WorldPlay Research Initiative

[Elmer the Pointy]

Recently, JP Button was contacted by Associate Professor Aaron Delwiche from the Department of Communication at Trinity University. Professor Delwiche is teaching a course on Transnational Onilne games, and along with his students, has initiated the WorldPlay Research Initiative. He is looking for the FFXI community to contribute their thoughts and experiences adventuring with players of all different cultures in Vana'diel.

Currently, I am working with seventeen undergraduates to launch the Worldplay Project. As you can see from our site, the Worldplay project is trying to figure out ways that players, game developers, and researchers can promote cross-cultural cooperation in virtual worlds. We are very committed to the same values that are embodied in JP Button.

As the first step of this project, we are asking players from around the world to share their thoughts,concerns, and suggestions about cross-cultural interaction. We've put together a short (10 question) open-ended document that invites people to speak up on this important issue. This survey is currently posted in Chinese, English, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Vietnamese.

If you have the time, check out their site and fill out a survey. It's a little more complicated than yes/no , but it's not very long at all. There's also a link that downloads a PDF with the results they have compiled so far.

Here are some direct links to the project pages:

PROJECT HOME - FAQ - STUDENT BLOGS


And some fast links to the survey in each language:

CHINESE
ENGLISH
GERMAN
JAPANESE
KOREAN
SPANISH
VIETNAMESE

[Corrderio]

This has got to be the 3rd time I've seen someone try to research the XI community.

[yayaok]

well shit, they got somethin in korean now
guess i might as well hurumph

[Dominionix]

6. What language barriers and cultural barriers -- if any -- have you encountered in virtual worlds? How did these affect your gaming experience?

JP ONRY.

[Hobbes]

I filled out their survey. And then read their first set of raw data... I KILL EVERYONE WITHOUT MERCY was a popular answer. I think I might have gotten some the questions wrong :/

[Kaeko]

I think my answers were too long

[Shamaya]

Prolly one of the strongest points in FFXI that they can take into their research, would be auto-trans.

[Silenka]

Took the survey, I like that kind of thing so I really filled out some answers lol. I should be sleeping >.>

Prolly one of the strongest points in FFXI that they can take into their research, would be auto-trans.

This is something I focused on in my answers, auto-translate is a really useful tool that should be implemented in way more games than it is currently.

[McGoonagle]

A couple of years ago Indiana U. were developing a MMORP game as a tool for economic research. Wonder what happened to it.

[Nicholette]

Prolly one of the strongest points in FFXI that they can take into their research, would be auto-trans.

True, a system like "Rosy" for googlewave would work wonders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHwPgMXsNY
Hopefully that youtube link is of Rosy, I'm at work and am sonic blocked for youtube access

[trixter]

I mentioned auto-translate a few times too.

[Milton]

auto-translate is cool and all, but i learned a lot of french and portuguese playing mmos with people of those nationalities several years back, because of the absence of anything like auto-translate. without it communication would be much more difficult, but you would probably also learn a lot more about the languages and cultures of the people you were playing with.

[nitsuj]

I'm a big fan of Virtual World research, as I used to do it as a job. Good stuff, Elmer.

[Corrderio]

Took the survey, I like that kind of thing so I really filled out some answers lol. I should be sleeping >.>



This is something I focused on in my answers, auto-translate is a really useful tool that should be implemented in way more games than it is currently.

I agree with this. However I do think they need to try and make the translations a little more accurate.

[McGoonagle]

auto-translate is cool and all, but i learned a lot of french and portuguese playing mmos with people of those nationalities several years back, because of the absence of anything like auto-translate. without it communication would be much more difficult, but you would probably also learn a lot more about the languages and cultures of the people you were playing with.

Guessing your way between Canadian, French and Portuguese might work, because they're related languages. For Japanese, you can't guess.

[Silenka]

I agree with this. However I do think they need to try and make the translations a little more accurate.

I've noticed the German translations for a lot of the auto-translate words/phrases are really off compared to the other languages. Wiki has a whole list of the auto-translates and what they say in FR GR and JP and pretty much every language coincides well except some of the german phrases which just make me scratch my head...

Ex: Standing by. = 'At attention/ready' for other languages, but 'bitte warten' for german, which means 'please wait' with a connotation of unreadiness ... erm... makes sense dudes.

[Duber]

Talking about translations.. are the other translated surveys as poor as spanish one ? Guess they used some program to translate it.

[Lonewind]

Wow, interesting, I actually graduated from there, will fill out survey after work.

[Mazmaz]

How come you didn't post this on Alla?

[Elmer the Pointy]

How come you didn't post this on Alla?

I have to reformat the code for every different site, so I just hadn't done it yet.