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

[Sean Howard]

"Aaron Switzer" <aaron at neteffect.ca> wrote:

> Just because a community breaks down into smaller communities
> doesn't mean that the larger community ceases to exist.

Of course not. It just means that the individual contributions
matter less to the greater community than to the immediate one. The
question is, as designers, is it more important to look at the
immediate community of individuals, or the bigger picture of
communities of communities? Or is it even worth that sort of
organization, so we have ONE community of THOUSANDS?

> Yes, in every group or community sub-groups will form, but a lot
> of the time that only serves to strengthen the larger community.

I don't think anyone is arguing that this is a bad thing. We are
just disagreeing with the significance of it.

> I don't think that he was changing the subject here.  The bond of
> nationalism can be very strong, especially when the nation in
> question is threatened in some way.  And if the common act of
> voting doesn't constitute a community then I don't know what does.

It is because the bond of nationalism is so strong that I lack faith
in people's ability to discuss it with rational coldness. I think
there is a fascinating discussion there, but it is one I would have
only with close friends.

> I'm curious about your allusion to "better social organization",
> would something like Friendster allow for more scalable
> communities in your eyes?

I am not familiar with Friendster. Assuming it is something like
LiveJournal links, I think you'll find that communities still
fraction - but more on degrees of separation than physical or
topical separations.

> Which doesn't take away from the fact that if one teamster were to
> travel to another city and attend a meeting of another local union
> that they would be greeted as a member.  This to me is a
> community.

He would still be a stranger to them. They would treat him with
dignity and respect, but he would still be an outsider to them. If
he went int here and started throwing his weight around, you'd see
quite quickly how inclusive the community is.

> So even though you have broken that "community" into smaller
> groups, those papers have not lost their common theme, and can
> still be commonly refered to by that theme.

Communities can be made of smaller communities. I'm not convinced
that communities can be made of 10,000 individuals though.

> A lot of what this discusion breaks down to is semantics

I once got in a shouting match with someone over whether SimCity was
a game or a toy. :)

> I believe that what you are talking about Sean is more of a
> "circle of friends" than a "community".  A circle of friends can
> only get so big before managing all of the relationships gets too
> big.  But a community only needs a strong bond that brings people
> together for a common purpose.

I would not be above calling a "community" a social circle. But the
matter of facts here is that there are communities of communities -
circles made from smaller circles. It goes top to bottom. You can
not have a small community that includes a large one. Boxes within
boxes within boxes.

The only difference is that each leaf of the tree can be on multiple
branches at the same time. It's quantum nature :) This complicates
things because two people can be part of two separate communities,
but they know each other personally, so... what's that mean to the
bigger picture?

It may be better to think of each leaf as a community of
individuals, rather than the individuals themselves.

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev