Students Blog

The first mmorpg I played was World of Warcraft, where my main player type was that of an Achiever. Throughout my history of playing games, especially any type of RPG, I have always been an achiever where level rising and point-gathering have been my main goals. I will initiate battles early in the game in order to gain experience points, look for the best items and weapons early to help advance my level raising. I will usually only associate with players if they have something to offer me whether it is a new item or new information. I like the idea of competition in the newly created online world, and I play to become a master of the game.
World of Warcraft exemplified my role as an achiever. At the start I began my campaign with the mage character. I like magic in games and mages/wizard characters usually level up the quickest. So I began the game at level 1 with a hearthstone, a few waters, and a couple pieces of food. I was anxious to up my level quickly to gain an upper hand on the game so I searched for the starter quest givers. These givers were marked with a large yellow "!" over their heads. Any and all NPCs you need to worry about in the game will be in close proximity to where you begin life in Azeroth. I soon found out I could work on up to 20 quests at a time. I worked especially diligently at the start of the game to reach level 10 and gain my first talent point. I used it in order to gain “improved fireball” as this teqnique would help tremendously in my goal of overall advancement in the game. I avoided the help of others because they would only hinder my ability to progress, and I did not want others progressing at the same rate as me. At times, I grew very restless with explorers who seemed to get in my way at every junction. They would ask questions that were not relevant to my development as a player. I displayed some signs of a socialiser when I would chat with others about the world and their experiences. While the majority of my interactions were initiated to gain information, I sometimes found myself going off on tangents, only to soon realize what my real mission was. The worst of the group were killers. Killers would always seem to find a way to hinder my progress in the game for their own personal enjoyment. While this wasn’t as pertinent in World of Warcraft, it was especially true in Star Wars Galaxies.
In Galaxies, I was particularly concerned on becoming a Jedi or bounty hunter. Yet it seemed that whenever I was about to receive a great weapon or item, a killer would come from the shadows to ruin my succession. It was engaging when I could defeat the killer as I would gain experience points, but most times, there was a group of 3 or 4 killers. In Galaxies, the same was true for socialisers, who seemed to hound me with useless questions and information at every junction or space station. Explorers were not as bad in Galaxies because they were very limited. When I did see an explorer, they were very helpful with their information and experiences. One even informed me of a planet were I could gain quick experience points ahead of everyone else. While the glitch was taken out of the game, it was especially beneficial for the time that I was there. So for the majority of mmorpgs, Bartle’s player models worked for me with the exception of some deviations. In most games, I am strictly an achiever, yet I will sometimes show signs of a socialiser. I will never show signs of an explorer, yet they are helpful sometimes. Lastly, I despise killers and their objectives to interrupt the game for achievers such as myself.