I'm writing this post the day after our first class, which was more of an introduction than a lecture. I stil don't have much of an idea what sort of thoughts I'm supposed to put in this game journal but I want to have something in here the first week so I'll just talk a little about possible areas of study.
In the months leading up to this class I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO), a MMORPG based on the books by JRR Tolkein (as opposed to the movies, the material of which they are bound not to touch by copyright law). It is modeled quite shamelessly after World of Warcraft, as that game model has proven to be not only fun and addictive, but also financially successful. You can hardly blame the company, Turbine, for developing conservatively considering the pressure to make at least a halfway decent game considering it is based on such source material as Lord of the Rings. In any case, the game turned out all right, and was commended as having much of the same good qualities as WoW and even expanding in some areas. I know that I have enjoyed it immensely and have sunk quite a bit of time into it.
Though I have only played World of Warcraft for a few hours (at a friend's house once), I have gained some sense of it from watching others play and also from internet chatter. In particular, I have a sense of what it's like from the other LotRO players, as many of them are former-WoW players who immigrated to LotRO. One point which has been mentioned to me three or four times has been the claim that WoW players are "meaner" or "less helpful". Similarly, I hear expressed the sentiment that the LotRO community in particular is nicer to newbies and more helpful in general. I keep in mind that these opinions come from the LotRO gamers themselves, and so must be taken with a grain of salt. However, I think there may be some validity to them. In any case, I will get a chance to learn for myself I expect, as we are expected to join in World of Warcraft for at least part of the quarter, something I'll be doing later I expect.
Are gamers in one game "nicer" than in others? It seems possible, if not self-evident. I certainly know that some communities, in any context can tend to be more helpful than others, and I see no reason why this shouldn't apply to communities within games. Is it a good research topic? That's another question indeed. A couple of doubts spring up immediately, such as the viability of being able to quantify or otherwise measure a community's "helpfullness". Some sort of objective techinique would have to be figured out, and I can't see an easy way at this point. Also, while interesting, the topic feels a little constricting; it doesn't deal with virtual worlds so much as the particular cases of WoW and LotRO. At this point, two days into the quarter, I'm still not clear on the scope of project I should pursue, so I may have to change focus at some point in the future.
