MMO Communities (was RE: [MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky isfalling?)

[Sean Howard]

"Derek Licciardi" <kressilac at insightbb.com> wrote:

> I'm still not convinced that a 250 person group is the maximum
> group size one can have.

I'm not either. That number feels arbitrary to me. But I agree with
the sentiment that the larger the groups get, the more they break
down into smaller groups. You can push it, but eventually, it HAS to
break down. I don't know where that point is, and it may differ
based on community, but I'd say that 10,000 people is probably too
big no matter how you scratch it.

> Are you telling me that there was no community surrounding the
> tragedy of 9/11?

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you bringing that up. It is
difficult for me to argue without seeming unpatriotic or
insensitive. But yes, there were hundreds of communities, not just
one.

> What then is the whole idea of nationalism if it is not a large
> scale community guided by a simple but bonding relationship
> between its members?

If you want to change the subject to something else dealing with
public opinion, I'll play. But I'm not touching nationalism
rationally when the feelings around it are anything but.

> There are way too many real world communities that break the 250
> person law that we have set for ourselves.

I believe you have been blindsided by this "250" number. Ignore the
number and concentrate on what it is trying to say. It could be
250. It could be 2500. But it will break down without better social
organization.

> Sure within those large communities there are sub communities but
> it's hard to tell me that the Teamsters union isn't really a
> community when the entire lot of them threatens to strike on UPS.

I believe that the union is made up of dozens, if not hundreds, of
smaller local unions.

> MMOs have not even begun to design for large scale communities.

I disagree. They've just been focusing on different parts that you
would like.

> The Laws of Online World Design are a wonderful thing to think
> about but continually challenging them is how they evolve and we
> finally have the technology to really test the 250 person
> community law.

I love challenging ideas. However, I'm not sure you can challenge
the logic of a situation. Let's say you have 10,000 pieces of paper
in front of you. You can't figure out how to deal with them all, so
you organize them. You put them in "in" piles and "out" piles, and
in filing cabinets with labels for each folder. That is how you can
"govern" those paper and give attention to the part which need
attention best. You can just have a pile of 10,000 papers, but it
will be pretty much useless to you.

> Don't get me wrong, the law is pretty sound for the types of
> communities that it was intended for.

I think you are getting distracted by this "law" again. Sometimes,
people put ideas out there to challenge your perception of the
world. I don't think that the guy who wrote the law would even argue
that 250 was arrive at through study or even observation. He
probably just picked a number that was large enough and small enough
to make the point.

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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