[MUD-Dev] Weaknesses in the HCDS player type model (was: 3rd Axis for Bartle's 2 axis theory of MUD players)

Sat Oct 19 14:44:07 CEST 2002

Casbaria <casbaria at pacbell.net> writes:

> I think the 3rd Axis is a necessary component and can explain
> quite a bit about the dynamics of your populace.

Uhm. There are more than a 3rd axis obviously! What properties you
want to include depends on what you try to model. Let me address
some weaknesses:

WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY MODEL?

It was based on what players reported to enjoy doing. Thus it
reflects the the activities players reported as attractive in a
particular system. Unfortunately players are not very good at
reporting what they enjoy and why. They are also easily influenced
by what other players say. If the sample is self-selected, then you
are likely to get people that feel a need to make themselves
seen. Anyway, I think one should keep in mind that the underlying
study did not measure motivation, or the needs that players brought
into the game, but what has become of them after being exposed to
the game. As such, one might question if it is capable of guiding
new designs. In the ideal study you would choose a rich free-form
virtual world at its inception and do extensive participatory
observation combined with reading user diaries and carefully
conducted 1-on-1 depth interviews. Rather challenging and time
consuming, and where are those worlds to be found? Another note:
games like AO and EQ are rather unsuitable for a study of motivation
as they FORCE the players into activities and grouping in an
xp-driven craze. In terms of the HCDS model these games cater for
(or require) socializing achievers.

One may of course use the HCDS model for many purposes, but I am not
sure if it opens or closes ones eyes for the phenomena one are
thinking about. What is it trying to cover?

  1. main groups of activities in virtual environments

  2. the needs that the players bring with them

  3. the adopted/emerging needs

  4. an abstraction of personality traits that have design relevance

  5. the motivation for staying in the system (keeps them from
  leaving)

  6. the focus/foci of the player in a particular session

  7. the space that covers the phases the players move through as he
  adopts different activities over his lifespan

  8. player identities (what they want other to perceive them as)

  9. different types of fun

  10. etc...

CONSTRUCTION

The HCDS may cover some static, ever-growing, PK MUDs quite well. I
don't think it covers builder-type of MUDs all that well. It doesn't
seem to recognize builder types. Yes, those may be achievers (and a
little bit of explorers), but that is quite different from the
optimizing behaviour of gameplay-achievers. One basically needs to
introduce the producer-consumer properties I've argued for many
times.

NOT REALLY TWO DIMENSIONAL OR 2-AXIS

HCDS is actually 4 dimensional. You can obviously focus on both
players and the gameworld, and you can be a pure achiever with low
or high interest in the activity. Furthermore, one should be able to
distguish between socializing achievers and exploring killers! It
might be tempting to ditch the interaction dimension and replace it
with acted upon, but that might not be such a good idea. Another
issue is that "interaction" is not a very clear term. In fact, there
are lots and lots of papers discussing what "interactive" and
"interactive system" actually means! Still, it may be sufficient in
this context. The way "acting-on" is used suggests that it can be
replaced with "ruling" or "dominating", which isn't quite the same
thing. Ok, I'll leave that for now, but I am not all that happy with
the space that is being spanned...

ACTED UPON (sensing, reading):

Immersion as such is more related to interacting than acting
upon. Although you can be immersed into a setting by being acted
upon as well (which is not covered by the model at all, although the
Farmer paper and lots of community research papers identify
lurkers/passives) for instance by traveling in Active Worlds,
Anarchy Online and other worlds with enticing audio-visual
scenery. One might call these explorers, but I think that is
misleading. You don't interact with the world when you follow a path
or read a newsletter or listen in on other people's conversations.

EMPATHIC DOMINATORS

The "Killer" is a misnomer, it should have been labeled "Dominator"
(Or "need for Power"). It covers leaders, guides, random
player-killers, griefers etc. Now, these are very different
activities and they are driven by somewhat different mentalities! 
You would probably need to add a large number of dimensions in order
to separate them. I can think of at least three relevant
properties. Empathy being an obvious one: random player-killers vs
helpers, slandering gossipers vs good listeners and community
builders, solo other-people-are-npcs-achievers vs guilded
power-leveling-newbie-twink-gameworld-achievers, elitist
find-out-yourself-because-that-is-more-fun-even-if-it-is-tedious
explorers vs sharing let-me-show-you explorers.

EXPLORERS

There is an ocean of difference between the mapper, i.e. the person
that always plays the latest game, maps it, put it on a website then
moves on to another new world, and the players that enjoy
experiencing the landscape. Some explorers are of the patient
persistent type, others are seek experiences. One might use Turkle's
emphasis of the modernist versus post-modernist mentality. Could be
applied to other types as well.

WORLD

What is the world? Is it everything that is not players? Or does it
describe how the player approach the system (i.e. an achiever may
view other players as NPCs)? Is it the rules and what is stored on
the server? Does it cover the fictional universe? In order to
address how players influence the fictional world, one should add
"detractor" to the consumer/producer dimension mentioned earlier.

--
Ola - http://folk.uio.no/olag/

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