Virtual World Evaluation

The Road To My Village:
Evaluation, Description and Classification of Synthetic
Worlds as Research Fields
Marek Buzinkay, Leeds Met University
office@buzinkay.net
October 10, 2008
Abstract
This short paper documents the way to objective 1 of my research project
(http://www.buzinkay.net/research/). It argues and outlines the process of
evaluation and selection of a specific synthetic world as the main
investigation arena of my research study. Furthermore, it describes in short
the four synthetic worlds that have been chosen and it also presents the
Synthetic World Cultural Classification, which has been constructed.
1. Introduction
Whereas we are represented in the real world with our physical body, we are
in need of a digital representation in synthetic worlds. Such representations
are called avatars, and, depending upon the virtual world setting, avatars can
be chosen with different skills, style, sex, apparel, and race among other
options. These options may vary from one synthetic world to another (Bartle,
2003), but normally avatars are 3-dimensional, interactive and controlled by
the user via an interface. Their appearance can be changed to the player’s
imagination, and they can collect, buy or sell artefacts of different value
within a synthetic world.
The term ‘synthetic world’ (Castronova, 2006) highlights the fact that these
3D worlds are of human origin, and that they are real in the sense of being a
social and economic arena.
As avatars represent us in such environments, they occupy an interesting
position in an increasing cultural, social, political and economical
environment. Populations of single MMOGs like World of Warcraft are bigger
than states like Austria (around 8 Mio; compare Woodcock, 2008), and the
GNP per capita of MMOG Norrath is somewhere between Bulgaria and Russia
(Castronova, 2001). The social and economical importance of synthetic
worlds may increase dramatically as currently isolated MMOGs will be
connected in the coming years to a synthetic world-metaverse: avatars could
cross the boundaries of their original MMOG without losing or changing their
identity.
The general aim of the research study “Avatar Narratives: Identity and Social
Mobility in Synthetic Worlds” is to clarify social mechanisms in synthetic
worlds regarding identity crafting. Avatar identity is seen as the core of any
future theory about social mobility in synthetic worlds and should provide a
better understanding of social activities in such environments.
The main research question deals with the role of narratives in the creation
of an avatar identity as well as their consequence for reputation and social
mobility within synthetic worlds. This said, this research study should ask:
o how an avatar identity is built upon narratives,
o how the social network of an avatar contributes to the building of an
avatar identity,
o what role avatar identity plays in any social mobility theory in synthetic
worlds, and
o what media / applications can be used to generate such an identity of
digital traces, for example text, images, screencasts .
For a detailed outline of the research questions, see the final research study
proposal.
Synthetic worlds serve as a prime field of research for this study. They are
the “natural” habitat of avatars and social online communities. Regarding the
research questions, it becomes necessary “to dive into” the cultural space of
avatars (and their communities) to participate, to observe and to interact with
avatars to generate relevant data. This proceeding is due to the quality of
data the study wants to reveal: rich descriptions of a culture. Ethnographic
methods depend on access and contact to informants of specific (sub)cultures to collect data of origin, to understand their language and culture
and to analyse the complex system of interaction, values and social order
properly.
As each culture on earth has its own cultural values, ways to communicate
and to create social order, cultural questions can’t be generalized and be
valid for all cultures, but first for the culture researched. In a similar way, this
is true for synthetic worlds:
o they differ in age, used technology, game type, game themes,
o but also in computer pre-requisites, fee models, avatar interaction,
avatar modelling functions and many more features;
o players behind avatars have different motives (Yee, 2007; Ducheneaut
& Moore, 2003 ) to play certain games and to interact with other
avatars
In all, the design of a synthetic world, the business model and the player
base decide what kind of avatar culture will be established in a synthetic
world. There are no research studies to explain the relationship between
these factors, but some studies (Bartle, 2003; Quandt, 2007; Taylor, 2006;
among others) and the diversity of synthetic worlds and their themes suggest
that their cultures differ from one of other worlds. This said, it is important
to reflect the process of selection of a synthetic world for such a research
study. These steps are described in the following sections.
2. Existing synthetic worlds
First of all, I started to compile a list of potential synthetic worlds. I used
online resources (see section 9 “online resources”) to do this and finished
with a first spreadsheet, listing different categories of role-playing games
(RPGs):
o Console-RPGs
o Computer-RPGs
o Tactical-RPGs
o Rogue-like RPGs
o Massive Multiplayer Online - RPGs
Why role-playing games?
Role-playing games give the player the possibility to interact with others.
Some types of electronic games interact “only” with the computer (e.g.
“Pacman”) or don’t use a virtual ego for interaction (“Chess”). Instead, roleplaying games offer features that enable to interact and to store artefacts,
hence to create a culture of values and social order within a social space like
a synthetic world. These cultures are a mix of imported (e.g. Schroeder,
2001) and developed social values, which makes it important to consider the
cultural background of the dominant user group within a synthetic world,
too.
First selection
This list generated around 1.500 single games. As a first step, I excluded
some groups of games for the following reasons:
o they don’t offer player interaction in persistent worlds ( ComputerRPGs)
o they don’t use avatars as core element of game design ( TacticalRPGs, Rogue-like RPGs)
o they are not persistent: synthetic worlds are generated at the
beginning of a game session and stopped or erased at the end of a
game session. Almost all Console-RPGs work this way. Some like
“Home” of Sony are still under development or very young and in a Beta
phase of testing.
As a result, I focused on the remaining group of MMORPGs because they
don’t show the characteristics outlined above. It is a pragmatic step to filter,
but also a qualitative one: only MMORPGs can offer player interaction
through avatars as their key element of design, player identity, and
persistence. The list of synthetic worlds can be seen in the appendix of this
document.
The evaluation process
This first selection reduced the list of potential synthetic
My next step was to create evaluation criteria for the
process of the remaining synthetic worlds. The goal
synthetic world as the main research place and to
alternative MMORPGs for additional data checks.
worlds down to 197.
following evaluation
was to identify one
have two or three
I formulated criteria that must be met (“mandatory criteria” – section 3) and
three groups of different-weight criteria (“other considered criteria” – section
4). Due to the huge amount of games, I developed a procedure to minimize
the data collecting effort:
1. Step: all games to be checked for mandatory criteria
2. Step: all games to be ranked upon highest weighted criteria: any
games with one K.O. or two 0-values will be excluded
3. Step: all remaining games to be ranked upon 0,5 weighted criteria: any
games with two 0-values will be excluded
4. Step: sum up all criteria values for remaining games
In the next sections, I will outline the evaluation process in detail.
3. Mandatory Criteria
According to my evaluation process, the next step was to evaluate the entire
list of 197 MMORPGs to establish whether they meet all mandatory criteria. If
not, they would be excluded from further evaluation.
Criteria definition
The overall research study wants to analyse how avatar identity is created,
how it supports and uses social capital and how social mobility is possible
within and among synthetic worlds. Due to these objectives, a future study
must be conducted in a proper cultural environment, means MMORPG, where
these matter of facts can be found and researched. Otherwise, the data
collected would not deliver answers from the proper cultural environment.
I defined the following four mandatory criteria:
1. Avatars must be available: avatars are a part of the synthetic world.
2. Avatars are essential to interact among players: avatars can be
controlled by the player and used to communicate to and interact with
other players.
3. Avatars represent a different identity than the player itself: avatars are
not a simple reference to the real person behind the avatar but have
their own visual and functional characteristics, a social network of
avatars and they are not reduced to display real-world skills,
achievements and personal data (like age, sex, profession).
4. Avatars act in a persistent world: the synthetic world exists and ages
also when avatars are not “online”.
Next, I want to argue why I choose these criteria as mandatory.
Avatar types
Depending of the capabilities of our avatar, we can perform differently in
those worlds. Regarding criterion 2, I would like to outline different avatar
types (and their place of existence), to explain their distinct features and
thereby to show the importance of this criterion.
1. 2D Avatar: this is the simplest form of avatar. A 2D avatar is a twodimensional picture of a face, upper body or complete body, mostly
used in applications like forums, chats or VoIP and email clients. These
avatars are very basic and can’t normally do anything than to show
their “face”.
2. 2D animated Avatar: this is a normal 2D Avatar with some animations
build in and also used in applications like mentioned above. The
advance here is a more realistic and lively avatar. Some chat services
use such animated avatars to ‘talk’ to customers. One avatar-based
service like this is Stella (a chat-bot). Another form of animated 2D
avatar are cartoon avatars (e.g. at Club Penguin).
3. 2,5D avatars like in many virtual games (e.g. Papermint, Habbo) show
some 3D perspectives by applying a certain viewing angle through the
interface to the avatar. They are limited in their moves, and they can
communicate to each other. Often, they can also collect objects and
“buy” artefacts.
4. 3D avatars: the main difference to 2,5D avatars is the new won
perspective. The viewing point can change between first person and
bird view, sometimes 360 degrees. 3D avatars can move almost
naturally in their virtual environment and communicate via chat among
them. Example: Entropia.
5. 3D editable avatars: typically, this type of avatar can collect objects and
change their appearance (like clothing, hair cut and the colour of eyes).
Such avatars exists in worlds like ‘There’, ‘Kaneva’ and ‘Metaversum’.
6. 3D knowledge avatar: this type of avatar is the highest form of
available avatars. Such avatars can not only change their appearance,
but:
 add new gestures
 add new skills
 add and create new artefacts
 create note cards
and more. The best example for a 3D knowledge avatar is an avatar in
SecondLife.
Avatars below 3D are of minor value for this research study not only because
of low interaction functionality, but also in form of avatar identity creation
(criterion 2). Where we can’t add distinct features and visual characteristics to
our avatar, avatar identity crafting is very limited (mandatory criteria 3).
Criterion 3 is the core criteria of the entire research study: the study doesn’t
want to research the player-avatar relationship, but the process of identity
creation of the avatar itself through the community of avatars. Avatars are
“born” with the creation of a database account in a synthetic world, but their
identity as “independent” avatar is a process of months and years. If there is
no need in a specific synthetic world to create such type of avatar identity,
this environment is not considered valuable for this study. The general aim
of the study is to clarify not only the identity creation process, but also the
possibility to transfer avatars from one world to another – including their
identity.
Evaluation process and result
I used my list of 197 MMORPGs to access online information about each
synthetic world. During this data collection process, I identified YouTube
screencasts as a quick way to ask for the mandatory criteria. In contrast to
official screenshots and trailers of game producers, YouTube screencasts
have been produced by users recording their game. This is far more valuable,
because it showed the MMORPG in action. This means, most of the time it
displayed true avatar interaction. In a few cases, YouTube videos were not
available. In this case I used only the official websites as data source.
The result of this process was that 116 MMORPGs didn’t meet all four
mandatory criteria and were excluded. The remaining 81 MMORPGs will be
further evaluated, which is described in the next section. The complete
evaluation sheet of all 197 MMORPGs is available in the appendix.
4. Other Considered Criteria
In this section, I will discuss the nomination of other considered criteria for
my evaluation process as well as the process itself.
Useful criteria
After excluding more than a half of MMORPGs from my list, I still had 81 to
analyze and to evaluate to choose one as my prime arena for field research.
Therefore, I developed a list of additional criteria:
o History and likely future of a MMORPG
o Main activity time frames
o Customizable avatars
o Operating system
o Existing synthetic world economy
o Game specific networks
o Member base
o Game engine type
o Costs
o Research literature
o Research data
Why do I have to consider them? I want to describe each one of these criteria
and explain their value for my research project. I also had to weight them
because one criteria may be more important to the project than another.
1. History and future of a MMORPG: this is a very important factor,
because I have to be sure that the MMORPG will be available for the
next 18 months (of my research project) and hopefully longer (to
conduct other research projects); “history” means also that I need a
research environment for my project with an already established virtual
society and cultural values.
Weight: 0,75
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Values: 10 points (“established history”, “bright future”), 5 points (“just
started”, “bright future”), 0 points (“established history”, “future
undecided”), K.O. (“no future”)
Main activity time frames: this is a very important factor too. The
question is: “When does avatar interaction mainly occur?” This may
depend from group to group, but also from server to server. Server in
East Asia have other main activity time frames than in the US or
Europe. I have to make sure that I would be available almost every day
during the main activity time. In my case, these are the evening hours.
Weight: 0,75
Values: 10 points (21.00 – 02.00, UTC+1), 5 points (07.00 – 16.00,
UTC+1), 0 points (16.00 – 21.00, UTC+1), K.O. (02.00 – 07.00, UTC+1)
Customizable avatars: the third very important feature is if users can
customize their avatars. This is important for role-playing and identity
crafting as avatars can distinguish themselves from others.
Weight: 0,75
Values: 10 points (“fully customizable”), 5 points (“limited
customization”), 0 points (“only standard customization available”)
Operating system: synthetic worlds normally need client software to
be installed on a local computer to connect to a central game server.
This client software must run on a given operating system (OS), but is
not always available for all existing OS. As I have limited resources, I
only can provide notebooks running on MacOS or Windows.
Weight: 0,5
Values: 10 points (Mac OSX 10.3 and above, Win2000), 5 points
(WinXP, Vista), K.O. (Linux and others)
Existing synthetic world economy: If the game design enables a inworld economy (currency system, trading), a richer society and culture
will develop. This is important to my research because it would allow
exploring deeper into social networks, social capital and reputation
mechanism.
Weight: 0,5
Values: 10 points (“available”), 0 points (“not available”)
Game specific networks: for triangulation of my field data
(participative observation, informant interviews etc.), I need other
sources of game culture and avatar interaction in addition to …. Good
sources are social networks outside of a synthetic world, either in form
of discussion boards, social media platforms or other social software
applications.
Weight: 0,5
Values: 10 points (“available”), 0 points (“not available”)
Member base: as I want to observe and to live with avatars, I need an
existing population. Established culture and rules can be expected
within a synthetic world, where large populations exist and interact.
Weight: 0,5
Values: 10 points (“more than 500.000 players”), 5 points (“more than
100.000 players”), 0 points (“more than 50.000 players”), K.O. (“less
than 1.000 players”)
Game engine type: depending on the game engine type, avatars can
be found in different flavours: as 3D, 2,5D and 2D avatars. For my
research project, 3D avatars are preferred due to the fact identity
crafting and interaction is best possible in a 3D environment.
Weight: 0,5
Values: 10 points (“3D game engine”), 0 points (“2,5D game engine”),
K.O. (“2D game engine”)
9. Costs: I don’t have any external funding to my research project, so my
financial resources are limited. Therefore, costs of acquisition and
monthly fees must be considered. Generally, those fees are low. That’s
why the weight of this factor is low too as I can afford most of the
games.
Weight: 0,25
Values: 10 points (“for free or almost free”), 5 points (“more than 15
Euro / month”), 0 points (“more than 30 Euro / month”), K.O. (“more
than 50 Euro / month”)
10.
Research literature: In recent years, books became available to
different synthetic worlds. They don’t deal with synthetic worlds as I do
in my research project, but discuss other social, political, economical,
educational or psychological aspects of synthetic worlds. This could be
interesting or in some way helpful for my own research.
Weight: 0,25
Values: 10 points (“available”), 0 points (“not available”)
11.
Research data: As books, data became available to different
synthetic worlds, but are hard to find and to access. Data exists
sporadic, scattered in the web to social, political, economical,
educational or psychological aspects of synthetic worlds. This could be
interesting or in some way helpful for my own research.
Weight: 0,25
Values: 10 points (“available”), 0 points (“not available”)
Concluding, these non-mandatory criteria must have displayed my own
resources to the project (time, money, access), a solid and beneficial research
environment as well a favourable sphere for an avatar identity culture.
Data collection
After selecting my evaluation criteria, I had to collect the appropriate data to
all of the remaining 81 synthetic worlds. In fact, as I encountered a K.O. value
for a specific MMORPG, I stopped the acquisition of other criteria data and
went to the next data set.
The sources for this type of data were mainly the official websites of single
synthetic worlds. Alternative sources were discussions boards ( “future of
the game”, “main activity time frames”, “game specific networks”, “member
base”) as well as search engines in particular ( “research literature”,
“research data”).
The top 10 synthetic worlds are listed in the appendix showing all values
from the evaluation process.
5. Outcome, Forecast and Conclusion
In this section, I want to summarize the results of my synthetic world
evaluation process as well as to describe my future research arena.
Additionally, I want to present my alternative synthetic worlds for data
collection and triangulation. Concluding, I will outline my next steps into a
new world – a researcher’s journey “to leave for my village”.
One aspect of my evaluation process, the construction of a synthetic world
cultural classification, will be presented in section 6.
Outcome
The remaining 81 synthetic worlds were listed and evaluated according the
criteria defined (see section 4) and data found. The result at the top of the
list was very close and so I decided to add an extra-vote to the evaluation:
my personal sympathy toward a synthetic world. As I will research (this
means “to live for hours every day”) in a certain synthetic world, I will have to
like it at least a little bit. This is not only reasonable (to keep the motivation
high throughout the complete research project), but also important (to
identify with its own role, avatar and game surrounding) to engage deeper
with the new culture.
The top 4 synthetic worlds are:
1. Entropia Universe
2. Second Life
3. Roma Victor
4. World of Warcraft
I will use Entropia Universe (see description below) as my main research
environment. From my understanding, Entropia Universe has not been
included in research projects yet (maybe because it’s a synthetic world
mainly used by European players). Second Life can be useful as reference
because – like Entropia – it is less a game than a virtual world. Roma Victor
seems to be a very interesting concept of a historical surrounding with
elements of trading and developed society. Finally, World of Warcraft can be
useful as a reference because it is maybe the most researched synthetic
world right now.
Entropia Universe
Entropia Universe is based on a virtual planet called Calipso somewhere in
space. The settlers from Earth are in a constant battle for survival against
virus-infected robots, but they also have to make their daily living through
hunting, mining, trading and manufacturing. Besides that, there is also a
diverse cultural life on Calipso with art galleries, TV stations, many events
and night clubs.
On Calipso, colonists can make their living by selling their products (and
exchange the Calipso currency against the US$), but colonists have also to
invest into real estate, tools, weapons, clothes, e.g.. From a social point of
view, colonists form groups or societies to band together and utilize their
diverse skills for the sake of the group.
URL: http://www.entropiauniverse.com/
SecondLife
SecondLife (SL) is a synthetic world simulating the real world in certain areas:
not all avatars looks like humans, but most do. The world is similar to the
world on Earth, and the main component of play is entertainment. There is
no ultimate goal to reach, but to socialize and to have some fun.
The features of SecondLife are quite unique: users have the possibility to
create their own digital artefacts, to distribute and to earn money. They can
build they own houses with imagination as the only limit. Many FirstLive
companies, institutions and individuals have their representations in
SecondLife for commercial purposes.
SecondLife is a very popular synthetic world and the frontrunner when media
talks about virtual worlds. It has more than 12 million registered users, and
1,2 millions are considered active (logged-in in the past 60 days; see also
http://www.massively.com/2008/07/09/second-life-daily-news/). The hype
in 2006 lead to high expectations, one-time users and to massive withdraw
of advertising money. The damaged image of SL may be the start of a slow
decline of this innovative synthetic world concept.
URL: http://secondlife.com/
Roma Victor
Roma Victor is a non-fantasy MMORPG based on the Roman Empire at
180AD. Players in this synthetic world will find a historical environment, an
in-game economy and a realistic scene. The game isn’t as popular as
Entropia, SecondLife or World of Warcraft, but has a dedicated memberbase
of players (the number is estimated around 5.000).
URL: http://www.roma-victor.com/
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft plays in the world of Azeroth, a land divided between
humans and orcs. Both fractions battle for superiority and form guilds for
raids on the enemy. The single player can choose a fraction and a race as
well as a personalized “face”. This warrior / magician / healer (or other social
role) is asked to discover the world of Azeroth, to fulfil quests and to collect
experience points to improve his/her social status within a guild and the
world of Azeroth.
World of Warcraft started in 2004 and is by far the most popular MMORPG
today. It has more than 10 million subscribers (compare Woodcock) and is
based on a monthly-fee model.
Several research projects have been conducted within World of Warcraft,
mainly because it is such a popular synthetic world. A good example for
research literature using World of Warcraft as a research environment is the
“World of Warcraft Reader” from Hilde Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg.
URL: http://www.wow-europe.com/
Forecast: next steps into new world
Selecting these four synthetic worlds for further analysis and research, the
next step will be to study game rules, pre-requisites and social network of
players before engaging in the respective world. It will be the starting point
of a pilot study in Entropia Universe, where the methods of ethnography, the
most critical factors of my research project and the necessary pre-requisites
for objectives 2, 3 and 4 will be checked, reviewed and tested.
In the next and last section, I will outline a by-product of this phase of my
research project, a synthetic world cultural classification.
6. Synthetic World Cultural Classification
One aspect of my evaluation process was to use the collected data and to
construct a classification of synthetic worlds. I will describe the process and
the features of this classification in this last section.
Building a classification
Classifications are used to structure a field of knowledge and create a system
of relationships and describing attributes. The typical way to construct a
classification is to use a taxonomy, which is a set of defined terms in
hierarchical, parent-child relationships.
The disadvantage of a taxonomy is that it is built upon a singular view or
angle. But we can look at a knowledge field from different sites and describe
diverse aspects of it.
By contrast, a faceted classification allows the assignment of multiple
classifications to an object (synthetic world), enabling the classifications (like
this one) to be ordered in multiple ways.
Existing game classifications
Using a faceted classification means first to identify different dimensions of
an object. The resources I visited to generate my list of synthetic worlds (see
section 8, “online resources”) already used some kind of classification for
their own site navigation. The most common dimension was “game genre”, a
widely used aspect to cluster MMORPGs in a convenient way.
A scientific classification of games was created by Espen Aarseth, Solveig
Marie Smestad and Lise Sunnana (2003) and was called “a multi-dimensional
typology of games”. It is built on a general typology of textual
communication (Aarseth, 1997) and is valid for all games in virtual
environments. The main dimensions are space, perspective, time, player
structure, control and rules. As the dimensions indicate, all kind of computer
games can be indexed within this classification.
More general faceted classifications follow a general structure recommended
by S. R. Ranganathan (1989). This classification is also called Colon
Classification (CC). It uses five main facets to describe an object: personality,
matter or property, energy, space and time (see also Chan, 1994).
From my perspective, I wanted to create a classification for synthetic worlds
only (not all games), to describe them by cultural and less technical
dimensions and to use a faceted classification to do this to provide different
views to a MMORPG. The outcome is the Synthetic World Cultural
Classification.
Synthetic World Cultural Classification
The Synthetic World Cultural Classification consists of four dimensions:
1. Game genre: Game genres are widely used in the gaming industry to
describe the main content of a synthetic world. I used the following
genres: fantasy, mythology, history, sci-fi, first-person shooter,
sports, object simulators, virtual life simulation.
2. Main activity context: in contrary to genres, "main activities" describe
typical challenges in a synthetic world. I identified the following main
activities: life in space, maritime, martial arts, modern life, modern
war, post-apocalyptic survival, trading.
3. Cultural background: "Cultural background" describes the setting of a
synthetic world, the cultural influences and artefacts that dominate
that world. I distinguished the following cultural backgrounds: ancient
Egypt, Celtic, East Asia, Greek / Roman, Hindu, mediaval world, prehistoric, western world.
4. Game engines: "Game engines" describe the type of perspective used
in a synthetic world. Although this is "less cultural relevant", it can
indicate the age of a synthetic world as well as have some
consequences for the synthetic world social life itself. I distinguished
the following game engines: 3D, 2,5D, 2D and text-based.
The entire classification including 157 synthetic worlds can be found at
http://www.buzinkay.net/research/classification/classification.html.
It
includes a list of all 157 synthetic worlds and their values of the four
dimensions. All dimensions and their aspects can be browsed separately.
7. References
Aarseth, Espen & Smestad, Solveig Marie & Sunnana, Lise (2003). A MultiDimensional Typology of Games. University of Utrecht.
Aarseth, Espen (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature.
Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bartle, Richard (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds. Berkeley: New Riders
Games.
Castronova, Edward (2006). Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of
Online Games. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
Castronova, Edward (2001). Virtual Worlds: A First-hand Account of Market
and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. Report Working Paper no. 618.
München: Centre of Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic
Research.
Chan, Lois Mai (1994). Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction. 2nd
ed. New York : McGraw-Hill.
Corneliussen, Hilde G., und Jill Walker Rettberg. 2008. Digital Culture, Play,
and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader. The Mit Press.
Ducheneaut, Nicolas / Moore, Robert J. (2004). “Let me get my alt:” Digital
identiti(es) in multiplayer games. Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
Quandt, Thorsten, Jeffrey Wimmer, und Jens Wolling. 2007. Die
Computerspieler: Studien zur Nutzung von Computergames. 1. Aufl. Vs
Verlag.
Ranganathan, S.R. (1989). Colon classification. New Delhi: UBS Publishers
Distributors.
Schroeder, Ralph (Ed.) (2001). The Social Life of Avatars. Berlin: Springer
Verlag.
Taylor, T. L. 2006. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. The
Mit Press.
Woodcock, Bruce, MMOG subscriptions, [internet] available from
http://www.mmogchart.com/charts [accessed 05 May 2008]
Yee, Nick (2007). The Proteus Effect: Behavioral Modification via
Transformations of Digital Self-Representation, Dissertation, Stanford
University.
8. Online Resources
To create a list of role-playing games, I used the following online resources
[all accessed May 15-25, 2008] :
MMORPG.com http://www.mmorpg.com/
MMOSITE.com http://www.mmosite.com/
MMPLAY.de http://www.mmplay.de/
Source Movies http://www.source-movies.co.uk/
Drosi.de http://www.drosi.de/rezensionen_c.htm#COMPUTERSPIELE
Gamezone.de: http://www.gamezone.de/
Wikipedia – Computergames http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_game
9. Appendix
other reasons
not consistent
no Avatar Identity
no Avatar play
no Avatar
Evaluation sheet MMORPGs: “must criteria”
This first table sums up the evaluation of MMORPGs mentioned above. First,
you will find a list of MMORPGs, which have not been considered for further
evaluation because one of the four mandatory criteria was missing (this is
marked with an “x” in the specific column).
Further below, you will find the list and result of MMORPGs, which have been
evaluated also for the additional criteria.
Not considered:
3B
A Tale in the Desert
Active worlds
Adventure Quest
Amazing world
Asiantown
Audition Online Dance
Ballerium
BaoBao-BengBeng
Barbie girls
Beanie Babies
Blitz 1941
Blue Mars
Bots
Chaotic
City of Heroes
Citypixel
Club Penguin
Continuum
Corum Online
Crossgate
Cybertown
CyWorld
Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands
DarkSpace
Diaspora
Dofus
Doppelganger
Dragon Raja — 2D Fantasy
DragonRealms
Dransik
Dream of Mirror Online
x
x
x
2D
not online yet
Asian community
Asian community
?
Chinese interface
x
x
x
not online yet
Future ?
x
x
x
x
2D
x
x
x
x
Future?
Korean
x
x
not online
x
x
2D
x
2D Retro Fantasy
Dune Generations
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Earth Eternal
Emil Chronicle Online
Empire of Sports
Eternal Wars
x
Chinese interface
x
Not considered:
Eudemons Online
EVE Online
EverQuest Online Adventures
Face of Mankind
Fallen Sword
Fantasy Westward Journey
Fiesta
First-person shooter
Flight simulation games
FlowPlay
Frenzoo
Fung Wan Online
Furcadia
Furcadia
Gaia online
Gekkeiju Online
GodsWar Online
Grid Club
Helbreath
Ikariam
Infinity: The Quest for Earth
Jumpgate
LaTale
Legends of Future Past
Lego Universe
Lunia
Mafia Death
Magical Land
Magi-Nation
Mankind
MapleStory
Megami Tensei Online
Meridian 59
Mycosm
Myth War Online
Navy Field
Neocron 2
Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds
other reasons
not consistent
no Avatar Identity
no Avatar play
no Avatar
east Asian interface
minor social interaction
2D
Chinese servers
x
Playstation 2 only
x
x
Chinese interface
x
x
x
x
HongKong community
Chinese
x
2D, future?
2D
minor social interaction
2D
2D
2D
x
?
x
?
x
2D
x
x
2D
x
Chinese (?) interface
x
x
x
2D
Japanes interface
future?
not online yet
2D
x
x
2D
E-asian community
x
SE-asian community
x
x
Not considered:
Project Visitor (formerly 10six)
Ragnarok Online
Runescape
Sangokushi Online
Seal Online
Shadow of Legend
Shattered Galaxy
Shot-Online
Society
Space Cowboy Online
Star Sonata
StarQuest Online
Stick Arena
Tales of Eternia Online
The 4th Coming
The Realm Online
The Sims Online
Tibia
Toontown Online
Trickster Online
Twinity
Ultima Online
Urbandead
Uru Live
Utopia Online
Virtual Magic Kingdom
Wakfu
Westward Journey
World War II Online
Xiah
Yogurting
Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates
Yulgang
Zero Online
Zhengtu
meets all must criteria
other reasons
not consistent
no Avatar Identity
no Avatar play
x
no Avatar
Nostale
Ogame
Perfect World
Planetarion
Popomundo
PowerUp: The Game
x
2D
2D
Chinese
Korean (game time)
2D
x
x
x
x
2D
x
x
Japanese
2D
2D
closing August 2008
2D
Japanese
2D
x
2D
x
x
2D
2D
2D, chinese
x
online availability ?
Korean
x
Korean
East-Asian servers
2D
Entropia
Second Life
Roma Victor
World of Warcraft
EverQuest II
Age of Conan
Lineage II
Star Wars Galaxies
Dark Age of Camelot
Moove online
9Dragons
ArchLord
Kaneva
Pirates of the Caribbean Online
There
HiPiHi
The Lord of the Rings Online
The Matrix Online
Guild Wars
The Legend of Mir 3
Habbo Hotel
ROSE Online
Wurm Online
Anarchy Online
Dark and Light
Final Fantasy XI
Hellgate: London
Knight Online
Metin 2
Regnum Online
Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa
Soul of the Ultimate Nation
Asheron's Call
Cabal Online
Pirates of the Burning Sea
Rappelz
Red Light Center
Voyage Century Online
Horizons: Empire of Istaria
Irth Worlds
Mabinogi
Maid Marian
Minions of Mirth
MU Online
The Saga of Ryzom
With Your Destiny
Rakion
Shadowbane
Cronous
Dungeon Runners
RF Online
Mythos
Tales of pirates
Conquer Online
Silkroad Online
Darkeden
VMK
Nicktropolis
AWplanet
2Moons
Active Worlds
Adellion
Ashen Empires
Awomo
Champions Online
Concerto Gate
Dark Ages
DECO Online
Eternal Lands
Fairyland
Frugooscape
FusionFall
Granado Espada
Moparscape
Mortal Online
OZ World
Priston Tale
Requiem: Bloodymare
Rubies of Eventide
Tantra Online
Uncharted Waters Online
Zu Online
Memberbase
Game engine type
Sum I
10
10
10
0
5
10
5
0
0
0
10
0
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
0
10
10
0
5
10
5
10
0
10
10
10
10
10
0
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
48 5
48 10
39 10
42 5
40 5
39 5
39 5
39 5
40 5
39 10
39 5
39 5
Sum II
Games specific networks
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
Personal Vote
Existing SW economy
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
Research Literature
OS
10
10
10
10
10
10
5
5
10
10
10
5
Research Data
Avatars customizable
10
10
5
10
10
5
10
10
10
5
5
10
Costs
activity frame
Top 10 synthetic
worlds
Entropia
Second Life
Roma Victor
World of Warcraft
EverQuest II
Age of Conan
Lineage II
Star Wars Galaxies
Dark Age of Camelot
Moove online
9Dragons
ArchLord
Future
Evaluation sheet top 10 synthetic worlds
This sheet shows the best evaluated worlds according to my criteria list. The
points can be seen in the specific columns, “Sum II” indicates the total points
for the evaluation
0 0 10 53,75
0 0 5 52,5
0 0 10 46,25
0 10 0 46,25
0 10 0 43,75
0 0 5 42,5
0 10 0 42,5
0 0 5 42,5
0 0 0 41,25
0 0 0 41,25
0 0 0
40
0 0 0
40