#bartle's taxonomy

[lolli-popples]

Has anyone else noticed that the Pirate SMP factions oddly resemble Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types? You know the 4 player classifications based on original MMORPG’s?

Herons are obviously explorers, and Kites are obviously killers, but the Kestrels line up pretty well with achievers and the Nightingales with socializers. 

Just thought it was an interesting comparison.

[belisaurus]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drDuaQXm_U)

[chaosdx1]

Minirant. Or more of a personal journey. Just wanted to get some thoughts off my chest about my experiences in PvP games like Splatoon, and some questions I asked both about the games and myself.

Some of you may know that I got Splatoon as a way to get myself into the PvP scene. I thought I was avoiding them because of some sort of phobia of online play. Games where if you have fun or not depend entirely on a matchmaking system and the other players not being an asshole on the internet. A pretty tall order if ever there was one.

Splatoon looked like innocent, pure fun. Everyone was excited about it so I wouldn't have to be worried about if my friends were playing it or not.

It was so much fun during the Global Testfire Demo, but after I got the game the more I played the less fun I had. Instead I just found frustration. During Splatfests I forced myself to play, but my heart wasn’t in it. I couldn’t bring myself to fight or at least fight well.

I told myself "That was just a bad day. Get back in the game! Give it another try! Splatoon will welcome you back and you'll have so much fun!" I said that over a month ago. The matches I had after that were even more frustraiting and soul-crushing than ever. Haven't picked up the game since. I've still been trying a few online competitive games but the more I play the more I'm convinced that type of game just isn't for me. I've given up on it. I see skype messages from my friends ranting about how bad their latest Splatoon match was. It reminds me of pretty much has every reason I stopped playing the game, yet they say they still love playing. Whatever it is that keeps them going and having fun, I don't have it. Why do people like these games but I don’t? What’s wrong with me?

Ironic that the game I wanted to be a key to opening a door to a new type of play ended up being a nail in the coffin for PvP instead.

I still play Team Fortress 2 every now and then. That's the first online competitive game I ever played and I still enjoy it. Can't figure out why this game is more fun for me than others. I examined it closely comparing it to Splatoon and just can't figure it out. But even then I don't play TF2 for more than an hour a month. I can't bring myself to want to play it too often.

Saw an Extra Credits video recently that shed some light on things. Bartle’s Taxonomy shows there are four types of players in the world: Killers, Achievers, Explorers, and Socializers. I've heard of these categories before, sure, but looking at it again in my recent Splatoon failure I realized I'm pretty far on the Explorer side of the chart. This might be why I don't like PvP games. When I played TF2 and a new map was added I always started it up offline just so I could look around and admire the scenery. Maybe find places that would make good sniper or sentry spots. This is why I like games like Fallout 4 and Minecraft, there is so much to explore and so many rewards for exploring. I’m not a Killer, (despite my skill with a rocket launcher) I’m an explorer. PvP just isn’t my kind of game.

Following that Minecraft train of thought, maybe that's why Minecraft is so popular. It fits all the player types. But while people are up top killing each other, forming communities or building grand structures, I'm far below the surface digging away, searching for things I'll never use because I was always more interested in exploring caves and finding resources than building with them.