The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Social Networking in Massively Multiplayer Online Games Mikael Jakobsson School of Arts & Communication Malmö University
[email protected] T.L. Taylor Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication IT University of Copenhagen
[email protected] Faydark or Newark? Being virtual world aficionados, although not of the game world kind, we both tried out EverQuest when it was originally released but while Mikael quickly gave away his account information to some students, T.L. stayed. When Mikael started playing again several years later on a new account, she was already a seasoned veteran. As with other players completely new to this type of game, his main reference for how to understand EverQuest was the manual that came with the software. According to this information source, the most important tasks for a beginner were to gain experience and make money through killing small animals and to do quests to get gear that slightly improves ones character statistics. Mikael thought he would spend most of the time alone, fighting low level creatures for a long time before becoming a character of interest to the other players of the game. Secretly he nursed a vision of finally revealing himself to the community once he had become truly powerful, similar to the way Gandalf returns in The Lord of The Rings (Tolkien 2002). These expectations, however, soon proved to be based on several misconceptions. Despite first impressions of the game and, indeed, despite what one might gather from the written material, there is a much more important layer of activity to consider for successful living in the world of EQ.