After reading the article of Celia Pearce, my first impressions were that those uruvians were really tough, resilient and very loyal. As in my experiences, When me and my friends faced server close down on Ultima Online, our group of people almost acted same, but not those strongly and willingly.
Part of reason was that we were rather young and busy (just like the Ezra, who quit the deputy mayor of TGU in Second life) (and we were in our middle school, haha). What we did was that we decided to venture each other's favorite style of game. While I was enjoying many freedom it offered, I was more interested in traditional MMORPG which features more cartoonish characters; therefore I moved into Ragnarok Online (it also helped me to decide that other friends were also playing there). My other friends went on to play WoW, which enabled them more freedom (compare to my choice) and better system. Note that we did not do anything that resembles what Uruvian did, such as having last-minute rituals (holding hands together), protests and hack (as they finally succeeded in getting there Uru back), gathering in certain forums (Koalanet) nor even attempted to create new world (as Ed did with his photoshop and 3d software).
In this sense, Uruvians' sense of being within a community was exceptionally strong even comparing with other group's sense of 'being together'. It doesn't hurt them that they were playing MMOWs, not MMORPGs where growing your character is as much important as communicating each other.
They (Uruvians) faced one of the harshest penalty they could face, which is a shutdown of main server that is not their fault; rather it was done by poor management. In this sense, I wholeheartedly agree with Pearce's choice of word, that it was diaspora for them, that they were forced to move out from where their second life was. Their effort to get back to Uru was, almost reminded me of a creation of country of Israel and its diaspora-ed people's effort*
*I would like to state that I am not putting down any effort by either party; I am sorry if I hurt anyone's feeling due to my comments regarding this paragraph.
Couple of things interested me while my reading of this article; first was that dissonance between Therians and Uruvians at first at there.com (and assimilation afterwards). I could safely say this also resembles, oddly enough, those problems that all the developed countries face when they see this new rush of people who shares different cultures (as evidenced by there different greetings, even to the some languages), and that the indigenous people see that as threat to their original culture and try to expel them.
Second part that interested me was that even after their Uru was indeed back to their hands by hackers and deal with Ubisoft.com, many refused to permanently 'move' to their original homes; rather, they thought it was behind there life and moved on. Understandably it is true, but given all their effort to re-enter their old realm, I thought it was rather strange.
My question to those vigilant readers tonight and tomorrow is, that have you ever felt strong sense of community in your online-gaming experiences? (I have, in WoW, Ragnarok, Ultima - no shame lol), if so, how did it ended? happy ending?
I personally have never been into online games. I tend to play single-player console games. However, I do have friends that play World of Warcraft and their communities are very strong. Not only do they have a relationship through the virtual world, but this has grown into a physical one where they call each other to chat on the phone.
ReplyDelete