Worth Practicum #2

The experiment I created to test my hypothesis would involve two extremes of social rank; Catechumen28, a complete novice and obviously a complete novice, and Vani0n, a high-level player moderator with very expensive equipment. The goal is to find out if other people will hold both characters at the same level of respect and to see towards who, if either, the other players will pay more attention to. To show this, each character asked a basic question repeatedly until another player responded. The number of times the question had to be asked was recorded for each player. I asked, “Where is the fire rune altar?” about every 15 seconds until I got a direct response. This is a pretty basic question since the location of the fire rune altar is very common knowledge. That way the sample would include nearly everyone. The experiment was done only in nonmember worlds in the area around the Grand Exchange so that the sample population would be fairly consistent. Also, only worlds with 1,100 to 1,500 were used so that the number of people being asked the question would be approximately the same.

 I also collected the level of each player that responded to my question and the player’s response. Collectively, the levels would show if different leveled characters had tendencies to be either more or less prejudice towards the two extreme examples.

To show that the two characters really were complete opposites in social rank I not only chose characters of different levels, but with different equipment and social power. Catechumen28 was a combat level 3, the level that the character starts at and the lowest level that anyone can ever have. A combat level of 3 signifies that the avatar is very weak and unless they are “pure” or train in only one skill that does not affect combat level, such as woodcutting or fishing, they are probably very inexperienced.  I stripped Cat of all items so that he was not wearing any armor or any other equipment that could be seen by other players. If a character were “pure” then they would most likely wear some type of expensive equipment to distinguish themselves from the beginners so this would help prove the fact that he is a novice and very poor. I also chose the default appearance during character building that the game gives you before you customize the avatar. This appearance is very dull and common and is usually only chosen by “bots”. Bots are avatars which are created and run by a program a player has. They are used to play and level up without the player needing to be there, which is completely illegal in the game and looked down upon by other players. Since I chose the appearance that has the worst connotations, Cat would represent the pinnacle of social intolerance. 

Vani0n, on the other hand, represents the very experienced player. This character is a combat level 117, which is very high and requires a huge amount of time to accomplish. He could have strictly trained his combat skills to bring up the combat level and disregarded the others. This would still take a lot of effort to do but it’s not nearly as difficult as being a well rounded character. Since the combat level is the only type of skill level that other players see, this is the only skill attribute that affects their judgment of the character. Vani0n is also a player moderator which brings a lot of respect. A player mod is one of only 6,000 characters that Jagex, the creator of Runescape, has personally chosen because of the player’s good record. Jagex gives these players the power to mute other characters and a tiny silver crown that appears next to everything they say, but they aren’t bestowed with any other special privileges. The common myth that many players believe, however, is that player mods have ultimate power in the game; the ability to delete characters and create items, for example. The rank of player mod is about as respected as a player can get in Runescape, other than a player who works for Jagex, known as a Jagex mod. The last and most obvious attribute given to Vani0n is expensive attire. He wore approximately 200 million gp worth of armor, which is an extraordinary amount of money. To put this in perspective, this imaginary money, which is really only a miniscule function of a computer program, would be worth on average $156.28 in the real world. The idea that pixels on a screen can be traded for real, physical money still amazes me.