The significance of a social network is prevalent in our everyday lives, as well as in the cyber world. Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is one of the most popular genres of online games played by millions of people worldwide. People can build up unique relationships with other players in this virtual world, and enjoy the game in multiple aspects. I will use a particular MMORPG called Eden Eternal Online to give specific examples for this post.
As stated from Michael Szell?s article, Measuring social dynamics in a massive multiplayer online game, Eden Eternal Online also offers three major ways for players to communicate with each other. First of all, several chat channels are created for players in the same party, guild, or at the similar levels. Players choose to use particular chat channels for specific groups. Secondly, forum from the official website promotes the players to have thorough discussions about the game and share tips. Lastly, players can send private messages to a single individual, viewable to only the sender and the receiver. This method of communication is usually used when people negotiate prices to buy or sell items.
Due to the characteristics of MMORPGs, players have to complete quests and go to dungeons with other players in order to receive better rewards. Therefore, they are destined to meet more people and eventually develop some relationships with other players as they get more involved in the game. In most MMORPGs, players can add people to their own friend list. In Eden Eternal Online, once a player adds another player to his friend list, he can easily bring up that list in order to check his friend?s level and current location in the game. This way, it is much easier to see what his friends are doing, and send private messages to gather up. As Szell has noted, the friend list is ?completely private, meaning that no one except the marking and marked players have information about ties between them.? Contrary to many online social networking services such as Facebook or Myspace, it is impossible for the second degree neighbors or the number of friends another player has. This policy prevents players from adding others on their friend lists just to impress how many friends they have, and actually enables them to build deeper relationships with their friends.
Szell also claims that the strong triadic closure property holds true in MMORPGs. In the textbook, the strong triadic closure property is defined as ?if the node has strong ties to two neighbors, then these neighbors must have at least a weak tie between them.? I believe that this is possible because most players only add other players as their friends when they think they already have a solid friendship. When someone is registered under some player?s friend list, they are likely to form party to go to dungeons or participate in special game events. Since most of these activities involve more than just two people, they inevitably will invite other friends on their friend lists to the party. After spending several hours together, trying to complete quests and fight in dungeons, many players quickly develop strong camaraderie with other members in the party.
This is the charm of playing MMORPGs. The more difficult and time consuming a quest is, it requires more players to form groups and encourages them to develop tight companionship. This virtual social network, built from the necessity of clearing a quest, later becomes the motivation for people to keep playing and enjoy the game to the fullest.
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-Harusol
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Source:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378873310000316
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Source: http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2012/09/23/the-power-of-social-network-in-mmorpg/
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