One of the most important aspects of interactive
digital worlds are the many ways in which players, moderators and the game
itself communicate with the one playing the game. Interpersonal communication
is the most simple, often featuring one sender and one receiver of a message,
and may be done through any number of channels. Mass communication involves a “one-to-many”
channel in which the sender portrays a message to a large number of receivers. Masspersonal
communication involves using mass communication channels for interpersonal
messages or vice versa. There are usually examples of each in any MMO games as
well as other digital environments.
In
Minecraft, a majority of communication is conducted via mass communication or
masspersonal routes, usually through typed messages that may be seen by all
other players. Often while I am playing, and not interacting with other players
I can see messages they send to each other, which quite humorously, have
addressed my presence in the server. There are examples of interpersonal
communication as well, my group members and I usually use Skype so that we can
talk to each other while we play.
Throughout
my play time so far, I have only really interacted with two other players, both
sitting at polar opposite sides of a scale of nicety. My first encounter was
with a well-armed character with golden armor (having played Minecraft before I
knew that gold armor was near useless). I had just poked my head out the door
and he tried to kill me with a bow and arrow and take my stuff, however, I was
able to chase him down and kill him, and I got a free pair of shiny golden pants.
The other interaction happened between myself and a player who seemed to be a
moderator of the server as he could fly and seemed completely uninterested in
my possessions. This just goes to show both the variety of player personalities
and the complexity of character interaction.
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