Making virtual worlds more lifelike

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Kramer said SOE's community relations team devotes a lot of time to communicating with players, especially "influencers," or top players around whom groups form, to make sure there's give and take between the players and the company.

But much of the source behind the problems, the PlayOn team argued, is that publishers may not know that much about who their paying customers are.

"It's incredible the palette of skills you need to design these spaces in the right way."

--Nicolas Ducheneaut, PARC research team

"It's surprising how little the publishers know about their players," said Ducheneaut, "what makes them tick and how to get them to come back and play more regularly. As you try to steal customers away (from other publishers' games), you have to know what makes them tick."

Moore added that many MMO publishers don't do a very good job of analyzing the player data they do capture.

Kramer doesn't dispute that notion.

"It's surprisingly true," he said, speaking for SOE. "We can know a lot about our players, but there are specific things we can track...but we have to really go digging for it."

In any case, said Moore, the crux of the socialization design problem comes down to fundamental issues with what he called "interactional realism," or the embodiments, gestures, methods of talking, eyes and facial expressions of 3D avatars in most MMOs.

And to Ducheneaut, it's not all that surprising that MMO publishers would fall short on some of the socialization elements that could make their games and the environments in them seem more lifelike.

"It's incredible the palette of skills you need to design these spaces in the right way," he said.

Among the skills that would be helpful would be urban planning, sociology and politics, fields of expertise game companies are not brimming with.

Meanwhile, one spark of hope the team has identified is that pieces of many individual games get it right. That means a social space in one game may work as it should, while the facial expressions in another may be very realistic.

"It's an exciting time in the industry," Moore said, "because they're discovering best practices."

Still, the team is betting its countless hours of research that there is money to be made in instructing MMO publishers how to overcome myriad problems with the way players interact with one another, and even with their own avatars, in these 3D environments.

Ultimately, the team thinks it can show MMO publishers that hidden in the massive amounts of data that can be collected from within the games are the keys to making better games--ones that players will want to come back to again and again.

"We know these companies are analyzing their data," said Nickell, a computer scientist in PARC's computer science lab. "But what is it that makes an MMO an MMO? The socialization. And we have yet to meet a company that (does serious social analysis on the data it collects)."

[freemarket--2008]

Not chat rooms...

Obviously, these guys haven't spent much time playing these MMOs. The main reason WoW is so successful is the large amount of casual player content which reduces the amount of 'down-time' and thus it has less socializing. There is the occasional banter, but for the most part, people are not there to chat.

A 3-D chat room on the other hand would likely benefit from their research.

[umbrae]

True...

Having natural facial expressions and emotes are wonderful and great. But over 90% of an MMO's "fun" time is spent explorering content and is usually "zoomed out" so facial expressions would never be seen.

Second Life may be able to use this, and other Social games, but MMORPGs and other games where being social is just a by-product of playing the game, this would just not add much value.

Ask me whether I want a new dungeon or the ability to wink; COME ON... a new dungeon of course!

[ctbcctbc]

these guys have no experience with mmorpgs

Players are not interested in chatting in rooms with more realistic facial motions and gestures. It's one of the reasons why mmorpgs like WoW are more popular than simulations like Second Life.

Players are interested in gaining social recognition, through acquisition of the rare sword, that unique spell, etc. Social bonds between individuals come later, through hours of collaborative game play.

I played a Paladin in WoW up to lvl 60, and acquired most of my end-game gear. I didn't develop social relationships with other people until late in the endgame when it was the only way to obtain the gear I needed. The perks from social interaction can not be used as incentive to excite and interest players. They are simply a necessity for gaining individual goals in the end-game!

[elr01998]

webcams and authentically reactive avatars

I'm sure at some point someone in the industry has had an idea like this (and probably started implementing it), and if not I'm certainly in no position to profit from it anyways so I'll toss it out here. How cool would it be if with a webcam and some cleverly written software the facial expressions and posture of your avatars in these mmorpgs could actually reflect your own, sitting in front of the computer. I'm sure one curious side effect would be that I'd become more conscious of the fact that I'm constantly hunched forward towards the screen. It would create a sort of feedback loop and, to me at least, make the game much, much more interesting and meaningful.

I'd love to see this feature start appearing in the next year or so, and I don't honestly think it would be that hard (for a software company with massive resources) to accomplish. I can't wait.

Peace,
ephraim ross