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

[Miroslav Silovic]

Richard A. Bartle wrote:

> It's good that you've recognised this, but things are a lot more
> complex. Immersion is more a facet of player development than
> their style of play. The 'classic' progression through the HCDS
> player types is: killer to explorer to achiever to socialiser.
> This matches the increasing immersion of the player in the virtual
> world. Adding immersion as a third dimension is a little odd in
> this context, as it's non-orthogonal.

I find this less than logical. Socialisers are not necessarily more
immersed into the virtual world (and the hardcore socialisers are
not immersed at all, at least in my experience). In fact, I can
easily imagine any of the 4 classes above in its immersed and
non-immersed variant.

Also, I don't find the faces/numbers axis to be exactly equal to the
immersion the player experiences. This is because immersiveness is
the property of the game itself - whether the game world is imposed
on the player in the emotinal sense, or just a backdrop for the
game-like aspects (i.e. killing, exploring, achiving, or
socialising), while faces/numbers axis, as described, seems genuinly
the way the player approaches the gameplay. I believe I called it
world-oriented vs game-oriented when I thought about the issue.

    Miro



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