Recently, JP Button was contacted by Associate Professor Aaron Delwiche from the Department of Communication at Trinity University. Professor Delwiche is teaching a course on Transnational Onilne games. He had some very exciting news for us. A portion of JP Button, specifically the Talking Points community project, was made required reading for the class! It’s really exciting to hear that people from outside the FFXI community have seen the site and can maybe learn from some of the issues that affect us to make better games in the future. We’re really honored to be included like that. Thank you Professor!

You can be included too! Along with his students, he has initiated the WorldPlay Research Initiative. He is looking for the FFXI community to contribute their thoughts and experiences adventuring with players of all different cultures in Vana’diel.

Currently, I am working with seventeen undergraduates to launch the Worldplay Project. As you can see from our site, the Worldplay project is trying to figure out ways that players, game developers, and researchers can promote cross-cultural cooperation in virtual worlds. We are very committed to the same values that are embodied in JP Button.

As the first step of this project, we are asking players from around the world to share their thoughts,concerns, and suggestions about cross-cultural interaction. We’ve put together a short (10 question) open-ended document that invites people to speak up on this important issue. This survey is currently posted in Chinese, English, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Vietnamese.

If you have the time, check out their site and fill out a survey. It’s a little more complicated than yes/no , but it’s not very long at all. There’s also a link that downloads a PDF with the results they have compiled so far.

Here are some direct links to the project pages:

And some fast links to the survey in each language: