Sometimes the worst thing that you can do to a person is to forget about them because these unintentional mental slip ups can create more havoc than any intentional malice ever could. When somebody forgets about you it's easy to attribute it to malice and harder to realize (let alone accept) that they just weren't thinking.  Hanlon's razor states that one should to attribute to stupidity what can be explained by malice but it doesn't explain how hard that can be. Accepting that you have become overlooked means accepting a widening gap between people one that can become impossible to fill. How can you tell somebody that you feel forgotten or overlooked without making them feel bad? Is there a way to put into words that lump in your chest when you realize that you are forgotten? If there is I haven't found it. I'd go to my parents for advice on this but they'd only tell me to suffer in silence because that's how they roll so I guess I'm on my own on that one. All I can say is that it sucks to be forgotten.

I finished writing my data/analysis section and my conclusion.

I really surprised myself. Now all I have to do is fill out my litterature review section, write or rewrite my field site/methods/ethics section and put the essay together.

I will probably add a few screenshots in an appendix, it will make the document bigger but I think the pictures are a good idea.

I'm astounded to find that I'm about more than half done at this point.

Thanks to Demonic Gerbil here is my presentation slide

docs.google.com/leaf

Anth 495 presentation

• 4-5 days a week I log onto CoH
• Log on and head to raid zone
• I'm not alone, we're all here to face Hamidon
• Game studies: multidisciplinary field devoted to study of games
• particular interest in online games
• online games= laboratories, social spaces, sites for education, sources of food for thought
• my interest in these games is about online communities
• my question Can we say that Hamidon raiding is a community activity?
• First what is Hamidon raiding Second what is City of Heroes
• Then culture, community, and communities of practice
• methodology and findings then conclusion
• Hamidon raiding is an activity in an online game called City of Heroes where between 35-50 plauers work together to defeat a monster called Hamidon.
• a Hamidon raid is an event: discrete time and in game location
• 45-60 minutes and a reward
• A scenic chat room with interactive tasks
• Massively multiplayer Filiciak (2003) More than 1000, normal network max= less than 20
• This is a dated estimate WoW server (copy of the world) max is 20 000 but I still prefer the bottom limit
• Persistant online world, events in the game happen in real time.
• You can never log into the same persistant world twice.
• Role playing game: character described by statistics that interacts with the world
• RPG: level your character but no necessary goals
• Geertz: People are enmeshed in webs of significance that they navigate
• Culture as the systems of meaning that people draw upon to make sense of their everyday lives
• Shared meaning because culture is public, public culture= mutual intelligibility
• Geertz argues culture as text in that people can see an overriding social script that makes everyday realities seen normal
• Culture as performance, saying something about something
• Through the performance people interpret and comment the cultural scripts that guide their lives
• All communities have a componant of shared practice, Wenger's communities of practice
• Communities of practice are people who come together because of some common problem or interest and form arond shared practices
• The point of the community is to improve the knowledge and skills of members and the creation and management of knowledge are big parts of communities of practice.
• Communities of practice form can form anywhere, they don't require some kind of essentialist connection to funtion, membership is predicated on the relevance of community knowledge/skills to people's lives
• The question is how does one study culture or a community of practice
• Geertz and thick description, the ethnographic method
• I participated in raids, took notes and saved game logs
• I interviewd 4 plauers talking about different aspects of the game
• I was already a member of the community: Hami raiding since the summer.
• My findings:
• Hamidon raiding is structured: This isn't just that it's an event
• There's a strategy, Hamidon can defeat any individual hero easily and can even repel large groups of heroes if they don't coordinate their assault properly.
• The raiders group together in specialized assault teams.
• Every raider has to know what to do, every team leader makes sure everybody's on the same page, the raid leader makes sure of that too.
• There's a social order too, everybody is expected to their part to make the raid succeed
• Leeching: When a person does not participate in the raid except to claim a rewards as if they did, extremely taboo behavior
• Medea used to be a respected raid team leader, then one day after a public disagreement with the raid leader she announced she was going to leech
• She's leeched more than once, generally when she felt slighted by the raid leader/raiders
• Her behavior has made people weary of inviting her to raid teams and has gotten her kicked out of player associations
• Raiding is more than just about the rewards even though those are a very alluring incentive
• Hamidon raiding is a social event: people meet and hang out as the raid gets set up and then raid together
• People tell jokes, share memes
•  example Jell-O references: Hamidon resembles a blob of jell-o and that's why players will make alot of Jell-o references at raids, "I'm in the mood for Jello!" or "Tremble in fear Hamidon, I brought my Jell-O mold!"
• Hamidon raids are a moment where social networking takes place
• Okira runs an in game player group and she meets her members at Hamidon raids
• I met a player named Jeanne D'Arc at Hamidon raids and we became friends because we would team together all the time and eventually I asked if she could join a player association I was a member of.
• Our friendship extended beyond the confines of the game and we teamed together outside of Hamidon raids.
• Hamidon raiding extends beyond the raid zone affecting the way people play the game, I've found that my approach to the game has been changed and my social life has also been transformed.
• Hamidon raidinf is a moment when players come together to renew the connetions that make them a community and where players can forge the connections that underpin the community.
• These are communities of practice founded around the challenge  of defeating Hamidon
• MMORPGs are cultures in that players establish systems of meaning which inform game play (make game play part of their lives)
• 4-5 days a week schedule permitting I participate in Hamidon raids with my community
• The other day I was leading a raid but disconnected before I could get my reward and my friends shared their rewards with me

I know I know I'm a bad blogger, I have'nt kept up with the blog -.-;

My presentation went swimmingly though and as soon as I figure out how I will post a copy of the slide.

In any event my thesis is due on April 30 so I will probably post my final draft after that.

I might present a version of my project at a conference later this year, I might not though. We'll see how things go.

This is a possible outline of my thesis

A)Intro
(In all cases my introduction should both tell my readers what my project is about and be linked to the conclusion)

-I could tell a Hami story as an epic battle between good and evil
-I could talk about why I started raiding in the first place
-I could talk about game studies as a disciplin
-When you think about an anthroplology paper you think...

My thesis question, topic, hypothesis goes here
I guess I set out to talk about a game as a society

After presenting my thesis topic I would then present the plan for my paper

B)Lit review
I will recognize that there are bodies of litterature out there written about the topics I am covering but will only discuss works that seem relevant to me.

B.1) Relevant works in the field

This will include authors like Dave Myers, Nick Yee, Alex Golub, Sherry Turkle and others

B.2) This is for more theoretical works I find relevant

I will place authors like Clifford Geerts, Sean Gurd, Lila Abu Lughod, Thomas King... authors who say things that I find relevant to my project but that don't or have not done work in the field I'm in, this is where I will talk more about the anthropological basis for my work

C) The field setting

This is a critical section for me as I will want to be able to explain my field site to others.

-I need to define what is an MMORPG

-I need to introduce City of Heroes and talk about how the game is played
-server, chat, channel, global name, supergroup, archetype, zone are things I will mention

- I may put a small lexicon here but I will also footnote any terms I feel need to be explained and will also provide a glossary.

-Then I will talk about how I got my data and this will lead into my discussion about ethics.

D) my data

I guess I will present my data along several themes and this is kind of what I was imagining with my themes going from the particular to the more general

• social interaction
• relationships
• roles
• hierarchy
• alliances
• social order

I'm not fleshing these concepts out at the moment because I will provabably need to go over them some more. These themes are outlines but I've got more concepts I'm planning on using when I code my data

E) Analysis

I think I will be analyzing my data mostly in terms of binaries but will also use some additional concepts, again nothing fleshed out so this might change

• interaction v connection
• explicit v implicit
• cooperation v conflict
• effort v recognition
• public/private
• self perception/reputation
• online/ offline
• sense making
• trust
• otherness
• dissent
• motivation

F) Conclusion

My conclusion will have a summary of my findings.

I will also probably include a small discussion of things I learned but critically my conclusion will have to link back to my introduction

I'd like to talk a little about the relevance of my work

In my conclusion I will try to bring a sense of closure to the work and also link back to the introduction so I might put

-a reference to my epic story
-a diuscussion of what I learned personally
-a discussion of why my paper is important

In any event this is a preliminary outline

The first time I saw Vivaldi was the fall of 1995 when my mom brought him home. She'd been looking for a dog for a while and when she saw Vivaldi she knew he was the one. My sister wanted to name the dog Dixen but I suggested Vivaldi and that name stuck.

We decided to get a dog because my father wanted one. One christmas some friends let us dogsit for them and my father, who'd never had a pet dog, was in seventh heaven. While my brother and I resented having to walk Vivaldi and my sister unloaded the task on me as often as she could my father loved walking the dog and on week ends I believe he used to take the dog out about every two hours during the day. The dog, knowing he'd found a sucker, would follow my dad around expecially in the kitchen because he knew he could always get food from him. For my father the dog was somebody he could lavish affection on, somebody who was always happy to be there.

Almost 15 years later and now he's old and dying. There was a moment this year when he stopped eating and was throwing up constantly. We thought he was going to die but he's too tough for that.

I remember when we got him he was a little puppy who would nip our hands and arms because he was scared of us. I didn't realize it then but my mom took time out of her daily schedule to housebreak him and with a few exceptions that training is still holding up. Even when I resented having to walk him because my sister dumped the chore on me or because my mom would extend the walks by refusing to let me back in the house he was always happy to go on walks with me. It wasn't hia fault it was cold out or that he needed to got the the bathroom.

I remember whe I realized he was getting older. It was about three years ago, I let him in the back yard and there was a hole in the fence of our garden and he just looked at it. I think at that moment he'd felt older at that moment I realized he wasn't the puppy I once knew. As a puppy he was full of life. Well into his life he was an extremely lively dog. Vivaldi was an barker, now he barks less but there are moments when one can see a trace of his once seemingly boundless energy. I think he really started to slow down around the age of 12 or 13.

When you think about it the practice of owning pets is insane. First you purchase a living being even though life isn't something one can ever truly own and then you take a strange animal into your house. This is an adjustment for both the animal and his new human family and I'm sure there were moments when Vivaldi and I looked at each other and wondered what the other was doing.

For the cleaning lady the dog was a person who would never disappoint her and because she doted on him he adored her. I remember seeing my dog cry when he saw her coming and she repayed his loyalty by doting on him. In his youth he was the perfect little boy, in his adult hood he was a lovable rascal, and in his old age he was a beloved grandfather. There was something about him that made him above reprieve in her eyes, an inherent goodness that made him easy to forgive. Occasionally I see her with him and there's a tenderness to her tone that can't be disguised.

For my father the dog was somebody who accepted all the love and affection that he had to give. Taking the dog out every two hours wasn't a chore for my father but a pleasure. The dog was somebody who not only accepted his unconditional love but also returned it. When my father was sick the dog would stay by his side. While he always had to be careful not to smother the rest of his family the dog was always there for him to coddle. No matter how many cookies my dad gave him, Vivaldi always had room for more.

Walking Vivaldi was also an experience in socialization, by being out with him I was automatically a dog person and I found a complicity among dog owners. Because my father is by nature gregarious and he was out all the time Vivaldi quickly became recognized by dog owners and sometimes I'd meet a dog owner who recognized him and spoke to me warmly on the basis of my relationship to him. My father made friends with people he met walking vivaldi and it took me a few moments to realize that they bonded both with my father but also with the dog.

It is in the twilight of his years that Vivaldi's ability to connect with others became clear to me. Sometimes I meet people who upon recognizing Vivaldi reminisce about when they first met him and ask how he's doing. There's no question anymore that he's an old dog. At 15 he's got arthritis, his fur is matted, and he's got a few suspicious looking lumps but he still recieves compliments. When dog owners who don't know him hear how old he is they tell me he looks good for his age. Dog owners who know him are always overjoyed to see him. When dog owners look at Vivaldi they don't just see an old dog, they see their dogs and in that moment Vivaldi becomes the embodiment of every dog they will ever love over their lifetime.

Vivaldi just stands there, sometimes he's preoccupied with some smell, sometiems he's looking got a place to go to the bathroom, sometimes he says hello to another dog or the person we've met and then he walks off unaware of what has happened. He'll never know that for one moment he allowed somebody to relive the moments they spent with their beloved companions. He'll never notice the reverence in the gaze of the dog owner with his first puppy seeing the promise of a lifetime of companionship. Though he appreciate the attention Vivaldi will never understand why people want to pet him, feed him, and play with him and that's part of what makes dogs so easy to love. All he wants is affection, there's no ulterior motive and no matter how much you give a dog he or she will always know you have more to give.

No matter how upset I was, no matter how much I resented having to take care of him Vivaldi was always happy to see me. Living with him I've seen a life unfold before my very eyes. For better or for worse I opened my heart to Vivaldi and he enriched my life. He's not dead yet and I hope that he sticks around for a good long while. He's not just an animal he's a member of my family and even though we're not even members of the same species we're kin.

As of February 5 I am officially off the field and I can begin coding and sorting my data. Ideally I will want to get through this Data ASAP before I get down to writing. This post is an afterthoughyt,a retrospective on my time in the field.

I originally intended to get a bunch of nattatives about Hamdidon raiding but I never really managed to collect explicit narratives. Instead through my observations and interviews I got a sense of what Hamidon raiding was about in a more indirect manner.

My computer crashed on the 11 of January so I lost all the logs I collected to that date but quick action on my part meant I was able to continue my observations. The 2 week hiatus did not stop my data collection but it probably meant my interview time was cut short. All in all I think I did well recovering from the disaster.

I learned that Hamidon raiding was in many ways an ideal setting for observing social interactions in City of Heroes. Ultimately I saw how how Virtue was a social world and through the community I saw there I got a better appreciation of the forms social relationships took in the game. As I participated I came to see the raids as stories that the Virtueites were telling about themselves and how these stories were both personal and universal.

I'm finishing up the inerviews and still going through the data but I'm excited and amazed by my work. I think I set out to see the universe in a grain of sand and I saw something.

Like it says this is a draft of my consent form, I've purposely left the numbers and e-mail addressses blank...

Before we begin I have a few things to go over with you,

First things first the consent form

The purpose of this project is to understand how Hamidon raiding is part of the cultural landscape of Virtue. In order to get the information I want I am participating in the raids as well as observing them but I'm also interviewing raiders and looking at what is said about Hamidon on the official game forums. In essence I believe that what people say about Hami raiding can tell me a great deal about the social aspect of Hamidon raiding.

I'm conducting my research for the purpose of furthering scientific knowledge so there are no projected benefits of my work. There are no risks to participating in this project but I will be protecting your identity and for the purposes of this project you will be be both anonymous ( I won't know your real life identity) and confidential ( I will try to make it so that nobody can identify you from reading my study).

As a participant you can choose to withdraw from the project at anytime during the research and writing of the proposal. I will also try to show you what I write before I finish the final draft of my thesis. I may or may not publish my thesis at some point in the future so I am worning you of that possibility. I will definitely be posting aa version of my thesis on my project blog.

Here is the link in case you are curious http://taonta.livejournal.com/
This is to state that I agree to participate in a program of research being conducted by Charles Grey of the Sociology and Anthropology department of Concordia University e-mail address xyz


If you have any questions these are some people you can contact Dr Jourdan is my thesis adviser

If at any time you have questions about the proposed research, please contact the study’s Principal Investigator, Dr Christine Jourdan, at xyz

If at any time you have questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the Research Ethics and Compliance Advisor, Concordia University, Dr. Brigitte Des Rosiers, at (xyz or by email at xyz

Second thing

Since I will be using pseudonyms I want to give you the opportunity to choose your own pseudonym

um... so whatever pseudonym you want you can use I guess (within reason)

Once you've consented and picked a pseudonym I guess I will send you the questions on and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me.

thanks for participating =D

This is a summary of the basic structure of a Hamidom raid on my home server. It is not a discussion of the theory behind Hamidon raiding or a guide on how to Hami.

Raids take place at specific times and it's a good rule of thumb to start thinking of attending the raid about an hour before the raid is supposed to start. If the raid event is popular you might want to think about think about showing up even earlier but the earlier people start to show up the earlier the raid will be... in any event it's a good rule of thumb to show up between 30-60 minutes ahead of time.

When players enter the zone they generally use the broadcast channel to look fo raid groups and announce their archetype and level as well as a request for a team.

The raiders gather at a specific spot in the zone called the safe rock.

The request and the broadcast channels are used to coordinate the formation of teams but teh Request channel is used more by raid leaders and raid team leaders than anybody else, in fact it's reserved for those people.

On my server the raids are pretty much self organizing so the teams form with little muss and fuss.

Broadcast and local channels are sometimes used for joking but sometimes important raid discussions take place in them too but when the raid leaders or team leaders need to communicate they mostyly use the request channel.

Occasionally the raid leader will have to rebalance the teams but that's an unusual occurance.

Once most of the teams are set up the monster hunt begins. Raid zones are filled with monsters who drop a special kind of enhancement called Essence of Earth which is the only viable form of protection against the damage hamidon deals. In addition to EoEs the raiders have to get Hamidon to spawn in the zone and the only way they can do that is by killing the monsters in the raid zone. When Hamidon spawns or appears in the zone the other monsters flee and the raid regroups at the safe rock.


At this point the raid leader goes through a run down of the raid stragtegy and makes sure the raiders know what strategy they are using and then the leader calls to the team leaders to see if they are ready. The team leaders have to make sure every member of their team is ready and once they do the raid can start in earnest. Throughout the raid the leader makes all the important calls making sure that the players are following him or her.

As the raid group is about to defeat Hamidon players and raid leader congratulate each other in request for the leaders and broadcast, local, and team for everybody else.

There is always a basic raid strategy but the job of the raid leader is to make sure that given the ressources he or she has at hand they can complete the task of vanquishing Hamidon as quickly and as painlessly as possible. While the basic raid stragegies are predictable patterns the raid leader needs to monitor the raid in case he or she needs to make last minute adjustements to the plan. During my time as a raider I've seen how the basic raid strategy has been adapted to the conditions of raid events, sometimes even leadign to a major transformation of the strategy.

Every raid is the same because we use the same basic strategies but every raid event is different because they happen at different times and places.

I've started my interviews. I'm choosing to conduct interviews over email and I'm amazed at how people are responding. I'm also writing grad school applications and am amazed by that too.