World of Warcraft: PARC PlayOn Blog Data

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Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has recently created a blog which features some interesting statistics on the social behaviors of World of Warcraft players.  Their data comes directly from the game servers and provides answers to many questions about the behaviors of players:

PARC PlayOn Blog – WoW Server-Side Player Data Every day, millions of players interact with each other in MMOs. Imagine the gold-mine of social data that is accumulating on the server-side. It's a pity that it's so hard to get access to that data. This is changing though with games like World of Warcraft that allow third-party census mods. Several researchers at PARC have devised an automated system that cycles through 3 servers for both Alliance and Horde and performs a census every 15 minutes. This longitudinal data provides a way to answer interesting questions about online social behavior. For example: - Does guild size vary across server types? - Do players in guilds spend more time in the game than those not in guilds? - What percentage of players are grouped at any given moment? For the answers to these questions and more, come visit us at the new PlayOn Blog: http://blogs.parc.com/playon/ Nick Yee

nissa_red

I want to ask, since no one else has yet : what is the point ?

People don't group in WoW before level 60. People that are in guilds play for a longer time online because they have buddies to play with. Doesn't it confirm what we already knew ?

WoW has a poor community spirit because it lacks of human interaction (wanting to favor soloers too much). Only a good guild makes it worthwhile past a certain level. Nothing worth spending thousands of € or $ on, just read the gaming forums

nickyee

Nissa - The data actually runs counter to your intuitions. For example, players in guilds DO NOT play more than players not in guilds. And that in a nutshell is why we're doing this research. Because our intuitions about social behavior in online communities may be incorrect.

Nick

Anofalye

Nice starting info.

 

Fun to realize warriors solo more then druids, paladins, rogue or shamans.

 

Info about guilds is general however.  A level 60 in a guild of level 30 is obvsiously wrongly flagged as guilded, yet to a level 60 in such a low level guild, he could be guildless as to what been guilded usually suppose.  Also, guilds of soloers, guilds that dont raids, guild that focus on raiding, been all focused together is a mistake.  Afterlife have very little to share in comon with ''Nuggets of Justice''.

 

But nice start nonetheless.

 

You would also always assign someone like me as ''guilded''.  Which again is a mistake, since for me, my guildtag only mean others guilds stop harassing me and it prevent endless pointless offers.  I would remain guildless, if it was not for all the annoying tells trying to recruit you.

 

My friend list is what matter, my guildlist is useless and pointless, in case of a draw I will favorise folks sharing the same guildtag, but only in a case of a draw, and this seldom happen.  If the right class is available, I will group the right class.  And if I prefer someone who is not guilded with me, I will group him before my ''fellow guildmates''.  I have very little sense of belonging for what others persons choices are, I have my friend list, and this is what I use mostly.  And if a guildleader ask me to group folks in my guild before folks I enjoy, he get 1 less person in his guild right away.    If some dorks are in my guild, I wont group them, I will solo, group strangers or log, but I will not group them, just forget it(I wont raid with them either, so I automatically become a non-raider at the first dork that join the guild, I wont bear them).

 

Again, ''Guilded'' is pretty vague and many folks have many differents meaning for what it mean.  For some person it barely mean 1 chat room(which they turn off at their own convenience).  For other it mean an online family with who you do everything.  A lot of grey zones.  It vary a lot, and peoples will often just nod and let you believe you are family rather then bring you back on earth like I am doing now, because it can benefit them if you think more highly of them, so they just nod and let you going on in your false beliefs...and then they guild hop and you are infuriated because you feel family betray you, while in fact, he was never family except in your head.