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

[Sean Howard]

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

> But what I don't agree with is that the top-level community can
> safely be ignored.

Not ignored. It just shouldn't be the focal point. You still have
some control over how that top-level community is formed, though the
larger the playerbase is, the less control you have over it. I'm
suggesting that by concentrating on immediate communities and making
an effort to shape those, perhaps they will shape the top-level
community for you.

> I agree that most of the time a group will move on due to the game
> getting old, but what I was putting forth is that these groups,
> without a feeling of connection to the game, would leave all at
> once and never look back.

Right. And I'm putting forth that if they ALL leave, then their
community is tight and well bonded - more to each other than to the
game. I see that as a positive thing if you MMOG allows them to get
that close in the first place.

> I have seen it before in communities were a group that has
> connections to multiple game communities will completely dump a
> community if they feel they have no relevence in that community.

Whatever reason they say they have may not be the real reason at
all. You gotta read between the lines. Most likely, one guild member
- a very important and well regarded one - wants to try out a new
MMORPG. A few of his closest friends decide to go with him. Their
friends go as well. And friends of those friends. They leave because
the social structure of the group is changed - only one person has
to leave for the entire guild to shift around.

They'll quote a thousand different reasons why they are leaving, but
the main reason is because they can't continue the same game under
the same social structure they previously had. I find it strange
that a guild can be on a server for a year and THEN decide to leave
for reasons that have existed since they started.

> How about this scenario (again using A Tale In The Desert).  A
> player has found a technique that allows him to advance rapidly
> within the game, the rest of the community votes and determines
> that this technique is unfair and outlaws it.  Now this player has
> been deeply affected by the 10,000+ players that voted.  Does this
> constitute a 10,000 person community?

I'd say that is a form of democratic government - not community, but
used to control communities. I still think that his actions cannot
affect all 10,000 people, and those 10,000 people can't individually
affect him. It's kind of like the US - the numbers are so great that
voting means so little that it doesn't matter if you do it or not. I
mean, I'm from Florida, but my vote wouldn't have been counted in
the 2000 election because I was overseas at the time, and they only
count absentee ballets in certain situations... even in the 2000
election, they counted overseas military votes but not expatriates.

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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