Player-Killing

In an article from Wired's May 1998 issue, I encountered http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.05/ultima.html this article.

It's an interesting one - the female author goes into Ultima Online in order to investigate the sociology of warring "tribes" in the game.

It turns out that the easiest, fastest, and most exciting way to gain fame and fortune in that game is to simply kill other players, particularly new ones who are just getting used to the interface. There are lots of quotes about this - it's a pretty interesting article.

But the end of it made me laugh out loud. The author created a (female) character named DarkStarr and investigated one of these tribes for her story. I'll let her take it from here:

When they arrived, the brethren were hanging out, casually hurling fireballs at each other. They crowded around DarkStarr - "Who's the newcomer? It's a female!" - and made crude jokes. To entertain DarkStarr, they killed a wandering healer, ate some of the victim's body parts, and prayed together over the corpse, offering it as a sacrifice to the evil Guardian.

At one point, things turned really ugly. In a display of brute force, Bubba turned himself into a gorilla and threatened to sodomize Xavori with a thigh bone taken from one of the victims. Unintimidated, Xavori cast a blazing firewall at Bubba - but because of server lag (or perhaps bad aim) it hit DarkStarr instead, killing her instantly.
The hosts gathered around, staring down at the corpse in momentary dismay. One of them cried out, "You've killed the reporter from Wired, you moron!"

I love it. A perfect microcosm of gender in a male-dominated online world.

love online, actually

It's been awhile since I've posted. But in doing research for my final paper, I have run across a TON of articles about love online.

Some of them are about real human relationships that begin online, as from a dating service or even a chatroom that blossoms into something more. And this is an interesting and rich topic.

But I think it's essentially the same as "computer dating" of ten years ago (a computer matches up your profile with a compatible one - high tech for the time). And it's more or less a higher-tech version of meeting your perfect mate at the local bar. Or, in prehistoric times, the local cave.

I'm actually more interested in relationships that don't blossom offline. For whatever reason, they're left in the virtual world.

One reason for this might be a physical distance between the people, although if they really want to meet, they often find a way to.

Another reason, one that I find even more fascinating, is that both parties like the relationship just as it is.

Why would they feel that way? I don't know now, but I'm sure I'll find out as I research tangential articles for my paper.