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Memetics, Identity and Collaboration in the World of Warcraft

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Memetics, Identity and Collaboration in the World of Warcraft INDIVIDUAL COPYCATS: MEMETICS, IDENTITY AND COLLABORATION IN THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT By Phillip Michael Alexander A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Rhetoric & Writing 2012 ABSTRACT INDIVIDUAL COPYCATS: MEMETICS, IDENTITY AND COLLABORATION IN THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT by Phillip Michael Alexander This dissertation uses the Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) World of Warcraft as a location for inquiry into how players learn to collaborate, forge identities, and achieve both personal and group goals. I focus specifically on a memetics based framework, looking at how memes operate within WoW while paying careful attention to what gamers do to develop individual and group identities in light of so many things in the game being memetic. The study focuses around two guiding principles: there’s a lot of modeling and copying/replicating happening in WoW, but gamers still work to build individual and group identities that represent something unique. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii INTRODUCTION: DO GOBLINS DREAM OF ELECTRIC LOOT? 1 CHAPTER 1: WHAT HAPPENS IN AZEROTH CAN’T SEEM TO STAY IN AZEROTH 7 The Rhetorician Looks at Gaming Studies or Why Study Gaming 11 Time to Play the Ludus: A Gaming Studies Story 20 Gaming Studies Closer to the World… of Warcraft 25 An Aside: Serious Games 27 Wrapping it Up and Setting The Course: Where Do You Want to Go Today? 29 CHAPTER 2: LEVEL 85 GOBLIN RESEARCHER LFG 33 I’m Going In: Who’s the Death Knight with the Notepad? 35 Something Happened on the Way to the Raid 37 The Meme 38 A (brief) History of Memetics and the Meme 38 Meme Ideas and the Meme closer to our discipline 42 Criticism of the Meme 45 My (Re)Application of the Meme: Building a Lens 46 Layering in Activity Theory and Developing a Meme Tool 49 What’d You Do?: Gathering Data, Observing, and Roflstomppwning Noobz 53 Ethics in Gaming Spaces: Five Key Considerations for MMO Research 55 And So I Boldly Go Where… Wait, Wrong Fantasy Universe: The Study Begins 65 What Emerged: 5 Things This Study Has To Share 66 Overview of Chapters 71 CHAPTER 3: DANCES WITH DIGITAL WORMS OR WELCOME TO THE ERA OF MEMETIC GAMING, JUST LIKE THE LAST ERA, JUST LIKE THE NEXT ERA, JUST LIKE THIS ERA 73 Social Learning, Feedback Loops, and How to Look at Learning in Games 76 Flashpoint, Instant Success, and Gaming Literacies 80 Feedback Loop Number One: Salty Get Nipped (this time) 89 iii Being in the Know: Gamer Knowledge 92 The Distance to Here: Raid Preparation 102 Feedback Loop Number Two: Lint’s Feedback Loop for Magmaw 109 Getting Gear and Stocking Supplies: World of Workcraft 110 The Fishback Loop 114 Add-ons and the Application of Material Knowledge to the Interface 114 Back to the “Pull:” Magmaw Revisited 118 CHAPTER 4: “KNOW YOUR ROLE AND (PROBABLY NEVER) SHUT YOUR MOUTH:” DIGITAL IDENTITY IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT 122 The Real, Identity, and Play: Constructing Vacation Selves in Magic Circles 126 A Looking Glass: Nakamura, Identity Tourism, and Identities at Play 130 Splitting Skullz: Identity Clashes and Power Struggles 138 Taking X-Rays of Skullz to Look for Fractures 139 Say What Now? Roles and Playing 146 Conclusion: Digital Identities and Keeping it “Real” 151 CHAPTER 5: “DON’T BE A DOUBLE DOTTING DOUCHE:” GROUP IDENTITY IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT 157 Community: Communal, Local, and Practiced 160 Cities that Are(n’t) Communities or Truths, Fictions and a Fictional Truth 165 Raging Bears, Double-Dotting Douches and a New Couple 168 Things Get Aggro-vating: The Technical Results of Community Distress 171 An Aside: Aggro Issues with TheBearTank 172 When We are like Me and is Like We and We all Raid Together 175 But Wait… What about That Bear and the Dots? 180 Conclusion: We Are… 182 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION: “ONCE WE DOWN HER ON NORMAL, WE GO DO IT ON HEROIC” 188 Opening Horizons: Places This Research Points 192 Nobody Puts DK in a Corner: What I Learned about Collaborating and Failing and Why It Matters to Computers & Writing 193 Because We Fail, We Succeed: The Spirit of Gaming as Inquiry 195 WoW, That’s Collaboration 196 Issues of Identity: Gaming and Beyond 200 Shifting Gears: The Meme as Heuristic 202 iv Future Considerations: Where I’m Headed Next 205 Facebook Games, Collaboration and Writing 206 Game (not actually) Over: Closing Thoughts 208 REFERENCES 210 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Selber’s (2004) Conceptual Landscape of a Computer Multiliteracies Program (from Multiliteracies for a Digital Age, p. 25) 21 Table 2: Gaming Literacies in a Selber-Inspired Relationship (Alexander, 2007) 21 Table 3: Meme Tool 51 Table 4: Gamer Knowledge Type Matrix 94 Table 5: Gamer Roles (adapted from Anderson, 2011) 148 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Waving Goblin. For interpretation of the references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is referred to the electronic version of this dissertation. 1 Figure 2: Gorehowl In-game Tooltip (or data info graphic) 9 Figure 3: The Ludus (from Frasca, 1999) 22 Figure 4: Magmaw and his chamber 83 Figure 5: Raid group engaged with Magmaw (text in image not relevant) 84 Figure 6: Initial Magmaw Positioning 85 Figure 7: Magmaw encounter movements 87 Figure 8: Lint’s Spec (a screen capture; text not relevant) 105 Figure 9: WoW default UI (text in image not relevant) 115 Figure 10: Customized Raid UI (only red outlined text is relevant) 116 vii Introduction: Do Goblins Dream of Electric Loot? Hey there! Well met! My name is Phill, and I kill dragons. Figure 1: Waving Goblin. For interpretation of the references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is referred to the electronic version of this dissertation. My name actually IS Phill, but throughout this document when you see the blue italics (for interpretation of the references to color in this and all other portions of this text, the reader is referred to the electronic version of this dissertation), the “speaker” is actually a World of Warcraft in-game character, or “toon”—the name given to Warcraft game world avatars derived from the word “cartoon” due to early role-playing games resembling comic books. In the case of the beginning of each chapter, it is my toon speaking, though in the body chapters it could be any of my participants (always attributed, of course). For those reading a black and white copy, this text will appear slightly fuzzy and gray scaled. For the purposes of the study, I gave my specific toon the pseudonym “Phill” as it was an elegant way to protect the group’s online identity (so that no one can trace my toon back to me and through that find my guild) and because it is practical to use my own name when speaking of myself. 1 This introduction is meant to serve as a sort of roadmap to game terminology and scenarios. I will, in the body of the text, revisit these terms for clarification, but I did not want to thrust you, my reader, too quickly into Azeroth—the “world” of Warcraft—without some basic information. I ask that you soldier on—some pun intended—if these first few pages seem a touch dry. As when we build anything, the foundation can seem a bit boring when compared to the structure itself, but everything stands on a solid base of something, lest it collapse. I’m a Death Knight… Death Knight is one of the ten WoW playable classes. Toons have three major distinguishing factors in the game: gender (which is visually important but has no “game mechanics based” impact on the toon, though it can be of huge social importance and is hence important to the game), race (of which the game offers 12, each with different game mechanics benefits. For example the goblin Death Knight addressing you here has a racial bonus called “pack hobgoblin,” which provides him with a little minion that will run to his personal bank and bring back items), and class. The ten class designations have within them a number of “specifications” or specs, based on a set of three trees. The choice of “spec” a toon makes defines his or her role in most encounters. …about to engage in a PuG… PuG stands for “pick up group,” which means that instead of the group being pre-established it was assembled, either partly or entirely, by public solicitation of people who may or may not be strangers. In groups where some but not all of the members are regulars, “PuG” is also used to designate the picked up group members (e.g. “It wasn’t my fault! The PuG missed his interrupt!”) 2 …raid on Blackwing Descent. This can be a place where even somewhat seasoned WoW players get a bit confused by term usage, so again, bear with please, as I am confident it will make sense once I’ve finished. Blackwing Descent is a raid instance. “Raid” is a key term that appears throughout this dissertation, as my participants and the major unit I was observing was a “raid” group. Here’s where it gets tricky: “raid” is a very elastic word in WoWspeak. Starting from the top, a raid is an instance—an instance being a part of the game world that exists only for a set group of people, meaning it is but one “instance” of the events at a location—meant for 10 or 25 (once, but no longer, also 40) players.
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