Design notebook: Gaming and the Dunbar number

[evilhat]

I'm hoping to make a series of short posts on "how MMO design influenced the design of The Road to Amber MUSH". A lot of research went into our previous commercial MMO design foray, and a number of things we learned are applicable to a broad spectrum of games, not just MMOs.
This first post is on the Dunbar number, group size, and its applicability

Comments

[potato_pope]

Break things.

[rfrancis]

Yep.

I regret a number of steps we (meaning me and the other wizards) took on AmberMUSH that ultimately were well-intentioned ("better simulation") but had terrible effects; for example, getting rid of the Hall of Mirrors as a transport nexus which was linked pretty tightly with the failure of the WEB as a social nexus and so on and so forth.

Having said that, I notice a common progression in all the long-in-the-tooth RP muds I'm familiar with, all from the single social nexus (Fort Ramp, World's End Bar, whichever campfire it was on Two Moons, etc) to everyone sitting in a room by themselves for the most part. So clearly you're working against a current, here. It'll be interesting to see how it goes in time. Of course I hope it goes well and everyone takes note of how to combat that trend. :)

[word_geek]

So does WoW have a physical social nexus? I know City of Heroes has the statue of Atlas in Atlas Park, but I haven't played many MMOs. My vague MUSHing memories recall that having that #0 place was pretty important...I hadn't thought about that scaling up to MMOs.

[evilhat]

Sort of. Ironforge, and Orgrimmar.

WoW's horizontal social engagement is in the form of channels, really.

[malkin]

I tend to refer to locations (and channels) like the World's End Bar as the "central stage." It is essential for some very important purposes

[thenetweasel]

There's an interesting correlation we've found with software development. The optimum team size (allowing for some specialization) is effectively 6-7. Teams don't hit their real scale factor again until you have 5-6 of these size teams, or effectively large enough for heirarchy to work.

There's plenty of statistical data to back these findings up as well, particularly from companies like QSM. I'll have to read through the original reference and see if it jibes with the anecdotal experience with development teams.

Something to consider though - while those software teams become more effective in their specific area over time, they stagnate and develop tunnel vision (effectively horizontal silos) if left together too long. You really need to be able to swap out about 33-50% of each team every 6 months or so. So regarding your concern for cliques - is there a game mechanism that can encourage that sort of "promotion" or "exchange"?

One final thought: People don't gather on inclines.

[debela]

But they do gather on steps. :)

One of the things that interested me about this is that we strive, as a business unit, to have no more than 7 direct reports to a given manager. My team is actually three teams, and I have, I admit, shamelessly overlapped them in places to take advantage of a given skillset and to prevent the tunnel vision effect. The other problem is that they can end up thinking that they have no promotional path outside their tunnel, and it shocks them to learn that they could move up in other teams.

[bhoneydew]

There's a thick stack of literature on this regarding span of control. 7 or 8 is the general limit; more recent work puts the "crisis capacity" at 3.

Maybe it's coincidental that that number (7) appears in the "how many digits can you remember" type of tests.

The problem of control gap has existed in at least two of my management experiences: the no-man's land between a team of 8 and a team of 35 or so. Between there, there's not enough to justify the hierarchy and too much to run it all centrally.

Unfortunately that's exactly where IT's headcount seems to be for any small-midsize company (between 150 and 600 FTEs).

[rfrancis]

One final thought: People don't gather on inclines.

Unless it's the Fort Ramp on PernMUSH. :)

Two Issues

[malabranca]

There is an underlying assumption here that is worth at least mentioning and that is, for lack of a better word, consent. More broadly, the ability of players to choose both: 1) with whom and what they subject is of their play; and 2) the consequences of that play. Modest-size playgroups flourish in the type of environment that permit players to consent for all the reasons elucidated by others