Students Blog

Since the majority of the game consists of completing missions (quests), killing villains (mobs), and leveling up to gain new levels and skills, the gameplay is very achievement-oriented. As per Bartle’s article, City of Heroes, like many modern MMOs, contains “auto-map facilities, an extensive level/class system, many commands relating to fighting, lots of mobiles, and few ways that players that can do things to other players.” The major way that player action is limited is that player killing, or in fact any other way of player harassment, is almost totally impossible. As the game fiction states that all players are heroes, players are prevented from attacking one another, excepting the special arena space, which, as befitting a game hostile to the existence of Killers, is often deserted. Even the loot system precludes causing grief to other players – rewards for killing mobs are teleported directly into a hero’s inventory, preventing other players from swooping in and stealing them. Thus, it is not viable to be a Killer in City of Heroes, except in a few specific situations.

The game, however, does provide a system for which socializers can act. The impressive range of the character customization system allows most players to have a persona that is utterly unique, which provides some basis for discussion – I often see costume contests, which, although providing no real game benefit, bring large groups of people to “hang out.” I don’t see a lot of “role-players” on my server; on the other hand, there is a lot of talk about the game system and changes in the game world, both in out-of-game message boards and while playing the game. However, as the pace of the game is quite fast during missions, there is very little opportunity during gameplay to just stand around and chat – this only occurs when there is downtime – while people are leveling up or going to the next mission, or when people have to revive and return to the current one. For example, while grouping with Michael and 6 other players, Michael inadvertently “aggroed” thirty mobs. This resulted in about half our team dying, including Michael. While they were reviving, we spent the time talking, mostly about how the new update “nerfed” some gameplay elements and strategies.

Exploring, as per Bartle’s definition of it, is not my primary play style, except when the game has conflated it with Achievement. For example, there are badges one collects for reaching certain parts of the game world – I’ve collected a few of them myself as I’ve played. However, I feel no desire to get them, except for the ones which can provide a tangible increase of power to my character. However, there are others who play to collect them all, although such a game-defined way of exploring might still be more like achievement. I’ve seen a few true Explorers around though – testing and recording data on various powers, creating databases of villains and NPCs, and discussing findings on the official City of Heroes message boards.

I’ve run into interesting subset of characters that might not fit easily into Bartle’s types – groups of players such as the “Taxibots” and “Paragon Search and Rescue” who patrol dangerous areas, and offer resurrection, teleportation, and healing to any who ask for it, free of charge. They don’t do it for payment or recognition, so it doesn’t seem Achiever-like, but as it is dependent on working within the game mechanic, it doesn’t seem so neatly Social either. It seems in a game to suppress Killers, a sort of “Anti-Killer” type has arisen.

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For the MUD, Michael and I played Revenge of the Jedi, the fourth most popular MUD on mudlists.com, with 17 hits in the past week. This was our first experience playing MUDs, and the first thing that struck me was how player-unfriendly the game was; at least, now newbie-unfriendly – there is a steep learning curve from the beginning, as you’re asked to distribute 8 different attributes without any clear indication of what those attributes do; after my first character was banned for having an inappropriate game name, I found that my second character did not have enough points in “quickness” to attack, and I died in the training arena, something that would seem verboten in today’s MMOs.

After Michael and I sorted out our character creation and instructions, we explored the training area. From examining the game, it seems like it is primarily achievement-oriented, with an extensive skill and loot system – our first half hour in the game world consisted of running through the training area and killing probe droids and Imperial trainees in order to gain experience, bottles of water, and “Wookie cookies.” The world seemed mostly empty, but the few conversations we happened upon were discussions of gameplay mechanics and auctions for various loot items and equipment in the game.

I would say that if the Bartle types assume that the players classified have some sort of base competency of the game, then Michael and I couldn’t play the game as any sort of definable type; however, if struggling with the syntax and interface counts as Exploring, then we were most definitely Explorers, whether it be Exploring how all the items in my inventory seemed to randomly drop to the ground, or Exploring what names the game wizards didn’t like.

Killing has never been a priority for me in MMOs, especially where there are tangible repercussions, be it reputation tracking or loss of loot. The flippant way in which many MUDs handle permanent character death would make me more wary to tread that path, but since Michael and I had no illusions of playing this game outside of the assignment, and because City of Heroes did not provide an opportunity for Killing, we attempted to Kill as well as we could with our Level 1 characters. Upon taking the first opportunity to be a Killer, my third character was executed by a Sand Trooper after I tried to kill an innocent NPC.

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Having tried playing both the MMO and the MUD through the lenses of the Bartle types, it shows how the variety of experiences one can have in a virtual world. However, these definitions seem to have their own limitations, and can’t cover all the possible motivations one has in playing the game. For example, the Taxibots I mentioned before don’t seem to fit in an easy quadrant. And my own motivations, for example - while I mentioned I’m nominally an Achiever, I only consider those things a means to an end; I don’t see any particular fun in playing the same dungeon 4 hours a day for a chance to get “Molten Shoulder Blades of the Eagle” or some such piece of loot. I even read the flavor text that accompanies quests – something most Achievers gloss over quickly only to find out what mobs they need to kill. I see myself as a consumer of content: I want to immerse myself in an interesting game world, and see what it has to offer. The worlds with the richest backstory and variegated content in-game are the ones that provide, for me at least, the “intrigue and curiosity” that Lazzaro defines as encompassing the “Easy Fun” Key of a good game, which also happens to be the Key that I find offers the most potential - "excitement, adventure, seeing what happens next." While this seems closer to Exploring, the way Bartle defines exploring doesn’t describe it either, as his conception of an Explorer seems to be that of a cartographical/mechanical sense – I don’t really “try progressively esoteric actions in wild, out-of-the-way places” or try “figuring out how things work” – in fact, things like that which break immersion would seem to lessen my enjoyment of a game, rather than increase it.

While the Bartle types are a good starting point at examining player motivations, perhaps there is a better framework that encompasses the multitudes of people that play MMOs.