MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious

Read MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious for Free Online

Book: Read MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious for Free Online
Authors: Emile van Veen
seconds, a new page came up in response to her query. There was only one result. Robert sucked in his breath when he read it.
    “My God,” he stammered, “No more coincidence!”
    Rebecca clicked on the search result and a new window sprang open. “High Justice Grimstone,” she read out loud.
    “What does it mean? What is it?”
    “High Justice Grimstone is a NPC. In other words: a Non Playing Character. That means that it’s one of the computer controlled characters in the world. I think it’s Grimstone’s title that’s the issue here.”
    “The Hammer of Grimstone, The Hammer of High Justice,” Robert said aloud.
    “Right. I think we’ve just found the character of your neighbour. With that guild name, there can be no doubt about it.”
    He was getting so much information that he suddenly felt overloaded. “What’s a guild name? I mean, I’m a history student, and I certainly know what a guild is, but what is it in WoW?”
    “A guild is like a club of people. You have to be invited to become a member of one. Every guild has a leader and there are different ranks. From officers down to initiates. The purpose of a guild is to create a kind of family within the virtual world. The world is big, and you need a lot of help to be successful. Or even to survive. You need advice, all kinds of stuff, and often also simply some strong friends to defeat your enemies. That’s where your guild kicks in. Guild members are supposed to help each other.”
    “And what do we know about this guild?”
    She gave him a broad smile. “That’s what we’re going to find out now!” She hit the Back button twice, and they were back at the page with all the Drimms. She clicked on their target, and the screen was filled with a colorful diagram. There were several bars and a lot of boxes. Rebecca studied some additional information. Robert deduced it was about the gear that Drimm was wearing.
    “This is impressive,” Rebecca said. “We have ourselves a serious player here. This is not your average recreational player.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because he’s wearing high end stuff that you only get by raiding the most difficult instances in the game.”
    She accessed another tab and browsed something called Achievements. She whistled. “Yes, it’s as I thought. Your Khalid spends a lot of time behind his computer. I expect that he’s also good at it.”
    She hit another tab and started studying the results, scrolling down slowly. Robert saw it was called Reputation.
    “He’s a real WoW veteran. I suspect he’s been playing the game for at least five years, even before the first expansion came out.” She pointed at the screen. “While playing and exploring the world, a player encounters all kinds of different peoples and tribes. Most are hostile, some are not. Some of those even allow you to raise your reputation with them by performing tasks or simply by killing huge numbers of their enemies for them. Gaining the highest reputation level with a certain group takes many weeks of hard and dull work. Now, our friend here has achieved exalted reputation with all the ancient factions in the game.”
    Robert tried to digest this information. “Why does that mean he’s a veteran player?”
    With a half smile that expressed her effort to simplify a complex matter, she explained, “Because nobody bothers with those antique factions anymore. For new players there’s absolutely no point in wasting countless days to gain exalted reputation with them. The rewards that were once fantastic and sought after are totally worthless and meaningless today. It would be like working your ass off washing dishes in some restaurant for months, then use the money to buy a fifteen year old desktop computer, while you could have had the newest and fastest laptop available for the same money.”
    “So this means that he did all that while it still meant something?
    Rebecca nodded. “Before 2007 I would say.” She hit another tab, and

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