Richard Bartle

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Richard Bartle
FBCS FRSA
Richard Bartle, 2011 (cropped).jpg
Bartle in 2011
Born (1960-01-10) 10 January 1960 (age 64)
Ripon, England
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)writer, professor, game researcher
Known for MUD1
Designing Virtual Worlds
SpouseGail Bartle
ChildrenJennifer Bartle, Madeleine Bartle
Website http://mud.co.uk/richard/

Richard Allan Bartle (born 10 January 1960) is a British writer, professor and game researcher [1] in the massively multiplayer online game industry. [2] [3] He co-created MUD1 (the first MUD) in 1978, and is the author of the 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds .

Contents

Life and career

In 1988, Bartle received a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, where as an undergraduate, he created MUD1 with Roy Trubshaw in 1978. [4]

He lectured at Essex until 1987, when he left to work full-time on MUD (known as MUD2 in its present version). Recently he has returned to the university as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development. [5]

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In 2003, he wrote Designing Virtual Worlds , a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of massively multiplayer games.

Bartle is also a contributing editor to Terra Nova , a collaborative blog that deals with virtual world issues.

Bartle did research on player types of enjoyments in MUDs. In Bartle's analysis, MUD players can be divided into four archetypes: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. [6] This idea has been adapted into an online test generally referred to as the Bartle Test, [7] which is quite popular, with scores often exchanged on massively multiplayer online games forums and networking sites. [8]

Personal life

c. 2003, Bartle was reported as living in a village near Colchester, England, with his wife Gail and their two children Jennifer and Madeleine. [9]

Bartle is an atheist and a patron of Humanists UK. [10] [11]

Awards

Works

Games

Spellbinder

Spellbinder (also known as Waving Hands) is a simultaneous 1977 paper-and-pencil game by Bartle and first published in his fanzine, Sauce of the Nile. It has since been re-created in a variety of formats, including software for the X Window System, play-by-email, Java applet, Android application, and web-based.

Two or more players take the role of wizards, and the object of the game is to be the last wizard standing. Wizards can cast spells at other wizards, themselves, or summoned monsters. These spells are cast through gestures: each turn, the player chooses two gestures, one for each hand, from clap (C), wave (W), snap (S), wriggle fingers (F), proffered palm (P) and digit point (D). There are also the non-magical gestures stab (>) and nothing (-). Turns are resolved simultaneously once all wizards have submitted their gestures for a given turn. These gestures are built up via many turns to form spells. For instance, one can cast the spell "Magic Missile" by performing the S (snap) gesture followed by the D (digit point) with the same hand on a consecutive turn. This is usually denoted as 'SD'. The spell is cast on the turn that the D is made, assuming no intervention (such as a Counter Spell). Play centers around the strategy of tracking what spells are being cast on all four (or more) hands, thus ensuring your spells achieve their desired effect while attempting to mitigate those of your opponent. The game is one of pure strategy; outside of the "Confusion" spell which causes a random gesture to be made all spell effects can be anticipated deterministically, making it akin to Chess or Go. Through a few minor variants to the rules, all random chance and other imbalances can be removed.

While there are many aspects to Spellbinder strategy, [17] bluffing is a key element to all game play, often referred to as "Shadow Casting". [18] In this common practice, warlocks play a set of gestures, which form the beginning of a spell, without ever completing it. When this happens opponents are left with the choice to either defend against a spell which may not be cast at all, or risk not defending against it. For example, 'PSD' forms the beginning of a 'Charm Person' spell 'PSDF', but one may also continue this set to a '..DPP' which forms an 'Amnesia', without ever completing the Charm. Much like in Chess, the resolution of the game opening plays an important part in the later development of the game.

Common openings such as 'D/P', 'S/P', 'S/W' have been studied in depth. [19] [20] [21]

Books

Related Research Articles

A multi-user dungeon, also known as a multi-user dimension or multi-user domain, is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based or storyboarded. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read or view descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, and non-player characters, and perform actions in the virtual world that are typically also described. Players typically interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language, as well as using a character typically called an avatar.

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.

AberMUD was the first popular open source MUD. It was named after the town Aberystwyth, where it was written. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane based at University of Wales, Aberystwyth for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in 1987.

<i>Asherons Call</i> 1999 video game

Asheron's Call (AC) was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows PCs, developed and published by Turbine Entertainment Software. Though it was developed by the Turbine team, it was published as a Microsoft title until 2004. The game was set on the island continent of Dereth and several surrounding smaller islands and archipelagos on the fictional planet of Auberean. The game was played in a large seamless 3D virtual world which could host thousands of players' characters at a time.

DikuMUD is a multiplayer text-based role-playing game, which is a type of multi-user domain (MUD). It was written in 1990 and 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Stærfeldt at DIKU —the department of computer science at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark.

<i>GemStone IV</i> 1988 video game

GemStone IV is a multiplayer text-based online role-playing video game produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a high fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was known as GemStone ][ and was launched in April 1988 on GEnie. It was one of the first MMORPGs and is one of the longest running online games still active. Access to the game is subscription-based through its website, with three additional subscriptions levels available, "Premium", "Platinum" and "Shattered", in addition to a free-to-play model introduced in early March 2015.

<i>Age of Wonders</i> 1999 video game

Age of Wonders is a 1999 turn-based strategy game co-developed by Triumph Studios and Epic MegaGames, and published by Gathering of Developers.

Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents. The terms are most often used in games where both activities exist, particularly MMORPGs, MUDs, and other role-playing video games, to distinguish between gamemodes. PvP can be broadly used to describe any game, or aspect of a game, where players compete against each other. PvP is often controversial when used in role-playing games. In most cases, there are vast differences in abilities between players. PvP can even encourage experienced players to immediately attack and kill inexperienced players. PvP is often referred to as player killing in the cases of games which contain, but do not focus on, such interaction.

<i>Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic</i> 2003 video game

Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is a turn-based strategy video game in a fantasy setting. Shadow Magic is the third incarnation of the Age of Wonders series, and is a stand-alone expansion to Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne. All three games were developed by Triumph Studios. The series is the spiritual successor to Master of Magic, featuring strategic overworld and tactical combat layers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online game</span> Video game played over the Internet

An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and span many genres, including first-person shooters, strategy games, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). In 2019, revenue in the online games segment reached $16.9 billion, with $4.2 billion generated by China and $3.5 billion in the United States. Since the 2010s, a common trend among online games has been to operate them as games as a service, using monetization schemes such as loot boxes and battle passes as purchasable items atop freely-offered games. Unlike purchased retail games, online games have the problem of not being permanently playable, as they require special servers in order to function.

<i>Meridian 59</i> 1996 video game

Meridian 59 is a 1996 video game developed by Archetype Interactive and published by The 3DO Company. It was the first 3D graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and one of the longest running original online role-playing games. The development team included John Hanke, who later founded Niantic, Inc. and codeveloped Google Earth and Pokémon Go.

A persistent world or persistent state world (PSW) is a virtual world which, by the definition by Richard Bartle, "continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it". The first virtual worlds were text-based and often called MUDs, but the term is frequently used in relation to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and pervasive games. Examples of persistent worlds that exist in video games include Battle Dawn, EVE Online, and Realms of Trinity.

<i>Chaos: The Battle of Wizards</i> 1985 video game

Chaos: The Battle of Wizards is a turn-based tactics video game released for the ZX Spectrum in 1985. It was written by Julian Gollop and originally published by Games Workshop. Based on Gollop's 1982 design for a board game / card game hybrid, Chaos received a positive reception and went on to influence various games, including Darwinia and King's Bounty, and spawned a sequel, Lords of Chaos, in 1990.

A mob, short for mobile or mobile object, is a computer-controlled non-player character (NPC) in a video game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, every and any such character in a game may be considered to be a "mob", or usage of the term may be limited to hostile NPCs and/or NPCs vulnerable to attack.

<i>Sacrifice</i> (video game) 2000 real-time strategy video game

Sacrifice is a real-time strategy video game published by Interplay Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows platform. Developed by Shiny Entertainment, the game features elements of action and other genres. Players control wizards who fight each other with spells and summoned creatures. The game was ported to Mac OS 9.2 in 2001.

Permadeath or permanent death is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore. Depending on the situation, this could require the player to create a new character to continue, or completely restart the game potentially losing nearly all progress made. Other terms include persona death and player death. Some video games offer a hardcore mode that features this mechanic, rather than making it part of the core game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Woodcock (computer games analyst)</span> American computer and video game industry analyst

Bruce Sterling Woodcock is an American computer and video games industry analyst, best known for his work on subscription tracking of massively multiplayer online games via his website MMOGCHART.COM.

<i>MUD1</i> 1978 video game

Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD, is the first MUD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartle taxonomy of player types</span> Classification of video game players

The Bartle taxonomy of player types is a classification of video game players (gamers) based on a 1996 paper by Richard Bartle according to their preferred actions within the game. The classification originally described players of multiplayer online games, though now it also refers to players of single-player video games.

The history of massively multiplayer online games spans over thirty years and hundreds of massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) titles. The origin and influence on MMO games stems from MUDs, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and earlier social games.

References

  1. ↑ "Richard Bartle: we invented multiplayer games as a political gesture". Guardian. 17 November 2014.
  2. ↑ Radoff, Jon (April 2011). Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games. p. 36. Wiley. ISBN   978-0-470-93626-9
  3. ↑ "Game academic Richard Bartle investigates why players quit games". Venture Beat. 15 July 2017.
  4. ↑ Bartle, R: "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games" Archived 2 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine , section 1.5; Retrieved on 2009-01-05.
  5. ↑ "University of Essex Module Details – EE224-5-FY: Computer Games Architecture and Design". Archived from the original on 4 February 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  6. ↑ Bartle, R. "Players Who Suit MUDs" . Retrieved 5 January 2009.
  7. ↑ "Random Dialogue: You Shuffle, I'll Deal(archived)". 26 April 2004. Archived from the original on 23 December 2007. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  8. ↑ "Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology" . Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  9. ↑ Mulligan, Jessica; Patrovsky, Bridgette (2003). Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide. New Riders. pp. xix. ISBN   1-59273-000-0.
  10. ↑ "Dr. Richard Bartle". Humanists UK. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
  11. ↑ "Richard Bartle > Quotes". goodreads . Retrieved 2 July 2017. Since I'm an atheist, and have no belief whatsoever in life after death, I couldn't care less -- it's not like it'll have any impact on me, since by definition I will be completely extinguished. I guess if someone twisted my arm and forced me to provide an epitaph, it would be 'Don't forget.' Sound advice...
  12. ↑ "Archive - 5th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards". Game Developers Choice Awards. 27 April 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  13. ↑ "The First Annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards".
  14. ↑ "Waving Hands from Duel Purpose" . Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  15. ↑ "Spellbinder".
  16. ↑ "Spunky Princess". www.youhaventlived.com. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  17. ↑ "Strategy & Tactics". The Refuge Forums.
  18. ↑ "Strategy Tips". RavenBlack.
  19. ↑ "Opening Overview". Slartucker's Refuge 2.0.
  20. ↑ "D/P vs D/P". Slartucker's Refuge 2.0.
  21. ↑ "Openings win rates". The Refuge Forums.
  22. ↑ Bartle, Richard A. (3 January 2022). How to Be a God: A Guide for Would-Be Deities (PDF). West Bergholt, Essex: NotByUs. ISBN   978-0-9556494-9-3. OCLC   1295679170. Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 January 2022. Retrieved 18 April 2022– via mud.co.uk.

Further reading for Spellbinder

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