shoelscher

Hello and welcome! My name is Sarah and I am a Junior at Trinity University where I am currently studying to be a communication major - though I am definitely not limited to that specific field as far as my interests go. I love photography as well as great music. My contribution to this research comes from my work on Runes of Magic as well as another MMO that I have yet to really get too much into called Silk Road Online. Basically, I hope that with the findings through this research, our class will be able to distinguish some cultural patterns of behavior and/or maybe some different opinions concerning transnational gaming and region-locking. I am very excited to see where this study goes.

So this past week, we went back to Free Realms in class to take a closer look at all the game and how it compares to Dungeons and Dragons Online.  It was really difficult for me to get back into Free Realms after playing DDO for so long.  I had to get used to the simplicity and the slower pace of everything, but I did manage to learn some more things about the game itself throughout the session.  While the purpose and general mechanics of these two games are quite different, there are still some similarities to speak of.

The quality of the graphics are much better in DDO than Free Realms.  The characters are able to move more easily and have more "personality" as it relates to the game.  DDO's plot line specifically involves the character you are playing, in some cases even including your name when the quest is bestowed upon you.  I almost feel as though Free Realms is less interactive, to a point where I don't really involve myself in the game as much.  I find myself completely drawn into DDO in a way that I cannot really explain.  Background noise fades out, I'm a member of my group, battling evil demons and zombies.  I love it!  I must say that it is nice to have the ability to teleport in Free Realms.  The map is far too huge to be able to successfully run around everywhere, and it made it easier for our group to stay together.  DDO has a much smaller map, so running around a village or town is manageable, but without the communication, we would have a hard time finding one another.  

One similarity between DDO and Free Realms is the camera angle and the general look of the game.  I have already mentioned how the graphics are not on the same page in terms of quality, but there are certainly some similarities between the character actions and the general landscapes used in the games.  For me, Free Realms just isn't as exciting of a game as DDO.  I noticed that the quests we were actually doing in Free Realms as a team were probably as close to a DDO challenge as we could get.  What I mean by that is we were choosing to do quests that required a lot of direct combat, facing huge numbers with our small group of only four people.  I like the similarity within the group dynamics of both DDO and Free Realms.  We all worked together to make sure we stayed alive and got through each mission together.  No matter how entertaining or boring the game might have been, we stuck together.

The chat option for me was never something I ever considered using.  We had the convenience before of sitting next to one another so communication was simple and didn't require us to remove ourselves from the situation to address matters at a moments notice.  Most of the time, I am too involved in the game I am playing to even look at it, since it is just sitting in the corner of the screen.  I am usually just more focused on the action that I am partaking in.  The chat kind of showed me a little bit about my group members.  The amount that they used the chat was usually the amount that we had talked amongst ourselves in general.  Everyone was really willing to help one another out though.  I was definitely a little hesitant not being able to ask questions every few moments, but being forced to use the chat box really kind of allowed me to explore some things on my own and try to figure them out for myself, like I would have to do if I were not playing the game in this setting initially.  I really found out a lot about myself through the use of the chat box, though.  I was slightly more engaged in the game that I had previously been, but still no where near the level of engagement with DDO.
My group! We're all pretty much awesome.

 The first source I went through was MMORPG.com - a blog that is specifically dedicated to massively multiplayer online role-playing games.  At first glance, the site itself was a bit overwhelming.  There were screen shots of game characters everywhere along with animated graphic advertisements and text all over the place.  What was I even looking at?  I'm not too sure.  It was very difficult to decipher all that was going on, so I took it one line at a time.  Luckily, there was a search tab close to the top of the page.  Looking over most of the topics on the homepage, it looks as though most of this website is dedicated to MMORPG-ers.  Here, they have the ability to post anything they want (as long as it is relevant content).  With a forum that is updated every ten seconds, it is clear that there is TONS of discussion going on between the members of this gaming community concerning the games themselves, or any sort of gaming news (such as the release of the new Dungeons and Dragons game).  The advertisements displayed on the homepage are all video game-related, which makes sense.  The target audience for these products would be the people that spend a decent amount of time on these types of websites.  Utilizing the search bar, I found that there was quite a bit of discussion in reference to regional segregation... over fifty posts, in fact.

I consider myself to be a person of good humor.  I'll laugh at just about anything and in some cases, I can even anticipate the punch-line of a joke.  This was all true until I found The Noob.  It appears as though these comics are meant to poke fun at the many facets of video games, including character descriptions, the cliche story lines and even the stereotypical emotional detachment from other players in the game.  I found that this type of humor can only be truly appreciated by a certain type of person: one that is an avid participant in the world of video and/or online games.  The site itself is very intuitive with a very organized template and design.  The comics don't appear to mention any game in particular, most likely due to copyright laws.  The advertisements along the margins of the page are very similar to those seen on the MMORPG website.  They all pertain to video games.  There is also a link to the online store for "thenoobcomic" merchandise.  The comics themselves don't really cover any part of transnational play or region locking, at least not in any kind of prominent manner.

Finally, I looked into Grand Text Auto, which is a host site for "a group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art."  In a way, the site reminded me of a tabloid magazine.  There was a lot of research done to produce these hot topic stories about what is going on in the current events of games, etc.  I have to say, the little previews of each article got me excited about the topic that was to be discussed.  I felt like I was getting an inside look on subject matter that was unintentionally leaked out to the public.  The actual process of looking through the site was about like going through TFLN.  You have to kind of read a little bit of everything before you can get to the next page, and each page has a TON of information on it.  You don't want to skip over something good.  This website is one of those that you would need to set aside a couple of hours for if you were trying to catch up on everything.  Since the site is simply a blog (much like this), there is no need for advertising to pay for the existence of the site.  It is, however, run by Baskin Engineering out of UCSC (University of California at Santa Cruz).  I did find this particular article concerning Transnational Play.  This site does a very good job of covering a vast spectrum of information.  Overall, it was pretty well organized and had plenty of outside sources to legitimize the latest stories - unfortunately, those tabloids haven't figured out how to do this for their latest Hollywood hook-ups and biggest cat fights.  While I probably wouldn't give that website enough of my time to fully appreciate it, I like what they are trying to accomplish with it.