~Hot Sultry Women~

I did not know much about second life until I read about it in an article in the WSJ. I was thrown aback by the number of hours some people spend in this world. A husband claimed to spend 12 hours on this game, leaving his wife a widow. He was intimate with his wife in second life as well. When he woke up, his so-called wife would have breakfast ready for him and when he came back for a lunch snack, there was tea and cookies at the table. Furthermore, when the husband woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, he would kiss his “wife” avatar on second life before falling asleep again. I was disgusted by the way people have, in the recent years especially, been engrossed with this game.

When I saw this assignment, images of the aforementioned kept flashing in my mind. I did not want to become this mad woman who leaves everything in her real life for the computer world. But regardless, I decided to make the most of my experience by entering this second life world. When I did I finally understood why people are completely engrossed in these games. The degree to which you have control over the smallest aspects is the thrill.

I made my avatar tall, hot, and sultry. Her name was Giuselle. I had her dressed in very seductive clothes. As Yee and Bailsenson said, a more attractive female would leave a better experience in the mind of the player especially. Furthermore, it would give the woman more sass in terms of personality. She was wearing black high-heeled boots, with a short skirt and a pink tube top. The avatar resonated a prostitute likened image.

Thereafter, the avatar began to walk the streets of a city in broad daylight. It was at first interesting to note the behaviors by the public. I first noticed men glaring at her. She was probably the most attractive looking woman in the area. The other women glanced at her in jealousy. The different behavioral expressions she received by different peoples was interesting. After just watching the expressions she received by walking the streets, I decided that I should make her communicate. I had her ask for directions. Upon asking old women, she received an almost reproaching answer. It was probably because of the inappropriate manner in which the girl carried herself. When she asked men, she was given clear perfect directions. Some of them even walked her to the place. These behavioral differences I noted between men and woman toward a highly-attractive beauty support the claims of Yee and Bailenson.

Furthermore, I noted, that once my avatar began to receive a more agreeable answer from the men in terms of directions, she began to loosen-up. Her gait was more womanly, and easy-going as opposed to being tough. Thus this is agreeable to the proteus effect, which states that an individual’s behavior changes to conform to their digital representations. Thus, in my avatar’s case, her behavior changed as she became more agreeable to the community.

Furthermore, once I became more and more engrossed in the second life world, I was more prone to making more radical changes that would probably not be considered appropriate in the real world. This is where the deindividuation effect comes to play. I gained more confidence in the CMC environment. With reduced social cues and more anonymity I felt that my identity was safeguarded. No one knew who I really was, and that made everything better.

I finally can see why people can get hooked to second life. It’s pretty scary to say the least. However, since November 8^th, 2007, I have only logged onto my second life world two times. So I am not quite hooked, but I imagine, without self-control, I see myself getting engrossed in it.

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Assignment 10

The computer game I played was an online version of the Final Fantasy series. The game revolved around playing out a story line in a game while completing certain tasks and battles. Battles being described as real-time turn based fights between yourself and another. What I found to be the most powerful aspect of the game were the actual battles. It is where the player has the most control and discretion of the video game characters power. Through this control of the on-screen characters, you can really get a feel for the game functions. The game itself has a very engaging storyline which keeps you latched to the game for hours on end. The strategy behind the game also plays an important role since it keeps you constantly involved in the game. You are also able to communicate between other online players.

Within the fighting aspect of the game, I felt more compelled to use forceful and physical attacks when using the male characters versus the female characters. There just seemed to be something stronger looking about the male characters. This is an example of the “Proteous Effect”. I was taken by the physical characteristics of my character and acted in a way I perceived them to act based on their image.

Throughout the game, you are given the option of talking to other members and responding with whatever you want. When using a stronger looking character to approach others, I was generally treated friendlier (stronger characters are more desirable in the video game). This is an example of the nonverbal expectancy violations theory since I created a positive valance with my character. I think this theory is very relevant to communications inside of a virtual world space like this since it really emphasizes the deindividual aspects of the video game.

I used to play a ton of video games as a kid and have since lost interest but I completely remember now what it was like to act inside of a virtual space with others. You can take on the role of another simply by their on-screen image.

Assignment 10 - Zero Online

Being an avid gamer I have already explored many online multi-player games such as World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Nexus TK, Second Life, Aspereta, Jedi Knights, Guild Wars, and Everquest. Because of this I decided to investigate new MMO (massively multiplayer online) games. I looked over several general synopsises before deciding to download and play a game called Zero Online. Zero Online is based on futuristic intergalactic robotic warfare where users act as pilots for giant robots. There are several different environments from military bases to asteroid strongholds and they all exude a very metal and high-tech look. While in these different environments there are a variety of activities for users to participate in, from player-versus-players combat arenas to market places.

In Zero Online a user is able to create and customize the identities and appearances of their robot and their human avatar who is piloting the robot. I found it interesting that robot appearance is largely influenced by the gender one chooses for their human avatar; males have distinctly male-looking very macho robots, while females are given robots with a more slender looking build and sometimes even shorter. Users can also customize the functions of their robot by choosing which type of combat they want to specialize in, either melee, ranged, or special combat.

For my first character on Zero Online I chose to be female, have a melee robot (close combat), and use a female avatar with a strong, assertive, and tall looking character model. Although I had other avatar choices I picked the one that I felt best represented the robot I chose because she seemed to fit better than some of the other avatars who looked shyer or more fragile. Before even entering the game I believe that I felt more confident in my ability to be successful at this game, and this continued throughout my entire experience. As I was cooperating in the robot wars I often took on more than one enemy at a time, believing that I was capable to defeating them, and I was. Also when I created teams with other users I often found myself in leadership roles, and taking the position of leading the action while leaving others to be support roles.

My experience with Zero Online supports the theory of the Proteus Effect by Yee and Bailenson. The Proteus Effect is the idea that in online environments users may become deindividuated and act in accordance to the new identity that is inferred from their avatars and or act in a way that they feel others would expect them to behave. In this case I chose a human avatar with a strong and assertive personality, and a melee robot which is the largest in size and armor protection. I felt that both of these identities accumulated to the overall confident personality of my online identity.

Another interesting personality characteristic that I developed while playing was that I was socially withdrawn and almost cold. While I would take on leadership roles, I wasn’t anyone’s friend and never acted like it. This is interesting because in all of the other online games that I have played I have always been extremely sociable with other players. The only difference I could find from these past experiences to my experience with Zero Online is that in this game I played as a human piloting a robot. I believe that this change in personality also supports the Proteus Effect in that one can behave based on stereotypes and expectations. Perhaps because when I was playing you would mainly see the robot, rather than the human pilot, I took on what I consider ‘robotic’ characteristics. I expected robots and pilots in wartime to be focused and withdrawn and thus I became.

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Assignment 10 - Second Life as a rapper

Yee and Bailenson described the Proteus Effect as the hypothesis that an individual's behavior conforms to their digital self-representation (avatar) independent of how other perceive them (real life). From my experience with Second Life, I would have to agree.

In their two experiments, they highlighted two aspects which control one's behavior in the digital world: Avatar attractiveness and height in regards to negotiation behavior. They found that people, for the most part, decided to choose an avatar that was highly attractive. They also found, that those who chose avatars of normal height were least likely to accept an "unfair offer." They described an unfair offer as one with the intent to manipulate the participant.

By chance, my avatar happened to be an average height (5'10") highly attractive rapper (I'm one myself) that went around for about an hour and a half spitting game to females and making other friends I thought were the coolest of the bunch. Due to my attractiveness, I felt behavioral confirmation was necessary. My attractiveness had a great deal to do with how I decided to behave because I wanted to feel comfortable, accepted. I wanted to be popular and even though this is a digital world, in real life, I want to have the same type of reputation especially since I feel I'm in competition with others for friends. Morally, it shouldn't be this way but sometimes people dodge morals for benefits (refering back to the O'Sullivan reading).

Unfortuantely for many rappers, they weren't born being tall and for the sake of maintaining some credibility with my avatar, I decided to be average height. After I read Yee and Bailenson, I was happy to see that my height actually had a correlation with my "successful game spitting." In this case, I would call asking for dates and obtaining friends a "negotiation behavior." It always feels good to not be alone and that's what many strive for both in Second Life and in the real world. This is why it isn't surprising that being "average" attracts the most friends. People want to associate with someone like them so overall being average is the way to go.

Speaking of my great Second Life negotiational skills, I still have some Second Life dates to attend to. Hopefully that doesn't lead to PIU!

Peace

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Assignment 10: Lord of the Rings

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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assignment 10: two views of second life

I was pretty excited for this assignment. I’d never interacted with others on Second Life. I thought about what kind of avatar I wanted to use and decided to be short, rotund female with short hair and casual clothing. I wanted to see how people would treat me online Second Life, and how that would affect my own behavior. I found that this character made me feel awkward, perhaps because I created it knowing it was an “unattractive” avatar. With this knowledge, I was hesitant to ask for help from other avatars, even though I clearly needed it. After reading about online self presentation, I felt especially hesitant to talk to characters which were clearly opposite of my presented image. I felt detached from those avatars who were obviously attractive and interacting with others. Instead, I choose to ask the more plain avatars for help and to interact with. While these characters answered my questions, they did not seem eager to stick around to get to know me more or offer any extra helpful information.

Yee and Bailenson suggest that there is a proteus effect that individuals change their behavior to conform to their digital representations. This happens because individuals are deindividualized in the digital world because of reduced social cues and anonymity. This loss of self identity contributes to individuals conforming to their avatar identities. The proteus effect emphasized conformity to individual identity cues such as being friendly with an attractive avatar or being more outgoing with a taller avatar.

In order to test this out, I then changed avatars to a tall, slender female with long hair and trendy clothing. Just looking at this character made me feel more confident. I thought others would be more responsive and felt more comfortable approaching other characters. This time, I did not shy from the more social characters. Yee and Bailenson were correct that having a more outgoing character makes the entire virtual world experience more friendly and intimate, meaning there is a higher chance of forming online relationships. Other characters were more willing to hold longer conversations with me and invited me to other areas of Second Life.

Even when I was alone just walking around in more “attractive” character, I felt more confident. When I was exploring Second Life alone as a less “attractive” character, I felt more reserved and like an outsider. According to the proteus effect, this is normal because individuals behave according to beliefs about what others would think and not actual responses from others. None of these effects roll over to real life. As soon as I logged off, the feeling of self consciousness or confidence were gone.

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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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10: Rainbow Six

For my foray into online multiplayer environments I decided to return to an online videogame that I have played in the past: Rainbow Six. In this videogame you have the opportunity to play as part of a counter-terrorist team with the mission of defeating the opposing team in a given environment. Unlike Second Life and World of Warcraft, players choose their character in Rainbow Six in order to fit in with a team, not to stand out at as an individual. Interestingly enough, different roles developed within the team and between teams that I had never really thought about in my previous experiences with the game.

Since Rainbow Six is a team tactical game, the goal is to blend in with one’s surroundings and with one’s team. Accordingly, players are not given exotic choices in appearance and dress. As with most games in this genre, players in the online environments are generally assumed to be male, and discussions during the game are usually practical as relating to strategy or team dynamics. The little bit of individuality that is encouraged usually helps to identify players as part of a clan or team, or as holding a certain position or rank within the group.

Yee and Bailenson’s paper says that the online space will exaggerate a person’s self-presentation and behavioral confirmation. This certainly seemed to apply in this setting. Experienced players were generally known on the server I played on, and they were denoted with ranks and titles, as well as more elaborate uniforms and patches. These leaders took an active role in developing team strategy and telling the other players what to do. Other players seemed to accept their roles in the command structure, generally following orders from the team leader. Also, each player chose their uniform, gear, and weaponry based on the role they had been asked to fill on the team.

My experience with Rainbow Six seemed to support Yee and Bailenson’s claims. I accepted my role within the team by choosing appropriate camouflage, patches, and weaponry, and acted accordingly. Anyone who tried to act out individually was quickly reprimanded by the group, and so the uniformity of appearance seemed to only encourage the players to work as a team. Ultimately, when players conformed to their image as a team member with a specific role, the team performed better as a whole. In this way behavioral confirmation, at least in this online environment, was beneficial.

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Assignment 10: Insurgency

Hi,

For this assignment I chose to play an online multiplayer shooter a friend had told me about called Insurgency. This game is a modification of Half Life 2 made by a marine who fought in Iraq. The game puts you on one of two teams, as an Iraqi insurgent, or a US marine. The important detail is that the designer made the game to be ultra-realistic to the point of being frightening. Your aim isn’t as good just after you’ve run, grenades shake perturb your vision, and a lot of times you don’t even know where death comes from to the point of cringing when you get shot and the screen turns red. The terrorist also have less technologically advanced weapons then the marines.

During my more than an hour playing time I was placed on the insurgent team. I switched through a few of the character classes which look basically the same but come equipped with different types of guns. After a few rounds I found myself increasingly setting into the mind set of an insurgent. I was playing in my room with two of my friends watching and I actually said at one point, “I’m gonna die but I’m gonna take out as many marines as I can with me.” Now it probably helps that death is not real in making a statement like that, but it is still very surprising. Causing this in part might be Behavioral Confirmation as the players on the other team expect me to play like a terrorist. It is not surprising to see someone jump out with an rpg just to get one shot off before dying in an attempt to kill a few marines. Self perception theory also comes into play due to the realism of the game. You are given a task to accomplish by any means, and when you plan out your attack your thinking what would you do if you were an insurgent in harsh conditions. The Proteus effects states that there will be conformity to individual identity cues, which perfectly explains all of the behavior while in the insurgent skin. Although the effects of height and attractiveness didn’t particularly come into play in my time playing, the way I acted in response to my avatar definitely supports Yee & Bailenson’s findings.

assignment 10: second life

For this assignment I chose to experience second life. Before taking this class, the term second life was completely foreign to me. After signing up and choosing my SL name (Audrina Castaignede), I was finally apart of the infamous space that people become so enveloped in. When choosing my avatar’s name, I thought of picking an identifiable first name and a striking last name. I wanted to stand out but not too much.

Being that I have never entered and participated in any online gaming site, I had absolutely no clue what to do. Figuring out how to communicate with others, how to maneuver myself around, and how to find different locations took me a good twenty minutes. I also found that when I tried to ask for help, people didn’t seem too eager to offer their assistance, especially the females which I thought was interesting. After some time of receiving no direction, I decided to change my clothes, eye and hair color to enhance my avatar’s appearance to possibly get the attention that I wanted. After changing “my girl next door” look of jeans and a t-shirt to a skirt and a revealing top, I almost immediately obtained the attention I was looking for. A guy by the name of McBobby McMahon explained how to check someone’s profile, IM, and how to teleport. He asked me how long I have been a part of SL, what I was interested in and where I am from. When I asked him what he meant by where I am from, he responded with “I have no idea!!! =)” . I thought this was odd and so I asked him where he was from and he said “maybe from Spain”. He quickly proceeded to ask me if I wanted to go salsa dancing with him and that is when he taught me how to teleport. With the limited cues available, I formed impressions of various characters, especially McBobby. He was very slow to respond and I could see that he would type something, stop, begin again, stop and finally proceed to send me his message. He was partaking in selective self presentation, as was I.

When the game first began, I was imposing my personality on my avatar’s character. Her clothes were clothes I would wear, her attitude was a reflection of mine, and I spoke to others in a manner that I would normally do myself. As the game progressed and as I became more comfortable with the game, my avatars character began to change. My character Audrina was more aggressive with her speech, more outgoing and very extroverted. I found myself not caring what others thought and went about my business exploring and meeting new people. I did find it difficult in the beginning initiating myself in conversations as I didn’t know what I should talk about and what would be acceptable to talk about. When I realized that people didn’t really care what a conversation consisted of, I became more confident in talking about anything. I felt comfortable, in a weird way, self-disclosing information about my character to people, whether female or male. I took real life information and used that to give me ideas to talk about and used those to elaborate on. Also because of the way I portrayed my character, there was behavioral confirmation as I took on the qualities and traits that others envisioned me possessing. There was no reason for me not to as everyone is anonymous and no one is able to decipher a truth from a lie.

According to Yee and Bailenson, online spaces such as second life enhance one’s self presentation and behavioral confirmation. Just as in real life, physical attractiveness and social interactions are an important aspect in second life as well and Yee and Bailenson describe this as being a vital facet to enhancing an avatar’s persona. This turns out to coincide with my findings. As my character became more “attractive” due to her clothing, her speech, her weight, her eyes, and her hair, basically her whole appearance, I began to divulge more information about myself and so did other characters with me. People are more confident and assertive when they are perceived as being attractive.

As someone previously mentioned, it is very obvious why and how people spend too much time online. I spent a good two hours on the site and those two hours flew by. I think this will be my last time experimenting with second life and other sites like it. Second life is full of surprises and everything you could imagine is available here. It also seemed more like a dating site than a site to make friends. Although I was completely anonymous, I felt like people could still “see” me and knew what I was doing was a majority of the time a lie. However, this very awkward feeling did slowly diminish as the game progressed. Fun experience though!

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Assignment #10: interacting in a virtual world

Although I am very comfortable with computers and the internet, I have always been wary of virtual online spaces. I’m not sure if it was because I thought people who did interact in these worlds were weird, or if my inadvertent feelings come from an embarrassment of not having a clue as to what to do. Well, I faced my fears and entered a virtual world full of avatars. Upon deciding how to physically portray myself, I designed a girl who resembled a character I used on Tiger Woods Golf for PS3. She was brunette, thin, and very cute.

I was anxious at first because I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and was hoping that others would notice me and talk to me. Since I wasn’t familiar with the group norms of the space, I initially acted stand-offish and quiet. I was surprised by how many people approached me, and how easy it was to fit in. After mingling with a few people, I gained a good grasp of what existing in a virtual world was all about. I then turned to Yee & Bailenson to find out if their conclusions held true.

The Proteus Effect, discussed in Yee & Bailenson’s paper, states that one’s individual behavior is based upon their online self-presentation. The way that one is portrayed in an online space will impact how they act. One conclusion that Yee and Bailenson came to is that someone who is attractive and tall will feel behavioral confirmation of friendliness. This means that if an avatar is attractive and tall, then they will act friendlier, due to increased confidence. I suppose that because I made myself to be attractive according to my own beliefs, I had a positive self-image and therefore I behaved in a confident manner. Once I got comfortable with my avatar, I began initiating conversations and approaching people instead of the other way around.

I didn’t think I was especially tall, and therefore I am not sure how this factor works into the mix. I do remember there was a man who was tall, dark, and handsome which many girls were crowding around (no surprise there). I suppose that height does have an impact, however I found that attractiveness played a bigger role.

It was interesting to be in an online space where physical appearance becomes a factor, and therefore shapes one’s confidence and participation. The only difference is that here one is able to decide what they look like, as oppose to dealing with what parents have given us. In this online space, although there is a physical appearance aspect, there is still increased self-disclosure due to the lack of true physical appearance. These virtual spaces attempt to get rid of some gating features by allowing you to choose how you look. However, people are not always truthful in how they choose to portray themselves. Therefore, I feel that interacting in a virtual world is just a more creative way to communicate online, but it is not any more truthful.

Assignment 10

As an avid fan of real life experiences, I have always been averse to digital virtual graphical worlds. My preconceptions about these places are that they are filled with creepy-looking 3d representations of human beings flailing their limbs, acting confrontational, and sneaking through tunnels with weapons trying to kill and not be killed. However, in my first encounter with Second Life this weekend, I found quite the opposite. Second Life is a digital world that has been created and maintained by millions of people all over the world. People can do absolutely anything here and accordingly can be anyone they want to be.

When I entered Second Life as Cookie Quinnell in a default City Girl avatar, I felt like I’d been picked up and thrown into another universe. “Orientation Island” is where all new users must start and complete required tutorials to make the transition from our first life to Second Life easier. Unfortunately, my computer had a lot of difficulty running the Second Life application, so all of my interaction took place on Orientation Island with other “newbies”.

Since I could not effectively change the appearance of my avatar, I remained in the city chic default avatar. I went up to a male avatar and asked if he could help me change my appearance, but he too was confused. My willingness to ask a stranger for help is further proof for the data outlined in Yee & Bailenson’s article, “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior” (2007). The default city chic avatar was fairly attractive, so I felt comfortable approaching another individual and self-disclosing my confusion.

Later as I was trying to navigate through the tutorials, another male shouted, “Is anyone home?” to which I replied with a flirtatious “nope” and then approached him. This demonstrates nonverbal expectancy violations theory (Yee & Bailenson) because I came very close to him and was treated positively. We continued our conversation briefly about where we were from and how we were feeling about Second Life.

I felt extremely deindividuated in this quiet, peaceful island setting, which led me to seek out social contact and explore my identity traits. This goes along with the Proteus Effect that emphasizes conformity of the avatar to its own identity cues. Although technical difficulties cut my first virtual world experience short, I would like to go back into Second Life and experiment with various physical facades and personality traits to see how much the Proteus Effect applies to my experiences.

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Assignment 10- World of Warcraft

The online game that I played was World of Warcraft. In this game, I chose a ‘race’ in which I was an Orc. An Orc is typically resistant to spells, and can sustain more damage than other races (making it advantageous to be an Orc). In certain areas of this game, as an Orc, I could choose which climate to be a part of, in order to benefit my ‘racial specialties.’ The main purpose of this game is to survive, and become a better warrior and member of my ‘race’ by choosing a certain occupation. For example, I could become a merchant, and support my teammates by lowing prices in order to make the race a better one.

While playing the game, I felt as though the game parallels real life in certain aspects. For instance, during game play, I am constantly aware of my surroundings to make sure that I am not killed by an opposing ‘race.’ Further, if I am unfortunate enough to be killed in battle (or perish), I lose a significant amount of my gold which takes a long time to gather. This is the same in real life; if you are confronted with a major hardship (even though after death, you can no longer come back alive), you may lose certain belongings based on various circumstances. Moreover, taking advantage of my skill sets as an Orc has been an adaptation of mine; I specialize in hand-to-hand combat, so I must be within close proximity of an opponent. This would be true in my actual life. I am not the largest individual, so in order to win a certain confrontation (which I do not condone), I would have to be within a close distance of my foe (if this ever occurred).

In real life, I pride myself on being a leader with many activities. In World of Warcraft, I portrayed the same characteristics within my ‘race.’ My actions and characteristics as an Orc deter away from Yee and Bailenson’s results, as an Orc is usually a smaller character (who would be perceived as inferior to larger characters). Yet, I did not feel inferior because I was able to separate gaming from reality in this aspect. Although at different times I feel engrained in the game and that my actions outside the game my be the same as in the game itself(stated by Yee and Bailenson in the behavioral confirmation portion of the article), I am able to separate reality from gaming. Lastly, I would like to point out that I agree with Yee and Bailenson’s argument supporting SIDE theory with online gaming. Due to anonymity within gaming (among actual users), this causes deindividuation for real life individuals. Yet social identification (group bonding and collaboration) can also be found within ‘races’ or clans that develop in online games. Gaming such as this creates this great paradox, unique to this medium, and this medium alone.

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Assignment #10: My Second Life

In Yee & Bailenson’s paper; “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior” the authors attempt to solve the question “As we change our self-representations, do our self-representations change our behavior in turn?” Through the use of Second Life, I decided to create an avatar, and after exploring the game for about an hour, analyze whether or not my experience with the game was consistent with Yee & Bailenson’s hypothesis that our self-representations change our behavior.

The first thing you do when you open up a Second Life account is choose a name. When I first had to choose a name I was surprised that there were only a certain amount of last names one could choose, you couldn’t use a made up last name, which surprised me. I went with Bethesda Ballyhoo, just because it sounded awesome. I think it might have female connotations, but I liked the name. I then had to choose a base avatar, in which I chose the boy next door avatar. After a few more steps, I was finally registered and ready to jump into my second life. The first thing that caught me by surprise was that when I was asked to type in my name and password, rather than it being my real name which I registered with, I had to use my avatar name, which caught me off guard. I completed my tutorial and began to play!

As I entered the game I was surprised by how complex the controls were, there were buttons to teleport, change clothes, talk, walk, fly, and lots of other actions to get used to. In the tutorial I had learned how to use a torch, but it took me almost five minutes to put it away. I began by flying, because let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to fly around every once and a while. Following the joy of my first flight, I began to try to walk around and interact with other members of the community; however the tasked proved much harder than I had imagined. I walked up to several members and greeted them with a cheery “Hi!” or “Hello!” unfortunately I didn’t receive any responses or have any conversations with other members on Second Life. Another thing of note during my second life experience was the over sexuality of the system. Most avatars were either scantily clad women, or attractive men, but I came into the game expecting this, however what I didn’t expect was the over sexual advertisements in the game, you could purchase underwear, lingerie, and even genitalia for your avatar.

I feel my actions in Second Life were affected by the avatar that I chose, and that this would fall under the hyperpersonal model. While I was in Second Life, my avatar was slim and attractive, giving me some sort of “confidence” in my own behavior to walk up to any avatar in the game and say hi. This type of activity would fall under behavioral confirmation. While some may disagree, stating that behavioral confirmation would only occur after I talked with other people, I feel that even though I didn’t get a chance to interact with others in the community, the sheer fact that I felt able to walk up to any of the other avatars shows that I had become more confident through my avatar. This action can lead to hyperpersonal attributes, as I would begin to exude my confidence outward, and then it would intensify through behavioral confirmation. In Yee & Bailenson’s study, they look at the relationship between attractiveness of an avatar, and self-disclosure. I feel my actions would confirm their study, as due to the attractiveness of my avatar, I was more likely to contact other avatars and attempt to begin to have a conversation with them. Overall, Second Life was not only a lot of fun, but an eye opening experience into the world of avatars computer mediated communication.

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Assignment 10

For this assignment I chose to play World of Warcraft for an hour. This was a pretty simple choice as i already have two accounts for the game. When picking a character for WoW you have the choice between horde and alliance. Alliance is made up of humans, gnomes, night elves. Horde players tend to stereotype the alliance as a bunch of little kids. The horde seems to get more mature players. The Horde is made up trolls, orcs, and tauren which are humanoid bulls/cows. Your choice of race also determines what classes are available to you. Classes consist of mage, hunter, warrior, shaman, druid, priest, etc. They all have unique skill sets and different uses for pvp or pve gameplay (player versus player or player versus environment).

My two characters are horde, a troll shaman named Tetsuo and a tauren druid named Mordo. Wow is a fantasy setting so characters have all sorts of interesting armor and weapons. The troll character I have has blue skin and tusks. He carries a big axe and is specialized for up close fighting. I tend to be louder and more talkative when I play this character. I think this is more because of his play style than his appearance. Playing him is easy because he fights up close and action tends to be quick and exciting. He also only needs to use two attacks most of the time so playing him is really simple. Because of this I have hands free to type in chat and socialize.

My druid on the other hand Is a tauren so hes the largest race in regards to size. Even though he has a big physical presence, I dont talk as much using this character. Hes a healer for raids (upwards of ten people for dungeon bosses) so when I play him I'm focusing on healing other people during a very complicated battle. This character is my down to business character. His gear is the highest quality and the end game content I use him for is more serious in its difficulty and commitment. Because this character is used for hardcore content, the really tough stuff, I need to focus on playing and keeping people alive,not on talking.

I found that in WoW a character's class influences a persons behavior when playing more than their appearance. The class a character chooses defines their role in the game, is dependent on race, and determines the gear they wear. There is conformity in WoW in that there are expectations for each class in what they contribute to a group. This is more a product of game mechanics than it is social interaction. The norms established by the people who play WoW are there because they are the most effective/efficient way to play a class. The attraction factors seen in the Yee & Bailenson (2007) study do not really apply to WoW in that the avatars are not necessarily human in appearance. I found in my time playing WoW that it was my class and not my avatars appearance that influenced my behavior.

10: a n00b's experience in Guild Wars - a 1337 world

An online game that I tried out this weekend was Guild Wars. Guild Wars is an MMORPG in which you create an avatar and they go through a series of quests and missions to develop their character. There are several different classes that you can be. The game is dependent of forming a party which must be balanced (healers, fighters, damage-dealers, etc). You have the option of playing with actual people or NPCs. Currently there are 3 different lands in Guild Wars, separate from each other. One is called Tyria; it is a common MMO type area (desert, mountains, grasslands, islands, volcanos, etc. No real themes). The second is called Cantha; this one is Asian –themed (architecture & scenery). The third is called Elona; this is similar to an African-based area.

I played on my friend Brian’s account and joined his guild. They were very helpful and bombarded me with advice on what to do and how to play. Any question I had, they were able to answer with ease. They also gave me equipment like weapons. Although I still don’t really know the ultimate point of the game, I had fun talking to people and using the headset and going exploring between the 3 continents. My favorite continent is Cantha because I got to battle the afflicted (big zombie-like, amorphous creature).

I think that the avatar did affect the way I played the game. Brian has many different avatars that I got to switch between, and I definitely noticed a difference in how I played. Witht the tall, buff Warrior, I took on a more aggressive role and charged rightinto battle, regardless of the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing and I was outnumbered. When I played a the small, female Ranger, I was more hesitant in my playing style. My behavior in Guild Wars was congruent with the Proteus Effect, which means that I conformed to the stereotypical behaviors of the avatars that I was acting as. I wasn’t treated differently acting as the 2 different avatars, but I couldn’t help but feel that people expected different behaviors from the 2 different avatars.

All in all, it was fun being a n00b in a 1337 world, but it’s not something that I could do daily.

Ten: Finally a Bad-ass

I've always been concerned that Second Life is really just another singles bar for the 30+ crowd. But now I know that it can be anything and everything that you want. I mean really, including having sex with unicorns , but now for the first time, it was my anything and everything! What would I look like if I were able to decide how people would perceive me? What would I wear? How much would I self-disclose and most importantly, how close would I walk to people of the opposite gender!?

Having read Yee & Bailenson's paper on The Proteus Effect, I had a bit of an idea about what it takes to feel the behavioral confirmation of friendliness: attractiveness and height. But I also wanted to be a bad-ass. So, I designed a seven-foot Norseman with a bit of a beer-belly and huge biceps. I wore a black t-shirt in stark contrast to my graying-blond facial hair, which also showed off my aging but noticeably ripped physique. I got 2 tats on my forearms: one of them was of a snake on fire and the other was a flaming nunchuck. Some people later asked me if I had the same tat on both arms, but I'm guessing they were just in awe of how each tat could simultaneously be more bad-ass than the other, culminating in an endlessly rising fugue of bad-assery. Black leather shoes, well-fitting dockers and a crocodile cane put me looking almost as stylish as Dr. Hancock himself.

Being taller than most other avatars, I quickly found myself in the center of attention. This was probably because I found it easier to tell people about my love for jelly donuts and protein shakes (increased self-disclosure). I really did notice that a behavioral confirmation was occuring when I told a story about wrestling bears and Sycophantom111 said, "Big Jake [me] could probably win it, look how tall he is: he can do anything !" Well I felt it was true, and told some of my better stories to the gang. And before long, it was true.

I also found that looking down on people made it much easier to bargain for my vintage jean jacket- by about the second round of bargaining I would usually get a better deal. This is also supported by Yee & Bailenson, who found that shorter participants were almost twice as likely to accept an unfair offer in the virtual environment by the second or third split. Height perception plays a huge role in how people assess a rational level of confidence, and nobody was more confident than Big Jake.

Yee & Bailenson also found that being more attractive (read: Norse) would decrease the average distance that I spent from fellow avatars. This is because I would theoretically feel more confident due to my better looks. Well, I met this man, rAINguy324, that could judge distances really well in the Second Life environment.I said, "hey rAINguy324, I'll give you this vintage jean jacket if you follow me around for a while and give me a qualitative assessment of my average distance from other people." He said he would do it, and so I spent about twenty minutes walking around and starting conversations with other characters. When I was done, I said, "Well, what do you say rAINguy324?" and he said, "Big Jake, you, you're like the shadow on a bbbig cat! Sometimes I was wondering, 'Does that person have four legs or is Big Jake really that close!?' and usually you were really that close, but once it was somebody with four legs..." So if I'm ready to believe rAINguy324, Yee & Baileson were confirmed in that my attractive Norseman, Big Jake, spent his time much closer to fellow characters than the average Second Life hipster.

This experiment was so enveloping that I am now a part-time bartender at a nice little bar with lots of cowboy themes. Y'all should come by some time, just ask for Big Jake!

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assignment 10

I am anything but internet savvy. I despise reading the newspaper online, and require a print version of the New York Times every morning; I never go on aim; I check facebook about once a day. So when I was given the prompt to play a computer-based multi-player video game, I was lost.

I had recalled seeing a link on the website cwtv.com, which I visit on a weekly basis to watch the guilty pleasure, “Gossip Girl”, for a virtual “Upper East Side”. I went to the site and pleasantly discovered that this link was for Second Life, and decided that this would be the perfect medium to complete this assignment.

After downloading the Second Life application, I apprehensively entered the virtual “Manhattan” world, which attempts to mirror the real-world environment in which I grew up. I was quite amused by the digital renditions of the Bethesda Fountain and the Palace Hotel.

My lack of internet skills became immediately apparent with my struggles to navigate my avatar around the virtual world. I began testing my abilities by “shouting” and making unprovoked gestures to passerby’s. I felt totally uninhibited, due to the anonymity of the avatar. When I grew tired of leaping and flying around “Manhattan”, I decided to remake my revise the physical appearance of my avatar.

I decided to be original and not create an avatar that was six feet tall, blonde, and thin. Instead, I created a character that was slightly overweight, with dyed yellow hair and clothed in an unflattering outfit. At first I did this because I had the preconceived belief that regardless of what my avatar looked like, it would behave in the virtual world similar to how I interact in real life. How could a computer animate image affect how I interact?

However, upon entering the Second Life realm, I proved myself wrong. I immediately felt like an outsider when I noticed that the other users in the game were all engaged in conversation. Though I tried to participate, I found that I had little to offer to the conversation due to the fact that I was so unfamiliar with the game and its overall purpose. I further felt isolated due to the rather unfortunate physical appearance I created for myself. All of the other avatars I can into contact with were tall, thin, and wearing sexually provocative clothing. I stood out from the crowd, and found myself increasingly frustrated with the online space.

Upon reflection it is clear that my experience in the “Gossip Girl” virtual world is in line with Yee & Bailenson’s hypotheses. The Proteus Effect accurately explains why I felt as distanced as I did in the virtual world. The Proteus Effect states that an individual’s behavior conforms to their digital self-presentation, independent of how others perceive them. In other words, regardless of how others actually do perceive you in an online space, your behavior is affected by your own perception of your digital self-presentation. In my own case, I felt self-conscious occupying the digital body of a borderline obese avatar whose physical appearance was most drastically different than that of the other avatars. The confirmation of the Proteus Effect emphasized how significant the removal of gating features is as a relationship facilitation factor in other online spaces. While in other online spaces, such as chat rooms and aim, gating features such as physical attractiveness are not apparent, in Second Life they are. According to Yee & Bailenson, the avatar itself is the primary identity cue in online environments, which therefore explains why I felt so constricted by my avatar’s physical appearance.

Though I think I can safely say that my experience in Second Life will be my last, it was definitely worthwhile to take a peek into the virtual world that has consumed so many individuals in recent years.

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Assignment 10: Second Life

Before this class, I had never heard of Second Life, so I was amazed by the options available in this virtual world. I chose to create an avatar of a promiscuously dressed female in the program Second Life. How exciting it was to alter the slightest features on my avatar, from the volume of her hair to the width of her neck. Initially Second Life reminded me of my Sim playing days when I would create families and build houses, but Second Life connects you with people from around the globe.

When designing my avatar, I was cognizant of the social implications of her mini skirt and tube top outfit. My purpose was partly to attract the attention of others and partly to experiment with a character different from myself. Back when I played the Sims, I had the same goals in mind when creating characters, but little did I realize how my choice of avatar influenced my behavior and the personality I assigned to the avatar. In an online virtual world, the choice of avatar becomes even more important as others will interact with your avatar according to level of attractiveness and perceived personality.

Yee and Bailenson in their article “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior” note that users conform to the stereotypes or expectations of their personally crafted avatar. As a promiscuously dressed female, I did adhere to the stereotype. I was quick to approach male participants in night-club environments. I knew that many of them would be receptive to my avatar, Sarah, because of her looks. People attribute good looks with other positive characteristics such as an outgoing nature and intelligence. Nonverbal expectancy violations theory implies that when good looking people overstep social boundaries such as maintaining personal space, a positive valence is created because the individual is attractive whereas a negative valence would be created if the individual were unattractive. Because of these blatant overattribution effects, people interpreted Sarah’s actions as confident as opposed to creepy.

Yee and Baileson state that since an avatar is the primary identity cue in an online environment, we can expect that the avatars influence how we behave and interact with others. Since all users are anonymous in Second Life, deindividuation or reduced social context cues give people more leeway in how they represent themselves. They feel free to express a distinctively different personality through their avatar because of the afforded anonymity of the online space. Combine this social freedom with pressure to conform to the behavior that the group environment expects of you, and the Proteus Effect is likely to emerge in online spaces such as Second Life. However, people will conform to the individual identity cues emitted by their avatar, even without the element of group pressure.

Self-perception theory states that we conform to the behaviors expected from our avatars not only because of group pressure but also because of the creator’s self-evaluation. The Proteus Effect takes place even when an individual is alone because we screen ourselves to make sure our character’s actions are in line with the perceived stereotypes attached to the character.

Although I did enjoy my experience as Sarah in Second Life, I doubt I will return to the virtual world. It was interesting to see the social implications of my promiscuous avatar design surface as more outgoing and aggressive personality traits. The Proteus Effect holds true in many aspects of Second Life because people try to idealize social interaction situations by conforming to social expectations of their characters.

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10: Blaire Kirax

With my new found obsession with the hit new CW show Gossip Girl, I decided that, having the opportunity to lead a second life in the computer based multiplayer space Second Life, I would try and emulate my absolute favorite character on the show, Blair Waldorf. Thus, I entered the Second Life community as a Resident named Blaire Kirax, and interacted with other avatars, or digital representations of self, in a variety of different communities that Second Life offered.

After choosing the name of my avatar, the next step in Second Life was to choose what Blaire would indeed look like. While I choose the general avatar named “City Chic,” I quickly changed pretty much everything about Blaire as soon as I could; everything from her hair color and length to her clothing to her foot size to her height were immediately altered. I was extremely careful as to how I created Blaire’s image because as Yee & Bailenson point out in their 2007 study, the avatar is our entire self-representation, and it is the primary identity cue in online environments. Therefore, taking parts from the Hyperpersonal Theory and following what is known as the Proteus Effect, I used behavioral confirmation and selective self-presentation to create an avatar that would look like what I felt people would expect from the identity that I wanted to portray. In simpler terms, as defined by Yee & Bailenson, the Proteus Effect is when people conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have.

Although Second Life allows people to do pretty amazing and extravagant things in it, such as buy real estate, buy goods and services, run businesses and organizations, attend school, and go on vacations, I stuck to the simplest aspect of this online world. In the orientation island that all new Residents must begin in, I learned how to chat with people, search for things, and travel. I additionally was able to do some pretty cool things that I would never be able to do in real life, such as walk under water, fly, and ride a Segway.

After completing the orientation section, I was then transported in to the Bear Dream Hub community, and this is the space where I started interacting with many of the other avatars. Because I created an avatar that I felt was pretty attractive, I was extremely confident in approaching people for conversation. Furthermore, I was much more upfront in the Second Life space than I would ever be in real life, and was not afraid to say or do anything as Blaire Kirax. I had a pretty intimate conversation with an avatar named Sebastian, and these findings are aligned with what Yee & Bailenson found in their study, as they concluded that the attractiveness of people’s avatars impacted how intimate participants were willing to be with a stranger. Because I felt that my avatar was on the attractive side, the Proteus Effect came in to play, and confirmed Yee & Bailenson’s thesis that self-representations have a significant and perhaps more importantly, instantaneous impact on our behaviors. As they noted in their study, as we choose our self-representations in virtual environments, our self-representations shape our behaviors in turn. These changes happen not over hours or weeks but within minutes (Yee & Bailenson 2007).

Although I only used Second Life for only a little more than an hour, it is easy to see how online gaming such as this can lead to Problematic Internet Use, problematic behavior related to too much online time. Caplan’s “vicious cycle” explanation outlined in his 2004 study does a great job explaining how an Internet space such as Second Life leads to the development of problematic behavior such as this. Furthermore, the nature of the space allows lonely individuals to be attracted to the greater anonymity, greater control over self-presentation, more intense/intimate self-disclosure, less perceived social risk, and less social responsibility that such a space offers.

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Assignment 10

This assignment came at an interesting time for me, having recently re-discovered the magic of Diablo II thanks to the appearance of a version that my (really, really crappy) laptop can actually run. I'd been playing single player, but it wasn't difficult to log on and begin a multiplayer game.

The game is relatively similar to World of Warcraft in that it involves running around and killing things in order to gain levels, thereby becoming stronger; and to find rare items, thereby becoming stronger. Players can team up as well in order to gain experience faster and to benefit from the skills of other people in their party.

The thing about Diablo II is that the player isn't given much of a choice with regard to avatar customization; there are only seven possible character types, and every character of a given type has the same basic model. I chose to be a barbarian, just because they're big and intimidating.

Indeed, Yee & Bailenson's Proteus Effect prediction about the avatar influencing a player's behavior proved at least partially true, as I rudely and aggressively stole my teammate's kills and took items that shouldn't have been mine without a second thought. Barbarians are the biggest, after all, so why not? If I had been a different sort of character, I doubt the avatar would have instilled me with the confidence the barbarian's did.

Nobody said anything to me about this, but I don't know whether that was so much a reflection of the avatar I chose as it was simple meekness on the other players' parts. If they had spoken up, in all likelihood I would have settled down and stopped being so barbaric, despite my avatar, although I'm sure it still would have influenced my behavior somewhat.

Their prediction about more attractive characters walking closer to confederates proved true as well, but this was likely a result of the game mechanics: the paladin class (more or less undeniably one of the more attractive male avatars) possesses abilities called "auras," which provide benefits to other party members but only when these members are within a certain range of the paladin. Naturally this will lead to the characters walking closer together regardless of attractiveness; it effectively renders this hypothesis untestable in this particular game.


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10: Adventures in an Online World

This assignment’s directive to participate in an online game for at least an hour was very easy for me. If you’ve read any of my earlier posts, you may have learned by this point that I am an avid gamer, focusing mainly on “massively multiplayer” online games (MMOGs). I’ve been playing these games for the better part of six years at this point, and over that time I’ve developed a significant self-perception of my online avatar.

My avatar’s name is Rayaru. (In case you are wondering, the name is a spelling mistake on the name of the character Rauru, the sage of light from The Legend of Zelda series of role-playing games.) I first created Rayaru in 2001, towards the end of my middle school years, when I joined the MMOG Ultima Online. As you can see from the screenshot I’ve posted, he is an older character (supposedly over 120 years old in fact!) with a grey beard that varies in length depending on the limitations of the game I’m playing. If you have any degree of experience with fantasy literature, from physical appearances alone you will have already recognized Rayaru as an archetypical wizard-type character. This is consistent with the “character class” that I first selected way back at the start of my UO days (a character class in these sorts of games is a sort of role that defines the types of skills and attributes your character will develop).

This wizard archetype was very significant in Rayaru’s birth. Since I had no real character image in mind when I set out to play UO, my perception of what he should look like came primarily from what I thought a wizard (or Mage as, UO refers to them) should look like. Since there are only a handful of class choices in any game, I believe that Yee’s assertion towards the end of his paper that avatar choice in these multi-person environments is supported. More often then not, a player will first decide on playing a mage, and then think “okay, I’m a mage; what should a mage look like?” This is a form of Yee’s Proteus Effect in action; in this case, the “black uniform” is the character class.

This follows through into how I play Rayaru in-game as well. Although to a certain extent his behavior mirrors my own – reserved and quiet for the most part – there is no question that I play into the mage/wizard archetype very strongly. Wizards are supposed to be people with an almost spiritual, mystical bond to the world around them. With this in mind, Rayaru tends to be more deferent in social situations, letting conversations run their course and then offering his own conclusions at the end. Following Yee’s findings, my already-reserved self-image is made even more reserved by the identity that was imposed on my character by its class choice.

In all my experience with these “collaborative virtual environments,” I have only found reason after reason to concur with Yee’s conclusion that a definite Proteus Effect exists within the virtual world. Normal people become bombastic warriors or erudite scholars based on the appearance of the characters that they create.

PS – Nick Yee is actually a very well-known researcher into the psychology of MMOGs. I’ve been an avid follower of his Daedalus Project ever since I found out about it. If you haven’t seen Daedalus before, I highly encourage you to check it out at the provided link.

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Assignment 10

For this assignment, I decided to make my little brother happy and try out World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is the largest MMORPG where you can pick a race, class, and professions. Since you generally have to pay to play, I downloaded the client and logged onto my brothers account, and created a new character in one of the PvP (player vs. player) realms. I picked the Alliance right away; the characters on the Horde looked like mean “bad guys” to me, where the Alliance ones looked human-like and friendly. I chose a female gnome with big pigtails.

Once I watched the beginning trailer, I found myself in the middle of a town area with no clue what to do. When I asked for help on the public chat, lots of people offered their help. Within a half an hour I advanced six levels, and teamed up with another newbie to do some of the “quests.” Later on while I was playing, I came across a more experienced player, who played with me for about an hour and helped me gain many more levels. This player (who was a big strong looking Draenei character and had a male avatar) also gave me money and bought me a good first set of weapons and gear. In general everyone I came across on WoW seemed helpful to me. Whenever someone used terms or acronyms in the chat, I asked what they were and no one bashed me for being new.

Yee and Bailenson describe the Proteus Effect as conforming to behavior they believe others expect them to have due to their avatars. I observed this slightly during my time playing the game. The gnome is a really tiny character compared with the others. They also appear kind of funny and goofy. Once I learned how to use the voice emotes, I noticed their voice also fit this description. I used the emotes and acted as how I believed people would think a small gnome would act. I also found myself walking close to other avatars. In the game I didn't partake in any negotiating although that is definitely part of the game at higher levels, so I am not sure if the Proteus Effect comes into play in that aspect of WoW. When I talked with other characters, I found myself disclosing a lot more than I thought I would, in accordance with the effect.

Another thing I found interesting was that I definitely found myself perceiving others based on their avatar. The guy who came to my aid seemed like a big strong type guy, where as other small gnomes I met, I perceived completely differently. I also think my choosing a girl avatar prompted more people to show me the ropes and help me out. I wonder what would happen if I chose the same type of character but made it male.