Collaborative gamification mechanics

Active collaboration in games today have certain common game mechanics that are used to promote such user interactions. This brings us to the gamification mechanics that will allow and motivate the users to collaborate. After analyzing multiple massive online games the following list of game mechanics seem to have become a standard for MMORPGs:

Chat and communication
Live chat services in one or more channels. These channels can also contain information feeds from the game system containing real-time game data. Both types of channels stimulate users to communicate.

Frequent visits
When users have a reason to visit the game often they will be able to make these visits part of their daily routine. As long as the interactions helps the user progress in the gamified solution, or adds value to the user profile, even the most trivial tasks can become part of a users day to day activities. McGonigal refers to this as ‘blissful productivity’, Deterding as part of what creates ‘meaning’.

Connections and relations
Take the two mechanics above and add mechanics to connect with other users as part of the gamified experience. This to ensure longer collaborative efforts between users that initially have no or little contact. Such a mechanic will add a list of connections to the user profile and add ways to interact with them. Allowing for ways to differ between how a users profile relates to the other users opens for more interactivity between the users.

User interactivity
Collaboration is possible if the users can work together to achieve a common goal. A solution will allow for multiple types of such goals, both related to ideas as well as achieving certain collaborative goals. Make it valuable not only to interact with the ideas but also with the other users generates a map where a user connects with both ideas and other users as an important part of the gamified experience.

In short we want the users to communicate with each other, we want them to do it often, we want them to connect with each other and we want them to interact on a regular basis. The large MMORPGs are doing it today, but will it work in a gamified solution?