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ANP 489: Anthropology Capstone Course Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad Final Paper ANP 489: Anthropology Capstone Course Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad Final Paper Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the nature of social acceptability, found in “Language and Symbolic Power”, can be applied to online games that Steinkuehler, C., & Williams, D. (2006) argue are “third spaces”. With references to the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) “Old School RuneScape” (OSRS), I will be analyzing the various performativity practices of players in the game and how they are contrived of varying degrees of social power in-game. The purpose of this analysis will be to attempt to extend Steinkuehler’s defining of digital third spaces by analyzing OSRS through Pierre Bourdieu’s framework of symbolic power. By looking at how players choose to represent their character’s in game through speech, itemization, and movement I seek to demonstrate the prevailing forces making RuneScape a digital third space susceptible to social power dynamics. This work exists in conjunction with research being done in the field of digital anthropology and other interdisciplinary fields that are turning virtual environments such as World of Warcraft, SecondLife, and Lineage into field sites. RuneScape, the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game founded by Jagex in 2001 is a virtual online environment that can be accessed across the globe. It has gone through several major reworks in the past 17 years and as a result is not the same game as it began. RuneScape 3, the latest version of the game released in 2013, continues to evolve today (RuneScape). RuneScape was built using Java code, but as development with this computer language became increasingly difficult to manage bugs, software mediated pathogens, Jagex made the switch to C++. Because RuneScape has gone through drastic developmental changes in the last 17 years, it is important to distinguish which version of RuneScape we are looking at and why. For the sake of the simplicity, RuneScape refers to all iterations of the game and the entirety of the community that plays any of the versions released by Jagex while OSRS refers to specially the style of game that stays true to its original design and functionality. ANP 489: Anthropology Capstone Course Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad Final Paper RuneScape has gone through three major reworks while also splitting into two separate games through the course of its online existence. In 2004, RuneScape was relaunched as RuneScape 2 and RuneScape Classic, a far more basic version of the game – sticking to its original design, was released. The major difference between the game was its updated graphical interface and smoothness of character and environmental aesthetics. The most notable version of RuneScape was released in 2007 as a game that stayed true to pixelated animations while also expanding on the gameplay by adding new quests and skills. which will be discussed later. Then, in February 2013 a poll was given to the RuneScape community to see if the 2007 version of RuneScape was worth preserving. With an astounding 500,000 votes in favor of keeping a classic version of the game, Jagex released the game as Old School RuneScape. RuneScape 2 was upgraded and repackaged as RuneScape 3 in July 2013 with even more graphical, structural, and functional updates. However, this rerelease was met with resistance from the RuneScape community. Players from across the world had felt as if this version of the game had distanced itself from the simplicity of the original game. Combat became more convoluted and classic styled buildings received texture updates that changed the entire feeling of the game. When Jagex began to update RuneScape’s graphical capabilities, the players felt it lost its novelty along with it. Contrary to what Jagex expected, their attempts to make the game look better backfired with a majority of their original userbase. Jagex soon realized that with every attempt to improve the look of the game, they were losing part of the originality that allowed the game to become popular. OSRS is still one of the biggest MMORPG’s on the market today, with over two-hundred-sixty million accounts, the game has become a haven for nostalgic players and first-time video gamersavi alike. The purpose of RuneScape is whatever the player wants it to be. In OSRS, there are 15 nonmember and eight member skills making a total of 23 skills that can be leveled up for members. Being a member on RuneScape originally required a monthly subscription. However, in 2015, Jagex ANP 489: Anthropology Capstone Course Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad Final Paper released an in-game item known as a bond which can be bought from other players or the Grand Exchange, RuneScape’s “Wall Street”, which gave the player one month of free membership. Other than buying a bond with in-game currency, a player can also use a credit card or PayPal service to use out-of- game currency to buy a membership. Other than having access to more skill options, members also have access to more locations in the game, more quests, and more items. As a result, the incentive for becoming a member is quite high for players that enjoy the game and want to progress their characters. With each skill in RuneScape, there is the ability to train it to level 99, or the max level, which can take anywhere from a week to a year depending on the level of time dedicated to the pursuit. Some players can grind, or spend consecutive hours doing repetitive actions in game, certain skills to the max level in less than a week of in game time. In OSRS, there are combat skills and noncombat skills. Combat skills like attack and strength allow the player to equip weapons and deal more damage with each attack. Noncombat skills like cooking and fishing allow the player to receive different raw fish – depending on the players level, location, and fishing tool and then cook them by chopping down a tree, which requires the woodcutting skill, and lighting the wood on fire with a tinderbox, which requires the firemaking skill, and then clicking on the fire after clicking on the fish. Depending on the cooking level, the fish will either be cooked or burnt. Players with a higher cooking level have less chance burning their food. The cooked fish can either be eaten by the player to regain health while killing NPC’s (non-player characters) or other players (‘PKing’ – or player killing) or sold to general shops or the Grand Exchange. OSRS also offers a unique variety of quests, achievement diaries, and mini-games that generate different in game rewards such as weapons, armor, or stat enhancing wearables such as rings, necklaces, and capes. Each of these items allows the player to customize their character to add combat or skill bonuses or just fashion to their appearance. Higher-level items generally have more interesting design features while lower-level items tend to look more generic. Each of these items can be identified ANP 489: Anthropology Capstone Course Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad Final Paper or not identified by other players in the game as holding a relative value with ever other item in the game based on it’s in game value, stat bonuses, and style. If a new player cannot identify an item, they will normally be able to identify the items value due to its sophistication and cosmetic appeal and associate it with a higher value than the items they start out with. If a reoccurring player cannot identify an item, they will either attribute it to a seasonal event, occurring every Halloween, Christmas, and Easter and offer rewards unique to that season, or a new item addition which will make the new item – depending on its bonuses relative to the cost of getting it – their newest pursuit. An example of this would be the release of a new weapon with higher combat bonuses then a weapon the player is currently using. Generally, players in OSRS have multiple item sets that they choose to wear depending on the activity they are doing. For example, a player standing in the Grand Exchange might choose to wear items that make them look stylish over items that are good for combat. Such items used to be the party hats and the dragon masks until Jagex made them more accessible for players to get and as a result forced their price down on the Grand Exchange and as a result: their perceived value in the game. Before the party hats were made accessible, the price would sometimes exceed one hundred ‘mil’, or 10,000,000 GP (in-game currency), depending on the color. The blue party hat was and still is the highest priced party hat but now the it is only worth approximately 50K, 50,000 GP. Therefore, the blue party hat is no longer a symbol of wealth and status anymore for OSRS players. Though it once was a way to distinguish oneself from other players and transfer wealth, it now stands as a relatively benign homage to a simpler time in RuneScape. What was interesting about the blue party hats, was not their bonuses – because they didn’t offer the player any bonuses in the game – it was what they represented to other players. Someone who does not play RuneScape might see the blue party hat on a low-resolution graphic of a digital avatar and ANP 489: Anthropology Capstone Course Adam Weickersheimmer-Austad Final Paper question this claim. RuneScape, in the early days, was defined by it’s low resolution graphics and was venerated for its minimal design. Unlike other MMORPGs, RuneScape didn’t boast to having the best graphical interface but merely the ability to give the player the freedom to make their own stories in game.
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