[MUD-Dev] Social Networks

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

I didn't intend this response to grow this long.  Oh, well, it's for the
community, right? :)

Dave Rickey wrote:
> From: "Brian 'Psychochild' Green" <brian at psychochild.org>
>> Dave Rickey wrote:

> Exactly, but then the question becomes how do you encourage people
> to have repeated mutual experiences rather than randomly bouncing
> off of each other?  Maybe advancement-based systems aren't all
> bad, after all they do reduce the pool of people you will interact
> with to those closer to your level, and thereby increase your
> interactions with any particular individual?

On the other hand, if the people you are forced to be with are all
assholes, then you won't make the proper connections into the social
fabric.  Also, if the people you have previously made a connection
with are suddenly outside the limits of your level, then you can
potentially destroy existing connections to the game.

My time in DAoC illustrates this wonderfully.  Since I was not
terribly busy before purchasing Meridian 59, I played the game a lot
every day. I quickly outpaced my friends since they held day jobs or
had other responsibilities.  Suddenly, I found myself separated from
my preferred social fabric, so I took up crafting in the mean time
to slow down my combat-related advancement.  After I purchased
Meridian 59, that took the majority of my time.  After a month or
so, all my friends had rocketed past me and I was the low-level
person in the network, again unable to play with them.  Especially
with the introduction of new equipment during this time, I was
quickly below the power level needed to effectively participate in a
group.  Without the copious free time needed to play catchup, I had
effectively been cut out of the social fabric I had entered the game
a part of.
 
>> Sure you can form a community by forcing people into certain
>> roles that rely on each other, but this is not the only way.
 
> Maybe not, but it works.  I'm not arguing that it is the *only*
> way, only that it does in fact work, although it emerged almost by
> accident and we only now are getting the conceptual framework to
> understand why.  I'm pretty certain that dependancy relationships
> are in fact essential to creating durable communities, but I
> strongly doubt that T/H/N is the only viable set of relationships.

One of the topics in your original post is how your triad did not
apply to certain types of games particularly in certain genres.
Sure, it works, but do we plan to be stuck in the fantasy genre
forever?  I know quite a few people that will answer with a
resounding "NO!"  Therefore, it behooves us to consider alternatives
if we wish to look forward and expand the industry.
 
> At the core of the game, I think you need a dependancy
> relationship that pushes the players to form these clusters.
> Without it, you won't have a community.

I disagree.  Communities form all the time that do not focus
dependency relationships like you discuss.  I have a feeling there
are still more people in various random, unstructured chats than are
currently playing MUDs of any flavor; these chats have fully formed
communities of people that regularly visit and know each other.

Or, let's take a concrete example of a community: MUD-Dev.  What's
the dependency relationship here?  Is Raph the tank, are you the
healer, and am I the nuker? :) I have no meaningful relationship
with probably about 95+% of the list, yet I still come back as time
permits.  Why? Because the participants in this community have
shared experiences.  We come and share those experiences with others
for various reasons, some selfish and some altruistic.  But, I
hesitate to say that there are any certain dependency relationships
that created and developed this community.

> You point out that M59 doesn't have such dependancies, is it
> possible that is why EQ (which in other gameplay aspects is very
> similar) had explosive growth and M59 did not (because dependancy
> does not arise outside of PvP, which represents a higher
> threshold)?

Actually, Meridian 59 didn't have "explosive growth" as you so
politely put it because practically no one was aware of its
existence for most of it's time.  Even now, people respond with
"Meridian fifty-what?" when I talk to them about the game.  Most
people on here only know about the game because either they're
students of the history of the online medium or because I just won't
shut up about the game anymore. :)

I think a more accurate comparison would be to UO, which had harsh
PvP and an advancement system (skill-based) that was more like
M59's. Without much needed advertising during its early times (tying
nicely the advertising thread), no one was aware of its existence
and was thus ignored.  Meridian 59's advertising was consistently
lacking, which is good because the few ads that were developed for
the game where hideously bad.  (To give you an idea, one of the ads
has the word "latex" in it.)  Hell, I didn't even know what Meridian
59 was for sure until I started to work on it, and I was a hard-core
MUD player and loved PvP.  Yet, UO with better advertising and a
recognizable brand name, had "explosive growth" that shocked the
original developers, as Raph has recounted numerous times.

>From what I know, Meridian 59 has had significantly lower initial
sales figures of any other online RPG.  However, I wouldn't be
surprised to see that the game's relative retention ratio during the
early days was about equal to that of UO.  Overall, I think this
demonstrates one of the most important aspects of social networks
for our games: Anyone who does not show up obviously will not become
part of the social network.
 
> I see no evidence to indicate truly global channels are inherently
> desirable.  At some level, community formation is not just finding
> people you get along with, but excluding those with whom you do
> not.

Global channels are desirable because they allow you to get in touch
with more people faster than you could previously and allow you to
maintain connections easier.  Using your triad of occupations in a
fantasy RPG, finding someone to fill a spot is easier when you have
a larger pool of people to pull from.

Most games without global channels have terrible problems with
overcrowding because people will congregate in areas where they know
other people will be and can communicate with them effectively.  In
my early, low-level EQ career that included hanging around Crushbone
looking for groups as a healer, and in my mid-level career in DAoC
it involved hanging around the chronically overcrowded Spindelhalla
looking for a group that wanted a good tank.  These areas were
places where I could find loose ends of the social fabric to (at
least temporarily) work myself in.

Admittedly, scale makes a difference in these games, as having to
deal with the chatter of several hundred people makes for a rather
confusing chat.  In these cases, it is important to provide
alternate methods of communication to compensate.  Buddy lists, game
mail, even "tell"s are useful here.
 
>> There are ways to encourage people to work together beyond your
>> "triad" of fantasy roles.  Again, Meridian 59 has no specific
>> focus on these roles; healers are ignored due to the pacing in
>> combat, just like in DAoC RvR, and nukers were pretty weak for
>> most of the game's commercial history.  However, the simple fact
>> that numbers provide a significant advantage in a combat
>> situation where you can't easily exploit a stupid AI system
>> provides all the incentive you need for people to form bonds in
>> the game.
 
> After how long?  In DAoC, the incentive to group arrives around
> level 10, which is about the same time most new players have
> mastered the basic gameplay and are able to concern themselves
> with such things.  In UO during the Dread Lord era, it arrived (in
> the form of PK) the minute you logged in.  Too late may be as bad
> as too early.

Meridian 59 has 2 separate gameplay arcs, from my experiences.  The
first is the arc of character development, which is when a player
builds the character he wants, usually with the goal of making a
good PvP character.  This is almost always done solo, and you
generally meet your friends during this time and get initiated into
a guild.  It tends to be a harsh time for the inexperienced, since
they can become prey to random PKers and may not have the social
fabric to help them recover quickly; generally, the community as a
whole comes together to help people in this situation, however.

The second arc is PvP.  You could also call this the "elder game" to
established terminology.  This arc can overlap the first arc, as in
the case of someone thrust into a guild war while still building.
This arc pretty much requires socialization for anyone but the most
experienced players who will try a random PKer.  This arc has a very
long life, since death carries penalties which must be recovered
from.

Most experienced players see the first arc as a hindrance and want
to get to the second arc as quickly as possible.  Most new players
have fun with the development arc, then seek social connections as
they become interested in the PvP arc.  There are a few people that
are forced into the second arc by their social connections, either a
guild at war or a friend that has been preyed upon.  It's
interesting to note that the amount of character development
necessary to become viable in the second arc is actually pretty low,
even though the character development arc can take many months to
"complete.

Overall, socialization seems to come at their own pace, but overall
happens pretty quickly.  At least, this is my observation.  You'll
probably note that this is roughly equivalent to DAoC's gameplay
arcs as well (leveling then RvR), but with some interesting
differences, as DAoC requires greater socialization during the first
arc.

> I'm not ignoring them, or trying to argue that T/H/N is the only
> means of socializing the players.  It could quite easily be the
> worst method...except for the others that have been tried.  If we
> can get a better understanding of why it works, maybe we can find
> or adapt others to serve the same function.  But "natural" social
> networks form linked clusters for good reasons, many of which
> apply as much to MMOG communities as to "real" ones.

I didn't mean to be quite so accusatory in my original response.  I
didn't meant to say you were intentionally or maliciously ignoring
them, I was trying to point out alternatives from my experiences.

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
       Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
      |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_               Meridian 59
     |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' http://meridian59.neardeathstudios.com/
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)    Welcome back to your favorite online game.

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