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Chapter 43: Weaving the Social Fabrics > LESSONS LEARNED: RAISING PLAYER SOCIAL... - Pg. 747

Weaving the Social Fabrics Table 3. A comparison of people awareness Online Mabinogi Jing Yong Online 2.0 Offline Busy Away the player's avartar (as shown in a fighting scene in JY Online,Figure 17 left). The same awareness information, though, is richer in Mabinogi (Figure 17 right). The information contains not only the player name, but also their profession, skills etc, which can be set by players and easily seen by others. In addition to using colors, light audible indi- cators are also used to make players aware each other's status. For instance, in Mabinogi, different music can be used to construct different atmo- sphere to reflect players' emotions. Figure 15 (left) shows a warm atmosphere in the band. This specify where they are by listening to the back- ground music. Players in Mabinogi were less satisfied with the awareness support within an organization: they can only see the online status of the chair and vice chair person of the organization, but not the status of other fellow players in the organization. This poor awareness support inside an organization further discourages players to engage in more team tasks and long-term relationships. Different results were obtained in our study in JY Online where players are happy with the awareness information within an organization. For instance, players can not only easily obtain status information regarding others in the organization; they can also be notified of the events associated with the organization. These events include the welcome note of a new member, the donation of a member, and an incoming competition etc, which make them more willing to stay in a group.