Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge: Basic Books, 2002.
While reading Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the wireless, connected world he envisions and the worlds game developers have been creating with MMOs for some time. Most of my observations from reading therefore apply to MMOs, ironically, more than mobile.
MMOs As Testbeds for Augmented Reality
Rheingold writes of hypothetical futures where mobile phone wielders interact in new ways. The technology to enable these interactions has, in many cases, not yet arrived. However, many of the scenarios he discusses could be simulated in MMOs. In my own life, for instance, I experienced location-aware collaboration with friends and strangers first through MMOs. That collaboration is just entering my real world now through cell phones. Similarly, I receive status information about group members in MMOs, like what kind of assistance they need or can provide and how quickly. In virtual combat, I can tell who needs healing. Even just on AIM with buddy lists and away messages I can quickly tell who needs consoling or needs someone with whom to share good news. This kind of information will become more common and more integrated into everyday life through cell phones. Before this future arrives more fully, we can experiment with what it might be liked by implementing variations in MMOs. We can also look to location-aware, status-based collaboration mediated by cell phones for inspiration about interactions we could take back into MMOs. Rheingold's vision of the future of smart mobs certainly stimulated my imagination for MMO design.
Technological Convergence
These separate upgrades in capabilities don't just add to each other; mobile, multimedia, location-sensitive characteristics multiply each other's usefulness. (xv)
Some people look at technological convergence as an unnatural marriage of unrelated capabilities. Why does my cell phone need a camera? I already have a camera. However, having the camera and the phone in the same device doesn't just enable convenient access to old uses, it enables entirely new activities and abilities: videoconferencing, picture messaging, citizen journalism, motion sensitivity, etc. Sometimes it makes sense to add more features into a cell phone just to see what people will do with them.
Connecting People
The young women they observed casually use text messages to say "goodnight," "good morning," or even "I'm bored." (5)
People don't send these messages because they are communicating vital information, they send them to feel connected. It's worth looking at what kinds of features in MMOs could enable players to feel more connected to the game and to each other even when away from their computers.
One of Wellman's claims is that "we find community in networks, not groups." He explained that "a group is a special type of network: densely-knit (most people are directly connected), tightly-bounded (most ties stay within the densely-knit cluster), and multi-stranded (most ties contain many role relationships)," and he challenged conventional thinking about how people cluster socially:
Although people often view the world in terms of groups, they function in networks. In networked societies, boundaries are permeable, interactions are with diverse others, connections switch between multiple networks, and hierarchies can be flatter and recursive." (56-7)
Wow, and most MMOs, do very little to enable networks, focusing instead on groups. For instance, wouldn't it be useful for players to be able to market their unique skills to all players? If a guild needs to fill a slot for a raid, maybe they need a healer who can ward against Fear, they should be able to go to a classifieds listing or social network of the freelance services of highly-rated players. They should be able to browse and search profiles, evaluating potential hires based on experience (dungeons completed), gear, success/failure ratios, ratings from past teammates, current online/off-line status, and asking price. The fact that there is no easy way for guilds to fill these holes means there is no viable role for freelancers. Thus, groups remain connected with each other and more disconnected than necessary from relevant strangers.
Will you be able to use the capabilities of smart mob technologies to know everything you need to know about the world you walk through and to connect with those groups who could benefit you? Will you be allowed to cooperate with anyone your wearable computer helps you choose? Or will others know everything they need to know about you through the sensors you encounter and information you broadcast? (87)
In WoW, players spend lots of time searching for simple, redundant characters like wolves (because quests send them after wolves). People are more interesting than wolves, yet the game severely limits what information players can see about each other. The only things that WoW let's you see about other players are basic information like level, class, race, and equipment. Considering the game is full of players who enjoy navigating social networks on the web, we should make sifting and analyzing data about players more of the focus.
Point your device at a billboard, and see clips of the film or music it advertises, and then buy tickets or download a copy on the spot. (95)
In a modern-day or science-fiction MMO, billboards could advertise actual in-game sales. They could link to a store or auction house. Just like a real economy, players might pay a daily fee for the use of the billboard space to advertise their wares or recruit for their guild. This might be disruptive to WoW's fantasy atmosphere, but it could work well for other games.
Another experiment [...] mediates social encounters by comparing personal profiles automatically and alerting participants in a face-to-face encounter of mutual interests or common friends that they might not know about (a recommendation system for strangers). (172-3)
In WoW, a common interest could be a shared quest or grouping preference. WoW has locations outside most dungeons where players can register as "looking for group," in the hopes of being matched with other players on quests in that dungeon. One of the interactions I'm imagining for mobile devices that extend WoW is dueling with other players in close physical proximity. My phone could notify me that another player is nearby, and we could duel in a way that did not depend on our characters' levels. We would get experience or Honor for the encounter, limited to a certain amount within a certain time period.
Collective Surveillance
A user could access the server computer and add or receive information about specific geographic locations. (92)
If the day comes when millions of people go about their lives while wearing sensor-equipped wearable computers, the population itself could do, collective surveillance: Big Everybody. (187)
In WoW, players create and share location-based data through websites (thottbot) and interface modifications. They share quest tips, the location and frequency of items dropped by felled monsters, the difficulty of play in each location, and more. Blizzard facilitated this by making WoW's interface accessible, but they could have designed even more sharing of information between players into the game. If I'm searching for herbs or minerals along the terrain and one of my teammates sees one, why can't the game notify me directly? It would be like a security system in a prison: a disturbance in any part of the facility is perceived by a guard or a camera or some other sensor and relayed to central security. Players should be sensors for each other.
Cornucopia of the Commons
(Paraphrasing) Cornucopia of the Commons: users contribute the same resource they consume. (118)
Thottbot is a cornucopia of the Commons. Some players just go to the website and consume information, but players who want the information to appear in their interface in the game generally contribute to the thottbot database by automatically uploading information from their play session. wowecon is another example where players upload the auctions they've seen personally in the game's auction house to a website for everyone to analyze. Dueling with another player nearby in physical space is a third example, since the dueling interaction that I consume is the same interaction that I produce and the more people who partake in this activity the easier it is to find partners.
You do a favor for others because you know that one day they will do it for you. The role of the agent in a negotiation is to evaluate the value of favors and keep scores. (173)
This is the way some religions work. Do the right thing because God is watching and you'll get credit. If games had more social currency, they would encourage more greedy altruism. Some MMOs have experimented with mentoring relationships where high-level players have incentives to help low-level players (EverQuest II ). We should see more of this.
Space and Time
A few of the most important questions about quality of life address ways that mobile and pervasive technology usage affects interpersonal relationships, the way individuals experience time, and the vitality of public spaces. (191)
You could always judge a popular, active server by going to the capital city and seeing how many people are milling about. WoW creates vibrant public places in convenient meeting spots. However, it attempts to create a sense of space and time by slowing most travel to realistic speeds. The magnitude of this space frequently hinders me from collaborating with other players who are too far away. And, the time passage that's more meaningful to me is when I'm waiting on people. Whether it's meeting a friend online at a certain time or creating an auction and checking back three hours later to see whether it sold, the player interaction makes the time passage meaningful. Arbitrary 15 minute journeys within the game do not add much meaning.
