Guilds: Communities in Ultima Online

This paper is concerned with the massively multi-player online role-playing game Ultima Online. Because of the large number of players, the evolution of sub-groups, or guilds, are very common. This document contains a general description of Ultima Online and an analysis of a particular guild. I show that the guild can be classified as a virtual community and discuss the importance of its rules and regulations. Finally, I argue that these rules and regulations give rise to mechanisms that are fundamental to the longterm appeal of the Ultima Online game. ULTIMA ONLINE Ultima Online is one of the oldest graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing games in existence. It can be seen as a continuation of a series of single player games that was published by Origin/Electronic Arts under the Ultima title between 1981 and 1999, but it also draws heavily from the MUD/MOO and traditional real-life roleplaying game traditions. Its creator, Richard Garriott, describes Ultima Online as "a living breathing magical place, where people [can] forge true alternative lives" [4]. The game is an attempt at simulating a whole world containing computer-controlled people, animals, monsters and thousands of items that can be manipulated in various ways. Game overview Figure 1 shows the main game windows. The game window displays an isometric view of the player character's immediate surroundings. Objects, monsters and other characters are shown here. Most of the game manipulation is done by clicking and drag-and-drop in the game window. The inventory window displays the character's current inventory. Game objects can be picked up and dropped by dragging them to and from the inventory window, respectively. The paper doll window displays an image of the current character and displays its health, stamina and magic health. This window also contains a number of push buttons for accessing different options. Double-clicking on any game character will open its paper doll window. Figure 1. Visiting a lavish dining room in Nujel'm. On the top right is a window containing the player's inventory and on the bottom right is the paper doll window containing an image of the player. Communication between players is mediated through text chat. Text entered on the computer keyboard will show up over the player's character. It is also possible to emote, i.e. display a written description of non-verbal communication. Emotes are shown between asterisks above the player's character, e.g. *cough*, *raises an eyebrow at the ogre that just walked through the door*. Finally, there is a range of pre-defined animations that can be applied to characters, such as bowing, dancing and pointing. Item manipulation in Ultima Online often mirrors real-life activities. For example, to create a roll of bandages that can be used to heal wounds in battle, the player must first shave the wool off a sheep by using a knife. This will create a pile of wool that can be spun into thread on a spinning wheel. The thread can then be woven into a roll of cloth by using a loom. Finally, the cloth is cut up into bandages by using a pair of scissors. The geography of Ultima Online is similar to previous Ultima games. The game takes place in Britannia, an imaginary world with one main continent and a number of islands (figure 2). The geography is divided into three main types: towns, wilderness and dungeons. Figure 2. The Ultima Online world. The towns are where characters go to buy and sell items. Town shopkeepers are always computer-controlled characters. They understand a small number of phrases, such as "shopkeeper, buy" or "shopkeeper, where is the bank". Asking a shopkeeper to see his/her list of goods will open a window where items can be selected for purchase. The towns are also the home of other computercontrolled characters that has the ability to train player characters in different skills, in return for money. Most of the larger towns contain official buildings such as guildhalls, theatres, banks and churches. Sometimes, these buildings are the location of user-initiated events such as theatre plays, weddings and public trials. Each of the twelve main towns has one corresponding dungeon. These contain most of Britannia's monsters and are organized in order of difficulty. The dungeons are mostly used to train the combat skills of warrior-type characters, but sometimes players will also venture into dungeons to search for treasure and magic items. The wilderness between the towns consists mostly of forest. Here, most of the non-aggressive game creatures can be found, such as cows, goats, pigs, cats, dogs and horses. Sometimes, computer-controlled brigands and monsters also appear in the wilderness. Roads run between most of the larger towns. The wilderness also contains open areas where player housing can be built. House deeds can be bought from architects, and when a suitable spot has been found, the deed can be converted into a building. The character that bought the deed is then considered the owner of the building and may furnish it as he/she wishes. It is also possible to hire computer-controlled characters as shopkeepers, so many of the player-constructed buildings contain shops that compete with the official town shops. Beginner players After the game has been installed and a character has been created (figure 3), beginner players are given an interactive tutorial where the graphical user interface basics are described (movement, interaction, combat and inventory manipulation). After the tutorial has been completed, the character appears with a dressing of clothes and a thousand gold coins in the city of Haven, which is designed as a training area that is accessible only to beginners and experienced players with special invitation. Here, monsters are easier to defeat than in other parts of the game world and items bought from shops are less expensive. Since all new players begin here, there is also plenty of opportunity for social interaction. Figure 3. The character creation window. Here, the character is given a gender, hairstyle, skin color and clothing colors. In the following screens, skills and attributes are assigned to the character. For the first twenty hours (effective game time) after a new Ultima Online account has been activated, the characters created by the account holder are given the title Young. Monsters or other characters can never attack young characters without consent. Also, when young characters die, they do not lose their inventory items, as regular characters do. They also have the option to be resurrected immediately whereas regular characters have to find a magician or a healer that can resurrect them. Young characters can also teleport back to Haven at any time. Apart from the brief playguide that is available at the Ultima Online web page [12], there is little information available to new players. Different game mechanics, such as how to manage the complex skill system, often have to be discovered through the help of other players. It is possible that the game designers made a conscious choice to limit the publication of game information in order to encourage player interaction and to make the time it takes to develop new characters as long as possible (since Ultima Online is a subscription service). I have not been able to confirm this, though. The original series of Ultima games were very goal-driven in the sense that the player always had a sense of what to do next and that he or she was part of a storyline. In contrast, Ultima Online is open-ended with a very loose overarching world history. Here, the player is free to pursue any activity he or she wishes, be it tailoring clothes or fighting monsters. However, since the range of choices is virtually limitless, many players have reported that they find it difficult to find a sense of purpose with the game and that the lack of a clear storyline also makes the game less dramatic and somewhat static [6]. The game developers have responded to this by introducing a game world storyline that progresses in steps. Fictional stories and reports surrounding the storyline is published on the Ultima Online website. Typically, each storyline step involves a battle of some sort or introduces a new monster or item type. It is also possible for players to embark on quests. These can be initiated by computer-controlled characters, in which case they typically involve escorting the character from one city to another or rescuing the character from an attacking monster. It is also common for Ultima Online players to construct quests for the benefit of other players. Since Ultima Online was initiated, it has been plagued with the so-called player-killing problem. Because of an initial lack of challenges for experienced players, many took up killing less experienced players and stealing their money. With the abundance of such player-killers, it became very difficult for new players to establish characters in the game and as a result, many chose not to extend their game subscriptions [5]. The game developers responded by introducing a set of consecutive game rule changes, most of which failed to improve on the situation. Finally, the decision was made to split the game into two facets, Felucca and Trammel. Both facets share the same storyline and geography. On Trammel, it is impossible to initiate player-versus-player combat unless both combatants give their consent, whereas on Felucca, player-killing is allowed as before. Characters can travel freely between the two facets. The split seems to have been largely successful. Ultima Online has over 250.000 subscribers [4]. Even disregarding time zone issues, the number of simultaneous players is very large. Since playing the game involves exchanging information with a game server whenever an action is taken (such as moving a character or manipulating an item), allowing all players to communicate with one server would require an enormous amount of bandwidth. Therefore, Ultima Online is topologically divided into a number of shards, or server groups. Each shard consists of a number of servers that each holds the game information for a part of the game map. Each game character is tied to one shard. It is not possible to move characters between different shards. Each player can have up to five characters per shard. PLAYER ORGANIZATIONS Ultima Online can be regarded as a paid-membership based group that consists of about 250.000 persons that log in to the game from about 100 countries across the world. The group is governed by a central authority, Origin Systems/Electronic Arts, and is subject to a number of official rules and regulations. The relationships between people in the group as a whole are often transient and instrumental, and its development is largely managed by Origin Systems/Electronic Arts. In this sense, it has many similarities with gesellschaft as described in [11]. However, the characters that are controlled by the players are organized in a complex hierarchy, where each sub-group has its own set of rules and regulations. As we move down this hierarchy, we find an increasing number of community-like features. Figure 4 shows an illustration of this hierarchy. Figure 4. An overview of the Ultima Online player group hierarchy. The Ultima Online player group Ultima Online has both a terms of service agreement that is similar to most other computer software products [13] and an official set of rules for players [14]. Origin/Electronic Arts reserves the right to immediately terminate the account of any player that breaks these rules. The rules mainly deal with harassment (they make no explicit distinction between players and their characters in this respect), violation of real-world laws, and cheating. Harassment is defined in three different ways [15]: • "Flagrant misuse of game mechanics with the intention of distressing and offending other players." • "Any behavior that is incessant, inescapable, derogatory and directed specifically at you our your group." • "Derogatory and/or hateful comments that are sexual, racist, religious, or related to gender or creed." Harassment can be reported either through a special tool that sends a message to the game publisher containing a recent log of the interactions in the particular area the player was in, or by summoning one of the game masters. A game master is an employee of Origin/Electronic Arts that can act as a judiciary in conflicts relating to harassment, and also has the ability to sidestep the game mechanics in certain cases (e.g., to teleport a player from one location to another). Punishments for breaking the official game rules include • Spoken warnings (by a game master in-game). • Written warnings. Ultima Online