Bartle taxonomy of player types

Tacualeon

Although we all explore all aspects, we tend to have preferences.
What are your preferences in interaction styles? Where do you stand?



I'm a killer achiever who make friends with similar people. I socialize dbz style.
Haven't been the most explorative player for years. I love pvp but I want to feel explorative again.
Really looking for open world pvp in Ashes.

Voidwalkers

EAKS here. Looking for an MMO in which information (e.g. what quests / resources are available at where) matters and have value.

btw I also tried to bring Bartle's up in the open world pvp thread for arguing "there're different types of players, and there needs to be a balance of player types", but seems it didn't get much of a response

Well although that "balance" differs from game to game, in the end it depends on what the Devs are aiming for.

Hurf Derfman

Ah yes, a fellow interfacer of players.

https://youtu.be/BGV6QjtdulY

Noaani

This is about as worthwhile as personality tests that some slow moving government departments - which have proven to be completely pointless, inaccurate and inconsistent.

If you play a lot of one game - saw WoW - and then answer the questionaire that goes with this, you will end up with a completely different result to if you answered the same questions after playing a lot of a game like Fortnite - at least you will end up with a different result if you answer the questions honestly rather than answering them in a way that you think will give you the result you want.

Basically, this kind of thing (this thing specifically - in fact) is psuedo-science at best. It has about the same value as a horoscope.

Vhaeyne

I like socializing, and achieving a lot. You can't plot that in the center because it would suggest that I also like killing and exploring equally as much. The chart is flawed.

Tragnar

I think just taking the types and adding a 0-100 value in each category for a player is pretty interesting.

I like a slice from every piece if I can control the amount. What I've disliked about every game so far is if the game literally forces me to do something I do not want to do without an alternative

Voidwalkers

Bartle's taxonomy might be far from perfect, but nonetheless provides useful & interesting insights into player psychology and what different players want from games. The original research was published in 1996, long before WoW and many other mmorpg had come into existence, so I think it's understandable that it has flaws when you look at it through today's glasses.

I'd say it's more like a crude version of Myers-Briggs Type Indicators. Is the classification system perfect? No. Does it capture every single player? Far from it. But is it absolutely useless? No. At least for me when I contrasted my results with my MMO experience, there were insights to be gained. It helped me realize why I kept hopping from one mmo to another every 2 years or so.

And I definitely won't go as far as putting the pseudoscience brand on it and equating it to superstition. In these days with all kinds of anti-vaxx & flat earth bullshit flying around, when fact-checking is more important than ever, I see "pseudoscience" as a serious accusation that I wouldn't use lightly (it's like dismissing everything you don't want to believe as "fake news") - not until I've at least checked out the research methodologies behind it.

Anyway, looks like here's the paper if anyone's interested in picking it apart

https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

And here's someone else's attempt at trying to expand on Bartle's taxonomy and complementing it with a few of other researcher's suggested models.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/personality_and_play_styles_a_.php?print=1&fbclid=IwAR3ggNFoMUrgJLx63avJ-9-7yUP9tht9hl9v_ACtxCLLlAlIkhgAZND9L3U

Noaani

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Bartle's taxonomy might be far from perfect, but nonetheless provides useful & interesting insights into player psychology and what different players want from games. The original research was published in 1996, long before WoW and many other mmorpg had come into existence, so I think it's understandable that it has flaws when you look at it through today's glasses.

I'd say it's more like a crude version of Myers-Briggs Type Indicators. Is the classification system perfect? No. Does it capture every single player? Far from it. But is it absolutely useless? No. At least for me when I contrasted my results with my MMO experience, there were insights to be gained. It helped me realize why I kept hopping from one mmo to another every 2 years or so.

And I definitely won't go as far as putting the pseudoscience brand on it and equating it to superstition. In these days with all kinds of anti-vaxx & flat earth bullshit flying around, when fact-checking is more important than ever, I see "pseudoscience" as a serious accusation that I wouldn't use lightly (it's like dismissing everything you don't want to believe as "fake news") - not until I've at least checked out the research methodologies behind it.

Anyway, looks like here's the paper if anyone's interested in picking it apart

https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

And here's someone else's attempt at trying to expand on Bartle's taxonomy and complementing it with a few of other researcher's suggested models.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/personality_and_play_styles_a_.php?print=1&fbclid=IwAR3ggNFoMUrgJLx63avJ-9-7yUP9tht9hl9v_ACtxCLLlAlIkhgAZND9L3U

Having read both of those before (I have hard time calling anything on gamasutra a "paper", but that is just me - I also have a habit of reading gaming focused research papers as a slightly odd hobby), I know of the exact two quotes to point out.

The first is as follows, from Bartle

This paper is an April 1996 extension of an earlier article, "Who Plays MUAs" (Bartle, 1990a). As a result of this, and of the fact that I am not a trained psychologist, do not expect a conventionally rigorous approach to the subject matter.

And from the Gamasutra article above

While no model of human behavior can ever be considered perfect, the practical question is only whether a given model provides sufficient explanatory and predictive power to allow game designers to communicate usefully about what gamers want, why they want it, and how to give it to them.

I agree that these kinds of things are useful to make short hand conversations between developers easier - much as retail workers talk about Karen's and such.

However, outside of that discussion, there is literally no possible way to illustrate all player types on a 2 dimensional plane, and I doubt anyone that is published in this field would disagree with that.

Voidwalkers

Noaani wrote: »

Voidwalkers wrote: »

And here's someone else's attempt at trying to expand on Bartle's taxonomy and complementing it with a few of other researcher's suggested models.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/personality_and_play_styles_a_.php?print=1&fbclid=IwAR3ggNFoMUrgJLx63avJ-9-7yUP9tht9hl9v_ACtxCLLlAlIkhgAZND9L3U

-skip- I have hard time calling anything on gamasutra a "paper" -skip-

I didn't call the gamasutra article a paper either, just thought it's an interesting read.

I also have a habit of reading gaming focused research papers as a slightly odd hobby

(off-topic) THAT. I just started burning through videos on the extra-credits youtube channel recently, and got interested in game design and game-focused research. It's probably a good time for me to start reading. Any recommendations?

Noaani

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Any recommendations?

If you are getting started, I would suggest The Digital Gaming Handbook as a good place to start. You should be able to find it online (perhaps free).

It doesn't go too in depth in to any one thing, and so is easy to digest in that regard. It does brush over a fair few topics though, so you will no doubt find things from that book that you are interested in learning more about. Basically, the book is a good platform to launch off in to other directions from.

The only thing I would suggest if you want to get in to reading this kind of thing for a hobby would be - only read things you are actually interested in knowing. As soon as you feel you need to read a paper for any reason, you will no longer enjoy it - this is a mistake I made a few years ago.

Edit; one other thing I would suggest - the more you read in this regard, the more your understanding grows, the harder it is for you to communicate with people that don't read similar things to you. I make a real point of avoiding referencing papers at all in online discussions (such as these forums), and also often have to edit posts in order to change some specific terms in to ones that are more easily understood by most posters here.

We had a poster here a little while ago for a few weeks who had obviously read a few papers, but had not fully understood the terminology used. Virtually no one understood what he was trying to say, and those that did understand what he was trying to say couldn't get past how poorly he had worded his posts.

Basically, as a second point - don't be that guy.

shadiss

Sorry this chart doesn't make any sense. Killing is not on the opposite scale of Exploration, as Socializing wouldn't be the opposite of Achieving. They aren't bad talking points for discussion, but the chart is inaccurate - otherwise, I just can't understand it. Can you not have an Explorer/Killer or a Socializer/Achiever with this chart?

winner909098

everything

Tragnar

I would more understand it as a pie chart of every player. Like how much of a killer are you how much exploring you do, how much you socialize and how many things you want to achieve.

Voidwalkers

Noaani wrote: »

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Any recommendations?

If you are getting started, I would suggest The Digital Gaming Handbook as a good place to start. You should be able to find it online (perhaps free).

It doesn't go too in depth in to any one thing, and so is easy to digest in that regard. It does brush over a fair few topics though, so you will no doubt find things from that book that you are interested in learning more about. Basically, the book is a good platform to launch off in to other directions from.

The only thing I would suggest if you want to get in to reading this kind of thing for a hobby would be - only read things you are actually interested in knowing. As soon as you feel you need to read a paper for any reason, you will no longer enjoy it - this is a mistake I made a few years ago.

Thanks for the info, found myself a digital copy to start with

Edit; one other thing I would suggest - the more you read in this regard, the more your understanding grows, the harder it is for you to communicate with people that don't read similar things to you. I make a real point of avoiding referencing papers at all in online discussions (such as these forums), and also often have to edit posts in order to change some specific terms in to ones that are more easily understood by most posters here.

We had a poster here a little while ago for a few weeks who had obviously read a few papers, but had not fully understood the terminology used. Virtually no one understood what he was trying to say, and those that did understand what he was trying to say couldn't get past how poorly he had worded his posts.

Basically, as a second point - don't be that guy.

Thx, would definitely keep that in mind.

Noaani

Tragnar wrote: »

I would more understand it as a pie chart of every player. Like how much of a killer are you how much exploring you do, how much you socialize and how many things you want to achieve.

As a visual representation that would make more sense, but there are more than four aspects to players goals and ambitions in a game - so in order to make any real sense, that would need to be drastically expanded.

Hurf Derfman

Derp.

Xenotor

Im right in the center.

Balanced .... as all things should be.

Celestial Scythe

I'm very much an Explorer/Achiever type of player. One that goes, "Oooo that's an ugly monster! What else is over there?" and wanders off the beaten path. I only socialize for the raids and/or dungeon aspect, and I shy away from Killers as much as possible.

LowQuey

Tacualeon wrote: »

Although we all explore all aspects, we tend to have preferences.
What are your preferences in interaction styles? Where do you stand?



I'm a killer achiever who make friends with similar people. I socialize dbz style.
Haven't been the most explorative player for years. I love pvp but I want to feel explorative again.
Really looking for open world pvp in Ashes.

That's the most simplistic Myers and Briggs I've seen in years lol. I guess I'd be a social PvP. I like the tactical approach to PvP where combining your strengths with others allows you to overcome inherent weaknesses of your class

Tacualeon

Voidwalkers wrote: »

EAKS here. Looking for an MMO in which information (e.g. what quests / resources are available at where) matters and have value.

So I'm a KASE!
Could you re-phrase this?
We have internet for information about quests and resources.
Unless you want uneven, spread and random generation of resources so you can sell your mechanical scouting abilities I don't see how that would be possible. Mind explaining?
What could you sell better than a wikipedia saying "this x resource can spawn here, here and here"?
Do you have skills to check places?

Voidwalkers wrote: »

btw I also tried to bring Bartle's up in the open world pvp thread for arguing "there're different types of players, and there needs to be a balance of player types", but seems it didn't get much of a response

Some games are more inclined to others types. eg Minecraft not for killers.
I like having this in consideration, not dictating the final game.

Celestial Scythe wrote: »

I'm very much an Explorer/Achiever type of player. One that goes, "Oooo that's an ugly monster! What else is over there?" and wanders off the beaten path. I only socialize for the raids and/or dungeon aspect, and I shy away from Killers as much as possible.

Content is expensive to make for what I've read. What are your favorite games for exploring?

LowQuey wrote: »

That's the most simplistic Myers and Briggs I've seen in years lol. I guess I'd be a social PvP. I like the tactical approach to PvP where combining your strengths with others allows you to overcome inherent weaknesses of your class

Typing is broad and have a lot of contexts.
I enjoy exactly the same, that rpg element of inherent weaknesses is very attractive.
Bro tip: If you ever want to impress a girl you like with how cultured you are, don't make mbti your roof complex.

maouw

I don't understand the horizontal axis?
Why is acting the opposite of interacting? <--- is this like single player vs multiplayer?

Hurf Derfman

maouw wrote: »

I don't understand the horizontal axis?
Why is acting the opposite of interacting? <--- is this like single player vs multiplayer?

My friend, this thread is nothing more than a Rorschach test.

When I look at the chart I see the margins as well, therefore I am a interfacer of players.

nidriks

If anyone wants to take the test here you go.

https://www.matthewbarr.co.uk/bartle/

I was always an ESAK, with a heavy influence on the ES.

These days I reckon I verge more towards ESKA.

I was wrong. I did the test I linked.

You are 87% Explorer
What Bartle says:

♠ Explorers delight in having the game expose its internal machinations to them. They try progressively esoteric actions in wild, out-of-the-way places, looking for interesting features (ie. bugs) and figuring out how things work. Scoring points may be necessary to enter some next phase of exploration, but it's tedious, and anyone with half a brain can do it. Killing is quicker, and might be a constructive exercise in its own right, but it causes too much hassle in the long run if the deceased return to seek retribution. Socialising can be informative as a source of new ideas to try out, but most of what people say is irrelevant or old hat. The real fun comes only from discovery, and making the most complete set of maps in existence.
You are also:

60% Socialiser
33% Achiever
20% Killer
This result may be abbreviated as ESAK

I do like PvP more than I used to, but I much prefer mass PvP. I think the test emphasises a solo PvP nature.