Cybernationalism and the almighty Zerg Rush

The always entertaining ESWN has a story that is close to my heart, a sordid tale of swords and sorcery.

Apart from these 'competitions' between China and Japan/United States, the Chinese netizens also have an Internet game known as "Magical Sword." The Chinese netizens have engaged with Korean netizens in several 'bloody battles.' This game was originally designed by some Americans. Last year, on an international server, an alliance of Chinese players defeated the alliance of Korean players, thus ousting them from virtual existence. Later, a Korean company obtained the rights from the Americans and built a special edition for the Chinese players only. The alliance of Chinese players was then dissolved.

But more recently, the players from China and Korea engaged in another full-scale 'war'.

This time, the battlefield was in front of the China City formed by dozens of Chinese players. This city was besieged by an alliance of Korean players. The Koreans have played this game longer and therefore have good 'battle endurance.' The China City was about to fall into their hands, when the defenders issued an SOS appeal.

At this point, an astonishing phenomenon occurred. Hordes of supporters showed up like tides and most of their names were appended by .cn! They were all Chinese.

In the end, the Koreans were repelled. According to the computer tally, more than one hundred Koreans 'died' in front of the gates of China City, but they killed at least 2,000 Chinese defenders and their supporters. Most of the reinforcements had low 'battle skills' and they fought like as if they were suicide squads.

After the win, the Chinese defenders thanked these unknown reinforcements and found out that not all of these Chinese people came from China. There were some from Singapore, Malaysia, United States and Canada, but they all said that they were Chinese.

There was one supporting battalion of about 200 persons, but only 9 of them survived in the end. They told the Chinese defenders: "We are from Taiwan and this is the sum total of all the fighters that we can offer. When you have problems, we will come to help for sure because we are brothers!"

"Magical Sword" in this case is I’m fairly certain a reference to Shadowbane, a decent mmorpg in its own right and a favorite for those who crave PvP. "Zerging" has a rather fluidic definition but in this case it refers to the tactic of using overwhelming numbers against an opponent who maintains qualitative superiority. Irrespective of the inherent fun in pwning your enemies, the Zerg dynamic is also interesting in the sociological sense in that you can witness the development of collectivism and power aggregation among disparate individuals in a laboratory environment. For more about this, be sure to check out this topic at Terra Nova which delves further into the issue.

In MMORPGs, zergs often connote overwhelming numbers and a pointless (or worse) experience for the many… not unlike the Boudicca Rebellion.

The downside of large-scale PvP zerging in MMORPGs is that as a play style it

A.) discourages casual play
B.) stresses other world design elements
C.) is unbalanced

With respect to (A.), casual players seem to find it more difficult to integrate themselves within the Uberguild networks that frame large zergs. Beyond structural barriers such as level and character requirements – organization and participation overheads associated with these events can be daunting to occasional players. With respect to (B.) large zergs establish a play style that doesn’t integrate well with the world design (nor, arguably, with its technical foundations). For example, witness the development of dedicated RvR and Raid zones and promised “zerg instances,” these suggest the need to isolate the zerg outlet from the rest of the machinery of the world.

Finally, it is (C.) that feels to be the most troublesome component of zergs. Simply stated, most players don’t like playing bit parts in an epic drama. E.g., this example with capturing and holding castle keeps in DAOC:

But - I'm sorry to say - Keep taking is pretty dull for me at least - once you've taken a few towers and a keep with a decent-sized Zerg - bleh! Plus - this has made playing a melee character pretty tough in the game - if you're not a stealthier/ranged caster you're out of luck. You spend a lot of time defending keeps and you get to twiddle your thumbs if you're a melee person.

Players want to feel important, some occasionally may even want to feel heroic. Regardless of the nuance, play and fun is ultimately measured in terms of the individual. So far MMORPGs have more or less have extended this play experience successfully to small groups, though not without controversy (content rationing, why only the primitive Tanker-Nuker-Mezzer-Healer group template?). Online games (esp. arena games) have done well to extend team sizes, though arguably they bump hard against the limits on player sophistication and interest in team-work.