[MUD-Dev] Time articles on Lineage

[Koster]

http://www.time.com/time/interactive/entertainment/gangs_np.html

start quote--->

TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22 

Where Does Fantasy End? Why all of South Korea is obsessed with an
online game where ordinary folks can be arms dealers, murderers
... and elves

By MICHELLE LEVANDER Seoul 

Five rough-looking men stepped out of a black sedan and burst into the
Seoul PC cafe where Paek Jung Yul hangs out with Strong People Blood
Pledge, his clan of online gamers. "Is the wizard here?" demanded one
of the toughs, asking for the player who killed his character in an
online game called Lineage. The "wizard" was there, alright, and he
was feeling bold. He boasted that he had offed the gangman's virtual
character just for the fun of it. Bad idea. The roughnecks dragged the
21-year-old into the urinal and pummeled him until he was covered with
real-world bruises.

Paek describes the incident-now part of his clan's lore-with jaded
nonchalance. Actual violence has become so commonplace among
computer-game players that concerned authorities even have a term for
it that borrows from the game: "off-line PK" (player killings). Paek,
who relishes online killings as a refreshing change from his decorous
real-life manner, allows that physical retribution is merited if
players engage in particularly craven online behavior, such as theft
or scams involving the game's coveted virtual weapons. Online revenge
is O.K. too: "Usually, I kill the ones I hate," he says. Those are
fighting words, coming from a shy, skinny 16-year-old who regularly
tops his high-school class. But this is the other Paek speaking, the
ruthless (and female-go figure) elf who is master of Lineage, a
medieval fantasy game that has swept Korean society into a gaming
frenzy. "In reality, I have few ways to express myself or show off,"
Paek says. "But in the game, if I put in a little effort, many people
will know who I am." In South Korea, a deeply conformist society where
children must speak to elders with a special deferential grammar, this
bloodthirsty game has caught on with a vengeance. In Lineage, gamers
playing princes, wizards and elves fight one another to the death in
mini-armies or clans, headed by guild masters, to gain control of the
castles that dot the virtual world. The victors can then levy feudal
taxes upon virtual villages under their control and dun gamers a
percentage of each online weapons sale. All this can be fairly
lucrative, especially since there's a thriving black market that
exchanges the virtual items for cold, hard cash. But what makes the
game so addictive is its complex feudal environment, which hooks
players after they invest days or weeks building up the strength of
their online characters.  Based on its success in garnering online
subscribers in Korea alone, Lineage is the most popular single
interactive online game in the world right now, ahead of Sony's
Everquest, Electronic Arts' Ultima Online or even Microsoft's
Asheron's Call, according to Samsung Securities.

Why does Lineage have such a hold in Korea? "This is a small country,"
explains Joonmo Kwon, an educational psychologist. "If everyone you
know plays Lineage, you have to play it." Besides, says Kwon, the
game's emphasis on winning and working in groups speaks to the Korean
spirit. And then there's the universal explanation for escapism: "In
the real world, in Korea, you have to repress your drives and hidden
desires. In the game they come out."

In this wired nation, there are PC cafes on virtually every street,
outfitted with the high-speed Internet connections that make
interactive games crackle. Open 24 hours, and charging just $1 an hour
to play, these game rooms are well stocked with cheese-whiz sausages,
potato wafers and instant noodles. Many games are played here, but
Lineage is the most addictive, authorities say. Two million people,
out of a population of 46 million, have active Lineage accounts. And
when day turns to evening, close to 100,000 Koreans can be found glued
to computer terminals around the country, playing the game
simultaneously. School kids in Seoul routinely doze through classes
after playing all night. Parents either don't know or can't stop
them. Shy young boys take on alter egos as aggressive killers
online. A doctor plays ruthlessly while a neighborhood bully has a
chance to show compassion. Girl characters, meanwhile, have sometimes
been known to offer sexual favors to experienced male gamers in
exchange for virtual weapons. But, as one Lineage clan's guild master
notes, who's to say the girl characters are really girls?

The game has also caught on with the loan-sharking gangsters active in
the Korean entertainment industry. Some have seized control of Lineage
castles, gamers say. They do a brisk side business trading in virtual
weapons and levying taxes in the game. In between off-line heists,
they boast among themselves about their online exploits. "They guard
people for money in the game," says the sweet-faced girlfriend of one
gangster, as she leans back into a red plush couch at a Seoul
bar. "It's just like reality."

At times, it seems like the whole nation is caught up in the
confusion.  Sandwiched between news of the latest political scandals,
Korea's broadsheets revel in details of Lineage controversies. One
March article in the Dong-A Ilbo reports on an online protest-when
"more than 1,000 players gathered within the Lineage world"-after
unscrupulous gamers took advantage of a computer glitch to make
bootleg copies of the game's prized virtual weapons. Korea's
intellectuals and literary hopefuls have also gotten caught up in the
craze. Gamer Lee Seung Woo, a draftsman by day whose real-life hope is
to find a girlfriend, has written a still unpublished novel about male
friendship set in the game. Then there's literary critic Park Sang
Woo, whose book on Korea's game players draws on the ideas of French
philosopher Michel Foucault. "For the gamer, the game world is much
more attractive than reality," he writes, based partly on his own
experience. "Reality is only a space in which he makes a small amount
of necessary money for continuing the game."

Even Lineage developer NCsoft has gotten caught up in the virtual
world of its own making. Systems administrators, often gamers
themselves, have been fired for throwing online events in favor of one
gaming clan or another. The company recently issued an online apology
to its customers for one such incident and promised it would
investigate any allegations of employee corruption. Kim Taek Jin,
NCsoft's president, says gamers have attempted to buy off his staffers
with gifts of up to $1,000 to manipulate the game.  Korean newspapers
report that some gangsters recently turned up at the company demanding
personal information on online rivals to extract off-line retribution.

Not surprisingly, NCsoft's Seoul headquarters is fortified with double
steel doors and fingerprint scanners for the server room. "In Korea,"
Kim says dryly about Lineage's diehard fans, "hate is a kind of love." 
To protect the game software, Kim has set up security procedures that
might be more familiar to a bank. Meanwhile, vigilantes with names
like the Honorable Resolution Clan take it upon themselves to monitor
their own members as well as the behavior of unsavory rivals. Online
killings are often accompanied by abusive curses and threats sent in
instant messages. Sometimes, entire clans-numbering in the
dozens-storm down to NCsoft headquarters to demand redress when
another has wronged them. Others take a more legalistic approach,
meticulously documenting grievances by taking "screen saves" of
incriminating moments in online battles.

Others prefer to settle their own scores, such as Paek's Strong People
Blood Pledge clan. A number of the 16-year-old's gang sport the
close-cropped haircuts and tight suits that gangsters here wear as a
kind of uniform, he says. When members meet, they usually like to
carry out online player killings together. Paek doesn't seem worried
about the clan's reputed gangster ties. "It's O.K. when we get to know
each other," he says. "If they are enemies, it's really scary."

Authorities say three types of crime are common in the game: hacking
into others' accounts to steal weapons, stealing users' online
identification and fraud connected to the sale of virtual arms. Kim Gi
Bum, an inspector in one of the police's new cybercrime units-founded
after authorities were deluged with complaints from Lineage
gamers-tells of a 14-year-old runaway who recently defrauded gamers
out of about $10,000 by promising to sell them virtual weapons but not
delivering the goods after he was paid. The boy, who often slept in
the PC cafe where he played Lineage, pulled off 128 fraudulent deals
over a year before he was captured.

For the non-player, the mixing of reality and fantasy boggles the
mind. But serious game players live their lives toggling between the
two worlds. "The game doesn't affect reality," says a red-eyed addict
after spending two nights playing virtually nonstop. "Reality affects
the game."
<---end quote

http://www.time.com/time/interactive/entertainment/essay_np.html

start quote--->
TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22 

In a Different World 
By MICHELLE LEVANDER 

For weeks, I negotiate through trusted emissaries to meet with the
shadowy leader of the Han Empire Blood Clan. When he finally appears
at our rendezvous point in a seamy red-light district of Seoul, I'm
caught off guard. Wearing droopy trousers and a gray sweatshirt
emblazoned with the words phat farm, a pudgy young man with a hesitant
smile and a sniffle approaches me and bows. Surrounding him are his
"fighters," a crew of shy and gangly youths, all with pale skin,
unfashionable haircuts and rumpled clothing. In the real world, these
guys don't get much respect. "When people meet me online they think
I'm sharp, but when they meet me off-line, they advise me to lose
weight," says guild master and leader Choi Jae Sum.  "Online, I feel
handsome and brave, with a sense of justice."

At 27, Choi doesn't exactly fit the mold of the South Korean
salaryman; he walks with a shuffle instead of toeing the line, and he
failed the university entrance exams seen as key to a professional
career. Then there's his offbeat hobby: building ant farms. But he's
definitely got his own way of getting things done. Choi has managed to
parlay a knack for computers-honed by a stint in a technical
school-into a job as a systems administrator at Unitel Ltd. And he has
become his family's main breadwinner since his father's restaurant
shut down. Choi is renowned in the Lineage world for his gaming
style. A hack-n-slash game, Lineage isn't for the faint of heart. But
Choi is that rare bird who promotes a "mannered" style of online
fighting. Only one clan member, a rogue with a taste for blood, is
allowed to engage in the "player killings" that are routine in the
game. And then only when it's necessary to avenge the clan's honor,
explains a member as the gang munches on greasy sausage pizza at the
fast food joint below their favorite PC cafe.

But it's not until the ragtag group ambles upstairs and Choi sits down
at the computer that I come to see him as a leader. His high-pitched
voice deepens and his shoulders square as he enters the Lineage game
and becomes Soldier Ant Prince, a name that draws upon his other
hobby. "Since I am a prince and a guild master, many people believe in
me and trust me, so I don't want to let them down," Choi says, as his
virtual alter ego strides across a heath and comes to a stop outside
an enemy castle. Soldiers patrol the ramparts, bristling with
weapons. The steel doors are firmly bolted against outsiders. In a
nearby village, knights are slaughtering monsters while a wizard
battles an elf; each death is accompanied by a gooey splat.  Choi's
fingers dance on the keyboard as he sends an instant message to the
guild master of the fortified castle explaining that he is with a
journalist. The news prompts a brief moment of detente between these
adversaries. First an enemy elf emerges. Then the guild master, a
princess played by a 28-year-old man, ushers the Soldier Ant Prince
inside. The two shake hands. For the blood-stained rivals, it's a
dignified moment, filled with portent. "I was here once before," Choi
whispers. "I was killed right there." His clan gathers round the
computer, mouths agape in astonishment at their leader's bravery. "His
life could be at stake," mutters one. Reveling in the brief truce, the
Soldier Ant Prince poses online with the princess and her guards in an
interior chamber of the castle for a historic screen save. It will go
in the clan's online photo album along with other celebrated events in
its family history. "If you are a man, you want to lead people," says
Choi, as he preserves another image to embellish his reputation as the
gamer's gamer.
<---end quote

And from the sidebar, which I can't get a direct URL to:

start quote--->
'I Thought It Was the End of My Life' A cautionary tale from a
16-year-old Korean gamer

By MICHELLE LEVANDER 

Noh Hyun-oh knows the difference between his real life and his virtual
life -- most of the time. But sometimes, the 16-year-old Korean
admits, things can get a little blurry. Especially after hours of
sitting in front of the computer screen playing the wildly popular
online game of Lineage.

When Noh steps into the sunlight from one of Seoul's dimly lit PC
cafes, the real world reminds him eerily of the medieval fantasy
game. A glass of tomato juice reminds him of a magical potion, and
whenever he loses something, he feels momentary alarm, knowing that
once a character in the game loses his "items," it means he has died
and lost his power.

Noh isn't alone. Because almost everyone at his high school plays
Lineage, the slang of the game has taken over the schoolyard. Fast
runners have "taken a green potion," kids say, and when someone wants
to leave the scene, he talks about 'teleporting' elsewhere. Then
there's the fact that the most popular kids usually are rich in the
game's virtual weapons. As a result other students curry favor with
them in the hope of adding to their own arsenal.

"The game is a game," Noh says, in the tone of someone working hard to
convince himself. "But if it happens in real life it's really
important. If I don't succeed in real life, it's bad for the
future. But if I try hard in the game, I can get back something I
lost."

Still, one of Noh's most painful and confusing experiences occurred
online, when he was betrayed during battle by a classmate that he
considered his closest friend. And he's still coming to terms with
it. Noh, a shy, brilliant student, enjoys the bloodthirsty game for
its sociable side -- because it's easier to meet people online. He
likes to chat with his school friends in the instant messages that
whiz between battles.

And so, one day, Noh told his best friend where he would be fighting
in the Lineage world that afternoon -- and the character he would be
playing. Noh, his voice shaking with emotion, recalls that traumatic
day: "My close friend went to that spot and just killed me and took my
weapons. I died by his hand."

Noh hasn't fully recovered from the breach of trust. "It's not the
same," he says. "I cried. I thought it was the end of my life." Since
that day, Noh has developed his own credo for playing the game. While
many friends revel in the anonymity that allows gamers to take on
another personality online, he treats others the same in the game as
he would offline. It helps him in both worlds, he says. "I don't have
my real life online. I don't like hiding my real life."

He adds: "The world of Lineage is just so simple. You kill monsters
and chat with friends. In the real world, it's not so simple. People
should stop and think about other people."
<---end quote

-Raph
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