Industry Blogs and Online Community Websites - Ryan Wilk
Comapring Terra Nova and Virtual Cultures to other online communities reveals some fairly obvious differences. To really discuss the importance of the two entities, however, I would like to borrow from a Terra Nova blog by Florence Chee. Florence discusses his experiences as a gamer in WoW, vs. his real life tendency to view things as an anthropologist. He uses the term "passionate detachment" to explain his approach to analyzing games. He must be passionate about the experience (certainly, while playing WoW, he is fully enthralled), but to write objectively about online culture and communities, he excerts a level of personal detachment. I believe this "passionate detachment" can be used appropriately to descibe the concept of a site like Terra Nova. Certainly, these sites are populated by people much like Patricia; they are avid gamers that are passionate about interactive entertainment. However, at some level they can detach themselves. By conversing over why online experiences create the aforementioned "passion," they become more aware gamers, designers, etc.
If you log onto Terra Nova, there is very little explanation for new comers. This really is a forum of ideas, and its lay out is intended to grab the attention of those that truly find some form of detachment. Terra Nova and Virtual Cultures are essential to the evolution of the medium; there are some very interesting topics being discussed on a day to day basis.
Logging on to the WoW and UO websites is vastly different. These sites are truly focused on extending the "passion" of the online experience to their meta-communities. Each site, in addition, heavily favors new players (the new player tab tops the side menus of both websites). Ultimately, these sites attempt to further the community of the game while serving the game's underlying fiction. Visiting the WoW and UO websites explains why a site like Terra Nova exists. How do these websites help build communities and control online experiences? How important are they to a player's actual play-time? Can websites such as WoW eventually become more integrated into the log-on and play experience?