Abstract. Introduction

Transcription

1 Player Personality and Their Characters In World of Warcraft 1 Abby Bashore University Of Denver Abstract Many players of the popular online multiplayer game World of Warcraft seek to forums for various reasons, from guidance on gameplay to simply socializing with other players. Using the forums as a dataset, player personality (represented using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and the race and class of the character were observed to find a possible relation from the player s personality to the player s character. In a sample of 317 players, it was found that player personality types are independent from their character s race and class. Introduction World of Warcraft is one of the most popular MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) with over 100 million lifetime players ( Azeroth by the Numbers ). In this game, players create characters with characteristics, such as race, gender, and class, to engage in quests, player-vs-player combat, create and participate in guilds, and role-play as a character a player creates. When looking at a player s decision in choosing their character s race and class, some researchers often look at what is picked the most, what is picked the least and why. Yee discovers that humans and night elfs are the most common races while hunters, rogues, and warriors are the top three (Yee 2009). Moreover, support roles are not favored as much as tank or

2 dps (damage per second) roles, and politically correct races and classes are more prevalent 2 (Ducheneaut et al., 2006). However, player personality is not taken into consideration in analyzing these demographics. Although, when determining whether player personality affects their character, researchers have had conflicting results. Yee (2009) suggests that there may be a relationship between player personality and character; however, Mosley s (2010) analysis of in-game data does not indicate any relation whatsoever. With this direct conflict in mind, I decided to determine a player s personality with the Myers-Briggs personality types, and collect this data in the World of Warcraft forums. By looking at the relationship in a different way, my research will focus on whether there is a relationship between player personality and character selection. Method The Myers Briggs Type Indicator The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Briggs, is a tool in which one can identify their personality, based on the psychological types defined by C. G. Jung (1923). The tool defines personality by looking at four different preferences: Extroversion or Introversion, Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. According to the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) website, these preferences are defined as follows: Extroversion or Introversion: how people direct their energy, whether it is towards the outside world (extroversion), or to one s own inner world (introversion).

3 Sensing or Intuition: how people focus on information, whether it is focusing on 3 information processed by the five senses (sensing), or to find a deeper meaning (intuition). Thinking or Feeling: how people make decisions,, whether logic takes precedence (thinking) or persons involved and specific circumstances (feeling). Judging or Perceiving: how people want others too view them, whether it is decided (judging) or adaptable (perceiving). Taking an online MBTI test determines personality types by utilizing the Likert-typee scale to rate a series of statements on a range from strongly agreeingg to strongly dissagreeingg (See Figure 1). Results of a MBTI test are represented ass a four letterr acronym, representing a preference from each category (e.g. ESFJ; INTP). Figure 1: Sample statements on an online MBTI test Source:

4 While Mosley utilized the Five Factor Model (categorizations of personality are 4 Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) (2010), I decided to use the Myers Briggs personality types because it allows for more diversity in types of personalities (16 different personalities with Myers-Briggs personality while the Five Factor Model determines personality based on 5 factors). Referring to the Forums I gathered data through the World of Warcraft forums by searching for the term Myers Briggs. From here, I found 5 different forum threads in which players posted their Myers Briggs type( Myers Briggs for WoW players ; Personality Correlation ; Personality types of WoW players? ; What s your MBTI type? ; Your MBTI Type? ). If a response indicated their personality type, I recorded the character s level, race, and class and their type. This coding scheme allowed me to clearly find a relationship between personality types and characteristics of the player s character. Other responses contained more than one personality type, which I recorded if one type was implied to be a more recent result than another. Some responses had an extension of -T or -A to their type because of the specific online test that was linked in the thread. Since a personality type is a four letter code, I disregarded the extension and recorded the four letter code. Collecting data from the forums allowed me to observe responses without controlling the environment. Their responses were not influenced by any factors, nor is there any pressure that affected one s response. This naturalistic research allows for more genuine data to be collected.

5 However, not all World of Warcraft players post on the forums. This poses an issue in 5 which using the forums may not have an accurate representation of all players. However, many players post on the forums for help with the game, recruitment for guilds, and to get in touch with the community; moreover, players who post on the forums are typically more involved in the game and in its community. In a sense, the forums filter out many players that were not active in the game. Therefore, those who post on the forums are more representative of frequent and involved players in the World of Warcraft community. Results Results obtained fall under three categories: General Personality Type, Character Race and Personality Type, and Character Class and Personality Type. General Personality Types delve into distributions of each of the 16 personality types and each of the four preferences players fall into. Character Race and Personality Type delves into what personality types are more prevalent in each race. Similarly, Character Class and Personality Type delves into what personality types are more prevalent in each class. General Personality Type Results Observing the distribution of personality types across all responses (N = 317), there are personalities that appeared more than others(see Figure 2). Prevalent personalities include INFP (n = 55), INTP (n = 55), and INTJ (n =56). On the other hand, rarer personalities include ESFP (n= 1), ESTJ (n = 2), and ESTP (n = 3). Responses with personality types containing extraversion (n = 62) are less prominent than those containing introversion (n = 255) (See Figure 5). Personality types containing intuition (n = 249) are more prominent than personality types

6 6 with sensing (n = 68) (See Figure 6). Personality types containing thinking (n = 174) are slightly more prominent than ones containing feeling (n = 143) (See Figure 7). Personality types containing perceiving (n = 162) are slightly more prominent than judging (n = 155) (See Figure 8). Character Race and Personality Results Out of the all the responses gathered (N = 317), The most common races were human (n = 61), blood elf (n = 58), and night elf (n = 37). On the other hand, the least common races were tauren (n = 13), dwarf (n = 5), and goblin (n = 3) (See Figure 3). More common races showed more diversity in personality types; however, not all of the 16 different personality types were represented in a race. Humans and Blood Elfs displayed the most personality types at 14. On the other hand, Dwarfs displayed only 4 personality types and Goblins displayed only 3 personality types (See Table 1). Character Class and Personality Results In all the responses gathered (N = 317), the most prevalent classes were warlock (n = 43), priest (n =36), and hunter (n = 35). The least prevalent classes were monk (n = 23), warrior (n = 23), shaman (n = 20), and death knight (n = 20) (See Figure 4). The most prevalent classes do show a higher number of personality types. Hunter has the most different types of personality with 13 types. In addition, warlocks show 12 types, and priests show 14 types. However, this is not a continuing trend for less common classes. Monks were one of the least common classes with 10 different types; however, mages were more common than monks and only had 8 different types (See Figure 4 and Table 2).

7 7 Discussion Based on the sampling, there was no pattern supporting a relationship between personality and class or race in the game, confirming Mosely s (2010) findings. However, my study did find that certain personality types are more likely to play the game, or at least post in the forums. Introverts were more prominent than extroverts in the responses collected. However, with a social outlet like the forums, I would have thought that there would not be as many introverts responding. This may be attributed to the fact that many of these introverted players are hiding as their character; moreover, online social interaction avoids any communication in person, allowing introverts to feel more comfortable posting online versus talking in person. There was also an overwhelming amount of players who prefer intuition versus sensing. Those that are sensing may be more focused on the gameplay itself (focusing on just completing objectives) instead of the roleplaying aspect. On the other hand, those with intuition are more likely to be more immersed in the game, because they try to find a deeper meaning of the game itself (defined above in the Method section); additionally, they are more immersed in the roleplaying aspect of the game, wanting to be more immersed in the game then those that are sensing. Those who are thinkers were more prevalent that feelers. In a game like WoW, strategy is important, whether it is composing the right team to fight a boss, or quickly making decisions on what abilities to use when fighting a certain character. Thinkers are also less likely to have their emotions affect what decisions they make(which is what feelers do). This allows thinkers to be more focused on completing an objective efficiently. Though there were more thinkers, the

8 8 feelers are more likely to be engaged in more social aspects of the game, such as guilds, because most of these players are playing with online friends or real life friends or family (Williams et al., 2006). There was only a slight difference between judgers and perceivers. This may be attributed to the fact that viewing others does not have as great of an effect. Most players are playing as their character and their personality is not as recognizable if a player is just playing the game by themselves. Although the forums provided a way to filter many undedicated players (as discussed in the method), there were some limitations to using the forums, found out after collecting data. Out of all the responses collected (N = 317), an overwhelming amount of players has characters that were over level 80 (n = 293). Therefore, this does not include dedicated players with characters lower than level 80. In addition, responses did not clearly state if they had more than one character. It may have been possible that a player could have posted a response on the same thread as more than one character. Future research may look at how a player s personality affects how they play World of Warcraft, or what personalities prevail in WoW players versus other types of games (MOBAs, FPS, etc.). Figures

9 9 Figure 2: Distribution of Myers Briggs Personality Types Figure 3: Distribution of Races amongst all responses

10 10 Figure 4: Distribution of Classes amongst all responses Race Blood Elf Draenei Dwarf Gnome Goblin Human Night Elf Orc Pandaren Tauren Troll Undeadd Number of Personality Types Worgen 7 Table 1: Number of personality types demonstrated in each race. Race Number of Personality Types

11 11 Death Knight Druid Hunter Mage Monk Paladin Priest Rogue Shaman Warlock Warrior 10 Table 2: Number of personality types in each class Figure 5: Extroversion vs Introversion amongst all responses Figure 6: Sensing vs. Intuitionn amongst all responses

12 12 Figure 7: Thinking vs. Feeling amongst all responses Figure 8: Judging vs Perceiving amongst all responses References Ducheneaut, N. (2006). Building an MMO With Mass Appeal: A Look at Gameplay in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 1( (4), Jung, C. G., & Baynes, H. G. (1923). Psychological Types. Mosley, I. D. (2010). Personality and character selectionn in World off Warcraft. McNair Scholars Research Journal, 6( (1), 12. Myers Briggs for WoW players. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2016, from battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/ ?page=1

13 13 Personality Correlation. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2016, from Personality types of WoW players? (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2016, from The Myers & Briggs Foundation - MBTI Basics. (n.d.). Retrieve d May 23, 2016, from What's your MBTI type? (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2016, from Williams, D., Ducheneaut, N., Xiong, L., Zhang, Y., Yee, N., & Nickell, E. (2006). From tree house to barracks the social life of guilds in world of warcraft. Games and culture, 1(4), World of Warcraft: Azeroth by the Numbers. (n.d.). Retrieved May 31, 2016, from Yee, N. (2009). The Daedalus Project.[Online] Retrieved: 10/05/16. Your MBTI Type? (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2016, from

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