Last Spring I presented at PCA/ACA, the subject: metagaming. Basically, it was about how online communities create their own values outside of the place, or idea that the values apply to. I mainly focused on a different game where players formed their own sub-communities in response the game's politics, and those communities evolved into external communities that eventually had nothing to do with the game. To show that process in reverse, I took a map of Haven & Hearth's landscape and started to plot the towns and outposts by their place of origin. For instance, Something Awful created Goonheim, and 4Chan made South Brofrica. What was interesting about this landscape was that it plotted a terrain of ideas that came from outside of the game. Haven & Hearth can stand alone as a game, it has its own complexities, and if every player found the game through a Google search, they wouldn't find a lack of fun, but a majority of players found H&H by way of their membership to a unique community. Whether one was a member of SA, 4Chan, Bay12, or another place, it was on the forum of origin that they created their goals, values, and expectations of Haven & Hearth, and it's right there that they support and reinforce those qualities.
If I do this map over again, I'd want to add markers to indicate who robbed or raided what place, and who was allied who. Some communities were quite peaceful and diplomatic, others were openly hostile, and others still merely opened diplomatic relations to "case" a site.
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