Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Online Community

Dear Steinkuehler and Williams,

After reading your article I must say there is a whole new dimension to online gaming that I never knew existed.  When playing in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) never did I realize my identity possibly could have overlapped with my offline one.  While communicating with other members of the online gaming world I always thought I was on my own.  However, I did not realize I was also building online relationships with people in the same community.  For example, a few people in the same online community as me would schedule a specific time to meet and play on the same team together.  The function of these MMO’s is extremely similar to the real world.  You work in a team environment to accomplish certain goals.  When working in these team environments, something similar happens in the online world that would also happen offline as well, personal relationships form as you mention in your article.   


With interactions through email and online chats, users can communicate with their online identity with many people throughout the world.  The ones we tend to form relationships with are the ones we share similar characteristics with in this online community.  Many of the relationships formed are based off tools such as ones behaviors which could be a replica of how the online user would be in the real world.  Therefore, the relationships we form in MMO’s are extremely similar to the ones that would be formed in a real team environment when based off behavioral patterns and tactics.     

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