For the last couple of years I and thousands of others have been engaged in synchronous CMC via a variety of MOOs .
Players can communicate easily with each other in real time.
But I soon learned that the social vs. technical is a false distinction. On MOOs I became socialized by learning a number of socio- technical things. It's good to see you again. I worked out host computer issues involving pagelengths, word wrap, and split screens. I jumped into conversations and began to learn the discourse conventions.