Assignment 7: Community

Within the virtual world, there are many groups that interact with each other on a daily basis. These groups are called online communities. Taken from Wikipedia, “A virtual community is a social network with a common interest, idea, task or goal that interact in a virtual society across time, geographical and organizational boundaries and is able to develop personal relationships.’’ That being said, there are many examples of virtual communities such as message boards, email lists, chat rooms, blogs, and online games. An online community I am familiar with is an internet game called Hobowars.
Hobowars is a text based internet game (text based meaning there aren’t many graphics and most of the game is just written text, think of Sudoku as an example.) Without spending too much time describing what the game is, it’s pretty self explanatory based on the name. You have a character, which is a hobo, and you fight other hobos who are real people elsewhere in the world. In this game there are many gangs or clans. Individuals in a gang can fight other individuals, and gangs can fight other gangs.
To communicate to people in the game, there are message boards for everyone in the game to use, and there are ones that are specific to each gang. For a gang to succeed, the characters frequently need to work together, so communicating via the message board, or through private messages is necessary. It is through this that players form relationships and bonds with each other.
Because the method of communicating is more direct than a listserv for example, it is much easier to form relationships with people. I’ve been playing this game for over a year now and because a majority of the players in my gang have been there as long as I have, you really get a chance to get to know people.
In contrast to offline communities, such as hanging out with my friends, the relationships I have with other game players are polar opposites. In the game I only communicate on the message boards and private messages, and I only communicate with other players while I’m playing in the game. There is no face to face or personal contact. Offline, you obviously get to see your friends and talk to them face to face, or even on the phone. You can go out and grab a bite to eat, go drinking, or go to the mall. Because of these differences, the bonds you form in a vitual community could never be as strong as the bonds you have with people in real life. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make friends in a virtual community, and it definitely doesn’t mean that you can’t form connections or create bonds with people on the other side of the world. I realize I will never actually meet them and I don’t plan to because I’m not sure we would have much to talk about outside of the game. I also realize that maybe they’ve even made up a fake identity for the game and I don’t really know them at all. But the game is fun, and that is partly because of the people who are in it regardless of who they are. I’m ok with that.

Hobowars description by GameOgre.com

Virtual community

MMORPG