Encouraging Community

[Ros]

Some background first - I come from a roleplaying background on MUDs/MUSHes, MMOs, and forums, and am on staff at a large roleplaying directory.  I ran a small LotGD site for awhile that was mainly just for friends. I had several large forum RPGs, and now I run a Second Life roleplay. I love and miss my MUDing days, but it's a dying art. I code easily in HTML, some in PHP, a couple of MUD codes, and tend to pick up other things not too slowly.

Recently, I've been having a discussion with a number of roleplayers over browser games.  Most have played KoL, and some have played various other ones.  A lot of forum roleplayers are simply bored out of their minds with their chosen format, and want something totally different.  My SL RPG has a limited scope of interest (Wheel of Time), so I don't think everyone would be comfortable there, and not everyone can run SL well. So we've been talking about a MUD or browser-based game.  However, they're unhappy with most browser-based games because most do have have a strong social element, which is what attracts them to forum RPGs. A group of us played around with another Legend of the Green Dragon install, but the same complaint existed that it was hard to communicate over it and they felt isolated.

I guess I have a few questions:
-are there codebases that exists already with a heavy social component?
-are there some games out there with heavy social components that would be good examples?
-how do you encourage community on your own games?

[jannesiera]

-how do you encourage community on your own games?

I don't have a BBG, but I can try to answer that question  .
I would use:
 - a chat
 - a forum / multiple forums*
 - comments (on profiles, news posts, ... )
 - open profiles
 - messages
 - guilds
 - ...
* I played a game that was very addictive because of the strong community (miniconomy.com, but it's mainly dutch) and it had "clubs". You could build a club and then run it. These "clubs" were acctually forums. And people could join a club then and talk about stuff (you could give a club a name, select moderators, ... )

[JGadrow]

Ah, if you get this going, definitely drop me a line. So sad about RJ Supposedly he left notes enough for the final book to be completed, but I'm doubtful.

[Ros]

If I did a browser-based game, it would not be Wheel of Time themed, as the group I'm referring to aren't generally fans of that.  I was referring to the Second Life roleplay on which I am an administrator. That has been open for awhile.  Theme-wise we've been discussing steampunk fantasy, modern fantasy, and modern real life.  For the life of me, I don't know how to develop that sort of game with a real life theme, but that's something they've noted. I'm not sure how you would create a dedicated roleplaying community out of a browser-based game, but with the proliferation of forum-based RPGs, there's got to be a way to work it out.

Right now, I'm more at the stage of wondering if a browser-based game is viable for creating the kind of community in which I would be interested. There are a few out there that seem to accomplish it - the ones I'm thinking of are Gaia Online and Neopets, but they do not appeal to me as a roleplayer. Many of the others I have tried and they appeal to solo gamers, but not social gamers.

[JGadrow]

Role-playing games, by virtue of their very nature, are difficult to get right. The only thing I can suggest is to give it the good ol' college try and see what happens.

I would look to add as many 'community features' as possible: AJAX chat, in-game messaging, forums. Also, if you could find ways in-game to reward players who are social, that would go a long way as well. Perhaps players in a guild receive a 5% discount on purchases or something similar.

All of these will help to build a cohesive community. However, none of it will guarantee a 'successful' game. Successful being defined as having a high (yes, this term is relative to your needs) population with regular interaction.

[Helderic]

Do you think giving bonuses/rewards to players who actively use in-game forums would help or would that just cause massive spamming? A way to combat this might be to disable this feature to players who abuse it?

[Ros]

Probably massive spamming, although it depends on how you did it, I guess.

[JGadrow]

Yes, do NOT reward for activity as this just serves to inflate material rather than present 'good' material. As earlier, provide benefits for serving in a guild (no spam required lol), or you could incorporate some sort of 'karma' system and use it as a basis for rewards, however, then you have to worry about multi-accounting or a group of friends who constantly grant one another karma points.

There are a myriad of options available, it all depends on what feels right for your situation.

[jannesiera]

I was wondering maybe you could try to strat from a basic 'forum rpg' and start thinking what you want to 'automate' and what you want to add (like chat, ingame-messaging system etc.) And so slowly evolve to a browser based game as there come more ideas and still have that same experience.

[genmac]

I contend that the answer to this problems lies in implementing "social classes" in your game - eg a gameplay method focused on playing a role that isn't primarily concerned with combat.

[avguste]

I would say that a game is as social as its users.
There is just so much that an admin/dev can do and as far as players communicating,that is up to each player.
Personally,in the game I am working on(armoricarpg.novahost.org),because currently the game is open beta,I haven't advertised really,so players are not really active.However the game still offers communication opportunities by providing forums,shoutbox and such.

Some background first - I come from a roleplaying background on MUDs/MUSHes, MMOs, and forums, and am on staff at a large roleplaying directory.  I ran a small LotGD site for awhile that was mainly just for friends. I had several large forum RPGs, and now I run a Second Life roleplay. I love and miss my MUDing days, but it's a dying art. I code easily in HTML, some in PHP, a couple of MUD codes, and tend to pick up other things not too slowly.

Recently, I've been having a discussion with a number of roleplayers over browser games.  Most have played KoL, and some have played various other ones.  A lot of forum roleplayers are simply bored out of their minds with their chosen format, and want something totally different.  My SL RPG has a limited scope of interest (Wheel of Time), so I don't think everyone would be comfortable there, and not everyone can run SL well. So we've been talking about a MUD or browser-based game.  However, they're unhappy with most browser-based games because most do have have a strong social element, which is what attracts them to forum RPGs. A group of us played around with another Legend of the Green Dragon install, but the same complaint existed that it was hard to communicate over it and they felt isolated.

I guess I have a few questions:
-are there codebases that exists already with a heavy social component?
-are there some games out there with heavy social components that would be good examples?
-how do you encourage community on your own games?