Catassing

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Catassing (also referred to as "poopsocking") is the process of sequestering oneself at a computer and avoiding other day-to-day activity in favor of advancing one's character in a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) whose game design makes heavy use of level treadmills or their logical equivalents.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Anti-Catassing 2.1 Theory 2.2 Case studies 2.2.1 Ultima Online 2.2.2 World of Warcraft 2.2.3 EVE Online 2.3 Legal 3 References 4 See also

[edit] Etymology

The term appears to have originated in a June 1, 2000 newspaper article called "The Surreal World" in which the author described a gamer who had become so addicted to Ultima Online that he had spent his waking hours playing the game, dispensing with other activities competing for his time including personal hygiene and changing the cat's litter box. As a result, he and his entire apartment reportedly had the "pungency of cat urine", which he then called a "Den of Cat Ass and Murdered Time". ^[1] On June 2 the article was linked from Lum the Mad, a popular MMORPG commentary site at that time, and was used by Jeff Freeman (aka Dundee) in the rec.games.computer.ultima.online newsgroup a week later. ^[2]

The term has since spread, and as of mid-2004 has been spotted in use throughout the community of MMOG players. ^[3]

The term Poopsocking is an often used equivalent on the Something Awful forums, so named due to a story posted by one forum member describing a man with a penchant for defecating into socks as a way of avoiding going to the bathroom and potentially missing some important element in the game.

[edit] Anti-Catassing

For a variety of reasons, MMOG designers occasionally attempt to reduce the amount of catassing among players of their games. It has proven to be very difficult to come up with successful game designs that reward continued play while discouraging catassing, resulting in controversy when experimental techniques are forced upon players.

Reasons why an MMOG might take steps to discourage catassing might include:

• Power gamers quickly outlevel their friends, making them unable to play together and inhibiting the ability of the player base to grow through word-of-mouth
• Power gamers may tie up valuable in-game locations for far longer than expected, damaging the play experience for the majority of users
• Power gamers tend to accumulate in-game negotiable rewards (i.e., items and money) disproportionately and more quickly than expected, affecting the in-game economy and again damaging the play experience for the majority of users
• Concerns about potential liability^{[dubious — see talk page]}
• The fact that MMO servers bill by the month rather than by the hour, meaning they make far more profit off of casual gamers who tie up small amounts of server time. Heavier users take up more bandwidth but do not pay a higher fee.

^[4]

[edit] Theory

Proposed countermeasures include:

• Steeply diminishing returns on advancement, aka "flattening the level curve", in which it takes longer and longer to obtain smaller and smaller incremental advances in power level. While this helps address the problem of power gamers being unable to play with their non-power-gaming friends, it instead seems to encourage catassing among the more obsessive players by requiring increasingly long stretches of marathon play in order to obtain meaningful advancement.
• "Soft caps", in which artificial limits are enforced on the maximum power attainable in some area. This can be difficult to balance: If the caps are too high they may have little impact, while if the caps are too low, players will reach them quickly, become bored, and may stop playing the game.
• Removing intersession advancement altogether. While this drastic step is unlikely to be taken by any current or future MMOG, this is the normal state of affairs for popular online first-person shooters including Counter-Strike and the original Quake.

[edit] Case studies

[edit] Ultima Online

One of the first attempts at limiting catassing was the "power hour" ^[5] in Ultima Online. With this mechanism, advancement slowed down if you played for more than one hour per day. This provoked outrage among some players, and the policy was eventually modified.

[edit] World of Warcraft

More recently, World of Warcraft has experimented with a "rest state" system in which time spent logged out or in town (at an inn) would earn the player additional experience on later kills. Many have argued that since Blizzard games typically have a more mainstream appeal than other MMORPGs, the "rest state" was a way of appealing to people who wanted to play a MMORPG but specifically wanted to avoid "catassing". Anecdotally, most of the controversy has come from more serious players, whereas more casual players see the "rest state" as a valid balance.

[edit] EVE Online

The Eve Online MMORPG has all players advance at the same rate, whether logged in or not. Therefore, someone who plays the game constantly will gain skill points at the same rate as someone who hardly plays at all. However, given the degree to which success in the game is dependent upon financial holdings, many players still find it in their best interest to extend their play sessions to allow greater fiduciary growth.

[edit] Legal

In 2005, China announced new laws intended to combat online game addiction by requiring game companies to impose increasingly severe in-game penalties on players that play longer than three hours at a time. ^[6] It is unknown if any of the proposed laws were actually implemented.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Alternate reality game
• Game addiction
• Progress Quest
• Virtual reality