Making Virtual Worlds More Lifelike

Ever wish that your WoW avatar could reflect your mood…like happiness when you get an item you want or anger if you get duped by another gamer…in other words, don’t you just want to see a more realistic face for your avatar that would make communication with other players better?

Well if you want that, then a research conducted by a group of researchers from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) may just be the answer to your prayers. The team, consisting of Bob Moore, Nicolas Ducheneaut and Eric Nickell, have spent roughly three years studying the social dimensions and the symbolic interactionisms within MMORPGs to have a better understanding of the design challenges behind creating a satisfying face-to-face avatar and other interactions in such environments.

The study, according to sociologist Mr. Moore, is to analyze and potentially develop systems that publishers would pay for to make their games more attractive to players. The problem it seems is that the thinking of most publishers is focused more on content; in the sense that game development is spent more on content, since content is what players want.

More of the article after the jump!

Ever wish that your WoW avatar could reflect your mood…like happiness when you get an item you want or anger if you get duped by another gamer…in other words, don’t you just want to see a more realistic face for your avatar that would make communication with other players better?

Well if you want that, then a research conducted by a group of researchers from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) may just be the answer to your prayers. The team, consisting of Bob Moore, Nicolas Ducheneaut and Eric Nickell, have spent roughly three years studying the social dimensions and the symbolic interactionisms within MMORPGs to have a better understanding of the design challenges behind creating a satisfying face-to-face avatar and other interactions in such environments.

The study, according to sociologist Mr. Moore, is to analyze and potentially develop systems that publishers would pay for to make their games more attractive to players. The problem it seems is that the thinking of most publishers is focused more on content; in the sense that game development is spent more on content, since content is what players want.

The group acknowledges that it may be hard to convince publishers to change fundamental design principles of existing games in order to improve socialization. But should publishers do so, it may well make worthwhile the countless hours the team has spent collecting and analyzing data about the ways people play MMO.

Mr. Moore pointed out an example of an opportunity to amp the socialization aspect in MMOs; The cantina in Star Wars Galaxies. The problem, Moore suggested, is that in the end the cantina wasn’t designed with enough attention to making it the sort of spot players want to gather. He didn’t detail what about it made it less appealing than it could be.

Mr. Ducheneaut also added that publishers know very little of their gamers. He says that “it’s surprising how little the publishers know about their players…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.”

The group also adds that spicing up the socialization aspect in MMOs is a gargantuan task that would require skills and knowledge of academic disciplines such as sociology, urban planning and politics. The problem is that publishers aren’t actually rich in urban planners and sociologists because they focus too much on other things.

According to Mr. Nickell, “we know these companies are analyzing their data…But what is it that makes an MMO an MMO? The socialization. And we have yet to meet a company that (gets that).”

Personally, I believe that the world is one big harlequinade or stage play. Every day, we present a different part of ourselves to our social audiences i.e. family, friends, co-gamers, and others…it may not be the real us, but we present what we think is socially acceptable to boost our own egos, we undergo massive impression managements to exude an acceptable and even high reputation to our social circles.

I think a more lifelike virtual world is a good thing – because it enhances the stage where we present our acts which could lead to the utopian aspiration of social acceptance or to the simple social process of making new friends.

Via CNET