The paper provides an in depth examination of the narrative structure of Massively Multiplayer Online Computer Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). The analysis is focused on the narrative complexities created by the relationships between computer technology, the medieval fantasy that is central to the genre, and the emergent nature of the online player society. The paper is divided into four major se...

Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) is a unique categorization of electronic game which allows thousands of players to play simultaneously through the Internet in the same virtual environment. A number of researchers have started to introduce the use of MMOG as a new generation of educational platform, allowing players to interact and to learn together through collaborative game-play. Howe...

In the discussion on what players learn from digital games, there are two major camps in clear opposition to each other. As one side picks up on negative elements found in games the other side focuses on positive aspects. While the agendas differ, the basic arguments still depart from a shared logic: that engagement in game-related activities fosters the development of behaviors that are transf...

A common argument about computer games and learning is that the commitment gamers have might be transformed and used in educational practices. In order to unpack gamers’ commitment, the present study investigates collaboration in a Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). It investigates gamers’ practices in order to expose their everyday gaming activities and knowledge domains. Drawing o...

This short paper discusses the design of the JominiEngine, a serious game engine for massive multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG), designed as an educational tool for the learning history. The main design principles of the game engine are accuracy in the historic model, flexibility in the scope of content modeling and cover a wide range of historic periods, cooperative team-play embe...

Personalizing the playing experience is a key factor in making players of computer games feel involved in the virtual world; however, current Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games only to a limited degree allocate development or running resources towards facilitating a personalized experience. In Pen and Paper Role Playing Games, the player-controlled characters form a key component i...

The present paper attempts to empirically study the cognitive impacts of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) in uncontrolled contexts in light of the Cognitive Mediation Networks Theory, a new model of human intelligence that aims to explain cognition as the result of brain activity combined with the information-processing done by external structures such as tools, social gr...

Millions of children and adults devote much of their leisure time to playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Most observers commonly categorize computer games as a play activity, but this article asks whether MMORPGs contain activities that might not be play. The author examines the phenomenon of online gaming and compares it with several common characteristics and cr...

While psychologists analyze network game-playing behavior in terms of players’ social interaction and experience, understanding user behavior is equally important to network researchers, because how players act determines how well systems, such as MMORPGs, perform. To gain a better understanding of patterns of player interaction and their implications for game design, we analyze a 1, 356-millio...

In huge online games where great numbers of players can be connected at the same time, social interaction is complex and conflicts become part of everyday life. There is a set of rules and norms in the game for what is allowed and what is prohibited and these are partly set up by the game publisher and partly evolve among the players themselves over time. This paper describes and exemplifies a ...