XIV - Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who suit MUDs

In the titled document written by Richard A. Bartle he discusses and defines the character types that play muds in detail and how to interact with them to control the game state. He stated that there are 4 key things people enjoy in a MUD:

1.       Achievement

a.       Game related goals, things that are hard to get

2.       Exploration

a.       Discover game world secrets

b.      Experiment with the games mechanics and physics

3.       Socialising

a.       Communicate and role play

4.       Impose upon others

a.       Use the means provided to cause distress or aid to others (the latter not being so popular)

Break down players into 4 core categories and what they want/think about. These are listed as single categories without them affecting  each other, of course in any game a player will be a mix of all four if even only on a small scale:

·         Achievers

o   Points / levels

o   Items

o   Status

·         Socializers

o   Forge player / people relationships

o   Empathy towards others

o   Status

·         Explorers

o   Find hidden features

o   Learn how things work

o   Status

·         Killers

o   Player versus Player combat

o   Status 

The one thing they all have in common is that they all desire the status of being the best at what they do in their field. I believe that achievers are the one global trait that all the others will have; it is just human nature to want to do the best they can and be recognised for that accomplishment. 

After that is socializing, each class will also socialise in one way or another, whether it be discussing battle plans amongst killers, or trading information amongst explorers, they all communicate to achieve their goals. 

Exploring is something that every player does when they first enter a game, they need to discover how it all works or else they will be stumbling around in the dark never knowing what to do. Whether they keep it up once they have a functional understanding of the games core mechanics or not does not change the fact that they, at one time or another have explored how the game works. 

Killers are the last category and probably the only category that could possibly be ignored by a player. Some people simply have no intention of wanting to cause harm to another, but at the same time also do not wish to be harmed and as these games generally revolve around combat for advancement through the game, they will have built at least a basic setup of which to defend themselves from the environment which could also be used to defend them from other players too.

There are 2 ways these 4 groups of players play a game:

Killers act > players
Achievers Act > World
Socializers interact > players
Explorers interact > world

There is also a big section on how each class of player interacts with one another; however I believe it to be extremely out dated towards today’s market. Perhaps it made sense for MUDs, but saying things along the lines of a so called ‘killer’ avoiding other killers is entirely untrue. Each of these classes of player is never pure, you do not get a player who only socializes, they will go and do dungeons, they will go and pvp with other players, this is the same for each and every class.

I suppose it could be true at its very core, talking about a ‘killer’ in the sense of only wanting to kill others, but there is no pure ‘killer’ class of player and with their need for status they would want the reward of killing the best and strongest opponents, their ‘natural prey’ would be other killers and not the achievers as said in the document.

This document went on to saying how if one type of player is increased, that it would affect the quantity of another type. I believe that it is also not entirely true on the same basis as before. 

• Killers are only interested in fighting other veteran opponents who are going to give them a challenge, more exciting to know that the kill was earned rather than predetermined before the battle began.

• Socializers want more of every class so that they can socialise with them and talk about them to others

• Explorers want fewer explorers and more of every other class so they can use their findings to their advantage over the rest.

• Achievers want more of every class so they can compete amongst other great achievers and be better than them, making the achievement all that more valuable, whilst also having a large audience to which they can display their greatness. 

To increase the amount of one type of player you need to make adjustments to the game:

·         Killers

o   More options for fighting, different types of fights, fair fights and non-fair fights – control over how they fight.

·         Socializers

o   Social gathering zones, homeland locations that are safe spots were they can gather and communicate without fear. 

·         Explorers

o   Expand the game, give it more and better stuff, with canon fluff for them to discover.

·         Achievers

o   On a similar note to explorers, the simple way of getting more achievers is to add more official achievements in the game and the ability for the players to make their own goals via in game information and meta-game, i.e. players with most points, best gear etc.

At first, this document aggravated me. Being an active participant in MMOs over the past few years I found the majority of this data to be incorrect. However once I reread the article and thought of it from a MUD perspective and also considered how out of date it was, I decided to look at the information differently. 

Knowing that the data needs to be updated to correspond to the evolution of a MUD, the MMO I realised how many of the things discussed in the writings had been achieved since and how, even though the different archetypes no longer match the criteria set for them, they still resemble their former selves giving fashion on how to manipulate them with the set rules – even if these rules need to be bended slightly to work in today’s market.

‘;..;’

SM - iHK