Living Online: Alternate reality games skew to younger generation

Want blonde hair instead of brown? No problem.

Green eyes instead of blue? It’s done.

Male instead of female? So easy.

In online worlds, you can be anything you want.

Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) may have a complicated title, but many of these games have the same basic premise. Each maintains an alternate reality or world in which many users (or “players”) actively participate.

Many MMORPGs are strategy or combat games that involve levels and points within the worlds. Examples include World of Warcraft, which debuted in 2004, and Everquest, released in 1999. In contrast to the combat games, which are based in fantasy, a growing number of MMORPGs are also (for the most part) based in reality. Games like Second Life, Teen Second Life, There, Active Worlds and more maintain a virtual world that gamers can visit, create and “live” in.

People everywhere, teens included, are logging on to play, like Joe Victorino, a junior at the South Texas Business, Education and Technology Academy (BETA) in Edinburg. Victorino’s MMORPGs of choice are World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2, he said. He began playing the games before he turned 13, at the peak of his gaming days spending five or six hours a day in front of a computer.

“I prefer games that are reality-based and have modern-day combat,” said the 17-year-old, who has been passionate about computers since he was 8 years old.

An article in the May/June issue of Mother Jones cites the overall “current population” of MMORPGs is around 20 million. Many of these have a young contingency as their core users. For example, virtual world There has approximately one million users to date, of whom 70 percent fall into the 13-to-26 year-old age bracket, said vice president of business development Ben Richardson.

The creators of virtual worlds said they believe positive benefits stem from teen participation in their product. Virtual worlds have potential to function as teaching tools. In Active Worlds, users can create certain scenarios for teens and college students to experience and learn from, said Active Worlds president Rick Noll. Harvard educator Chris Dede creates Multi-User Virtual Environment Experiential Simulators (MUVEES) to help kids learn: for example, a virtual town suffering from an epidemic with students determining the epidemic’s cause. Such applications are possible within programs like Active Worlds, Noll said.

“There are any number of simulations running in which people are learning,” he said. “Once you’ve done something, it gives you an idea of what it’s really like. You can read about something, but when you’ve seen it, it takes on another level. When you’ve participated in it, it sticks more. A lot of schools are using Active Worlds to develop that kind of curriculum.”

Teens also have the ability to express themselves creatively within virtual worlds, Richardson said. One of the most popular activities in There is fashion, in other words, customizing the look of your avatar.

“Teens are attracted by the ability to self-express through customization,” he said. “In their world they can customize the exact way an avatar looks. Having that ability to change the way they look is a big issue in the real world, and for teens to be able to change this, it’s an interesting component to play with.”

There are other benefits to playing MMORPGs beyond creative expression, Victorino said, among them, anonymity and equality.

“You can go online, and no one really knows who you are,” he said. “It takes away the boundaries set by age. It’s truly equal. You don’t get discriminated against because of your age or how you look or act. I feel that’s how the real world should be.”

With all virtual world inhabitants on equal footing, it’s possible to meet and socialize with people around the world. Victorino has gamed and chatted with people as far away as Pakistan and Germany. It’s an experience many encounter when they enter a virtual world, Richardson said.

“Teens can be in some high traffic areas and have conversations with people from continents around the world,” he said. “That’s a really powerful experience. For a teen — in one conversation — to be able to speak with someone from London, someone from Australia, someone from South Africa and someone in Kansas, that’s incredible. That’s a powerful learning experience for any teen. It exposed them to a much larger world instantly.”

At the same time, MMORPG gaming has its downsides. Victorino said excessive gaming might lead to communication issues in the real world.

“You might have language conflicts,” he said. “You can’t speak to people the way you do online.”

Like some adults, certain teens might be predisposed to unhealthy gaming habits, said

Alejandro Kudish, a child psychiatrist in McAllen.

“It can be categorized into regular play, which I think is normal in children and adolescents,” he said. “However, some adults and some patients, people who have certain psychological disorders, do become obsessed with certain types of play. They use them as an escape, a mechanism to escape reality.”

Still, for the average teen like Victorino, the allure of MMORPGs far outweighs the potential downsides.

“I guess it feels cool,” he said. “It’s a fantasy. You can do things you can’t do in real life. There are no limitations.”

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Virtual Vocab

Confused by the terminology? Here are a few definitions that might help:

• MMORPG: An acronym for Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Includes virtual worlds like Second Life and strategy games like World of Warcraft (known as WoW in gaming circles).

• Avatar: applies to any MMORPG. Users can create the character that represents them in an MMORPG, or an “avatar,” from the ground up. The avatar can range from realistic to fantastic.

• Alt: Short for “alternate.” It refers to an alternate character a player has from their main character (a different avatar).

• Griefer: another player in an MMORPG that is paying you unwanted attention (or in combat games, has killed or injured your avatar needlessly). In other words, that character is giving you grief. Some games give you the option of blocking a griefer, preventing them from pestering you further.

• Newbie: A new player. Also sometimes referred to as a “Noob.”

• OOC: Acronym that means “out of character.” Generally refers to chat within a game that has no bearing on the game’s context, i.e. discussing a favorite TV show during strategy warfare or fantasy games.

• PvE: Stands for “Player vs. Environment.” “Environment” stands for all monsters (also known as “mobs”) in the virtual world.

• PvP: Stands for Player vs. Player combat.

• WOOT: Slang, synonymous with “hooray” or “way to go.”

— Source: www.nickyee.com.