Slashdot Mirror
Quantification of EQ Players
Nick Yee writes: "As part of a psychology thesis project, I collected data from about 4000 individual EverQuest players who together filled out about 25,000 surveys that focused on many facets of personal and social dynamics in real-time 3D immersive virtual worlds, such as: gender differences, gender-bending, addiction, friendships, romantic relationships, people who play with romantic partners and so on. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected.
"
99% male
1% female. They were convinced to play by their boyfriends.
What is up with this game anyway? Let's all cast magic missle online for $10 a month! Fantastic!
If I understand correctly, there's far more to it than that. You can also take off all your clothes and run screaming through town in the dead of night with nothing but a lantern. Instead of being frowned upon, this kind of thing is a well accepted tradition in Britannia. Truly, it's a different world.
--
You're Reading Managed Agreement
As part of a psychology thesis project
Yeah sure we believe you.
I know it's hard but the title and first two lines of it had me thinking this was a psychological study on equalizers. EverQuest doesn't dominate most people's lives as much as it does yours.
Thats ultima online.
Not that I don't feel, somehow "dirty" knowing that...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...surprising. Students seem to be the largest demographic, which makes sense because students (especially at the college level) tend to have more free time on their hands (assuming they are providing their classes with the average level of ignoring). Which lends itself to the lowest household income being the highest demographic, since students don't tend to have a lot of income.
What surprises me so much about EQ (I'm a former EQ'er myself) is how much the game appeals to housewives and stay-at-home moms. My mother, who is in her 50s, has been playing for two years now and has gotten no less than two other housewives into EQ. My mother may not be a fair example, after all, this is a woman who bought a Playstation just for Final Fantasy VII, but the other housewives are prime examples of people who had never played a PC game in their lives (and few console games). Yet, something in EQ's mechanics and social structure hooks them and won't let go. I'd like to see a more in-depth analysis of that demographic, simply because I don't think anyone, including Verant, foresaw them becoming a significant portion of the crowd.
Just as a snide/side note: When I read that a good percentage of the EQers in the survey said they play with a romantic partner, I wondered aloud how many of those EQers are playing with a romantic partner they met through the game and never in real life.
My sigs always suck.
I'll admit it, I was addicted for about 6 months, and I quit after I realized that there was no possible way I could learn anything of any value by playing it any more. Well, I guess there is one thing you can learn, and that's that if you put enough hard work into something, it can pay off, but I realized that getting phat lewtz and my epic weapon and lvl 60 and all that didn't amount to jack in the real world, so it was time to stop. But MAN is it addictive..
--w00t
It's sad to see, EverCrack, just like real crack hits the lower classes the hardest. for shame.
Btw, did any one else notice that most female everquest players seem to be married and almost/ greater then 30?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Wow, I'm a bit surprised about the data on playing EQ with a romantic partner. Then again, I wonder how romantically involved can you be with your partner, if he/she rather talk to you in EQ than to see you in real life.
Actually, although I don't play Everquest, I found this a fascinating study. I play several other online RPG's, and I'm starting to wonder how different games relate on the questions that were asked. For instance, the main game I play in "The Realm", by Codemasters. I know that a great deal of the people that play this game are older. There was a survey ran a year or so ago that put the adverage age at about 28.
Now that really puts the abnormal back in abnormal psychology...
based on the numbers in the gender bending section, most of the females in the game are highly likely to be male -- sucks for those players trying to get dates.
is what some friends and I called the game when played by co-workers and friends.
The one consistent theme in all of them was being red-eyed and having no free time.
On the other hand, one met her husband through the game, so I guess it can't be all bad.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Something tells me the "roleplayed a romance with characters of both genders" stat would be quite a bit higher.
So is he saying, that hot elf chick that I adventure with really isnt a chick!? No!!!! Say it isnt so!
I live in my mom's basement. My name is Stile.
You know what's interesting about this, is how 'addictive' these games are. A lot of people playing them seem to joke about it, and those who no longer do say they've 'quit' the same way a smoker would. A poster here a while ago mentioned 'nerfing' the game - making advancement based on repetitive tasks rather then pure skill - and how doing so makes the game more addictive.
:P.
Now, I'm sure ever quest was designed the way it was to be fun, not purely addictive, but suppose a game truly were? It might be an interesting thing to do, design a game purely for its addictive qualities, maybe a little immoral though
I also wonder if perhaps as interactive entertainment becomes more pervasive if we aren't going to see something truly addictive... so much so that it could ruin someone's life (not that EQ hasn't. There are a couple instances of marriages being ruined by the game/ jobs lost, etc). Would the government step in and regulate the games industry? Should it?
Personally, I'm against the 'war on drugs', but I don't think a totally unregulated drug market would be a good thing either. Are non-chemical psychological 'drugs' really that different?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'll buy you a nice big Japanese beer if you go back and redo the survey, this time including the questions you somehow left out:
Actualy, I think you'd have a higher chance of having the chick actualy be a chick then a guy pretending to be a chick. Based on the numbers presented.
:P
On the other hand, she probably wouldn't be hot. And certanly not an elf
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...and I thought playing EQ was a waste of time! ;)
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
There's still a diffrence between coding OSS, or a job or a girlfriend or whatever and sitting around playing EQ (or in my case posting crap on /.)...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I played for about a month until I realized that the game just wasn't fun enough to justify playing a game in a horrendously ancient outdated 3d engine. And riding around in those slow slow slow boats is teh suck!
I actually never tried playing as a female character for some reason. I think I would have if the female character models were done better. I played the Rogue character in Diablo 1 just because of the "zoom" key!
"Ask me about Loom"
EverCrack, just like real crack hits the lower classes the hardest. for shame.
Who are you implying should feel shame? When a developer creates an amazing, epic game that gets consumed by people with low incomes (among many others), should the developer feel shame?
I don't think so. Unless the developer targeted that specific income group or a weakness of people with low incomes. eg. false hope of getting out of their situation, like lottery tickets supposedly do. I don't think EQ or any game really claims to offer hope or an improved lifestyle though.
Wood Elf, Human, Dark Elf, High Elf
and the races that most people would rather be:
Wood Elf, High Elf, Human, Dark Elf
A similar distinction results from looking at the class data: Warrior is listed as the second-favorite class, but ranks a distant sixth in the list of classes people would like to be, were Norath real.
This implies that people would rather be a class or race that isn't their favorite.
In fact, this may raise questions about the validity of these questions as measures of underlying preferences, although I don't know to what standard they should be compared.
I find this study very interesting. I see parallels with myself when I was playing a game an average of 3 hours a day (6 on the weekends) called Action Supercross. It is a stupidly simple game where you drive a 2d motocycle through a level and try to get the best time, that's it. Of course there is a world record list where people from all over the world try and get the best times. On top of this, there is another goal to add up all your best times from all the levels for your Total Time. Spending 5 hours shaving 20 seconds, or even less for the top players (1-5 seconds), of your total is totally normal. I was so into this game that when I had a History paper to write I would let my self have "one life" for every 100 words I wrote!!!
This game has since evolved into Elastomaniathe site of all sites is here. For some reason it is dominated by Scandinavians; I think they invented rally racing so it makes sense I guess.
It looks stupid I know, just download one of the track replays for the demo version and see if you can come even close to the top times. Some people have been playing since 1998
The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. --Robert Benchley
in particular I appreciate their using a modern personality test (the NEO-PI) rather than the ubiquitous but outdated (in my opinion at least) MBTI or 16PF.
I would like to take this opportunity to comment on one statement:
You will find this repeated in any one given introductory pscyhology text, but this is wrong all the same. Skinner would never have said this. The point is that Skinner defines his procedures functionally. That is to say that he would state that if a behavior's strength or frequency increases after the presentation of a stimulus, then that stimulus can be said to be a reinforcer for that behavior. In common language, a reward is anything that is considered pleasant, but many behaviors can be "rewarded" in thiss sense until you are blue in the face with no apparent effect on the behavior. Within Skinners parlance, a stimulus is a reinforcer only if it works.
In practice, behaviors tend to get repeated also in this cases where they are punished (this is one of the reasons why prison doesn't make people law-abiding). Behavior analysts, when doing behavior modification, tend to reward behaviors that they wish to strengthen, and ignore (in technical terms, extinguish) behaviors that they want to go away. In preparation for a behavior modification, the client needs to be examined to find suitable reinforcers, precicely because people differ and one person's reward can be another person's punishment.
-- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
They don't come right out and say it, so this summary might save some of y'all a few minutes:
/. references popped out while surveying this motley crowd."
"Slashdotting geeks, and lots of old women are well represented in the cross-section of EQ players sampled. We were constantly amazed at how often spontaneous
There. Now go back to work.
When you get a degree in Psychology, you most likely won't become a professor, or a shrink in some office. You'll go to work in "Industrial Relations". What's that, you ask? Its the application of Psychology to the business world.
Knowing this stuff could make Sony a lot of money, in who they market the game, and even how they develop it.
This game is popular because it, apparently, touches is something deep inside a lot of people. And it doesn't let go. If you know what, or why, or if you can reproduce that. You can make yourself a lot of money.
Understanding why Everquest "works" is valuable for its insight into human nature, and it's valuable in the most literal sense of the word.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Would be how EverQuest and its addiction affects the "real" lives of those who play it. How many students have failed classes, lost scholerships, been pulled home by their parents all due to excessive power-leveling? And married couples...a lot of us at work joke that we no longer play EQ at the insistence of our wives. I've even heard of "the better half" laying down the law, saying "quit EQ or I'll leave you."
The social benefits seemed to always be praised with computer games like this, but I for one would like to know how many are truly negatively impacted by this and other MMORPG games.
greg
EQ reminds me of a psych test a friend of mine made in college. It was a video game similar to space invaders where he wanted to see how people adapt and optimize thier strategy. In his game, the optimal strategy was to sit in the left corner and only shoot at a special ship that came by periodically (just hold the fire button down), and ignore all everything else. There was a contest with a money prize after a couple of weeks for high score. Not one player in his test found the strategy; they all got confused and ran amok shooting worthless stuff. Sort of like the computer in "War Games" only the real humans never figured it out.
Everquest is a totally mindless game. Like the game of LIFE, it has zero strategy or tactics. If you think it does, remember the psych test.
Obviously you havn't read this, which discusses a thesis by a doctor of economics. I predict a time when people will be directly wired to virtual worlds, and not live in this one, a kind of voluntary 'matrix' scenario.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
How is meeting a girl online any different then meeting a girl in real life? Certainly meeting a chick via an online dating site or AIM or something isn't any different then meeting a chick in a singles bar. How could it be? I'm speaking from experience, a few years ago I dated and then moved in with a girl I met online. Of course we both had the same social problems that led us to need that avenue to meet in the first place, and it didn't work out in the long run.
:P)
If you're really a psych major, you should know better then to draw inferences from single data points. There could be a lot of factors that caused you to break up, aside from the fact that you were both nerds. Hell, most relationships don't last in the long run; you're likely to go through a couple of SOs/relationships in your life before you find the "right one" (if you ever do). And of course distance can be a problem, but some people, I guess, desperate or romantic enough to move for someone they haven't spent much time with. And it can work out. Personally, I've met a pretty cute, and definitely cool chick over the net. We seem to have great chemistry and are interested in each other (and she's Asian!). But unfortunately she lives in Canada... And again, I'm not one who would uproot my life for a chick, and nether is she. Unless something catastrophic happens we probably won't be anything other then friends (keeping my fingers crossed for benefits
But say you can meet someone from nearby. What, exactly, is wrong with that? Maybe it would be better if a person wasn't as shy (or in my case lazy), but if they can hookup despite, why is it really such a huge issue? Who knows, maybe they go to an engineering school without a lot of chicks.
As far meeting people in online games like EQ, well, if you are doing that you probably have a problem, not the least of which is a distorted sense of reality (looking for chicks in a game where 70% of the populous is male and 80% of the chicks are in relationships?). But if you incidentally meet a girl who shares your interest in the game, and reflects your interest in her, well, how is that unhealthy? I mean, maybe they shouldn't be spending so much time staring at a computer monitor... but they are, they both are. And what could be better then finding someone who shares your passions? And how would it be different then meeting a chick in a collage class or a gym or something?
Maybe you had a bad experience, but any reall social scientist (or any scientist for that matter) would tell you that one data point does not give you the write to castigate a huge set of people as being 'unhealthy'.
I mean, what really is so bad about using the internet to find love or get laid
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Just to flag myself as lame: I met my first girlfriend on a MUD. Actually, I met her while hanging out in real life with other people that I met through the MUD... but whatever... once I had a girlfriend, I stopped playing the MUD. I used to spend hours and hours (and hours) on that MUD, but during the time I was dating her, I quitmud, and never went back to any MMORPG (4 years so far), even after we broke up.
I guess my point is that I used MUD as a substitute for real-life interaction. When I finally had the opportunity to be with other people IRL, MUD didn't interest me in any way, and, in general, I was much happier.
On the other hand, it's not like I would be out clubbing at night without MUD... it was at least some sort of social interaction, one I was actually comfortable with, and one I wouldn't have got otherwise.
Anyway, your last comment reminded me of them old days.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
it was the pet project of Rick Delashmit, one of the original coders- but he left Origin, and the client languished. Regrettably, it doesn't work anymore....
UO does run under Wine, but kind of crappily, and it emphatically does NOT do UOAssist, which is half the fun.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
There are a large number of online, multiplayer roleplaying games, similar in theme if not in style to EverQuest, that are free (as in beer) to their players. My personal favorite, Ancient Anguish, is one of the largest and has been running continuously for ten years.
The most compelling aspect of these games is not the gameplay, for most players, but the social interactions. I know of several married couples who met on the MUD. Quite possibly the social aspects are enhanced by the lack of fees. It would be interesting to see a similar study done on some of the free MUDs.
As a youngster, I broke the law solely for the thrill of being punished (or more often, cunningly escaping punishment).
It's a frequently overlooked aspect of human psychology. We're not lab rats. Many of us rebel just for the pleasure of doing so - it's not as simple as dangling a carrot to make us behave.
I just downloaded that. Holly shit it kicks ass :P
It would be nice if it had more fine graned controll, though.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
With SoL, they started using a new 3D engine. Massive system requirements though.
That's a perfect explanation.
Though I`m not a whiz at math or statistics, my rudamentry understanding of both leads me to two conclusions:
:)
1) There's only a 16% chance that HotBabe13 is female.
2) There's only a 13.5% chance that if she is a she, she is single and not dating..
So, for anybody I meet, I have about a 2% chance that they a single female. Leaving out other variables, I like those odds!
I am BelDion's
Wonder if it's any coincedence that I got engaged six months after I quite playing EQ? (DAoC never engaged me that much...er yuck that kind of makes a bad pun come to think of it...)
99% male, 1% female.
Did you read the article? The article states that the gender ratio is closer to 84% male, 16% female, and more than half of the females playing EQ are engaged, married, or separated. Check the "RL demographics".
Will I retire or break 10K?
There's an article on GamaSutra (free registration required) about how to design a game to maximize it's addictiveness. It's not phrased that way of course, but I'd be willing to bet if you made a comparison between the article and EverQuest, you'd have a perfect correlation. I know I discovered that when I compared Diablo 2.
Theoretically you could make a video game as mentally addictive as any drug (and maybe Verant already has?), all you need to do is research the psychology.
Remember, Louis Woo was the only man to ever quit the wire...
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
http://www.rit.edu/~jlc6534/rezyndance_hi.wmz
Click the link and watch this video. Someone has too much time on his hands, but this video is GREAT! This is what MMORPG's should _really_ be like!
An online publication venue for this kind of work (and a place to go to read other related work) is the Journal of Virtual Environments (formerly Journal of Mud Research).
Anyone else notice the fact that each individual in the survey would have to have filled out over 6000 surveys. (total surveys 25000, particapants 4000) ???? Now there's some free time !? :0
Guild MeanPeople are always trying to put down Guild GoodPeople. They are always sneaking about trying to make GoodPeople miserable while GoodPeople are constantly trying to succeed no matter what. Wait a minute, why were GoodCleric hanging out with a bunch of MeanPeople group? We know they are short of knowledge able Clerics and are agressively recruiting. Are they trying to sway them with good gear and big items?
This stuff happens all of the time in EQ. The social interaction is quiet deep. Rivalries, "debts", and sneaking can and do happen. Why wouldn't homemakers eat this kind of drama up?!
If you think EQ is fun/addictivie, prepare to drool: http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Sorry I can't finish my post, got to play Quake...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I actually bought the game for my girlfriend and I when we first started dating. Me, having experience with MUDs from way back in 91, knew that this had the possibility to really get a hobby that we could do together, and also to see if she even liked this sort of fantasy stuff (which I do).
However, the point where I knew things were going downhill was when we were sitting next to each other playing the game, and after winning the lotto on a new sword I see on my screen amongst a slew of other tells:
"Yiliae tells you, 'Gratz on getting that sword!'
I turn slowly to my girlfriend sitting next to me and say, 'Why did you just type that to me?'
++Om
55% - Geeks.
45% - Dorks.
~jeff
The occasional all nighter might be fine once and again, but this is pathetic.
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
"Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious. " ~ Finley Peter Dunne
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet by Dr. Sherry Turkle.
Great book. Provides excellent insight into the psychology of RPG gamers.
Intelligent Life on Earth
12.5 % - Made Worse
55.5 % - No Change
31.4 % - Made Better
So a significant majority (86.9%) thought that the Play-Nice rules made things as good or better than before. I wonder what the opinion of the analyzer was
=Shreak
Another academic study of EverQuest, from a different angle: Cal State Fullerton business professor Edward Castranova did an economic survey of Norrath, which he plans to publish in an economics journal.
The most entertaining part about this whole report is that if you look at the male female comparisions, the answers are almost exactly the same.
The report is basically useless and doesn't tell us anything new. But this guy is going to go on to his thesis review, where they'll tell him that it is interesting but he needs to redo it. And they'll say that for about eight reviews till they decide to let it go.
It is also interesting to note that once some form of electronic cash exists on the internet, it becomes a real possibility for experts in the game (heroes, lords, whatever) to actually make money off the game.
Clearly games like Ever Quest possess all the necessary elements for establishing an economy (albeit a fantasy virtual one). Namely, if there is a channel for information exchange, then there is a channel for experts to sell their expertise within the context of the game.
That of course would bring about the also real possibility that over time some people might pretty much decide to only exist in the game as opposed to RL. But is that such a bad thing if you can make a living off it?
__________________
Incidentally, if this sounds like I'm advocating cocaine over alcohol, nicotene or caffiene, I am. Ask a casualty doctor about alcohol, or a ward doctor about nicotene. Caffiene in the same quantities as cocaine will kill you stone dead. We only tend to think of it as harmless because we take it in small and well controlled amounts, and it's cheap and uncut with random crap.
I'll have to stop smoking those caffeine rocks.
Seriously, it's silly to say that "Caffiene in the same quantities as cocaine will kill you stone dead" because even the most addicted people self regulate their intake far below lethal levels of toxicity. Caffeine, even in refined over the counter preparations, simply is not very dangerous, except in the possible cases like accidental poisioning of a child. As far as the typical "caffeine addict" is concerned, it is just as unlikely that you can kill yourself with natural, unrefined sources of caffeine as you could, say, chewing coca leaves, a common and benign Andean practice.
Honore de Balzac, the French novelist, reportedly drank over a hundred cups of coffee a day. His habit was so severe he suffered withdrawal symptoms during the time he waited for his coffee to brew: "even though you make it of the finest ingredients and take it perfectly fresh, you will fall into horrible sweats, suffer feebleness of the nerves, and undergo episodes of severe drowsiness." Eventually he took to eating coffee grounds directly. If anyone should die of acute caffeine poisoning, it should have been him, but he continued on this way for years.
Eventually, Balzac did die of heart disease at the age of 51, not acute caffeine poisioning. Some have suggested caffeine was implicated in his early demise, but his physician maintained his heart disease was cogenital. In any case dying of a coronary at 51 is not unheard of even today, and not an unusually short lifespan for 1850.
There is an impressive roster of caffeine addicts: William Harvey (the discoverer of blood circulation), the composers J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and Rossini, and of course Balzac. This would be an impressive testament to caffeines powers, except that caffeine addiction is so common that virtually any large group, accomplished or not, is bound to have people notable for their caffeine excesses. And while there must be billions of caffeine addicts in the world, acute caffeine poisioning is virtually unheard of, though theoretically possible. This would make caffeine among the safer group, not of drugs but food additives. Certainly more safe than Asprartame (nutrasweet) which can kill people with phenylketonuria (PKU), and cause epileptic-like siezures in normal people.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'd question the way this survey was conducted - otherwise the demographic of EQ has radically changed. A similar study done in '99-00 found that a whopping 46% of players were female. Maybe a further study on how many females tend to haunt EQ websites would have helped.
As a former EQ gamer these statistics sound right to me. Playing EQ takes most of your time, enough of your money, and very little of us see the out side to meet a nice girl. I think this is a funny survey and people need to understand that it is just a game get a life.
Thats why i stopped
No, I know most males think with their gonads, and act accordingly. They live up to my low expectations. [m, 25]
Magius_AR
Dont know of any, sorry