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Oct 20, 2004

Comments

1.

Are there noteable differences in terms of social network impact between these mediums?

I've written software that's used in a Second Life Wiki -- not THE SLWiki, but a Wiki. I became a Taxibot in City of Heroes because of their LiveJournal, I've yet to meet any of the original Taxibots on Virtue. My answer to the difference is a resounding "no."

Other thoughts?

I think this post exemplifies the problems pervasive through Second Life; the idea that MMOG's are somehow different or removed from the Internet and community dynamics in general. The language won't be poorer if we don't create another word for "community."

2.

Forget about the MODding part. 90% of the games I got in the late 80s were MODded (cracked and otherwise tuned and changed). Games have always been social software and part of a networks of networks. Nothing really new there.

3.

MMORPGs, or any MMOGs, really, are not, in and of themselves, interesting as social software. Their primary possibility space lies in providing the potential for a different and heretofore unknown social software.

They are, and have always been aspiring to, a new form of the same old.

4.

I'd say one new thing in MUDs/MMORPGs is the ability of Devs to structure the interconnections. EQ has groups of six, DAOC has groups of eight. Both games have all of their users obsessed with gaining a construct, "experience points." This ability to incent the user, leveraged off the user's desire to have fun, is a genuine innovation.

Gawd that was a lot of business-book babble, wasn't it?

5.

The only genuine about it is the ability to get people into tight interaction with complete strangers which they incidentally might dislike in their spare time. This I agree is a an accomplishment, perhaps not a valuable thing, but nevertheless an achievement... The rest is just D&D?

6.

The only genuine about it is the ability to get people into tight interaction with complete strangers which they incidentally might dislike in their spare time.

That's not new. Join a social organization, like the Elks Lodge, and you'll find yourself working with, talking to, and having fun with people you'd never give a second thought to in the rest of your life. MMOG's just take physical distance out of the equation, and Usenet was doing that decades ago.

I see no difference in my helping sell Elk's BBQ tickets and my Taxibot teleporting people around Paragon City -- I pay a regular fee for the priveledge of volunteering to help people out in both arenas -- except that my Taxibot is a lot cuter than I am. ;)

7.

Andrew, I'd agree with you on the Usenet part, which is a place where people spend time with strangers they dislike in their spare time, although that is different... Low on interaction, high on communication. MMO-teaming-with-people-you-dislike is high on interaction and low on communication...

No idea what Elks Lodge is.

8.

Ola Fosheim Grøstad> "No idea what Elks Lodge is."

They're like Odd Fellows.

9.

Yeah this is nice. After I get done playing the online first-person realistic shooter counter strike I just want to go outside and pwn some noobs with an ak. This game actually drove me to join the Marines, and than US army infantry. WOOT! HAXOR!

10.

Ola>

the ability to get people into tight interaction with complete strangers which they incidentally might dislike in their spare time.

I wonder if this could tie back to Ted's point about "devs structuring connections." Connections are constraints that could also be interpreted more liberally as "rule sets".

So then, perhaps, we find ourselves with social networks that are quite different than ones based on purely individual communication. Another factor: shapes of these networks change with the game transitions. E.g., consider the discontinuities forced by level banding: transition into different social sets.

WRT the Elks Lodge: I can believe that people are often forced to cooperate on many more (and different) levels than they would in other systems (and RL). E.g. in a zone at 2am when there are only 5 other folks around...

Now, whether these differences translate into a qualitatively different kind of structure than other social software systems... ?

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