Getting a Life
Last night I took my first tentative steps into the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) by creating an account to play, for free, the medieval fantasy game RuneScape. Registration was merely a simple task of creating a user name (Hi, I'm Rhay Ader by the way) - something obscurely medieval I thought would be good, password, and then designing my avatar from a simple menu of hair and clothes colour choices - I have grey hair and a green suit - I look like Robin Hood's dad, which is maybe not such a bad thing.
Once the Java applet had fully loaded I took part in a tutorial where I was prepared to enter the main world of the game - I was shown how to light fires, cook, mine minerals, make weapons, do magic, kill things, make money. I'm not sure that I want to be mining, killing and doing magic, although making money might be helpful
Kolo and Baur (2004) have studied these types of games by thinking about their social dynamics. they want to know why people spend so many hours playing, who are playing, when, how and why they play and what effects this has in 'offline' life.
In RuneScape you begin the adventure in the town of Lumbridge - I am bound to be carrion for some vultures who will try to kill me or fleece me of stuff, daylight-lite people who have had no sleep for days and are not thinking straight, you know, under-socialised young men escaping the demands of conversation and housework. Maybe you will see me there, and if you do, remind me that I have too much of a life anyway without living another one in that game space.
