Balancing an MMO Ecosystem - Getting a Mix of Player Types - Extra Credits 

I like your story, you got anymore?

you sir,are a legond.

I like this

Awesome sharing, man! thanks!

Yea, when you are doing a weird stuff in games its awesome how meny weird things can happen.

Murder is a bit mean

+Miyamoto Fan The Souls games tend to be a good example of a lot of things EC talks about. :p I'm definitely on the explorer front here. Managing to defeat an enemy or another player with a really unusual build or strategy is the most rewarding thing.

+Miyamoto Fan i played dark souls 2 resently and i ran into way to many killers.

+Miyamoto Fan FASHION SOULS OR GO HOME

+Dynam3 Then you are perfectly fine. It is extremely rare to find someone who only exhibits one behavioral pattern since humans are inherently one dimensional. Say for instance you like exploring new areas, when you discover something that would fall into achievement on a personal level. A lot of cardgames have people who are both killer/achiever and explorer since they always have to be aware of sudden shifts in the meta. By having an interest in several aspects that just means that you as a person are just that much more interesting.

+Miyamoto Fan Idk, I think socializers and exspecially explorers dont really fit in there. I think the souls games are great, but since they are kinda "brutal" to beginners, some players dont even try to explore the pvp due to negative experience. And the community mostly is ok with that, since you have "git gud" to play dark souls or be a whiny bitch. I made it through the game, explored and had some frustrating but good experience. But I played it offline knowing that I dont want to be an asshole or to get killed by assholes. I think pvp is made for killers, nobody else.

+johannes nordeng One could argue that this is Homestuck. The first four kids are each a player type. John is the social, Rose is the explorer, Dave is the killer, and Jade is the achiever, although my assessment may be wrong. I saw a post about it on tumblr a while back.

+johannes nordeng It's been in teenage culture for ages. Killer: bully Achiever: the jock/nerd Explorer: the stoner/artist Socializer: the rest. See how many sitcoms and movies use these...

+thatthinker I'd argue that John - explorer, Rose - killer, Dave - achiever, Jade - socializer fits a lot better.

Okay but what about the fact that Rose was the one that destroyed a ton of her world and wrote that huge strategy guide? Doesn't seem like a killer's behavior to me.

ever heard of tome ?

+Gutemberg Camilo I actually consider a dagger to the throat a pretty decent outcome of a conversation.

+Wymar Sane Who's throat are we talking about touhg?

+Gutemberg Camilo Alliance scumbags do that rather often.

+Juan Moreno whoever start being annoying.

***** No I mean, does Wymar Sane mean he considers a dagger to his own throat or the other persons to be a decent outcome for a conversation, just curious

In some cases, socializers may even be the only ones to carry players between expansions in MMORPGs. The time when most achievers, killers and explorers have lost interest.

Yes! When the content goes sour after the investors pull out early and all the explorers and achievers ragequit. The killers leave and the socializers gradually thin out. Then the company pulls itself together and releases some good content on a low budget, but they have no money to advertise it, and they need people to know about it. The socializers may be the only way to bridge the gap. They are the ones who will upload the new gameplay to RU-vid and talk about it. That's how everyone will find out about the new content.

There's also the socializer focused on being a social killer... What can we do to reduce toxicity like that?

Of course! The socializers like playing with friends to hang out, and giving a few safe zones or making low levels have a shield can draw them in

What is wrong with you. Socializes are BORING

+William John Goodwater Game design overall requires a shitload of math in every stage of development.

+S. I. V. no math = no computers = no players

+S. I. V. A more precise answer: You COULD just have a loose understanding of math and pay attention to macro cosmos effects. When you see these killers are getting off too much and not only shrinking the pb and limiting everyone else? Nerf the killers. Now, its not that simple. What are you going to nerf? Why? How much damage per second are they doing with this skill used in a certain way? How many times can they use this skill because of certain gear? Not doing your math properly will make a HUGE mess out of things and fault the design. Calculating numbers to the second and the trends of equipment for these numbers that are causing your game to lose subscribers after that last month? Is important. That is why Mobas are successful with the playerbase. They intentionally keep a few easy to play champs OP for the newbies and the more seasoned players will ban them on the spot in ranked play.

+William John Goodwater M.A.T.H. Mental Abuse To Humans

+William John Goodwater That's exactly what I was thinking! This looks just like the Lotka-Volterra model! (just in four dimensions and things skewed just a wee bit)

Webber!

basicly 2b2t

2b2t says hi

Britain

I feel like this is a much more accurate summary than the video had to offer

@@jackblevins1201 I think the better lesson to take away from this is that World of Warcraft isn't the best example of a basic MMO economy. Perhaps Runescape or Everquest would make the point better. Even EVE Online fits the "standard" mould better than World of Warcraft does.

+Quibli and PvE servers are for Achievers and Explorers.

+Lillu700 Its probably one of the reasons they are usually some of the lower pop servers. Killers and Socializers interacting means that you need a very distinct kind of Socializer whom does not care too much about being killed, or has a bit of a Killer in them, because Killers will decrease the number of standard Socializers. Standard being EC's/Bartle's description.

Yeah, but it would split the Community

+Quibli But Killers seem more predatory than competitive. In this episode they mentioned that Killers do NOT like Explorers because they put up a good fight when attacked. So I'm not sure Killer would actually be attracted to a devoted PvP server

+Quibli PVP servers are not that connected to killer population directly according to the video. They are saying that PVP servers would only attract killers if PVP servers attracted _achievers_ most of all (I don't imagine they attract many socializers). So, if playing PVP is less benefecial stat-wise than other types of play, achievers will shun them and killers too.

Why tf is there a giant music note beside your name

It’s like a little ecosystem

+Extra Credits One day can we see a drawing tutorial on how you do your artwork? It looks simple yet always shows everything we need to see!

+anion cation thats alison shes the artist

+Extra Credits !MOER! ;)

+Extra Credits Still waiting on that follow up hearthstone video, cause your arguments have been countered a bit by grim patron decks suddenly being broken, by none other than a nerf.

+Matthew Eisenhour Alison left EC a couple years ago because she got a new job. She still guests on the show once in a while though

+cameron wood I thought of the killer type more so as the griefer concept. Someone who wants to piss you off/ ruin your day rather than actual combat oriented.

+cameron wood I've seen socializer/killers who like to work together and then laugh about their kills. And killer/socializers who like trolling. I get the impression that lone wolf killers tend to spread out and find their own hunting grounds.

+cameron wood I know this is a bit late, but Killers do influence each other. Killers like to hunt pretty much anyone weaker than themselves, which can include newer killers. Of course killers don't like being killed (because they want to feel more powerful than others), so too many killers will actually discourage new killers. As a result, the killer population tends to be the slowest to grow of the 4 and will naturally cap out. Usually though, killers avoid each other (outside of pre-arranged combat arena-like places).

+cameron wood I would say the FGC is mainly composed of killers trying to perfect their craft, with achievers and explorers actually driving up the killer count by investigating all the cool things you can do with the game.

+cameron wood They do, but it's not pointed out because they are still just one group, and it can lose it's buzz more quickly than finding Achievers or Socializers to... defeat.

Honestly I’d say a system that’s based on improving the power of explorers (like something that increases the max HP based one how many you get, with new ones being added and removed on a weekly basis) is probably the best balance there. I’d definitely force the explorers to work together though and put some cool stuff in really hard to reach places.

I’d imagine that they’re just a different type of explorer, finding new ways to interact with the world.

+Lars Tornbjerg yeah i don't think your average player is just one type but a mix of types.

(delete)

It's pretty important to look at the strengths and weaknesses of a given theory. In this case, it might be a way to narrow view at player types to say they only have one dominant type. Might be a good starting point though

Groups are made up of individuel people ;) Dividing people into groups is fine, as long as you acknowledge that people might be in different groups at different times. Which is one of the weakness of Bartels theory im trying to highlight.

Lars Tornbjerg I don't see it as a weakness from the designer's stand point. The taxonomy is a great tool I've been using for years. The point of the tool is not to put labels on individual people. We're not interested if player Steve Jones is an achiever or an explorer today. It's way more dynamic and higher level than that.

reverse killer is my new favorite archetype

I'm a more of a "okay, f*** this, I'm going Rambo" type of player. If you kill me 5 times while I killed you -1 time (i.e. I accidentally killed myself trying to kill you), than I'm focusing you till next movember

@@burningmagyk4986 Freaking friendly killers.

You Sir, are a Knight.

No! Y No take sandwich. I pootis bird. No end life!

+MrJethroha However equally the rough balance Eve has managed to achieve has all so stagnated the game especially when it comes to the wider Nullsec Meta

+CptMidlands The nullsec Meta has become stagnant not due to the balance, but the ever increasing escalation. The massive destruction involved in the Halloween war depleted resources on a massive scale, giving the goons dominance over the political scene via bigger army diplomacy. Since then no one has been able to build back up to that level and that the goons have played their cards wisely, it will remain stagnant-ish with mainly regional conflict.

Nathan Hawks Nah, you just have to know how to avoid killers. Good explorers, who are conscious about cloaking and paying attention to d-scan are the safest people in Eve, safer than even traders that do nothing but haul cargo around high sec. Granted, most explorers in Eve are also part time Killers.

+Nathan Hawks Explorers are the Killer's weapons in EvE, not their target. It's easy to think as "explorers" as literal wilderness/space explorers, but in the game's mechanical context, they're actually the players who spend most of their time in the Eve fitting tool and in the test server creating the next setup meta and counter-setups than in the game per se.

+Nathan Hawks Are you kidding? Our explorers saw a new star form in the sky and in under a week not only extrapolated the location of the new star, but also deduced it's true nature: That of a star actually going Nova at FTL speeds. Also only a small portion of our population is pure killer. The largest section of EVE is achievers in High-sec space running missions and setting up elaborate construction projects. Seriously, the creation of a null-sec empire, or a super entrenched wormhole, is the pinnacle of being an achiever. Then we have our socializers: Our diplos, brokers, and trusted third party services, the guys who go on fleets to joke around and have a beer. Seriously the game is way more laid back than you think.

pop1040 Then mission accomplished

Actually, I think you'll find that no one will be dead centur. I like some pvp, and enjoy searching for little neuances in the game. (god knows ive fallen into way to many lava pits looking for secrets) I enjoy playing with groups every once and awhile, but when it comes down too it, I'm an achiver, through and through. Pay attention, you might find you focus to one group. Maybe not heavily, but mostly.

+Aimela Huh...yeah, that's unfortunately true. Personally, I play Warframe with a few of my friends though.

+Aimela but but i have to have all the prime parts

27,000 player in steam alone... not counting non steam users and console yea dead as can be

+Aimela As someone who is more non PvP Killer and build Explorer focused, Warframe feels like it offers nothing to me at this point.

+outsideclock The game is not dying at all. It is actually gaining players very consistently. Controls can be changed, and major mechanics constantly get improvements in a developing game like Warframe. Your decision to not play it is completely fine, but the game is doing just fine.

+Fiaura The Tank Girl Because nobody really cares about or is playing the game as much. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly can be.

Sanford Bassett I mean it is a curious question? If they are all just there socializing but not playing the game or invested in the game mechanics, do the players eventually find other ways to socialize and leave? or what exactly goes on long term there?

+Fiaura The Tank Girl They're the ones who typically shout the loudest when there's something they don't like even though they don't really play the game for the game. I've watched socializers ruin games by being the loudest complainers.

***** Animal Jam is a game dominated by socializers (mainly young/teenage girls). Animal Jam is not a good image of what most MMOs want to be.

+Fiaura The Tank Girl I kind of imagine it like an experience I had on S4league. I went to a match (unknowingly) that was full of people who were socializers. They were literally just standing there talking in the chat. No battle no nothing going on. When I tried to change that I got rekt since they just so happened to be pros as well but what I mean is that literally noone was playing the game. just standing there----talking. of course I just switched to a different match and went on with murder but if the entire game was just that, man that would be a shit game

Uno reverse card.exe

And Hufflepuff - Socialisers.

which probably means that this also applies to book series with massive world building populations. side note: now i can see what that hat meant when he said Mr potter would do well in slytherin o-o;

Because he was a tyrant - he wanted to beat them all XD killer + achiever in one person

Dunno, to me Ravenclaw feels more like Achievers (they are the ones that care the most about grades and whatnot) and Gryffindor feels more like they're the Explorers (most of them are more carefree, and they're kind of the best foil for Slytherins)

I think there'S quite acontroversy for the placement oof achievers or explorers here. While Ravenclaw are the guys having the best marks, and caring the most about them, they're still usually creative or excentric. I mean one of the students tried to build a fortune telling method using eggs. If that's not explorer like nothing is. On the other hand we have the Gryffindors who are the most likely to break the rules and do dumb shit. So, both of them could be a mix of achievers and explorers, with regards to where they're exploring, and what they're achieving. And Slytherins might not be only killers. While they had quite a number of evil guys coming out of that house, they often share achievers traits, as their straight up striving for greatness and power. which could be regarded as achievements of an achiever, or doesn't it?

Spoken like a man with too much sodium in his diet that doesn't value forms of fun others than his own

LegendaryO34 They can find their fun somewhere else. I have no patience for griefers.

Paul Staker Then you would probably add a lot to an MMO. If you agonize that much over them, you probably keep dozens of them entertained. Every dev team out there must want some of your misery to grace their game.

+Paul Staker Their analysis of killers isn't entirely accurate. All griefers are killers, but not all killers are griefers. Some Killers simply like the aspect of domination or challenge in succeeding over their fellow human rather than their 'targets' misery. A killer might make you miserable if they defeat you, but not all of the killers are motivated by your rage (grief). Some of them are just happy that they outsmarted you (challenge) or exercised power over you (domination).

+Warp Scanner I know a Killer (a friend of mine) who back in the day spent all his time scamming people in the grand market in Runescape. He was happiest when he walked away with all of someone's hard-won riches without them even noticing they'd been tricked. He's a good example of what you're talking about. He could make millions of gold each day this way. He did the same thing in Puzzle Pirates, too, tricking people into giving him their ships and winning in-game money through gambling. He was banned for life repeatedly and kept switching accounts and IP addresses. In Rust, he built a house with a window you could climb to, so people would try to hop in and rob him. The window was on the equivalent of the fourth floor, and there were no floors, so people would die from falling damage and he'd loot them.

I would consider myself a split between achiever and killer, slightly more towards killer, but I recognize when things are getting out of hand, so I don't start bragging all over my friends and making them feel bad. There's a difference between having fun and just making someone feel bad. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop killing them, but what's the point of killing noobs and bad players.

No.And not all Killers are spawncamping douchebags.

Yes, killers ruin every MMO game, for everyone else who is not one of them, because that is the POINT of killers, they want to ruin other people's fun. Let them have their own games, or their isolated PvP arenas, and they can leave everyone else alone.

They can also motivate other types though. For example, strengthen the bond between socialisers or being a challenge for achievers. And everyone (including killers) will love to make them suffer a bit.

+Knight Loltrec "Oh no, too many good people are taking over the game" - no one ever

+Knight Loltrec Although I agree, it IS a legit way of playing a game. Being hated or not, they have fun and are a large playerbase. And they need somewhere to go. If the game devs can't figure how to properly fit them into the community, they'll either leave the game or break it :|

+Knight Loltrec I just used to look at them as part of the challenge/fun when going through an area or dungeon when I played Ultima Online. There were pretty harsh penalties to being a murderer in that game, though. The "killers" often put just as much on the line as the other groups when going out to do their thing.

+Knight Loltrec Killers can actually be great for a game and enhance the social aspect, but they skilled right past this. Being a killer doesn't specifically mean a PKer, but someone who wants to impose themselves on others. This means that a game with a lot of more healthy killers, those who don't want to hurt others, but still impose themselves, will have really driven Guild Leaders and supporters, like healers.

+Knight Loltrec This is why I think WoW succeeded. While there are gankers and jerks in WoW, the lack of a serious penalty for player killing undermines the joy that killers get. There are still there, but their population is a lot smaller than in other mmos. Killers make everyones lives more miserable and nobody likes them.

We haven't bred out or cured psychopathy/sociopathy/narcissism (or other disorders of the lack-of-empathy spectrum). We know the cause now, an underdeveloped part of the brain where empathy is normally processed, and there have been some experiments with stimulating growth in that part of the brain, so maybe there will be a cure eventually...

Dude, thank you SO MUCH for showing me this server. It's so hard to find a bare-bones vanilla survival server that's public.

Yeah, though you could always just look at 2b2t for that. All the explorers you need. Because you can't find anyone to kill, they're all hiding.

+Dice12K What is there to say about Undertale? I mean yeah it's good but the question is what to say in the context of their show which is teaching game design? Sure Undertale is very well made and has a lot of good content, but by itself I don't think there's an episode for them. Mentioning it maybe but just Undertale?

+lokun489 There is a LOT to talk about when it concerns Undertale. While Extra Creditz gave a lot of praise to TWD from TellTale (which I don't agree with even more now that Undertale is released) I feel that they can talk about what Undertale did right in terms of moral choices and other narrative-affecting gameplay interactions. Buut, there's also a problem where it's impossible to talk about all that without spoiling the entire game.

We don't.

2.20

@@jessicalee333 yeah, exactly

For the simple reason that we need the most players we can get and excluding a major category of players reduces the game as a whole. They're also an important requirement for balancing classes, skills, equipment and builds against each other. They are, in short, a necessary evil to be held in limited quantities or in specialized areas or game modes.

@angel eyes They might be unavoidable, but I don't see how they're necessary.

...adorable?

+Kwyjibo O_o Great observation. I wanted to get into DayZ but was prevented from socializing, achieving or exploring, thanks to Killers.

I agree, but they try to promote unboxing without steam market transactions, which is a little contradictory.

k1tt3hk4t, Destroyer of Fish In a dev stream they explained it as a form of rewarding the player further for their time in the game. Such as the Miner's Trove (Extra Mineable items) or the Shadow boxes from Dungeons (Glim, Flux, Etc.) all just to encourage people to play the game more and more everyday.

outsideclock Exactly. It's what RIFT and Archeage could've and should've been.

+Rapey Raptor | CS:GO | Highlights Checkout Gw2 then.It seems to be a hard focus on trying to balance out all of this and just recently went f2p (though as someone who bought it on preorder for 60$, it was well worth the price tag it's just more available to grow now)

+Rapey Raptor | CS:GO | Highlights i played that game for a few hours with friends but after that it became the same do a dungeon, access loot, do shit with you house (build, garden, whatever) sure you can say that about all MMO's but thats the bone of it other MMO's have some meat on it even if its small details while trove was just bland (if i think back about my time playing i cant pinpoint anything its all just like a grey memory)

+Matt Cooke Well, keep in mind: at the end of the day, Old School RS is predominately played by RS players old and new, whether they play both RS3 and OSRS, or are disgruntled players who were turned off by the flawed implementation of EoC and quit until OSRS' release. As such, the community of OSRS is, unfortunately, much the same community as RS3: loads and loads of achievers, some killers, almost no explorers, and the vestiges of a long since run-off socializer community. It really is unfortunate. Runescape used to be a very casual game, with a very casual audience. Plenty to do for achievers with skills, PK'ing was popular, the game was relaxed enough (and populated enough) that you could talk to anyone, even while slaying, and since updates were able to cater to all players and not only the top 1%, anyone could "explore" the new content and get enjoyment out of it. But EoC really did change all of that. The twitchy-reflex gameplay drove off the casual community, leaving behind only the hardcore grindy community, which in turn killed off any form of socializing community (due to the need to constantly focus on combat, instead of clicking and relaxing), lower level community, etc. This in turn meant that content, in order to be useful or playable, had to be catered to the community which was all high level, which meant there was little wiggle room for explorers and lower levels, and EoC still isn't that polished of a system for player killing. In just a single unpolished update (it has since had help with all these bonus exp events, which pushed players to train harder, faster, with no talking or anything), Jagex purged nearly every type of player they had except for one: overly zealous "achievers," a-la the "no xp waste" mentality of today. It's kind of depressing really.

PaperFlare It is. I remember playing back in middle school when OSRS was just RS and it's a shame to know most new players won't be able to experience what made it so popular in the first place.

+castlewise It doesn't really make sense does it. I'd imagine the explorer would be more annoyed at dieing because they want to explore (see new things) but now have to go over old content from the respawn point before they can get to the new things, but if the new stuff they need to be not killed. Also how they said an explorer could kill a "killer" confuses me.

+castlewise I think it boils down to the statistics- Achievers care more about the statistics of their account/characters more than the explorers. If you're playing for a very specific goal- say, a no death run, or a speed run, or anything else that takes time and preparation into very specific objectives, having all that progress be interrupted and or lost when you're killed can be super frustrating. Explorers on the other hand don't care so much about their character's statistics, and about the only thing they lose out on that they care about when dying to killers is distance traveled. But if they didn't have a particular destination in mind, and don't care about the resources or statistics spent to get there, it doesn't sting as much as it does for achievers. And if they die they can simply choose to go wandering in a different direction without having to deviate from their goals of experiencing the world, whereas achievers have to go back to the place they were killed in order to start over.

+Chris M Where does a raider fit? I'm guessing it's a toned down version of achiever but to me it seems more like a killer/achiever hybrid. Why would an explorer, who doesn't care about stats, be able to kill a killer, who cares only about stats and is likely experienced at taking people on 1v1?

You have to remember that explorers aren't just interested in literally exploring the game world. They're interested in exploring the mechanics, items, etc., and PvP experience allows them to test hypotheses. Getting killed is just further evidence that their strategy or build path isn't working as is, and gives them greater understanding of what makes the game tick.

+Biggkenny And as for explorers killing killers- by EC's logic, Explorers are the guys who figure out new strategies and equipment combinations first. Killers won't necessarily have seen those strategies yet and be caught off guard- kind of like the Drunken Boxing fighting style. The killer doesn't know how to react to the things the explorer is doing, giving the explorer a distinct edge.

perfect.

+Tartar Because more and more of the community starts demeaning the socializers, taunting them and calling them casual scrubs and such, causing socializers to leave due to that bad community.

+Tartar Socializers don't just sit around talking, they also spend a lot of time in group content, they just don't approach that content with the mindset, "I need to beat this asap." If you've ever been in a group with mainly socializers it's a fun laid back experience, dying or failing is never much of an issue and the whole experience is treated in a comical fun way. Conversely being in a group with mainly achievers is a challenging push to improve and clear content as efficiently as possible. To each their own but socializers don't just stand around doing nothing but talking.

Have you ever played a game where the only people that talk are at spawn? When I played wow most of the socializers were at the raids or Pvp Zones

+Tartar Good example: Eve Online. When I was a diplomat for an alliance I spent all my time talking to others in the most dangerous pvp areas rather than fighting or anything. The game itself was open enough so that the player base was able to create the role that did not exist within the games mechanics. So while it has a large number of killers in the game, it tends to lend itself towards socalizers far more.

Minngarm Halnhammer Wow, that's amazing. Did you get paid by your cooperation for doing it? Wasn't there a huge risk involved with doing things like that?

+DiscoClam I think explorer also meant explorer of strange mechanics / gear combos - not the easiest thing to make interesting, but it can work.

+DiscoClam While Call of Duty is not the best example, TF2 provides better examples for a game with all four player types. Killers tend to be the six snipers, spies, and demoknights on your team, not helping with the objective in the slightest, but going out of their way to kill in the quickest way possible. Achievers are the medics, soldiers, heavies, and engineers trying to get better at the game and get the highest score in each match. Sociallizers tend to be the ones having the funny conversation in the chat or encouraging massive conga lines of dance. Explorers are rarer, but you still have people rocket jumping around the maps trying to find every little exploit and fastest possible route from point A to point B.

Again, though, that also restricts itself to this theory that, as Bertle says in his lecture (which I recommend if you have an hour to spare), this theory can only apply to MMOs. Maybe if there was a similar theory on player types in an online competitive game (or even one that already exists and I just don't know about) then it might explain it, but really it only explains the people playing. What if there's other players that fit into other categories and who aren't playing this game? Also, let's be real, when there's a conga line, everyone becomes a socialiser.

+DiscoClam It was _originally_ meant to explain only MUDs, BUT, 20 years down the line and we still see evidence everywhere that it applies to _all_ games (not even only multiplayer)!

+DiscoClam Actually i think that's why it s a perfect example. MMO merely means Mass Multiplayer Online; it does not need to have anykind of overworld in order to fit that definition. Call of Duty is essentially what you get when you take an MMORPG(what we traditionally think of when we think mmo) and suck out nearly all of exploration elements(the overworld and the wide variety of gaming mechanics).

+Akiva Daphydd I really liked it.

+Akiva Daphydd I know the main reason (I think): They didn't really explain HOW you increase/decrease the number of each group.

He means that he didn't explain the process involved in altering the amount of different player types.

+Akiva Daphydd Because there's no coverage of how to actually affect the number of different player types. Picture your MMO getting say 'killer' heavy - apparently the solution to this is to increase the number of Explorers. So, if we apply the theory covered in this video, that implies that the solution to too many Killers is to add more things to discover in the game, whether it's more build variation or easter eggs or hidden areas. In practise, do you think including those features after a population has already developed will change anything? I doubt it. The theory in this video is a gross oversimplification that doesn't seem to hold up to simple scrutiny when you consider it in practise. Of course, the real point might be that you have to take this stuff into account when first building the game, to affect what sort of culture builds around your game. Once that culture is established, though, I imagine it's a lot harder to change.

Turbovolver Of course. Just because it's difficult to alter your playerbase doesn't make it impossible, however.

+Wwald He's everywhere!!!!

+nextpkfr That's something I've realized in this video. It talks about what happens if you have too many of a type of player, but what happens if you had no killers? No achievers?

+Winchestro You completely failed to understand the point of this. Thing is: We do have more than enough data to conclude that this theory is, in fact, a theory, not a hypothesis. You can of course keep being butthurt about it, but reality doesn't care about your feeble feelings. +AkaiAzul No killers/achievers either leads to a game dying if it lacks social appeal, or being almost entirely about socializing and using the game as a glorified chatroom (which can save it for a while). Explorers tend to move on quickly if there's no new material to explore or the interactions of other people don't lead to new things being useful.

Because then Killers would only kill Killers, which isn't as fun for many of them as killing Achievers. You want Killers to have fun too, man. You gotta make efforts to provide fun for everyone if you want a super massive MMO.

+nextpkfr PvP arena are more archievers, than killers and you have to realize, that nobody is a pure player of any kind. Achievers play the meta build in a fair arena pvp. Many achievers need to be explorers of combat mechanics to stay on top. Killers need to be explorers of envoriment to be the distrubtive force, they want to be. Maybe a Killer wants to be the top trader and the monopoly on some kind of ressource to anger other players. This Killer will socialize to a degree to get his goals completeted. Another time a killer creates a twink charakter to prey on new players, while a socializer creates a counter-twink to prey on Killers and help new players. Killers are like salt. You want some salt, but you don't want pure salt.

Fen Y Well, like this: without killers, achievers hit the peak and move on, explorers find things and leave, socializers stick around until the rest leave or you're left with only socializers. Adding killers to the mix keep achievers on their toes / delay them from reaching new heights which may have them call on explorers to find new ways of dealing with them leaving socializers to spread news all around.

+Philip Rau I would certainly say so. Exploring systems is just as much Explorer as exploring terrain. If these theory-crafters gather on a forum to refine their spreadsheets, they have some Socializer in them. If they use their grasp of game systems to down raid bosses, that indicates a leaning toward Achiever. If they use them to dominate in PVP, that indicates a bent towards Killer. But the drive to understand--that's Explorer at its core.

Then that's definitely me! I don't care too much about easter eggs, but I do enjoy the exploration part of open world games with particularly lovely scenery, like Witcher 3 or even Assassins Creed to some extent. I also play story games for the same thing... the joy of a new story. How would you categorize someone who plays MMOs simply for escapism? Would that be a socializer probably? (because someone playing for escapism might choose a single-player story-driven game instead rather than an MMO?)

I think any of the types can be escapist. Escapism is more about what you're getting away from than what drives you forward. Played in an escapist way, a Socializer might play an MMO because he doesn't get enough social contact offline, an Achiever because he's not satisfied with his accomplishments, an Explorer because he feels stuck in a rut or trapped by his surroundings, or a Killer because he wants to see the world burn. (Or something. I don't understand Killers very well.)

What's your most common type, James?

I'd say 40% Explorer, 30% Achiever, 20% Socializer, 10% Killer. I grew up on the Myst games, and for me they still represent what I love most about video games: a deep world to explore with an interesting history and its own set of rules, where victory comes through understanding. But I've learned to enjoy the satisfaction of earning something cool, building a community, or scoring a pentakill.

+Overhazard I think you might occasionally be getting explorers as well, just seeing what silly or awesome things they can do. The stage with Wii U comments (the name escapes me) once kept me and a friend from fighting each other for a good long while because we were busy laughing at the comments. (He was playing Bowser, let's leave it at that)

+Robyn Carlisle Miiverse

Ta

Robyn Carlisle np

+Robyn Carlisle I think the Explorers in Smash would be the people discovering every True Combo, every advanced technique, the percents every move KOs at, etc. Basically, the ones who yank out all the secrets of the games that are then used for the Achievers to go big in pro play.

+Aristede R me too

+ashley beaumont Rol servers are the solution :D

rpg servers don't like me usualy because i roleplay a "friendly" cannibal

+ashley beaumont Well... at least is something

+Aristede R killer player: mmmh food.... XD

The thing is a game that is completely equal doesn't tend to do very well. It confused people as to what they are supposed to get out of the game and rather they should play it or not.

Killers are scumbags and I'd be happy to NEVER play with them for a second. If they can be herded into their own little zone where they can wank off killing each other all day and hurling racial slurs at each other (instead of in GLOBAL chat - which is invariably a cesspool in MMOs and is a terrible feature), that would suit me and ALL the other player types just FINE, thank you very much. I don't play games to experience the grief of social darwinist horse shit, or get a whiff of 13 year olds' raging rage-hormones, I play them to have FUN. The "rules of nature" don't include spellcasters, and superpowers, and levels (besides infancy to adulthood), and animals with more time on their hands grinding to get more powerful than all the other animals. Nature is NOT a metaphor for MMOs. The rules of communities of human beings generally include killers being PUT AWAY where they actually CAN'T have any fun and more importantly can't bother anybody else, for as long as humanely possible. There is no NEED for a population of killers to "balance" the others, because no one else ruins the game for anybody else. Only killers do that, in fact they LOVE doing that. Balance between the number of achievers, explorers, and socializers, is not really a big problem. The problem is ALWAYS controlling the killers - just like in a real society. There is also no need to cater to the primal lusts of killers either, because they SHOULD be taught at every opportunity that that behavior is not acceptable in ANY society of humans, even a virtual one, and that it's not healthy to indulge in. "Venting" is actually really bad for you, and turns people into rage addicts - because acting out your rage makes you feel GOOD, so your brain associates raging with good feelings, then it becomes a cycle of addiction. The best thing to do, and in fact what they teach people in anger management classes, is to NOT EVER "vent", but to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and try and let it go. Failing that, killers should be herded onto their own server, far from everyone else. Players who don't respect other people's boundaries (or delight in violating other people's boundaries) aren't very likely to be good customers for a business anyway.

+duo1666 And that's how you know you're a Socializer/Achiever. :3 Besides, we're surrounded by those kinds of people every day of our life. Why not design a way to engage in something together for fun? :D

***** You can engage in things together for fun without having killers ruining games :P

+duo1666 You know, the lack of PvP is the main reason I stick with DDO. There is tavern brawls, and they even tried to made pvp arenas, but the player's numbers and the monster's numbers aren't equal. Think of it like any Final Fantasy, where when you are dealing 9999 damage, non-boss monsters rarely hit for more than 2000~4000.

Alvaro Junior PvE games often still have "PvP" with loot/mob spawn competition though. FFXI is my favorite mmorpg.... but it had MASSIVE issues by having mobs that spawned once a day/week forcing the entire server population to compete over those mobs.... which made RMT rampant. Killers kill MMOs.

+duo1666 yep, I know. Not a problem in DDO. Every chest has personal loot for every member of the party, XP is mainly awarded via quests that award the same value to everyone in the party, and there is no shared pve environment, all quests and Explorer zones are instanced for each party.