardian.” The dwarf has a more distinctive appearance with medium-length white hair and a very short beard. I noticed a few differences in my behavior between the two characters. The foremost difference was that I was much more assertive as the Dwarf. The Dwarf is definitely less “attractive” of an avatar than the Elf, but I found that I had greater confidence in that role. In this type of game, confidence is probably tied less to “attractiveness” and more to an appearance of “toughness.” As the game is based around combat as opposed to social interactions, the older, tougher Dwarf can be seen as a more desirable character to work with than the vaguely gender-neutral young-looking Elf. The result is behavioral confirmation where I was more deferential as the Elf since my appearance was less authoritative.
While this seems to fit with Yee & Bailenson’s ideas, I would suggest that the most significant factor for my different behaviors is the class of each character. The Elf is a “Hunter,” which attacks from afar with a bow and has little armor. The Dwarf is a “Guardian,” which has heavy armor and high health, and therefore stands up front and absorbs as much enemy damage as possible. The roles therefore demand that the Guardian be more assertive as they have to directly engage the enemy. The Hunter supports the melee classes from afar, but has to avoid becoming the center of enemy attention.
Yee & Bailenson also discussed how deindividuation in CMC could result in normative behavior. With both characters, I acted in a similar, polite manner when it came to social encounters. This could partially be explained as following the normative behavior of players, but I also used to act similarly when I played World of Warcraft, where the normative behavior is significantly more confrontational. These reflections lead me to believe that Yee & Bailenson’s results apply more directly to specifically social virtual spaces, such as Second Life or Habbo Hotel. The next step I'd take would be to set up two more characters with the same appearances as my Dwarf and Elf, but reverse the classes. This would indicate how much of the behavioral difference is due to appearance and how much due to combat role.
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http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-rainbow-six.html
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4 comments:
It's interesting how you point out that these avatars don't necessarily have human traits. I guess it was difficult determining its attractiveness. Yes, I would agree that Yee and Bailenson's study more applies to game like Second Life. Maybe Professor Hancock can do a study regarding elves' height and attractiveness and find some sort of connection since he's real smart and all.
It's also interesting that the norm is being "nice" in this game. I sort of wish more games were like that although that may make future studies like Yee and Bailenson difficult to do if everyone is cooperative and height (or any other factor) can't correlate with good or bad deals.
Nice Post!
~Saidu
Elliot,
Nice job. Your description of the online gaming space was great. I actually had visuals in my mind, depicting what was in the foreground, and what could have been expected in the virtual world. Although not a big LOTR fan myself, I could picture it enough to gain a good sense of what you were talking about.
Nice job talking about theories too. I like how you talked about your 'class' and how this greatly affected your being/outcome in the game (similarly to how Yee and Bailenson described certain characteristics). Lastly, as you touch on deindividuation, this part really connects all aspects of the post together. Nice job overall, and it was interesting because I did not see many people who entered this game space. Second Life was a major staple in 245, but it was nice to read something different.
Nice job.
-Dave
Elliot,
You did a really good job analyzing your experience on Lord of the Rings and relating it to Yee and Bailenson’s theories. I thought it was interesting that you were more assertive as a dwarf who is tougher in appearance, but not taller than the elf character. I also found your point on how this contrast actually does tie into the theories based on the character’s role rather than appearance- melee versus ranged character. Your idea on setting up an experiment to test this is a great idea and I’d be willing to help out if you ever followed through on it. In my opinion I think that your behavior while playing either character may also be explained through expectations on how an elf or dwarf should behave. Many people view elves as withdrawn and agile while dwarves are more typically portrayed as a grouchy, tough race.
Great post,
Lauren
I chose to play world of warcraft for your post and I found a similar problem with defining an avatar's attractiveness. A lot of online roleplaying games feature fantasy setting and characters that are far from human in their appearance. I thought it was interesting how your character choice ended up dictating some of your behavior. Ive found that games tend to make the melee classes, characters that fight up close and take lots of damage, look tougher in appearance. Their gear also looks a lot more aggressive than something a spell caster would wear. After reading people's posts and thinking about my own experience I'm seeing that many mmog's design character classes and races intending for people to play in a specific way. In playing that type of character you'll inevitably start to take on some of its characteristics in your social interactions in game.
Eric
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