Project Massive Results And Survey Iteration

Project Massive, a study being run out of Carnegie Mellon university into the tendencies of MMOG players, has released the findings of its second wave of testing and the third iteration of the survey. From the site: "Previously, Project Massive has investigated player communication and organization in PC based, Massively Multiplayer games. While this work continues, the inquiry has been expanded to address the impact of online play on the players' real life activities, perceptions, and experiences. No longer is the study limited to PC based MMOs. A number of online genres including first-person shooters and real-time strategy games have been added. Further, both console and PC player populations are included in the sample."

Crap...

[game kid]

they took the name of our adult film study!

MODS ON CRACK!

[Frodo Crockett]

Offtopic? Someone didn't get the joke....

Cost - 1993 vs. 2005

[MiceHead]

In 1993, players would routinely pay around $3-$6 per hour for text-based, commercial multiplayer online games versus today's ~$14.95/mo flatrate.

I got my first job in the industry working for a company that produced such a game [archive.org]. If memory serves, players for that game could get a dedicated Tymnet pipe to play the game, flatrate, for a mere $1,000.00/mo.

We politely referred to those players as being "dedicated." Or, on occasion, "committed."

Re:Cost - 1993 vs. 2005

[jbellis]

hmm...

1997: Andor announces that instead of $10/month + $2/h, it will now only charge $25/month, flat.

1998: SOE launches Everquest, charging $12/month flat.

I think I see what happened...

Re:Cost - 1993 vs. 2005

[Andy Mitchell]

In 1993, players would routinely pay around $3-$6 per hour for text-based....

I'm amazed people were paying! There were thousands of free muds back in 1993. Surprisingly, many of them are still going today. This is rather impressive when you consider how dead the single player text based adventure has become.

Re:Most Addictive

[DrunkenTerror]

I would think so... Choose you faction, (Slashbot, Elitist IT Douchebag, Mod on Crack, Troll, Lurker, Normal Human, etc) and set out on a quest for Excellent Karma. Along the way you make friends and foes that can help or hinder you as you strive to the goal. Then, once you reach lvl 50, the endgame really sucks... It's just like the 49 other levels, only you have no goal and can't advance any further. At this point you must choose to stay as a benevolent lvl 50 user and get into managing your resources (journal entries, subscriptions), or succumb to the call of darkness and start using your levels to terrorize your foes, both real and imagined.

Re:Most Addictive

[Ayaress]

Normal Human? I take it that's one of those nerfed classes that nobody picks?

Re:Most Addictive

[DrunkenTerror]

Yeah, you get no special powers, but you just don't give a shit. :D

Re:Most Addictive

[Reignking]

I'd say Anonymous Coward is naturally nerfed, because he can't accrue Karma...

Survey Says

[deathwombat]

Since the addition of the /pizza command in EQ2 the average weight of it's players has nearly doubled!

And violent tendencies in WoW players is up 400% due to downtimes and exceedingly long queues for realms.

Also that 75% of all statistics are made up!

Suspicious

[MBraynard]

I suspect that this study is merely a cover/excuse for the grad student(s) doing the study to play games for 8 hours a day and get the Uni to pay for it.

Re:Suspicious

[patio11]

Ah, university, what a great racket. I had a grant proposal for $200 to buy a Japanese PS2 ("Cultural Studies") written up but chickened out at the last minute, but my prof said it would have been golden (hard for a guy whose research speciality is manga* to say your field lacks academic merit).

* You'd expect it to have been the worst class in terms of actual content in my college career, but it was EASILY in the top half once you cut past all the BS that was on the syllabus to convince the department th

Re:Suspicious

[Kalak]

I want to do my dissertation on this, and I'll do it w/o the university paying for it. Heck, in '98 I should have done it, as all I had to do was to collect logs, etc from my addiction to net games. *sigh* I guess these guys beat me to it (I was too busy playing to do the Lit Review.)

Conclusion

[Reignking]

I know this survey is supposedly ongoing, but it would be nice if the authors could at least offer some conclusions. After going over some of the data, nothing surprised me. I'm not sure what they hope to find, or what their objective is.

Damn...

[FreakyControl]

15% of the players reported playing on average 21 hours per week. That's a part-time job! With the advent of selling property online for cash, one wonders if playing MMOG's will become a part-time job...

Though I question the accuracy of some of the statistics, since it's nearly impossible to play for 156 hours per week as that would only allow for 12 hours of sleep per week.

Is it just me?

[Kelbear]

Nobody finds it interesting that City of Heroes is actually leading World of Warcraft in "What MMOG do you play the most?"? City of heroes has far less suscribers than World of Warcraft, peaked at 180,000 down to about 120,000 last I heard. Not to rip on CoH since I actually enjoyed it more than WoW, but it's just odd that the distribution of results seems so far from the sales quotes from the companies. Any ideas on why?