Planetarion Research Study

I am a master student at the University of Oslo, Department of Informatics in Norway, and I am writing a thesis about Virtual Communities (that is guilds and alliances) and communication. The goal is to design and develop a prototype of a system that will support communication within Virtual Gaming Communities.

I am performing a research study of alliances in Planetarion, and as a part of it I have created a questionnaire which is based upon the interviews carried out earlier in this study. The purpose of this questionnaire is to get answers to questions that has arised in the interviews, and to gather quantitative material to see (if possible) trends among the players in Planetarion.

Below is a link to the questionnaire. It consists of around 30 questions and it takes about 10 minutes to answer it. I would appreciate if you could spare the time to fill in the questionnaire. If it is possible, please give the link to other Planetarion players since I rely on getting as many participants as possible. This is the second and last ( ) questionnaire in this research study.

The link to the questionnaire is :
http://planetarionsurvey.ragnarok.no/index.php

For more information about this research study, please visit
http://ragnarok.no/~johanyg/hfag/

If you have any questions or thoughts/ideas to this reseach study, please send me an email ([email protected]).

Regards,

Johan Grasmo

It's going very well so far, and I suspect the outcome will be nice too

Negs.

[Leshy]

Done and good luck

I'll let it hang up here for a while so it won't get lost

[wakey]

Originally posted by Negerslem
I am a master student at the University of Oslo, Department of Informatics in Norway, and I am writing a thesis about Virtual Communities (that is guilds and alliances) and communication. The goal is to design and develop a prototype of a system that will support communication within Virtual Gaming Communities.

I am performing a research study of alliances in Planetarion, and as a part of it I have created a questionnaire which is based upon the interviews carried out earlier in this study. The purpose of this questionnaire is to get answers to questions that has arised in the interviews, and to gather quantitative material to see (if possible) trends among the players in Planetarion.

Below is a link to the questionnaire. It consists of around 30 questions and it takes about 10 minutes to answer it. I would appreciate if you could spare the time to fill in the questionnaire. If it is possible, please give the link to other Planetarion players since I rely on getting as many participants as possible. This is the second and last ( ) questionnaire in this research study.

The link to the questionnaire is :
http://planetarionsurvey.ragnarok.no/index.php

For more information about this research study, please visit
http://ragnarok.no/~johanyg/hfag/

If you have any questions or thoughts/ideas to this reseach study, please send me an email ([email protected]).

Regards,

Johan Grasmo

Didnt you already do this back in r2. I seem to remember a simerlar request being posted on our Politics board back then or was that just someone else doing a simerlar thing?

[Torz]

I recognised the questionaire also.

[Leshy]

I recall something like this having been done before - though it didn't focus on Alliances as much as this one. I think a lot of people have used PA as a subject for assignments focussing on online games/communities.

[wakey]

Originally posted by Leshy
I recall something like this having been done before - though it didn't focus on Alliances as much as this one. I think a lot of people have used PA as a subject for assignments focussing on online games/communities.

Yeah I know theres been loads in the past just Negerslem was in my galaxy r2 and seem to remember a request to do something simerlar coming from in galaxy with an almost identical looking questionaire. Then again all the rounds start to blur into each other so perhaps it wanst r2

Well, I did a similar questionnaire but the focus of the thesis has shifted. And the previous questionnaire was like 1/2 a year ago :-)

Anyways, I'm very grateful for all help so I can finish this dar**d thesis :-) I want to go out and earn GREAT bucks!

Nice to see you again wakey


Negs.

[hinch]

negers just hand over the old OoO site that`ll do it for you

Originally posted by hinchles
negers just hand over the old OoO site that`ll do it for you

*dang* I should have thought of that before I made it Open Source :/ It still lies on www.grasmo.no/wolfpack.tar.gz however Perhaps a tad late now

Do you irc much hinchicle ?

Negs.

[hinch]

when i can be arsed mainly at home some times

if you tell me when your online i`ll make sure im on too

btw i filled in your survey too \o/

[Legator]

neger \o/

get ur ass on irc sometimes )))

u playing the wisemen again eh ?

....just not so active pa-related

Nah, I pop in from time to time. Just now I answered a PM that I got from PiaZava in january :-)

I promise I'll be a tad more active around here before PA shuts down

Thanks for all the answers on the questionnaire. So far I've got 2137 answers from the Planetarion population(!)

Negs.

[Golin]

done

[Carpeia]

hey negerslem, long time no see.!!

well, i did the server too..

didnt fill in my e-mail tho..

Thanx alot. I have your email addy even if you didn't fill it in

How are you doing btw ?

[Terra Australis]

Good luck with the research filled in the questionaire.

Though i think that maybe you should also have a part in the survey that allows people to provide what alliances and they have been in and there reasons for leaving, as this might provide usefull demographic information as to why people have left alliances due to political shifts, espionage activities etc, all this come come under your study of communication that alliances use etc.

Hope this gives you some more ideas....

All the best

Paul

I thought about it, and it was an alternative i seriously considered. I also considered the practical consequences; I have so far got 3.000 answers from Planetarion alone, and I had to go through all entries to see that they all were formatted 'correctly'. That would have taken aaages

I see the benefits, and I probably should have done it, but I think I will manage to answer my problem areas.

Thanks again,

Johan

[Terra Australis]

Maybe if you went to do further studies, such as a doctorate or when you get into your chosen career you could use this as a part of your work or further study, as this would probably be a good model to exmaine the way that people behave in certain situations.

After all my theory is that Planetarion is basically one Big research study, on how our behavoir as the players adapts to situations that the creators have imposed on us, and then monitor how people adapt to situations, basically practicing the theories of Darwinism over a Computer controlled envioroment and since the rounds last only three months, then that equates to Planetarion has been runnng for just about 3 or so years or there abouts.

You only have to look at the way people have banded together to form Tribes (Alliances) and then as there powerbase has grown and they have found other powerful tribes then they have made non agression pacts to prevent mutual destruction, and looked for richer pickings.

This can be said of the same as the way that the real world that behaves in its present state and all through the ages of Human history right from Medieval times till now.

The same can be said of Planetarion in the early rounds that could be the equivalent of starting at Medieval times and then progressing through till now where all the alliances are set and have been in place for a long time.

When Planetarion first started that would have been when people were exploring beyond there borders and looking for new lands..... Thus can be said of what the alliances were doing, meeting new people and probing and in some cases forming the lasting relationships that have remained in the case of some alliances right up until now.

This can be related to the modern world where countries that have forged alliances and treaties and have stuck with those treaties right up until the present day.

Does anyone else think of the Parrallels that Planetarion has with the real world outside the Universe of Planetarion?