my heart's a tart

[duskshadows]

i haz a question for my LJ-reading peeps: i need a suggestion of a site to study for my Anth Honours project. i want to look at self-representation of players within a text-based roleplaying game. preferably i'd like one forum-based, or even based here on LJ, rather than chat-based ones - it's less likely i'm going to have good archives to rummage

Comments

[nefarious_deeds]

How about World of Warcraft forums and game? That's pretty big right about now. Or furries? You could write about vicarious experience through furry pr0n. The text I was talking to you about that time (The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace) mentioned furries, although it was written in the 90s-early 00s so it's come a long way since then!

[duskshadows]

meh, i don't really want to do WoW - there's heaps of research already on it and other big MUDs, plus there is no such thing as a research grant, and i can't afford to pay for my own membership/spend the time getting to a decent enough level to get interviews with longtime players etc.
and sadly, even i'm not objective enough to be able to do the furry thing. i must look up that text though, and apparantly there's a masters thesis in the library on similar veins to what i'm doing. :)
lol all literature on the internet is pretty much obsolete by the time it's published, it's hilarious. i'm interested, in the future, about looking at the uses of blogs for the publication of academic research. (that was my other idea for research, actually - the use of blogs to research and publicly discuss/publish academic theories and case studies, and the representation of self through one's online bloglife. i'm big on the representation thing, because it's so problematic! hah!)

[labellementeuse]

I know a couple of people on the flist who are really into this kind of thing, I can ask them if you'd like. Do you want fandoms you're familiar with? (and what fandoms are you familiar with other than Buffy?)

presumably you know milliways_bar, right? My reservation about it would be that it holds multitudes and is massive, so.

[duskshadows]

fandom high is really the only LJ-based one i'm familiar with, so thanks for the link!
i don't really care of fandom basis - solid canon is probably harder to do, something which allows OCs gives more of a basis for comparison of character to "reality", or even just other web-presences.
also yeah, the gigantic ones might be a bit harder. XD well-established would be good though, but still with room for new members - i'd like a sample of older and newer players if possible.
i knew you'd know people! :D
thanks Tui! xoxo

[mastergode]

Do you want a game WITH forums, or a game played entirely on forums? Because I lost touch with the forum-based RPGs waaaaaaay back in the day.

[duskshadows]

well, forum-based RPGs are the only type i've ever been involved with, so i picked them simply so it wouldn't take all year to figure the flow and rules and such. XD
plus the more visual ones seem to involve money, which i don't have, are closed to viewing by outsiders, which makes my trip to the ethics commitee SO much harder, or are open to all and full of trolls and bots. >.<'
that's cool, i know i'm like ten years behind the boat with all my text-based fun, but i'm sick of every bit of research i read being on WoW, Second Life (which is seriously making anthropologists cream themselves right now) or, like, Vampire: The Masquerade. -_-'

[my_wanderlust_]

LJ harry potter RP's are pretty big, same with firefly i think your best bet is to search communities...hmn, another thought might be to try looking up Dragon's Gate and see if they do that, but i'm pretty sure that's a MUD game though... you need the RP to be within the forums right? Let me know if you are still having issues and i will ask a friend of mine, who is bound to know. But in the meantime, i'd say LJ is your best bet, but a lot of it is defunct now.

[duskshadows]

Thanks! yeah, it's hard to find stuff that is still running but isn't horribly incredibly confusing. XD
might actually check out the HP stuff, there's usually plenty of room for OCs there!