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A role-player in an online game, he aimed the pointer at his opponent, the virtual comic book villain "Syphris." Myers, 55, flicked the buttons on his mouse and magically transported his opponent to the front of a cartoon robot execution squad. In an instant, the squad pulverized the player.

Syphris fired an instant message at Myers moments later.

"If you kill me one more time I will come and kill you for real and I am not kidding."

The chilling text shook Myers two years ago. It served as a telling detail for his ongoing study of social customs in Internet gaming communities.

At the time of his clash with Syphris, Myers was just three months into an in-depth behavioral study of the "CoH Influence"" online community. Already, someone had threatened to unearth his real identity and take his life.

As part of his experiment, Myers decided to play the game by the designers' rules -- disregarding any customs set by the players. His character soon became very unpopular.

At first, players tried to beat him in the game to make him quit. Myers was too skilled to be run off, however.

They then made him an outcast, a World Wide Web pariah that the creator of Syphris -- along with hundreds of other faceless gamers -- detested.

The Slidell resident plans to soon publish a book drawn from his experiences with the game. The study's results dismayed Myers, who in 1984 became one of the first university-level professors to study video games. He believes it proved that, even in a 21st century digital fantasyland, an ugly side of real-world human nature pervades, a side that oppresses strangers whose behavior strays from that of the mainstream(City of Heroes influence).