Bartle's Taxonomy and this game.
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For those of you who aren't familiar of Bartle's taxonomy...
Bartle developed a theory that we still follow until today when it comes to gaming, and even in many other aspects of life outside of gaming.
His theory proposes that there are 4 main types of players; socialisers, killers, achievers, and explorers.
Socialisers are what you guess it would be, they don't really care too much about game progression, but they do enjoy chatting.
Killers are your natural born PKers, they get a kick out of the thrill of the hunt.
Achievers are the complete opposite, they don't care about PKing, all they want to do is 'make bank', collect as much items, play the market or collect items.
Explorers on the other hand doesn't generally care about PKing or making money, they just want to 'get enough money' or skills so they can explore the game and even experiment with new kinds of builds.With the introduction of Bartle's Taxonomy out of the way,
We can see how the design concept of this game does really well when it comes to addressing all key player types.
Socialisers who enjoy building communities or being a part of it can choose to build towns, or be a part of a town community in which they live in harmony with all the other 3 types. They can invite mercenary guilds, or players to help defend their town and become a part of their militia.
Killers as you'd imagine would most likely live in Tartaros and play as a demon, however they can also choose other races and enjoy the challenge it presents to become a killer. They can even interact with other player types in a non-traditional sense as every player has their own means of 'socialising', and this could benefit the other types.
Achievers who enjoy building things, making money and obtaining skills as much as possible have that option as well as there are designated non-pvp areas where they can live peacefully and 'do their thing', they also work well with Socialisers, as this gives them a sense of purpose to be 'achieving things'.
Explorers on the other hand are a much more diverse group in this game and can't be easily defined considering many "explorer" mindset have different approaches to the game, some likes to experiment with builds which im sure most of you Alpha players are. Some like to 'explore' and find different paths to get to a location, or perhaps find 'new cool things'.
I for one decided to explore the entire map on the last test instead of focusing on skills, and only gaining enough skills when I felt that it was necessary to progress to get to a certain area, while other 'explorers' decided to test the realms of what possible builds are.
From my perspective, this is whats going to set this game up for a success as it understands the concept of Bartle's Taxonomy quite well.
Where it might fail on the other hand is the 'unknowns' of the group dynamics on this game, and that trends, genre and player base interest tend to wane and have a resurgence overtime.
I'd be quite curious to see how all 4 types of players would eventually be able to interact with each other.
Which type of player do you think you are?
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As you mentioned, Bartle creates a way of categorizing the different types of players from a psychological point of view, this can be seen in the following graph In which I would place myself as an explorer:
But if we take the Jon Radoff model which considers factors such as quality or quantity and the environment of associated players, I would put myself on ¨immersion¨ in the case of single player games or cooperation in the case of MMORPGs.
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@Chapex Yes but, Radoff's model requires you to actually have the game on a fairly polished state before you actually apply it.
This is a model that isn't going to work on an alpha stage where even us as players have absolutely no idea of the fine/minute details that the game has to offer.
Radoff's model would be more appropriate once the game is on its open beta stages, or release stages where the devs can alter and incorporate other ideas to keep players engage. So atm, Radoffs theory isn't as applicable for us Alpha players.
but to add on to Radoff's scale, i'd put myself on co-operation.
Explorer-co operation would be my general niche interests.
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I am part Achiever and part Explorer and on the second one no idea
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I read the first 6 lines and realised this was stating the obvious ...... and trying to make it sound complicated. It's "a game" ..... guess what I do with it ...... "Play".
No offence intended, but do we really need a theory for playing ?
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@Stacy555 said in Bartle's Taxonomy and this game.:
but do we really need a theory for...
I don't even know where to begin with this tbh.
I'll just state a few fun facts.Lord of the rings, written by Tolkien followed religious theories, beliefs and used their pattern to form his cultures within his books.
The languages used in his books were also based off of years of studies of culture, anthropology and linguistics (you know, theories)Every other 'fantasy' literature that you've read were derived from Campbells 12 Stages of The Hero's Journey. (I wouldn't really say derived, more of follows the outline of Campbell's theory and understanding of how these stories form)
Guess what books, films and stories have based off of their stories in that?I can name a few "modern" ones to help people stay on track, Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, Game of Thrones. etc., etc.
The Witcher series, so on and on.So what exactly is the importance of Bartles, and Radoffs theory on a game?
Simple, Bartle studied gamers in the 1970's to analyse what they wanted the most out of a game. He worked with whats considered "Top gamers" at that point in time but surprisingly he found that none of those top gamers got along and they all had different approaches to the game.
He then categorised them into 4 different categories, and upon releasing his studies, every game developer worth their salt studied it and tried to understand what those tropes are.
So again, why is Bartle's taxonomy important? because every successful or 'almost' successful game that came out catered their game for those 4 categories. They used the knowledge that's already established and to understand it so that they can make an enjoyable experience for the players. If you make a game without a plan, structure or idea (theory) then chances are your game will never take off.
It became the 'base line' that developers uses to gauge how they will make a 'successful' game.
and if you think "games" have no theories or it's to just "go ahead and see what happens", then I would really urge you to broaden your scope of understanding.
Why do you think twitch streaming, YT game plays became a thing?
Why do you think some of those YTers and streamers became successful?
It's cause they went out of their way to learn and understand what their trades are. Games aren't the 'linear' go-and-have fun approach that you think they are. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye.There is a reason why WoW is still up until today after 15+ years. They didn't just randomly do things without an understanding (theory) of what they wanted to do. Every one of their characters followed Campbell's hero progression, they've also followed Bartle's and Radoff's theories to maximise the longevity of the game.
Do you think Albion online developers just went "imma make a game and i'll make it a fun one." no, they studied what is psychologically hardwired w/ people to cater for those hardcore pvp players, the achievers, the explorers and socialisers.
They didn't just asked people to "fund this game that we have no plan for", they studied it before hand using 'theories'.
Good luck! and I guess welcome to the world of MMORPG!
a lot of these 'game theories' are actually quite rampant and used by many successful developers and gamers; thats what sets people up for success in every walk of life; understanding theories and how they can utilise it to their advantage.edit: now I hope you will read the whole post and not assume that you already know everything next time, it's how you learn as person.
A statement closes the mind, a question opens it.
Better yet, why don't you ask Prometheus about how they developed this game and whether they studied or at least exposed themselves to some of these game theories before jumping on to make a game that would dominate a huge portion of their life?
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Back in the mid-90s, there were very few MP games and most of them were mmorpgs so this made sense, but nowadays there are so many game genres where you can socialize, explore and PvP without the grind. I'd say this classification is a lot less relevant in 2020 because different gameplay styles attract different player mindsets.
If you don't care about character progression and you're in purely for the PvP, it makes no sense to play Destiny 2 over Counter-Strike, or Albion over League of Legends. Exploration is a very broad term here and no mmorpg that I'm aware of have content to keep this kind of player hooked more than a few hundred hours: if you like finding crazy exploits, you have games like Garry's mod or just games with mods in general; if you like exploring worlds, you play a lot of open-world action-adventure games; if you like theorycrafting you have games like Path of Exile which revolve around that. And there's combinations of those: love exploiting and also pissing off people -> play any online game. Love theorycrafting and also want to test the builds against other players -> play any moba. And so on.
In my experience/opinion, a common trait between long term mmorpg players is that they enjoy the grind and care about character progression. A common problem with mmorpgs is that they have no endgame and new content is added too slowly. So, why is WoW so popular? It's a household name, it has good gameplay, it's the most polished MMO, but most importantly they keep adding content. Why is Albion somehow popular? It's a niche game and the most successful of its kind with frequent updates. It's too early to talk about Fractured, but if you can max out your character in a matter of days and you only have 2 tiers of items + enchants, I don't see why people would play it over Albion or a moba 1 month after launch. You can argue there are 1200skills in the game, but since you push your character towards a few archetypes with the stats, I wouldn't count unlocking nukes on a low INT char as progression.
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Oh, i do not fit exactly into this quadrant.
Let me think how i would describe my play style.
Maybe a socialized archiving explorer.
I do chatting and socializing very often, but i am too chaotic and confused, to be caring all all the time about the socialized people.
I like collecting all the time, in parts i want to be a completionist, but i don‘t care about money or having all archivements.
I like exploring, seeing all POIs and unhiding hidden stuff, but i do not need to know and experiencing all available stuff.
Sometimes i even want to have some PVP.So i guess i would need to put myself in the middle of the quadrant.
Disapointing, because it means i am somehow good for nothing.
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@Kralith
If this makes you feel better I think the average mmorpg player is like you: they care about character progression, but not really about being a completionist and they think chatting improves group activities.
How about me: for the first two weeks or so I generally play solo & am really interested into exploration and game lore. After that, I try to find people to play with and gradually move towards pvp as I reach endgame.
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@Kralith Move over Kralith, hope there's a spot for two on the middle spot!
@Razvan I agree, the main reason I leave games that I love for a long time is that they just have no end game (or just plain end). All the fun left once you hit the top and had nowhere else to go but, well, grind or literally just socialize.
Reason I think I will like Fractured is because of their city governship politics, and the more distinct and fun diversity they add to the game, the longer it will take me to hit the end. It's not always about adding new content, but adding some fun replayable aspects that can try to make it feel like a new game when doing it a multiple of times.
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I'd say I'm a combo between socializer and explorer.
I do enjoy PvP, but for the "social aspect", having fun with bunch of friends, having laughs while PvP-ing, promoting your clan name, etc. So PvP for me isn't about killing, killing for itself has no purpose. There has to be some agenda behind it, if nothing else, "social community fun".
I do enjoy to achieve something, but again, I do not care about achievements that I do "just for myself", its again for "social aspect", for bragging rights, etc.
So socializing explorer fits me, even if I engage in PvP and achievements, but those are because of social aspect.
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@Ostaff let‘s socialize in the middle
I will bring a can of Shrooffee
️ and we invite @Gothix for a small (or longer) shit-chat!
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I have watched few videos related to this topic from youtube so I will drop these vids here if someone is interested to watch those out. Videos are also quite short (about 6min.) so there is not too much info dumbing.
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@Kralith said:
Oh, i do not fit exactly into this quadrant.
Disapointing, because it means i am somehow good for nothing.
No worries, @Kralith
These kinda graphs are just continua in two different directions. It's rare for anyone to be 'purely' anything. Most humans will fall within one of the 4 quadrants but not all the way at any end of a spectrum.I'm definitely strong along the Qualitative axis, but don't have a preference as far as many or few players (esp if I can find a good guild!) I'm also way strong along the World axis, but enjoy both acting & interacting. I invested in the universe of Fractured bc I think there'll be lots of fun stuff for me AND for folks who are nothing like me.
It's pretty tautalogical that it's a good thing for devs to be up to date on research re their field of endeavor, if they want their endeavor to succeed
so just starting it up without 'worrying about theory' seems like a great way to lose a lot of 
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I'm 63 years old and have been a Gamer since Pong's release in 1972.
I have continuously played, every conceivable type and genre of game, since that first day in the local arcade, not once have I "played", or continued to play based on a theory or a set of constructs that I needed to follow, due to some college graduate who has nothing better to do than "theorise".
I fully understand the need for games developers to follow certain guidelines (Theories) to make a game attractive and hopefully a pleasurable / playable experience, which in turn will stand the test of time, for at the very least a profitable outcome.
But as a "Gamer" first and foremost I need fun, followed by a sense of achievement, no matter that in the greater picture is actually meaningless, this is then taken to the next level by social involvement, welcome to the land of MMO.
I played WoW from day 2, I decided the lagfest of day 1 would take away from my "Fun", over the next 8 years I quit 4 times, not due to the theory or concept the game was based on being incorrect, simply because it stopped being "Fun", being in a social group and taking part in Raids and chasing that next piece of "Uber" gear, became a drudge, so I walked away, only to return when I felt there was a chance the "Fun" would return.
So back to 1972, Have you played Pong lately with a couple of mates and a few beers ??.....................Soooooo much fun, and not a "Theory" in sight, if it ain't fun ..... no one "Plays"
Just to add an apology for the use of speech marks "It's a bad habit".
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@Stacy555 I agree.
Video games are supposed to fulfill the function of entertaining, having fun. Unfortunately, as it is also a business, over time we were witnesses to its growing evolution in that same aspect, business.
Nowadays everything revolves around profitability, investor demands, the desire to control a market segment, economic variables, etc.
Marketing strategies, psychological manipulation, the desire to control and subdue the will of consumers to manage them and to predict their reactions and behaviors. Ensure consumer dependence on a given product regardless of the means used are ethically incorrect. It is no longer about satisfying a need, it is about generating, stimulating and controlling it.
The most successful on the market are no longer those with the ability to offer the best product, but rather those who best implement these handling mechanics.
That is the reason why the vast majority find themselves going back and forth from game to game without being able to find one that meets the most basic expectations, to entertain.
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@Chapex This may be the reason I find myself going back to paper pencil RPGs...
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EASK here, but I prefer the more narrowly defined 'motivation' profile I got for free here: https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/surveys/start/gamerprofile/
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Oh dear lord .... a Gamer motivation profile .... damn I'd rather spend my time choosing a hairstyle that looks good in blue.... Motivation profile ... Really ?? ROTFFL !!!!!!
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^
Hope you understand that we're not living in 1960's or 1970's anymore where we just do things for the sake of doing things, we do things to understand them and relate them to the bigger picture.Now we understand that games aren't just to 'blow off steam', we actually use it now for many aspects of our lives, learning is one of them.
But hey, it's not my role to try and convince people to see a bigger picture, or the 'science' of things. I just share what information is available and hope to enlighten others who are willing to learn; it's still up to them whether they expand their horizons or not, but there are those who are content with where they're at and that's none of my business.But I do wonder though what game developers or even 'dedicated gamers' would think of comments like that who doesn't understand how or why things develop. I'm not saying some of us don't have certain qualities needed to be an 'alpha tester', but i'm also saying that there are certain qualities that you need to understand in game development to be a useful 'alpha tester' and not just one of those that 'fills in the gap'.
