MMORPG in A Nutshell

Technological Evolution or Social Malice: An explorative study

The human society in general is a complex association of different behavioural patterns. In such a chaotic web of events that spawn within a society, very few factors remain common that contribute significantly to the functioning of the group as a whole. One such factor is entertainment which provides a rather soothing effect on the societal components namely humans, thus helping to sustain a delicate balance between work and play. As the societal structure evolved over the ages, so has the demand for entertainment which has led to a state of constant innovation. One of the most recent results of this development is online gaming which uses computers or other such portable devices to connect different individuals on a virtual platform. Online gaming in general has been around since the 1990’s and has grown with the expansion of internet throughout the world. Toward the late 1990’s and early 21st century, we were introduced to a new genre of online games known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). The article briefly explores the evolution of online gaming and composition of present MMORPGs. It also introduces us to the prevalent problems associated with the games such as addiction and tries to bring about a non-biased look at the issue. We further look into the technological complexities with respect to its development and deployment. Finally, the growth of assistive technologies specific to this domain and their use are explored.

The World

This type of game typically harvests the imagination of the player and lets him assume a role, usually a mythical character and, enables him to go on a virtual journey with his online avatar. The virtual environment, within which he interacts with the game mechanics, is often referred to as ‘The World’. The key component of such a setup is the ability to host multiple player logins who share this platform with other individuals and Non Player Characters (NPC). The goal of the game, in most cases is not definitive [Oliver, 2002], and is user gameplay centric. While the world is self-sustaining, the creators may introduce external events such as quests to aid players’ progress. The game mechanics often include a race or class that the player has to choose from. The character build assumed progresses through a series of point-based gameplay. This can be broadly classified into two systems. One with ‘base points’ which accounts for the overall experience you have gained within the system. The other known as ‘job points’ are specific to the class that you have chosen. Each character is often governed by flexible base characteristics and rigid class-based skills. Each of these can be enhanced by redeeming your experience or class-points mentioned previously. Once the player gets hold of the character development, he will be able to devote his time towards building online relationships.

The Virtual Society

The primary strength of MMORPGs is derived from its strong base for societal interactions. The game often hosts a virtual society of players who are able to interact just as easily and more effectively as they would in the real life. The game mechanics is tuned so that, the gameplay often requires a group of players to accomplish a given task. This further enhances the scope of online communication and builds a sense of trust among the players. Trust, being the foundation of societal evolution, leads to the formation of virtual societies. Further, concepts such as ‘Guilds’ and ‘Parties’ are introduced to strengthen the fabric of such societies (Ducheneaut et al, 2007). The existence of such a society brings in other valuable components such as economy, open markets, regional affiliations and others. The players are deeply involved in the structural evolution of the game and often find it difficult to quit from their virtual responsibilities.

Addiction

Players often develop a sense of belonging to the virtual world. The study of this is one of the categories in cyber-psychology. The interesting part is to study the effects of technological (gaming) infiltration within the day to day life of an individual. There have been studies and surveys conducted to map the behavioural patterns which leads to addiction. ‘The Daedalus Project’ is an online portal that has devoted a considerable amount of time collecting data on usage patterns of online players. A comprehensive survey given by (Yee, 2002) enables us to analyse these patterns and provide insights on repercussions observed due to this phenomenon. While it is generally observed that male individuals commonly tend to be more involved than their female counterparts, a common ground is established with respect to the age distribution of addiction. Further, it may have ill effects on the players such as loss of sleep leading to anxiety and irritability that manifest within their real life as mood swings. Severe cases also include social isolation and severing relationships in the real world. However, there are positive aspects mapped with excessive but healthy game playing. It has been observed that having a better persona online often boosts confidence of an individual. Further, it also provides an opportunity to mingle with a wide variety of individuals across different cultures.

To better understand addiction, we need to consider the factors that lead to it. The most known case (Yee, 2002) is the sense of achievement that boosts self-confidence within an individual. The intoxicating setup of the world often makes the player to lose clarity of his accomplishments within the virtual world. Such motivational factors also include the ability to be more than what the player is in real life. The realm of the virtual world provides the players with certain meta-physical abilities enabling them to control the outcome of events around them, which is cherished. Further, the sense of ownership of virtual items, transpire a different kind of addiction. There have been instances where players trade the virtual item with real life money, thus providing a source of income. This is often popular with students and has regretful effects on their academic performance.

Technology – Game Development and Deployment

The creation of such a dynamic environment often takes years of development to perfect the game mechanics. The developers are faced with the challenge of assessing human interactions with the system. Further, they have to account for the sustainable environment (Ducheneaut et al, 2006) which should be created by the players themselves. Just as in real world, once the individuals are given the necessary resources to capitalize on, it is just a matter of time that they inhabit the world and create the virtual community. Developers of games such as World of Warcraft and Ragnarok Online go a step further. To ensure that the world sustains for a prolonged period of time, they have removed the concept of end-game. That is, the players within the world are left with something to do all the time, thus captivating them within the virtual world. We can also look forward for innovations in artificial intelligence domain which is incorporated within the game to provide a better user experience.

The most integral part of the system would be hosting the application which leads to several challenges. The applications are to be deployed onto load balanced servers to handle the immense amount of traffic that the game attracts. Since the game relies on interactions between players connected globally or across a wide area, complex network arrangements are made to provide low latency ratios for the players. Further, the key component of the setup that is, data is protected using several mechanisms. RAID configuration within machines avoid downtime due to hard drive failures while redundant tape back-up systems and use of other methods to safeguard the precious data which is the representation of player efforts translated into binary is of utmost importance. This also includes protection from external attacks to either compromise the database or the service as a whole. The most basic form of denial of service may bring down the service temporarily leading to monetary loses for the game company. Thus security, reliability and availability have to be equally addressed to sustain a successful host for the game.

Assistive Technology

Fair gameplay is an important component for any MMORPG to succeed. However, the sheer amount of time required to gain a noticeable level within the environment has led to a flurry of assistive technological agents, which aid the players in the game. While the moral implications are limited to the enforcement of rules by the Game Master (GM) who is responsible to maintain order within the virtual world, the promise of glory with minimal time spent is sufficient to ward off any fears of getting caught and banned. Interestingly, this motivation has initiated a brand new area of expertise in assistive technology called ‘Bots’. Players who are able to program automatic game agents which circumvent the security measures to imitate their gaming behaviour within the virtual world have created an imbalance within the community. The game developers respond to this through a series of bot detection techniques as shown in (K.T. Chen et al, 2006). Figure 1 and 2 from the article shows us the relative comparison between an in-game experience against a bot application.

Figure 1: Screenshot of Ragnarok Online

Figure 2: DreamRO bot

The article further discusses about intrusion detection through network monitoring and other detection mechanisms which enables GM to handle illegal usage of such applications and take appropriate action. Thus, we have the game developers working on their version of assistive technological agents to aid GMs in their work.

Conclusion

MMORPG’s is a radical new approach toward the gaming experience which has caught momentum in the recent past. It may be viewed as a portal for individuals to vent out and escape from their daily hectic schedule. However, unhealthy usage of such an environment, mainly amongst the youth has raised concerns within the society. Such concerns are justified provided that statistics reveal a higher rate of addiction to the game in the recent years leading to many socio-economic issues pertaining to individuals, which were explored in the previous sections. Players finding a silver lining by quoting reasons such as self-reformation are merely trying to further escape from the reality. The harmful effects of addiction have been discussed and are very real. Thus, it should be safe to assume that MMORPGs, though a fascinating medium of entertainment, does more harm than good and may be considered as a social malice.

Let us further look at the root cause of this phenomenon. The technology which has emerged into making and distribution of this game is nothing short of profound innovation which continues to evolve. The ability to sustain an online virtual world and simulate societal components such as economy is to be truly appreciated. Also, the indirect impact it has on the growth of intelligent bots as a form of assistive technology has far reaching consequences. For example, intrusion detection system through network monitoring to capture bot activity as mentioned earlier, can be extended into real time avoidance systems to thwart large scale distributed denial of service attacks. The composition of Artificial Intelligence in these detection systems is constantly evolving to counter either end of the chase, namely the bot users and GM. In either scenario, it aids towards development of more refined technology. Thus, such a gaming paradigm, being a dual edged sword enables us to promote technological evolution.

References

• K.T. Chen et al (2006) Identifying MMORPG bots: a traffic analysis approach - Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology Article No.: 4
• N. Ducheneaut et al (2006) “Alone Together?” Exploring the Social Dynamics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games - CHI 2006 Proceedings of Games and Performances, Montréal, Québec, Canada pp. 407-416
• N. Ducheneaut et al (2007) The Life and Death of Online Gaming Communities: A Look at Guilds in World of Warcraft - CHI 2007 Proceedings of Games, San Jose, CA, USA pp. 839-848
• J. H. Oliver (2002) The Similar Eye: Proxy Life and Public Space in the MMORPG - Proceedings of Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference, pp. 171-184
• N. Yee (2002) Ariadne – Understanding MMORPG Addiction