

The 4 types if MUD players - e1ven
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

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dkersten
If you find this interesting, you will love his book "Designing Virtual
Worlds". The first chapter covers the types of players in much greater detail.
Its a fantastic book and I enjoyed reading it. Richard Bartle does a great job
of explaining his points and backing everything up with references, so even if
you don't agree with some of his observations, you can see why he thinks so
and perhaps learn from it. Definitely a must read if you're developing a MUD
or MMO game, but a good read even if you're not. </advertisement>

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__
I second that. As I recall, it's a very enjoyable 700-page brain dump by
someone who's really into his subject. The writing has a personal voice; there
are lots of asides, dry wit, and typos that suggest restrained editing. The
discussion is intelligent and often theoretical (and Bartle is not scared to
use mathematical metaphors), but the tone is not academic.

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DarkShikari
I'd be interested what the results of a Bartle Test poll would be on HN.

I'm an ESKA, which has always left me in that odd group of players who has
never been satisfied by the core mechanics any MMOG. Most MMOGs cater to As,
with a bit of S and K. The Es seem to be mostly ignored, perhaps because
they'll never be satisfied by your standard World of Warcraft-copycat
grindfest.

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NikkiA
EASK here...

There have been a few MMOGs that would have appealed to us E___'ers, SWG in
its original form was basically a E___'ers wet dream, especially if they'd
continued to expand the number of planets over time, rather than focusing on
poor theme parks.

Neocron has a fair bit of E___ appeal too, as does Ryzom. Anarchy Online also
has positive features for us (and was the first MMOG I paid a lot of attention
to, so it's the one I keep going back to...), but lacks a lot of the deep
crafting system that a lot of us E___ers desire.

There's a common thread to those games, they're all pretty much 'sandbox'
MMOGs, games where you're not pushed into a specific chain of events, nor
pushed into PvP as a necessity (god, I hate the vocal K___'ers, they insist on
ruining every MMOG they touch).

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DarkShikari
I've never really found "E" games based around developer-crafted content to be
very interesting, because it's simply not sustainable. At best you get a
universe that keeps you interested for a few weeks and at worst you just get
thousands of copy-pasted fetch quests.

Anarchy Online and Earth and Beyond were mildly interesting, but that's about
it.

I don't think PvP-as-a-necessity is inherently bad in a sandbox exploration
game. If anything, it's good: other players will _always_ be more interesting
to compete against, whether by direct combat, economic competition, or
diplomacy, than AI NPCs. IMO the only way to get a sustainable game that
consistently produces interesting content is to rely on the players.

In my experience the primary aversion to PvP comes from games that weren't
designed from the ground up to be about PvP, but had it forced into the system
in a way that was simply not enjoyable or interesting.

EVE Online was "so close, yet so far" to this ideal, in that it got a lot of
things very right but designed the economy too much around grind and spent the
past few years focusing too heavily on strategic combat with capital ships
instead of individual players.

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brazzy
I love the wording "acquiring some weapon and applying it enthusiastically to
the persona of another player in the game world."

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Tagith
Wow, this takes me back... I remember reading this ten years ago or so. Still
basically holds true for modern MMOs, I think, and they often do a better job
of accommodating the different types of players than the old MUDs did as a
result.

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vinhboy
I used to play a text-based MUD called Creeping Death.

