[MUD-Dev] Social Networks

[Jeff Cole]

From: Dave Rickey
> From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>
>> From: Dave Rickey
>>> From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

>>>> Humans are indeed naturally social creatures, in up to
>>>> tribe-sized groups.

>>> Not all of them, and not equally.

>> Of course not. You said "humans" not "individuals." :)

> But the social network is a collection of individuals, you cannot
> separate questions of network behavior from the link-creation
> behaviour of the nodes.

I think that it has been demonstrated time and again that humans are
socially inclined.  Certainly, within the context of multiplayer
games, a developer can safely assume that every node seeks, to
whatever extent, a social experience.

Assuming the number of links an individual establishes represents
(rough, even?) measure of the individual's fitness (your
socialness), then it is the manner in which individuals are not
equally fit (the link distribution) that is so important: fitness
follows a power curve.

> I've been thinking of it in terms of "defining social conflict".
> There is something that individuals want that they can only
> achieve through cooperation of a larger scale.  In EQ, it was
> managing the spawns of high-level encounters, in Camelot it is
> control of relics and access to Darkness Falls.  The problem in
> both cases seems to be that they have nothing *else* to do that
> requires that level of organization, and a limited scope of
> activity that contributes to that goal.

...

> I've been trying to think of ways to establish multiple hubs.

While evolution in content is indeed important, I think it begs the
question of whether the existing content is efficiently or
effectively implemented.

That a social network is scale free, implies that the fitness curve
is going to largely depend on the nodes and not the content; that
is, that additional or different content is not going to drastically
change the networks link distribution.

Decreasing the transaction cost associated with demonstrating
fitness-- and, therefore, establishing links-- would have a much
more profound effect on the distribution.  Also, decreasing such
costs would increase the likelihood that a network could recover
from the loss of a hub insofar as remaining nodes could more easily
and quickly establish new links.

Currently, the costs associated with demonstrating fitness and
establishing links are a far higher hurdle than lack of incentive or
content.

> What I find myself wondering is, if we can create explicit support
> (or even encouragement) of multiple hubs and more cross-cluster
> random links, will that make guilds less likely to migrate?

Hmm.  Now, *this* is where content is a solution.  The stronger you
make the network, the more likely it is the network will migrate if
the hubs migrate.

Yes. Affcty,
Jeff Cole


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