EverQuest - a game of adventure, of excitement, of challenge, of fighting, of victory, of passion, and for some, even of love. To the strong few, EverQuest is not a game, but is a way of life. Thus I thought that creating the avatar "Sumiya", a female Siberian Tiger (like the one so cherished by Sigfried and Roy above) in humanoid form (a tiger with Gisele Bündchen's body), would allow me to have some pretty fierce girlpower on the MMORPG. After playing for an entire hour, however, I found that this was not to be so for a n00b such as I. I was so bogged down by the intricacies and manuverings of the game as a first-time player, that I found little time to unleash the Catwoman that was clawing inside of me.
Yee & Bailenson (2007) describe the Proteus Effect as an individual’s behavior conforming
to their digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them. An avatar that one creates in an online environment composes our entire self-representation in that setting. Users of an MMORPG like EverQuest conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect their avatar to have. For instance, one would expect a barbarian avatar to be rough and tough, thus the person who has selected the character may act in that manner on the game. The Proteus Effect may seem similar to SIDE, however there is a fundamental difference between the two theories. SIDE predicts that one will act according to group influences, i.e. if you are a wood elf in a guild with other wood elves on EverQuest, you would probably act wise and knowledgable to fit in with your fellow creatures. However, the Proteus Effect predicts that you will act like a wood elf because of your individual identity/chosen avatar, not because of influence from other characters. You'll be pretty slick whether or not your other elf friends are there to help you grow in your mannerisms.
Like any MMORPG, you get the most out of them if you play them at length (how this affects your real life is another story). I felt I was truly held back from experiencing the Proteus Effect because of the many intricacies of the game. In the first hour, my interaction was mostly with NPCs (non-player characters), computerized characters whose duty it was to teach me how to get around the land of Norrath. Sumiya, my avatar, broke out of jail with the help of a NPC barbarian, had her axe fixed by a NPC wood elf, and received armor from a NPC dark elf. There were other "n00bs" in the land of Norrath, but they were scuttering around trying to complete these same tasks in order to gain the ability to do more things in the game. I attempted to commnicate once or twice with a male human avatar to see if Sumiya's feline ferociousness would come out in conversation, or even battle, however I was met with a blank stare. My experience playing EverQuest was slower and not as rich as the time I played WOW for an earlier assignment. Ultimately, Sumiya got lost in a field of spiders trying to collect silk for a dark elf, and found herself stuck in a giant spiderweb, unable to move. My cries of help in the main chat were to no avail, and I ended the game.
Had I not gotten caught in a large 2-D spiderweb, and had I played the game for several more hours, I'm sure my dialogue as a crazy cat would have shown through to my fellow players. This animal avatar had strength points that were quite high (although wisdom points which were quite low), so my winning battles via brute strength I'm sure would have gone to my head. I can imagine a time when my actions did meld with the those expected of a particular avatar. In an earlier assignment, I created a human avatar while playing WOW, and in an attempt to explore communication in this online forum, I played the hapless female who knew nothing about the game, inquring many male avatars about how to progress to the next level. My attempt to exert my femaleness in order to foster communication agreed with the woman avatar that I chose.
I came, I saw, I commented
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-too-fat-for-friends.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-my-second-life-died.html
1 comment:
Interesting post. It also sounds like the environment and your familiarity with the interface prevented the Proteus effect from fully kicking in. Maybe it just takes a few days to get familiar with the interface. When I was in seventh grade I played Ultima Online and I remember being really lost and confused for the first couple of days. And then completely addicted until the beginning of high school. :-)
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