[literature] A qualitative study of Ragnarök Online private server in-game sociological issues

Edit: this post does not reflect the latest version of my paper. I will know whether my paper has been accepted in April, and I will update this post accordingly. Feel free to contact me if you have any question :-)

This is the summary of the paper I have written. This paper may not explain entirely why I did not post anything in the last 4 weeks, but it still took me much time...

Abstract

In the last decade, online games have raised much attention as more and more players gather on game servers. In parallel, communities of illegal private servers have spread and host numbers of players comparable to the official game server. Based on the Korean online game Ragnarök Online, I conducted unstructured interviews to collect qualitative data on different private servers and on the official French server. This paper explains why Ragnarök Online private servers gather so many players and how private servers could help improve official games.

Plan

1. Introduction
2. Playing Ragnarök Online
3. Methodology
4. Fulfilling player expectations
• Rates
• Avatar customization
• In-game events
• Recapitulation
5. Private server issues
• Group level-range
• The Warpra-Healer combo
• Player information
• Virtual economy
• Recapitulation
6. Issues shared between official and private servers
• Double Accounts
• Lack of monster challenge for guilds
• Donation and subscription
• Recapitulation
7. Conclusion

   The wide panel of private servers answers adequately the wide panel of player expectations. Although small private servers intrinsically lack players, their very concerned administrators find interesting ways to get round their problems. More populated private servers benefit from the same technical features as small private servers, but they also share common problems with official servers. Looking at how the most populated private servers deal with player problems might show enlightening.

8. Future work