[MUD-Dev] 3rd Axis for Bartle's 2 axis theory of MUD players

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Richard A. Bartle" <richard at mud.co.uk> writes:
> On 29th October, 2002, Ola Fosheim Grxstad wrote:

>> Virtual worlds are somewhat "weak" research objects. They only
>> depend on how far you can stretch the limits of the user mass and
>> implementation.
 
> What do you mean?

I mean that virtual worlds construct contexts that can be very
different because they are less dependent on the surroundings than
say productivity tools.

>> So you don't internalize the values then.

> Not when I'm (strongly) role-playing, no. If I did, the role would
> be playing me, rather than the other way around.
 
> Mind you, I'm not exactly representative of players. When I
> role-play, I role-play a person who has a character in a virtual
> world; I don't role-play the character directly.

Hm. I tend to roleplay the player as well, but I roleplay a player
that is similar to his or her character in the virtual world... So I
do internalize the values (during play), or strive to (as in, after
a while I don't have to think "I am the kind of person that likes
pink clothes", I just think "ohh pink clothes!" or close to it.

> to interpret linguistic symbols.  I guess you could argue that the
> brain sees what the eyes show it and then, in the case of written
> words, it also has to apply an extra level of understanding to
> that. It's not really much of an extra level, though, given that
> humans have it compiled into their heads.

I think you are pushing it a bit far here... Words are symbols that
tend to be rather abstract, but I guess if you don't look at
descriptions, but simply the flow of text it has a bit of both
worlds, but that was probably not what you meant. You meant the
descriptions, not the structure of the space?

> But these are skills that pretty well everyone has, and that they
> can apply without thinking.

Uhm. I can't. I interpret. I think. I speculate. I resolve
ambiguities in the text etc.

> It may be easy, but it makes the concept of flow rather vacuous.

No, if a framework can be applied in many different situations and
bring forth useful perspectives, then it makes it a versatile tool.

--
Ola - http://folk.uio.no/olag/

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