Blog Assignment - Social Network Analysis
It is rather difficult to offer improvement for the Puzzle Pirates without spending a considerable amount of time expanding my friend list, earning experience, and joining successful crews. From a casual standpoint, however, the game seems to have a fairly successful social network. The density of social groups for example, is rather loose, which embraces the casual nature of the game. In other words, a node with many connections, upon leaving the game environment, will hopefully have very little affect on the people left behind. The cliques of the game remain casual enough that each node does not depend on the interconectivity of his friends for success. The main problem I have with the game is its rather confusing new-user content. A new player is unsure, and rather unable to ally with friends and gain assistance when starting the game. I think the overall social network would benefit from some type of mentor system; reward an experienced player by having him show a new user the basic steps of play.
I agree with most of the previous comments made regarding KOL. This system really has limited clique formation in its beginner stages. In other words, there is no cluster coeficient. It is unlikely, for example, that two nodes who are my associates are likewise themselves connected. Despite having a very advanced and humerous chat feature, the game would benefit from embracing some form of co-operative clan quests. Because the game is so simple, they could also embrace user created artwork etc. that allows networks/clans to stand out visibly. And again, possibly because I have not played the game for hours on end, it would be great to include social interaction within the new-user training program. The beginning of the game is a very individual experience, and because I was expecting a social experience, I quickly lost patience.
Both of the casual games I played were from Yahoo games. Pool and Yahoo Graffiti both embraced a similar social system. Chatting is always available, both during gameplay and when waiting for a lobby. However, from what I gathered, to add someone as a friend, you must use the Yahoo! messaging service. I think both games would benefit from some addition to the UI that shows if people you have played in the past are available. For example when finishing a game, if you prefer a player, he will be easy to find in the future. I think this would greatly increase the growth of friendships in the system. Other than that the games succeed as they were intended. There is no heavy clique formation, and rightfully so. The competition is supposed to be casual enough that the player does not have to invest uneccesary time in the experience.