Player Interactions in Online Games by Joshua Lee

This thesis attempts to explore the activity of players in a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) by visualizing the interactions they engage in while playing the game and reveal patterns behind them. What do they do while playing the game? Who do they meet and who do they talk to? Do they spend more time interacting with humans or the virtual environment? What are their usage patterns like and what motivates them to become so invested in these shared virtual environments? Not much is known about the structure and nature of these interactions. Hence, I plan to investigate these interactions through a visualization to better understand the psychology and the patterns behind them. I will be using the shared virtual environment of Aion (an MMORPG released in 2009) as the backdrop for this project. It will be the environment through which these interactions are captured and visualized from. I picked Aion is because it is a highly successful MMORPG that has been around for a long time, and has a large player base. Aion was developed by a Korean gaming company called NCSOFT, and they have gaming servers and offices in Asia, Europe, and North America. I have personally played this game myself in the past and am familiar with the concept and mechanics of the game.