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ESO As a Source of Data for Sociological Research

jmrathbun
jmrathbun
I've noticed that many quests in this game face the player with moral dilemmas. Some other games that do this provide feedback to the player on whether the player's choices aligned with the majority of other players. This would be an interesting feature to add, just for player education. It would also generate a data trove that could be of interest to sociological researchers. Their attention to ESO in this regard would lead to ESO being cited in scholarly publications and occasional human or scientific interest news reports. Everybody wins! I'm not looking for a job but would be willing to discuss this idea further with somebody at an appropriate level in your organization.
  • Karivaa
    Karivaa
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    I majored in sociology. This is irrelevant because most of the players as well as me, do not even listen to or read the quests. We just click the button to get through it quickly.
  • OC_Justice
    OC_Justice
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    My daughter was telling me of an error that occurred in WoW. There was a poison bug where a player left a dungeon and it didn't go away. Apparently there was a pandemic of sorts and whole cities and maps were getting affected. I was told that the CDC actually did a study of the incident to see how people reacted to it. Don't know how true the CDC part is, but i am sure if they did study it they got some intriguing data.
  • MarzAttakz
    MarzAttakz
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    Furthermore I unshackle my inner schizo and will often resolve the same moral dilemma differently based on the personality of the current character.

    I really hoped TellTale's The Walking Dead would do so, granted some of the decisions were tough to make but the actual impact was never realised but I will admit that the Clementine dilemma psychologically abused me.

    Out of all the games I've played I think only The Witcher series has managed to convey a true sense of plot ramifications.
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    The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.
  • josiahva
    josiahva
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    I hear people going on and on about how good the quests are in this game...but I disagree. I click through them as fast as possible because 90% are not engaging and poorly written. If you want good quests, go play The Witcher series. THOSE are well written, engaging quests where your choices have consequences. Here in ESO you are called a hero or equivalent even if you consistently make the most evil choice you have available to you. I guess I grew up at a time when to actually get a fantasy book published it actually had to have a well written story.

    The point is, choices in this game have no consequences like they would in the real world, as such, any sociological information gathered from it is garbage.

    Point in case: Kill a NPC here...then 20 minutes later law enforcement has forgotten about it...or you can bribe your way out of it...much less likely to happen in the real world.
  • Tasear
    Tasear
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    I find eso more like your digitized society in a glass bowl. Only difference is we can actually talk to our God's and hope they make it a better place.
  • Acrolas
    Acrolas
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    jmrathbun wrote: »
    It would also generate a data trove that could be of interest to sociological researchers. Their attention to ESO in this regard would lead to ESO being cited in scholarly publications and occasional human or scientific interest news reports. Everybody wins!


    Nobody wins when you use uncorroborated data.

    Statistical collection in ESO would be considered unscientific. There are too many variables, the results couldn't be accurately retested under the same conditions, and there is little if any long-term impact of any 'red' choice in the game. Stanley Milgram experiment, it is certainly not.

    I think Elsevier Entertainment Computing is the only digital entertainment journal that claims to be peer-reviewed. And even it's not very good. It has a CiteScore of 2.04.
    signing off
  • Eddyble
    Eddyble
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    I gave each of my personalities one character each (some were angry at the 14 character limit). I'm not sure what this means but yeah.
    Edited by Eddyble on July 28, 2017 5:38PM
    Eddyb1e - Xbox One - NA
    Eddyble - PC - NA
  • victoriana-blue
    victoriana-blue
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    Data means little without context. 3 million characters run a quest, but how do you know which characters were role-playing? Choosing something different from the last time they did a quest? Just clicking through as fast as possible? It's not the kind of thing good research is based on.

    And if you tried research based on something like zone chat you would run into serious issues with review boards, since it would be difficult to get consent from so many people.

    Edit: Also, why would ZOS care about being cited? Most research papers are read by maybe fifty people in a year, ime, and I've never heard that Second Life or WoW got a popularity boost from the research done on their players.
    Edited by victoriana-blue on July 28, 2017 5:50PM
    CP 750+
    Never enough inventory space, even with storage coffers and a mule account
  • Aisle9
    Aisle9
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    Karivaa wrote: »
    I majored in sociology. This is irrelevant because most of the players as well as me, do not even listen to or read the quests. We just click the button to get through it quickly.

    this person speaks the truth
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  • Shardan4968
    Shardan4968
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    OC_Justice wrote: »
    My daughter was telling me of an error that occurred in WoW. There was a poison bug where a player left a dungeon and it didn't go away. Apparently there was a pandemic of sorts and whole cities and maps were getting affected. I was told that the CDC actually did a study of the incident to see how people reacted to it. Don't know how true the CDC part is, but i am sure if they did study it they got some intriguing data.

    It was called "Corrupted Blood". I didn't play WoW but this bug was very interesting. Some players were healing and helping infected ones, and some fled to the wildeness and avoid any contact with others. this is how post-apocalyptic online games should look like!
    PC/EU
  • Acrolas
    Acrolas
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    OC_Justice wrote: »
    My daughter was telling me of an error that occurred in WoW. There was a poison bug where a player left a dungeon and it didn't go away. Apparently there was a pandemic of sorts and whole cities and maps were getting affected. I was told that the CDC actually did a study of the incident to see how people reacted to it. Don't know how true the CDC part is, but i am sure if they did study it they got some intriguing data.


    The CDC part is incorrect. It was one short theory article in Epidemiology by Ran D. Balicer.

    I don't think it's particularly worth reading, but if anyone's on a restroom break:

    ftp://ftp.inf.puc-rio.br/pub/docs/Estudos_de_Metrias/Internet_Estudos/Aula 8 Leitura-Modeling Infectious Diseases Dissemination.pdf
    signing off
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