Comments on: Daily Blogroll 7/16 — Lost in Bree edition

By: Dragonchasers » Blog Archive » Revisting Bartle’s MMO player types

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:29:34 +0000

[...] self-evaluate myself as being low Achiever, and high Explorer. Or I would have, until I got into a comment thread with Tipa over gaining levels. Quick summary: Tipa thinks of leveling as a chore, and she’d just assume games not have [...]

By: Tesh

Tesh — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:37:59 +0000

It sounds to me, and please correct me if I’m wrong, Tipa, that you like the exploration and play of lower levels (the leveling “content”), just not the grind of leveling to get past level-based gates to more content, or the drive to “get to the real game at the endgame”. If that’s a fair assessment, I’m in complete agreement, as I’ve written about a few times. ;)

By: Pete S

Pete S — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:28:57 +0000

“EVE Day 1: Go anywhere, be part of a huge PvP battle, even.ore playtime just makes you more effective; you start with no limits. I like that. I want that in more games.”

But that’s not an RPG. That’s a space sim. Not that there’s anything wrong with space sims — quite the contrary.

I guess in my head I still say MMORPG, when the rest of the world has moved on to MMOs.

Anyway, the nice thing about the MMO :) space is that now there are so many choices that we can all find something to enjoy. :)

By: Tipa

Tipa — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:17:44 +0000

Of course I enjoyed those! It was six months before I hit level 20! Then I spent another two months leveling to 30, and that’s when Kunark came out. Almost a full year until level 30.

I enjoyed the hell out of the low levels.

And I never felt like I needed levels to do anything because I had no idea what was beyond where I was right then. I heard stories of CT, Guk and Sol B, and by the time I finally got to them, they felt familiar as anything.

I didn’t cap levels until I did it with my next character, a rogue, a couple years later. I maintain I had more fun than any person who rushed to the level cap and then just sat around with nothing to look forward to. And I only leveled the rogue because I decided I wanted to switch mains and become a desired class instead of a useless druid.

By: Keen

Keen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:08:08 +0000

And you never enjoyed playing as a newbie and leveling up in the world? You never enjoyed the zones like Crushbone or Mistmoore? Wandering the deserts to of Ro and hiding from Sand giants and Spectres? The journey, more than the act of “Okay i need X more levels to do this”, is what I refer to when I speak highly of the “leveling process”.

This is back before “raiding guilds” even existed in EQ. No one – not a soul – was forming raiding guilds in early 1999. I know that eventually the magic wears off when you’ve seen and done it all, but the first time through EQ (especially in 1999 when everyone is new) has to provoke more than a “god I can’t wait til this is over” feeling.

Different strokes for different folks though. Some people truly do not like leveling or character progression. I just don’t get why you would even play EQ that early and hate leveling. That would mean that you essentially hated EverQuest.

By: Tipa

Tipa — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:33:17 +0000

May, 1999, when Erollisi Marr server opened.

By: Keen

Keen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:24:57 +0000

@Tipa: When did you start playing EQ?

By: Tipa

Tipa — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:35:52 +0000

EVE Day 1: Go anywhere, be part of a huge PvP battle, even.ore playtime just makes you more effective; you start with no limits. I like that. I want that in more games.

By: Pete S

Pete S — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:21:52 +0000

I don’t really see it as being an Achiever, though maybe it is. And when I say “leveling” I really mean “statistical character growth”. If I’m playing a skill-based game, getting my RIFLE ACCURACY to go from 10 to 11 feels the same as going from level 8 to level 9 in a class-based game. I consider them the same thing.

Without some kind of leveling, you could go anywhere in the game world on Day 1. I like the anticipation of wanting to see some cool zone but having to work towards it… getting there is my reward. Hmm, so I guess that is Achiever.

Maybe I’m an Achiever who prefers Explorer rewards? :)

By: Lars

Lars — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:02:50 +0000

Yeah, I am tired of the leveling process. Leveling as the goal in and of itself is terribly dull. But what I like in these games is the promise of a changeable world. So far, only Eve Online really delivers that, with its PVP system. (Most other PVP games are just e-sports that reset, which is fun too.) I don’t care for PVP though. The only PVE game that really seems to be looking to create a world where you can be the hero is Heroes of Telara. That means a world that changes. One where you can tell stories in because the bad guy isn’t there perpetually waiting for you (and you and you and you). THAT’s what I’m interested in. (I’m not saying HoT will deliver; they’ve released awfully little, but they have been seducing me in with their purty words…)