The Essay Bit...

My work requires a short Essay alongside it, relative to the project which I have been doing. I have decided to write about the effects which hierarchy in MMO's has on the intergration of new players and their cultivation of social networks. It also explains a bit how social networking tends to be used in online games.

As an ex-World of Warcraft player (I haven't played for an entire year now!), I began to notice a lot about how social networking worked within the game and how it affected new players. At the time it was something I felt quite passionately about, since as a "hardcore", sponsered player I tried to treat everyone in the game world as equally as possible, helping out as and where I could. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for other people of my calibre and the way that newer and lower level players tended to be treated upset me somewhat. I think at the time it felt quite strange to me how players could gain such a high opinion of themselves merely through virtual items...

This essay is written completely from experience since I felt the best way to explain it was straight from me - someone who has played MMO's for a number of years. As you will probably notice, I have decided to not include any references from any other pieces of work or studies. The reason for this is because I personally don't feel that the majority of studies written about MMO's are valid since 90% of the time, the author has had no personal experience within any of the games themselves. This was another one of the reasons I felt I should develop this project - as a way of demonstrating the social problems of MMO's to those who haven't played them and making them easier to understand by displaying them through a game itself.