My notes:
Interesting talk by T.L. Taylor Center for Computer Game Research
MMOG massively multiplayer online game
Ultima Online 1997
Everquest 1999
WoW 2004 (Europe 2005)
Most of her examples comes from Everquest
Social spaces. An interessant mix of on- and offline contacts.
The work of a game community is about teaching people how to play the game = it is a work of socializing - how do you become a player and a good player?
It happens mainly through guilds. Trust, responsability, reputation. Hundredes of people work on managing this organization. The guilds go through the game to find tools to manage the social life.
Get socialized in the game and participate in the structures.
Many players in a guild but they are often connected through off-line connections too.
People have multiple realtionships to different characters. They have different characters and some of them they share characters with others though they are not alowed to share a subscription.
Collaboration and teams.
WoW: 40 people coordinated in a guild through collaboration and teamwork. 3rd party websites and databses that change the game in important ways. it becomes fundamental to how it is playable - fanfiction art - creative participatory ways -
user produced modification, tips, databases changed the official look - players change the products in deep ways.
How do we go from the artifact that you bought off the shelf? There are a lot of other things that have changed the game into what it is now.
WoW really opened up their UI.
Communities are often in disagreement of what they should be doing.
massive participation, co-creation of spaces, huge formal organisations - intellectual property: who is the designer and who is the player?
Sell your avatar on eBay - but the gamecompany says you don’t own it - but the player sees it as his embodiment. The line is drawn….
IGE - hire people to go harvest gold. Big debate over what to do and not. Everquest - people used it for writing fan-fiction. Sony did not want it.
Level 1 dwarfs met at the Iron Castle in WoW to protest and the company made a message like “Go Home”! because they overloaded the site by being in one place at the same time. Some players were banned from the game for a couple of hours.
Do we have to think about this as a public space?
Difference btw whatt the designer thinks the players should do and the players actually want to do. And do…..
Try to make the distinction btw work and play.
End is defined by the player - there is really no end. When players reached the technical end - they still play for the social part to help others and find new things. People tend not to close their accounts - they keep them. = continue to pay subscription.
Teenagers learn management skills or….?
Examples of guilds travelling through WoW killing all “farmers” = 3rd world gamers working on training characters to a higher level for rich westeners……..
A brief history of Reboot
