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October 31, 2005
Guilds: Densities
Server Sample: RP (High), PvE (Medium), PvE (High), PvP (High), PvP (High)
Sampling Period: 8/01/2005 12:00 am - 8/30/2005 12:00 am
Sampling Resolution: ~12 minutes
Parsing Method: The sample unit is each unique guild. See also entry on how we derived these social network measures.
Data Filter: None
Sample Size: 5569 guilds
As another measure of guild cohesiveness, we implemented a measure of density - that is to say, given the matrix of all characters in a guild, how many of those cells are filled. For example, a percentage of 25% (using the co-presence metric) means that on average over the month of August, each guild member has been online at the same time with 25% of other guild members at least once. But this also means that on average, each character was never online at the same time as 75% of other guild members over the period of the month.
We ran our analyses for both the co-presence and the co-location metric. Furthermore, we analyzed the data either: 1) with all observed connections, 2) excluding connections with a weight of one (observed only once over a month - approximately 12 minutes), and 3) excluding connections with a weight less than 3 (observed only once or twice over a month - approximately 24 minutes).
There are several weaknesses we'd like to mention up front. First, alts of the same player who are in the same guild can by definition never be co-present or co-located. So presumably, this has an effect on our results as the guild size increases when alts are more frequent. Secondly, characters who switch guilds are counted on the rosters of both guilds for the analysis. So this too may artificially deflate our results.
Still, the overall guild densities were lower than we would have expected. The result indicates that in an average guild in WoW - the average guild has a mean size of 26 and a median size of 10 - over a period of a month, every guild member is co-present with only 30% of his/her guild. In other words, the average guild member is never co-present with 70% of his/her guild members over the period of one month. But if we choose a more conservative co-presence filter (only counting those members who have been co-present for more than 20 mins over the period of a month), the percentage drops by one-third. The average guild member in WoW, over a period of one month, is never online for more than 20 minutes at the same time as 80% of other members of his/her guild.
As a proxy for collaboration, the co-location metric lets us get a sense of how often guild members work together. The analysis shows that over a period of a month, the average guild member collaborates with 11% of his/her guild members for at least 10 minutes. In the table below, "Co-Loc > 1" means counting those members who were co-located for more than 1 time sample (~12 mins).
Here are the two tables for the guild densities analyzed by guild size.
We also calculated whether guild densities correlate with guild size. The co-presence metric does correlate around .21 - .25, but this measure must correlate with guild size - after all, the more dice you roll, the more likely that two will be the same number. The correlation with the co-location metric is more interesting. It does not significantly correlate with guild size. In other words, guild members in large and small guilds are just as likely to work with other members. This raw measure doesn't give a sense of true frequency though. However, this is congruent with our finding that members of large guilds do not spend more time together than members in smaller guilds. Although, again, this may simply be confounded with increase in alts in larger guilds who by definition can never be co-present or co-located.
Posted at October 31, 2005 05:45 PM
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