[MUD-Dev] Blog about GDC implies changes to MMORPG population

[Morris Cox]

On 7/9/05, Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

> My main problem with termperments is that, despite being
> absolutely brilliant insights into how decisions are made, most
> people tend to use them merely to explain personality types. How
> many discussions have you had where somebody said "Don't mind him,
> he's just a Rational", or something? Hell, I've been guilty of it
> myself.

I agree with you and am guilty of it myself. That field still has a
long ways to go. Part of the problem is lack of understanding and
the difficulty/complexity of conveying why being a certain
temperament factors in. The layperson gets overwhelmed too easily
and quickly.

> However, I feel that the real benefits to these temperments is as
> a limited predictive device. If you understand that people have
> different preferences in how they make decisions, and why - what
> they get from it, what they want from it, and what they
> subconsciously need from it - you can have a little bit more
> insight into how people play. Like I always say, science predicts,
> fantasy explains.

You should read the Foundation and Empire series by Isaac Asimov,
especially about Hari Seldon.

I have been thinking about a game based on personality types for
some years now. A basic personality type test is given during
chardev and the character acts and responds according to the
results, with the corresponding socials being made available. How
strongly or weakly one scored in a letter would also have an effect.

As an aside, there are dating websites that use personality typing
and temperaments and we know that dating is a kind of game (which
lends new meaning to "checkmate" [now that's a pun]).

> For the record, I don't think NTs have been most common online for
> a long, long, long time. Due to the popularity of the internet, it
> seems to have pretty much the same proportions as the "real
> world".

Keep in mind that I got online in the first part of 1994. The
Internet really took off in 1998. How long ago was you thinking? :)
If dog years are 7 to 1, Internet years are like 10 to 1 (that'll
make me 113 years old).  I was introduced to it by an ENTP friend
and I encountered many NTs (and a whole lot of SJs). If one can
point to a certain temperament common among those that made the
Internet come into being, I daresay it was the NTs.

--
Morris Cox
www.legran.com working on www.sitereviews.biz
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