Smartmoblogreader Chris Spurgeon writes:
I’m working on an article about how mythologies and urban legends arise in virtual worlds. My interest was kicked off by observing my children playing in Club Penguin an online world for kids where everyone’s avatar is a cute little cartoon penguin. From time to time my kids will join dozens of other penguins hopping up and down on the edge of one particular iceberg, convinced that if enough penguins do this, the iceberg will flip and reveal some sort of treasure. There seems to be no truth in this, it’s just a made up story that virally spreads from player to player.
Urban myths are commonplace in real life of course, as is the ability of children to make up stories and then convince other kids…and themselves…of the truth of those stories. But I was wondering if anyone knows of other places online where urban myths have appeared and taken hold?
You’re welcome to leave a comment here (thanks SmartMobs!) or email me at chris@spurgeonworld.com
Comments
@ 21:08
There were rumors of a punishment area in Second Life called “the cornfield”. This is where your SL avatar would be sent if it misbehaved. It turned out to be true. I understand that now the cornfield is gone though.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/04/misbehavior_in_secon.html
I heard in World of Warcraft one time that a hunter should always go first into an instance and this would result in better drops.
I think sometimes these rumors get started by experienced players who want to have a little fun with the newbies
My daughter plays Club Penguin too but I’ve never seen that particular behavior — I’ll look out for it!
@ 08:46
I’m the Community Dude for Mind Candy, who make Perplex City, which was (formerly) a treasure hunt for this metal cube we’d buried. One theory that continued to spread was that, somehow, it was made of a special metal that couldn’t be found with a metal detector, so lots of people went treasure digging without one.
We’re not sure how the rumour came about. There’s a vague memory of an interview 18 months previously where someone may have commented that “you can’t just wander around with a metal detector and expect to find it” (i.e: you had to solve the clues to the location, too) that had been paraphrased and reinterpreted over-literally. In the end we had to step in and set the record straight, but as it turned out the person that found the Cube didn’t use a metal detector anyway! Which was, you know,, a relief.
The weird thing about it was the way that it gradually went from “theory” to “gospel” as veterans told newbies about it, the newbies became veterans, and passed it on again. If anyone asked for proof, well, everyone would band together to defend this knowledge as widely accepted truth, rather than attempt to Google for the non-existent proof. Ah, good times…
@ 09:24
Juicy. More!
@ 01:10
In WoW, some believe that if you hold a “Rabbit’s Foot”(Which drops off low level cratures) you’ll have better luck on drops and your /rolls will be much higher.
@ 07:11
There were many such legends in early EverQuest, some of which I think turned out to be misunderstandings of the metal detector sort.
The one I particularly recall, from the very very early days of EQ’s release, were the agonized shouts from experienced players to newbs, “Don’t kill bixies [little bee-like pixies], you’ll spawn griffons!” This was both widely said and widely scorned in the first months of release; as people moved out of the lower areas where it was relevant, it was no longer an issue. Later it turns out EQ does use spawn tables where rare mobs like griffons spawn after a random number of common mobs are killed — I don’t know if griffs share a spawn table with bixies, but it works that way in plenty of later EQ zones, so perhaps the rumor started when someone, perhaps a beta tester, with an understanding of spawn tables tried to explain it to a newbie.
Another ancient EQ legend was “anti camp radius,” where it was believed that if you stand too close to spot of an expected spawn (”camp” the spawn over and over again), it will never be the rare, desired mob, but always its placeholder. This is obviously caused by frustration at long camps, as people tried to figure out if there was anything they could do to increase the chance of success (there really wasn’t). The game producers came right out and denied anti-camp radius eventually, but people weren’t sure whether to believe them!
Another example: until irritated statisticians who played kept careful records and posted them on web boards, it was virtually universally believed that statistics such as strength, dexterity, and agility had a noticible effect on the damage a player did or took; and long after this was disproven, plenty still believed it based on their subjective experience (”I just know when I put on this black pearl choker (STR/DEX) I hit better and take less damage! I can tell!”) Turns out that stats had had a noticible effect in beta, but that they had been tuned down before release. (And, several years after release, they were retuned to be more important, too.)
People were also convinced if you kept a certain type of low level drop (bundle of hay, I think) from an early quest, you would eat less food. Again, this stuck until someone took records and posted graphs.
There were quite a few of these types of legends in EQ. I think of them as caused by the players’ imperfect understanding of the system combined with the human urge to explain — the kind of urge that is behind many superstitions in real life too. This might explain why there are fewer in WoW; the game designers haven’t kept everything as cloaked in secrecy as EQ did.
There are also viral memes floating around in EQ that aren’t really believed, but still fun. For instance, in EQ (and I’ve heard it in WoW also) that if a gnome or troll dances naked before a fight with a boss, the loot will be good (or in EQ, the rare boss will spawn). Obviously no one believes this one (God I hope not anyway) but it’s a fun tradition.
@ 00:32
I have studied an online interactive game (community) for children (6 - 12 years old) in Belgium, Ketnet Kick (www.ketnetkick.be).
Doing the research I also discovered a myth. It is a 3D world where there are several places but there is one place where they can not get to, the mysterious island. During interviews several kids told me that they have reached the island and found some orange magic bottles, but that’s just impossible. That story has spread around children.
It’s fascinating that children actually say that they reached the mysterious island, although it is impossible. Some children believe them and the ball is rolling.
It shows that some mysterious elements in child ’s games are a good way to make the game (the community) alive. It can foster the sense of community.