# A Study of Interaction Patterns and Awareness Design Elements in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game

Authors: Tiffany Y. Tang; Cheung Yiu Man; Chu Pok Hang; Lam Shiu Cheuk; Chan Wai Kwong; Yiu Chung Chi; Ho Ka Fai; Sit Kam
Journal: International Journal of Computer Games Technology
 (2008)

---

## Abstract

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) have been known
to create rich and versatile social worlds for thousands of
millions of players to participate. As such, various game
elements and advance technologies such as artificial
intelligence have been applied to encourage and facilitate
social interactions in these online communities, the key to
the success of MMOGs. However, there is a lack of studies
addressing the usability of these elements in games. In this
paper, we look into interaction patterns and awareness design
elements that support the awareness inLastWorld
and FairyLand. Experimental results obtained
through both in-game experiences and player interviews reveal
that not all awareness tools (e.g., an in-game map) have been
fully exploited by players. In addition, those players who are
aware of these tools are not satisfied with them.
Our findings suggest that awareness-oriented tools/channels
should be easy to interpret and rich in conveying
“knowledge” so as to reduce players-cognitive
overload. These findings of this research recommend
considerations of early stage MMOG design.


---

## Body

## 1. Introduction

Interacting online with people from
throughout the world is a daily occurrence for millions of Internet players,
yet most do it with little perspective on the virtual identity they are
projecting. It is generally accepted now that the Internet and online games
provide a tremendous opportunity for new forms of entertainment. It is
especially true for MMOG characterized by its ability to enable thousands of
players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the
Internet. Once a player enters the game world, he can engage in a variety of
activities with other players who might be sitting at the other part of the
globe. Hence, one of the most foremost goals of these MMOGs is to offer a rich
social platform for players to interact and socialize as Will Wright, creator
of the block-buster game “The SIMS,” put it: “In some sense, what we are really building with these games are communities.
That is our primary thing” [1]. In this regard, awareness is known as one
of the most discriminating factors contributing to the success of the social
environments. It is defined as “the
knowledge of the presence of other people, including their interactions and
other activities” [2]. Generally, being aware of each other’s presence
(including the workspace environment, their actions, and the manipulating
artifacts) provides a clue for their own action in the situated environment,
and might guide their own actions accordingly [3]. It is especially imperative
in densely populated online virtual communities, where people tend to interact
with each other to weave a rather complex, yet, fruitful web of relationship [4].
Careful incorporation of awareness tools in these online spaces thus becomes
more essential to foster both collaboration and competition. In the
human-computer interaction area, a number of works have been devoted to study
awareness, including how to make various awareness tools in a wide variety of applications [3, 5–7] and
in MMOGs [5, 8–10]. In fact, MMOGs have attracted more attention recently as a
test bed to study awareness and social interaction patterns in some high
profile CHI conferences [5, 9]. Unfortunately, very few of them probe into
this issue from players’ perspective, that is, whether or not, players have made
the most out of these tools to facilitate the in-group and interpersonal
interactions, which motivates our study here. Particularly, in this paper, we report
out findings on one popular MMOG called the LastWorld (available
at http://www.lastworld.com/)
and compare our results with that of Fairyland,
on evaluating the usability of these tools to raise awareness and encourage
players to interact.In the next section, we will discuss
previous study on MMOGs, with a particular focus on how MMOGs act as social sphere.
We will then give brief overviewLastWorld including how they have been designed to raise social awareness and encourage
group interactions. We then report the experimental results on LastWorld in Section 3. A comparison of LastWorld and Fairyland on the design efforts to support social interactions will
be provided in Section 4; the design implication will also be pointed out. We conclude
this paper by discussing our next step in augmenting our research following the
path.


## 2. MMOGs as a “Social Sphere”

### 2.1. Social Awareness: Some Background

In a distributed, socially populated environment, it is imperative for members to be “aware” of each
other and the environment, in terms of their many
facets, among them, the information about each other's actions, the individual
environment, and the state of the manipulated artifacts. For instance, in
distributed document editing environment, this awareness information can range
from who are the active editors, on what part of the document each are working,
why the document is being edited, and so on. Game designers have implemented a
variety of awareness tools to allow players to formulate general as well as
specific awareness of their group mates, or even counterparts in an attempt to
execute their actions accordingly. For example, a map can show player position,
while the name on top of players reveals player identity to others. The work in
[10] summarizes the workspace awareness elements and categorizes them into two
major types based on their temporal aspect: those related to the present and the past.


### 2.2. Motivation of Our Work

One notable issue related to awareness is that the tools to support
awareness should bereadily accessible, easy to interpret, and rich in convey “knowledge” in order to reduce
players’ cognitive information overload. It is especially true in real-time
multiuser virtual environment like MMOGs, where players rely heavily on the
information to explore, when there might be overcrowded information available
on the screen. For instance, imagine
a group of players collaboratively engage in a fighting mission at a remote
island; valuable information related to it includes individual players’ skills,
energies left, location, and identifying the approaching enemies and so on, as
shown in Table 1. Hence, when the information becomes  overloaded, players
have to quickly identify those valuable or in some cases, they even need to choose
from among the various awareness sources, in order to gather this information
and make a quick assessment of the environment and situations. One extreme is
that the information might be too coarse, thus, cannot be used instantly to
assist players. The other extreme is that there might be too much information
which makes players difficult to spot the most relevant to their current task. Either
of these two cases can greatly affect players’ perceptions of the environments.
To our knowledge, very few studies addressed this issue, which motivates our
study here. The findings of our in-game experiences and player interviews agree
with our worries in that players, in fact, are not satisfied with the awareness
tools, and pointed out that they are sometimes too busy to compile the
information and formulate their presence in relation to the environment and
other players.Table 1
A brief summery of awareness and interaction design elements inLastWorld.
Tools/approaches/tasksInformation elementsSocial
awarenessPeoplePlayer
description (Figure2)Who is online?What are their statuses?What
are they doing?LocationMap,
radar (Figure3)Where am I?Where
are others?Social interactionTeamworks
such as chatting, fighting, tradingHow can I team up with other players?How
can I boost up my skills and levels in teams?Before we proceed to present our findings, a discussion on related work will appear in the next section.


### 2.3. MMOGs as a “Social Sphere”

MMOGs are designed to encourage players socialize through a wide variety of channels,
from combating, gesturing, chatting, doing business, and so on; a collected place
where we call it a social sphere. Although MMOGs have taken the game-playing
world by storm, the work in [8] pointed out that there are lacks of
sociological study in the research community. One of the most notable studies
was conducted by Ducheneaut and Moore [5], where the researches immersed
themselves in Star Wars Galaxies (SWGs), one of the most popular MMOGs to investigate
the interaction patterns to support CSCW. The work in [8] further investigates
the degree of social activities as supported and exhibited in the “third places” of SWGs: the cantinas. In
particular, as originally coined by Oldenburg, these “third places” should provide “a
great variety of public places that host
the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of
individuals beyond the realms of home and work” [11, page 16]. The works in
[5, 8] reveal that the majority of visitors have
clear purposes to socialize in the cantinas, which is in contrast to the
pure social interactions that go “beyond
the contexts of purpose, duty or role” [12] and their encounters are mostly
marked by “short and instrumental” [8, page 11]. To summarize, these studies [5, 8–10] generally examine a variety
of social activities players carried out during game-playing to, in some
degree, look into the design rationale that MMOGs should encourage and support
social interactions. The work in [13] reviews a number of awareness tools in a
video game, Quake, to investigate how
these tools can support team play and team collaboration. However, the study
did not reveal players’ perceptions on these tools, which is one of the major
differences between their study and ours.Although in these studies, awareness issue has been casually mentioned, it is not thoroughfully
investigated, which motivates our study here. Specifically, we attempt to study
how sufficient existing awareness tools have been designed to foster social
interactions among players, and whether or not players tend to make the most
out of these tools to engage in social interactions.Before we proceed to present our findings, we will give a short overview ofLastWorld.


### 2.4. Some Background onLastWorld

LastWorld was launched in the summer of
2005 and rated as the number online game at the time of this study [14]. As an MMOG,
it aims at providing an entertaining and social platform for players. In order
to support social interactions, LastWorld provides a wide range of tools, tasks to allow players to interact with each
other, as well as with non-player characters (NPCs). Figure 1(a) shows one screenshot
of the game, where players can control their characters to take actions, such
as fighting, sitting, working, trading items, and so on. Players can also
communicate with each other, choosing different types of communicational
methods through the conversational panels in the lower right corner of the
screen, as shown in Figure 1.(a) A “day” in the world, (b) one of the people awareness tools.
(a)(b)


#### 2.4.1. Social Awareness inLastWorld

A number of awareness tools exist in the games. In this paper, we will
only focus on tools to supportpeople and location awareness.Table1 summarizes the
tools/tasks that we will evaluate in LastWorld that are designed to support social awareness and interactions.Regarding people awareness, the game uses a series of tools to indicate thestatus and identity each
player. The purpose of these tools is to help users to
be aware of other players’ position as well as obtain their identities/skills.For example, above each character,
there are names showing in white and the organization name showing in pale
purple, as seen in Figure2(b). And on notice board, once a team member is
connected to the game, it will notify other members of the same team that
“[who] member is connected.” Players can also check whether or not their
friends are online instantly in the conversation box (see Figure 2(a)).(a) People awareness: who's online?; (b) people awareness: where is the player and who is he/she?.
(a)(b)Location awareness deals with the information players can collect related to whereabouts
of themselves, other players, monsters, and NPCs. Sufficient and easy-to-obtain
location awareness information can give players an orientation as well as the
position of others that can help them formulate their activities and achieve
their goals.LastWorld provides a
number of tools, including map, radar, coordinates to indicate location
of players, players' friends, players' teammates, enemies, and so on. Players can manipulate it by zooming in
and out on it, and perform searching (see Figure 3).Figure 3
Normal map versus zoom-in map.


#### 2.4.2. Social Interactions in LastWorld

Both player-player and player-game interactions are encouraged  inLastWorld; the former includes a number
of communication channels for players to interact with each other; while the
latter provides ways for players to interact with NPCs. In this paper, we focus
on the former type of the interactions (see Table 1).The game provides a couple of communication channels for players to interact
with each other. For instance, inTrading,
players can buy/sell goods in fixed price or by bargaining in any city. Both
buyers and sellers can negotiate the prices during trading. In general, Trading
provides an excellent platform to encourage players with different professions
and skills to communicate with each other. Chatting offers another type of player-player
interaction in the game where players can
engage in 4 types of chatting mode: public,
private, team, and organization.


## 2.1. Social Awareness: Some Background

In a distributed, socially populated environment, it is imperative for members to be “aware” of each
other and the environment, in terms of their many
facets, among them, the information about each other's actions, the individual
environment, and the state of the manipulated artifacts. For instance, in
distributed document editing environment, this awareness information can range
from who are the active editors, on what part of the document each are working,
why the document is being edited, and so on. Game designers have implemented a
variety of awareness tools to allow players to formulate general as well as
specific awareness of their group mates, or even counterparts in an attempt to
execute their actions accordingly. For example, a map can show player position,
while the name on top of players reveals player identity to others. The work in
[10] summarizes the workspace awareness elements and categorizes them into two
major types based on their temporal aspect: those related to the present and the past.


## 2.2. Motivation of Our Work

One notable issue related to awareness is that the tools to support
awareness should bereadily accessible, easy to interpret, and rich in convey “knowledge” in order to reduce
players’ cognitive information overload. It is especially true in real-time
multiuser virtual environment like MMOGs, where players rely heavily on the
information to explore, when there might be overcrowded information available
on the screen. For instance, imagine
a group of players collaboratively engage in a fighting mission at a remote
island; valuable information related to it includes individual players’ skills,
energies left, location, and identifying the approaching enemies and so on, as
shown in Table 1. Hence, when the information becomes  overloaded, players
have to quickly identify those valuable or in some cases, they even need to choose
from among the various awareness sources, in order to gather this information
and make a quick assessment of the environment and situations. One extreme is
that the information might be too coarse, thus, cannot be used instantly to
assist players. The other extreme is that there might be too much information
which makes players difficult to spot the most relevant to their current task. Either
of these two cases can greatly affect players’ perceptions of the environments.
To our knowledge, very few studies addressed this issue, which motivates our
study here. The findings of our in-game experiences and player interviews agree
with our worries in that players, in fact, are not satisfied with the awareness
tools, and pointed out that they are sometimes too busy to compile the
information and formulate their presence in relation to the environment and
other players.Table 1
A brief summery of awareness and interaction design elements inLastWorld.
Tools/approaches/tasksInformation elementsSocial
awarenessPeoplePlayer
description (Figure2)Who is online?What are their statuses?What
are they doing?LocationMap,
radar (Figure3)Where am I?Where
are others?Social interactionTeamworks
such as chatting, fighting, tradingHow can I team up with other players?How
can I boost up my skills and levels in teams?Before we proceed to present our findings, a discussion on related work will appear in the next section.


## 2.3. MMOGs as a “Social Sphere”

MMOGs are designed to encourage players socialize through a wide variety of channels,
from combating, gesturing, chatting, doing business, and so on; a collected place
where we call it a social sphere. Although MMOGs have taken the game-playing
world by storm, the work in [8] pointed out that there are lacks of
sociological study in the research community. One of the most notable studies
was conducted by Ducheneaut and Moore [5], where the researches immersed
themselves in Star Wars Galaxies (SWGs), one of the most popular MMOGs to investigate
the interaction patterns to support CSCW. The work in [8] further investigates
the degree of social activities as supported and exhibited in the “third places” of SWGs: the cantinas. In
particular, as originally coined by Oldenburg, these “third places” should provide “a
great variety of public places that host
the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of
individuals beyond the realms of home and work” [11, page 16]. The works in
[5, 8] reveal that the majority of visitors have
clear purposes to socialize in the cantinas, which is in contrast to the
pure social interactions that go “beyond
the contexts of purpose, duty or role” [12] and their encounters are mostly
marked by “short and instrumental” [8, page 11]. To summarize, these studies [5, 8–10] generally examine a variety
of social activities players carried out during game-playing to, in some
degree, look into the design rationale that MMOGs should encourage and support
social interactions. The work in [13] reviews a number of awareness tools in a
video game, Quake, to investigate how
these tools can support team play and team collaboration. However, the study
did not reveal players’ perceptions on these tools, which is one of the major
differences between their study and ours.Although in these studies, awareness issue has been casually mentioned, it is not thoroughfully
investigated, which motivates our study here. Specifically, we attempt to study
how sufficient existing awareness tools have been designed to foster social
interactions among players, and whether or not players tend to make the most
out of these tools to engage in social interactions.Before we proceed to present our findings, we will give a short overview ofLastWorld.


## 2.4. Some Background onLastWorld

LastWorld was launched in the summer of
2005 and rated as the number online game at the time of this study [14]. As an MMOG,
it aims at providing an entertaining and social platform for players. In order
to support social interactions, LastWorld provides a wide range of tools, tasks to allow players to interact with each
other, as well as with non-player characters (NPCs). Figure 1(a) shows one screenshot
of the game, where players can control their characters to take actions, such
as fighting, sitting, working, trading items, and so on. Players can also
communicate with each other, choosing different types of communicational
methods through the conversational panels in the lower right corner of the
screen, as shown in Figure 1.(a) A “day” in the world, (b) one of the people awareness tools.
(a)(b)


### 2.4.1. Social Awareness inLastWorld

A number of awareness tools exist in the games. In this paper, we will
only focus on tools to supportpeople and location awareness.Table1 summarizes the
tools/tasks that we will evaluate in LastWorld that are designed to support social awareness and interactions.Regarding people awareness, the game uses a series of tools to indicate thestatus and identity each
player. The purpose of these tools is to help users to
be aware of other players’ position as well as obtain their identities/skills.For example, above each character,
there are names showing in white and the organization name showing in pale
purple, as seen in Figure2(b). And on notice board, once a team member is
connected to the game, it will notify other members of the same team that
“[who] member is connected.” Players can also check whether or not their
friends are online instantly in the conversation box (see Figure 2(a)).(a) People awareness: who's online?; (b) people awareness: where is the player and who is he/she?.
(a)(b)Location awareness deals with the information players can collect related to whereabouts
of themselves, other players, monsters, and NPCs. Sufficient and easy-to-obtain
location awareness information can give players an orientation as well as the
position of others that can help them formulate their activities and achieve
their goals.LastWorld provides a
number of tools, including map, radar, coordinates to indicate location
of players, players' friends, players' teammates, enemies, and so on. Players can manipulate it by zooming in
and out on it, and perform searching (see Figure 3).Figure 3
Normal map versus zoom-in map.


### 2.4.2. Social Interactions in LastWorld

Both player-player and player-game interactions are encouraged  inLastWorld; the former includes a number
of communication channels for players to interact with each other; while the
latter provides ways for players to interact with NPCs. In this paper, we focus
on the former type of the interactions (see Table 1).The game provides a couple of communication channels for players to interact
with each other. For instance, inTrading,
players can buy/sell goods in fixed price or by bargaining in any city. Both
buyers and sellers can negotiate the prices during trading. In general, Trading
provides an excellent platform to encourage players with different professions
and skills to communicate with each other. Chatting offers another type of player-player
interaction in the game where players can
engage in 4 types of chatting mode: public,
private, team, and organization.


## 2.4.1. Social Awareness inLastWorld

A number of awareness tools exist in the games. In this paper, we will
only focus on tools to supportpeople and location awareness.Table1 summarizes the
tools/tasks that we will evaluate in LastWorld that are designed to support social awareness and interactions.Regarding people awareness, the game uses a series of tools to indicate thestatus and identity each
player. The purpose of these tools is to help users to
be aware of other players’ position as well as obtain their identities/skills.For example, above each character,
there are names showing in white and the organization name showing in pale
purple, as seen in Figure2(b). And on notice board, once a team member is
connected to the game, it will notify other members of the same team that
“[who] member is connected.” Players can also check whether or not their
friends are online instantly in the conversation box (see Figure 2(a)).(a) People awareness: who's online?; (b) people awareness: where is the player and who is he/she?.
(a)(b)Location awareness deals with the information players can collect related to whereabouts
of themselves, other players, monsters, and NPCs. Sufficient and easy-to-obtain
location awareness information can give players an orientation as well as the
position of others that can help them formulate their activities and achieve
their goals.LastWorld provides a
number of tools, including map, radar, coordinates to indicate location
of players, players' friends, players' teammates, enemies, and so on. Players can manipulate it by zooming in
and out on it, and perform searching (see Figure 3).Figure 3
Normal map versus zoom-in map.


## 2.4.2. Social Interactions in LastWorld

Both player-player and player-game interactions are encouraged  inLastWorld; the former includes a number
of communication channels for players to interact with each other; while the
latter provides ways for players to interact with NPCs. In this paper, we focus
on the former type of the interactions (see Table 1).The game provides a couple of communication channels for players to interact
with each other. For instance, inTrading,
players can buy/sell goods in fixed price or by bargaining in any city. Both
buyers and sellers can negotiate the prices during trading. In general, Trading
provides an excellent platform to encourage players with different professions
and skills to communicate with each other. Chatting offers another type of player-player
interaction in the game where players can
engage in 4 types of chatting mode: public,
private, team, and organization.


## 3. Findings onLastWorld

### 3.1. Experiment Methodology

To have a real experience in the
game community, each of us created at least one character in the game. A total
of 10 characters were created, which make up most of the professions in the
game. In order to become a part of the community, each of the characters logs
on to play the game for at least 40 hours. We then collect data through direct
observation of the game environment and interacting with different players in
the game. These interactions include participating in different teams, trading,
and bargaining with other players. In total, we spent 2 months playing the game
regularly and after that, we designed a questionnaire for the team members to
complete. The questionnaire targets at how each group of players looks at the
awareness tools, their interactions, their attitude, and behavior in the game. We
then further interviewed 18 players (with their age ranging from 20 to 30) in
the game so as to increase the reliability of the collected data. We tried to
divide the players according to their playing frequency. The results are
sufficient for us to address the issues raised in this paper.


### 3.2. How Players Socialize inLastWorld: Experiments

As argued in previous sections, the most fundamental goal of MMOGs
is to create a social environment for players to interact through all the
possible kinds of awareness-oriented design elements and interaction channels. These
elements include a variety of designs in the game, including map, radar, chat,
and so on (see Table1 for those studied in our experiment). We are interested
in investigating the degree of awareness of players; that is, how efficiently
and easily players can make use of these elements to foster social interaction,
and improve their in-game social welfare. In particular, the following questions are addressed.(i)
do players know and use these
carefully designed awareness elements during game playing?(ii)
how efficiently the awareness
tools can foster players’ social interaction? The first goal
is to evaluate the usage of these virtual awareness tools, while the 2nd is to
assess the usability of these tools in facilitating player interactions. In our
experiment, we studied three types of players, that are, core players, spending
more than 30 hours per week; moderate players, spending 11 and 20 hours per
week, and casual players, spending less than 11 hours per week. In our study,
there is 6, 8, and 4 core, moderate, and casual players, respectively. It is
crucial to include all types of players in the analysis so as to understand and
compare different players' views on awareness and their interaction.


#### 3.2.1. The Usefulness and Appropriateness of Awareness Design in LastWorld

We mainly used questionnaire to
gather the information about the awareness for our study. We found out that
players have similar points of view in some aspects, but have different opinion
in others.(a) People Awareness—Are Players Aware of the Social Environment Around Them?
Issue One. How long
does it take for players to be aware that their friends are online?
The result of our study reveals that the majority of players are able to
know the status of their friends immediately or within 3 minutes. This suggests
that the notification of the friends’ connection is helpful for the players who
are notified whenever their friends are online. However, 5 out of 18 players
are unable to determine whether or not their friends are online. There are some
possible reasons for it. Since the notice board shows many things concurrently,
newer messages will cover the older ones, so players may easily miss some
notification in the board. In addition, players may be busy doing something else
such as hitting monsters in the game, so they fail to pay attention to the
notice board. As such, some sound alert could be used; and it is often referred
to as audible awareness indicators [3].
Issue Two. How difficult is it to find friends?
Obviously, the textual descriptions on top of each character are
essential for the players (see Figure2(b)): at least half of them strongly
agreed. The results indicate that the character, organization, and other
descriptions are critical to identify players. Surprisingly though, roughly
half players, 44%, find it difficult or very difficult to identify their
friends from among other people, even though the friends are just next to them,
because although these elements can help players identify characters, it is so
confused and complicated especially when there are too many players showing on the
screen at the same time. To find out how difficult to identify friends, we
performed an experiment: we open the game together and sit in the crowd. One of
us spent almost 3 minutes to locate all of “us.” When asked what helped him to
do so, he pointed to the radar and coordinates rather than player description
over the head. Therefore, the helpfulness of player description is less useful
if there are too many characters in the same place (see Figure 4(a)).
More than half of core players think it is easy or very easy to locate
their friends. Most moderate players vote it as normal or difficult; while all
casual players rated as easy or very easy. Core players have much experience in
playing game, so they are more experienced to find other ways such as using
radar and communication to identify the friends. No other tools might help
players find other players in the game except for the description of the
characters. For instance, if one player wants to find a personal shop to buy a
weapon, what he/she can do is just running  around the town and finding a player
who is a weapon seller. If he/she wants to find a specific character type to form
a team, he/she can only send a message to everyone and wait for their reply,
which is very time consuming. In other words, the tools in the game are not
sufficient to foster awareness among players.(a) The town centre on
a particular day, and (b) some players are willing to talk during trading.
(a)(b)(b) Location Awareness—the Usefulness of Corresponding Design Elements
Issue One. Are maps, radars, and coordinates easy to use
in support of location awareness?
56% of players think the tools are useful to support location awareness. Our
study indicates that a large proportion of players think that map, radar, and
coordinates are easy or even very easy to use. Also, 22% of them have neither
stronger nor weaker views on this issue. Only one player feels negative with
the maps and radars. There are no differences between the three types of player
regarding it. This result is not surprising since the game provides
comprehensive functions to assist players to use such tools.
Issue Two. Is there sufficient information in the map and
radar?
Although the map and radar are useful for players, they may not contain enough
information to help players: 78% of players pointed out that the information
embedded in the map and radar is not clearly enough to facilitate higher degree
of location awareness: know where they and their friends are. The results of three types of player are
similar. To further our understandings, we interviewed 10 players in the game
on it. 70% of them reported that there are not enough notations in the map and
radar. And 20% of them think that it is just ok. Among the 7 players who admitted
that notation is not enough, some pointed out that the map is not detailed
enough. Some of players indicate that the details in the map cannot be changed
when we zoom in the map except for the town of the current game, as shown in Figure3 that even though the map is zoomed in, the detail of it will not be enhanced.
In addition, the rest of players agree that the map’s notation is not enough
since the map has no coordinates when the cursor points to the map to help
players find others. Some especially novice players point out that the
coordinates are meaningless.


### 3.3. Interaction Patterns inLastWorld

In another series of experiments, we attempt to study
information on how players make use of the interactions provided by the game to
enrich their socially virtual “life.” In particular, we will focus on teamwork
and trading system, two of the most representative interactions in the game.


#### 3.3.1. TeamWork

Issue One. Have players ever tried to team up with other
players? Are they willing to team up with other players, both in team or
outside the team?Generally, our experiment summarizes that players feel satisfied from
working and collaborating with others. Among the 18 players we interviewed,
about 90% of them have tried to be involved in different teams. Nearly all
(except for one moderate player) expressed their willingness to team up with
players of other professions. There are no apparent differences between three
groups of players. Furthermore,
about 90% players have tried to team up with other players, and only 2 of them
are active in socializing with players out of their team. That is, most
of the players are reluctant to talk actively with other players; they never or
seldom talk actively with players outside their team. However, the number
jumped to 15 (94%) when they got involved in the teams. The majority of them
commented that they tend to talk more with their team members than with people
outside the team.Issue Two. Why and how players
interact with each other through teamwork and in what ways?The above result gives insufficient information on why and how the players
interact through teamwork. To further our understandings, we turn to compare
the different effects between players that always team up with other player and
those that play the game alone. We created 2 similar characters, A and B, of
the same profession and at the same time. A tends to team up with other
players, while B is not involved in teamwork at all. We let the two characters
do the same thing to gain experience within 5 hours. In the end, A achieved 15 levels,
while B achieved 12 levels only. A died once only while B died 5 times. In
addition, their interactions with other players are also very different. A
always exchanges sentences and communicates with team members, while B
exchanged only a few sentences (roughly 15 sentences within 5 hours) with other
players, as shown in Table2.Table 2
A comparison of two players in a team and playing alone, respectively.
Character ACharacter B(Involved in a team)(play alone)Game hour55Level achieved1513Deceased times25Interaction(sentencesAround 180Around 15exchange)These observations are aligned with our previous analysis: it explains
why players tend to work and collaborate with other players. That is, those
involved in the team tend to gain more experience and die less, which provides
a strong intrinsic incentive for players to be involved in teamwork. In
particular, the system awards 20 percent more experience to each player
involved in the team and players can gain experiences much faster. Meanwhile,
when there are characters from different professions involved in a team, the
overall power of the team also becomes stronger. The more players involved in a
team, the stronger the team becomes. It is not difficult to see that the team
members have to have good teamwork so as to survive in more dangerous areas.
They have to communicate with each other, and also due to the interdependencies
of the jobs, they have to communicate in order to get helps from other team
members. Another kind of relationship
that evolves from the conversation is altruism among team members, through
which players with high levels give a helping hand to new players. These
various ways provide an ideal platform to encourage players to help and
interact with each other. The more the ways in which players can and are
encouraged to help each other, the easier it is for players to meet each other,
which basically reinforces the relationships among team members and facilitates
group interactions.


#### 3.3.2. Trading

Issue One. Have players ever tried to trade?Out of 18 players, 14 have tried before. All core game players have
tried. This number dropped sharply to 2 (out of 4) for casual players. For
those who have ever tried to trade, only a small fraction has tried to bargain
with the buyers or sellers. The number is surprisingly low. The result shows
short and casual interactions exchanged among players. We found out that for
those 14 players that have ever tried to trade, 11 usually do not make any
utterances during the trade at all. Though some of them exchanged a few
sentences, none exchanged more than 5 sentences during the trade. The data
shows that most players have tried to trade without many interactions.Issue Two. How often do players
talk during trading?To answer this question, we set up 3 personal item shops in the town
centre selling the same items. In store A, we set the price of all items 20
percent higher than the market price, while in store B, we set the price 20
percent lower; and to have a control experiment, we further set up store C with
all items selling at the market price. After that, we let the stores be idle
for 3 hours. No items in store A were sold, while in store B, 18 items were
sold and in store C, 4 items were sold. However, for all cases, no players
attempted to bargain or talk with us. Nearly all go to the personal item shops
simply searching for what they need, without greeting or talking with the
merchandiser. They buy items at a reasonable price, and leave nearly
immediately when it is rather expensive. The town centre looks like very
crowded, with high population density. The players sitting on the square with a
text box above them are those opening personal item stores. We spent 30 minutes
greeting 100 players. However, only a few of them gives us some response. A
major cause is that many players are away from the keyboard (AFK), leaving
their avatars idle to earn money for them. When this happens continuously, the
players visiting the personal item shops and trying to bargain with the
merchandisers will get frustrated. They sense that all players trading in the
town centre are AFK-ing (or “microing”) and avoid talking or talk very little.
This also explains our previous data, most players tend not to bargain with the
merchandisers or say very little. This, of course, greatly affects the quality
of interaction [5]. While these game features such as microing allow a wider
range of activities to be performed automatically, they can compromise the
quality of social interactivity. Nevertheless, this does not prevent some
players from talking during the trading. We noticed that there are some players
who are genuinely interactive and eager to have longer conversations with others
(see Figure 4(b)).


## 3.1. Experiment Methodology

To have a real experience in the
game community, each of us created at least one character in the game. A total
of 10 characters were created, which make up most of the professions in the
game. In order to become a part of the community, each of the characters logs
on to play the game for at least 40 hours. We then collect data through direct
observation of the game environment and interacting with different players in
the game. These interactions include participating in different teams, trading,
and bargaining with other players. In total, we spent 2 months playing the game
regularly and after that, we designed a questionnaire for the team members to
complete. The questionnaire targets at how each group of players looks at the
awareness tools, their interactions, their attitude, and behavior in the game. We
then further interviewed 18 players (with their age ranging from 20 to 30) in
the game so as to increase the reliability of the collected data. We tried to
divide the players according to their playing frequency. The results are
sufficient for us to address the issues raised in this paper.


## 3.2. How Players Socialize inLastWorld: Experiments

As argued in previous sections, the most fundamental goal of MMOGs
is to create a social environment for players to interact through all the
possible kinds of awareness-oriented design elements and interaction channels. These
elements include a variety of designs in the game, including map, radar, chat,
and so on (see Table1 for those studied in our experiment). We are interested
in investigating the degree of awareness of players; that is, how efficiently
and easily players can make use of these elements to foster social interaction,
and improve their in-game social welfare. In particular, the following questions are addressed.(i)
do players know and use these
carefully designed awareness elements during game playing?(ii)
how efficiently the awareness
tools can foster players’ social interaction? The first goal
is to evaluate the usage of these virtual awareness tools, while the 2nd is to
assess the usability of these tools in facilitating player interactions. In our
experiment, we studied three types of players, that are, core players, spending
more than 30 hours per week; moderate players, spending 11 and 20 hours per
week, and casual players, spending less than 11 hours per week. In our study,
there is 6, 8, and 4 core, moderate, and casual players, respectively. It is
crucial to include all types of players in the analysis so as to understand and
compare different players' views on awareness and their interaction.


### 3.2.1. The Usefulness and Appropriateness of Awareness Design in LastWorld

We mainly used questionnaire to
gather the information about the awareness for our study. We found out that
players have similar points of view in some aspects, but have different opinion
in others.(a) People Awareness—Are Players Aware of the Social Environment Around Them?
Issue One. How long
does it take for players to be aware that their friends are online?
The result of our study reveals that the majority of players are able to
know the status of their friends immediately or within 3 minutes. This suggests
that the notification of the friends’ connection is helpful for the players who
are notified whenever their friends are online. However, 5 out of 18 players
are unable to determine whether or not their friends are online. There are some
possible reasons for it. Since the notice board shows many things concurrently,
newer messages will cover the older ones, so players may easily miss some
notification in the board. In addition, players may be busy doing something else
such as hitting monsters in the game, so they fail to pay attention to the
notice board. As such, some sound alert could be used; and it is often referred
to as audible awareness indicators [3].
Issue Two. How difficult is it to find friends?
Obviously, the textual descriptions on top of each character are
essential for the players (see Figure2(b)): at least half of them strongly
agreed. The results indicate that the character, organization, and other
descriptions are critical to identify players. Surprisingly though, roughly
half players, 44%, find it difficult or very difficult to identify their
friends from among other people, even though the friends are just next to them,
because although these elements can help players identify characters, it is so
confused and complicated especially when there are too many players showing on the
screen at the same time. To find out how difficult to identify friends, we
performed an experiment: we open the game together and sit in the crowd. One of
us spent almost 3 minutes to locate all of “us.” When asked what helped him to
do so, he pointed to the radar and coordinates rather than player description
over the head. Therefore, the helpfulness of player description is less useful
if there are too many characters in the same place (see Figure 4(a)).
More than half of core players think it is easy or very easy to locate
their friends. Most moderate players vote it as normal or difficult; while all
casual players rated as easy or very easy. Core players have much experience in
playing game, so they are more experienced to find other ways such as using
radar and communication to identify the friends. No other tools might help
players find other players in the game except for the description of the
characters. For instance, if one player wants to find a personal shop to buy a
weapon, what he/she can do is just running  around the town and finding a player
who is a weapon seller. If he/she wants to find a specific character type to form
a team, he/she can only send a message to everyone and wait for their reply,
which is very time consuming. In other words, the tools in the game are not
sufficient to foster awareness among players.(a) The town centre on
a particular day, and (b) some players are willing to talk during trading.
(a)(b)(b) Location Awareness—the Usefulness of Corresponding Design Elements
Issue One. Are maps, radars, and coordinates easy to use
in support of location awareness?
56% of players think the tools are useful to support location awareness. Our
study indicates that a large proportion of players think that map, radar, and
coordinates are easy or even very easy to use. Also, 22% of them have neither
stronger nor weaker views on this issue. Only one player feels negative with
the maps and radars. There are no differences between the three types of player
regarding it. This result is not surprising since the game provides
comprehensive functions to assist players to use such tools.
Issue Two. Is there sufficient information in the map and
radar?
Although the map and radar are useful for players, they may not contain enough
information to help players: 78% of players pointed out that the information
embedded in the map and radar is not clearly enough to facilitate higher degree
of location awareness: know where they and their friends are. The results of three types of player are
similar. To further our understandings, we interviewed 10 players in the game
on it. 70% of them reported that there are not enough notations in the map and
radar. And 20% of them think that it is just ok. Among the 7 players who admitted
that notation is not enough, some pointed out that the map is not detailed
enough. Some of players indicate that the details in the map cannot be changed
when we zoom in the map except for the town of the current game, as shown in Figure3 that even though the map is zoomed in, the detail of it will not be enhanced.
In addition, the rest of players agree that the map’s notation is not enough
since the map has no coordinates when the cursor points to the map to help
players find others. Some especially novice players point out that the
coordinates are meaningless.


## 3.2.1. The Usefulness and Appropriateness of Awareness Design in LastWorld

We mainly used questionnaire to
gather the information about the awareness for our study. We found out that
players have similar points of view in some aspects, but have different opinion
in others.(a) People Awareness—Are Players Aware of the Social Environment Around Them?
Issue One. How long
does it take for players to be aware that their friends are online?
The result of our study reveals that the majority of players are able to
know the status of their friends immediately or within 3 minutes. This suggests
that the notification of the friends’ connection is helpful for the players who
are notified whenever their friends are online. However, 5 out of 18 players
are unable to determine whether or not their friends are online. There are some
possible reasons for it. Since the notice board shows many things concurrently,
newer messages will cover the older ones, so players may easily miss some
notification in the board. In addition, players may be busy doing something else
such as hitting monsters in the game, so they fail to pay attention to the
notice board. As such, some sound alert could be used; and it is often referred
to as audible awareness indicators [3].
Issue Two. How difficult is it to find friends?
Obviously, the textual descriptions on top of each character are
essential for the players (see Figure2(b)): at least half of them strongly
agreed. The results indicate that the character, organization, and other
descriptions are critical to identify players. Surprisingly though, roughly
half players, 44%, find it difficult or very difficult to identify their
friends from among other people, even though the friends are just next to them,
because although these elements can help players identify characters, it is so
confused and complicated especially when there are too many players showing on the
screen at the same time. To find out how difficult to identify friends, we
performed an experiment: we open the game together and sit in the crowd. One of
us spent almost 3 minutes to locate all of “us.” When asked what helped him to
do so, he pointed to the radar and coordinates rather than player description
over the head. Therefore, the helpfulness of player description is less useful
if there are too many characters in the same place (see Figure 4(a)).
More than half of core players think it is easy or very easy to locate
their friends. Most moderate players vote it as normal or difficult; while all
casual players rated as easy or very easy. Core players have much experience in
playing game, so they are more experienced to find other ways such as using
radar and communication to identify the friends. No other tools might help
players find other players in the game except for the description of the
characters. For instance, if one player wants to find a personal shop to buy a
weapon, what he/she can do is just running  around the town and finding a player
who is a weapon seller. If he/she wants to find a specific character type to form
a team, he/she can only send a message to everyone and wait for their reply,
which is very time consuming. In other words, the tools in the game are not
sufficient to foster awareness among players.(a) The town centre on
a particular day, and (b) some players are willing to talk during trading.
(a)(b)(b) Location Awareness—the Usefulness of Corresponding Design Elements
Issue One. Are maps, radars, and coordinates easy to use
in support of location awareness?
56% of players think the tools are useful to support location awareness. Our
study indicates that a large proportion of players think that map, radar, and
coordinates are easy or even very easy to use. Also, 22% of them have neither
stronger nor weaker views on this issue. Only one player feels negative with
the maps and radars. There are no differences between the three types of player
regarding it. This result is not surprising since the game provides
comprehensive functions to assist players to use such tools.
Issue Two. Is there sufficient information in the map and
radar?
Although the map and radar are useful for players, they may not contain enough
information to help players: 78% of players pointed out that the information
embedded in the map and radar is not clearly enough to facilitate higher degree
of location awareness: know where they and their friends are. The results of three types of player are
similar. To further our understandings, we interviewed 10 players in the game
on it. 70% of them reported that there are not enough notations in the map and
radar. And 20% of them think that it is just ok. Among the 7 players who admitted
that notation is not enough, some pointed out that the map is not detailed
enough. Some of players indicate that the details in the map cannot be changed
when we zoom in the map except for the town of the current game, as shown in Figure3 that even though the map is zoomed in, the detail of it will not be enhanced.
In addition, the rest of players agree that the map’s notation is not enough
since the map has no coordinates when the cursor points to the map to help
players find others. Some especially novice players point out that the
coordinates are meaningless.


## 3.3. Interaction Patterns inLastWorld

In another series of experiments, we attempt to study
information on how players make use of the interactions provided by the game to
enrich their socially virtual “life.” In particular, we will focus on teamwork
and trading system, two of the most representative interactions in the game.


### 3.3.1. TeamWork

Issue One. Have players ever tried to team up with other
players? Are they willing to team up with other players, both in team or
outside the team?Generally, our experiment summarizes that players feel satisfied from
working and collaborating with others. Among the 18 players we interviewed,
about 90% of them have tried to be involved in different teams. Nearly all
(except for one moderate player) expressed their willingness to team up with
players of other professions. There are no apparent differences between three
groups of players. Furthermore,
about 90% players have tried to team up with other players, and only 2 of them
are active in socializing with players out of their team. That is, most
of the players are reluctant to talk actively with other players; they never or
seldom talk actively with players outside their team. However, the number
jumped to 15 (94%) when they got involved in the teams. The majority of them
commented that they tend to talk more with their team members than with people
outside the team.Issue Two. Why and how players
interact with each other through teamwork and in what ways?The above result gives insufficient information on why and how the players
interact through teamwork. To further our understandings, we turn to compare
the different effects between players that always team up with other player and
those that play the game alone. We created 2 similar characters, A and B, of
the same profession and at the same time. A tends to team up with other
players, while B is not involved in teamwork at all. We let the two characters
do the same thing to gain experience within 5 hours. In the end, A achieved 15 levels,
while B achieved 12 levels only. A died once only while B died 5 times. In
addition, their interactions with other players are also very different. A
always exchanges sentences and communicates with team members, while B
exchanged only a few sentences (roughly 15 sentences within 5 hours) with other
players, as shown in Table2.Table 2
A comparison of two players in a team and playing alone, respectively.
Character ACharacter B(Involved in a team)(play alone)Game hour55Level achieved1513Deceased times25Interaction(sentencesAround 180Around 15exchange)These observations are aligned with our previous analysis: it explains
why players tend to work and collaborate with other players. That is, those
involved in the team tend to gain more experience and die less, which provides
a strong intrinsic incentive for players to be involved in teamwork. In
particular, the system awards 20 percent more experience to each player
involved in the team and players can gain experiences much faster. Meanwhile,
when there are characters from different professions involved in a team, the
overall power of the team also becomes stronger. The more players involved in a
team, the stronger the team becomes. It is not difficult to see that the team
members have to have good teamwork so as to survive in more dangerous areas.
They have to communicate with each other, and also due to the interdependencies
of the jobs, they have to communicate in order to get helps from other team
members. Another kind of relationship
that evolves from the conversation is altruism among team members, through
which players with high levels give a helping hand to new players. These
various ways provide an ideal platform to encourage players to help and
interact with each other. The more the ways in which players can and are
encouraged to help each other, the easier it is for players to meet each other,
which basically reinforces the relationships among team members and facilitates
group interactions.


### 3.3.2. Trading

Issue One. Have players ever tried to trade?Out of 18 players, 14 have tried before. All core game players have
tried. This number dropped sharply to 2 (out of 4) for casual players. For
those who have ever tried to trade, only a small fraction has tried to bargain
with the buyers or sellers. The number is surprisingly low. The result shows
short and casual interactions exchanged among players. We found out that for
those 14 players that have ever tried to trade, 11 usually do not make any
utterances during the trade at all. Though some of them exchanged a few
sentences, none exchanged more than 5 sentences during the trade. The data
shows that most players have tried to trade without many interactions.Issue Two. How often do players
talk during trading?To answer this question, we set up 3 personal item shops in the town
centre selling the same items. In store A, we set the price of all items 20
percent higher than the market price, while in store B, we set the price 20
percent lower; and to have a control experiment, we further set up store C with
all items selling at the market price. After that, we let the stores be idle
for 3 hours. No items in store A were sold, while in store B, 18 items were
sold and in store C, 4 items were sold. However, for all cases, no players
attempted to bargain or talk with us. Nearly all go to the personal item shops
simply searching for what they need, without greeting or talking with the
merchandiser. They buy items at a reasonable price, and leave nearly
immediately when it is rather expensive. The town centre looks like very
crowded, with high population density. The players sitting on the square with a
text box above them are those opening personal item stores. We spent 30 minutes
greeting 100 players. However, only a few of them gives us some response. A
major cause is that many players are away from the keyboard (AFK), leaving
their avatars idle to earn money for them. When this happens continuously, the
players visiting the personal item shops and trying to bargain with the
merchandisers will get frustrated. They sense that all players trading in the
town centre are AFK-ing (or “microing”) and avoid talking or talk very little.
This also explains our previous data, most players tend not to bargain with the
merchandisers or say very little. This, of course, greatly affects the quality
of interaction [5]. While these game features such as microing allow a wider
range of activities to be performed automatically, they can compromise the
quality of social interactivity. Nevertheless, this does not prevent some
players from talking during the trading. We noticed that there are some players
who are genuinely interactive and eager to have longer conversations with others
(see Figure 4(b)).


## 3.3.1. TeamWork

Issue One. Have players ever tried to team up with other
players? Are they willing to team up with other players, both in team or
outside the team?Generally, our experiment summarizes that players feel satisfied from
working and collaborating with others. Among the 18 players we interviewed,
about 90% of them have tried to be involved in different teams. Nearly all
(except for one moderate player) expressed their willingness to team up with
players of other professions. There are no apparent differences between three
groups of players. Furthermore,
about 90% players have tried to team up with other players, and only 2 of them
are active in socializing with players out of their team. That is, most
of the players are reluctant to talk actively with other players; they never or
seldom talk actively with players outside their team. However, the number
jumped to 15 (94%) when they got involved in the teams. The majority of them
commented that they tend to talk more with their team members than with people
outside the team.Issue Two. Why and how players
interact with each other through teamwork and in what ways?The above result gives insufficient information on why and how the players
interact through teamwork. To further our understandings, we turn to compare
the different effects between players that always team up with other player and
those that play the game alone. We created 2 similar characters, A and B, of
the same profession and at the same time. A tends to team up with other
players, while B is not involved in teamwork at all. We let the two characters
do the same thing to gain experience within 5 hours. In the end, A achieved 15 levels,
while B achieved 12 levels only. A died once only while B died 5 times. In
addition, their interactions with other players are also very different. A
always exchanges sentences and communicates with team members, while B
exchanged only a few sentences (roughly 15 sentences within 5 hours) with other
players, as shown in Table2.Table 2
A comparison of two players in a team and playing alone, respectively.
Character ACharacter B(Involved in a team)(play alone)Game hour55Level achieved1513Deceased times25Interaction(sentencesAround 180Around 15exchange)These observations are aligned with our previous analysis: it explains
why players tend to work and collaborate with other players. That is, those
involved in the team tend to gain more experience and die less, which provides
a strong intrinsic incentive for players to be involved in teamwork. In
particular, the system awards 20 percent more experience to each player
involved in the team and players can gain experiences much faster. Meanwhile,
when there are characters from different professions involved in a team, the
overall power of the team also becomes stronger. The more players involved in a
team, the stronger the team becomes. It is not difficult to see that the team
members have to have good teamwork so as to survive in more dangerous areas.
They have to communicate with each other, and also due to the interdependencies
of the jobs, they have to communicate in order to get helps from other team
members. Another kind of relationship
that evolves from the conversation is altruism among team members, through
which players with high levels give a helping hand to new players. These
various ways provide an ideal platform to encourage players to help and
interact with each other. The more the ways in which players can and are
encouraged to help each other, the easier it is for players to meet each other,
which basically reinforces the relationships among team members and facilitates
group interactions.


## 3.3.2. Trading

Issue One. Have players ever tried to trade?Out of 18 players, 14 have tried before. All core game players have
tried. This number dropped sharply to 2 (out of 4) for casual players. For
those who have ever tried to trade, only a small fraction has tried to bargain
with the buyers or sellers. The number is surprisingly low. The result shows
short and casual interactions exchanged among players. We found out that for
those 14 players that have ever tried to trade, 11 usually do not make any
utterances during the trade at all. Though some of them exchanged a few
sentences, none exchanged more than 5 sentences during the trade. The data
shows that most players have tried to trade without many interactions.Issue Two. How often do players
talk during trading?To answer this question, we set up 3 personal item shops in the town
centre selling the same items. In store A, we set the price of all items 20
percent higher than the market price, while in store B, we set the price 20
percent lower; and to have a control experiment, we further set up store C with
all items selling at the market price. After that, we let the stores be idle
for 3 hours. No items in store A were sold, while in store B, 18 items were
sold and in store C, 4 items were sold. However, for all cases, no players
attempted to bargain or talk with us. Nearly all go to the personal item shops
simply searching for what they need, without greeting or talking with the
merchandiser. They buy items at a reasonable price, and leave nearly
immediately when it is rather expensive. The town centre looks like very
crowded, with high population density. The players sitting on the square with a
text box above them are those opening personal item stores. We spent 30 minutes
greeting 100 players. However, only a few of them gives us some response. A
major cause is that many players are away from the keyboard (AFK), leaving
their avatars idle to earn money for them. When this happens continuously, the
players visiting the personal item shops and trying to bargain with the
merchandisers will get frustrated. They sense that all players trading in the
town centre are AFK-ing (or “microing”) and avoid talking or talk very little.
This also explains our previous data, most players tend not to bargain with the
merchandisers or say very little. This, of course, greatly affects the quality
of interaction [5]. While these game features such as microing allow a wider
range of activities to be performed automatically, they can compromise the
quality of social interactivity. Nevertheless, this does not prevent some
players from talking during the trading. We noticed that there are some players
who are genuinely interactive and eager to have longer conversations with others
(see Figure 4(b)).


## 4. A Comparison betweenLastWorld and Fairyland

So far, we observed that player performance is largely determined by how
players can utilize the tools and other game elements such as in-game tasks,
and exploit accordingly. Our observations indicate that not every tool has been
fully understood or noticed by players, and not every group-oriented task is
capable offorcing players to execute
group activities: some choose to complete the task alone, while some are
willing to form a group. A natural question to ask at this point is that what
would happen if we conduct the analysis in another type of game? To answer it,
we perform a similar usability study in a different type of game, Fairyland which is a fantasy MMOG more
suitable for girls. It is different from LastWorld,
a more action and strategy-packed MMOGs preferred more by boys. In Fairyland, players enjoy similar
experiences like those in LastWorld,
for instance, chatting with other players, forming teams to perform tasks such
as fighting, trading, and so on. The major difference between the two games is
that Fairyland is targeted at girl
players, while LastWorld is targeted
more at boy players, which leads to some unique design elements to encourage
player interactions. For instance, in Fairyland,
there is a Family system, where players can join a family to interact,
socialize, and participate in all kinds of activities. The core of the Family
system is fundamentally different from the Fighting system in LastWorld and many other games in that
the Family system is inherently more group-oriented, and is a metaphoric design
mimicking human family system. Therefore, we expect that the interactivity in
this module should be denser than that in other module in the game. To make a
comparison, we will briefly report key findings and compare them to those in LastWorld.


### 4.1. Major Findings and the Comparisons

Besides in-game experiences, we again distributed questionnaires to
players, and received 55 responses. 95% agree that map and coordinates are
useful to unfold two major kinds of location information (see Figure5(a)): buildings
or paths around the players, and the general information in the location. Player
coordinates are also shown on the small map, so most of them feel happy with
the design to support location awareness. 84% of players agree that situational
icon containing player description similar to those in LastWorld on players' head helps them know what others are doing in
the game (see Figure 5(b)). In addition, players feel positive toward the audio
alert attached to a location; that is, when a player enters different places,
the background music will change immediately in order to alert players that
they are staying in a different location now.(a) The map, (b) player description.
(a)(b)Among the various types of group-oriented tasks, the Family mode stands
out: 91% reported experiences with it at least once, and among them, 80% like it
very much. It is also observed that once players join a family, they always
interact with their family members. Half of the subjects indicate that by
joining a family, they cannot only interact and engage in more group-oriented
activities such as fighting enemies, doing business, but also win real
friendship outside the game. Players are quite comfortable with the interaction
mode reflecting bindings among players both inside and outside the game. The
result reveals the success of design element inFairyland to encourage players to interact and socialize. This
finding is different from that in LastWorld where players tend to talk with others in a team. As for chatting, our finding
is similar to that in LastWorld that
not many players tend to talk unless required; instead, they prefer to just
send some emotional icons during communications which are deemed enough in most
occasions (96%).These key findings lead us to strongly believe that even though the
genres and target players of the two games are different, player expectations
and perceptions over the usability in awareness and interaction of the two
games are similar: the tools should be designed to allow easy and quick access;
the information should be easy to interpret and manipulate. As for the task
design, the success of the Family mode inFairyland highlights the importance of the task per
se to encourage players to collaborate, as opposed to the teamwork mode in LastWorld where players seldom talk
outside a team.


### 4.2. Discussions and Design Implications

Although macroing can automate performance actions and offer a more
flexible options for players to continuously engaging in games without
physically sitting in front of the games, it, somehow, compromises the quality
of social interactivity among players [5]. We also suggest that the deployment of
audio alert (as in Fairyland) which can
quickly inform players of some key information such as who is online, or what
is the player's newest status, instead of only changing the color of player
names which are relatively difficult to notice as in LastWorld. One very interesting observation is that some players
are reluctant to socialize when they do not need to, as in trading in LastWorld. However, the success of the
Family mode in Fairyland highlights
the importance of the task per se to
encourage players to collaborate. The result indicates the growing trend and degree of importance of
these “third place” (i.e., the shop in LastWorld;
the Family in Fairyland) to host the
“voluntary and informal” gatherings [11, page 16].Although awareness tools and interaction patterns are quite prevalent in
many MMOGs, little is known about how players perceive and utilize these tools,
and exploit them. Our study aims at filling this gap. We suggest that it is
rather essential for designers to test whether or not players can make the most
out of these tools to realize designers' design rationale.


## 4.1. Major Findings and the Comparisons

Besides in-game experiences, we again distributed questionnaires to
players, and received 55 responses. 95% agree that map and coordinates are
useful to unfold two major kinds of location information (see Figure5(a)): buildings
or paths around the players, and the general information in the location. Player
coordinates are also shown on the small map, so most of them feel happy with
the design to support location awareness. 84% of players agree that situational
icon containing player description similar to those in LastWorld on players' head helps them know what others are doing in
the game (see Figure 5(b)). In addition, players feel positive toward the audio
alert attached to a location; that is, when a player enters different places,
the background music will change immediately in order to alert players that
they are staying in a different location now.(a) The map, (b) player description.
(a)(b)Among the various types of group-oriented tasks, the Family mode stands
out: 91% reported experiences with it at least once, and among them, 80% like it
very much. It is also observed that once players join a family, they always
interact with their family members. Half of the subjects indicate that by
joining a family, they cannot only interact and engage in more group-oriented
activities such as fighting enemies, doing business, but also win real
friendship outside the game. Players are quite comfortable with the interaction
mode reflecting bindings among players both inside and outside the game. The
result reveals the success of design element inFairyland to encourage players to interact and socialize. This
finding is different from that in LastWorld where players tend to talk with others in a team. As for chatting, our finding
is similar to that in LastWorld that
not many players tend to talk unless required; instead, they prefer to just
send some emotional icons during communications which are deemed enough in most
occasions (96%).These key findings lead us to strongly believe that even though the
genres and target players of the two games are different, player expectations
and perceptions over the usability in awareness and interaction of the two
games are similar: the tools should be designed to allow easy and quick access;
the information should be easy to interpret and manipulate. As for the task
design, the success of the Family mode inFairyland highlights the importance of the task per
se to encourage players to collaborate, as opposed to the teamwork mode in LastWorld where players seldom talk
outside a team.


## 4.2. Discussions and Design Implications

Although macroing can automate performance actions and offer a more
flexible options for players to continuously engaging in games without
physically sitting in front of the games, it, somehow, compromises the quality
of social interactivity among players [5]. We also suggest that the deployment of
audio alert (as in Fairyland) which can
quickly inform players of some key information such as who is online, or what
is the player's newest status, instead of only changing the color of player
names which are relatively difficult to notice as in LastWorld. One very interesting observation is that some players
are reluctant to socialize when they do not need to, as in trading in LastWorld. However, the success of the
Family mode in Fairyland highlights
the importance of the task per se to
encourage players to collaborate. The result indicates the growing trend and degree of importance of
these “third place” (i.e., the shop in LastWorld;
the Family in Fairyland) to host the
“voluntary and informal” gatherings [11, page 16].Although awareness tools and interaction patterns are quite prevalent in
many MMOGs, little is known about how players perceive and utilize these tools,
and exploit them. Our study aims at filling this gap. We suggest that it is
rather essential for designers to test whether or not players can make the most
out of these tools to realize designers' design rationale.


## 5. Concluding Remarks

In this paper, we look into the interaction patterns and the awareness design elements
inLastWorld, and briefly compare the
results with a different type of MMOG called Fairyland. The results generally reveal that the emphasis on teamwork
is one of the most important components to keep players interacting in the game,
such as the success of the Family in Fairyland.
Thus the MMOGs should include a variety of team-oriented activities and offer a
wider spectrum of supporting tools to ensure maximum game-playing immersions.There are several limitations of our study. The game elements
studied and reported in this paper are mostly typical ones to support
interaction and awareness. There are more elements designed to encourage player
interactivity. In addition, our studies reported here only focus on the
usability of awareness and interactions at a coarse level. A finer-grained
level of usability analysis is desirable to answer questions such as, as a
newly joined group member, can I quickly and easily obtain information on the
progress of other players? These are the focus of our future work.



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*Source: 619108-2008-04-22.xml*