[MUD-Dev] Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 3rd August 2001, Rob Hanz wrote:

> This brings up an interesting point, and one of my pet peeves with
> the "Bartle Types" in general (short version: I don't think you
> can truly understand the Bartle types without having played
> MUDII).

Perhaps, although it worked for MUD1 too.

> Is it possible that instead of 'killer', the appropriate label for
> that category should be 'competitor'?  Achievers are blatently
> competitors, too, so no - not without modifying the axes, anyway.

> This would give us a nice grid with the axes being 'cooperation -
> competition' and 'people - game'.

This is a reasonable set of axes on the face of it, but it needs
closer examination. Achievers are competition/game? So they're
competing with the game, rather than with other players? But most
achievers are very much in competition with each other, rather than
just the game (although it's generally a friendly kind of
competition). You'd need to rename "achievers" if you were going to
rename the Y-axis. You'd also need to rename "explorers" (there's
nothing about them that says they have to co-operate with the game)
and socialisers (they're more likely to co-operate with other
players, sure, but to do what?).

I'm not saying that a co-operation/competition axis is a bad thing,
just that you'd need to think about what each of the quadrants
represents and what that meaning delivers in terms of game design.

		Richard

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