Richard Bartle: Players Who Suit MUDs

In this article, Bartle says that there are four main things that players usually enjoy in MUDs:

Achievement within the game content: players that focus on this aspect of MUDs like to set themselves goals to achieve, or objects to collect.

Exploration of the game: players that focus on this aspect of MUDs like to gain as much knowledge as possible about their environment. This can include finding their way around the game world, or looking for bugs and exploits within the coding of the game itself.

Socialising with others: players that focus on this aspect of MUDs like to make use of the features that allow them to converse with other players, or engage in roleplay with other players.

Imposition upon others: players that focus on this aspect of MUDs like to engage in combat with other players. Bartle says that players "use the tools provided by the game to to cause distress to (or, in rare circumstances, to help) other players." From my experience of online games today, I find that, although this does still occur, these types of players tend to stick mainly to battlegrounds or arenas, which are isolated areas geared specifically towards PvP (Player versus Player) gameplay.

In most cases, griefing (purposely irritating and harassing other players) usually occurs mostly as a result of opportunity. For example, in MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) like World of Warcraft, when a new expansion is released, the maximum level that a character can reach is often increased. This leads to a rush of players into the new zones of the game, because they all want to reach the new maximum level. Griefing tends to happen pretty certainly here, as the players that like to grief will be in this area anyway, as they will also be levelling their own characters, and there are a large number of players for them to harass. These types of players don't often go to a zone to specifically harass players, they just harass players in the zones that they happen to be in anyway. If they are looking specifically for combat then they will go to the previously mentioned battlegrounds and arenas.

Most people will tend towards one of these four main areas in a game, but in games nowadays, there is less of an option to stick to only one of the areas. In most current MMOs, a player will usually need to reach maximum level before they can try to focus on one area to follow. For example, in World of Warcraft, to get to maximum level players will need to:

• Achieve: players will need to complete quests, collect equipment and collect money to progress
• Explore: players will need to travel to new zones as their level increases, and will become familiar with each new zone
• Socialise: players will need to interact with other players, to form groups for dungeons, where they can fight computer controlled enemies. They will need to work together with other players as a team to defeat the enemies and gain better equipment.
• Impose: There is not always a need to engage in player versus player combat willingly, but a player needs to be able to defend themselves against players that will try to harass them. Battlegrounds are also a good way to level a character, if they prefer that to always questing.

Player Interactions

In this article, Bartle also makes observations about how the different groups interact with one another:

Achievers

Versus other achievers: other achievers are seen as competition, but it is normally in a friendly manner, as opposed to in a fierce and vicious manner. They respect other successful achievers.

Versus explorers: achievers tend to look down on explorers, thinking of them as people that aren't good enough at the game to be a true player.

Versus socialisers: to achievers, socialisers are simply a way of gaining extra knowledge or information, they are seen as a waste of space, and are just tolerated.

Versus Killers: achievers don't like killers, as they will often interrupt the achiever's attempts to progress.

Explorers

Versus achievers: explorers see achievers as junior explorers, that have not yet realised that pursuing meaningless goals is a waste of time.

Versus other explorers: explorers respect other successful explorers, but look down on unsuccessful ones.

Versus socialisers: explorers see socialisers as unimportant, and are only useful to brag to.

Versus Killers: explorers find killers tiresome.

Socialisers

Versus achievers: socialisers like achievers, as they give the socialisers something to talk about.

Versus explorers: socialisers look down on explorers.

Versus other socialisers: socialisers love communicating with other socialisers.

Versus Killers: socialisers hate killers, because killers tend to hassle them more than they hassle the other groups.

Killers

Versus achievers: killers regard achievers as their natural prey. They are the most interesting to pursue, as they are skilled enough to possibly be able to escape.

Versus explorers: killers tend to ignore explorers, as they don't care about being attacked, and the killers get no emotional reward from killing them.

Versus socialisers: killers love to harass socialisers, as they are often weaker than the other groups, and will also get more distressed about being attacked.

Versus other Killers: killers tend to avoid other killers, except in pre-organised matches, so as not to risk being defeated.

British Museum Trip

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to The British Museum, but the tutors were informed of this before the trip took place.

I had been to The Natural History Museum several times in the months before coming to university, and would like to see The British Museum eventually as well.

Liar's Dice

Liar's Dice is a dice game, where players bid on the total dice rolls of all the players at the table. The game has no limit on how many people can play, and each player starts with five 6-sided dice. The players roll their own dice, keeping them concealed from the other players. The players then take turns in bidding on how many of a certain number have been rolled.

For example, a player can bid that overall, eight 5's have been rolled on the table. The next player can then increase the bid, i.e. bidding at least nine of any dice number, or challenge the player who made the current bid. If there are at least eight 5's on the table, then the person who called the challenge loses a dice. If there are not at least eight 5's on the table, then the person that bid eight 5's loses a dice. The game ends when only one player has any dice left.

Note: 1's are wild and cannot be bid on, but they are included in any bid. For example, if a player bids on how many 3's there are, the 1's are included in this.

Iterations to the game:

As a group, we decided to iterate the game, and add a mechanic to allow players that are falling behind to regain some of their dice.

Iteration: Anyone can bluff (instead of just the person whose turn it is calling the bluff). If the person calling the bluff is correct then they regain 1 dice. However if the person who called the bluff is wrong, then they lose 2 dice. If you lose dice through having a bluff called on you, but are not calling a bluff yourself, you can only lose one dice at a time.

There can be a maximum of 5 dice in play for each player at any one time, and if you lose all of your dice you are out of the game (you cannot call bluffs with no dice).

This worked pretty well, as people with one dice left have a chance to get back on even ground with the other players. It is not without risk though, because if a player carelessly challenges people just to get dice back, then they can lose even more dice than they normally would (i.e. lose two instead of one).