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

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 25th October, 2002, Ola Fosheim Grxstad wrote:

> I think you can have flow in various intensities and on multiple
> levels.

So there are many steps to Nirvana.

  (Linking virtual worlds to Hinduism seems to be in vogue at
  present!)

> I view flow as a model of the process behind having a good
> experience.

Well it's a model of A process, if not THE process.

> It is an attempt to describe the underlying processes of "good
> experience".

I know what it is, but "good experience" and "immersion" are
orthogonal concepts.

> What I am saying (or trying to say) is that in virtual worlds
> flow/immersion are strongly related (and therefore immersion in
> the virtual world is the same as flow)

Leaving and arriving are strongly related, but they're not the same.

> and I am putting forward the idea that you cannot have (any
> significant degree of) immersion without playing on the mechanisms
> of flow.

I have no problem in agreeing that for some people, flow is a means
of achieving immersion. However, I'd need to know what particular
mechanisms of flow you were saying were essential for immersion
before I could comment on it.  I don't see that flow is at all
necessary for immersion, but if you only mean some mechanisms of
flow then I guess that might fit in more with what I mean by it.

> Well, yes, your and mine understanding is probably different,
> because you talked about virtual identites and real identity
> becoming one?

Yes, although immersion is just a means of achieving this. Spend
long enough being someone else and eventually both versions of you
will coincide.  Immersion makes this possible.

> a roleplayer would immerse himself into the world by temporarily
> activating the virtual personality in a flow like fashion

I don't use flow at all when I'm role-playing. The way I do it is to
set up like a mental buffer between me and the character I'm
role-playing. I think like I'm me, filter what I want to do through
the buffer, and out of the other side comes the action. It's like an
automatic translation system.  I can switch from one role to another
in an instant.

I do realise that most role-players don't do this, of course, but
it's how some actors do it. Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy
Duck etc.)  apparently worked that way too.

Oh, I should say that I mean role-playing here in the sense of
attempting to portray a defined character, rather than the "softer"
sense of taking on a bunch of constraints and working within them
(which is what "role-playing" means in many games).

> 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.

Your careful use of "virtual" there might be a way in. You accept
that flow doesn't happen as a matter of course in the real world, in
which people are fully immersed by default. Does it not follow,
therefore, that a sufficiently convincing virtual world would be
just as immersive but would not need any flow to support it? Or are
you saying that for a world to achieve that degree of convincingness
it would effectively be part of reality anyway, so flow would be
unnecessary?

> Daydreaming in a virtual world, would either be immersed
> roleplaying or it would be daydreaming in the physical world.

All I can say is that I've been immersed in a virtual world and have
daydreamed while immersed, and when I came out of it I was still
immersed - I didn't need to reimmerse myself.

> The flow process is what makes it possible to ignore all that
> stuff which is getting in the way

I think this may be where I take issue. For me, it's the other way
around: ignoring all that stuff makes flow possible, but flow
doesn't make ignoring it possible. Simple concentration allows for
ignoring selected sensory stimuli, you don't need flow (unless by
"flow" you actually mean "concentration").

Richard



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