[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Mechanical support for socializer playstyles

[Ian Hess]

Michael Chui <saraid at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> On Fri, 18 May 2007 11:37:38 -0700, "Ian Hess"
> <ianhess at yahoo.com> said:
>
> > It occurred to me after reading many stories in the last six months that
> > MMOs have sufficiently complex models in place for some standard
> > "negative" literary stories to occur.  The razing of the rper village in
> > UO, the infiltration of a large guild in Eve Online, and many smaller
> > scale events (city invasions in wow), match several common book plots.
> > However, when they occur in the context of an MMO, the frequent reaction
> > is out of character anger, and breaking of immersion.
>
> <snip>
>
> I agree with you in principle, and I really like the direction you're
> going. I'll try to respond in more detail and more specifically later,
> but one thing I wanted to point out beforehand...
>
> You're not using the term Socializer in the same way Bartle was in HCDS.
> Quote, "Socialisers are interested in people, and what they have to say.
> The game is merely a backdrop, a common ground where things happen to
> players."
>
> In your case, you're not building a game for socializers; you're
> building a game where socializer may have some advantage and be
> important and integral parts of the play (using both senses of the
> word), but the game is still Achiever-oriented, because there are goals
> and they're being reached for. Note that, regarding Achievers, Bartle
> says, "Socialising is a relaxing method of discovering what other
> players know about the business of accumulating points, that their
> knowledge can be applied to the task of gaining riches."
>
> That's precisely what you're proposing, unless I'm misreading. But I do
> like your idea. I'll make an effort to respond to it directly later.

I think that each Bartle type can have things to do without being
achievers.  As an example, I don't think that finding a social group,
participating in a growing social group, or exiling a person from a
social group are Achiever / socializer intersections. They are the nuts
and bolts of finding and communicating identity and group membership,
which I would argue are purely socializer gameplay details.  

I agree that once a group starts to talk about building a headquarters,
or becoming the biggest group on the server, or building a dossier set
on each other group they know, the play experience is definately verging
into other bartle types.  Despite that, there should be purely
socializer story options.  Examples might be: the experience of a close
friendship between heroic companions, the oft used dependant character
in superhero stories, or maybe even the romance that seems to exist in
every online forum I've played in.

This ends up being a difficult but necessary intellectual exercise for
me.  I'm an achiever / explorer.  I am relying on observation at this
point to get at the details of other playstyles.

One of the complaints I heard in the last game I played was, "I like to
roleplay, build relationships, and found out about the characters other
people are playing.  I don't get to play a cool person, though. Thats
reserved for the hunters."

With this in mind, I am trying to puzzle out the featureset that would
recognize when a person looking for a social experience had found it. 
This might take the form of a pool of group definitions, functions, and
activity with no pre-requisites other than the interaction between
people.  This is contrasted to a standard achiever ladder of levels and
quests.

I was thinking of allowing a player to choose a literary/story role for
themselves, and have some fairly easy mechanism for them to discard it
and choose another.  In this way, when someone defines themselves as a
citizen of X group, citizen content starts to occur between their
characters and others who have chosen specific roles.    

Thank you for calling me on clarity.



Ian