Hack, Slash, and Chat: A study of players´ behavior and communication in MMORPGs

This paper presents an analysis of player behavior in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). We examine player behavior in terms of when, how much, and what they do in the virtual world. Player behavior is described through previously defined action categories for MMORPGs (Trading, Questing, Dungeons, Raiding, and Player versus Player (PvP) Combat) with addition of a new category for text and voice communication within a session. We conduct a player survey and perform measurements on the client side for a group of 104 players of a popular MMORPG - World of Warcraft (WoW), and discover that there are significant patterns in player behavior. Additionally we examine the importance of both voice and textual (chat) communication in MMORPGs, and note that communication makes a significant portion of average player´s playtime and that voice communication is used by a large portion of players. We believe that the results of this study may be used for improving the existing and design of new MMORPGs (e.g., building better load balancing algorithms, addition of content that is more interesting for players) with more emphasis on both old and new communication aspects of the game (e.g., inbuilt voice clients, new ways of connecting the players). This work also serves as a starting point for better insight into networking requirements for such applications, which may be useful for service and network providers.