Loyola University professor drives City of Heroes/Villains players crazy, all for sociology

by Seraphina Brennan on Jul 7th 2009 12:00PM

Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Culture, PvP, News items, Academic, Virtual worlds

Twixt was one of those names on the Freedom server of City of Heroes that would just drive everyone nuts. He was a PvPer who would find some of the craziest ways to annoy the heck out of his opponents, such as teleporting them right in front of the Longbow agents at the hero base in PvP zones. A year ago, however, the man behind the keyboard finally drew back his mask to reveal a sociology professor from Loyola University outside New Orleans.

Now his study on City of Heroes/Villains is finally coming forward, revealing a controversial look at how defying the cultural rules of a population can turn a person into a social outcast. The study's goal was to play only by the developer's rules, ignoring any extra rules that might be created by the population. For example, the concept of "kill stealing" and "fair fights" are thrown out the window as they are created by the population, not the game. Think of it like EVE Online -- if the game allows it, he does it.

While the study is intriguing in the fact that it covers the "new frontiers" of virtual worlds, it also brings into question some of the ethics involved with working undercover in a population, such as causing undue stress via what we consider to be griefing.

For a full report, check out the story as reported by The Times-Picayune.

[Thanks Petterm, Scopique!]

Source

Tags: academic, breaking, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, culture, griefing, longbow, loyola-university, new-orleans, recluses-victory, social, study, twixt

Reader Comments (45)

I'm sure players will get over it. After sending the therapeutic threats and mass pvp kills on his ass.

Gee what groundbreaking work. Acting like a d%$#@ bag will get you hated by those around you. Gee who would of thunk it.

I really hope this guy isnt wasting grant money on this garbage.

The point wasn't to act like a douchebag, it was to follow only the rules laid out by the game and see how upset people get when he acts like there isn't a real world outside of the game. The heroes are supposed to fight the villians and treat them like bad guys. You know, like actually role-playing within and RPG.. something barely anyone does, including people who say "aye" instead of "yes."

It truly isn't. I've studied with this professor and he's merely mocking a study we conducted at LSU (he worked here during the post Katrina mess). He's discovered nothing new from his study other than getting to play games with his students on state payroll. Thanks to the last few years of budget cuts at LSU because of the former NASA head being the head of our organization and losing his god damn mind we don’t have the disposable income to waste time and funds on a silly study. We’ve conducted research on forums, Joystiq.com, Home, and Xbox Live before though, but they were nothing out of the ordinary and hardly news worthy.

I liked this better the first time around, when it was Fansy the Famous Bard.
http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm

Seriously, this guy got a grant to figure out that annoying others will... make them annoyed?

I want some of that cash.

What a sad, pointless waste of money. Acting deliberately in a way that is designed to anger people (who are spending their own money to relax and entertain themselves) will make them cranky. In other news, he has now published his name, so the death threats were either a) Angry people blowing off steam or b) now a lot easier to fulfil. So, act like a scuzzbucket and get treated like one.

In other news, water is wet!

I proudly graduated from Loyola New Orleans. Lived here all my life. After Katrina, the university had to cut dozens of majors because they couldn't afford to keep them (mine included - Computer Science).

It saddens me that this professor used university money and possibly Katrina relief money to realize that acting like a d!ck gets you treated like a d!ck

He wasn't acting like a dick.. he was acting like a character in that universe is supposed to act according to the rules and conventions of the game. It's interesting how people expect to be treated "nicely" by the opposing side in player vs player combat. It happens in all games and it makes no sense. If you don't enjoy that kind of play it's best to stick with PVE where you don't have to deal with playing the game as it's designed and killing you.

@Barth

So, then, there should be no banning for griefing, because, obviously, if the game allows it, it's all alright? Someone goes and PKs you at L1 when they're max level, and just camps the respawn point and kills you every time you spawn, that's perfectly alright, since the game allows it?

Is that your position?

An absolute waste of time. Any gamer could have predicted what would happen if this professor had polled his study before hand. A better study in my opinion would have focused on the positive social aspects that come out of gaming. People working together, creating social bonds, dividing rewards fairly, friendly competition, helping one another out, all things that the game does not require you to do, but people do anyways.

This study is absolutely fascinating! It draws a great connection between the actual, physical world and the virtual world, comparing human emotions that transcend beyond the physical realm. This is another study that builds on a growing field of socio-anthropology in virtual environments. Studying how people react in virtual worlds is a key issue for today's modern, wired world where millions of people actively engage in social experiences had entirely in a virtual space.

Well done!

Ye gods, do you know what half of those words you just spouted even mean? Does anyone else?

Seriously, I've never seen a more florid euphemism for a steaming pile of horsesh!t in my life before.

How about: "University professor wastes time and money proving that acting like a jerk makes people hate you, just like the real world."

If you find that fascinating, I'm currently working on a study to prove that the more time I spend fooling around on the internet at work, the more likely my boss will fire me. I'm doing this study out of my own pocket, so any donations would be appreciated. It's a truly fascinating study by the way.

Well done indeed.

Polling IS a great way to gauge public opinion. But public opinion is not the thesis of this man's paper. Also, just featuring the glossy goodness of a society is the bane of a social scientist. You need to get at the grit. And this particular scholar was interested in social outcasts. Why would he look at people working together to point out that a society is NOT just LAWS made by the GOVERNMENT (developers), but by the people that LIVE in the society! It's really fascinating stuff. And it goes to show how dynamic virtual worlds really are...AND how player driven.

Why would he look at people working together to point out that a society is NOT just LAWS made by the GOVERNMENT (developers), but by the people that LIVE in the society! It's really fascinating stuff

Fascinating? Try freakin obvious

on another note : I chuckled a little that the picture link takes you right to the response from one of Professor Myers peers at a sister school. The response in a nut shell says his "study" was not of any scholarly value.

I don't get what was being used as a control in this study. The professor says nothing about anybody's experience with a character with the same powersets that applied themselves equally to PvP in the game, but which made no attempt to violate a game's social norms.

My (limited) experience with PvP suggests that some level of trash talk and 'tude goes with the territory. Without a yardstick that says how much a normal PvPer gets, learning that a griefing PvPer gets a whole lot is an entirely meaningless factoid.

Nope; I read the whole thing and I cannot come away with any thoughts other than "why didn't NCsoft fix the legal-exploit?"

Leaving an 'I win' button - especially one clearly highlighted by the community - in the PvP content of a game for so long that it became a big deal is just shoddy design.

Sure the professor's Twixt character was anti-social, but anti-sociable on a scale completely out of line with what could be engineered in a competent MMO PvP environment.

If he had been in a proper setting or utilised any other method of combat he would have had to deal with resistance from his opponents and isolation from his allies, which logically would either have moderated his activities or made him a much-trounced laughing stock rather than a public menace.

They did fix it.

And when they did, he stopped playing, because "it wasn't fun anymore."

"Why would he look at people working together to point out that a society is NOT just LAWS made by the GOVERNMENT (developers), but by the people that LIVE in the society!"

I would say ... sadly, because no one would really care about a group of people being nice in an online world.

I'll give you he was being a social outcast, but the outcome of his study was obvious.

"causing undue stress..."

Give me a break, if a video game is causing you "stress", you need to find a different game or a different form of entertainment. And no, you don't get to dictate your rules to other players and force them to act like you want them to.

If this study is anything like my EVE Online days, it is *fantastically interesting.* The best part about EVE is watching people nerdrage over internet spaceships. Anything that provides insight into that social disconnect is great.

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Loyola University professor drives City of Heroes/Villains players crazy, all for sociology

Reader Comments (45)

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