Frame My Gaming Experience

I believe that how we frame our experience in games is an ongoing process, with the frames often overlapping rather than being completely separate from one another. It is our experiences and interactions within the game that will develop our framing of gaming. The first massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that I played was Ultima Online. My experience in this game helped develop and establish how I would frame my gaming experience for years to come. Initially my experience would be solely within the frame of play or gaming, but would develop into a combination of play and roleplay.

Before I began playing Ultima Online my gaming experience had been limited to console games and stand alone or local area network (LAN) PC games.

The game had a rich history, there were several standalone PC games before the online version that I never played but some of my friends had. I had no interest in playing the game, especially with a monthly cost, called a subscription, to access the game. One of my friends was playing the game and did not want to play it alone so he bought a second copy of the game and brought it over to me. As the game was free, at least to me, and it game with a free month of play, I did not have any excuse not to try it. My initial framing of the game was based on the frame of play or gaming, in that it was “free, done at leisure, and never a chore (Crawford, Gosling & Light, p. 150). When I had some free time, with nothing better to do, I would get in the game. My time in game was spent on individual activities in which I was learning my place in the game, exploring the function of my character. Learning the mechanics of my abilities in relation to the virtual world and what the limitations were. The more time I spent in game I began to have interactions with other players. Initially these were simply out of character (OOC) or player to player, interactions. This progressed into me creating a character persona, with a unique name and personality separate of my own and interacting with in character (IC) with other characters, rather than player to play. This then lead to the shift, or addition of the framing of roleplay

After exploring my place in the game, my main activities centered on being a merchant, buying and selling valuable game items to other people within the game. The items were items I bought from other players, pets I had time and items I crafted, my main item being scrolls which other players would use for the training of their skills. This lead to my first experience with McCall’s organizational interactive process, when I was approached by several players in the formation of a Merchant guild, with the main goal of ensuring a profit for all the members. Once we had gathered enough people thought interaction and socialization our roles were determined within the guild to maximize profits by ensuring that each of us were covering certain areas of the market, without overlapping each other and cutting into profits (McCall., p. 332-334). As things moved forward, our roles would shift and adjust based on each individual’s performance in their given role. If a person struggled to meet the demand, or another member cut into another members business, then the issues would be discussed and managed through social control, either by a shift in roles or even being expelled from the guild. We also exercised social control over the market, buy joining together in undercutting the prices of our competitors to ensure our control over the market. Our activities were within