Hey all, This may be old news to some on the list (especially since it was just linked this morning at Penny-Arcade) but there is a fairly long comment by a female gamer & MetaFilter in the thread on this issue: http://is.gd/dlBlj I'm not really certain that the author reaches any dramatic conclusions (trolling won't be discouraged, RL harassment will occur, the gaming community has racist & sexist biases that will discourage participation by minority and female players), but do think that it's a nice statement of concerns on the issue that, in the coming hours, will get quite a few more hits thanks to the aforementioned PA link & as such may soon become a more specific talking point. Best, pml On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Nick Lalone <nick.lalone@gmail.com> wrote:
The forums for FFXI were kind of strange. Allakhazam was strong early on but around the 3rd expansion most discussion had moved on to Blue Gartr or other individual linkshell forums or livejournal groups. They moved because other websites were doing what Allakhazam were doing better but without forums (FFXIOnline was much more popular than alla for a while). At some point, Square itself created official forums for linkshells through their community stuff. Later, the online auction house FFXIAH also had really active forums. The same thing was around WoW. Forums like SomethingAwful's: http://grab.by/5lnD are still super active and independent discussion of WoW for people interested in the "end game" business would go to blogs to discuss things as well as individual guild forums.
So I suppose to me this boils down to the casual WoW folks who find community in the official forums as well as those in the WoW "end game" who probably do not (exceptions abound here). I want to see how that will then change as the trophy trolls of trade chat and the official forums will no longer be able to completely hide like they once could. I can also see the Real ID stuff really mattering for competing end game groups on the same servers. But even then, Blizzard has minimized this competition through instancing, cross server looking for group, and other things. So in the end, I suppose i do not see real issue with the REAL ID stuff simply because Blizzard has done a lot to mitigate the possibility of internet fury that might fuel e-stalking and harassment.
That said, I am also sure that for certain groups, this will be problematic. Women playing Tauren who do not talk on ventrillo or men playing women who also do not talk on ventrillo who then seduce other male players for maximum profit. Certain aspects of that culture, I am sure, Blizzard will be happy to not deal with again.
I have to wonder what new uncomfortable MMO style drama would arise from this change.
Nick
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Mia Consalvo <consalvo@ohio.edu> wrote:
I haven't read the WoW forums much, since I only played the game briefly, but the tone of the forums always surprised me for its viciousness (which also was problematic in terms of racism, homophobia and sexism being present)- I was a longtime reader of the forums for Final Fantasy 11, where things seemed much more civil. I don't know if it was the game, the type of player attracted, or even perhaps the fact that FF11's forums were *not* official-- Square had no such official ones, so players started them elsewhere (I read the ones on Allakhazam). I wonder if enough players are upset, if there would be greater movement towards 'independent' forums like that.
Mia
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 5:31 PM, live <human.factor.one@gmail.com> wrote:
Love what you stated here. Very similar to what Bonnie Nardi of UC Irvine stated in a new blog post:
http://umichpress.typepad.com/university_of_michigan_pr/2010/07/bonnie-nardi...
On Jul 8, 2010, at 8:31 AM, David Jones wrote:
I've grown more and more concerned about the power of companies like
Facebook or Blizzard to dictate what constitutes "identitity" and how people manage their online personas. Mark Zuckerberg has used the rhetoric of "openness" and "integrity" to push Facebook's default stance of making their participants' data public. There are all sorts of scary questions about
a
company like Facebook deciding it has the right -- even the ethical obligation -- to determine what constitutes an online identity.
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-- Mia Consalvo, Ph.D. Visiting Associate Professor Comparative Media Studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building 14N-226 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 USA consalvo@mit.edu 617.324.1868 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Nick LaLone Texas State University-San Marcos Systems Support / Master's Student www.beforegamedesign.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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