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

[Rayzam]

From: "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <olag at ifi.uio.no>

> What I need in order to be convinced that I am wrong is a good
> example of immersion into a virtual world where you cannot apply
> the concept of flow. Daydreaming in a virtual world, would either
> be immersed roleplaying or it would be daydreaming in the physical
> world. If it is roleplay then it would be flow, but not really
> dependent on the world but the values you attribute to your
> character. A roleplayer is primarily striving to stay immersed
> into his character and the world is just inspiration/tools/hooks
> for that activity. The roleplayer would grasp for "stuff" which
> emphasis the valuessystem of his character and play down "stuff"
> that is at odds with it (like those annoying OOC people). The flow
> process is what makes it possible to ignore all that stuff which
> is getting in the way (like your keyboard, the neighbours playing
> music, OOC people, designflaws etc). You focus on something which
> you believe you will be able to control if you put mental
> resources into it.

> If there is no challenge (stuff to pay attention to, stuff that
> matters, stuff that captures your interest) in the world, then you
> cannot have flow and immersion will start to fade... and you will
> start to get annoyed over your neighbours etc.  

Attention is a mechanism for dealing with limited capacity. We
wouldn't need attention if we could process everything coming our
way simultaneously.  With attention, we prioritize what we need to
process, and preferentially process the most salient while skipping
out on processing others.

With that background, I am heading towards your point :) I agree
that you need to have a world that captures your attention. But what
this means in a design sense is to have enough things going on so
that your capacity is overfilled. As you say, you can start to get
annoyed at your neighbors.  However, if the game is only keeping 1
stream of information going to you, no matter how good it is, then
your neighbors can still annoy you. So it's not just a challenge
that creates immersion, but it's having enough streams of
information, interaction, entertainment coming in with enough
salience that random stimuli in the real world drop so far on the
hierarchy they're unnoticed. That's when you truly become immersed
in the world. We are creatures that like to fill up on the world. We
push to fill our capacity.

Let me try to give some real life examples. When I have a mundane
chore to do, music helps. I can listen to the music to enjoy the
sounds, sing along either out loud or internally, sway and move to
it, and anticipate the next line of lyrics. This keeps me mentally
busy, so I can do the chore without being distracted by everything
around, or becoming annoyed by the mundanity of the chore
itself. Some people like doing repetitive chores for silence and
meditation. In that case, those people are concentrating internally,
also keeping their circuits busy, closing down the outside
world. That I can do when I cycle, others when they run.

So how does this help with game design? In an age when things seem
to be heading to the simpler design elements, I argue you need
more. If I postulate needing 3 channels to keep someone immersed,
how would that work?  Well, in a standard party oriented combat: the
tank monitors his hit points, he monitors the spell capabilities of
the blasters and healers, and he's using this to determine when to
temporarily retreat. Other party members have similar
breakdowns. Additionally some one or more of them will monitor the
NPC they're killing. When it comes to combat, most games have
adequate channels. This can be improved upon, by adding combat
styles or other facets of combat that require more active
maintenance. NPC switches to slashing attacks, so you switch to
parrying. Or the NPC modulates his spellshield to protect against
fire, so you switch to casting lightning bolts.

For Killers, it's easy. Others are the channels. If a Killer is
alone in the woods, will anyone hear him scream in frustration?

For Socializers, it's alo relatively easy. Other players are also
the channels. But others can as easily be negative stimuli as
positive. So the designer has to have ways for Socializers to
interact with those they want, and avoid those they don't. Clan or
guild channels, channels for chatting, talking, long distance tells,
news to read and write, mail to send and receive. Nowadays, add
IM-functions. Eventually, VoIP.

For an explorer, 3 channels are either easy, or very
hard. Everything an explorer can interact with becomes a viable
channel. What matters is the salience, or personal value, the
explorer puts on it. If an area has to be solved to get to the
end/big monster, that has one level. But what if it has a lot of
other things in it to interact with for fun? Yes, I'm tracking my
way through the woods, trying to find the cottage. I find a rope
tied to a treebranch, probably used to swing and plop into the
river. And there are some rabbit holes that I can try to coax
rabbits out of. One spot along the river has trout jumping in it, I
could stop and fish. There could be lots of these interactions
around that have nothing to do with finding the cottage.  The
explorer should be able to look at, examine, touch, anything in
around him. That consistency, along with the gems [or easter eggs],
will keep the salience of everything high, and thus fill the 3
channels.

So in the end, while I agree that immersion is important for a game,
and can be assigned to the 4 types, I don't believe it's a valid 3rd
axis in this model. This is because immersion is determined by the
designer. The player colors and weights the relative values of what
the game world throws back at him.

rayzam
www.travellingbard.com



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