I really think there's Psychology...

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I really think there's Psychology...

PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:14 am

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Ozone
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in WoW faction and class choice. I'm studying to be a Doc, used to fly for the Coast Guard, worked as a nurse through undergrad, so in playing WoW, I've always chosen a support character (initial Healing Druid, now Shaman (and a priest alt)). Needless to say, I'm alliance.

I'd love to see, seriously (though it will never happen) a proper psychological clinical study on people and the faction and class they choose to play.

I thought of this tonight as I logged off in frustration. See...

Went to Hinterlands to clear up a few high 40s, low 50s quests. Found a Horde running same quest getting his ass kicked. He died. I stayed in area clearing out. He rezzed and had a mob on him immediately, so I ran over and killed it. He bows, then runs off and manages to draw two more, I get one off him. He bows. The two of us run through the temple with me clearing the way and pulling aggro off him when he's in trouble. This goes on for 10-15 mins. Then we hit the altar - I point at the mobs, and sit, then boss and sit, then I point at him, point at the mobs and sit, figuring I'm telling him we kill all, then boss for me, the kill all and boss for him. He jumps up and down and salutes me.

So, I draw the aggro from the mobs guarding Hexx (boss), I manage to kill them in melee with the horde guy off to the back a bit throwing in support spells (and at 100% health), at the end of the fight I'm at about 10% health. I go to heal and am interrupted by an Earthbind - the jerk, after I cleared his path, and saved his ass 6 times, kills me. THEN! To add insult to injury I get the '? spits on you - ? makes a rude gesture - ? dances with you' routine and watch, in spirit form, after he has taken the time to insult my corpse, as he takes out the boss and completes the quest.

This has happened so many times its stupid (or am I), yet interesting. I have the names of two horde written down who I have worked with and irregardless of situation, have been very, very cool. Oddly enough, both were priests.

There's some form of computer age psychology buried in this game, I'd love to see a case study. If I were a psychologist, I'd quite seriously do a paper on this.
"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" George Bush, Jan. 11, 2000

PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:10 pm

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undrin
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As much as I would like to trust the opposite faction I have been taught in the game it is folly. I almost never fire the first shot, but I do come back with wrath if they decied to be jerks. I also almost never help them anylonger due to things like that happenening.
Xbox One: Auravil come and visit sometime!

PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:52 pm

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lili
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Try to remember that the game is just a game and that the "horde" that you hate so much is just a human (no not the race human but probably a 6 year old kid) sitting at the other end of the computer. And there's been plenty of alliance that did the same shit to me. There's just something about RP even though it's a pvp realm.
Babydolly Frost Mage 70
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I didn't fall from grace, I dove.
What do you mean my halo is lopsided, it's balanced perfectly on my horns.

PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:12 am

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Ozone
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Unsure if last was for me or Ur. Personally I got no probs with it, its a game and everyone's having fun. I just think it would be interesting to see how the choices of faction and classes one makes relate back to their real life personas.
For example, this guy/gal/kid/etc I was running with as mentioned above - say it was a he in his 20's, would his friends tell me not to trust him too much as he's always looking out for himself? Just think there's probably a good thesus or research paper potential based on how certain samples of the population play WoW. Would be quite an interesting read.
"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" George Bush, Jan. 11, 2000

PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:04 pm

Inquisitor
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I play classes that can be by themselves effectively, and when I crave the company of people, play a support role. Never pure healer (well almost never), but never pure DD and never tank.

Generalists roles. Which fits my personality nicely.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:16 pm

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Magdalena
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As far as psych goes, so many people in this game play multiple classes of a wide variety, I think you'd find more info in how their attitudes change depending on the class or sometimes even spec they are playing at the moment.

For example, I have a warrior, druid, and warlock... three very different classes and I'd say my niceness to the horde depends on which one I'm playing at the moment as well as what I'm doing. :)

PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:27 pm

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lili
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Ozone wrote:Unsure if last was for me or Ur. Personally I got no probs with it, its a game and everyone's having fun. I just think it would be interesting to see how the choices of faction and classes one makes relate back to their real life personas.
For example, this guy/gal/kid/etc I was running with as mentioned above - say it was a he in his 20's, would his friends tell me not to trust him too much as he's always looking out for himself? Just think there's probably a good thesus or research paper potential based on how certain samples of the population play WoW. Would be quite an interesting read.
I personally think that the psych behind it also depends on if i'm having a good day or not. If i just had a miserable day and if someone pisses me off in game even if that some one is ally i will probably do everything i normally don't do to make another player's (ally and horde) game play difficult. Personally i think that's how the lowbie town ganking starts. Bad day at work no problem go make the lowbies in that town feel even more frustrated than you did. It's a safe way to "kill" without actual punishment behind it. And as far as classes I play all three pure classes tank, dps, and healer all again mostly mood dependent and actually computer dependent at one point. When my old computer couldn't handle the graphic and i was at 10fps i played pure range dps because that's only thing i could play effectively. As far as paper goes, you can probably find one already if not on wow on another game. Especially if the search is done in child psychocology. They don't get much play into modern psych or reseach paper, because you can't control the parameters very well. What do you do with the control group, how do you account for the test group's bad days. Unfortunally in the scientific world at the moment, the papers that gets the most publicity are the double blinded randomazed control vs test groups. :smack: As unfortunate as a lot of people think that is, those are the papers that can be retested and results can be confirmed or denied. People in research don't make much money so to keep their reasearch they have to go with the paper that can make the most impact in the community. So while there are plenty of papers about games and psych behind them, you wont' find them on the NEJM. The only papers you find in there are the ones that make the nices bed time reading if you are having trouble falling asleep. Personally i prefer the JAMA papers because there's always a nice little editorial about a doc's experience in each month's copy that i get. Then i just go though and read the abstracts and conclusions of the articals that intrest me, half of them i want to say "no duh" to. One artical i read this weekend when i went back on my second look on one of the hospitals that's on my top choice residency programs, really made me go "no duh". It was in the green journal and they proved that Prime C/S had a higher rate of returning to the hospital, higher rate of complications, and higher cost over all than the prime NSVD's. And most of the complications was due to wound infection or other wound related matters. As i'm reading this, I'm saying to myself oh wow if you had to do a study to figure this out you must not have a lot of comment sense (insert sarcasm). Let's see major surgery vs. nomal natural NSVD, who's going to have more problems and which one is going to cost more money. "DUH!!!!" Reserach at the height of it's elegance.
Babydolly Frost Mage 70
Pocky Protection Pally 70

I didn't fall from grace, I dove.
What do you mean my halo is lopsided, it's balanced perfectly on my horns.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:54 am

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Futile Resistance
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Inquisitor wrote:Generalists roles. Which fits my personality nicely.
*nods*

An all around kind of guy.

PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:45 pm

Lilleth
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It was in the green journal and they proved that Prime C/S had a higher rate of returning to the hospital, higher rate of complications, and higher cost over all than the prime NSVD's. And most of the complications was due to wound infection or other wound related matters. As i'm reading this, I'm saying to myself oh wow if you had to do a study to figure this out you must not have a lot of comment sense (insert sarcasm). Let's see major surgery vs. nomal natural NSVD, who's going to have more problems and which one is going to cost more money. "DUH!!!!" Reserach at the height of it's elegance.
LOL...I have no medical training whatsoever (other than a first aid course as a kid?), and that seems like a "no duh" to me too :p (maybe it's just cause I've gone through 3 NSVD, and watched my girlfriend go through 3 c/s hmmmm)

(OOPS quote didn't work properly...well, you get the idea anyway...lol)
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:18 pm

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lili
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quote didn't work because your open quote had a / i fixed it by taking it out
Babydolly Frost Mage 70
Pocky Protection Pally 70

I didn't fall from grace, I dove.
What do you mean my halo is lopsided, it's balanced perfectly on my horns.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:44 am

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Ozone
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Interesting, about 2 weeks after posting this I got indirect word to watch a vid. Sure most of you have seen it. Girl in real life died, played horde, friends (both horde and alliance) set up a funeral in WoW, large amount of guests showed up. An Alliance ganking guild crashed the online funeral and went on a slaughterfest.

Yep, I agree the choice of location was bad (a PvP zone), but they wanted open respect from all WoW players - there were notices open to both factions to please respect it and attend. But a guild called 'Serenity-now' decided to gather together and went on an honor spree.

My thoughts - there are many asses that play and behind a keyboard become mini-Hitlers (as the initial few posts above). But the idea these folks had was nice to open up 'virtual respects'. The choice of the PvP zone was not smart, but it did open up for friends who played alliance to attend. The idea to pre-plan a slaughter, then laugh, run to the front of the line of respect and say 'Sorry for your loss. Yes we know we're assholes 8D' - man, it just ain't cool.

Heres the vid - opening is some of the complaints (mucho harsh language warning), then blends into the Serenity now vid posting of their triumph -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHJVolaC8pw

So, wandered over to their site. Their forums contain topics like; 'Penispenispenis', You ain't riding this, Bitch', I met a retard today', and many more.

Pretty sad group I reckon.
"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" George Bush, Jan. 11, 2000

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:33 pm

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lili
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What do you think the average age of this group? Bad things usually happen when teens and college kids get together with no adults or bad adults around. Esp if these are rich spoiled kids. For a sneak peak just go to any rich frat house. Coming from a preppy college, although we don't have frats, we had open invatation to all in the boston area, and you only needed to go to one bad one to turn your stomach. Not saying all of them are bad, I have spent a summer living in one, but this one was a tame MIT nerd frat with a 4 million dollar renovation of the house which made them the only cheap livable space in down town boston. And even then a too drunk to move kid was often found on the first floor and somebody scrabling to hide "things" when parents show up unannouced were often. Not to mention the full frontal nude view on the walk to the bathroom *shudder*. To spare us girls renting the brothers acutally had to get together and buy the nude guy a pair of boxer with "parts" printed on them so he can still feel he's walking around naked i guess.



The more i think on this the more i have to say... I think what plays a big part in all of this is that there is some part in all of us that craves violance, blood, killing, etc. Most of us adults knows that it's just blowing off steam when it's done in a game, but for the younger generation who's never seen anything real violent first hand like the experence of power over another. Seening teens with gun shot wounds, being there for tianmen square, seeing the blood being power washed away from the entrance, seeing armed guards at every street on every bus, seeing yellow tape over every door of my building, being on a high jacked plane, seeing a girl too afraid to tell her boy friend that the real father of her baby is her step dad... I think, no i would like to think that if those kids you mentioned above had seen any of those, they would have reacted differently, but there's always those that gets a taste of real violence and craves for more.
Babydolly Frost Mage 70
Pocky Protection Pally 70

I didn't fall from grace, I dove.
What do you mean my halo is lopsided, it's balanced perfectly on my horns.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:13 am

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Ozone
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again...

So I'm mining in Tanaris, go into a hive, horde player there (lvl 50), so i /wave. Horde player /begs me immediately, though i had no intention of killing him/her. So I /salute and /point at a mob in the cave.

So, I run about for 20 mins, letting him/her get first hits and clear the way (I remember how tough that stuff was solo). I help him/her clear the entire hive, then on our way out, a horde 60 shows up. They have a chat - I /sit to the side thinking, 'This hunter is saying something along the lines of 'this guy is cool''.

Next thing, this hunter (who I just helped complete at least 2 quests) has his/her pet attack me outta the blue, he/she starts firing arrows at me, and the 60 is stunning me and beating me with an axe. By the time I respond I'm in sad shape. Then, to top it off I get laughed at and spit on.

Reckon I'm gonna start killing any horde i see, just to keep the a-hole balance.
"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" George Bush, Jan. 11, 2000

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