PhillipArgos

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When I played pencil and paper RPG, a campaign that lasted only a few months SUCKED HARD. Good campaigns lasted many years.

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Look at a game like D&D, still going strong, despite the huge discrepencies in balance between classes and races.

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Statesman went into an interview not to log ago as spoke about this topic entiled: Pencils to Pixels: A Case Study with City of Heroes – Pen & Paper vs. CRPGs

Here he talks about balance issued and differences between the two types of games. Interestingly enough, in a table top game players are more confortable with class or power imbalances. In many cases they feel that the time put into a character offsets this lack of power of vise versa. I believe he even gave an example involving D&D mages and how they those players don't mind being very weak to start and then gain immense power later.

MMOG's are an entirely different arena. for some reason balance is key in this situation at all stages of the game. Unbalanced situations lead to an overwhelming number of one type of power or class. This is even visible on these forums through everyone's talk about "Flavors of the Month".

I can totally agree that some of my table top gaming experiences have been among the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I don't think, however, that using the same equations and balances that those types of games use will bring about similar long lasting players in an MMOG.

That in essence is why this topic is so interesting. What draws individuals in to play this game with other people? Why do people strive for the goals they do? What keeps individuals into a MMOG specifically? How do you create a balanced world where all types of players can co-exist?

Some very broad questions indeed... way too broad even. I personally am most interested in the kinds of actions or interactions players engage in and what kind of world makes this interaction synergize the best. Would be a very interesting thing to study.

Wow! That paper is quite interesting! After reading over the first few pages in detail I decided I'm going to have to do the rest later (I'm at work =p)

As far as concerning what makes a player tick it seems that those four catergories are pretty accurate. Almost all players overlap into the all four categories a little, with a leaning towards one more than the others.

Recently I graduated from College with a Sociology degree (GO BULLS!) and I have long since wanted to do a study on the players of MMORPG's. My first problem with this is that I could find no real past information. Recently though, it seems more is popping up (at least here on the net). Mayhaps I could start doing something like this now! Well, at least in my own limited funds fashion.

Back on topic though, I think I'm probably an Achiever/Explorer. I can't really seem to figure our which I'm more of. Here in City of Heroes There seems to be a lack of tailoring for the "Killers". As far are griefing or KSing goes the game mechanics make it a much less viable thing to do than in other MMORPG's I've played. Though, I guess that's what CoV is for in the future.

Very, very interesting indeed!