John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/) states that a normal person, given anonymity and an audience, can become a “Total Fuckwad”. I find that this is even more true for an MMO than for other online games, since the former has greater potential for persistent reputations, as well as a greater audience. While the persistent reputation-part slightly reduces the anonymity-part, MMO players seem to not mind that their characters become infamous. Infamy is the second best thing to fame – even better than fame for some, and easier to achieve, and with an MMO they can get a little of both; they can remain anonymous behind the curtain, while they gain reputation through their characters.

And ultimately, negative character reputations in MMOs don’t have a whole lot of impact, at least not in the larger games where there’s a huge amount of other players around – there are many players in WoW that I have done instances with, pvp’d with, or traded with, who I’ve never seen again in that game, for instance. There will also always be many players who are relatively new to the game. Even if you’ve got a negative reputation with some of the veteran players, it won’t spread to all the new players, and when those veteran players move on to a different game (as most do at some point or other), they take your reputation with them – unless you’ve managed to maintain the same reputation with the new players by yourself.

It seems to me that as long as one doesn’t alienate one’s friends, guild-members and/or other regulars one interacts with, one can pretty much act however one wishes towards strangers in MMOs (and unfortunately many of the players do), without risking any other negative effects than a temporary ban for stepping over lines that the game-developers/operators have decided should be in place.

I honestly don’t see this changing unless the anonymity of the player him/herself is removed or lessened somehow. *shrug*

I generally don’t judge a guild based on the actions of one sole player and I certainly don’t hold it against the guild for having added them to their ranks. Everybody is different and everybody has their own opinions, it’s just the way that some people go about presenting those opinions that makes them unpleasant people.

I think generally the people that we encounter in MMOs are direct reflections of the people that are behind the computer screen. It would take quite a bit of effort to create an entirely new persona for themselves and I really don’t think their efforts would be too successful (or productive) anyway, they are who they are and it’s impossible to change that, no matter how many acting lessons they took.

In a way the reputation of a person in an MMO is just as important as their reputation “IRL” because just like IRL if they screw up and make enemies, they’ll have enemies. You can’t just hit the delete key and make people you don’t like go away.

Consequently its rare that I even know the names of more than a handful of players other than those I get to know one-to-one. I rarely know the names of any guilds and almost never have any idea of what guilds are where in the pecking order. When i do learn this kind ofinformation it usually comes from forums.

I much prefer to play in this bubble of enhanced anonymity. It makes the game world more immersive, to use that cliched term. Player characters become much more like people in our real world, who generally do not go around carrying huge signs announcing their names and club affiliations, but travel on mysterious business of their own.

A few years back, however, when I was a much more active guild player, I did indeed see all the issues with reputation that you describe. It got very wearing and I am happy to be shot of it.

This isn’t to say that online spaces are free of biases and conflict. As pointed out, a drunken tirade can show someone’s true colors. Or, a name or the way the person costumes their character can tell you something about the person; I’m sure some people have seen the name “Psychochild” and formed opinions about the player behind that character. In LotRO, I find I’m put off by people who chat a lot but have their character set to anonymous.

Finally, I think it’s interesting to point out how much of a reputation can be constructed. I’ve said many times before that I make a distinction between online “Psychochild” and offline “Brian”. I’m willing to be much more aggressive and confrontational as my online self than my conflict-avoiding offline self. Many people construct false identities, obscuring or misrepresenting offline gender is probably one of the more common. As always, a bit of skepticism usually helps.

Early days yet though, I hesitate to make any sweeping judgment.

That said, I do think that the persistence of MMOs does more for building a persona/reputation than a GamerTag will for the XBox, simply because it’s not spread across different games. True, there are players who use the same name in different MMOs, effectively carrying their reputation with them for those “in the know”, but even there, the persistence of MMOs *as a core design tenet of the genre* tends to make it carry a bit more weight.

Nice article! It definitely reminds me of why I’ve taken to using the same name in different games; I have an “online gaming” reputation that I’d like to keep unsullied and positive. (Which also explains why some people are rather bothered by pretenders, and protective of their personas.)