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How Gamers View Their MMOs
GamerDNA is trying out what they call their Discovery Engine, a system that uses metadata from users to classify games and identify which have similar traits. Massively describes it thus: "Once the gamerDNA community continues to contribute to something like this, it builds up an enormous database of terminology based on actual player knowledge, not just shiny PR words thrown together to promote a game. These search terms can end up being unique to a specific genre, and ultimately lead gamers to exactly the types of games they're looking for." GamerDNA tested the system out on some of the popular MMOs, and they've posted the results. They look at how MMO players identify themselves within the game, how they describe the setting, and what basic descriptive phrases they use in reference to the games.
You're in a giant wheel inside a cage. You paid $50 for the wheel, and it costs you $15 a month to rent the cage it's in.
Alongside you are other wheels inside other cages, and attached to each wheel is a pulley system which connects to a hook, dangling a bucket of food. You run forward and the pulley moves and the bucket drops, and you reach inside and grab some food and eat it. But now the bucket is lighter, and so it swings back up on the arm it's attached to, and it's a bit higher than it was before.
You just ate, but since you're running so much in this wheel, you're hungry too, so you run a bit faster and sure enough the pulley turns and eventually the bucket comes back down and you eat some food. You feel a bit stronger now.
Hey, that guy in the wheel next to you has already eaten three times. You'd better run faster to keep up. There... now you're not hungry any more. But again, all that running to get the food has made you hungry again. And that bucket is higher now, almost out of reach. You'd better run faster to get it down here so you can eat again.
Maybe some day you can pay for a new wheel that faces a different direction. That would be AWESOME.
P.S. Also there's some pictures of elves or something on the wall in front of you. Maybe space.
Disclaimer: I am a former WoW player and a current EVE player. I am not employed, nor am I (beyond the extent of being a player) affiliated with the makers of any game.
It's interesting to see how EVE is distinct and separate as compared to the other games. This is for a number of reasons, the first of which is the learning curve, but there are other factors. The learning curve tends to weed out teenage WoW players; being accused of engaging in anything but PvP leads to the derogatory label of "carebear". The focus on PvP coupled with the harsh punishment of failure (ships do not respawn, they are lost when they are destroyed, and all ships are player-manufactured) is enough to scare away some players that are able to overcome the learning curve. The game is not for casual players, but it -is- fun. If you haven't played, please give it a shot, there are trial periods available.
The idea isn't that people will search for a long string of adjectives. More likely, it would work like Pandora where you identify a game you like and they show you games that have similar elements. Or you could take a survey of many games and it will find the common themes, or maybe you could just take a survey of the themes. I wouldn't think of "post-apocalyptic fun fantasy" on my own, but I might mark it up on a survey.
I wouldn't think of "post-apocalyptic fun fantasy" on my own, but I might mark it up on a survey.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you JUST think of it?
MMO Focus: Traits of Popular Subscription Games
The BlogPost is first of all presented with colours that make it hard for some of us to read. White on Black text causes me, and others like me, physical discomfort and can lead to migraines. Something several websites have yet to acknowledge. But be that as it may.
For something called MMO Focus it seems very unfocused at times, riddled with generalization, non-objective and unsubstantiated statements.
Simply put, there are a crazy number of people who boot up a game in order to play as a soldier. Sure, that's a reflection of how many games there are where the main character is a soldier of some kind, but the games wouldn't be produced if there weren't a tremendous hunger to portray that archetype. Interesting, given that our culture does not encourage people to become actual soldiers.
Okay. What culture are you speaking of here? MMO players hail from many different nations, and cultures, across the world and as such their views upon different "archetypes" could vary.
One thing MMO people do that isn't done by players of other genres is to identify very closely with their particular classes. This habit tends to fragment their "playing as" trait participation, since each game has multiple classes, and often unique names for the classes.
Really? Some do, some don't. Unless you provide some actual data substantiating this; it's just perception and generalization.
"Massively multiplayer" didn't even make the How It's Played list for EVE. The top How It's Played trait for EVE was "complexity" with 24%. A tiny handful of WAR players chose "massively multiplater," but when I say tiny, I mean less than 1%. WAR players went overwhelmingly with RVR, with 45% of players choosing that trait. 32% of LOTRO players selected "massively multiplayer," but almost as many (31%) chose "story." 29% of WOW players chose "raids" for How It's Played, a trait that doesn't appear in the lists of the other three games in our sample at all.
Okay... could the information here perhaps be presented in a way that is understandable?
WOW players are completely bonkers. They have given forty one possible options, at first glance. On second glance, the problem is getting them to agree on terms. LOTRO players, for example, all tend to simply say "NPC" when they mean any kind of non-player character, from monster to humanoid to instance boss. WOW players are moreâ¦creative. Terms include undead, demons, monsters, mobs, NPCs, elementals, murlocs, goblins, aliens, epic bosses, dragons, and more are all on the list, and all in statistically significant numbers, too. Once you lump them all into a single NPC category (and consolidate "alliance" with "alliance scum" and so on), you get a slightly more rational twelve traits.
I guess the amount of people playing WoW over the others dosn't affect the variation in their answers? And calling WoW players Bonkers is distracting and not helping presenting the "data" at all.
This time, LOTRO and EVE players are both tightly focused, and both WOW and WAR players canâ(TM)t seem to agree. Again, that's not a disadvantage in an MMO â" you want to appeal to as many people as possible!
Again, size of player base perhaps affecting some of these findings? The larger the base the more diversity.
Good luck with the project as a whole, though I feel you might want to reconsider your approach to how you interpret the data before you make it a fundament for any type of larger project.
The Long Now Foundation
Funny how the site chose four western MMOs (three of which are 90% the same old mainstream fantasy cliche stuff) and are basing their conclusions on that.
No big Korean, Chinese, or Japanese MMOs on their list. No free-to-play ones either. No browser-based, 2D or text-only MMOs.
Great way to show the whole internet you fail at statistics, guys. Here's a bit of help for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biased_sample
I love how everything like this ignores the #2 (sometimes #3) MMO, Runescape, because it isn't as easily classified.
No character classes, skill based leveling, etc. Of course there is a giant base of 12-16 year olds that play it, but there are some "real people" too... not to mention it is one of the oldest surviving MMOs.
They put up some pretty useless graphs with very little information about how they arrived at those numbers and how they interpret them. It's worthless to make any inferences about all gamers without explaining their data.
First of all, they provide no checks for problems such as autocorrelation or multicollinearity between their various survey categories. That aside, it doesn't look like they even did any regression analysis at all. They, in effect, said "duhh, this is 10% of all the answers so it must mean something!". Bull. Just because the response rate for a particular category is 10% doesn't mean it is statistically significant in the academic sense.
Sorry, but as a professional data analyst, I get really pissed when people collect some (possibly non-random) data, do some half-assed analysis, post some pretty colors on a graph and say "Eureka! I haz solved wurld peez!"
Well, shit. If you have kids, then playing an MMO is pretty ridiculous. But, if you are a single, pathetic loser like myself, then MMO's make a lot of sense.
Results 1 - 100 of about 1,060 for A post-apocalyptic fun fantasy featuring an unlikely sexy hero fighting other players in space. (0.36 seconds) I guess they did....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
In my day we went outside.