Saturday, June 6, 2009

Experience opposing perspectival views from both side of a conflict in MMOG

Briefly, Gonzalo Frasca's article in Serious Game Source talks about change in perspectival view players experience when they play the role of the enemy in videogames. I have heard of videogames that allow players to choose whether they want to take the role of the good guy or the bad guy at the start or at an advance stage of playing so that they can experience opposing perspectival views of both side of the conflict.

In WOW, Nick Yee found that players would usually go for characters that are visually pleasing and associated being on the good side when they first sign up for an account. For their second account (alt) they would go for the least popular, gore-looking characters. While these visually least pleasing characters are not the bad guys of the game (but perceived to be by players), players using them experience being treated to some degree as social outcasts. In Whyville, Kafai reported that white players facing social discrimination in the game world when taking up black-bodied avatars.

So experiencing different perspectival views mediates what players take away from playing, impacts their identity development and how they "read" the game. Granado Espada does not have characters that are perceived to be the bad guys or allow players to take the role of the enemy. All characters in GE are pleasing-looking, and have their own attractions and special abilities. So opportunity to experience different perspectival view is non-existent in GE. But interestingly, there is a particular faction in the server that I am playing that is well-known for being the NUMBER ONE enemy of botters and macro-users. They seems to be policing the game for IAH (:D I'm just joking).

I can say they are disliked by many players. I wonder what it will be like to be in their faction, listen to their faction chat, and get into their faction activities like reporting and pk botters and macro-users. That will surely provide a good window why they do what they did. I think I should explore this. Or interview someone who have experience playing in their faction and other faction that are open to botting and macroing. Wonder what interesting insights can I gain.

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