The game was released worldwidein September 18, 2008 and amonth later it had already 800,000registered players.

The success of these videogames,as perceived from the answer givenin my questionnaire, comes fromthe fact that people can now role-play with players from around theworld, in a immersive and reactiveenvironment.

In my paper I analyze the designchoices made by MythicEntertainment in order to create anactive community within WAR.Almost every action in the gameneeds to or can be achieved byinteracting and playing with otherplayers.

I also try to understand if thesesocial interactions occur in wayspredicted by many of the socialtheories and experiments createduntil this date.

Is our social behavior in WARdifferent or similar to how wenormally behave in a normalcommunity or even a different kindof online community?

Social behavior in Warhammer Online (WAR): How we behave while playing with others

Augusto Esteves (augustoeae@gmail.com)DME, Universidade da Madeira, 9000-390 Funchal, Portugal

Introduction

Parties are the simplestconnection players can have witheach other. When a player findssomeone doing the same activityas them, they can start a Partywith him or her. This allowsplayers to group up, making iteasier and a lot quicker to finishcommon objectives.

A Warband appears when two ormore Parties unite. This asks for abit more coordination since aWarband can be constituted by upto eight Parties (forty eightplayers), but allows the tackle ofharder and bigger objectives.

A Public Quest is made availableto players as soon as they enterpredetermined areas of the worldmap. For example, if a bridge isrepresented on the world map asa Public Quest, every player that ison that bridge has access to it.

The game is designed so thatplayers from the four races of aRealm perceive themselves asallies, and at the same time theyperceive players from the otherfour races of the other Realm asenemies, mortal enemies. This this

the Realm versus Realm aspectof the game.

To encourage this type of fightingthe game rewards the player’scharacter every time he kills aperson from the opposing Realm.

Scenarios are a special branch ofthe RvR component of the game. Itallows for players to engage inquick brawls with players from theopposing Realm within a set ofrules, from anywhere in the worldmap, since they are teleported.

Design for Community Interaction

I observed how people play thegame both through both mycharacters and in the real world.

I analyzed a number of logs fromdifferent types of chats and I issueda questionnaire to both players in-game and on forums.

I also studied the game’s hugeonline documentation.

Methodology

I’ll summarize in this section whichtheories and findings, regardingboth regular and onlinecommunities, I found at work inWAR:

Common GroundSocial Presence

Media Richness TheoryCritical Mass

Third PlacesScale-free Networks

Communities of PracticeEncouraging Newbies &

ContributionMatching People with Tasks

Code & MarketMember-maintained Communities

NormsDramatic Elements

Flow Theory

Social Theories and Studies

I found that most of the existingtheories and research about bothregular and online communitiescan be applied to the communitypresented in this game.

It would be nice to see if MythicEntertainment can apply theexisting findings on communities totheir game. How can they ease theprocess of creating commonground between players withouthurting the neutrality of game, as athird place? Can thecommunications in WarhammerOnline support more non-verbalcues?

I hope that in a near futureMMOGs are as popular as socialwebsites. They have the potential,and honestly, they are more fun.

Discussion & Conclusion