WWWest-Online Development Blog

With games, different people have different goals. I don’t only mean multiplayer games, but rather computer games in general. Even thinking back on the adventure games of old, I remember how my friends and I tackled them differently. Most of my friends, when faced with a game, usually tackled it in a rather straightforward manner, with the sole goal of finishing it. I, however, was usually the odd man out, and wanted to explore the game as much as possible (I’d give examples, but that would probably take about 3 more paragraphs…). In addition, some people get a kick out of helping others. Back in the day this didn’t amount to much, but with the advent of the internet (and the communities and forums in it) and multiplayer gaming, this has become more profound, and it’s not rare (though not too common, either) to find players who devote much of their time browsing the forums or in-game chat channels, providing answers and offering a helping hand when needed. And the list goes on…

Now, obviously this topic is nothing new, but it was only while playing Kingdom of Loathing that I found out that the topic of player types is one which has actually been thought about in depth. This happened when I came across The BarKoL Test, in which a player was asked several multiple choice questions, and in the end told whether they were a Diamond, a Spade, a Heart or a Club. Mystified by this (well, more like curious, but “mystified” has a nice ring to it), I did a tiny bit of digging and found that the BarKoL test was based on a work by Richard A. Bartle, titled “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit MUDs“.

To sum up the basic concept (and I do mean “sum up”; I know I’m hardly doing his work justice here, and I so suggest you go read it, and Bartle’s other works, if you’ve some time to spare), Bartle divided players into 4 types: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. Achievers (diamonds) are the guys for whom the goal of the game is to be the best; best loot, best build, best class (for the character type they want). These are the guys who pick a race and class based on their merits and nothing else, who tweak and re-tweak their character until it does maximum damage, or holds the most aggro. Explorers (spades) are the guys who know everything, no matter how useful or useless. How do you get from the Human starting zone to the Blood Elf lands? They know. What Easter Eggs are in this map? They can tell you. Where can you find the Enchanted Longsword of Impoverishment and Malnourishment? They know, though Lord only knows why. Socializers (hearts) are the people persons; they’re there to interact with humans as much as (sometimes even more than) for interacting with the game. They’re the guys who, instead of going out and exploring, killing or adventuring, hang around town and chat all day. And last but not least, killers (clubs) are the die-hard PvPers; they also want to interact with other players, but they want to do it with the steel of their sword or the blaze of their guns.

Of course, not everyone likes just one thing, and these are simply the main archetypes; it’s hard to find anyone who is all Diamond, since a certain degree of socializing is required for most high-end content (as most people who regularly ran Naxxramas in WoW will attest to), and every hardcore PvPer is quite a bit of Diamond, since he needs high-end items with which to bash, poke and explode other players. The same is true for Hearts and Spades, too, and most people are a bit of each.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, with WWWest-Online, we want to cater to all kinds, but right now I’ll say a word about the Spades. In every game, given enough time, a player will see all there is to be seen; do all there is to be done. The question is asked, how do you keep the explorers amused? There are many ways to go about this, many of which revolve around the game lore: multiple race/class combinations, each with its own lore will give a player many things to try; multiple storylines, especially if they differ to some degree between classes/races, give more to learn; several locations give more to explore. In addition, there is always the option of Easter Eggs and fluff (my personal favourites). Fluff can keep me going in a game for quite a while, be it unique (albeit useless) pets or items, pop-culture references or titles and achievements.

Oh yeah, achievements. That’s what this post was supposed to be about… Achievements, to my knowledge at least, are a rather new addition to MMOs (by “achievements” I mean achievements, titles, deeds, trophies, and any other thing that only exists to let others know that you’ve done or achieved something. Especially something useless, as far as I’m concerned). Originally, you would only be known in games for things that people saw you do (while grouping with you in a high-end instance, for example), heard about you doing (from those people who grouped with you) or that you did regularly (maybe you’re a known crafter, or the current PvP champion). But pretty soon developers caught on to the fact that players like fame almost as much as they like fortune.

The first time I remember seeing anything like this was in Wish (Oh, Wish, Wish, how I miss thee), where the devs put in a newspaper for the realm which listed, among other things, notable achievements by players. In later years it became more and more commonplace to see such things: Kingdom of Loathing has its trophies (I couldn’t say if they were there from day 1, but I know they were there when I started playing), Vanguard has displayable titles which were earned via achievements, as does Lord of the Rings Online, and more recently World of Warcraft has jumped on the achievement bandwagon with their own achievement system.

If you really stop to think about it, achievements usually simply provide one more goal towards which you can work. Some people would say that it’s simply a front for yet another grind, but I prefer the former description, especially if some achievements are for things that are fun and out of the ordinary.

In WWWest-Online, we have counters running for more or less everything that happens, and since achievements can’t hurt, and can even be lots of fun, why not count things for silly and amusing ends? And though it’s decided we will have achievements (or something akin to them), there are still things to be decided. How will they look? Will they be trophies to put on a wall, titles to bear or something else entirely? What kinds of things should we have achievements for?

Well then, I think I’ve rambled enough. As always, your ideas, comments and criticism are welcome; feel free to clog up the comments below .

Until next time,
Kraz