[arg_discuss] Social Interaction in ARGs

[Brian Clark]

Great work, Christy ... a few bits of data and opinion :)

I'm not sure Urns counts as "challenges are issued in different languages,
facilitating players sharing translations in order to reach a subgoal and
keep the game progressing" like you say. The narrative was translated into
all of those languages to allow players in each of those countries to
participate in a global experience, but in reality English remained the
lingua franca of the meta-narrative and the player community. I guess one
could argue that it helped create a more internationalized player base.

Conversely, Heist did use elements in foreign languages that were intended
to require the community recruiting a new native speaker (there are bits of
that in many ARGs though, as it is a puzzle type that requires recruitment.)

I also take some issue with the way you defined roleplaying: I'd make the
argument that a very large percentage of ARG players are roleplaying in a
transformative way. Jane McGonigal described that well as a player of Heist:
she was trying on an alternate Jane McGonigal. Eldritch players who went to
West Virginia also found themselves "roleplaying themselves". There's as
much "play" in an ARG as there is "game".

I'd also argue that many ARGs involve the element of "constructive play" --
the ARG is being written in collaboration between the creators and
participants. Player's just don't often glimpse how much is or isn't on
rails on the "other side of the curtain".

"Social statuses" is also the key to how community functions: there are
always "more famous players" than others in the legacy of a finished game
(which is an innate comprehension of "social status" with a coarse mechanism
like a scoreboard.)



-----Original Message-----
From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of John Evans
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:14 AM
To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] Social Interaction in ARGs


>Hey everyone, 

>

>The following is a resource I've been working on myself, but am thinking

>I'll add it in some way to the ARG Design section of ARGology. In it I draw

>on existing game design patterns for social interaction, and see how they

>apply to ARGs. The listing I have is just a quick draft.

>

>http://www.christydena.com/Primer/ARGDashboard_Interaction.html

>

>I'd love to hear you thoughts on examples to add, anything you don't agree

>with, and also how I should present the information. I don't find the

manner

>I have presented it at the moment user-friendly. Should I move it to the

>ARGology wiki for instance? 


That's awesome, Christy. It *does* seem like a good topic for the wiki, in
the sense that people who are experts in one game or another will be able
to talk about the activities involved in that particular game. I could
help out with moving it to the Wiki if you need some "grunt HTML/Wiki-code"
work done. ;)

Though, I have to be honest, I look at that chart and I think "So how can I
create a game that fills in some of these empty categories?". Hmmm...

--John Evans
Chaoseed Software - http://chaoseed.com

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