Players Who Suit MUD's (Multi-User Domains)

Richard A Bartle: Players who suit MUD'S. This article was an old one. However the points that were drummed out constantly through it do, in my opinion still relate to the current game world and community. We we're asked to look at how the different styles of players related to us as well as the game world. Also to look at how this article was relevant to our own actions as players in our own game-play sessions.

MUD's are Multi User Domains and are typically text based role playing games, which have a chat element to them as well as online interaction between players. This type of game has evolved into becoming the now known, MMORPG's. Bartle described two types of playing styles, this included:

Action (world orientated) Vs Interaction (player orientated)
Bartle then splits these two types of players into 4 groups. These groups were know as: killers, socialisers, achievers and explorers.

• Achievers: See point gathering and levelling up as their main goal. They tend to give themselves personal goals and are constantly on the look out to improve their character in any way

• Killers: Are players that use killing other players as their main goal. They often just want to cause distress to other players. The more distress they causes, the more joy they get out of their playing experience.

• Socialisers: These types of players base their gaming around talking to other players. They tend to play just because of the aspect of inter player-relationships and often don't care much about the actual game-play as such.

• Explorers: Explorers want to know everything about the game terrain around them. They often try to find and explore the game mechanics and to find interesting objects and artifacts within game. they get a buzz out of knowing they are the first person to find a specific area of item.

A metaphor was given by Bartle to describe these different players. He used the suits from a pack of playing cards to describe them.

• Hearts (Socialisers care about players feelings)
• Spades (Explorers tend to dig up strange and new places)
• Diamonds (Achievers want to have the best of the best in terms of score and items)
• Clubs (Killers club people to death) 

Relationships

Socialisers: Tend to socialise with every player type but mainly other socialisers. They will take an interest in the game just so that people will talk to them.

Achievers: These see other achievers as competition and often want to outrun them in status within a game, the game is very important to this type of player.

Killers: They target achievers as their prey. Because the game means so much to the achievers, the distress caused can be maximised.

Explorers: Never usually want to fight back with killers, but when they do, the killers may need to be cautious as all the exploring could of turned up with a super powerful weapon

Throughout the article, Bartle kept on telling us that the balance of these players are very important as they all have a relationship within the game with each other. If the amount of one type of player was to drop, then the result was to see another side drop dramatically, resulting in another.. and so on. For example, Killers tend to want to kill achievers more than any other player, this is because achievers take the game very seriously and if killed tend to get very distressed. This is exactly what the killers want, and if the achievers get killed to much they may leave the game. This means a reduction of achievers within game, and less players for killers to hunt. Less achievers = less killers.

Conclusion

Throughout this article I learned about the different player types which i never knew about before but found extremely interesting. I would consider my own playing style as an achiever. However I do sometimes like to cross over to the killers playing style also. I feel that now in modern games, they have developed methods in which they force players to experience different player styles. They often have different areas of the game world where specific players enjoy lurking around. Such as a combat arena for killers or a high score leader board for achievers. This article may be dated, but I found that it is still relevant in present time.