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Better the Monster you KnowTheoretically, the ability to interact with gamers from different parts of the globe is one of the greatest appeals and advantages of playing multiplayer online games. Practically, the fantasy of virtual friendships that cross oceans and time zones created thanks to a shared interest in a MMORPG is shattered in a new research that reveals that most EverQuest II gamers prefer digging in their closer and already known surrounding. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Institute and supported by Sony Online, investigated the communication choices made by 7,000 EverQuest II gamers including who they played with, which items they bought and from who. The research discovered that most of the players choose to communicate with their family and friends, while a small adventurous minority of them dared playing with anonymous creatures, providing they share a common friend or at least a zipcode. This cannot be explained as a coincidence says the researcher Dmitri Williams of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication Studies to msnbc. It is not that Sonly Online sets serves down every block as Blizzard Entertainment does to please World of Warcraft milliards of players. Thus, the chances an English speaking EverQuest gamer would be automatically connected to a server in his neighborhood are rather low. The bottom line is that the despite the worldwide acquaintanceship possibilities offered by the World Wide Web, its various communication tools, massively multi player online games among them, are most commonly used to interact with the familiar circle of friends and family.
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