Over at Terranova, nathan is thinking about trust in games. One of the reasoning lines goes along “more powerful characters can be less trusting of the world around them than the weaker”. Interesting, it seems that the weak is obliged to risk by trusting other unknown users while the strong can rely on herself, at least in part.
Anyway, I think virtual worlds are definetely a good playground for studying how social relationships evolve over time. Do you know of any MMORPG that is making available (possibly anonimized) data about characters’ interactions? Or do you know of a powerful and open-source framework for quickly creating an appealing online environment in which it would be possible to study those dynamics?