Post 6 - Social Psych in Real Life

   

Theme: Interactions in Multiplayer Games (guilds)

    Modern technology allows us to text or converse with people across the world. For fans of multiplayer videogames, this technological expansion has led to the popularization of a social mechanic that assists players in communicating and pooling resources between one another: guilds. To optimize their strategic cooperation and resource efficiency, many guilds set up messaging channels outside of their specific game; and wherever people interact, principles of social psychology can be applied.

Compliance

(Part of the top 50 defense teams used by the top 30 guilds)

    In the game I play, guilds can fight other guilds in a game mode called Guild Wars. Each member of their respective guild has a set defense that their opponent can attack, and a crucial component of winning a guild war involves constantly upgrading your units and defense. Recently, I've noticed that guild members have extremely similar defenses to each other, with some of the most valuable towers utilizing the exact same units as the others. Strategically, this compliance to the meta is dangerous; after all, if members of the opposing guild manage to break one of the defenses, they will also be able to break any of its similar counterparts. Despite the strategic disadvantage, players change their defense in this way because many guilds prefer to have the most recent, unconventional defenses to deter attackers. However, when everyone complies to these requests for change, the defenses quickly become widespread and easily predictable.

Obedience

    Every guild has one leader with complete control over the management of the guild's resources and members. They can also assign vice captains to help spread out the burden of leadership in large guilds. Ultimately, the existence of these roles creates hierarchies of authority within each guild. Ideally, the concept of obedience would be applied to members having increased motivation to follow orders like completing daily missions, attacking in guild wars, and participating in other guild events. However, our need to obey authority may also lead players to using units they may not have wanted to use but built because they trust the strategies of their guild leader (authoritative figure).

Social Facilitation

    One of the most vital aspects to guilds is their ability to enhance a player's experience and motivation to play, especially in regards to daily missions. These missions are generally not too difficult to complete, and they give rewards upon completion. However, due to their repetitive, mundane nature, some players have trouble mustering up the motivation to routinely perform them. Luckily, since other guilds can somewhat track the attendance and weekly progress of its players, being in a guild can make completing these tasks easier and more satisfying, just as social facilitation enables one to execute simple tasks more easily when being observed by a group.

Group Polarization

                                                                                    (From a different guild)
(From my guild)

    Similarly to the revolutionary, beautiful, and utterly horrific advancement of communication over the internet, players can find just about any group with similar viewpoints and opinions as them due to the variety of different guilds available. If you believe following the meta is the best path toward victory, there will be many guilds for you. If you believe certain units should never be used nor spoken of, there will be many guilds for you. If you believe in only using certain characters, there may still be a guild for you. Whatever belief you hold about the game, there is a player community that agrees with you; though, this also means there is a group that disagrees with you. Many controversies regarding different units' abilities and best applications have sprung up among the general player base, and each guild has its own opinions that players hear, believe, and repeat. 

Reciprocity Norms

    Another large appeal for joining a guild is the trading system. Players can request aid or trading once per day, and each of these interactions garners a small amount of experience for the guild itself. It is expected that each guild member uses this mechanic each day for the xp, so people will request for common crafting materials that nearly every guild member is guarenteed to posses. However, aside from those mundane requests, many players trade rarer items like catalysts. Usually, a guild member will request to exchange such items in both the game and the guild's messaging channel. Any members who gave them the materials will also request an item of similar value or rarity the next day, so each player can receive the specific material they need without losing any overall value from their item collection. Also, people do not look kindly upon those who either fail to reciprocate the next day or make these requests without another member to trade with.

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