"Your gaming Profile" lacks values choices

My big problem with Ready2Play's "Your gaming Profile" is that it does not force you to make choices.  In order to be refined, the sliders should offer you choices.  Essentially the problem with the way things are now is that everyone values their time, wants to win, and likes to have fun.  Their are no choices and no reason to not put all of these high.  I wrote a long post back around the release of DG on this:

People have 6-8 categories they can fit into.  Two of these categories are diametrically opposed.  So basically you have the personality/job chart from high school (social psychology), but this one is for gamers.  When you log in you put what kind of player you are and what type you like to be matched with.  So for example (on a scale of 0-10):

 

Would you say in game you are:

Quiet and Silent<---------->Talkative

What kind of teammates do you like:

Quiet and Silent<---------->Talkative

Do you like to:

Taunt/Trash Talk<---------->Help others

Do you like teammates who:

Taunt/Trash Talk<---------->Help others

Do you prefer to:

Win<---------->Have Fun

Do you prefer teammates who play to:

Win<---------->Have Fun

 

This system rates you and places you in a quadrant and tries to match you with people in the quadrant you prefer to play with and who prefer to play with people in your quadrant.  The other advantage to this is competitive players will not try to join the groups where "people play to have fun" or they will also have teammates with this style.  This really gives a new dimension to the game.

 

Then post game you have the opportunity to rate people as like or dislike or nothing.  The key to this is that if you rate someone as like or dislike, a box pops up asking why.  This gives you the familar choices:  they were quiet, talkative, taunted, helped, fun, or focused on winning.  This is the key.  You do not change their karma but add a variable to their personality profile.  By giving your input you slightly affect their impulse gamer personality.  Also, and here is the other key, you also affect your "wants" or "desires".  So the questions you answered about who you want to play are slightly affected, as well.  This further refines your profile.  Interestingly, this also does not assign a judgement such a good or bad, but rather your perception (like or dislike) of an experience (their playstyle).

 

I am a med student who has created several studies and one I spent a lot of time on was a personality study.  This is also a variant of the simple personality/occupational job profile that is standard fare for social psychologists.  I know this is hugely abitious, but it is also extremely sound.  This is very doable from a study design idea and seems fairly easy to program as well.  What are all your thoughts on it?

 

It is my belief with the current setup for R2P, that this would work even better.  Thoughts?

3,832 views 8 replies
Reply #1 Top

Thank you for a thoughtful response on this.  We will be tweaking the secret sauce over time to get better matches.  Thank you for your input, you will see your request impact the questions in the near future.

Zargon

Reply #2 Top

Would you say in game you are:

Quiet and Silent<---------->Talkative

What kind of teammates do you like:

Quiet and Silent<---------->Talkative

Do you like to:

Taunt/Trash Talk<---------->Help others

Do you like teammates who:

Taunt/Trash Talk<---------->Help others

 

I would agree these 4 are important.

Reply #3 Top

There may be no need to ask what type of teammate someone wants to match with, as the current algorithm matches people with like individuals.  That is a great mechanic.  I think there need to be 3 or 4 quintascential values that people have to make choices about.  Not sure my list above is the perfect fix, but I have been mucho busy lately and don't have time to think about any better question schemes.

Reply #4 Top

Thank you again for your time and thoughts on the questions!

We are going to change one question right off the bat in response to your feedback to help reduce the subjectivity of the questions.  More coming soon.

How much do you value your free time?

 

Is being changed to the following:

 

How much free time do you have in a week to game?

 

·         More than 6 hours

·         Less than 6 hours

·         Less than 4hours

·         Less than 2 hours

·         Less than 1 hour

 

Reply #5 Top

 

Definitely a much better question.

 

Also the current question regarding how much a player enjoys winning should probably be improved as well.

Reply #6 Top

That one is next. :-)

Reply #7 Top

I´d like to see another point in the gaming profile.

Teamplay

I consider Teamplay very important. When i play with someone on the same side (team), he should care for the team more then for himself.

That applies for strategy games and shooters, like battlefield or modern warfare, alike.

 

Reply #8 Top

I'm a little uncertain about the revamp of the question.

How many hours do people have to spend on gaming per week?

If we look at the forum dwellers, the answer is around 19 hours per day, give or take a few.

How about rewording it to ask not about the number of hours, but the number of games per week you'd want to play? Although that would be confounded with games Demigods versus games of Europa Universalis. In the end, I guess hours is still better than games, although I'm still not convinced it is the best route.

As a research psychologist, I know that people are relatively inaccurate when it comes to fill accurately filling out these types of questionnaires. What may be better is to create a gaming personality test that people take which then gives them a gaming profile. Something similiar to the various personality tests like the Big 5 Inventory, the Meyers-Briggs, etc. Of course this would also imply that StarDock would need to develop a gaming personality inventory or at least some gaming personality factors, but that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Some example questions:

You are playing a game and after a particularly good move on your part, your opponent curses you and quits. This makes you feel:

A. Neutral

B. Slightly Annoyed.

C. Annoyed.

D. Very Annoyed.

E. Outraged and will never play this person again.

 

You are playing a game and one of your teammates is trying out a new crazy strategy that isn't working well. Do you:

A. Let him be, it is just a game.

B. Suggest he go back to a more traditional strategy.

C. Quit and find a new game with people taking the game more seriously.

D. Give him some suggestions to help his strategy.