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Shooting the BreezeA new Ethnography of Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds
Benjamin J. Tarsa
5/6/2010
Contents
Introduction………………………………………………3
What is “Nexus” – From the Nexus Atlas……..……..…7
A Memory: Finding my Voice…………………….……..9
Secret Shame……………………………………….……..14
History……………………………………………….….…19
Reputations……………………………………………..…25
Legends……………………………………………………28
Why do I Love it? ……………………………………..…31
Conclusions, Limitations, and Implications………….…34
References……………………….…………………….…..38
Introduction
My name is Benjamin Tarsa, and I have led a dual life for 11 years. In one world, most often described as the “real world,” I have lived life as a student, growing up around the turn of the 21st century as a young white male in the United States, progressing through all of the rites of passage and turmoil that comes along with physical, social, and intellectual maturation. In the other, I have carefully cultured a second personality, one that does not (and indeed could not) exist in the realm of reality, that of a woman living as a hero in ancient mythical Korea. I was just eleven years old when I used a moniker from another game I had played previously to create what would become my main Nexus persona.
My name is Skum, Virtuoso of the Buyan Muse guild and Primarch of the Enigma Clan of Koguryo. Born long ago, before the events of the Shattering and the Great Shift, I have walked the streets of Kugnae for a hundred years or more. I have loved and lost many friends and relatives in my years, and I have witnessed events of catastrophic magnitude including invasions, war, and even the deaths of those beings known as Immortals and Gods.
Once I got my start in 1998, I played Nexus (or TK) almost religiously for about eight years. I recently returned to playing after having quit with the intention of never returning. Three years later at the urgings of some old friends, August of 2009 , I re-registered my account, and logged onto Nexus. Think of what it's like to come back to your hometown, or the place that you grew up. At first you're a little nervous, maybe things have changed, or maybe those that you love will no longer be there. Maybe you won't fit in, or maybe just being there will stir up just the sort of painful memories that you spent so long trying to push aside.
I stood outside the entrance, the shadow of the Imperial Palace darkening the ground at my feet. Gazing up at the entrance to the Muses’ tree house, I wondered how things had changed. Who had ascended to be the Maestra, the leader of the Muse Guild? Would I know anyone who lived in the Trigram Circle now, more than 50 years later? What had happened in my absence? With a deep breath, I climbed the ladder.
Just like going home again in the real world, all my fears evaporated when I arrived. I was almost lost under the outpouring of friendliness, and the kind of homesickness that only comes from visiting a highly significant place from one's past. I found that indeed, many people that I knew were still active members of the community and that I still held the strong loyalties that I had so many years before. Before I knew it I had put my account on auto-renewal and settled down for a lengthy visit. When the opportunity to turn a more analytic and scholarly eye to this activity that had captivated me for so long, I jumped at it.
This work therefore grew from many different interests and starting points. My initial hope with this piece was to explore the methodology of ethnography, particularly the vein of self-reflexive and narrative writing known as “new” ethnography, as identified by H. L. Goodall, Jr. (2000). Eager to both explore a passion that has followed me for more than half of my life and to choose as a subject a community and culture to explore that would be both meaningful for myself and for my reader, I settled down to explore the nature of one of the internet’s oldest and longest-running MMORPG communities. I have titled this manuscript “Shooting the Breeze,” with the hope that the reader will find themselves as part of a conversation about not just this particular experience, but that of participating in any virtual world.
I believe that one of the most important things about the nature of TK is the immersive nature of the game. You install this computer program, like any other, create your login and password, and yet when you enter the Kingdoms, you step out of this reality and into another, a land of creation tales and legends, of history, art, and magic. However, it is the thousands of characters that inhabit this world that make it truly special, and form the basis of this community-oriented experience. This community shares a virtual, yet geographic, location and immense volume of cultural knowledge specific to their own social codes and norms. They become the actors in the setting provided for us by the game client and allow for the historical and social performance that constitutes the Nexus.
I have opened my journal to you to share my experiences of times past, and my knowledge of how our physical world has been molded by the Dreamweavers, legends, and the many public heroes that have imprinted something of themselves in our world before passing on from it. My stories and memories are just that, my recollections and rembrances of my times here, and a representation of what my life has been like as a citizen.
My boyfriend often notes that I'm totally unaware of anything else that's going on when I'm playing, and it’s quite true. This happens because I don't always feel like I'm playing a game, I feel like I've been transported to this other world, one that is full of my friends, and is almost as familiar as reality, sometimes even more so. My experiences as a member of the NexusTK community have definitely had a hand in shaping my world-view. I have always found the atmosphere of the game to be highly immersive and mimetic in nature, in that it reflects many aspects of a real-world society including politics, a co-constructed historical narrative, economy, as well as relying on object codes and social performances of personality, rituals, and rites of passage. A game of immense digital and social complexity, the eleven years of player interactions have created a unique community and culture.
It is perhaps the plight of all people that as we age we become sentimental and sometimes yearn for a return to the simpler times of our past. Knowing this to be an impossibility, we can only re-live our experiences through writing and sharing them with others. Looking around the Kingdoms at the written knowledge put down in the Scrolls and Legends of our people, we can see the importance of our history both personal and collective that has helped shape the Three Kingdoms into the bustling centers of culture and society that they are today, even as the sun sets on another great God.
One great challenge has been to create, through text, an accurate representation of a digital world that is steeped in meaning and relies on a multitude of different textual, graphical, and social codes of communication. In order to best relate my experiences, this work begins with a short descriptive piece written by an unknown author for the most popular NexusTK fansite, NexusAtlas.com. While only a short summary, this piece of the Nexus Atlas will give the reader a large amount of indispensible context including an overarching picture of the game, its history, and how people play it. This work then moves on through a number of pieces adapted from my fieldwork in the community describing some of my first memories as a player and painting a broad picture of some of the far-reaching themes that are inherent in the game like history, legends, and reputation. Finally, I spend some time reflecting on the experience of playing NexusTK, and discuss some of the implications and areas for future exploration.
My life in the Kingdoms has taught me many lessons about the nature of truth, and of people. I have learned about death, and about how lessons and knowledge are passed from one person to another. I have learned about love, and above all about loyalty. I have learned about the creative spirit that lives within me, and how it can be drawn out and teased into being so as to create deeper meaning for myself and others. Through all my times, I feel I have been seeking after the most basic of questions, “Who am I?” and “Where do I fit in this world?” It is my hope that recording my experiences will help to solve that enigma.
What follows then, is a collection of texts representing portions of both my personal experiences as a gamer living in an age dominated my technologically mediated communication, as well as the experiences of my character who exists and lives only within the contextual frame created by the Nexus game-engine, its community of players, and their shared history. While it can, at times, be unclear how separate the two are from one another, it is my hope that illuminating some of my experiences and knowledge of this virtual world will bring the reader not only a basic understanding of this particular virtual settlement, but insight into the general nature of participating in a virtual world and how this technology could perhaps be adapted to create virtual worlds with meaning far beyond that of simple entertainment.
What is “Nexus?” – From the Nexus Atlas
“Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds (NexusTK for short) is a online roleplaying game owned by the company KRU. Nexon developed Nexus, which is known as Baram in Korea, back in the early 1990's in Korea. In 1995, it was brought to America to be developed for a US market. In early 1998, several Korean players began testing the new US Version of Nexus, and opened for a Beta test in the Spring of 1998. The rest is history and can be found throughout this site.
Unlike other online roleplaying games, Nexus TK is not 3D nor does it have 50,000 players. NexusTK is a 16-bit, 2D graphic-based game which takes place in Ancient Korea. It's based on the cities, legends, and history of Ancient Korea. Kugnae, the prime city in Nexus, was a major city in Korea circa 40 BC. Even the King Yuri, the "king" of Nexus, existed.
So what can you expect? Nexus TK's social system is very well developed. They have normal speak which anyone on the current screen can see around you. It appears not only in a chat window on the bottom of the screen but also in a little bubble over your head. They have a private messaging service called "whispering," which appears in blue characters. Beyond this they have a yell system in red which can be heard a slight more distance than a normal talk, and yet even stronger, the power to Share Wisdom. Share Wisdom (or as 3.0 players know it, Sage) enables a player to speak to everyone in an entire map area (server) and is extremely effective when selling items, looking for hunting partners, and generally getting to know people. There is also a bulletin board system for miscellaneous information.
The justice system, clan leaders, event hosts, subpath leaders, tutors, and even some of the development staff are all players that have continually played Nexus TK. Anyone who has a good heart and strong will can become an influential figure in Nexus history. A community in this fashion makes it easy to make friends as well as a difference in the entire kingdom by simply speaking your mind. Unlike some other games, Nexus is a small community of about 1000 players and easy to recognize people you know on the street. It's not someone new everyday; you run into the same people time after time. Depending on your personal preference, this could be a good or bad thing.
The hunting system is real-time and experience based. Characters kill creatures starting with bunnies, and later progress to ferocious beasts like Dragons. There is NO limit to how strong you can become in Nexus. There are ranks for those who spend their entire life playing this game. And believe me, people actually DO spend their entire life playing this game.
Players can make a difference in a special role by speaking their mind or even by becoming a rather strong fighter/caster in a group. There are many ways to have your name become a part of Nexus history, somewhat like people who are found in the archives of Nexus Atlas. Some people log on simply to roleplay. Others log on to use the marketplace to sell their items, and still some never stop hunting even to eat. This is most of what makes Nexus so fun (and addictive). There is simply no end to the possibilities or power a player can have.
Nexus has shifted a lot over the ages as well. There is very little about the hunting aspect that can be compared from 3.0 to 5.0. With a constantly shifting game, for some, it may take some time getting used to, but for others may be a wonderful surprise. Using the bulletin boards mentioned earlier, players can also provide feedback to Game Masters (known to Nexus players as Dreamweavers) to have new ideas added, current situations changed, and so forth.
Nexus is a shifting game, just like the winds on which it was founded. [NexusAtlas.com] is devoted to chronicling those winds and giving people a chance to learn from the history; a chance to learn from past mistakes and achievements to overcome events of the future.”
(Nexus Atlas)
A Memory: Finding My Voice
"Greetings and welcome to my home. I see you are eager to get on with your adventure. Before you do however, there is much more you need to learn. Click on me to learn. . ." -Ironheart's Greeting
I recall being a young girl, and leaving my family home in the provinces to seek my fortune as one of the great adventurers, the citizens of Kugnae. My brothers and I set out, determined to succeed in our newly chosen paths. As I approached the city for the first time, I saw the spires and rooftops of a then unimaginable amount of buildings, and the smoke from many workshops and taverns. This was a place of excitement, of commerce. This was a place of new beginnings.