Assignment10WisneskyLillyEdwardsRiegerStrzepek

Assignment10WisneskyLillyEdwardsRiegerStrzepek

To Do

Be prepared to give a 5-10 minute presentation about your project in class so the other students and the instructors understand your ideas and can see the progress you have made

Please post in the Wiki the following things about your project:

• title
• abstract
• team members and their responsibilities (e.g: how have you split up your work?)
• why is the project of interest to you?
• description of what you have done so far
• plan what you will do in the remaining time till the final projects reports are due
• relationship of your work to the major themes presented and discussed in the class
• references identified

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Pierce Edwards, Jacob Wisnesky, Joe Lilly, Colin Rieger, Janusz Strzepek

2. Question 1

Title:

MMOs as a Source of DSS Study

Abstract:

As we progress into the 21st century, the field of digital and social systems is becoming more and more prominent as it starts to influence people, their work, and their recreation. Similarly, Massively Multiplayer Online games have also become more prominent over the past several years. Although dismissed as a mere recreational activity to some, MMOs provide a useful environment for substantive study into topics of value to DSS.

3. Question 2

Team members and their responsibilities (e.g: how have you split up your work?):

As our research is incredibly broad, research by individual group members has covered a wide variety of topics:

Pierce Edwards - Demographic and some psychological information about MMO userbases. For example, guild demographics, in-game choices, player preferences, etc.

Jacob Wisnesky - Focus on World of Warcraft, with some emphasis on it's usefulness to academic research. For example, a 2007 article in the journal Epidemiology used a "virtual outbreak" of disease in World of Warcraft as a model for study of disease. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was also interested in this event.

Colin Rieger - Some direct interaction with MMO players. For example, polling users in-game for their input on a variety of topics.

Joe Lilly -

Janusz Strzepek -

Keep in mind that as this project is ongoing, no member is limited solely to what is written by their name, and the areas of focus by each group member will most likely expand as time goes on.

Why is the project of interest to us:

Most of us have had at least some experience playing MMOs. A few of us(at least one, anyway) are avid players of MMOs. We think it is interesting that environments often created solely for the purpose of being "a game" can produce an interesting and intriguing environment that can foster research substantive enough to have peer-reviewed journal articles written about it. Furthermore, we think that often times the unique social framework that these games are built upon are overlooked, and can provide useful information for DSS in general to build off of, and perhaps even provide feedback for companies to improve their current MMOs and assist them in creating better worlds and environments for tomorrow.

4. Question 3

Description of what you have done so far:

So far, we have done some general research into MMOs, as well as focus on a few areas specifically. Pierce has done some research into the demographics of MMOs, and the psychology behind many of the player choices ingame. Jacob has done some investigation about World of Warcraft, and found that some of its ingame events have been the topic of academic study. In 2007, a journal article in Epidemiology focused on a disease outbreak in World of Warcraft and used it as a model for such real-life outbreaks as bird flu and SARS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were also interested in this incident, and researchers from several organizations have suggested the possibility of using World of Warcraft and even Second Life as advanced models for diseases. Colin has focused on collecting information from players firsthand, conducting surveys/polls to players. This will provide an interesting comparison with Pierce's research, who has focused on getting this information from 3rd parties.

Plan what you will do in the remaining time till the final projects reports are due:

We intend on continuing down our current path, but at a greater level of detail. We may focus on MMOs role in academia beyond disease modeling, and provide more detail on MMOs and their playerbases, perhaps contrasting objective 3rd party statistics and information with information obtained directly from players.

Relationship of your work to the major themes presented and discussed in the class:

MMOs are really in many ways a good model of the main themes in DSS. They are a massive digital and social system that bring people together and get them involved together, even if it is only for recreation. MMOs provide interesting insight into the dynamics of social interaction in large systems. How MMOs encourage player creativity, how MMOs foster user participation, and how MMOs create coherent user groups are all topics of great relevence to DSS. If the ultimate goal is to produce DSS systems that people will use, then MMOs are already very successful - World of Warcraft alone has over 11 million players. Harnessing this success for information and ideas could be greatly beneficial for DSS.

Some references indentified:

Balicer, Ran D. "Modeling Infectious Diseases Dissemination Through Online Role-Playing Games." Epidemiology 18.2 (2007): 260-61.

Holden, Constance, ed. "Playing With Epidemics." Science 316 (2007): 961.

"Terra Nova." Terra Nova. .

Yee, Nick. "The Daedalus Project: The Psychology of MMORPGs." The Daedalus Project: MMORPG Research, Cyberculture, MMORPG Psychology. .

Joe Lilly's focus: A first person perspective of some of the cultural implications of MMOs. I have been playing through a new MMO (Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning) to answer a few questions of my own objectively. I then plan to do some more in-depth research with personal friends of mine who have or still are heavily involved in MMOs.