[MUD-Dev] Weaknesses in the HCDS player type model (was: 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 19th October, 2002, Ola Fosheim Grxstad wrote:

> Excepting works of art, the success or otherwise of a model
> depends on what you can use it for.

(Uhm... if the world was fair and objective yes, but then you have
convinience, communities, politics, rhetorics, charisma etc)

> Yes, but debating the subject for several months allowed for them
> to introspect more than simply buttonholing players and asking
> them would.

Hmm, yes, I do think group interviews and forums are useful
strategies for obtaining differences in how users perceive the
world, but you will get bias due to certain influential and vocal
members... Group discussions also tend to diverge towards extreme
and opposite positions which may hamper the more diversified as well
as representative reflections. I.e. not all that easy to
fascilitate. Probably even more difficult now, with the current
demography...

>> They are also easily influenced by what other players say.
 
> Well yes, but that's true of anything. You, as a researcher, are
> influenced by what other researchers say. It's the interplay of
> influences from what different people say that helps people form
> their own opinions on a matter.

Nngh! I am not interested in people's opinions!! I want to know what
actually is going on and in which directions you can take a
design... I am getting more and more sceptical about interviews and
other types of verbal statements for this reason, you do get their
somewhat distorted opinions. In order to get any depth you need to
carefully dig by asking the right questions and approach the issue
from many angles.  This can work with patient mature strong or very
social players, but with other types I have trouble to keep them
interested ("sorry I have to go get some XP" or "i am chatting with
all these people while answering your questions"). Participant
observation in a guild works somewhat better, but then you get
insight into a small subculture of the game and your perception of
the entire system is probably coloured quite a bit. Anyway, this is
my experience, the "no downtime" policy and excessive XP race of AO
doesn't make it any easier of course. It is probably easier now
though, when players have been in the system for months and months
and are getting fed up with it, but then you only get to talk to
those that chose to stay in the system...

> Again, this is a valid criticism but it's present in any forum for
> debate. MUD-DEV is a self-selecting group; do you feel that you
> need to make yourself seen? Not everyone does, but they can still
> participate.

I did, when it was elitist and truly novel designs were being
discussed. ;)

> One of the things it does (by considering the dynamics between
> player types) is to predict what configurations may be stable. In
> this sense, it at least gives an explanation as to why MUDs tend
> to be "gamelike" or "social" in their approaches.

Which may be heavily influenced by the admin attitudes... I think
players "sense" this. At least to some extent. People come to an
environment and asks themselves "what is this supposed to be, a pub
or a warzone?".

The first MUD I played, Regenesis, worked in two stages. First you
solve all the quest, and socialize to get clues on how to solve
them, then you build and socialize. Pure gameplayers left obviously,
but not because the other players weren't gamers. Mostly because
they didn't want to build I suppose. People socialized, not
necessarily because they were all that social, but also to get
feedback on your achievments. Etc.

I am not all that convinced about the explanatory power when it
comes to stable configurations...  (Except for the deadly
combination of having a flawed design combined with ever-present
killers.) However, this also depends on how many players you
have. With less than 20 logged in at the same time I suppose you
will get some convergence towards a single culture, where you either
fit in or you don't.

>> Furthermore, one should be able to distguish between socializing
>> achievers and exploring killers!
 
> This is a possible refinement, yes. Many psychometric tests rate
> people along several orthogonal dimensions at once. Even character
> in games tend to be defined in terms of several dimensions -
> strength, dexterity, intelligence etc..

I am complaining about the two-axis interpretation of the current
model, which I don't think adding new dimensions would correct. The
model is a bit too simplistic. It is more like the problem with
"rating" sexuality. People tend to place others in three categories:
homo-, hetereo- and bi-sexual. Where bi is somewhere in between homo
and hetero. Thus the model is one-dimensional. This model does not
acount for asexual people. A slightly more complex model would have
two seperate independent dimensions homo and hetero...

>> What is the world? Is it everything that is not players?

> It's what's there when the players aren't.

This doesn't help me a whole lot... Is it only the state, and not
the rules which may not be formalized in code? Is it only, what can
be influenced, but not the fictional beliefs that players hold which
also influence what happens?

Ok, let me put it this way: is it what the players choose to see as
world or is it what the designer assume to be the world he is
designing? I.e. the intended versus the assumed reality.

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

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