Students Blog

City of Heroes is a MMORPG where you go around as a superhero of your creation and fight bad guys and complete missions. The really great thing about this game is that it satisfies three of the four criteria for a good game as defined by Nicole Lazzaro for me. The four criteria are hard fun, easy fun, altered states, and the people factor. City of Heroes does not have hard fun for me, but it definitely has the other three criteria; experiencing the activities in the game keeps me focused on the game and is quite enjoyable, which is easy fun; while playing it, I really feel like a superhero and that I am making a difference, which is altered state. The last point, the people factor, is really the best part of the game.

The people factor is the enjoyment of playing with other players in the game. City of Heroes is very unique in my opinion because the game absolutely must be played with other players. In other MMORPGs that I have played such as Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest, and Meridian 59, it is possible to go through the world alone and still progress in the game. The dynamics of the limitations and strengths of the different character classes ensures that players must form groups to kill higher creatures at higher levels in City of Heroes. The great part is that when you start fighting in these groups, everyone works together as a team as if by instinct, and you really feel connected to the other players: everyone seems to take on a unique role. That is why the people factor works for this game because you feel a part of a team that you can share experiences with other people and feel like you are really contributing to the group.

But as I was playing, I started to note what style of play I used as denoted by Richard Bartle. According to him, there are four main classes of players: achievers, explorers, socialisers, and killers. As a preface, these classes are described for MUDs, but I feel that these classes can cross over to a MMORPG like City of Heroes. For example, I found myself very much and achiever style of player in the game. I liked to team up, and kill bad guys to level my character up and get cool new super powers. I believe the majority of the game is centered on achievers (a type one equilibrium as described by Bartle) with a few killers that I encountered. These few people would “steal” other peoples kills and disrupt groups for fun. There were very few socialisers and explorers that I found, but I have met a few while playing. But overall, every player I have met seems to fall into one of these four categories.

However, my experience with SlothMUDIII was much different than with City of Heroes. Having only really gotten into gaming as an older teenager, I am addicted to graphics. A game without graphics (like a MUD) is very much a different experience for me. As such, I found myself definitely gravitating towards an explorer type personality gamer. I would explore every possibility I could with commands: I mixed items to see what would happen, attacked creatures to see the response, and I basically typed any commands I thought might do something. In essence, I really wanted to see what I could do in the world, what the limits were, and what fun new things I could discover in the world. However, the rest of the world seemed to be another type one equilibrium: everyone I seemed to meet was an achiever trying to get something and didn’t really want to talk. I didn’t meet any killers nor any other personality types, and maybe this is because I didn’t play it for long enough, but it felt like a world of achievers. As a result, I felt like talking with the players and seeing what interesting events they had done and what the world had to offered. The players I talked to though were not interested in that, and it felt awkward because they only were interested to see if I had anything to offer them to help them. It was very enjoyable though, but I don’t feel like I have a good enough grasp to decide if it meets the criteria of a good game as defined by Lazzaro.

While City of Heroes and SlothMUDIII are different games, I did not believe my player style and player interaction would change; however, my styles were quite different. In City of Heroes, I wanted to use other people to get at my goal of leveling up with a little socializing and sharing my experience with them, acting as an achiever. In SlothMUDIII, I wanted to explore the world and see everything it had to offer and interact with people to see what they had learned, acting like an explorer. These different play styles and player interactions represent how a gamer can be completely different in different games.