<월드 오브 워크래프트> 길드의 사회적 삶 [해외논문]

 

From Tree House to Barracks : The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft

Dmitri Williams, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nicolas Ducheneaut, Palo Alto Research Center
Li Xiong, Yuanyuan Zhang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nick Yee, Stanford University/Palo Alto Research Center
Eric Nickell, Palo Alto Research Center

 

 

<<RISS 보다 구글이 더 잘 찾아주넹 구글신님 오오

<<우왕 길다^ㅁ^...

<<이것도 인터뷰 돌린 논문...

 

 

The key moderator중재자, 조정자; 조절기, 조정기  of these outcomes appears to be
the game’s mechanic, which encourages some kinds of interactions while discouraging
others.

 

 

It follows that in an online
networked world, games matter socially (Williams, 2006b).

 

 

Our research is concerned with the social dynamics of players within the in-game
organizations known as player guilds. By focusing on player behavior, attitudes, and
opinions, we explore the meanings they make, the social capital they derive, and the
networks they form.

 

 

 

<<미디어 소비 하느라 현실 인간 관계와 사회 참여가 약해질 수도..라고 도입부에서 쬐매 언급 중

 

 

WoW is in fact a vibrant third place, populated with a range of social experiences
ranging from ephemeral덧없는; 단명한, 단 하루뿐인.  impersonal비인간적인 groups to sustained and deep relationships that
extend offline.

 

 

>>단발성 만남에서부터 오프라인으로 까지 이어지는 장기적이고 깊은 관계까지...

 

 

Similarly,
there are social rules and the equivalent of laws that govern and impact behaviors in
MMO space.

 

 

The overarching모든 것에 앞선; 모든 것을 포함하는.  conclusion here
is that the very real, very personal social impacts of MMO space are equally a result
of the individuals and personalities involved and the coded, artificial social architectures
of the game world.

 

 

What kinds of social organizations do players create in MMOs such as WoW?

 

What kinds of roles and social relationships do players develop within guilds and what were the social consequences?

 

This
would allow us to assess how social the game is overall, how different guild types
affect social dynamics, and the relationship between online relationships and their
offline counterparts.

 

 

 

 

<<중간 스킵 결과들

 

In many of these, particularly the
smaller ones, the social interactions were extensions of real-world social bonds.
There were several cases in the sample of real-world collections of friends or
families playing together as a guild of their own or as a family unit within a moderately
sized guild.

 

>>실친들이랑 길드 만드는 경우

 

Lastly, role-play guilds work on a metalevel to all three of these others in that
their main purpose is to allow members to pretend to truly “be” their characters.
Thus, whether their goal is to PvP, socialize, or raid, players are expected to be “in
character” rather than be a real-world person who is obviously not, for example, an
undead mage. More often than not, role-play guilds were focused on creating helpful
relationships (see following).

 

>>점점 현실에서 멀어지는 경우

 

 

 

 

The sizes are interwoven with these goals and can be thought of as designer,3
small, medium, and large. As a generality, smaller guilds tend to be more focused on
social bonds, whereas larger guilds focused more on game goals. This is not a hard
rule though. Small guilds still competed avidly toward game goals, and several very
large guilds featured very strong player relationships. These were more likely to
become subgroups as the guild size increased, often because players in larger guilds
became more focused on play goals and because it became impractical for them to
know well or care about each member of a large group.

 

>>길드 사이즈(규모)에 따라 친교 목적인지 게임 플레이 짱짱 잘하기 위한 건지

 

Small guilds (fewer than 10 members) represent the strongest bonding social capital
found within WoW.

 

 

Medium-sized guilds show the progression from the small, tightly knit groups to
the large, sometimes less personal ones. In this range, members still place an emphasis
on social bonds and families—indeed one simply seemed to be exactly like the
small guilds but with four real-world extended families as the core group. But with
more members, there is a higher chance of a conflict in styles or ethics. This size
range did have instances of players being kicked out for violating guild ethics such
as racist speech. Also in the medium range is the first appearance of a conflict of
goals. Some members in this range care less about social support and are using their
membership as a resource until they can achieve their true goals elsewhere: “I’m
basically in it ‘till a higher lvl. Then I will move on to better things.”

 

 

<<근데 왜 굳이 <와우>로 한 거지..

 

 

 

Faction당파, 파벌  Differences
It is not clear if playing a certain faction has an impact on guild life or individual
behavior or if particular kinds of people self-select a certain faction to reinforce
something about themselves. With an equal number of interviews of both Horde and
Alliance we found few systematic differences at all. Two minor possibilities were
core members and PvP preference. Of the 8 interviewees who were not officers
in their guilds yet thought of themselves as “core members,” 7 were Horde and only
1 was Alliance.

 

>>주로 쌈질 좋아하는 호드들ㅋㅋ

 

That could alternatively mean that Horde guilds are generally more
inclusive and egalitarian평등주의자  or that Horde players are more mistaken about their importance
within their guild. Similarly, 6 Horde players viewed their guild as having a
significant PvP ethic, whereas only 2 Alliance players did. These differences are too
small to be seen as statistically significant are so are merely suggestions for future
investigation. The primary conclusion is that the two factions have almost no systematic
differences in their social dynamics.

 

 

>>종족별로 이러는 건 재밌네ㅋㅋ 이제야 왜 텍스트가 와우인지 이해 가네

 

Formal Practices
The most common formal practices within guilds were the use of mission statements,
recruitment and expulsion policies, and external Web sites.

 

 

Guild removal was relatively rare. Most people leaving a guild did so because
they had few strong ties and simply left the game or left for another guild.
Occasionally, problematic members were removed by a guild leader or officer. In
each case, these were tied to instances described by players as unnecessary social
“drama,” incivility, or periods of inactivity. These cases were sometimes thought to
be related to real-life personal issues such as drug use.

 

 

This high level of “churn” highlights the difficulties inherent in managing these
entertainment communities: Guilds appear to be fragile institutions.

 

 

Many
players were quite happy with the level of seriousness, the guild leader, and usually
their guild mates. The single most common response was that the player liked his or
her guild mates and saw them as helpful and friendly. Others liked the sense of
belonging and the opportunity to help create a social entity that might reflect some
of its prestige on them individually and collectively.

 

 

 

 

 

Leadership
Guild leaders (know as “GMs” for guild masters, not to be mistaken with the
“GM” that is a game master, or Blizzard customer service worker) were a key component
to the survival and progress of nearly every guild.

 

 

In larger guilds in which demand for membership
was high, GMs were able to enforce codes of ethics, police disputes, coordinate
scheduling, and even impose lofty guiding philosophies. Some large guilds functioned
as a virtual barracks; these were task-oriented military-style hierarchies.
Others managed to maintain casual social atmospheres more akin to a children’s tree
house play space even as they tackled difficult group tasks. There was clear evidence
that the majority of players wanted a firm leader to enforce norms and policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Individual-Level Patterns

Real Life Versus WoW: Social Support

 

For guild mates with no previous real-life ties, the immediate impacts were much
more likely to be of the bridging social capital type. Playing together in a guild made
it possible for them to get in touch with a broad range of people from different ethnic,
socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. What’s more, these people might be
demographically diverse, but they begin their relationships with a common interest:

 

 

 

 

The Role-Play Factor
There is very little empirical evidence on the extent to which people role-play
when they play games. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that when there are no
role-play rules, few gamers act as anything other than themselves (Schiano & White,
1998; Stromer-Galley & Martey, 2003). Further evidence has suggested that players
role-play to work through personal issues, such as deciding what kind of person they
truly are or hashing through Freudian conflicts from their childhood (Turkle, 1995)

We saw no strong evidence to support the latter phenomena, which could be a function
of the relatively short interview sessions; getting into serious personal issues
would have required longer interviews with more trust built up over time.

What was abundantly clear however is that people on RP servers are playing
another game entirely. The guild life, social connections, player roles, and player
behavior were all different on RP servers because of the metalevel difference in rule
sets. True role-players talk “in character.” That is, if a player is a 32-year-old woman
from New Jersey playing a male night elf, she talks like the night elf, not the woman.

Yet for even the most dedicated RPers, there is usually the ability to talk “OOC,” or
“out of character,” and to be their “true” real-life persona. on that level, the guild politics
and behaviors were largely similar to those found on the other server types. one
notable exception might be the role of gender on RP servers. Players’ sex lives played
a larger role, as did flirting, dating, and even real-life cheating and promiscuity.
According to one female interviewee, this is the result of two things: the very aggressive
nature of female players on RP servers and the relative scarcity of dominant
“alpha male” players. These conclusions are based on a handful of interviews and so
remain tentative. However, we suspect that they would be rich material for future
research on gender, sex, and anonymity with respect to the nature of online role-play.

 

>>이 부분은 참고해도 될 듯 일단 원문은 다 따놓음

 

p.356-357

 

 

 

By analogy,
we find that playing WoW is as social as a team sport, which has its own rules, literal
boundaries, and social norms.

 

>>이곳의 사회는 현실의 사회와 그닥 다를 바도 없는 거지

 그게 바로 이 연구(MMORPG 게임의 전형적인 사회 조직 형태인 길드 연구)를 통해 말하고 했던 바는 아닐까시라

 

Within those, there are still self-initiated tactics,
team strategies, styles, and goals that make the play space a stage for socialization,
organization, and networks that often have little to do with the original game.

 

 

We do not mean to suggest
that MMOs are a panacea for civic revitalization. Rather, they appear to be a
place where such revitalization is possible for some players and in a new way.

 

>>civic시민적 재생의 '만병통치약'이라는 걸 말하는 건 아님

 그러한 재생이 새로운 방식으로 가능한 곳, MMO

 

 

 

<<한계 지적이나 further 스터디 같은 거 매번 디스커션에 나오는 듯