<p>In this essay, I have investigated whether players of World of Warcraft change their language to suit the gender of the character they play. I have researched if there are gender differences that correspond to what is defined as male and female language in mixed-sex conversations. Chat-logs, collected during four participant observations, were used for making an analysis based primarily on research by Coates (1993) and Yale (2007). Seven features were selected for analysis: amount of participation, hedges, questions, directives and commands, taboo language, compliments and grammar. It was possible to discover gender differences, but these were not consistent in all areas of research. For example, female characters had a higher contribution than males, as well as a higher use of hedges and tag-questions among males, which contradicts previous research. The lack of consistency might be due to the fact that the participants do not specifically consider all areas as typically female or male, or their unawareness of these tendencies. We also need to consider disagreement in previous gender studies as well as folklinguistic belief. The explanation of the lack of consistent differences may be a more equal relationship between males and females in this context, or due to thepossibility that the participants, who are usually male, make use of their normal male language.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: Interactivity and participation - a qualitative study about the making of machinima with</p><p>World of Warcraft (Interaktivitet och och deltagande – en kvalitativ studie kring skapandet av</p><p>machinima med World of Warcraft)</p><p>Number of pages: 68 total, 50 without appendix</p><p>Author: Peter Brandberg</p><p>Tutor: Else Nygren</p><p>Period: Autumn 2006</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies C</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The aim of this study is to take a closer look at the phenomenon machinima by analysing a number of specific movies from the site worldcraftmovies.com. This analyse is focusing on how the content of these movies relate to the wider game culture of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, what specific elements in the movies is referring to and if there is differences or similarities between different genres (or categories).</p><p>Material/Method: The method used in analysing the movies is a combined method inspired by hermeneutic, semiotics and discourse analysis.</p><p>Main results: Instead of answers this study raises many questions about the diverse content of the movies. A general division can be seen between movies focusing on the games rules and movies that are trying to present a fictive world. But the study also shows how there are many movies moving between these two points. The study also suggests that further studies need to focus on the emotional investment players put into the game.</p><p>Keywords: cultural studies, participatory culture, convergence culture, fan culture, new media, game studies, machinima, MMORPG, World of Warcraft</p>

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this paper is to study how guild leaders in World of Warcraft (WOW) and leaders of real life organizations compare in terms of tasks, every-day experiences, environment, responsibilities and motivation. This comparison is used to build a new theory describing leadership in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). Material/Method: The paper uses the grounded theory approach to build a new theory. 12 interviews were conducted, six with WOW guild leaders and six with leaders of real life organizations. The Four Capacities Framework and the Leadership Grid were used to analyze and compare the results of the interviews. Main results: Leadership in MMORPGs is as complex and challenging as real life leadership with the difference that it stresses the internal relationships of the organization very much while neglecting outside relations to a big extend. Guild leadership is in many ways similar to real life leadership as both require long term political decisions, policy setting and good work in the field of human resources. However, it stresses the ability to build working social relationships and to motivate using only digital communication. Some aspects of real life leadership like customer orientation and an organizational instance over the leader like an owner or share holders that the leader is responsible to are not existent.

Abstract Title: Interactivity and participation - a qualitative study about the making of machinima with World of Warcraft (Interaktivitet och och deltagande – en kvalitativ studie kring skapandet av machinima med World of Warcraft) Number of pages: 68 total, 50 without appendix Author: Peter Brandberg Tutor: Else Nygren Period: Autumn 2006 Course: Media and Communication Studies C University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Purpose/Aim: The aim of this study is to take a closer look at the phenomenon machinima by analysing a number of specific movies from the site worldcraftmovies.com. This analyse is focusing on how the content of these movies relate to the wider game culture of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, what specific elements in the movies is referring to and if there is differences or similarities between different genres (or categories). Material/Method: The method used in analysing the movies is a combined method inspired by hermeneutic, semiotics and discourse analysis. Main results: Instead of answers this study raises many questions about the diverse content of the movies. A general division can be seen between movies focusing on the games rules and movies that are trying to present a fictive world. But the study also shows how there are many movies moving between these two points. The study also suggests that further studies need to focus on the emotional investment players put into the game. Keywords: cultural studies, participatory culture, convergence culture, fan culture, new media, game studies, machinima, MMORPG, World of Warcraft

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) present fantastic, persistent worlds and narratives for a community of players to experience through pre-defined rules, roles, and environments. To be able to offer the opportunity for every player to try the same experiences, many game developers have opted to create elaborate virtual theme parks: scripted experiences within static worlds that cannot be affected or changed through player actions. Within these games, some players have turned to role-playing to establish meaningful connections to these worlds by expanding upon and subverting the game's expectations to assume a limited sense of agency within the world. The interaction between role-players and the locations they occupy within these worlds is a notable marker of this narrative layering; specific locations inform social codes of conduct, designed by developers, and then repurposed by players for their characters and stories. Through a qualitative case study in World of Warcraft on public role-playing events, this thesis considers how the design of in-game locations inform their use for role-playing, and how locations are altered through storytelling as a result.

Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht am Beispiel von Online-Rollenspielen, wie sich prosoziales Verhalten in virtuellen Umgebungen im Vergleich zu dem in realen Umgebungen unterscheidet. Ausgangspunkt für die Untersuchungen sind die Modelle zum und Einflussgrößen auf das prosoziale Verhalten, die als Ergebnisse der einschlägigen Forschung realer Hilfesituationen vorliegen. Unter Berücksichtigung der Charakteristika und Besonderheiten von Online-Rollenspielen werden verschiedene Variablen wie Attraktivität des Hilfeempfängers, Ähnlichkeit zwischen Helfer und Hilfeempfänger, die Schwere der Notsituation und Gruppenzugehörigkeit auf ihre Auswirkung auf das prosoziale Verhalten in virtuellen Szenarien getestet. Um ein maximales Maß an externer Validität zu gewährleisten, kommt dabei die Methode der In-situ-Untersuchung zum Einsatz, bei der das Verhalten der Probanden in natürlichen Spielsituationen erfasst wird. Die Ergebnisse zeigen bei weiblichen Avataren einen signifikanten Einfluss der Attraktivität bei männlichen Helfern, wohingegen es bei fehlender Verfügbarkeit von Attraktivitätsmerkmalen keine Geschlechtsunterschiede gibt. Kein Einfluss auf prosoziales Verhalten kann bei den Variablen Schwere der Notsituation und perzeptueller Ähnlichkeit nachgewiesen werden. Darüber hinaus wird mittels einer Fragebogenstudie der Einfluss dispositionaler Merkmale, die unter dem Begriff prosoziale Persönlichkeit zusammengefasst werden, auf prosoziales Verhalten untersucht. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die positiven Prädiktoren empathic concern, other-oriented moral reasoning und der negative Prädiktor personal distress einen signifikanten Einfluss auf das Auftreten prosozialen Verhaltens in realen und in virtuellen Szenarien haben. Allerdings unterscheidet sich die Höhe des Einflusses dieser Variablen in Abhängigkeit der Zielpersonen des prosozialen Verhaltens (Ingroup vs. Outgroup) sowie des Umgebung (real vs. virtuell).

Submitted by Julio Santos (julioparsifal@hotmail.com) on 2016-09-02T23:14:13Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tese final.pdf: 8472411 bytes, checksum: 72cab36c2b81939419657a642cd00d98 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora da Silva Lopes (silopes@ufba.br) on 2016-09-08T17:33:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tese final.pdf: 8472411 bytes, checksum: 72cab36c2b81939419657a642cd00d98 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-08T17:33:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese final.pdf: 8472411 bytes, checksum: 72cab36c2b81939419657a642cd00d98 (MD5) / “O Fascínio e a Espetacularização como Pedagogias Corporais no World Of Warcraft.”, 247p. Tese (Doutorado), Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador-Bahia, 2016. O corpo sempre exerceu fascínio e os homens fizeram dele um dispositivo simbólico e cultural. Com o surgimento das tecnologias digitais se cria uma ampliação do seu processo de fascínio e espetacularização tendo nas relações sociais dos jogos online de MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role -Playing Game) um campo promissor para essa observação por se tratar de um espaço de ‘mundos persistentes’ em que se localizam relações sociais complexas. Nas redes o corpo está também para os aprendizados sociais. O argumento central da tese é que os processos de fascínio e espetacularização de si encontradas nas representações corporais do jogo online World of Warcraft, podem ser vistos como construtores de pedagogias corporais. O objetivo foi analisar nas criações corporais e nas relações dos personagens de jogadores do World of Warcraft processos de fascínio e espetacularização do corpo como parte das construções de pedagogias corporais. A metodologia utilizada foi a qualitativa de cunho descritivo e analítico, com dados construídos por meio de uma pesquisa participante e de entrevistas semi-estruturadas com roteiro. A pesquisa permitiu concluir, dentre outros aspectos, que os processos de fascínio e espetacularização de si, por meio de uma festiva exibição dos corpos dos personagens no jogo, embalados pela cultura da visibilidade, são estratégias para dão aos sujeitos acessos a diferentes experiências corporais mutantes. Esses corpos fascinantes e espetacularizados no jogo e em rede não se limitam apenas à aquisição de capital social, mas, também, são legítimos dispositivos pedagógicos e produtores de conhecimentos. / ABSTRACT The body has always held fascination and men made him a symbolic and cultural device. With the emergence of digital technologies to create an extension of its allure process and spectacle with the social relations of online games MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Game -playing) a promising field for this observation because it is an area of 'worlds persistent 'where they are located complex social relations. In the networks the body is also to social learning. The central argument of the thesis is that the fascination processes and spectacle of themselves found in bodily representations of the online game World of Warcraft, can be seen as pedagogies body builders. The aim was to analyze the physical creations and relationships of the characters players of World of Warcraft fascination processes and spectacle of the body as part of the body pedagogies buildings. The methodology was qualitative descriptive and analytical, with data built through a participatory research and semi-structured interviews with script. The study concluded, among other things, that the fascination processes and spectacle of himself, through a festive display of the bodies of the characters in the game, packed the culture of visibility, are strategies to give individuals access to different bodily experiences mutants. These fascinating and espetacularizados in the game and network bodies are not limited to the acquisition of capital, but also are legitimate pedagogical devices and producers of knowledge. Keywords: World of Warcraft, Online Games and Education, Body Representations, Fascination and Spectacularization, pedagogies Body.

Design philosophies in MMOs seem to have seen a shift in recent years. What used to be designs for social dependencies and challenging content seems to have become designs for social independence and casual play. This has not gone by unnoticed by communities of players that have gradually increased in size, hoping to find regression in design philosophies for their favorite games. This study combines the social component of Yee’s (2006) model for motivations for online play with Bradner’s (2001) concept of social affordances, and quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews in order to examine how the social player experience in World of Warcraft has changed in relation to changes made to the game. Some of the findings are that the incentives and necessity for socializing with strangers in the game has generally diminished as a consequence of changes made in the game that focus on practical efficiency. External factors that seems to have played a role in these results are age, technological contexts and life contexts of the respondents.

Submitted by Glauber de Assunção Moreira (glauber.moreira@ufba.br) on 2018-09-21T18:09:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese versão para entrega 2.pdf: 3703165 bytes, checksum: 0ab52dcdd975f05d78659b1aa6b8bd90 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ednaide Gondim Magalhães (ednaide@ufba.br) on 2018-09-25T12:47:15Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese versão para entrega 2.pdf: 3703165 bytes, checksum: 0ab52dcdd975f05d78659b1aa6b8bd90 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-25T12:47:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese versão para entrega 2.pdf: 3703165 bytes, checksum: 0ab52dcdd975f05d78659b1aa6b8bd90 (MD5) / A presente tese tem como objetivo analisar dramaturgicamente o Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) World of Wacraft (WoW), identificando e sistematizando seus aspectos estruturais. Este trabalho sustenta a hipótese de que a dramaturgia de WoW é estruturada de modo a dar suporte ao processo contínuo de expansão do jogo ao longo dos últimos 10 anos (do jogo base ao pacote de expansão Mists of Pandaria). A tese nomeia dramaturgia da expansão, o tipo de construção dramatúrgica que, tal como a de World of Warcraft, é orientada pela necessidade expandir o espaço e o tempo ficcionais, ampliar o número e a extensão das suas ações dramáticas, além de incorporar novos personagens a fim de criar novas experiências narrativas e de jogo (referindo-se ao universo dos jogos digitais ou analógicos). Esse tipo de dramaturgia não surge com WoW, afinal o referido MMORPG possui uma evidente filiação a jogos de interpretação de personagens, os Role-Playing Games (RPG) de mesa e digitais, os quais já apresentam estratégias de expansão do seu universo ficcional e experiências de jogo com fins comerciais. Assim, o presente trabalho se configura como um estudo de caso e, portanto, verifica particularidades da dramaturgia de WoW ao mesmo tempo que aponta generalizações possíveis. A pesquisa adota uma metodologia pautada na observação direta e participante (na medida em que é preciso jogar para analisar o objeto). O próprio jogo constitui a principal fonte de dados da pesquisa. Dados estes obtidos a partir de cerca de 700 horas de jogo com 19 personagens jogáveis por parte do pesquisador e cruzados com um aparato teórico multidisciplinar advindo dos media studies, games studies, teorias do imaginário, teorias dos gêneros literários e estudos teatrais para serem enfim sistematizados na presente tese. Como resultado foi possível confirmar a hipótese defendida, verificando como cada um dos aspectos estruturais analisados (Ação, Composição de personagens e organização espacial dos signos) colabora para o contínuo processo de expansão do jogo. / This thesis aims to analyze dramaturgically the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying (MMORPG) World of Wacraft (WoW), identifying and systematizing its structural aspects. This work sustains the hypothesis that the dramaturgy of WoW is structured to support the ongoing process of expansion of the game over the last 10 years (from the base game to the expansion pack Mists of Pandaria). The thesis names dramaturgy of the expansion, the type of dramaturgical construction which, such as World of Warcraft, is guided by the need to expand the fictional space and fictional time, increase the number and the extent of their dramatic actions, as well as incorporate new characters to create new narratives and game experiences (referring to the universe of digital or analog games). This type of drama does not come with WoW, after all the said MMORPG has an obvious affiliation to the interpretation of characters games, table and digital Role-Playing Games (RPG), which already have expansion strategies of their fictional universe and experience game for commercial purposes. Thus, this study is configured as a case study and therefore, verifies dramaturgy of particularities of WoW while pointing possible generalizations. It adopts a guided methodology in direct and participant observation (to the extent that is necessary to play to analyze the object). The game itself is the main source of research data. These data obtained from about 700 hours of playing with 19 playable characters from the researcher and crossed with a multidisciplinary theoretical apparatus arising from media studies, games studies, imaginary theories, theories of literary genres and theater studies to be finally systematized in this thesis. As a result it was possible to confirm the hypothesis defended by checking how each of the structural aspects analyzed (Action, composition of characters and spatial organization of the signs) contributes to the continued expansion of the game process.

In this essay, I have investigated whether players of World of Warcraft change their language to suit the gender of the character they play. I have researched if there are gender differences that correspond to what is defined as male and female language in mixed-sex conversations. Chat-logs, collected during four participant observations, were used for making an analysis based primarily on research by Coates (1993) and Yale (2007). Seven features were selected for analysis: amount of participation, hedges, questions, directives and commands, taboo language, compliments and grammar. It was possible to discover gender differences, but these were not consistent in all areas of research. For example, female characters had a higher contribution than males, as well as a higher use of hedges and tag-questions among males, which contradicts previous research. The lack of consistency might be due to the fact that the participants do not specifically consider all areas as typically female or male, or their unawareness of these tendencies. We also need to consider disagreement in previous gender studies as well as folklinguistic belief. The explanation of the lack of consistent differences may be a more equal relationship between males and females in this context, or due to thepossibility that the participants, who are usually male, make use of their normal male language.