Attachment to places MMOs

xmissannethropex

Hello fellow gamers!

I am part of a group of final year psychology undergraduate students at Middlesex University in London, England who are interested in gaming.

We are conducting research on MMO and permadeath games. In regards to MMO games, we are looking at place attachment, how attached gamers are to places in the virtual world in comparison to the real world. We are also investigating motivations for playing permadeath games.

If you are willing to take part, please follow the link below:

https://mdxl.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7Ny86G5i5AL5vr7

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks for your time!

rannxeroxx

Did the survey. My daughter is a psych student so I am a professional psych survey taker now

Neverwinter is not a permadeath game. Maybe a better question is why you would or would not play a permadeath game. I would not. Death is reality, I don't play MMOs for reality.

xmissannethropex

rannxeroxx said:

Did the survey. My daughter is a psych student so I am a professional psych survey taker now

Neverwinter is not a permadeath game. Maybe a better question is why you would or would not play a permadeath game. I would not. Death is reality, I don't play MMOs for reality.

Hehe. Thanks!

You're right. The survey is sort of two parts: MMO place attachment and permadeath. I don't play permadeath either, just MMOs. You bring up a good point though about death being reality. Fantasy is a very strong to play games (definitely true for me). That's one of the things this survey could be used to look at: do people who have fantasy-oriented motivations for playing games play permadeath or not (since survey takers say they either have or have not played permadeath)? Ultimately, the permadeath section of the survey is wondering WHY people who play permadeath do so. People who click that they DO play permadeath have a couple of scales unique to them as permadeath players and even a text box for them to explain if they choose. I personally will be paying more attention to MMOs and place attachment specifically for my dissertation.

I appreciate the help with the survey! Good luck with your daughter's study.

rjc9000

I was intrigued by the survey, mostly due to the questions on permadeath.

I'll agree with the above statement that NW isn't exactly the best place to ask about permadeath since NW doesn't have permadeath.

My biggest complaint about the survey is that there isn't enough nuance in some of the answer choices.

For example, in regards to the "what do you see games as" question, my answer would depend on game to game. Since I play a variety of games, I can't strongly say "which" one is the main answer of mine.

Here in NW, I play the game to have fun with my friends.
If I'm playing a difficult game like Touhou, I'm doing it for the challenge.
If I'm playing something like the Witcher 3 or Mass Effect, I'm playing it for the story, characters, and world.

Since the survey only allowed one option, I picked the one which was most oriented towards MMOs.

Also, have you guys considered visiting gaming communities other than MMOs? I know MMOs are supposed to be the focus, but you guys may find interesting results depending on the gaming genre.

xmissannethropex

rjc9000 said:

I was intrigued by the survey, mostly due to the questions on permadeath.

I'll agree with the above statement that NW isn't exactly the best place to ask about permadeath since NW doesn't have permadeath.

My biggest complaint about the survey is that there isn't enough nuance in some of the answer choices.

For example, in regards to the "what do you see games as" question, my answer would depend on game to game. Since I play a variety of games, I can't strongly say "which" one is the main answer of mine.

Here in NW, I play the game to have fun with my friends.
If I'm playing a difficult game like Touhou, I'm doing it for the challenge.
If I'm playing something like the Witcher 3 or Mass Effect, I'm playing it for the story, characters, and world.

Since the survey only allowed one option, I picked the one which was most oriented towards MMOs.

Also, have you guys considered visiting gaming communities other than MMOs? I know MMOs are supposed to be the focus, but you guys may find interesting results depending on the gaming genre.

That's a good point about the nuance. I know with some questions, we shortened longer questionnaires (because our survey is super long already). But I understand what you mean. I've played mobile games where I've focused more on achievement than anything else, mostly because it's so limited, that's really the only point of the game. But usually I play MMOs and tend to be more into immersion.

The portion of the survey that asked about motivation for gaming is an adaptation from a survey about player motivation by Nick Yee. If you're interested, you can look up more about his work. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf He specifically is looking at MMOs. So, your choice to answer according to your motivations for playing MMOs wasn't a bad plan.

As for considering other games, there was a section that asked what other games people had. My professors might see this and decide to make a study about one of them. That's why we are taking down so much data: for exciting future research! This particular study kind of follows a previous one done at my university on relationships in MMOs (I'm not sure it was published as I only have a sample Word document of it). So, this portion of the survey about MMOs follows loosely in that vein.