The Life and Death of Online Gaming Communities:

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The Life and Death of Online Gaming Communities

• A Look at Guilds in World of Worcraft
• By Nicolas Ducheneaut, Nicholas Yee, Eric
  Nickell, and Robert J. Moore
• Presented by Noah Abrahamson

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Authors

• Nicolas Ducheneaut
• Researcher at Palo Alto Research Center
• Focus on Software and Technology that enhances
  social interactions
• Currently working on his project entitled PlayOn
  The Social Dimensions of Multiplayer Online Games
• Hobbies include Sailing and Restoring Boats with
  his wife

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• Nicholas Yee
• Researcher at PARC
• Research interests include social interaction
  and self-representation in virtual environments
• Research background includes online games and
  Immersive Virtual Environments.
• Outside interests include photography and logic
  puzzles.

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• Eric Nickell
• Computer Scientest at PARC
• Game Developer and Creates Research Software
  Prototypes
• Has experienced immersive language and culture
  learning in Southeast Asia
• Long term interests include algorithms and the
  'process that large groups of software developers
  create high-quality software while enjoying it'.

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• Robert J. Moore
• Sociologist
• Specializes in the micro-analysis of social
  interaction and practice in virtual worlds and in
  real life

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The Problem

• Why do prosperous guilds in World of Warcraft
  (WoW), survive?
• Can we explain the survival and growth of Guilds
  using structural variables?

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Methods

• WoW was designed with an 'Open Interface'
• Gives players the ability to develop custom
  applications to enhance gameplay.
• Authors developed an application to collect
  player data

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Data Collected

• Character data including
• Name
• Level
• Guilded and guild belonging to
• World Location
• Character race and class
• Server character is on
• Date information was collected

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Data Analysis

• Collected data was used to generate Guild
  Rosters, and create world snapshots to monitor
  guild survival rate.
• Developed a Guild Structure
• Organization and Survival
• Organization and Player Advancement

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Guild Structure

• Size Players belonging to the guild
• Density Level of social connectivity
• Centrality A metric based on connections a
  member has / total possible connections within
  the guild
• Max Subgraph Size Largest possible subgroup in
  the guild
• Mass count The number of subgroups in the guild
  that are greater than 3 members
• Level of players in guild
• Average time spent together in the guild

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Guild Structure cont.
Guild Structure

• Average time spent on planned instance runs.
• Class Balance in the guild

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Properties of Surviving Guilds

• Balanced guilds
• Bigger guilds
• More level diversity
• Has small subgroups
• Good member connectivity

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Properties of Guilds With Positve Player
Advancement.

• Smaller Guilds
• Large Subgroups
• Players are on at the same time
• Has many small subgroups
• Balanced classes
• A large range of levels in the guild is favorable

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Conclusions

• Possible that the maximum size of a successful
  guild is around 35 members.
• If Players had guild data available to them,
  guilds would have a better possibility to
  stabalize and survive.

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Related Work

• These authors wrote an earlier paper about basic
  player interaction in WoW
• Studies have been done on persistant online
  communities i.e. Message Boards
• Studies involving group interactions of people in
  social settings
• Dunbar number Mean group size for humans is 150

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Discussion

• Importance
• Credibility
• Novelty
• Applicability
• Generalizability
• Scalability
• Assumptions
• Redability