International MUD Player Survey

News Updates from the Toril Staff.
Cyric
FORGER AREAS
Posts: 487
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Bone Castle, City of Strife

International MUD Player Survey

Postby Cyric » Thu May 10, 2007 4:54 pm

Hello all, I received this email today, and figured it might be interesting to participate as requested. The text is self-explanatory:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Dear MUD administrator of TorilMud, The Sojourner's Home,

In advance I apologize for this maybe unwanted mail. I am researching MUD playing styles in the tradition of Richard Bartle's theory for Tilburg University in the Netherlands. I am currently running a survey that tries to either validate or correct his theory. I got your email-address from http://www.mudconnect.com to request your help in this. I would kindly ask you to notify your player base on my research, asking them to take part in the survey. It will only take about 10 minutes and might get rewarded with a $15 gift certificate for amazon.com. To do so you could use the specified text below or your own.

The input of any MUD user is invaluable for the research and the
results might be very interesting to you and your MUD as well. So please take the survey yourself as well. You can indicate if you want to receive a
summary of the results or the full resulting article. It could be
useful for your own MUD. Many thanks in advance.

http://www.rofv.nl/survey

Richard van Meurs,
Tilburg university

Proposed Text for your players:
"Are you always trying to achieve the highest status on a MUD or would
you rather find out everything there is to know about the MUD world?
Are you trying to make friends among your fellow players or would you
rather slice their throats and make them feel miserable?" What do people
consider fun and rewarding when they are playing their MUD and in what
way do these behaviours relate to their character traits in real life.

This survey is part of my research in Leisure Studies at Tilburg
University, the Netherlands. As I am a MUD administrator myself (after
playing extensively for several years), I am very much interested in the
results. Your contribution to this research is extremely valuable and it
will only take about 10 minutes of your time to complete the survey. Of
course everything you submit will be handled anonymously and with care
and will only be used to draw general conclusions about playing styles
for my research.

At the end of the survey you can indicate if you want to receive a
summary of the results or a full copy of the resulting article. In addition
to this, you might be rewarded with a gift certificate for amazon.com
of $15. More information about this will be at the end of the survey.
You can find the survey by visiting:

http://www.rofv.nl/survey

Thanks in advance for your cooperation and time.

Richard van Meurs
Arilin Nydelahar
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Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2002 5:01 am
Location: Virginia Beach
Contact:

Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Thu May 10, 2007 5:11 pm

I took it, figured might as well. 10 parts to it, fairly quick. Easy enough.
Shevarash OOC: 'what can I say, I'm attracted to crazy chicks and really short dudes'
Llaaldara
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Posts: 998
Joined: Fri Aug 16, 2002 5:01 am
Location: Dobluth Kyor

Postby Llaaldara » Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:54 am

The results are interesting.

TorilMUD was one of the top 10 mentioned muds in the survey.
Corth
Sojourner
Posts: 6002
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2001 6:01 am
Location: NY, USA

Postby Corth » Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:07 am

Skimmed it a bit. Actually I agree with you, it definately was interesting. I got a kick out of his conclusion that the main predictive factor of players characterized as 'social' are those who do not play pkill muds. Being female also was predictive in this regard.. and I always thought that toril had more females than the average mud.. so its starting to make sense why females were more likely to come here.. and why there was more resistance over the years here towards pkill and other changes that would promote more aggressive competition. Interestingly enough, later on the author concludes that there is a negative correlation between social players and emotional stability, with the assumed reason being that "emotionally unstable persons want reassurance and socialising could be the way." Wonderful.. Torilmud, the emotionally unstable female's home! :) OK, to be fair, it seems from the data that mudders, as a whole, are likely to be emotionally unstable. Though the correlation is strongest between that personality trait and social mudders.

Its hard to get away from gender when reading this paper. Gender is by far the most predictive factor of character traits on the mud, and just about all of the author's gender based conclusions reinforce stereotypes. That must have been a little tricky for the author. For instance, woman are much less likely to be 'explorers', reinforcing the gender stereotype that women are not as 'technical' as men. Indeed, one of the predictive factors of an 'explorer' is that the person does not play a role-playing mud. Role players, of course, are much more likely to be woman. Perhaps this explains why there always seemed to be so many long time players who couldn't find their way from waterdeep to calimport. We have a more social mud, with modest role-play encouragement, which would seem to weigh against attracting people who consider themselves 'explorers'. Truth be told, it seemed like most of the women who I played with here, with some VERY noticable exceptions, were not the best at finding their way around.

Men, on the other hand, are more likely to be 'achievers' and 'griefers', reinforcing other gender stereotypes as well. People with children more likely to be a griefer.. hrmmm. I would have expected the opposite.

Will have to read the entire study one of these days instead of skimming the conclusions. I've actually wanted to see something like for many years.
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth

Goddamned slippery mage.
Sundara
Sojourner
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue Dec 25, 2001 6:01 am
Contact:

Postby Sundara » Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:57 pm

Corth wrote:Truth be told, it seemed like most of the women who I played with here, with some VERY noticable exceptions, were not the best at finding their way around.
.


And that is no joke! I'd just 'recall' my way around or hitch a ride off Lili's well! Actually, when I first started mudding, I did learn my way around pretty decently and then so many things were added in, unfortunetly though, I wasn't always around to learn the new zones, eq, etc. so back to square numero uno! :/

-shoot me a well please?! someone please port me!? In return you get a rezur at your beck and call! =D uh huh
When poverty comes knocking on your door, love escapes through the window.

-German Proverb-
Ragorn
Sojourner
Posts: 4732
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2001 6:01 am

Postby Ragorn » Wed Oct 10, 2007 7:21 pm

I also noticed that Toril was the ONLY non-PK mud to make the list.

Achiever
Killer
Socializer
Explorer

BTW ;)
- Ragorn
Shar: Leave the moaning to the people who have real issues to moan about like rangers or newbies.
Corth: Go ask out a chick that doesn't wiggle her poon in people's faces for a living.
Sundara
Sojourner
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue Dec 25, 2001 6:01 am
Contact:

Postby Sundara » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:19 pm

Ragorn wrote: Killer


Flaunting your nickname again, ohhhh vicious one? Are you wearing your spiked collar again? lol
When poverty comes knocking on your door, love escapes through the window.



-German Proverb-

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