I agree with Loredena above me, in regard to mutual recommendations. I wouldn’t accept a recommendation from someone I didn’t work with, but if I did then I gave a recommendation in return.

It could get spammy potentially, but I don’t exactly have people hounding me for recommendations - it pays to be a little guy, sometimes. I don’t know how people like David Perry sort through all of that…

its still relevant, folks enjoy this even now.

A few years back I became somewhat enamored with the study of emergence, and read a few books on the subject. I then went on to tinker around in SecondLife with some of my own emergent systems and created some astonishing yet simple visual displays; weird blobs which seemed to be alive and reproduce like bacteria. I was also working on a bizarre mapping system that used emergence instead of direct AI to “map out” the surrounding sims. But, I wonder if intentionally building emergent systems can be done without severely compounding the issue of degenerate gameplay? It seems that no matter how complex the system, when you have thousands of players working together they become a sort of superbrain, which puts a little ol’ dev team to shame. In addition, players in their quest to optimize their own gains, will always discriminate against builds, classes, or specs they feel are “inferior” whether that is true or not.

In any game which the player is supposed to spend hundreds or thousands of hours over the course of its life, emergent gameplay is the only way to stay entertained. I think that is why the dark side of emergent gameplay is so prominent in MMOs, and why some companies fear it and overreact. They invariably cut into desirable, emergent gameplay.

The Launch is the first impression most people will have with the game. If people know you pushed back the release date because you wanted to fix something that beta testers found not fun I’m sure they would be more understanding. I know it takes time and money. Investors need to understand that what you are fixing will make a better Launch and will make it so people will stick around longer in the game.

- I’ve only interviewed for one job where I didn’t then receive an offer, and that was a money thing.
- I’ve never gotten a job anywhere that I didn’t already know people who worked there.

I use LinkedIn to keep track of people I’ve known at different jobs, to see what they’re doing now, etc. and as a handy way to keep my resume up to date and available. That’s pretty much it. I’ll accept that I haven’t exactly run the gamut of employment issues, but am I really that far out there?

Now I’m not so sure it’s a good thing because the potential exists for summary dismissal based solely on the contents of a social website (as opposed to your resume), but in all honesty it doesn’t work any differently than recruitment sites requiring monthly fees to provide the same (and in some cases much less) service.

But that’s kind of off-topic so if you want to discuss the benefits of it you can drop me a direct line. Scott’s reluctance to recommend Moorgard still rules the topic (she says, snickering and hiding).

I look for the real clues in their answers on the various boards to which they belong. Recommendations are just a part of what the site offers and I’m hard-pressed to even think about recommending someone who posts blather and pulp in response to industry questions elsewhere on the site.

There’s one place where they specifically encourage emergent (degenerate?) gameplay: There’s a one on one battle between your character, and a AI controlled version of your character with HIGHER stats. You have to find a way to outsmart the AI, and much of that ends up coming from ability selection - choosing a limited number of abilities that you can use in some sort of efficient / degenerate way, to defeat the AI.

Then there’s the first “skill” nerf, a Monk targetable AE DOT ability, that stacked, and did not hit the target. Once players realized how powerful it was, the single dominating (degenerate) strategy was to create a team with either 7 or 8 players with the Monk class (as primary or secondary) with the attribute for this skill as high as it could be. Have everyone cast this ability on one team member, and have him charge the enemy lines, resulting in nearly instant death for anyone he got close to. This was resolved, as I recall, by making the ability not stack.

I think these are nice examples of how Guild Wars was successful along the lines of the original post. Lots of freedom and flexibility, and when a degenerate case did occur, they dealt with it in a way that did not impact anything else in the game.

So yeah, I have like no recommendations there and I’ve recommended like one person a long time ago. I’m not sad about it.

The situations you’re describing are not unique to gaming in the least, its actually quite rare that I see a linkedin recommendation that wasn’t mutual. Whether it be former co-workers beefing things up, friends/business associates writing glowing recommendations just before a relationship gets severed, or just simple reciprocity, the simple concept of due diligence goes a long way.

One thing though — mutual recommendations are rarely a case of ‘hey, I’ll write one for you if you write one for me’. It’s much more subtle than that, though the result is the same. What’s really happening is the social covenant of polite reciprocity — if someone leaves a glowing recommendation for you, you will then feel obliged to respond in kind. That social imperative is strong enough in fact, that I recall one person I know stating that he never let a recommendation for him display until he had written a corresponding one.

Depends on what you mean by “utility”. Someone who is adept at social agreements may be able to better fit into a team’s chemistry than a brilliant but less socially adept individual. Do you need a superstar person in that position, or do you need someone who will work with the group you already have?

In general, though, I agree. I’ve done a few recommendations and asked for a few. But, whenever I see mutual recommendations, especially ones that happen at the same time. The exception is when there’s an obvious imbalance between two people. For example, Jessica Mulligan and I recommended each other. Jessica hardly needs my friendly word to survive in the industry, she has her own reputation to rely on. So, I’d hope people who see that consider that she didn’t just recommend me because I recommended her.

I have written very few recommendations, and mean them.
Very, very few.

If I don’t have enough information to offer an opinion, I don’t. Meeting someone at two trade shows does not qualify my to assess anyone’s skill set.

I was going to do a comic about this very issue. Darn you, now I have to give you credit for writing about it first. Would you like me to write you a recommendation?

;-)#
Brasse

MMOs often try to provide interesting options, but the players follow their instincts to the most efficient way to level-up/get-the-loot, and (I’ve always imagined) dash the dreams of the devs. The old “Holy Trinity” of classes in EQ1 was only mildly mitigated in EQ2 where - in the end - only the tankiest of the tank classes was considered acceptable for challenging tanking situations. These views are often fallacious, and many other personnel choices would do fine, but players get stuck in their perceptions and lose their capacity for imagination.

Then it follows (or at least it seems to from a player perspective), that devs look at what the players are doing with their world, and start creating new content to be sure to provide challenges to the min/maxers. That, in turn, creates more min/maxers because the new content is too hard if you don’t follow the optimal path.

FFXI had a really awesome dual-class system, but it quickly became worthless when only certain combinations were allowed to join groups. Anything out of the ordinary was set for scorn.

Though “classes” are only one aspect of the overall problems (ignoring the fun content of Zone X because the content in Zone Y foolishly gives a tinkling-trifle more exp is another good example), I think a lot of MMO problems could be fixed with a classless system - one where you can’t instantly judge someone by typing “/who Larry” and using “Larry [42] Cleric” as your sole basis for whether or not to send the group invite.