A Touch of Medieval: Narrative, Magic and Computer Technology in Massively Multiplayer Computer Role-Playing Games


Stern Eddo
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

The paper provides an in depth examination of the narrative structure of Massively Multiplayer Online Computer Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). The analysis is focused on the narrative complexities created by the relationships between computer technology, the medieval fantasy that is central to the genre, and the emergent nature of the online player society. The paper is divided into four major sections: the first examines the question of neomedievalism (as pronounced in the 1970's by Umberto Eco) and its relationship to technology and magic. The second section recounts the historical development of the MMORPG genre. The third section examines the narrative form unique to fantasy genre computer games that arises when the cogent narratives of the fantasy genre are mixed with the equally fantastic narratives of high tech computer culture. The fourth section examines a specifi c set of game "artifacts" that make the specific narrative diegesis of MMORPGs.

 

Representing Users in the Design of Digital Games


Kerr Aphra
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

While economic and sociological studies have generally recognised the important explicit role that users play in shaping a technological artefact - through feedback channels after launch and market trials and studies before launch - there has been less exploration into the more implicit strategies by which designers attempt to pre-figure users prior to launch. Given that design involves making choices, and framing the choices made by users, this paper suggests that Madeline Akrich's approach (1992, 1995) may provide a constructive tool for exploring more implicit strategies of representing users in the early stages of the design process. It may also prove useful in exploring how users can be excluded or alienated through design. While acknowledging that users may actively negotiate designers' representations this paper will explore the usefulness of the Akrich approach in relation to understanding the design of digital games. A study in 2001 of production in digital games companies in Ireland found that various macro, meso and micro level factors play a role in limiting the games developed and the user groups developed for. This paper will present findings from ongoing research conducted in 2002 into the reasons why and how one start-up company decided to design a multiplayer online game for males aged 25-40.

 

Myzel – Selforganization in Networked Worlds


Judmaier Peter Piringer Gunter Piringer Jörg
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

Using a Proof of Concept (PoC) of Myzel, we tested a new concept for an online community game. In contrast to existing simulation games Myzel allows the players to negotiate and change the rules of their virtual world. Apart from minor technical restrictions they have to create rules for legislation, resources, economy political organizations and other areas. This should help players to understand the complex inner workings of modern societies. Myzel's PoC was developed with the help of a small test community using extreme programming techniques. The PoC was tested in a controlled environment as well as in a free scenario. The results proved the validity of the game concept in most aspects. With small adaptations and a state-of-the-art user interface, Myzel should develop a great selforganized virtual society.

 

Interaction Forms, Agents and Tellable Events in EverQuest


Klastrup Lisbeth
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper focuses on forms of interaction and agents in a virtual world and how one may apply an understanding of these to an actual analysis of a virtual world. First, it proposes a distinction between 4 basic agents in a world: players, NPCs, objects and world rules. These agents are involved in 4 basic forms of interaction: navigating, manipulating, social interaction and information retrieval. Looking more closely at how these different forms of agents and actions forms are employed can help us think more closely about the construction of tellable events (emergent narratives) in a multiuser environment.

 

The Open and the Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression


Juul Jesper
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for examining computer game structure and applies it to the massive multiplayer game EverQuest.

 

The EverQuest Speech Community


Tosca Susana
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper analyses the EverQuest speech community from a pragmatic point of view, in order to find out how multiplayer games speech communities can be characterized. This study is part of the currently ongoing collective project "Have great faction with the dragons - an EverQuest Study" at the IT University in Copenhagen, of which also Jesper Juul's "The open and the closed: Games of emergence and games of progression" and Lisbeth Klastrup's "Interaction forms and tellable events in EverQuest" are a part.

 

Albert Goes Narrative Contracting


Newman Ken Grigg Robert
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

RPG’s (Role Playing Games) and improvisational theatre have some obvious similarities. Both require the participants to work together in real-time to construct dynamic narrative elements. Seeing communication in terms of ongoing narrative contracts is a well-accepted principle of improvisational theatre (Johnstone 1981). The recipient of an offered narrative element can accept the offer, block it, or make a counter-offer. This paper describes a methodology for studying subjects engaging in a controlled online role-playing ‘encounter’. The encounter is titled ‘Albert in Africa’ and the study draws on the previously described Fun Unification Model (Newman 2004). In this study, subjects’ individual responses were correlated with the number of acceptances, blocks and counter-offers they make during their encounter. Comparisons are then made with observations of the massively multiplayer game World of WarCraft. From this emerges a methodology for analyzing the complex interactions of RPG encounters

 

“A Totally Different World”: Playing and Learning in Multi-User Virtual Environments


Kao Linda Galas Cathleen Kafai Yasmin
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This study examines children’s perceptions of their experiences in two science-oriented multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), River City and Whyville. Sixth-grade students were asked how they would rate and compare different features of these environments. The children rated River City as providing greater educational benefits but preferred communicating with real people in Whyville as opposed to River City’s computer-based agents. They felt more integrated into the community in Whyville, where they enjoyed equal participation with other members, than as guests to the virtual town of River City. Finally, children rated their enjoyment at customizing their unique Whyville avatars higher than when selecting a pre-constructed avatar in River City; however, they rated both MUVEs highly when asked about seeing their avatars onscreen.

 

Killing Like a Girl: Gendered Gaming and Girl Gamers’ Visibility


Bryce Jo Rutter Jason
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

Approaches to gender and computer gaming have been dominated by textual and content analysis at the expense of broader understandings of gaming. This paper examines computer games through gendered game content, game spaces and activities. The paper suggests that despite the popular stereotype of the computer gamer as an antisocial male teenager, there is increasing evidence of female gaming. This suggests the need to examine the relationship between gender and this activity in greater depth and within everyday contexts. The authors examine the possibility of computer gaming as a potential site for challenging dominant gender stereotypes, relating this to the production and consumption of contemporary leisure.

 

Gameplay Rhetoric: A Study of the Construction of Satirical and Associational Meaning in Short Computer Games for the WWW


Madsen Helene Johansson Troels Degn
2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings

This paper maps out the construction of non-narrative rhetorical meaning in short computer games. Setting off from the recent emergence of short satirical computer games on the World Wide Web, it observes that at least some computer games do have potentials as a medium of artistic expression; that regardless of the possible narrative powers of computer games. Drawing on Leonard Feinberg's categories of satire and George Lakoff's theory of metaphor, the article describes the basic rhetorical mechanisms of satire and association in computer games and suggests that satire and especially allegorical association in this context appear as two sides of a common theme: the call for immortality and the mastery of computer games.