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The Mafia Everquest Connection
Posted by
simoniker
on Sun Jun 01, 2003 01:35 PM
from the bada-bing dept.
from the bada-bing dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the 2003 Melbourne Digital Arts And Culture Conference site, where a large selection of new academic papers about videogaming have been disseminated online. This includes The Sopranos Meets Everquest - Social Networking In Massively Multiplayer Online Games (PDF file), which discusses why "instead of having Gandalf as a role model, [Everquest players] would be better off trying to think as Tony Soprano, a present day mafia boss in New Jersey from the American TV show The Sopranos."
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Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:5, Funny)
about videogaming"
Dream job, or make-work project?
Re:Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you had read a headline about academic papers being written about viewing habits or other TV-related stuff, you'd probably have shrugged and moved on.
Parent
Re:Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:5, Funny)
The non-gamers got exiled to the kitchen, and were talking about Big Brother
Parent
Re:Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Face it,
Geeks go to law school [slashdot.org], they write papers like this one, and sometimes, they're just stay-at-home moms [slashdot.org] with a penchant for mental stimulation that can't be gained from hours spent passively absorbing the pablum that is network television (Sopranos not included under that label, of course).
One final note: I think we should question Jared's [slashdot.org] status as a true "geek" if was actually at a party -- especially one where there were people who watch television and tried to carry on actual "conversations"! Personally, I think he's just trying to come off as a cool guy or something. Or maybe he's just the perfect example to prove my point!?! *grin*
Parent
Academic papers (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course some of the best writings on the subject (not from
Re:Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good Lord, what is the world doing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Kinda unfair comparison, that way.
The world is learning! (Score:5, Insightful)
Any zone in which people interact is fodder for sociological analysis, and online gaming is particularly interesting because there is a level of abstraction built into the interaction (although, as the paper points out, it isn't completely isolated from "RL" relationships).
I'd look for more of these as time goes by; the creation of a virtual world comes close to addressing one of the major deficits of the 'social sciences', the inability to (ethically) set up an experiment to test a theory. It's limited, of course, since the players
Nevertheless, this is an arena in which sociological concepts can in a limited fashion actually be tried out. I think we'll learn a surprising amount from it, and hopefully it will even have practical use if we go on to create new societies in space.Parent
Re:The world is learning! (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the difference between Government... (Score:5, Insightful)
They both operate using force and attempt to gain as much power for themselves as possible (in response to the ability of the populace to fight back against them). Well, Everquest lacks a real government, so as a result, mafia becomes the rule.
Re:What's the difference between Government... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahh, another person who has read Machiavelli, eh? In The Prince, he makes a big stink about how mercenaries rigged the rules of the game so that they ended up with all the gold, and the states of Italy ended up with nothing but grief. Lesson of the day - hire not professional soldiers, for all they care about is staying alive and earning the gold. Instead, hire locals
This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've learned from experience playing MUDs that in this type of game, just like life, it's not what you know, it's who you know that gets you ahead. From items to money, there's nothing that a high experienced friend can't get you.
Good to see the academics are catching up.
better still: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:better still: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:better still: (Score:2)
Violence is easier (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
I hear that sort of thing already happens. Guilds camping monster spawn locations, chasing off anyone who comes near a precious point and otherwise hoarding the wealth to themselves or social affiliate.
Experience and coinage are the wealth and monsters are the local resources.
Control the resources, control the community...
How long until we see an actual mafia MMORPG? (Score:5, Informative)
But really, most of the similar attributes seem to be GOOD things. Loyalty to guild/friends, word-of-mouth as to who can/can't be trusted.
I mean, I didn't really see any mafia similarities mentioned that are particularily BAD.
No extortion, blackmail, etc.
Though I'm sure it could happen to someone who's far too attached to their characters, I doubt it could ever be as widespread as these other "symptoms".
Re:How long until we see an actual mafia MMORPG? (Score:3, Interesting)
No extortion, blackmail, etc.
Though I'm sure it could happen to someone who's far too attached to their characters, I doubt it could ever be as widespread as these other "symptoms".
I don't know about the article, but the various reports of teens in asian countries killing one another in the real world for damage/death inflicted in MMORPGs disturbs me to no end. Sounds mafia-ish to me, especially since it's usually a
I only skimmed the paper so far (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I only skimmed the paper so far (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Most "Uberguilds" have a "raid points" system, the more raids you go on, the more points you get, and the more chances you have of getting some of the better items.
2) In at least one guild, the officers were smuggling the proceeds of raids off of the server (through character transfers that SOE will perform for a fee) and selling them on eBay, the cash getting split among those in on the scam. Interestingly, even after finding out they were being used, most of the members chose to stay with the guild.
--Dave
Parent
Re:I only skimmed the paper so far (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I only skimmed the paper so far (Score:3, Funny)
in game networking or just unloading junk (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of folks get good reps for just helping out noobs or on corpse runs, and you know that that rep stayed around and if they ever needed help they got it, as well as preferental grouping.
You want to be treated nice - play a female healer of some sort - groups will court you, random people will give you things. People will go on quests just to get items for you.
If you want a lone hero vs. the world, play on your home machine. If social gaming is really your style, then MMRPGs have a lot to be said for them. And in any social group, you get the mix of folks -- some will help, some will only help themselves. If you watch your friend's back, that's not mafia, that just taking care of those who take care of you.
==Blue(23)
That poor little looter... (Score:5, Funny)
And now not only does that guild know, so does everybody that's read the paper through Slashdot. If he hasn't deleted that character by now, I'd say he's about to!
Yeezus. (Score:5, Funny)
Badda... (Score:5, Funny)
After killing your level 9 Dwarf (Score:3, Funny)
prediction (Score:2, Funny)
The Possibilities (Score:5, Funny)
Q: Whadda you in for?
A: Virtual Murder 1.
Organized crime and diseases (Score:3, Funny)
TL "A what darg?"
Dargon "A STD super twinked dwarf"
Tony needs to keep his ring of ladies a lil cleaner, STD's are no laughing matter
Re:Organized crime and diseases (Score:2)
Mob/clique behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
My two cents (more like five dollars):
The behavior you see in many online RPGs, in which "familial associations" form between groups of players, is basically similar to the formation of cliques in high and middle (US) schools. The only difference is that the cliques have weapons, magic, booty and lots of XP; the sum of these is what determines the worth of a person in the online world, just as "fashion" and "who you know" are the determinants of self-worth in cliques IRL.
In fact, if you take some steps back and look at the most infamous mobs, could it not be argued that they are simply cliques with guns that join together to commit crime and bribe those in power?
And then there's the issue of newbie hazing, which is analogous to cliques blackballing those who are not members of the "in" crowd, again quite similar to what happens when the mob gains control over a city and "elects" its officials. Online RPGs, especially and notoriously Everquest, are extremely culpable in this regard. Newbies who do not join a guild or other crowd of "in", upper-level characters will find themselves ostracized and devoured by trolls (not necessarily the Slashdot variety).
The issue of newbie hazing wasn't really touched on by the paper, but I argue that it is a huge problem and that it is not just limited to online RPGs, but also many websites with "experience" systems. Everything2 [everything2.com] specifically comes to mind but I'm sure there are many other examples of sites where an attempt by a newbie to contribute to the community at large will be rejected because the newbie doesn't have the right connections nor the XP to stand on their own. What about Slashdot? The karma system works because trolls are controlled and a newbie can stand on their own, and the only real privelege granted by "experience" is a +1 karma bonus to initial posts. Newbies can do everything those with "Excellent" karma can do and the moderation system cares a lot more about the age of an account than its karma. Again, contrast with Everything2, and with Everquest.
So, I argue that the points the paper makes are quite valid outside the world of Everquest and are applicable to many, many online and offline environments. (Apologies to Everythingers who might be rubbed the wrong way by the above comments, but I have seen with my own eyes that Everything and Everquest have an awful lot in common from the newbie's perspective.)
Re:Mob/clique behavior (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
Coincidence? I think not.
'bada-bing' department? (Score:2)
Re:'bada-bing' department? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:'bada-bing' department? (Score:3, Informative)
It's most commonly heard in the NY/NJ area.
Mafia or Fraternity? (Score:5, Interesting)
For one thing, there isn't the zero-sum game of the Mafia - the power brokerage involved in EQ doesn't seem to benefit from betrayal, or "keeping your enemies closer" aspect that we see in that thing of theirs. There isn't the "money flows up, shit flows down" ethic, and you don't have to worry about entanglements with a more powerful outside authority (FBI).
Most of the examples given in the article examining the social networking could just as easily be seen as an excuse to have an adventure ("Someone's dead! Let's go rescue him."). You get to play the hero in a very specific mini-myth.
The larger & more formalized groupings in the game resemble fraternities a lot more than the mafia - a bunch of people who glom together who share a common outlook on life & a desire to party together. Piss off the alpha members of said community and you'll be shunned, not whacked. Heck, with all those "virtual weddings" you hear about, can "virtual date rape" be that far off?
-BbT
What a Load of... (Score:5, Funny)
The analogy would be tighter to a PK game (Score:5, Insightful)
But I have played Shadowbane (though I don't anymore), and I think they might really have something if they looked at a game, like SB, where player-killing is virtually unrestricted and where all expectations point to a social-interaction model versus a lone-wolf model.
Their example of a player ripping off the group by logging out pales next to some of the experiences I had on SB: an assassin backstabbing from stealth to kill and rob players ten levels lower, for example. Then griefed players grouping together to track and kill that sucker across the entire game world (as we did once). Add in the ever-present guild scene in that game, in which certain leading individuals are known to literally every player on the server, and you get a lot closer to northern New jersey.
Reminds me of Sanctuary Mud (Score:3, Interesting)
If you killed in town, the town guards would go hostile on you.
If you killed in an area the Order guild chose to be policing, you would end up with them after you.
If you killed someone, you would have their friends after you....
The trick, of course, to PK, is those who run the game ensuring there is balance.. as you said, if a high level doing socially unacceptable things like killing noobs causes him to end up chased around teh entire game by a mob f
I prefer to think more like... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Godfather III (Score:2)
Haha, exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
The ultimate goal of any EQ guild is to get ahead of all other EQ guilds, acquire the best loot and items, and block the progression of any other guilds by killing important MOBs before any other guild can get their members online.
The only way to exercise power on a "blue" server (non-pvp) in EQ is to grief other players within the confines of the game rules. This means that blocking the progression of other players is a very enjoyable pasttime. It's the only way you can hurt them. Watching other guilds complain because they are stuck unable to progress in the game for weeks or months is very entertaining, and addicting. Many, many guilds do this, and relish the opportunity. And Verant/SoE does nothing to dissuade or stop it, unless you pay an extra $30/mo in subscription fees, in which case they put you on the "Legends" server, and force the other guilds to give you a chance.
To be a mafia, you really should be dabbling in illegal activities. This is true in EQ to an extent. The only rule that Verant/SoE consistently enforces on end-game guilds is the no-exploit rule: "You can't take advantage of flaws in the game design to kill something more easily or more quickly than Verant/SoE wants you to."
As a matter of fact, this rule is broken very often in the name of getting ahead of the competition. Nearly every EQ guild exploits something: if not MOB pathing, then a spell that's too powerful, a quirk in the Feign Death ability, etc. It's the way the game is played. Some might argue that the game is so flawed that it's impossible NOT to use an exploit now and then in the course of playing an honest game.
Anyway, for further reading, you can check out this article on EQ I wrote way back in December. It goes into some of the problems with the game that lead to a mafia mentality taking over the social structure, and the apathy of the development company. A few of the comments were pretty good, also.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/12/27/1748252.sht
Old news, heres real news (Score:4, Insightful)
Do As Your Told Or... (Score:3, Funny)
The next step - cut out the middleman (Score:2)
Specifically, I was thinking about the MMPORPG described in Todd McAulty's great story The Haunting of Cold Harbour [blackgate.com]. Basically, think of the Mafia with Ghouls, Vampires, and some cyborgs thrown in (and, no, it's not a straight Buffy rip off). I quit EQ last year to better co