I think I’m slightly more computer literate than the average person, or at least id like to think so, a bit of a geek really, so I tend to venture into many different places on the internet. I used to go on quite a few different forums, most of which were computer game related ones, but at the moment I only have one I really look it. I play a few different games online, go on various video streaming websites like youtube and go on msn messenger quite frequently.
Online gaming
I do very much enjoy online gaming, the idea of having 30 or so people all running round the same area from all over the world, doing whatever the game consists of, weather it be shooting one another (my favorite), casting spells or placing your troops strategically to attack and enemy and all the while able to talk to/hurl abuse at one another is an awesome idea. I myself have made quite a good few friends through online gaming.
I started off playing a first person shooter called halo, got fairly good at it then somebody in the game asked if I was in a team and it went from there really. At the time I didn’t really know what team (more commonly know as a clan) in online gaming was. I played with my new teammates regularly and simultaneously talking online using microphones made it easy to chat and to get to know one another. I have 3 really good friends that I was introduced to through this means and now meet up with them regularly.
Why I enjoy it
As it is one of my favorite hobbies it should really be quite clear what I enjoy so much about it. The enjoyment you get In competitive online gaming, which I no longer do, but did used to when I was in a team, that would be comparable to that of a football team. You are playing with the same people on a regular basis, training together, you then enter a competition cup or a ladder on a clan ranking website.
In a ladder it’s a constant ongoing fight for the no 1 spot and continues indefinitely.
Cups are help every month or season or whenever the clan ranking website wants too. A lot of the time its dependant on the demand from the gamers. These are organized just like a football knock out tournament.
When entering a cup progressing and doing well, there is a lot of satisfaction when you perform well, beating a highly spoken of player, improving your skills, win or come in the top 3 and people recognize who you are. The feeling of being needed on a team or when other teams are asking you to join it is somehow very pleasing on a simply human psychology level, this can be linked to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs –
When playing non-competitively I still very much enjoy it. It’s most likely the sense of freedom and self-satisfaction when you perform well.
Forums Browsing
I only use one forum but on this forum I’ve become an administrator solely through posting, knowing the forum users, playing online games with them etc I do enjoy browsing it, it’s a great source of news that is posted by like-minded people, so it always holds my interest. This is how the online community idea springs into action. Just through posting and reading, replying to users you develop relationships with one another, making new friends etc
It’s a great source of technical expertise from certain users. So if I’m ever in need of pc help or problems with consoles I can always seek help on there.
I think the main strength of a forum is discussion and community. Discussion is always fun and interesting, viewing other people’s opinions, arguing varied points trying to work out which is right or wrong, if it is necessary. If it is a topic you know nothing about you can learn from it.
Information Stores
When ever u sign up to a forum or for an account with a video streaming website they always ask for your details. Such as email address, a password for the site you are signing up to. Sometimes but not always they will ask for your full name, address and maybe even your preferences to certain products.
Whenever I sign up to a website and they need personal information if it isn’t necessary I just fabricate some silly address or email address. The places that have my details stored are a couple of forums, a few clan gaming websites, hotmail and amazon. Other places that are not exclusively online are Halifax, Huddersfield University. It doesn’t bother me personally that a lot of these places have my name and address, only when I get junk email or junk mail through the post. There is the idea of a big brother complex always being watched and someone always knowing where you are, which does conflict with the idea of freedom, but for now I think the level of information that is stored isn’t really too threatening.
Alias and online representation
When people sign up to a new email account a lot of the time they don’t use their name, like bill.gates@hotmail.com. More often they tend to choose some sort humorous alias. Unfortunately my email address is very boring, my name being Ashley Connolly had the imagination of a designer to choose the email address con_ash….very creative!
It’s found more often in online gaming that people choose various aliases. In trying to think why people do this, I could only imagine how boring it would be if you were to enter an online gaming server and see names like, bill, tom, dave, jack, rather than seeing names like reaper, monster, neon, cyberdog, tristar, crushingstep. On that note I suppose it’s pretty boring of me to play as Ash when I play computer games. You also find a lot of people choose to have the name of popular iconic computer game characters.
One reason someone would choose an alias would be to try and scare other players in the game. Using names like Sniper Killer, and Beast, as if they are somehow what their name is, as if they are trying to be someone they are not. This brings us to online representation.
From the friends that I have met in person after getting to know on the internet, I found that they do act the same online as they done in real life. But I can imagine that some people can act very differently online.
Me myself I do have to admit occasionally I like going onto an online game server and jus doing silly things, like getting in the way of team mates, maybe even killing team mates which disables playing the game temporarily, typing in stupid (sometimes offensive) messages. This is all just to provoke a reaction in the name of amusement.
For some people the internet is a great way of making friends, if someone was unconfident or if they considered themselves ugly, they would much prefer the internet for meeting people. They could represent themselves in they way they would want to be seen and also they would also be meeting people they would definitely have one thing in common with, which is always a good place to start when making friends.
Online language
Interestingly through the use of the internet and online chat, forum use etc users have adopted their own short hand way of communicating with one another. This is often known as leetspeak.
What tends to happen is people replace words for other words and use acronyms frequently, another example is that people add the letters “0rz” or 0r” onto the end of other words. I’m not sure if this would come under leetspeak but people also experiment with the capital letters in words, particularly alias, where rather than having there name displayed as Kronic, they would have kRoNic. I suppose it makes it a bit more interesting and eye catching.
Here is an example of leetspeak, with the translation below.
“omg wtf that guy is a proper haxzor, lol ima gonna pwnz0r him”
“oh my god, what the fuck that guy is a proper hacker, ha-ha I’m going to dominate him”
Here are a few acronyms often used –
Omg – oh my god, rofl – rolling on floor laughing, lmao – laughing my ass off, Lol -laugh out loud, wtf – what the fuck.
The word own is also often used to describe domination of an opponent in an online game. It has a fair few variations such as
Own/ pwn – present tense. Ownt/owned/pwnt/pwned – past tense.
More information can be found here-
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/leetspeak.mspx
It’s quite impressive that this short hand language has stemmed solely from users across the net. So the internet has its own language, you can buy online space and domain names, it’s as if the internet is some self sufficient and self-contained world of its own. The question is what will be the next big development in the internet, web 2.0? who knows!
