<![CDATA[Nicola Osborne : Weblog items tagged with rpg]]> http://elearningblogs.education.ed.ac.uk/oldelgg/elgg/nklosborne/weblog/ <![CDATA[Weeks 10 & 11: Social and Identity Play* (*or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Inner Elvin Hunter)]]> http://elearningblogs.education.ed.ac.uk/oldelgg/elgg/nklosborne/weblog/4139.html http://elearningblogs.education.ed.ac.uk/oldelgg/elgg/nklosborne/weblog/4139.html Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:29:50 GMT At a talk on the history of Lego [1] that I attended this week I discovered that Lego are about to launch a new MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) called Lego Universe (see trailer below). When asked, only two people in the audience had heard of this type of game and yet I think there would have been a great number more hands raised if the question had been "Has anyone heard of World of Warcraft or Everquest or games that work like them?".  

 

WoW inspired shirtThe popularity and business models of MMOGs, RPGs and MMORGs makes them a fascinating possibility for education. Though television shows, sports and home console games all have a significantly more visible leisure presence in current popular culture there are huge numbers of people quietly living our complex personal and social fantasies in these rich online games. Many of these games (indeed most of those I have seen) are significantly expensive to participate in and yet World of Warcraft (WoW) has over 11 million subscribers - all willing to pay an upfront fee and between $13 and $16 per month to play (around £8-10) the game[2] (see also Chan et al (2006)[10]) - indicating that there is something deeply compelling and entertaining taking place within such a game. Furthermore there are whole communities and businesses based around a game like WoW - machinima[4] and gold farming[5] (see also video below which forms part of a project from Ge Jin, a PhD student from the University of California San Diego[6]) being the most notorious though cafes that provide spaces for social (in both physical - the impact of which is discussed in Brown's account of new learning spaces (2005)[9] - and virtual senses) playing of MMORGs, quasi-official/unofficial merchandise and artwork[7], and web videos also feed off this very active community.

 

 

That social spirit and sense of investment in MMORGs is well captured by Gee (2003) [8] in his description of the intense anxiety of a player, "Adrian", facing the possibility of losing both elements of a character that he had built up (he would drop two levels if he was not ressurected - equating to about 12 hours of gameplay) and his relationship to his "clan" in EverQuest. A highly social process had to be completed to ressurect his character sparking an unusual overlap between his virtual clan and their real life identities. The most interesting part of this process is the team working and the ways in which this reflects practical real world skills. Gee describes the distributed skills structures at work in EverQuest clans and WoW guilds as "the Social Mind" and he also reflects on the ways in which highly experienced gamers can in turn become creators and hackers of these spaces - through the same social sharing processes that makes progress through the game possible. Hacking of this type can potentially generate huge technically skilled creativity (something highly transferrable not only to the games industry but many other professions) that takes the player beyond the game and into reflection on their gameplay experience and into a new form of role play where, instead of playing, say, an elvin hunter (my personal choice of character for our own experiments in WoW for this course) the player instead plays at being a games developer and/or computer programmer. In some senses it is this hacking activity - reflective, self-led, experimental, creative - that offers, in my opinion, the most exciting possibilities for learning since, if my own experience of learning programming is in any way representative, activity of this type will empower and have significant impact on the learner.

I acknowledge however that for many educational a more controlled gaming experience is preferred and the concept of team working and cooperation can certainly be safely experimented with in MMORGs in a way that is not always possible in person. We have debated the positives and negatives of role playing activities in physical situations on the discussion boards recently and it has been interesting to hear others' experiences of real life role playing contrasted with virtual experiences. Role playing should always be about a safe space for experimentation and the making of mistakes but many real world groupings include rivalvies, pre-existing relationships, and awkward social dynamics that can compromise the safety of the space. It would be nieve to assume all such compromises are eliminated in MMORGs since it may be that pre-existing rivalries and relationships exist (particularly if long term clan/guild relationships exist - a fun reflection of these strong affinity group bonds (Gee 2003) is included, below, in an episode from "The Guild" [16]) but it is fair to assume that an element of physical anonymity will allow some learners to feel more free to behave more freely.

 

There is, however, a concern raised by the embodiments possible in MMORGs particularly if they are to be used educationally and their use encouraged by trusted institions. At the time of Gee's account Adrian was 15 whilst a pivotal member of his community was a player from Indiana in his Thirties. Adrian comments:

"I still talk to the guy from Indiana sometimes. All of us have websites and message boards to talk on, to keep in contact with each other. Even with all like the Internet security stuff, we try not to give out our personal information, but after you get to know the person for a while, it becomes like second nature."

Although a sense of personal responsibility can, to an extent, be expected from higher and further education students it is still important that any educational use of MMORGs be well supported and that any learners exposed to these spaces be able to make well grounded judgements around their own privacy, the social ettiqueete and the potential costs of subscribing to MMORGs. Ensuring students are well supported will also mean ensuring games are available for multiple platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.) or are centrally available on campus (where applicable), something that proves to be no slight feat. Some console based games already offer online connections between diverse platforms (Chan et al 2006) but for games such as World of Warcraft, which are well established but also contain legacies of earlier technologies, organising in-game events may be complex for both students and tutors (something experienced this week in both WoW and EverQuest sessions). Software that may be limited in terms of compatibility, availability and cost is not a new issue (indeed software like AutoCAD and SPSS as well as costly GIS packages are commonly used by academia despite such constraints) but the element of fun, confidence, sociability and playfulness that one wants to encourage in game spaces can be hard to encourage if learners are confused, angered and frustrated (and potentially even excluded) by the process of entering the game space. In many physical courses initial encounters with software can be controlled by lab set up and increased levels of in-person support but the diversity of computers/gaming systems that students on an electronic course (such as this one) may be using makes support an extremely complex and unpredictable prospect.

Chan et al (2006)[10] examine the demographics of MMOGs and these two raise challenges to those wishing to make pegagogical use of MMOGs. Although women (indeed women over 40) represent a large proportion of those playing online games it is young adult males that make up the majority of MMOG players. The authors also note that many MMOG players, for various reasons, spend a colossal amount of time on play citing a study by Griffiths et al (2003)[15]) that found that a quarter of EverQuest players interviewed spent an average of 41 hours online (Chan et al (2006:81).

Personal MMORG Reflections 

My own experiences of MMORGs this week were limited to playing World of Warcraft. After a quite spectacular amount of time trying to get the software set up and functioning (I had accidentally downloaded a full version of the software and was mystified, when I downloaded the correct trial version, to find it installed this software as a separate application) and setting up my Battle.net account I was finally able to choose a player - an Elvin Hunter I names Suchgreeneye - and begin trying ouit the game itself. 

I found that gameplay was relatively intuitive though the screen layout was intensely complex and I was aware of the fact that I was not exhibiting particular skill in moving and inhabiting my character, or making selections of appropriatte tools and strategies for her. The format of the game - many sub missions make up the large MMORPG - guided me to near instant gratification as I found myself completing small manageable tasks and feeling great satisfaction at the achievement despite early tasks being clear training levels. However I did not (in part, perhaps because of my technical problems that meant I was unable to join the course sessions) find the game terribly social as a space. A few characters said hello to me and I attempted to communicate back. I am aware that the usefulness of guilds and social play does not really occur until a player reaches an advanced stage of the game but I also felt this was quite an alien space for conversation.

Just as I am naturally suspicious of chatting to random strangers in real life and in second life, I was also cautious about speaking to random characters in WoW. In part this was my own fault: I chose an avatar that had some synergies with a username (suchpretteyes) that I use widely online and, although I do not really think others would immediately google the character name and find me, I do consider my usernames to be recognisable versions of myself and thus somewhat exposed. On the whole I was, however, more concerned that I simply did not know how or what to respond. Should I respond in character or as myself? Should I be chatty or is WoW primarily about the game? Could the person I was speaking to possibly be less knowledgeable about Wow? How would I make conversation with them? I am sure some of these issues would be overcome by further gameplay. Although I enjoyed spending a full evening (many more hours than planned) in WoW I did not find myself pining for gameplay the next day. Indeed I had previously been toured around WoW by enthusiastic friends and I could not - either as viewer or player - find a compelling reason for playing the game seriously on a regular basis. I enjoyed the game greatly - though I have some reservations about the learning possible by a game that is fundamentally centred on conflict - but found it hard not to be aware of the monetary and time cost of enthusiasm. I could not say whether this subconciously affected by enjoyment or engagement but I know that conciously it was a factor in my motivation to play on beyond the first few hours. The notion that I could get engrossed enough to take up a subscription somewhat alarmed me, not because this is any more inherantly unacceptable or odd than going to the cinema once a month, going out to dinner once a month, or other regular recurring leisure costs, but more because there are many other things I would prefer to do with my time and many friends I would prefer to stay up to date with online but already find it hard to make time for (they are not WoW players so I could not, as I know some friends do, use WoW as a shared virtual social activity space). 

I had hoped to try some other MMORPGs out during this course but was unable to successfully access EverQuest and ran out of time for further MMORPG experimentation though I am excited to trial Lego Universe when it comes out as I have a great existing affection for Lego as a creative experience. Farmville is, however, the game I am most interested in trying out following our work on WoW. Like WoW Farmville has a huge and growing audience, attracts substantial income from that audience and has, on the whole, existed relatively quietly as a social game within Facebook. Unlike WoW Farmville sits in a female dominated online space and is based around farming activities so potentially offers some interesting possibilities for learning even as part of conventional gameplay. The connection to existing mediated social networks has both benefits and compromises for pedagogical usage since it would be administratively simpler to set up a game between students but might force students who would not otherwise wish to open access to their profiles to uncomfortably blend studying and private personas. It is an intriguing space though so I want to play and explore it in the near future. 

 

Tangental MMORG learning activities

At the beginning of this blog post I commented on the phenomenon of Machinima and so, to close, I wanted to return to the idea of subverting games designers' intentions in MMORG activities. Earlier this week my course colleague Sarah Payne posted a short insightful interview she had conducted with other players in World of Warcraft about the sociability of game play (Payne 2010 [17]). This is not an activity that forms part of game play, nor is it an activity that could only take place in this (or any other MMORG) space, but it is an activity that potentially benefits from the anonymity and sense of community that exists in the space. My own experience of conducting a mini digital ethnography for a previous module (Osborne 2009 [18]) brings to mind several interesting possibilities for using MMORGs for engendering trust in research participants. For particularly sensitive subjects participants may wish to remain anonymous even to researchers - although such situations would obviously raise tricky complexities around the validation and deeper analysis of participants' responses since such interviews would lack authenticatable context.

On a much lighter note I also liked the creative use of WoW as a space for comedic experimentation in the video included below (Machinima 2008). As Rich Kuras talks to various WoW players and polls their opinions of candidates for the 2008 presidential election he actually reveals opinions and ideas that are at least as insightful as many serious news programmes' focus groups into the same topics revealed. By placing the democratic process in a playful space the filmmakers elicit playful but personal responses from players.

 

Returning to Gee's discussions of Semiotic Domains I think this offers a fun model for increasing engagement from those who may not feel that public debate is couched in anologies or terminology that speaks to them. With a UK election currently approaching this is broadly interesting but I also see links here to many learning contexts in which the process of moving from an outsider to an insider can be slow and frustrating and where greater connection to familiar environments may increase initial levels of understanding and ownership of learning.

 

 References

 

]]>