The Bartle Test : Are These Descriptions Accurate ?

[Flight]

Someone said something to me, a few days ago, that initially made me react strongly and disagree with them. On further thought, they know much more than me about the topic (they've studied Psychology at Uni and have played many MMOs) and they are probably correct. It was about the Achiever type and how certain game elements appeal to them.

I read around a bit and went to the Wiki entry for the Bartle test.

I found some things there that I agreed with, but I also learned a few things.



My question is, do folks think this article accurately nails the different types, do you see yourself anywhere in there and how accurate a picture of us can it present when its only balancing four types ?


Particularly, would folk add to or disagree with anything in the description of Achievers in MMOs ?

Multi-player appeal to the Achiever

One of the appeals of online gaming to the Achiever is that he or she has the opportunity to show off their skill and hold elite status to others. They value (or despise) the competition from other Achievers, and look to the Socializers to give them praise. As they achieve more, they are no longer easy targets of the Killers and may enjoy their new position on the food chain. These gamers also tend to like seeing their user names at the top of scoreboards and ladder systems. Many games cater to these players by offering special titles and a special exclusive mounts to those that place in the top of the competitive Arena ladder. Microsoft's Xbox Live utilizes the Gamerscore to reward Achievers, who can get points by completing difficult "Achievements" in the various games they purchase. They can, in turn, compare themselves to other gamers from around the world.

In many ways, the Achiever is the style of play most targeted by the MMORPG genre. In many successful MMOs, there is always something else to achieve; even when the character has reached the highest level, there are usually rare items to obtain and objectives that were bypassed the first time around. Since Achievers can sometimes set very obscure goals for themselves, especially if they feel like they'll be (among) the first to achieve them, they may spend long periods of time engaging in a repetitive action in order to get one more award.

As an aside, I've never seen a copy of Bartles new test, which defines 8 types; following quoted from the Wiki entry :

Richard Bartle also created an 8-part version of his player types model for virtual world players.

* Friend
* Griefer
* Hacker
* Networker
* Opportunist
* Planner
* Politician
* Scientist

According to Bartle: "The 4-part version is easy to draw because it's 2D, but the 8-part one is 3D; it's therefore much harder to draw in such a way as it doesn't collapse in a mass of lines." There are no known online version of Bartle's 8-Types Gamer Test.

Incidentally, one of the things I learned was where one of my clear traits in MMOS comes from (I often go back to EQ1, EQ2, AO etc., while WoW frequently bores me) :

However, Explorers will often quickly become bored with any particular MMORPG when they feel it has become a chore to play, with only more of the same ahead. This is of course true to some extent of all gamers, but Explorers can be notoriously fickle, abandoning a popular game within mere weeks while spending months or years delving deeply into a less-popular one.

Not surprising given my score :





Uhuh, that's a hint to go take the test and post your results. It's been years since we last did this.

[Agraza]

Despite my low achiever rating I subscribe heavily to the idea that there must always be something you can progress/develop/achieve/etc. whenever you log in. Character progression is the #1 draw of an RPG.

[Vorph]

Still think the Bartle Test is a load of shit just as I did back in the early days of MUDs. There's too many questions that my real answer would be, "Uh, neither one? They're both gay."

The final scores are only accurate because it's easy to tell which way the answers lead you and when there's a retarded question you just pick the result you want.

[Havelock]

Given the sophisticated age we live in, I think we could do better than a shallow online survey. To get quality data, researchers ought to start writing add-ons for WoW when Cataclysm hits, for SWTOR, for Copernicus when it comes, etc., and get some metrics on actual gameplay. Obviously there would be shortcomings, but it beats the Cosmo quiz approach. I suspect Blizz already has the capability of tracking this sort of thing and probably does a lot of design based on the feedback they get, but it would be nice for the rest of us to get a look at how the population of a game approaches the game. It would also be neat to see the differences between servers, and potentially help steer people toward playing in a setting that best reflects what they're looking for.

[Cybsled]

I'm getting casual in my old age

Explorer 67% Socializer 47% Killer 47% Achiever 40%.

Maybe it's because I haven't been able to recapture that famous monk magic from EQ1 ;_;

[...]

I didn't like the questions they seemed skewed to make you either a power gamer or a 'run around and look at pretty landscape' gamer. A lot of them were revolving around being the best or the first at X. do you want to show up your friend, or show up on a top X list. do you want to be the first ever to get an item, or figure out a puzzle. do you want an item that makes you level faster, or be able to be a douche to others.

I kind of wanted more middle of the road answers. do you want to be known as:
A: a swell guy who knows the best paths to the best rainbows on the best hills.
B: a badass pvper who skull fucks his victims after showing them his superior items and then placing them in his victim's chest.
C: be known to be not an asshole, and to be competent at the game (mechanically), kind of laid back. does the game well.

It's almost like they let peter molyneux design a survey.

(i didn't save my results but i was like....Acheiver>eplorder =socializer > Kiler (heh like 2% killer)

[bonanno]

Achiever: 67%
Killer: 53%
Socializer: 53%
Explorer: 27%

Why not just change it to 100, instead of 200? Dumb question I'm sure. I probably missed something.

[Digits]

Which Twilight character are you? Take our pathetic online quiz to find out!

[Troll]

Originally Posted by Digits

Which Twilight character are you? Take our pathetic online quiz to find out!

I SEE NO LINK TO THIS QUIZ?

[Fadaar]

[epeen]

[Realm First! - Level 80]

[/epeen]

[Soygen]

I have no clue what all this means. They need a 'Lazy' category. I would rate like 90% in that.

[etchazz]

Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent.
Forty percent of all people know that.

[Needless]

This is silly, It says i enjoy pvp. I suppose I do, however no game atm has a fun pvp system that i can think of. Vanilla wow was fun, EQ was fun but that is it. I prefer pve progress thats about it in current wow.

[James]

I TOOK THE TEST AND WAS RATED 400% KILLER AND THEN I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER.

UP HER ASSHOLE.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by ...

I kind of wanted more middle of the road answers. do you want to be known as:

It reminds me of playing Baldur's Gate where you had 1 good guy answer, 1 bad guy answer, and then like 5 "This is what I would actually say" chaotic neutral answers.



Then a few years later we get KOTOR. A relatively good game but every middle of the road answer was left out in favor of all the ridiculously good (save the children!) vs. ridiculous evil (do children blend? Let's find out! Vrrrrrrrshpoooooooosh) dialog choices.