There’s a pretty well-known test for MMO gaming known as the
Bartle Test. It’s not unlike the
Myers-Briggs type indicator test,
with the exception that it’s not quite as well established, and of course
suffers from many of the same flaws as the Myers-Briggs test. However, it still
provides an interesting basis of comparison and discussion. For those
interested, you can take the test here: http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology.
In my case, I’m apparently an Explorer-Achiever. Basically,
I’m a reward-driven completionist. Which fits somewhat well. Some games, I like
finding and doing all the things, assuming they can be done in a reasonable
amount of time, though I’ll definitely do things I don’t necessarily think are
fun if it means it’ll give me an in-game edge. But that’s the caveat: a
reasonable amount of time.
 |
| Reward Driven, Exploratory, Social, and definitely not sadistic or competitive... wait, I'm totally competitive when it comes to DPS/HPS meters... |
One would think as an Explorer that I’d love open-ended
games. I mean, in a game like Skyrim, there’s so many things to do and see. But
that’s where I hit a brick wall. A game that’s open-ended also doesn’t
necessarily have goals, which are part and parcel of what drives me in video
games: goals that mean something. Oh, I’ll explore the world and let myself
get side-tracked, but then eventually I lose the thread of what I’m doing and
get bored, but I’m too far from the main storyline, the primary goal, and so I
just quit.
Recently, there’s been a fair amount of talk in the
blogosphere about Achievements in MMOs. They provide arbitrary goals (as much
as anything can be more arbitrary than anything else in a video game) that you
can choose to complete. And while I don’t begrudge others their achievements, I
find they don’t do a damn thing for me. I’ve had my Xbox Live account for
nearly 6 years, and I only have ~10k points despite having nearly 100,000
available to me based on the games I’ve played. Even in WoW, my achievement
score is just over 7,000 out of a total possible 21,000. Basically, I only pick
up incidental achievements.
Yes, they’re goals, but there’s no real reward besides a
toast on-screen. Now, a reward doesn’t have to be a powerful item. It could be
a cinematic, or some story, or revealing a new area. That’s all just dandy. But
for me there has to be something more than just a “Congrats, you met our
requirements!”
Which may be why I tend to gravitate to JRPGs
over WRPGs.
Solid, clear story. Minor deviations for side-quests, but nothing that takes
away from the primary quest. Direction and goals.
(Yes, I did that in Survival. From scratch. With no help or cheating. I think I died making that waterfall like twelve times...)
So then why the hell do I like Minecraft and Terraria? They’re
the ultimate in sandbox games, and yet I love playing them. Perhaps it’s
because I give myself clear goals (rail system to all my friends, build a keep,
get the best armor, get this enchant, so on), or perhaps I just can’t deal with
the hybrid nature of a game like Skyrim, which mixes sandbox with the
theme-park story on rails. I'm not sure. What makes other people tick?
I think the problem with Skyrim specifically is too -many- goals, some of whom may not make story-sense to the character you're playing. (No reason for a pure warrior type to join a College of Magic, for example, while someone with a character concept of a warrior-mage would be fine with it.)
ReplyDeleteIt takes a bit of self-restriction to scroll down the list of 1001 sidequests and decide to follow just one, similar to how one might give oneself clear goals in Minecraft or Terraria.
Then again, perhaps because the goals are not your own specifically, ie. not created by you, but created by someone else and given to you in a long list, that may be where the disconnect lies. I've heard some people set their own goals in Skyrim, like collect a room of forks, or the world's largest collection of skulls or what not.
Too many goals is definitely a problem. In WoW if my quest log is too full, I tend to just hide it and not deal with it (and then at the end of the expansion just mass-abandon the lot). Even with a game like Skyrim putting flashing lights around the main quest, I still get distracted. Maybe that's my personal problem: highly distractible. I have terrible self-discipline, so when I see something potentially shiny and fun I just
DeleteI hate hate hate hate hate side quests in most RPGs. They make absolutely no sense -- sure, my home town is under attack by hostile forces but let me stop on the way back to help a farmer out with his missing cow.
ReplyDeleteI literally played one campaign where I found a new bouncer for a bar (an ogre) but got told that the castle was under attack when I got back to town. So I immediately went to help in its defense -- but as it turns out, I was expected to stop on the way to check and make sure the ogre made it there and was doing okay instead of racing to help the castle.
WHY?
Side quests in apparently urgent storylines completely disrupt play. Huge difference between "Hero, I know you're going into the forest to slay the werewolf, so could you keep an eye out for a special herb?" and "Hero, I know you're going into the forest to slay the werewolf, but could you first travel halfway across the country to a different forest to find a special herb?"
Side quests can just insanely easily disrupt the flow of a game -- and it's really annoying when it turns out you missed something good/important because you actually had your priorities straight.
Tried taking that Bartle test but that site seems to be slow as molasses or something. And wound up losing my progress halfway through to a site error.
Hmm. Apparently Bartle thinks I'm a...
Delete60% Explorer
53% Socializer
47% Achiever
40% Killer
It started me like halfway through the test again when I reloaded the page so I *assume* it had saved my answers. I really thought achiever would be higher. Of course, I wasn't thrilled at the way some of the questions were presented either...
Yeah, I noticed the site was [I]really[/I] slow. If I knew of a better place to take the test, I'd love to post it. Took me like 20 minutes to actually answer the 30 questions because of loading times.
DeleteAnd thank you! I completely agree on the side quest vs. priority point. It's something that many RPG designers, Western AND Eastern, just seem to forget. If my friends and I are playing D&D, if they dawdle to an emergency, there's consequences because they took too long (maybe the tavern burned down with the proprietor inside it), whereas in video games, that's completely ignored. Absolutely maddening.
If there's a lull in the main story--and if you've done your story properly there will be, because you can't go full bore for 40 hours and expect the player to not be exhausted--that's the time for those optional side quests.
"If my friends and I are playing D&D, if they dawdle to an emergency, there's consequences because they took too long (maybe the tavern burned down with the proprietor inside it), whereas in video games, that's completely ignored. Absolutely maddening."
DeleteMost of the time, yeah. I mean, I absolutely get that you often can't realistically time something in a video game in terms of real time -- stuff like "you need to reach the castle in 5 minutes" because people can get lost or combat can take longer than expected or whatever. But you shouldn't say "You need to get to the castle, it's under attack! P.S. Can you go deliver these packages to some nearby towns first?"
What's really annoying is when games that ignore the time aspect then suddenly DO care at some points -- look at Mass Effect 3 as an example. If I recall correctly, there are two missions that you must complete within a short time frame of discovering them or you fail -- but this applies to nothing else! And if you follow the main plot from what SEEMS to be urgent you lose out on several important side missions. ARGH.
"If there's a lull in the main story--and if you've done your story properly there will be, because you can't go full bore for 40 hours and expect the player to not be exhausted--that's the time for those optional side quests."
Bingo. Side quests make sense when A, they're done while focusing on doing the main quest or B, they're done when there's no clear urgency to do a specific thing. This is one of many reasons why Mass Effect 2 is my favorite RPG and I just discovered what I want to write about on my next blog post!