"Die Spieler machen das Spiel."
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I can be contacted as hobold at this domain name.
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#34. Advanced: Achievers Revisited
I don't think that the achiever motivation needs a more descriptive label.
Nevertheless, I want to offer a few more detailed observations about this
motivation. As far as I can tell, there are three distinct
flavours of achievers:
- Disciplined: being an achiever is all about outdoing yourself.
- Competitive: outdoing others is an important part of the motivation.
- Humble: the achievements themselves are seen as useful and worthy goals.
I think this distinction is of lesser importance to game design, because all the above achievers end up liking almost the same game content. The humble achievers prefer rewards that are themselves useful, while the competitive achievers like status symbols, and the disciplined achievers enjoy the feedback of having reached a milestone. But any attractive reward is almost guaranteed to serve at least two out of these three functions anyway.
But to us players, the above distinction is quite valuable in my opinion. As achievers, we all flock towards the same kind of game content, and superficially seem to have the same goals. Yet there can be quite a bit of tension in a group of achievers. I believe this is one of the major causes why "drama" tends to occur even in highly organized, very focused groups of players. They all think they are pursuing the same goals, and they certainly like the same aspects of the game, but in actuality they might not have so much in common.
Still, all achievers, even the competitive ones, don't merely like the triumph of overcoming a challenge, but the challenge itself. Where they differ is that they prefer challenges posed by either themselves, or their competitors, or the game designers, respectively.
To an Achiever, the noblest goal is to always strive to improve oneself, no matter what.
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#33. Advanced: Explorers Revisited - I'll
call 'em Seekers
At the beginning of this blog project, I briefly mentioned the four basic motivations that players have
been observed to be following in virtual worlds. This observation is
relatively old (considering that virtual worlds themselves are still young),
and has been useful enough that one can call it a well-established
model. On this foundation, I have speculated that these
motivations are a consequence of the players' perception of reality. And finally I was
wondering if perhaps there is a connection between the motivations and a
popular set of game mechanics.
During this attempted refinement of Richard A. Bartle's original insight, I became convinced that virtual worlds have evolved and changed so much that some of the labels "Explorer", "Achiever", "Socializer", and "Killer" are no longer a good fit, and convey an impression that is misleading nowadays. The names are no longer true. So in this posting I will try to define the essence of the player type formerly known as "Explorer". With any luck, this description will serve as a justification for me calling them "Seekers" from then on.
So what do Explorers explore? Simple: everything!
The original label of "explorer" evokes images of a bold and fearless adventurer who travels the world, mapping new continents, discovering new civilizations, always pushing the envelope. But players who pursue this motivation in virtual worlds are not necessarily like that.
Sure, some travel the virtual environment, some might even draw maps, and some do blaze trails for other players. But some keep forever tinkering with character customization options. Some keep making ingame experiments in order to infer mathematical formulas of the game engine. Some keep collecting virtual stuff, in order to compile a complete catalog. Some have the whole gamut of lore memorized and nicely organized in their minds. Some end up writing blogs on the design of virtual worlds ...
The one thing that sets explorers apart from other players who might do similar things in the game is this: explorers may seem to be following some goal. But whenever they have reached it, they set their sights to another goal of interest and begin to pursue that. The work of an explorer is never done. The mapper is never content with the maps he already has. The collector may finish one collection, but then recognizes it as a subset or starts another completely new collection. The tinkerer is never satisfied with the current state of things. The modeler can never be sure that his model does indeed cover all cases.
In short, being an explorer is not about finding things. It is about searching for them. And therefor I will call such players "Seekers" from now on.
A Seeker believes that having the right answers is good, but having the right questions is better.
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Tracking 06: Storytelling in Dungeons with
Cutscenes
This entry is meant to keep track of a posting on
Blizzard's forums, just for convenience.
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Tracking 05: Cataclysm Post Mortem - Roles in
Dungeons
This entry is meant to keep track of a posting on
Blizzard's forums, just for convenience.
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Tracking 04: Cataclysm Post Mortem -
Archeology
This entry is meant to keep track of a posting on
Blizzard's forums, just for convenience.
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