Dear Second Life Resident:
The PlayOn group (http://blogs.parc.com/playon) at the Palo Alto Research Center (www.parc.com) is starting a research project on avatar personalization systems in multiplayer games, including Second Life. As part of this research we would like to invite volunteers to participate in an online survey.
The purpose of this study is to explore how users of massively multiplayer online environments customize the appearance of their virtual body (avatar). During this survey, you will be asked to upload a screenshot of your avatar's appearance to our research website and to answer survey questions related to your gaming experience. The questionnaire should be fun to answer and we estimate it takes only 15 to 20 minutes to complete it.
Volunteers will not be paid or receive any direct benefits for their participation, but your answers will help us understand how to improve user experience in massively multiplayer online worlds. You will be given full access to our research report after we have analyzed all of the response data from the survey contributors. This survey is not sponsored by a game developer and it is being conducted for research purposes only.
To participate, please follow the link below to our online survey system:
http://blogs.parc.com/limesurvey/index.php?sid=35489&lang=en
You will be asked to provide an email address, where we will send you a unique participant code. Your email address will be kept strictly confidential and will be used only used to assign you a unique identifier; we will not sell or otherwise disclose it to any third party.
About US: the PlayOn research group has been investigating the social dynamics of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and virtual worlds since 2004. We have looked at player behaviors in several virtual worlds including Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest Online Adventures, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and EverQuest II for academic purpose. You can find our publications here: http://www.parc.com/nicolas/publications.html
If you have any question concerning this research project, please feel free to contact the researchers at the following phone numbers or email addresses:
Nicolas Ducheneaut, Ph.D.
Senior Member of the Research Staff, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
email: [email]nicolas@parc.com[/email]
phone: (650) 812-4430
Nick Yee, Ph.D.
Member of the Research Staff, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
email: [email]nicholas.yee@parc.com[/email]
phone: (650) 812-4818
Don Wen
Visiting Researcher, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
email: [email]ming-hui.wen@parc.com[/email]
phone: (650) 812-4416
We thank you in advance for your help and look forward to reading your answers!
(note from GW - I am posting this on behalf of the afore-mentioned PARC researchers - please direct queries to them)