I'm working on my Enterprise Virtual Worlds presentation and was filling in some detail on communication in game-oriented virtual worlds that I would like to share here as well.
Enterprises are wise to look to gaming from time to time due to trends in:
- Outside-in technology: how consumer technologies such as blogs and wikis increasingly find their way into enterprises
- Emergent gameplay: the use of gaming technology in ways the original designer hadn't intended
- User experience lessons: UE improvements tend to filter from the competitive gaming market to generalized applications. Gaming is an optional activity, so UE has to be at a high level when you want the users to pay you to use their systems rather than the other way around.
Communication is interesting to explore since the number of communication channels that enterprises use (and every information worker must now attend to) has increased a great deal over the past five years to include instant messaging, presence, websites, and blogs. Getting enterprises used to the idea of "channels" and how to manage and select between them has taken some time and some pain.
I was quite impressed when all the methods of communication in World of Warcraft (which was released in November of 2003) are laid out. WoW communication is strikingly similar (and maybe more efficient) than enterprise communication technology in many areas.
It includes:
- Channels: Players can subscribe to communication channels such as /trade to receive ongoing chat on the channel, or unsubscribe. Another example is in EVE Online, which has a "newbie" channel that can put new players in touch with others taking their first steps, but can be turned off once the player is more confident.
- Chat modes (IM): The variety of built-in IM modes goes beyond most enterprise IM implementations which rely on groups. They are: /say (vacinity), /party (your group only), /guild (your broader community), /yell (all in larger region), /whisper (one person)
- Presence: Friends can be selected and you are made aware when they come online/offline, and location is displayed (a feature still on the cutting edge in the enterprise)
- Mail: Consists of normal mail, packages, and COD packages. The inbox is visited at WoW Postal Service facilities, which has the pleasant effect of isolating the player trying to accomplish objectives from the stream of email since they only check it periodically when they visit town. Also, since email costs money to send (a few copper pieces), there is practically no spam
- Emotes: There are over 100 emotes such as /wave, /thank, /cheer, /dance, etc. It is amazing how fluid the use of emotes gets in the real game, such that they do not feel like a conscious effort to be funny, but rather a natural way of expressing oneself in group situations.
-Craig Roth
(note: this entry is cross-posted from the KnowledgeForward blog)
