The Real MMORPG World

04/23/06

The Real MMORPG World

From last fall I have been playing two distinct MMORPG games. The first one is Rose Online from Triggersoft and the other is the well known World of Warcraft from Blizzard. The basics of gameplay is simple, but may become complex along the way. The player start as a level1 character and have to develop his skills getting to a higher level, but it can’t be done by only themselves, they need the influence of the virtual world’s society. In the real world, we also need to the help of society to complete a variety of our daily tasks. MMORPG games society’s are a lot alike the real world’s society.

The fist thing that I learned while taking a sociology class is how society started and how this influence what we have today in our world. Hunt and Gather society structure is usually the first thing that is learned on an introduction on sociology class. This kind of society consists of self-sufficiency and group work. The whole idea of this society is men go hunting while women stay on the tribe or village gathering resources and food. I would say that virtual world societies are better developed than hunter and gather since it has all the capitalism concepts in it as well as the use of many of today’s theories, individualism and economic structure which on hunter and gather societies were not yet thought.

One aspect that makes virtual world societies different from real world societies is how fast it is develop. It took a long time for us to get where we are today, the real world has passed through many processes of development and changes during thousands of years. Virtual game societies have to develop quickly. Everything starts when game developers release the first versions of the game or the betas. These betas are the first step in starting a virtual society. At this period only some players may be eligible to play the game is not yet on the market for the public. Therefore, the concepts and ethics of this society still need to be learned. However, it is on this step where the main issues of an society may emerge and the issues that may be causing problems may be fixed including technical issues that could keep this virtual society from thrive.

Addiction is what makes virtual societies so real. Some people may want to spend most of their time in front of the game screen playing with their characters and interacting with others online. Sometimes these people may become a little away from their real life experiences living in this virtual society which they need to care and worry. Living in two societies may become a little confusing if long hours of gameplay are spent everyday; therefore, the player may have problems dividing the time between the two societies that he live in. If a player can’t decide what world to live in both worlds collide creating problems specially for the real world. Addicted MMORPG gamers skip school days and sometimes work to play more and more. There must be a division when a person is addicted to a game, MMORPGs are the most addictive game as people say, “Evercrack” when people are playing “EverQuest” since without discussion it was the most addictive MMORPG of all times. The gamming world sometimes may look like a daily talk. The player needs to enter at least a couple times a day even for a couple minutes to check what’s new on the virtual world.

As in the real world we have killers, thieves and corruption, in the virtual world we also have bad people that makes the gamming experience not worth while. There are rules and laws that keep the game fair for everybody, but there is always a way to go around it go get some advantage. The most common state that any kind of hack or software that may affect the game play giving advantage over other players is considered illegal. Cheating creates lots of influences in the virtual world society. Other players may feel angry since a minority has the highest level and the best equipments without having to spend lots of time and effort on their characters.

The game companies as would play the role as the House of Representatives play on the real world, keeping cheaters away from the virtual society creating new laws and patches/updates to be always ahead of the newest ways to cheat on the game. In game laws against cheating are clear, “you cheat you are banned”. However, as in the real world, lots of bad guys escape from theses laws. There is zero tolerance for cheating by the end of last year, 18,000 accounts were banned from World of Warcraft (Wood)

It is not only the game companies that play a part on non-fair game play. The players themselves create ethic norms. Different from rules ethic norms are not required to be followed, but players know that they make the game play better for everyone. One of the norms that are respected my most players on the virtual world is the KS (Kill Stealing) norm. For instance if a player is killing a monster, then you start to kill the monster that he is killing without his permission with the intention of stealing some of the monster’s experience points (XP) or willing to make the other player angry.

It is very common to see someone trying to scam another player to get some item for free. For instance someone may tell you to trade an item which you really need making a very good deal. Exited with the great deal, you want the transaction to be made as soon as possible because you think that someone else may get the deal before you. Therefore, you want to hurry, the scammer on the other hand is waiting for your move, and then when the transaction is over, somehow the scammer managed to steal your money without giving you his item. Scams are stated as a law by the game companies, but in my opinion it is considered an ethical issue since most scams are hard to be reported if the scammed person does not have any proof of the scam activity, the scammer will not be prejudiced.

In South America as well in some other countries, it is common to give a kiss on the cheek to greet friends or someone we first met. In the US, this ethical act is not common we usually shake hands when we first met. In Asia, young people need to be always polite to the elderly or higher position workers where in America we say “You” to everybody. In the virtual world, there are also cultural and geographical ethical issues that may be very different from one country to another. During my experience, I have been analyzing the ethical behavior of two different servers. One of them is from US and the other from Japan. It is interesting the way players interact. For instance, in the Japanese server, is not ethical to send massages to everyone asking for an item. Also in Japan, players do no open their shops on the middle of the street they are carefully organized on the side, so players could walk in the street easily. On there other hand on the American server, players open their shops anywhere they think would make the best sales. It is interesting to see that one same game may have lots of differences from one country to another.

The most similar aspect when comparing the real world with the MOORPG worlds is the economy. Items are sold and bought every second you are playing. As well as in the real world the power of the money creates lots of opportunities. In most MMORPG games, a player has the option of opening a shop to sell the items he had collected during his journey. Sometimes even though a character is weak the player may have lots of power because of his large amount of cash. Lots of economic theories and laws are applied to MMORPG games. For instance the laws of demand and supply can be easily seen if a server does not have a large number of players the prices would go down. Also in most games players have the ability of crafting new weapons with materials gathered. The materials price is affected if the price of the weapon increases and vice-versa as well as in the real world. It is important to have in-game business relationships to increase sales. While playing I always looked forward in finding richer people where I could buy items or materials in bulk and sell it retail if you have connections the money will come quicker even though the return on investment is smaller because of the middle man. There are lots of ways that money can be made on MOORPGs, this ways can differ from game to game as well as the server the game is played. Some economists have used EverQuest to understand some of the economics issues in the real world society (Shapiro). I think MOORPG should be recommended to help Economics students to learn about the class since lots of famous economists laws and theories are applied in these games.

Advertising also play its role when a item is being sold, players must choose the correct name/message for their shops to attract the largest amount of customers. Also they must set a target market for instance Warriors if a sword is being sold. Another way a item can be advertised is by “shout”. Shouting allows the player to send a message to lots of people at the same time telling about the item they are selling. Once I saw a game that a player had the ability of increasing the distance that a shout would go attracting further customers to their shop. As in the real world, the quicker and the more efficient mean of advertising will bring a larger amount of people to your shop.

The basic American family consists of two heterosexual parents and 2.3 children. On the virtual world, I would describe families as guilds or clans which consist of one guild master and its members. It is hard to compare mare online friends with family, but some times the relationship with your guild members can be very strong. Guild members must help each other as family members to make to group thrive with success opening new doors that alone were not possible. Some players are really into the game as strange as it may look, some players may create in game marriages becoming spouses in the game.

It is common for guild members to have each other on their messengers bringing the relationship out of the game to sometimes real world relationships or guild meetings on a bar for example. However, this situation may go in different ways. During my long hours of MMORPG gamming, I always had my neighbor playing with me. The relationship between my real world friends with my online family was different since my amount of trust was a lot more to my real friend than to anybody in my guild; on the other hand, sometimes in game relationships may become stronger than real world relationships.

These two different worlds sometimes may meet together creating lots of arguments and issues for both sides. The biggest issue between these societies is the relationship between virtual property and real world property. Items are sold on eBay for real cash, if you are rich enough in a game, you may choose to sell your items in the real world. Searching for “World of Warcraft items” for example on eBay would bring lots of ads of items and characters being sold. Is it fair to buy your items from eBay? It is not fair for a young rich boy to have all the good items without having to spend time and effort for it, as in cheating, this boy would have an advantage over other players making the game unfair. Some game companies outlaw the sale of items on Internet auction sites banning the vendor and the buyer from the game. However, other companies may think in more capitalist view thinking that eBay sale may increase the amount of players since it is easier to be stronger. In my way of thinking it is an really unethical issue.

Virtual property has became important for game players, sometimes the value of one character can reach up to $1200.00 (Scheeres) in some underdeveloped countries this is less than their monthly salary. Therefore, some people even choose to fight for these items as it happened in China when a player murdered another for stealing virtual property. In some cases disputes between virtual properties can become too serious.

Real world and the virtual world are starting to meet closer and closer mostly because MMORPGs can be more addictive than some drugs. Players spend long nights on the virtual worlds trying to be the best players or trying to fit into the society. During this period I was looking at the game in a different way trying to figure out the behavior of players and the virtual society I could see that the virtual world and the real world can be very similar also because we bring our cultural, and views of the real world to the virtual world instead of creating a new world totally different. Even though we don’t have real dragons and warriors, players can compare and visualize these characters as members that have the same behaviors on the real world. But, wasn’t it just a game?

Works Cited

Scheeres, Julia. “The Quest to End Game Addiction”, Wired Magazine. May, 2005, 21 Apr, 2006. <http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,48479,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev>

Wood, Jon. “18,000 Accounts Banned” MMORPG.COM. 22, Dec 2005, 21 Apr 2006

<http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=4273&fp=1600,1200,1145829550296,20060423175910>

Shapiro, Robert. “Fantasy Economics”, Slate. 4, Feb, 2003. 21 Apr 2006