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

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 29th October, 2002, Ola Fosheim Grxstad wrote:

> The paper seemed to be about establishing virtual worlds as
> interesting objects for research in the field of economics.

Yes, that's about the size of it.

> 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 don't bypass it, I just don't notice it's there.

> 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.

> OOooh, that was a big surprise! ;) Text worlds always require a
> layer of rather demanding interpretation by it's digital nature
> (arbitrary symbols).

The brain assigns meaning to those symbols just as it assigns
meaning to what your eyes record. Sure, the brain is hard-wired to
interpret visual cues a certain way, but then it's also hard-wired
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.

> You do need skills in order to immerse yourself in text worlds.

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

> The imagination does the rest, maybe, but not on its
> own. Imagination requires mental resources. I would assume that
> applying flow theory to this would be rather easy.

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

> Then I am not sure if your daydream belongs to the virtual
> world...

That's where I was when I had it.

> You automate movement in the virtual world in the background, the
> rest of your mental resources are spent on recount something
> stored in your episodic memory in the foreground...

No, I wasn't moving in the virtual world, in the same way that if
I'd had that daydream in the real world I'd be "lost in my
imagination".  Furthermore, although it started with the triggering
of my episodic memory, it went on to involve speculative
reconstructions of counterfactual episodes - daydreams, in other
words.

> I am able to eat dinner in front of the computer while being
> immersed into the virtual world as well...? I am able to daydream
> about what happens in the virtual world while making dinner. I am
> immersed into the virtual world, while going to the toilet to pee,
> I don't necessarily leave it entirely, mentally. Are those the
> kind of things your are thinking about?

Not really, no.

Richard



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