Guild Wars 2

Thanks Tobias. I’ve wondered about approaching ArenaNet to get some sort of feedback/involvement, but up to this point have not. I’ve found that there are a great deal of insights to be gained from what is already available, say through developer interviews with various gaming sites/organizations or even through the GW2 website. All the same, if I ever flesh this out into a larger monograph then I’d definitely want to get in touch with them.

I personally really hoped they were setting up Traherne to be another Pale Tree type thing. He sacrifices himself to cleanse Orr, and becomes a tree similar to the Pale Tree that gives life to the country again. Was actually very disappointed with the actual ending.

Thanks again to all who have participated. I’m currently revamping the project somewhat and expanding it to meet final requirements for my degree. The final project will be focused specifically on Guild Wars 2 as an example of more recent changes to narrative in MMORPGs, so if there are any stragglers who would still like to contribute then feel welcome!

Derk.3189:

Yumae.7256:

Gilosean.3805:

lol

Additionally, in the future try not to let your criticism take an unjustified patronizing overtone.

Now that I’ve answered all your questions, I’d like you to answer one of mine! I’m a movie critique enthusiast myself, and one critique I especially enjoy (and is very relevant in your studies of character and story) is a lengthy review of Star Wars episode 1 by a man who goes by the pseudonym of Harry Plinkett. I was wondering if you’ve watched it before.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

(the language is quite vulgar though, for comedic value)
The method in which he dissects the characters can also be applied here, and on that note I’d say the characters in gw2 are very dull, which impacts the story and makes it rather dull and not involving.

Sorry I missed this! I haven’t seen the critique, but I’ll make sure to check it out. Thanks! I’m quickly realizing this is a project far larger than I can cover in the current project, so I’m sure I’ll be returning to this for more work on character in the future.

I’ll be collecting and incorporating the responses soon, so these are the last few days to respond! Thanks to all those who have so far.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

@Moonrabbit: She already mentioned above that the research is IRB-approved. C’mon, let’s keep this thread on track.

Thanks Neilos, and it’s good to hear about games research going on elsewhere! I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Moonrabbit.1543:

Was this research approved by the IRB of UC?

As is stated earlier in the thread, this has been approved by the IRB at UC. I can understand if you have questions about my methodology, but I request that such questions be sent via private messages (I don’t want this thread to derail).

Thanks for the thoughtful responses guys. The effort put into them is extremely helpful!

Thanks for the response Regendo!

I’d like to thank everyone again for posting, and also say that this is still open for others as well. Remember that if you choose to respond you are in no way obligated to answer any questions you are uncomfortable with.

Gilosean.3805:

Yuma – did you run this past your University’s human subjects board? Your advisor committee?

I have a hard time believing they signed off on this method of information collection. It’s not nearly private enough to get good results, that’s a big one. Also, age and gender are protected pieces of information and there are legal requirements for how you handle that in research. Also, I hope you already are accounting for the self-selection and bias issues.

Take a bit of time, talk to your advisors, and definitely to the committee/group in charge of signing of on human participation in research. You may wind up not being able to use any of this information for a published paper if you don’t have everything properly set up.

@Responders, especially the teenager – don’t put your age and gender out in public on the internet. Seriously, that is a bad idea.

Genuine researchers have private surveys set up for this kind of thing. Large universities specifically have many resources just so their human-subjects research can meet legal requirements and doesn’t do this. Or heck, even a SurveyMonkey survey would be a better methodology.

This doesn’t look like a real research project at all to me – maybe an overly ambitious undergrad project. Unless it’s actually a research project on real-world online privacy behaviors, in which case bravo.

Actually this is approved by UChicago’s IRB, and as such is fully sanctioned. All information collected is publicly available and anonymous, further protected by pseudonyms I’m using. All of these qualifications have placed it under IRB approved exemption status.

I appreciate your concerns about my research, but they have gone through the appropriate channels. Furthermore I’d really appreciate it if this thread didn’t derail into IRB related issues.

Additionally, in the future try not to let your criticism take an unjustified patronizing overtone.

Thanks for the responses everyone! I’m really appreciative for you taking the time to do this. The research will be ongoing for a while yet, so more responses are welcome.

I’d love to get some more responses, especially with how new Guild Wars 2 is. Thank you to people who post!

Thanks for responding Mystic, and with such thoughtful answers. I really appreciate it, any and all responses are really helpful.

Hello,
My name is Yumä, I’m a researcher at University of Chicago. I’m currently working on a project involving game narratives in MMORPGs. I’m interested in how players relate to stories in on-line games, especially through their character’s personal story.

I’m posting questions here in hopes of getting more insight through player feedback about their experiences in MMORPGs. There are 9 questions, most of which focus on character and story. Feel free to answer all, some, or even one of the questions. Keep in mind your answers may be used in my project, and are always kept anonymous through screen names (which I will change if included in the project to protect your identity). I would greatly appreciate getting only serious responses. Thank you for reading this, and thank you to those who choose to respond. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and I will gladly respond to them.

1) What is your age? Gender?

2) How important is a game’s story to you? Why?

3) Within a game’s story, are you more interested in individual characters, or in bigger events and groups?

4) In regards to your own character, do you identify with them? In other words, do you view your character as yourself? Or do you view your character as a separate entity which you created?

5) Do you view your character’s progression as something you create/determine, or something the game itself creates/determines?

6) What do you view as your character’s ultimate goal? Is it different from the goal of defeating the final dungeon or raid boss?

7) How effective do you find personal story in MMORPGs (usually done through personal instances/quests)? Do you find it disjointed from the rest of the game, or do you feel it fits well with the rest of the game?

8) How do you view the idea that many other players are also playing through the same personal story?

9) How do you view your character’s personal story in relation to the larger stories in the game, or the lore of the game? Do you see a difference between individual story and group story in the game?