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Gamer classification
sidebuster
Member UncommonPosts: 1,712
Let me start by saying that I believe you can class gamers by the way they play games. I am going to make the attempt to put a legit list out there for the world to see. It is a work in progress and I hope to get suggestions from people to add to the list. The goal I have in mind is something along the lines of making it legit and making the classifications of types of gamers real as possible.
The following is an unsorted list of play styles, attitudes and other ideas that make an mmo gamer.
What should be taken into account?
The gamers play style. (solo or group play, easy mode hard mode etc)
The gamers ability and willingness to interact with other players.
How much dedication and responsibility said gamer has for grouping or guild interactions.
How they act in game and other miscellaneous factors.
How dedicated they are to the game they play
A Casual Gamer is someone who -
plays games as a secondary hobby (or below)
does not involve himself with any social drama in game
Wants the most fun in a short amount of time in the easiest way possible
enjoys playing on easy mode
is mainly looking for a fun time sink
Who would rather go solo or with a group of real life friends
Who thinks 10 minutes is the same as 10 hours
Doesn’t want to commit to anything that takes time
A Gamer is someone who –
plays games as a primary hobby (or spends equal amount of time as primary hobby)
Mostly well rounded and takes some aspects from both casual gaming and hardcore gaming
may get involved in social dramas of a game
mostly wants to have fun and doesn’t mind some time consuming activities
enjoys a normal difficulty level but will play both easy and hard difficulties
Doesn’t mind puzzle solving or time consuming tasks (as long as they make sense and fit within the world)
May play for 30 minutes or 8 hours in a sitting
Will commit to things that may take time
An Elitist is someone who –
says they play on the hardest difficulty (Whether true or not)
wants to be the best player of all
wants the best gear/abilities available
doesn’t have fun unless they are winning
base everything off of stats (anyone who isn’t, is doing it wrong)
may cause social drama in game
will not stop complaining about anything and everything that is wrong about the game they are playing
would rather play solo because everyone else will slow them down
If they do group, expect them to leave the instant that get what they need
A Griefer is someone who –
has fun by abusing the fun of others
Likes to play the way they want regardless of if it ruins the game
only has fun when they win
ruins the game for everyone else by means of cheating, exploiting or by abusing
is hated by anyone that doesn’t grief or has been griefed before
uses the excuse that they paid for the game, they should play it how they want.
Uses the excuse that it’s just a game and if you aren’t having fun, don’t play
WIll sit and camp your corpse for as long as you play because they think it's funny
A Hardcore Gamer is someone who –
Beats the game on every difficulty and may beat the game multiple times
May involve himself in every aspect of social interaction
Is really finicky about changes in a game
May voice his approval or disapproval over and over again on game forums
Basses everything on stats and lives by the best stuff you can get (because he's done it all)
Causes social drama within small groups and small to large guilds
Tell you what to do even if you know what to do (he know the math behind the mechanics)
Comments
Great classification. Verry accurate!
I know people of all types.
I'm Gamer imo
I think most people should fall under that category. If not, I might have done something wrong. It's only the far ends of the spectrum that should fall under the other classes.
I'm a hardcore casual.
I'm not looking for challenge, I'm looking for atmosphere. I play solo but want to see community. I can be very opinionated, but not selfish - I see arguing game design as the most important part of any game itself, the ultimate puzzle of figuring out how to satisfy different, even contradictory motivations that players have and satisfy everyone at once.
Agreed! Nice list.
I'm a Gamer - no doubt.
I consider myself a hardcore casual player. I don't play as often as others; real life considerations. When I do play I expect the most out of my gaming whether it is for 2 hours or for 10. When I raid I come to the party properly gear, with proper accesories (potions, buff stuff, etc...) and with sufficient knowledge of the fights. I enjoy not knowing everything about every fight I go into, but in consideration of others, I do some homework. I do not commit to raid schedules or some raid/guild leader telling me how much time I HAVE to put into the game. When I am playing on a more social scale I play for fun and don't mind wiping a bunch of times helping someone else. I am not a big fan of PVP and am certainly not a griefer.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
I don't think it is as simple as that, since I'm sure I'm not the only one who can read that and pick different descriptions out of different categories that fit.
Winning is always fun. I still have fun if I lose but the the game/match was fair and it was a tough competition between my side and the other side. Now if I lose in CoD MW2 for instance because I have a couple teammtes who keep running in and dying every 2 seconds and have a score of 1 kill 12 deaths, then I am generally not having fun and those guys just ruined the game for me. Now if everyone on my team worked together and no one died way more then they killed but we lost, then I generally had fun because it was a very challenging competition that caused us to put in our best effort to see if we could come out on top, and that is fun.
"Griefing". Now if I'm play MW2 and I realize a guy always camps two lame spots where he crouches in a shadow for 5 minutes at a time to get kills, I will now make it my mission to go and kill him everytime he does this, all match, over and over. I feel what he is doing is lame so I am preventing him from doing this. To you this would put me in the griefer category but to me it is me stopping someone else from ruining the game for others. I also tend to grief griefers. So if in an MMO I see someone killing someone and camping their corpse all day, I will kill them and camp their corpse all day. So does griefing griefers make you a griefer? I don't camp regular people's corpses that I kill in MMOs, I kill them and move on.
I find these two from hardcore gamer applicable to myself "
Is really finicky about changes in a game
May voice his approval or disapproval over and over again on game forums"
But at the same time I remove myself from almost all of the social aspects of MMOs at this point because I despise drama and refuse to be a part of it. I will log into LotRO for example and go to a lower level zone and put out in chat that I am running the instances that I know are hard for those levels and anyone who wants can come along, because helping others is fun. But I also won't join a guild because I can't stand that BS anymore.
I think these categories overall are a bit too superficial and don't accurately cover all the variations in gamers out there. I can literally pull 1 or 2 things from most of the groups that apply and the rest don't.
I don't think you can bucket gamers like this. It's not like saying someone is well off, middle class, getting by, poor, broke, married, etc...
You have generally positive statements in each group except for Elitist which is negative overall.
I myself might contain elements from every group, except Elitist of course.
*reading list* *thinking*
Scratch that your whole list favors the Gamer type.
Soo really should the post be Gamer's are you one of us? Hmm, back to my original statement. You cannot bucket players with objective granularity. It comes off like you are really saying jerk or cool person.
I feel if you are trying for a Bartle's litmus test... maybe consider different ways of classifying players and their playstyles? Or like a combination or player/playstyle to come up with an archetype? It seems like this list states a playstyle determines player type.
Things like dedication can end up too subjective, I can be very dedicated to my hobby but in that dedication I can only offer say 5 hours a week vs. another person's 15 hours. In the point of how we both feel about our dedication the time involved is irrelevent. Yet, you know someone will say: "Bah! you're not dedicated look at Joe over there bust's his ass in raids 32 hours a week. You must not like this game much." (Ok, tangents I am ending here.)
Just my thoughts...
May voice his approval or disapproval over and over again on game forums"
But at the same time I remove myself from almost all of the social aspects of MMOs at this point because I despise drama and refuse to be a part of it. I will log into LotRO for example and go to a lower level zone and put out in chat that I am running the instances that I know are hard for those levels and anyone who wants can come along, because helping others is fun. But I also won't join a guild because I can't stand that BS anymore.
I think these categories overall are a bit too superficial and don't accurately cover all the variations in gamers out there. I can literally pull 1 or 2 things from most of the groups that apply and the rest don't.
It sounds to me like you pull a little bit from every type which should still make you a gamer, if not a tad bit of a hardcore elitist. To me a griefer is a griefer whether you do it in retribution or not (doesn't it make it right or wrong, just is what it is).
I need these comments though to help better the list and get it as acurate as possible. Most people should be pulling a little from here and there, but none will really have every aspect of one class.
i'm a Gamer. sometimes a mix of hardcore though, depends on the game.
I'd like this list to end up evolving itself in some form of wikipedia style thing with real depth. Thanks for your reply too, it's good to get any and all opinions of my post. If you feel up to it, please rewrite what you think they should be. I'd be more than happy to add it or change it completely.
It seems to me that the Gamer is the one profile with all positive attributes, a kind of ideal player. This could be that the OP sees himself as a Gamer and thuse projects all the positives onto that profile.
Personally I would classify myself as a Gamer and then take 2-3 lines from each of the other categories (even the Griefer) to flesh myself out. That of course makes the classification system pretty much moot.
I wonder if you take some psychological classification like Myers-Briggs, if you would find that it successfully predicted what sort of experiences people look for in a game.
This is what I believe. A gamer is the base to a branching tree. All the other classifications of a gamer are just a branch on the gamer tree. On a tree, the base is the thickest and that is where the majority of gamers are. Then there are the smaller branches which consist of different types of gamers but they still are connected to the base of the tree.
I also see the classes just as they are, not good or bad. just because you are hardcore doesn't make you a basement dweller just like being casual doesn't make you a super cool hipster that has too many parties to go to and can't make times for gaming. Make of it what you will. A person might see a painting of a train driving into a tunnel as sexual, where as another person may just see a train going into a tunnel.
If anyone has any suggestions to any new branches of the gamer class, please let me know and I'll add them.
Aren't the casuals the most eager to solve puzzles? After all, it's players like them that make casual games like Bejeweled so popular.
Wow, I'm surprised I got everything or bits of truth (minus the Griefer)...so what do you call me?...am I a Casual Hardcore Elitist Gamer? o.O
That should be a class in itself and call it "CHEG"...so I guess you can call me a Chegger (?)
Funny is i know many people that would fit either casual or elitist but only a few gamers.
Of that classification i am a gamer touching elitism and casualism at times.
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