Responds to Epistemic Games post: My replies

My replies to all the responds to my Epistemic Games post are below:

To Abel
Let’s consider the massive online gaming now in the market, I believe the guild leaders would in a way restrict the number of players therefore, it will not lead to total chaos. What do you think?

In Granado Espada, every faction (or guild) can have a max of 100 members. Usually faction will try to recruit to the max but I have seen factions that prefer to remain small so that their members can forge close ties and bond more with one another (it is difficult to do this if you have so many people in a faction). I remember reading a paper from Nick Yee who quote the work of Christopher Allen who suggest that in an online environment the cognitive limit for any individual to hold a reasonably stable relationship with others is around 45 - 50 people. I have also seen one person factions but for reasons which I don't know. I am assuming that these factions are new and are recruiting members. Said that, our idiosyncrasies also prevail in MMOG and so you may still find people who choose to remain as one man faction for reasons not related to game concerns. For example, in Granado Espada, if a faction have completed the faction quest, the faction leader will get a halo each for all playing characters. But these halos are pretty unique because it do not hover over the characters' head, but circle around their waist. Awesome and they glow in navy blue colour. So it's kinda of cool to show them off to people so that they will know that you are a faction leader. ^^

As to chaos management, you will be surprise to find how faction organize themselves by enhancing the social structure designed by games designers and developers. One example is where they created sub-teams within their faction with each teams having their own leader and assistants. Still, by no means these structures are capable to ward off chaos in times of war if players cannot commit to the roles and duties assigned to them (And MS talks about this when her brother mentions about commitments as leaders in a guild - the need to be punctual and virtually present.

Some of you seem to be saying that the members are having a common goal. Could it be possible that some players just wanted to help others to achieve their goals; hence arguably, they are not having the same goals. In addition, I believe different people may also have other self-vested goals. Therefore, I would like to suggest that yes it is a given fact that all of them have goals. However, it is not a given premise that they must have the same goal. What do you think?

Oh yes, goals are contextually bounded. You can have shared goals when engaged in a colony war but shared goals can also overlap with personal goals. If the aim of both type of goals do not conflict with each other, by all means you can work on them all. But if they do, then you are face with an ill-problem scenario. Playing involve many decision making processes that, in many instances, warrant higher order thinking. For this case, you need to weigh your options and choose one that suit to serve your interest in one area but at the same time does not jeopardize you position badly in another area.

To MS
You mentioned about shared practices and how rightfully so. James Gee talks about shared practices in the same breath when he mentions 'affinity group'. Similar ideas to COP stuff we have learned so far. So communities exist within and around MMOG and one of the affordances of this interesting feature of MMOG for research is that you can study community dynamics of large scale population (in the hundred thousands if not millions) of people. Interesting. BTW, there is no better way to understand about MMOG than to play it. Trust me. : )