Bartle test

[Barberouge]

Maybe some of you already know this old test. One shouldn't read too much out of it, but it is quite funny and the principle has been used in gaming theory thinking.

 

You don't need to register to get the result: http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology/take?cobrand=

[Barberouge]

As usual in a poll, the results are shaped by the questions and the people answering. Also the test isn't perfectly fitted to Naval Action. Anyways, I got almost the same results as 10 years ago:

 

73% Killer

53% Achiever

40% Explorer

33% Socializer

[Thomas Blackwell]

Explorer 80, killer 53.

Avast! I be explorin' your shores and takin' your loots!

[Johny Reb]

Killer 67

Explorer 60

 

Avast! I be doin' alittle bit o' both!

[Morgan]

 

oh well...

[Marion van Ghent]

Explorer 80%

Socialiser 47%

Achiever 40%

Killer 27%

 

Yarr! I've been places and found things you've ne'er e'en heard of -- outside o' me yakkin' 'bout it in the Tavern! But if ye try to steal me loot, I'm like as not to give you the slip rather than slit yer throat.

[Thomas Blackwell]

 

Explorer 80%

Socialiser 47%

Achiever 40%

Killer 27%

 

Yarr! I've been places and found things you've ne'er e'en heard of -- outside o' me yakkin' 'bout it in the Tavern! But if ye try to steal me loot, I'm like as not to give you the slip rather than slit yer throat.

 

 

[Brigand]

Explorer 67%

Achiever 53%

Killer 47%

Socialiser 33%

 

More balanced than I thought

 

~Brigand

[Barberouge]

 

Spamalot o' baits

[Chilly Willy]

 

Maybe i should get out more

 

however a Shrubbery would be nice

[Ink]

I've run the test thinking through the future NA mmo

[Johny Reb]

I wonder if there is any meaning to the fact that most of the most active posters on these forums are prominent Explorers. Could this personality trait enhance our enjoyment of envisioning whats over the horizon for this game? Or is it just a common trait in game players?

[Barberouge]

Wikipedia give those words about Bartle test explorers:

 

Explorers

 

Explorers, dubbed "Spades" for their tendency to dig around, are players who prefer discovering areas, creating maps and learning about hidden places. They often feel restricted when a game expects them to move on within a certain time, as that does not allow them to look around at their own pace. They find great joy in discovering an unknown glitch or a hidden easter egg.

 

Single-player appeal to the Explorer

 

Combat and gaining levels or points is secondary to the Explorer, so they traditionally flock to games such as Myst and its four sequels. In these games, you find yourself in a strange place, and the objective is to find your way out by paying close attention to detail and solving puzzles. The Explorer will often enrich themselves in any back story or lore they can find about the people and places in-game. Whereas an Achiever may forget about previous games as soon as they've conquered them, the Explorer will retain rich memories about what they experienced about their adventures.

Contrary to what some may expect, Explorers can enjoy restrictive games as well as permissive ones. The challenge in such a game is to get it to do something its programmers probably didn't intend for it to do; gamers who share a high Explorer percentage with a high Achiever one will often be the ones who set unusual objectives for themselves (like completing the game within a certain amount of time, under certain restrictions, or in a certain order) to put the tricks they've gathered to use.

 

Multi-player appeal to the Explorer

 

The Explorer benefits much the same way as the Achiever does in the massively multi-player environment, as they are surrounded by people who will benefit from their wisdom. They often meet other Explorers and can swap experiences, and most often, Socializers do not mind listening either. Interaction with Killers is usually (though not always) negative, as hostile Killers would interfere with exploration. Most mainstream MMORPGs offer Explorers plenty of lore and rich characters to delve into. However, Explorers will often quickly become bored with any particular MMORPG when they feel it has become a chore to play, with only more of the same ahead. This is of course true to some extent of all gamers, but Explorers can be notoriously fickle, abandoning a popular game within mere weeks while spending months or years delving deeply into a less-popular one.

 

 

For those interested in gamer types (or is it astrology ?), here's an extrapolation of Bartle's model: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/personality_and_play_styles_a_.php?print=1

 

Anyways - the topic was an introduction to another article from the same author: http://mud.co.uk/richard/The%20Decline%20of%20MMOs.pdf . Any thoughts related to the future Open World of NA ?

[Brigand]

Thanks for the links, I didn't know the test, but from what I read, there has been put a lot more thought and theoretic knowledge than I thought.

~Brigand

[Samuel Adams]

[Johny Reb]

I am curious how you can have a score of 207%. :/  If the percentages arn't in relationship to each other than what are you 207% of? It still gets the message across. Boris absolutely HAS to be better than everyone else. You should see how often he throws around the "Invictus" title in Potbs, lol.

 

P.S.

You still don't have "Lady Killer" Borass. Ha!

[Barberouge]

Thanks for the links, I didn't know the test, but from what I read, there has been put a lot more thought and theoretic knowledge than I thought.

~Brigand

 

If you enjoyed the 1st link which is rather a description, you may find this one interesting: http://mud.co.uk/richard/VWWPP.pdf - or "having fun" in a virtual world as a celebration of identity, with thoughts about immersion.

 

It also fulfills the step to the 2nd link, where I found interesting statements regarding the MMOs I played, and maybe NA's Open World (which fit some discussions on those boards) - especially:

• immersion improvement
• cloud-based servers
• elder game removal

 

I am curious how you can have a score of 207%. :/  If the percentages arn't in relationship to each other than what are you 207% of? It still gets the message across. Boris absolutely HAS to be better than everyone else. You should see how often he throws around the "Invictus" title in Potbs, lol.

 

[Barberouge]

I wonder if there is any meaning to the fact that most of the most active posters on these forums are prominent Explorers. Could this personality trait enhance our enjoyment of envisioning whats over the horizon for this game? Or is it just a common trait in game players?

 

Here's another analysis method, based on components rather than types. In pages 6-7 are the components, in pages 8-9 is the criticism of Bartle's model. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

 

The Explorer Type:

Bartle construed Explorer’s as people who enjoyed both exploring the world, gathering information as well as enjoying tinkering with the underlying system and mechanics. These are also in fact two different kinds of people. My earlier attempts to find the Bartle Explorer failed until I tried to look for those two constructs separately. In other words, there is a Discovery subcomponent that revolves around finding and accumulating knowledge that is separate from the Mechanics subcomponent that is interested at unraveling and tinkering with the game mechanics.

 

As for the test being meaningful here, I'd guess we'd need another Shrubbery

[Brigand]

If you enjoyed the 1st link which is rather a description, you may find this one interesting: http://mud.co.uk/richard/VWWPP.pdf - or "having fun" in a virtual world as a celebration of identity, with thoughts about immersion.

Here's another analysis method, based on components rather than types. In pages 6-7 are the components, in pages 8-9 is the criticism of Bartle's model. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

Nice reading, I had read some online articles in the past touching the fact that there are theoretic models that should be applied more in game development, but I never found (or searched for) actual articles.

If you have more, please keep em comming :-)

 

Edit: I like how the number of pages progressively increases (from 9 to 16 to 46) with each pdf you linked :-)

Edit 2: The last article is definately of a higher quality than the previous ones! I hope the fokes at Game Labs take the time to read it.

 

(...) and maybe NA's Open World (which fit some discussions on those boards) - especially:

• immersion improvement
• cloud-based servers
• elder game removal

Especially the last one is a topic that is very interesting. EVE has no explicit elder game (nobody will ever complete learning all the skills), but zipping around in super capitals still somehow feels like you've come as far as it goes, and the game looses the appeal that comes from 'progressing'. In most other games, the start of the elder game is more explicit, you reach level X and you can now participate in the big-boys game. Some games are even worse, they only present the elder game, with the pre-elder game serving only as a grind you need to work through to get to the good stuff.

Maybe we should start a separate topic for this in relation to Naval Action, although it may be to theoretic for the general gamer.

Cheers,

Brigand

Edited April 24, 2014 by Brigand

[Barberouge]

I found those while looking for explanations about inflation control in SWG and EVE. Bartle's theories sound a bit too psychanalystic to me, but Yee's look like behaviorism. Unfortunately, only Bartle's are meant to be used to balance a world. Here's a more recent paper trying to join the two theories: http://www.kilkku.com/blog/2013/08/bartle-player-types-yees-motivations-and-self-determination-theory/ (2 new authors and a bunch of new models). I agree that in the article about the decline of MMORPGs, we can actually see the links to pragmatic features (even if the analysis is based on previous theories).

 

Elder game removal will be in NA's Open World (or at least there won't be any leveling game with levels). Bartle proposes to remove the interminable elder game, because game ends don't stop people from playing. We've talked about 3 ends in NA boards:

• end of the world (reset)

• end of the individual journeys (character perma-death)

• end of the collective journeys (territorial death)

Regarding the last one, Bartle describes retention and immersion as advantages of removing the elder game. Since realism is an appeal of an Age of Sail niche game, peace treaties could be considered as ends (and important wars as journeys). Bartle also says that the elimination of alliances in EVE provides meaning. This makes me wonder whether some kind of faction + alliance setup could be worked out (France from 1790 to 1870: monarchy -> republic -> consulate -> empire -> monarchy -> republic -> empire -> republic).

 

With no levelling game in NA, if the learning of the elder game would be long enough before reaching the high-end game, the Open World would appeal to socializers. Also, specific high-end goals such as blockading a faction to its unconquerable territory could be registered for achievers (many others could be found out).

 

But I enjoyed the paragraph about cloud-based servers the most (small-population worlds). Bartle speaks about player impact, AI and specialisation. This last one solves many issues which have been brought up here, as language barriers, time slots, PvE/PvP, perma-death, role-playing.

 

This thread was created as a random brainstorm with a fair bit of joking. All the stuff of the links could serve to more specific future brainstorms about the Open World. We could move it to a specific thread later if needed.

 

Edit: I like how the number of pages progressively increases (from 9 to 16 to 46) with each pdf you linked :-)

 

[Brigand]

But I enjoyed the paragraph about cloud-based servers the most (small-population worlds). Bartle speaks about player impact, AI and specialisation. This last one solves many issues which have been brought up here, as language barriers, time slots, PvE/PvP, perma-death, role-playing.

 

I found this paragraph intersting as well, mostly because it promotes many shards to increase the impact of single players. This is the opposite end from EVE, which does not use sharding: everybody (except the Chinese) plays on the same cluster; one universe shared by everybody. As a result, alliances can have a real impact on the universe and since there is only a single copy of this universe, the impact can be seen/experienced by all players.

 

So, while many shards increase the impact a single player can have on a single shard, it at the same time isolates this impact (groups of) players can have on the overal gameplay experience of the broader player population. I always liked the single cluster approach a lot: it made the universe feel more 'real'.

 

~Brigand

[Thomas Blackwell]

The one universe approach to eve online was what first attracted me to the game... That and space lasers.

[Barberouge]

I've been tempted to start playing EVE, but the PvP fights didn't appeal to me. I played World of Warplanes and PlanetSide 2 instead. I did never played a sci-fi MMO, I'm waiting for the right one - maybe Star Citizen.

 

I didn't understand Bartle's "player impact" as a single player impact on the world, but as player impact on a community. If we know the people we play with or against, the sense of a community increases. A single player may have a bigger impact on a smaller shard (still it depends on the game mechanics), but it's also true for alliances. I agree however that the impact is population-wide in a single-shard setup.

 

I've been looking at the setup of the games mentioned in the article. It seems that only EVE has a non-instanced single shard (+ chinese as you mentioned), and this is due to the possibility of rendering the graphics easily. The Secret World has multiple shards but common instances, and a single AH. Star Citizen has a single shard but "dynamic local instancing" which enables the server to customise the instances. Others feature multiple specialised shards (EverQuest Next, Minecraft, SW:tOR, Age of Wushu, LotRO).

 

Regarding NA, I'd change Bartle's statement "the world feels more real if there are more people in it" into "the world feels real if there is the right number of people in it". Also for some players, a realistic world doesn't require the people to be real, for others, a realistic world requires the people to be real role-players.

[Mirones]

mhm now how to translate this into naval action? a Merchant Captain?

 

hmm done the test a second time hmmm still not sure about the meaning

Edited April 28, 2014 by Mirones

[Johny Reb]

mhm now how to translate this into naval action? a Merchant Captain?

 

hmm done the test a second time hmmm still not sure about the meaning

merchant Captain/Society leader? then again for society leader you may need a little more Achiever in you.