Transparent Identities in World of Warcraft

Yesterday I turned in the written version of my master thesis called “Transparent Identities in World of Warcraft”. During this research I studied the importance of identity during World of Warcraft play and I developed a prototype that allows players to make their identity transparent in the game environment. If you would like to read it, it’s available for download here (or in my portfolio). (…)

- - Posted on June 4th, 2010 in Thesis News
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For my master thesis I am conducting research about transparent identities in World of Warcraft, mainly through ethnography and qualitative interviews. This research will result in the development of an in-game add-on (this is an extension of the existing interface of World of Warcraft), that will allow the player to maintain online friendships from his or her true identity, and thus independent of the virtual character he or she is playing.

You can read the entire abstract in pdf here (dutch/english).

Voice chat reveals a part of the identity

I remember being in a guild together with a player from Scotland. His accent immediately gave away where he was from. I personally found that accent to be very charming and it changed my perception of that person. His accent was often a subject for teasing, when other players would imitate the way he spoke. We’ve had some good laughs on Ventrilo with him. (…)

- - Posted on May 20th, 2010 in Ethnography
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Life on the Screen: Aspects of the Self

Psychoanalytic theory has played a complicated role in the historical debate about whether identity is unitary or multiple. One of Freud’s most revolutionary contributions was proposing a radically decentered view of the self, but this message was often obscured by some of his followers who tended to give the ego greater executive authority in the management of the self. (…)

- - Posted on April 15th, 2010 in Research & Articles
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Mock-up of PlayerProfile Deluxe

In today’s current version, the PlayerProfile prototype is a stand alone add-on. The general design idea is that in time, the Profile and its data will be seamlessly integrated with an improved Friends List and a Friend Feed of statusupdates. The real name and characters provided by the Player Profile (…)

- - Posted on May 25th, 2010 in Addon Project
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You can now read the dissertation that I've written for my master thesis project (in english).

>> Download pdf