[MUD-Dev] SOC ANNOUNCE: Research project into Social Interactions in MMORPG field, need help

[PMooney at peddie.org]

Hello, and thanks for reading my first post!  Here's the deal: I'm
attempting to put a research project together, aimed at social
interactions in virtual worlds.  See, I belong to a selective
program at my school, called Summer Signature Experiences (Summer
Sig, or SSE, for short).  Basically, it allows students to design
their own project for summer break, research & live it, and come
back in the fall of next year with a report.

Well, I've been interested in the MMORPG scene for a long time, ever
since I first saw Everquest at my local CompUSA a good five years
ago.  With the release of Star Wars Galaxies in the summer, I was
enormously excited and immediately bought the game (rushing from
store to store that fateful day until I finally found a small
software vendor in a mall somewhere).  I had been following Galaxies
for years, indeed, I had participated with the online community,
creating my own Player Association, or guild; The Protectorate,
which has since ballooned to some 80 members or so.

As I played, I became increasingly interested in the social aspect
of these games.  Having played Everquest before, and watched friends
play several other MMORPGs, including Dark Age of Camelot and Final
Fantasy XI, I realized that this new electronic frontier is an
extremely important progression of mainstream entertainment;
providing a method of contact between any number of players.  The
dynamic, random nature of a constantly shifting online world allows
for any number of connections to occur, allowing people who may have
never come face to face to develop friendships and rivalries online.
This interaction, compounded by the presence of guilds, Player
vs. Player combat, a virtual economy & inter-reliance between
character classes, and monthly generated content, allowed Galaxies
to present the most detailed, consistent, and overall believable
virtual universe that I've ever seen.

As I slowly developed my hypotheses, I realized that I had to know
more, that I needed to experience firsthand how the expert
programmers and developers craft such a product.  I joined Summer
Signature Experiences to explore these connections, to search out
some way to contact SOE and organize some kind of project where I
could observe the ongoing creation of content and online worlds, and
the psychology between these sorts of virtual interactions.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck at the moment - all I can get to is a bunch
of automated message services or tech support emails.  I suppose I
need help, perhaps some contact information if anyone's willing to
help, badgering or just general advice...because, at this point, my
project has ground to a halt, and it would be a shame if I had to
cancel it.
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