Small Survey: Game Avatars and Social Psychology

Well mine isnt prettier than me thats for sure

My character got one of her twin tails caught in her shirt and spent the rest of the dungeon spinning around and jumping trying to get it out. I think real me wins this one.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

...you don't treat your character very well, do you? ._.

Don't get me wrong, I'm content with my real life, but basically, she's "living the dream", something I'll probably never be able to do in that kind of way (anf frankly, don't want to xD).

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Mine has no unique skills, only knows one language, and dresses like everyone else at work... and since he has no unique skills, he barely has any money, let alone enough to participate in the housing market in this game. Think my character has retirement planned? Yeah right. He never thinks more than the current expansion. I don't know that its all his fault- I mean he didn't have a very good childhood... or one at all...

He also has social anxiety- he finds himself unable to speak in social situations..only able to nod. I think he is scared he will stutter or wet his pants.

The response has been far greater than expected, thank you all so much!

I have edited my original post with some background info.

And the survey will from now on continue through another site because of the large amounts of answers (reached 200 in about six hours!). While I did not want to move it, the original host site did not allow me to see more answers without paying a large fee. Since you are so great at sending in answers, I made the same survey on another site. All answers will later be put together.

I hope you can forgive my lack of professionalism. This is my first attempt at making a survey. Thanks to your feedback I have learnt so much.

Your comments about the questions are very interesting. Feel free to continue discussing your interpretations of the questions and what questions you were missing. Everything is much appreciated.

If you are curious about the results, I can share them with you here once I finished putting them together later this month.

I did the thing.

Now excuse me while I call my therapist.

It's a cool idea, reys. Submitted my own form to the mix just a few minutes ago. I think we'd love to see the results when they're available.

It's always interesting to see correlation between players and their avatars in games like these.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

I'm a pink haired catgirl IRL so I mean I'm on pretty even terms I suspect.

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And here I'm just your average Internet autogynephile. Autoailurogynephile? Something.

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Originally Posted by RyuRoots

I can appreciate the intention, but I do have to say that it seems pretty...lightweight? Usually these polls have a "somewhat agree" option between completely and neutral responses. It seemed like there weren't very many questions, too. And as others have pointed out, the odds of most players seeing their characters as beneath them is rather unlikely. In my case, Rhuna is a clothier, armorer, and has mastered nearly every way of fighting that exists. She can cook fairly well, has many friends, and has accomplished more in a few years than I could in a lifetime. Of course, that's the fun of RPGs at work. I don't think it's a bad idea to use a playerbase you can relate to for your data points, but I do think that the survey itself could perhaps be more comprehensive.

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"Somewhat" would fall under 2, while a "Close enough" equivalent is 4. I do agree it did seem to lack questions, but a survey doesn't necessarily need to be long. As for the characters themselves... well, I'll differ you to my answer below.

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Originally Posted by seida

Pretty impressed with the self-confidence if anyone DOESN'T see their character as superior, haha. I mean, for those of us who don't roleplay, depending on what you've levelled these are characters who are basically masters of all crafts, skills and weapons, can perform physical feats impossible for humans, are perfect physically unless you went out of your way to make an ugly character, like... who actually genuinely feels "superior" in rl? LOL.

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From a roleplay perspective, I see Cassandra (name change pending) as different, not superior. While I may not ever be near as physically adept, I also will not have to live with the scars and emotional turmoil she has. And if you consider the story in a real life scene. The Warrior of Light has a rather thankless existence, which even the Dark Knight job touches upon. They essentially drop everything for anyone, are expected to perform the most menial tasks and risk their lives for very little personal gain.

Put another way, I don't feel inferior to a solider because (s)he chose to join the army, whereas I chose business. Nor do I feel inferior for not looking like Scarlett Johansson.

But honestly, I do not compare myself to a virtual character whose advancement in life is entirely arbitrary. I mean, technically speaking, if any one of us were teleported to Eorzea, we could learn the same things. Congratulations, you can be a "doctor" in a couple months/years, and free of charge! :D

Completed :).

I am going to take a little on the wall stance here to help you. I deal alot with depression and MH sufferers as a moderator on a well respected depression and mental health forum. Having been a sufferer in my past and getting the occasional bouts now and then I think you should really flesh out to put in some more questions. You are concentrating on the avatar/game character yet your questions only brushed the surface.

You ask about peoples social experience outside of the game "Outside the game, I see myself as outgoing and sociable. " Yet you didn't follow this up with asking if you feel it easier to socialise and interact in the game through your avatar. Alot of people who suffer social anxiety use games as escapism and see their character as some of their strong points it shows as other people do not see in the character the weaknesses people have in real life.

A question you could ask is whether interacting with people via your character do you have a different personality to what you have in real life that you project through your character? which would lead on to the question of "How much of your personality is projected through your character and do people treat you differently than face to face" and Does this interaction help boost your confidence when you are in the real world. Physcologically alot of people with low self esteem, confidence etc. do find that the anomynous nature of the internet at the start helps slowly boost their interaction with people that starts to help how they react in real life, call it practice with less of the negative reactions. There is also the question about the reason you play the game, alot of people use the game world as escapism from the real world. Others who are heavy PvP players tend to play PvP and fighting games to beat out their frustration in game rather than on someone, likewise I play games like burnout and GTA5 and ram cars etc. to get relief if I've had a bad day or suffered the bane of poor drivers when out and about. It is a huge subject the physcology of gaming and it is also an important one for the games industry to understand.