Multiplayer Role-playing Games Research Articles

Linguodidactic potential of computer games in teaching English and Chinese languages

Introduction. The modern world makes high demands of the level of future specialists professional training, who must have a wide range of competencies, including knowledge of foreign languages. Today, knowledge of not only English, but also Chinese is becoming increasingly popular. The methodology of teaching foreign languages has never stood still and is constantly evolving. Methodologists are constantly striving to find new teaching methods that would help achieve the most effective results. Today, the introduction of information technology into modern foreign language teaching, namely the use of computer games in the educational process, is of particular interest. The purpose of the study is to identify the linguodidactic potential of computer games in learning the English and Chinese languages. Materials and methods. To analyze the possibilities of using computer games in teaching foreign languages, an analysis of scientific and methodological articles from periodicals, dissertation research and monographs of Russian and foreign authors on this issue was carried out. As a material, we considered and analyzed one of the most popular Chinese games among teenagers and youth, “Genshin Impact”. Research results. The open-world multiplayer role-playing game “Genshin Impact” is analyzed. The linguistic and cultural potential of this game has been revealed, which helps the player not only expand their vocabulary, listening skills, but also knowledge about the culture and history of different countries. The main types of vocabulary that are of interest are proper names and historicisms. Regional studies material can be divided into real-life states and peoples that served as a source of inspiration for developers; prototypes of the game’s geographic locations; references to real historical eras; references to real historical figures; cultural parallels; references to legends, myths and religions of different nations. Conclusion. The results obtained indicate that computer games not only have rich linguistic material, which is perfect for learning a foreign language, but also extensive regional data. Thus, integrating computer games into the educational process not only increases interest and motivation, but also broadens the horizons of its players and instills in them an interest to study world history

Can Personal Identity Protect against Problematic Gaming? A Study on the Relationships between Identity Motives, User–Avatar Bond, and Problematic Gaming in a Sample of MMORPG Players

ABSTRACT A positive relationship between user–avatar bond (UAB; i.e., avatar identification and avatar idealization) and problematic gaming (PG) has been well established among Massive Multiplayer Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) players. However, no study has examined how players’ personal identity relates both to UAB and PG. Based on the Motivated Identity Construction Theory, the current study examined the relationships between actual levels of identity motives (self-efficacy, continuity, uniqueness, self-esteem, and belonging), UAB, and PG in a sample of 675 MMORPG players. Results showed that perceiving oneself as the same person over time (continuity) and feeling included and accepted (belonging) directly protect MMORPG players from PG, while perceiving oneself as highly unique (uniqueness) and having low confidence in one’s own capacity to reach specific goals (self-efficacy) are indirect risk factors for PG as they strengthen UAB. The reasons explaining these links will be discussed.

Machine learning methods for control of non-playable characters behaviour in multiplayer RPG

This article covers the problem of developing a control system for non-player characters in a multiplayer RPG. Commercial projects in the field of videogames and RPG (Role-Playing Game) projects in particular seldom use machine learning models for the implementation of character behaviour. The most common approach is to use primitive preprogrammed rules, or to implement a finite state machine. Such approaches ruin the immersion of playing with real creatures, since various predefined rules make the characters predictable. A good game AI is supposed to give the player an impression of interacting with real characters, that make various decisions, sometimes unpredictable. To achieve this goal, this article covers an approach with using various machine learning models in conjunction with a traditional finite state machine. A videogame developed earlier is used as the basis for problem solution. The article conducts an analysis of the existing works in the field of videogame AI. Next, the implementation of control system is described. This system utilizes a couple selected and successfully trained machine learning models. A multitude of models were tested, eventually a decision tree model and a neural network were selected, since they yielded the best results. The process of development and implementation of a control system involving machine learning models is then described. The approaches of teaching such models are described, and finally the achieved results are analyzed. To gauge the results, different models were compared against each other in test battles. The decision tree model showed results slightly better than the traditional finite state machine. Meanwhile, the neural network performed significantly better, beating other models far more often. Achieved results can be developed further, utilizing more complex models and improving training methods, which will result in even more sophisticated characters. Presence of such characters in the game will qualitatively improve the gameplay. Obtained system was integrated into the videogame, that may potentially become a commercial product.

Evaluating the Feasibility of a Multiplayer Role-Playing Game as a Behavioral Health Intervention in Adolescent Patients With Chronic Physical or Mental Conditions: Protocol for a Cohort Study.

Numerous studies have revealed that adolescents with chronic physical or mental conditions (CPMCs) are at an increased risk for depression and anxiety, with serious direct and indirect negative effects on treatment adherence, family functioning, and health-related quality of life. As game-based approaches are effective interventions in treating anxiety and depression, we propose to explore the use of a multiplayer role-playing game (RPG) as a potential intervention for social isolation, anxiety, and depression. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine the feasibility of using Masks, a multiplayer RPG, as an intervention for social isolation, anxiety, and depression in adolescents with CPMCs; (2) evaluate the viability of the research process; and (3) gauge participation in and engagement with RPG-based interventions. This study is a remote synchronous game-based intervention for adolescents with CPMCs aged 14-19 years. Eligible participants completed a web-based baseline survey to assess anxiety, depression, and social isolation and to identify their gaming habits. After completing the baseline survey, they participated in 5 moderated Masks game sessions. In Masks, players assume the roles of young superheroes; select their character types, superpowers; and perform actions determined by the game's rule system and dice rolls. All game sessions were played using Discord, a communication platform commonly used by gaming communities. Games were led and moderated by game masters (GMs). After each game session, participants completed surveys to assess changes in anxiety, depression, and social isolation, and their attitude toward the game and the user experience. The participants also completed an exit survey after all 5 game sessions (modified version of the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire, and 17 open-ended questions). The GMs rated each game session and reported on gameplay, player behavior, comfort, and engagement levels of the players. As of March 2020, six participants were recruited for the pilot study to participate in moderated web-based game sessions of Masks; 3 completed all game sessions and all required assessments. Although the number of participants was too low to draw generalizable conclusions, self-reported clinical outcomes did seem to indicate a positive change in depression, anxiety, and social isolation symptoms. Qualitative analysis of postgame survey data from participants and GMs indicated high levels of engagement and enjoyment. Furthermore, the participants provided feedback about improved mood and engagement related to weekly participation in Masks. Lastly, responses to the exit survey showed interest in future RPG-related studies. We established a workflow for gameplay and evaluated a research protocol for evaluating the impact of RPG participation on isolation, anxiety, and depression symptoms in adolescents with CPMCs. Preliminary data collected from the pilot study support the validity of the research protocol and the use of RPG-based interventions in larger clinical studies. RR1-10.2196/43987.

Jeu de rôle en ligne : un espace de narrativité inscrit dans la mise en scène de soi et de la famille

AimThe purpose of this research is to study how the way in which players use their avatar in Massive Multiplayer Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) contributes to self-construction. This particular space leads the players to the creation of a specific narrative identity, nurtured by interactions and experiences shared with peers, onto which they project fragments of themselves and their personal history that will be staged through image, action, and language. MethodFour participants were recruited through a notice published on communication servers belonging to different communities of the same online game. The hypotheses were assessed through a series of two semi-structured remote interviews based on a grid of ten themes. ResultsThe results show that role-playing is used as a tool for rewriting personal history, enabling participants to heal, on the level of the fantasy, their individual and family wounds and trauma. In this study, we also noticed that digital transparency supports the spontaneity of communications thanks to its disinhibiting function. Thus, online role-playing games turn out to be a potential space of real creativity where participants can interact by trial and error without fear of failure, where they can be destroyed and can express their own emotions and desires without destroying the other, because it's just pretend. In this way, they develop their subjectivity and try to develop a better affective attunement in order to integrate into the virtual and material human community. Digital transparency also facilitates participants’ investment in online role-playing as a place of projection and staging of their psychic contents in a symbolic repetition where the family history, even the family romance, are reinterpreted and become factors of transformation, reconciliation, or emancipation. DiscussionNarrative identities are true reflections of the participants’ concerns and are invested during and outside game sessions. Through the position of narrator, the participants talk and develop meaningful friendships with other players. They try to give meaning to a shared subjective experience that they record as their own heritage as well as the group's collective memory. In this study, role-playing provides a form of containment for possible depressive affects and diverts attention from anxieties, like Pascal's entertainment. At first, this space could serve as a kind of technological substitute, a “prosthesis” for some players with defective psychic functions, who struggle to express their emotions and to bond with others. But over the years, they seem rather to seize upon the support provided by this “psychic orthosis” that links and connects to rewrite their own history, to seek out and to come to terms with others and themselves. ConclusionIn these overlapping potential spaces of creation, players try to orient their own lives by relying on the experiences they have been able to co-construct through a common narrative, presented as both foreign and unique to themselves. They may feel better equipped to face an intersubjectivity that could sometimes be experienced as disappointing or threatening.

Problematic Areas in English-Language Research on Multiplayer Role-Playing Games

This article examines contemporary English-language research on multiplayer role-playing games. There can be identified several large problematic areas. The article aims to trace how the largest of them are formed, to describe the process of their emergence and development at the present time, as well as to describe the main points that researchers have worked out. The discussion of this topic makes it possible to understand how the conceptual apparatus of the research on multiplayer role-playing games is changing in modern English-language studies.One of the major problematic areas is related to the study of the participants’ motivation in multiplayer role-playing games. This problematic area seeks to answer the question: “What keeps players coming back to the same game over and over again?” Scientists working in this field believe that players return to virtual worlds to get opportunities for virtual earnings, a variety of social interactions, role-playing, and because of the spirit of exploration. Another problematic area is based on the study of player-to-player relationships and explores the construction of social connections around a video game. The researchers are interested in the issues of leadership and social consolidation, which takes the form of guilds in multiplayer role-playing games. The third major problematic area arises from the study of player self-identification. The scientists are trying to understand which parts of a player’s identity influence their experience and how it is mediated. The research on multiplayer role-playing games is a complex interdisciplinary phenomenon that requires involving specialists from different fields, in particular economists, sociologists, linguists.

Формирование инвестиционной привлекательности игровой виртуальной команды на основе управления гудвиллом в киберспорте

The development of the Internet, the transition to the fourth technological order contributes to the quantitative and qualitative change in virtual organizations. A special place in the virtual environment is occupied by the gaming segment, the volume of which in 2018 reached over 116 trillion dollars, nearly doubling in the past five years. COVID-19 has undoubtedly played into the hands of the online gaming industry, increasing sales across all segments. This study analyzes the massively multiplayer online role-playing game that created the phenomenon of the virtual world. It is the virtual game worlds that have formed the niche of the virtual gaming commercial teams (VGCT`s), which specialize in the provision of services for the development of content produced by development organizations for user players. However, in order to successfully operate in the face of tough virtual gaming competition, a commercial team needs both an understanding of the business process and attracting sources of funding. The article discusses the strategy of forming the investment attractiveness of VGCT, as one of the key aspects of competitiveness. The paper presents the author`s definition of the investment attractiveness of VGCT, carried out SWOT analysis of the working VGCT “Zeta”, assessed the investment attractiveness on the basis of unidentified assets. The purpose of the study is to develop approaches to determining the investment attractiveness of VGCT in the specific conditions of the economy of the virtual world of multiplayer games. Brief statement of the problem is to substantiate the need of managing goodwill of a virtual organization as the main tool for increasing its competitiveness. The article used general scientific methods and methods of SWOT-analysis. The definition of the economy of the virtual gaming world of multiplayer role-playing online games is given. The essence of the concept of “investment attractiveness” is revealed in relation to a specific object of research – a virtual gaming commercial team, its assessment is carried out in the context of external and internal factors. It was determined that goodwill constitutes the basis of VGCT’s investment attractiveness, and the task of increasing the competitiveness of VGCT is inextricably linked with the management of goodwill as a set of unidentifiable assets.

Are Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games healthy or not and why? Preliminary support for a Compensatory Social Interaction model

Data and theory have generated mixed results about the positive versus negative psychological effects of massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs). Such games provide opportunities to interact with others in ways that (like in-person groups) can foster cooperation and social support from others; however, they can facilitate social aggression and peer victimization as well. The current study involved multi-group path analysis of survey data obtained from 337 frequent MMORPG users. The paper proposes and supports a Compensatory Social Interaction model in which MMORPG play was simultaneously associated with healthy outcomes as a function of higher online social support and adverse outcomes as a function of online peer victimization. These countervailing processes offset one another, ostensibly suggesting that MMORPG use was unassociated with these outcomes; however, follow-up analyses revealed that the kind of outcome depended on individuals’ levels of online social support versus victimization. Results are interpreted in light of the Compensatory Social Interaction model and possible clinical applications.

Advanced or Addicted? Exploring the Relationship of Recreation Specialization to Flow Experiences and Online Game Addiction

The popularity of online games has generated research interest in the flow experiences they may induce and the possibility of game addiction. Our study focuses on the dynamics of progression within online games, a perspective largely overlooked in previous investigations. Recreation specialization is used for exploring progression among online gamers and clarifying relationships between flow experiences and addiction tendencies. Data from online questionnaires completed by 357 players of Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games showed that specialized players are more likely to experience flow and exhibit game addiction than inexperienced players. Additionally, recreation specialization intensifies the effect of flow experiences on addiction tendencies.

Confronting Heteronormativity in Online Games

In 2008, ten million people were playing the massive multiplayer role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW); a fantasy-based virtual landscape where players bridge real-life personas with digital identity. However, the construction of sexuality within this gaming environment has created an oppressive atmosphere for individuals who do not adhere to a heteronormative lifestyle. In this essay, I undress the bottom-up and top-down structures that are regulating an environment that has no use for a constructed sexual binary and yet has one strictly imbedded in it. This analysis utilizes discourse analysis to analyze 400 messages posted to a WoW discussion board regarding the topic of “LGBTQ players and the WOW Community” in order to queer the sexuality presented in this space. This essay is further supplemented with my own experience playing the game and with an analysis of the games structural elements.

“Calgon, Take Me Away” : Identifying qualities of serious leisure in virtual world involvement inside The World of Warcraft

Calgon, the bath-wash, claims to restore one’s spirit and its iconic tagline, “Calgon, take me away !” echoed through the airwaves into America’s consumptive consciousness throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Today, the same slogan takes a new and definitively postmodernist meaning in my life. Calgon is a hero and the “me” of my virtual life inside the massively multiplayer role-playing game, The World of Warcraft. This paper discusses the utility and peculiarities of framing a two-year cyber-ethnographic study of the virtual world’s in habitants and customs within Stebbins’ six identified qualities of Serious Leisure.

Problem solving in expert teams: Functional models and task processes

This paper presents a functional model (one that describes processes, interactions, and evolution of time) that describes the process of solving problems that takes place in a team of expert engineers and scientists. The context is real-time, safety-critical NASA spaceflight mission operations, specifically the team of flight controllers in the Mission Control Center (MCC). The model includes descriptions of the agents (the representation of the flight controllers) involved and abstractions of their expertise. The model describes abstractions of controller expertise in terms of character stats inspired by multiplayer role-playing games. The problem-solving process follows three stages: detection, isolation, and recovery. The middle stage is the most complex, with two different groupconsensus rules that depend on the difficulty of the problem.

Honing Emotional Intelligence with Game-Based Crucible Experiences

The focus of the present paper is the design of multi-player role-playing game instances as crucible experiences for the exploration of one’s emotional intelligence. Subsequent sections describe the design of game-based, intercultural crucible experiences and how this design was employed for training with members of the United States Marine Corps (USMC). This work with the USMC is presented as a case study and example of the use of crucible experiences in game-based learning. Crucible experiences are learning opportunities relevant across a number of different domains and disciplines such as education, healthcare, corporate training, diplomacy, crisis management, international business, and intercultural communication. The present paper demonstrates that crucible experiences are catalysts for personal growth and can be incorporated into game-based learning design whose intent is to create defining moments in which learners can explore emotional intelligence and examine who they are under challenging conditions.

The Many Faces of Role-Playing Games

Role-playing games have evolved into many forms in their thirty-year history. From the traditional pen-and-paper form, that originated with Dungeons & Dragons, with a group of friends playing around a table, to large live-action role-playing game, with hundreds of people acting out their assumed roles.
 The first computer role-playing games appeared over twenty-five years ago and massively multi-player role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft are now one of the most popular genres of digital games. Despite this diversity players at least seem to think they know when something is a role-playing game. When players, writers and game designers say “this is a role-playing game” there are no problems, they all seem to know what each other means, what is and is not a role-playing game. Yet there is no commonly accepted definition of the form. Understandable, perhaps, given the diversity, but the implicit agreement about its use means that there may well be some common underlying features shared by the various examples.
 Hampering any attempt to understand what makes a game a role-playing game is the subtle divide between role-playing and role-playing game. Role-playing can take in many places, not all of them games (such as ritual, social activities, therapy, etc). This means that definitions of the role-playing activity are not that useful in separating role-playing games from other games. In this paper we start from the position that the players are correct: they know what a role-playing game is. By examining a range of role-playing games some common features of them emerge. This results in a definition that is more successful than previous ones at identifying both what is, and what is not, a role-playing game.

Game Time

Game time is a core feature of game design and study, and forms part of the gaming experience on a variety of levels. It can be viewed from multiple perspectives, for example, the time of the playing of the game or the flow of time in a game world. In this article, a comprehensive game time model based on empirical research as well as recent theory is presented. It proposes various perspectives on game time and integrates them to allow coherent representation of the same events in the different perspectives. The model has been tested across tabletop and digital formats, and its applicability across game formats is demonstrated. Emphasis is placed on multiplayer and massively multiplayer role-playing games because these feature complex game time behavior not previously evaluated. The model considers game time as an interactively created and nonlinear feature of games and game play.

Character play

Avatars are a commonly used mechanism for representing the player within the world of a game. The avatar forms the main point of interaction between the player and the game, and thus the avatar is an important game design feature. Character-based games combine the concept of an avatar with that of a character, enhancing the avatar with specific features that commonly are changeable, and which can be defined within or outside the framework of the game rules. Within digital games, the rules-based features have received comparatively more attention than, for example, the personalities and background histories of game characters. This article presents results from a comprehensive empirical study of the way complex game characters are utilized by players in multiplayer role-playing games across two different media platforms. The results indicate that adult players are capable of comprehending and utilizing game characters with well-defined personalities and backgrounds, as well as rules-based components. Furthermore, that the game format plays a significant role in the pattern of usage of the character elements. This pattern appears directly linked with variations in the way that the different game formats handle player characters and activate or promote the activation of, different forms of character elements. The degree to which different character elements are activated also has implications for the degree of player engagement in the character.

Group play

research-article Group play: determining factors on the gaming experience in multiplayer role-playing games Share on Authors: Anders Tychsen IT University of Copenhagen IT University of CopenhagenView Profile , Michael Hitchens Macquarie University Macquarie UniversityView Profile , Thea Brolund University of Technology, Sydney University of Technology, SydneyView Profile , Doris McIlwain Macquarie University Macquarie UniversityView Profile , Manolya Kavakli Macquarie University Macquarie UniversityView Profile Authors Info & Claims Computers in EntertainmentVolume 5Issue 410/01/2007 Article No.: 10pp 1–29https://doi.org/10.1145/1324198.1324208Online:01 March 2008Publication History 5citation1,445DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations5Total Downloads1,445Last 12 Months25Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

System-performance modeling for massively multiplayer online role-playing games

Massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs) are among the most popular types of online game. A successful title may have tens of thousands or even millions of subscribers and, at any given time, may have thousands of players online. This paper presents a method for modeling MMORPG system performance and applies it in an analysis of two real MMORPGs. The results show that a strong linear relationship exists between performance metrics at the server side and the number of concurrent players online. As a result, utilization of IT resources, including network traffic and server load, can be predicted, given the number of concurrent players. The performance model presented here can be used for automated IT resource allocation at runtime and is thus useful in the context of utility computing and on demand systems.

대규모 온라인 게임을 위한 XML 기반의 메시지 정의 시스템

대규모 온라인 롤-플레잉 게임(MMORPG : Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game)에서 클라이언트와 서버 간의 상호작용은 대개 네트워크를 통한 메시지 전달을 통해 행해진다. 이런 MMORPG들에서는 게임의 내용이나 구성요소들이 지속적으로 진화해 가므로, 그에 따른 메시지들의 추가, 삭제, 또는 변경이 필요하다. 그러므로 게임 프로그래머들은 반복적으로 새로운 프로그램을 작성하거나 현재 있는 프로그램들을 수정해야 한다. 본 논문에서 소개하는 XML 기반의 메시지 정의 시스템은 게임의 상호작용을 위한 메시지들의 추가 및 변경을 용이하게 해준다. 이 시스템은 프로그래머들이 기존 메시지들을 변경하거나 새로운 메시지들을 추가하는데 드는 시간을 상당히 줄여 줄 뿐만 아니라 프로그래밍 버그 발생의 부담을 상당히 줄여준다. 또한 이 시스템은 일반 클라이언트-서버 응용 프로그램들에서도 사용이 가능하다. Client- server interaction in a massive multi-player online role-playing game(MMORPG) is usually made via network-message Passing. Since the game contents and elements in such MMORPGs are consistently evolved, messages need to be added, deleted, or modified accordingly. Therefore, game programmers are repeatedly required to write new programs or at least modify existing programs. The XML-based message definition system introduced in this paper facilitates the addition and modification of messages for game interaction ; it not only allows programmers to save a considerable amount of time for modifying existing messages or adding new messages but also relieves them of a serious burden of programming bugs. In addition, this system can be used for general client-server applications.

Samurai Romanesque, J2ME, and the battle for mobile cyberspace

Reviews the cell phone game Samurai Romanesque. Players take a virtual journey through 15th-century Japan, engage other players in real-time battles, visit a thousand historical towns and villages, practice the art of Zen, and even have virtual children. This massive multiplayer role-playing game can accommodate half a million gamers simultaneously. Rendered in color, and resembling the graphics quality of the (8-bit) Game Boy, the game takes the wireless Internet to a new level of complexity and is a sign of things to come, that is, cyberspace on the go. Dwango built Samurai Romanesque on the Java 2 platform, Micro Edition (J2ME), a compact version of Sun Microsystems' Java 2 programming environment. J2ME suits applications such as cell phones, pagers, set-top boxes, and other devices with limited memory and slow processors. NTT DoCoMo's technology uses Sun's reduced K virtual machine, but the company developed its own proprietary version of mobile Java.