Playing a Role

Playing a Role

By Kathryn Balint

Copley News Service

Hard-core gamers have long stayed up half the night slaying dragons and battling evil warlords. And compulsive Net users have long chatted online until the wee hours of the morning.

Combine the two activities, and you've got the hottest trend in the $20 billion-a-year electronic game industry. It's known as massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

The titles include Sony's EverQuest, Microsoft's Asheron's Call, Electronic Arts' Ultima Online and Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot, all of which are responsible for more than a few all-nighters and groggy gamers.

And to hook more players, the games will no longer be primarily for computer play only. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (within the gaming community, it's known as MMORPG; there's even a MMORPG.com site) are in the offing for video-game consoles.

What makes these 3-D virtual worlds particularly alluring -- addictive, some might say -- is that thousands of people all over the globe can play at one time on the Internet. The close friendships, perhaps even more so than the thrill of competition, hook players to the point that they're more than willing to pay a monthly subscription to keep getting their fix of the game.

"There's a blurring between real life and online life, and that distinction is continuing to get further blurred," said Mark Wiederhold, a physician and editor-in-chief of the professional journal CyberPsychology & Behavior.

"Technology, the quality of the graphics, the speed of the Internet connection, all of these make the online experience much more real."

With 430,000 active subscribers, EverQuest leads the multiplayer game phenomenon in North America. Put simply, it's Dungeons & Dragons for the digital age, created in by Sony Online Entertainment.

The company said EverQuest hosted more than 100,000 simultaneous players over one weekend in July.

For $14 a month, EverQuest players get the opportunity to assume the roles of dwarves, ogres and other medieval characters to conquer mythical monsters in a world known as Norrath. The point is to advance your character to the highest, most powerful level, 60, starting at 1. There's no way to go it alone. Players must enlist the help of online allies to slay the powerful mobs and capture elusive treasures. ("Mobs" is EverQuest jargon, short for "mobile objects.")

Norrath is a world unto itself. It has a thriving economy, in which players make and sell weapons in exchange for "plats," or platinum pieces. Some players sell their virtual goods on the Web -- for cold, hard cash. Fans discuss intricacies of the game on Internet message boards. Others get together at conventions. A few even marry each other, both online and in real life.

"It may be just a game, but it's a game that's almost alive," said EverQuest player Paul Molina of Vista, Calif., who plays six hours a week as a dwarf named Kullom. Molina's wife, Christi, plays on another computer as a gnome named Wenjii.

In EQ, as the game is affectionately nicknamed by some of its fans, there is no clear end, and, thanks to Sony, the fantasy world keeps expanding. So far, it has spawned three software add-ons, called expansion packs, with new lands to explore. A fourth add-on, the Planes of Power Expansion, is due in October.

Next spring, Sony Online Entertainment plans to come out with a version of EverQuest for Macintosh. A sequel, EverQuest II, is also in the works. Sony is also creating a version of EverQuest for its PlayStation 2 game console for release next spring.

And that's just the start of the boom in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Among the games to look for:

-- PlanetSide, a futuristic combat game, which is expected to be released next spring by Sony.

-- Star Wars Galaxies, based on the film series. Sony Online Entertainment is creating this game in conjunction with LucasArts Entertainment Co. No launch date has been set.

-- The Sims Online, a multiplayer role-playing game based on Maxis' popular computer game. Electronic Arts is the developer.

-- A version of Sega's Phantasy Star for the Nintendo GameCube. Originally developed for the Sega Dreamcast video-game console, the game comes out this fall.

-- A multiplayer game based on "The Matrix," the Warner Bros. science-fiction movie.

-- A game that's being developed for Microsoft by former EverQuest designers Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler. Butler and McQuaid left Sony Online Entertainment earlier this year to form Vigil Games Online.

MORE SOPHISTICATED

Online games have come a long way since the days of dial-up, text-only multiuser-dungeons, or MUDs. Today's high-speed Internet connections and realistic three-dimensional graphics make the action much more compelling for the 50 million people who play online games worldwide.

DFC Intelligence, a video-game market research firm, predicts that 114 million people will be playing online games four years from now.

"Right now, they are only a small part of the industry," said DFC president David Cole. "I think they're going to grow and grow. Eventually, I think all games will have some online component."

High-speed Internet connections and more powerful computer processors are helping to fuel the boom in online gaming. Also boosting the industry are the more powerful video-game consoles -- Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube -- which are capable of connecting players via the Internet.

By 2006, DFC forecasts that 23 million people will play online games using their consoles. At least initially, though, the console players won't be able to go head-to-head against the computer players.

McQuaid of Vigil Games said that eventually it won't matter what kind of machine a player is on -- players will all be able to compete directly with one another on the Net.

MORE TYPES OF GAMES

Technology isn't enough to reel in new players. The real name of the game is content. The broader selection of titles that are in the works could help.

"Not everybody wants to put on a suit of armor and go running around in the world of EverQuest," said Scott McDaniel, vice president of marketing for Sony Online Entertainment. "Some people would prefer to go into the Star Wars universe and become a smuggler or a rebel or a storm trooper."

No matter what the genre, though, it's the social aspect of online role-playing games that keep players online for hours on end.

"The level of intensity of feelings people have toward other people in Internet relationships is no different than actual relationships," said Wiederhold.

As in the real world, facing a life-or-death situation in an online game can bring two players closer emotionally, even if their true identities are hidden behind screen personas. Research also shows that people who are anonymous online tend to reveal information about themselves they otherwise wouldn't share, bringing them closer together.

GOING EXTREME

For a few people, online games become such an obsession that careers and marriages are destroyed. Or worse.

In Florida last year, a 9-month-old boy died because, prosecutors said, his father played EverQuest while leaving the baby unattended in a utility closet for more than 24 hours. The father was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The mother of a 21-year-old Wisconsin man who played EverQuest for 12 hours a day blames the game for his suicide last fall.

EverQuest players have taken to calling the game EverCrack, a reference to its addictive qualities.

But whether people can become addicted to online games such as EverQuest, or whether compulsive online game-playing is a symptom of some other psychological problem, is a subject of much debate among scholars. Sony executives understand how compelling online games can be. After all, many of them play EverQuest. But they advocate that players slay monsters in moderation.

"People have to use a certain degree of responsibility," said McDaniel, the Sony vice president. "We operate under the general assumption that people who play our game can differentiate between fact and fiction, that they're able to realize when it's time to turn off the game."

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