Assignment 4: Player types in MUD vs MMORPG
World of Warcraft has done an excellent job of creating a world in which I enjoy spending time. Between professions, quests, instances, guilds, participation in the economy, and regular socializing, it takes on many roles and satisfies many of your desires. If you consider each play style, each will find world of warcraft rewarding. This varies greatly from my play in lambdamoo, which satisfied mostly my explorer playing style, which was the only to emerge within that kind of gameplay. World of Warcraft on the other hand has a differant way of satisfying each play style.
Achiever Style - World of Warcraft offers nearly unlimited goals for the achieving player to accomplish, and this is probably my most common play style. I have never played a game with as many possible goals as world of warcraft. There are a dozen sources of endless goals, some examples are, leveling a character to the maximum level, leveling a level of each class to the maximum level, level a character of each class of each skill tree to the maximum level.. and so on. There are a variety of in game professions to become proficient at, and you have a respect rating within each town that affects how you are treated and what items you can access. In addition to traditional leveling, one could aim to complete every possible quest, although that might be more of an explorers liking. In my play as an achiever I really enjoy the variety of options for accomplishing things...
Explorers - I am not much of an explorer, while World of Warcraft encompasses a tremendously large world, and much of it has quite interesting things to discover, I feel I prefer to run into them on my own during quests than to seek them out just for pleasure. However this game would be perfect for the explorer type, offering challenges and entertainment for hundreds of hours of exploring and conquering the world of warcraft.
Socialisers - Again, world of warcraft offers a lot of ways to socialize, and much of the game requires it. Without a team to accompany you, many of the quests and instances are not feasible within the designed experience range. As a socialiser in World of Warcraft I would say that this is definitely the most fun style of play. Nothing is more fun than spending several hous with a group of people, slaying all in your path. Each player has a unique role in their group, contributing everything they can to their success. This is a highly rewarding experience and makes you feel as if the time you spent is more than worth your while.
Killers - World of Warcraft has special servers set up for these types of players, just as they have special servers for those who like to socialise the most (role playing). The Player versus Player servers are interesting in that at almost any point in the game an enemy can approach you, whereas the standard gameplay style only allows for enemies to approach in designated "contested" areas between the two nations. Unfortunately I did not achieve a high enough level in the game to do any significant damage to my enemies, even though I have played quite a lot, It takes a lot of experience to enter areas infested with enemies without being quickly picked off.
MUD Experiences
Lambdamoo was my choice for playing a MUD this time, mostly because I am now familiar with the navigation system in game. In my playtime in the MOO I kept entirely to one play style. Explorer. To me when I enter the MOO all I am thinking about is what is around me, and as I moved through the MOO I began to map out the place in my head, noticing something new with each step, and adding more details to each room. Because of the lack of images to make things straight, the explorer in me takes complete control. Things that you would normally pass up in search of something to accomplish, I stopped to pick up and "examine". This MUD worked very well for me for satisfying my inner explorer. I found myself smiling quite a few times after reading a particularly juicy description of a room, even laughing out loud at a funny detail. I'm not sure what most players do in lambdamoo, but I made sure to go inside the dishwasher, and try to put as much stuff as possible in it. I was fascinated with the variety of games available within the game, from monopoly to dominoes. Lambdamoo was able to satisfy the explorer within me in a differant way than any graphical game like World of Warcraft can. While in World of Warcraft you can visit a desert and see giraffes and lions prowl the realistic looking surface while a sandstorm blows through, I can only enjoy something that "ordinary" so much, despite the respect I have for their excellent job developing the game world.