The document discusses research on virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) using information science approaches. It summarizes current results on guild dynamics and cross-cultural comparisons of Taiwanese and American gaming cultures. Future work is proposed on communities, player behavior, and the effects of game design.

1. Ji-Lung Hsieh Advisor: Chuen-Tsai Sun

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29. Informal: virtual worlds are lack of support for it Permanent: groups would continue to exist when all their members were logged off R. Bartle, Designing virtual worlds . Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing, 2004. Category Number of Players Formality Duration Structure Pairs 2~5 Informal Temporary Flat “ Pickup” groups 3~5 Formal Temporary Flat Friends <50 Formal Permanent Flat Groups for raiding 5, 10, 20, 40. Formal Temporary Hierarchy Guilds and ally groups 10~480 Formal Permanent Hierarchy Hybrid groups 40 Formal Temporary Hierarchy

31. Level First mission for “Pickup” group s formed by avatars with similar levels Data Updated 2006/2/15

32. Data ranges from 2006/02~2006/04

33. Data ranges from 2006/02~2006/04

36. 30 40 50 20 60 N. Ducheneaut, Yee, N., Nickell, E., Moore, R. J. , &quot;&quot;Alone together?&quot;: exploring the social dynamics of massively multiplayer online games,&quot; in Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems , pp. Montréal, Québec, Canada2006 ACM Press.

37. Server Average level upgrading efficiency Average playing time per day (minutes) US 0.93 90.46 Taiwan 1.62 (Higher) 102.19 (Almost the same)

38. Guild channel and events Personal status Guild Member Leader’s message