Here we go, the first attempt at a research question ever by yours truly, irishboy23 aka Sean Gallagher, a communications major at Concordia University. I joined up on this BFC project for two reasons: to challenge myself with a new skill set and to enjoy Minecraft, a game which before taking ENG 398E I vowed never to play, yet here we are. I guess it made an impression. This project focuses on the use of the commons within our server and some interesting questions have already been brought up.  In this project, we are re-creating a build from the vanilla Minecraft Concordia server in order to make the study. The BFC (Big Fried Chicken) was originally designed by BigHairCutPrime (aka Chris) and is essentially the online portrayal of a KFC within the game, which cooks and makes readily available chicken for the server.  This distribution of these goods, as well as the resources being shared between the team highlight some key points with the study of how items are used freely within the online community.

At this moment, the team is still in the building process of the second BFC, which is now considered the beginning of a franchise. The team has scattered out and has mined for specific items in the division of labour process. I for example, was tasked with finding plenty of marble and netherrack . It’s interesting to see how well organized we are after the first project. We have chests and barrels to store each individual block type and clear indications/implications as to what is available for personal use and what is there for team use.  On top of this, we have our own individual bases somewhere on the server for our own materials. I’ve been on the server a while now and have collected a decent amount of resources prior to the building of BFC and was able to donate some of my own supplies to the cause as using what was already gathered is more time efficient that doing it as a team

With this in mind, it’ll be interesting to see what happens when BFC is complete (again). The original one is fairly damaged for unknown reasons, possible fires or looting, which begs the question when resources are openly given away for free, will a player take advantage of the freebies for personal gain and leave other players in a weaker position despite the fact that the resources are being given away without penalty or cost.  Players are always looking to benefit themselves, which is why skilled players hide their valuable items, such as diamonds, in hidden compartments within their bases.  This theory might suggest as to why the original BFC is damaged and no longer functioning as it should be, as the system ultimately fell apart when users possibly abused the system too much.

This concept not only applies to food and distributed wealth however, as many other bases on the original Minecraft vanilla server seem to have a bit of wear and tear on them.  Farm stocks haven’t been regrown, holes in walls are evident and treasure rooms appear empty (it was worth it just to check). It’s almost as if the world is naturally crumbling from the last time I went on that server, which used to be full of life but now seems abandoned and civilization lost, as if we (the players) colonized it until the resources were used up and then we moved on to a new establishment, which sounds an awful lot like every time humans have moved geographical locations throughout history.

It will be interesting to observe how the BFC impacts the game world if at all. I did not make use of the original BFC during the class’ online adventures with ENG 398E so this will be my first time making use of the design.  By default, the purpose of the BFC is to make food supply readily available and in abundance for the players, so will players be consuming large quantities of chicken once it’s done? Will they bring a stash back and share it with partners on future projects? Will someone set up traps and keep it for oneself? Or will someone simply want to watch the world burn and destroy it. It’s still too early to tell what the impact will be but no doubt the distribution of both food and the resources to make BFC is shaping how the commons is to be used.