Research and raiding

Our academic friends Ladan and Zeotrix aka Sebastian Lundmark haven't been idling this fall. Both of them have published some very interesting content from raider's perspective.

First of all Zeotrix has finished his thesis which takes a closer look on how gaming together affects us. Last winter and fall people from this site (among with some other people) were asked to particiapte in the study twice, and the results are here. Zeotrix describes his work:

"This thesis, by employing a four month self-selected panel-study of players from the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft as well as a control-group of non-players, find that generalized trust is negatively affected by participation in an online gaming environment. By creating an analytical framework of what constitutes a voluntary association this thesis also find that the Guilds in World of Warcraft constitutes such an association and that some of the negative effect by playing World of Warcraft can be explained by playing in ethnically homogenous guilds and off-set by playing in ethnically heterogeneous guilds. In other words, by playing MMORPG:s we are no longer only playing games, we are gaming together and that affect how we evaluate society."

Sebastian Lundmark

Zeotrix has also done a third step to the study, which he'll later talk about at this website. Reading the thesis (or at least taking a look at the interesting findings) is a great idea, even to the people who haven't gotten used to reading academic texts.

The Thesis is available for download at Göteborgs Universitet's website. The .pdf is perfectly safe.
 

 

 

 

Ladan on the other hand keeps diving deeper and deeper into the world of raiders in Warcraft. Her new article (which is published in two parts) talks about the enviroinment in which high end guilds play, what is the pressure they have, and what kind of emotions are going on. Even when Paragon wasn't featured in the text, we can still sign it with a "I feel you bro", in an understanding of how things are during the time the competition is on.

 Ladan's article is available on her website: Raiding Research Online.