Player classification

As Dr. Richard A. Bartle himself might have said, "I've already seen Bartle's new player classification, it was called Players Who Suit MUDs". The explorer turns into Alice in Wonderland, who goes wherever fortune and fancy might take her. The achiever turns into Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, who follows the yellow brick road. And the socializer turns into Wendy from Peter Pan, who makes up her own stories. The killer is dropped, because there were only these three girls in the child pornography graphic novel Lost Girls, and world literature is curiously void of children stories having small girls killing her peers.

But while maybe not being original, Bartle's keynote at the Independent MMO GDC is very good, stating that games that focus only on one player type aren't as good as balanced games in which they all play together. And that while following a yellow brick road is great for newbies who otherwise would get lost, is somewhat lacking for veteran players. About PvP he says "RvR is never resolved and therefore pointless. Pvp is better - if you’re good at PvP, but the results are also pointless." Which I completely agree with, although it is strange in this context that the only game figuring as positive example in that talk is EVE Online. Isn't it strange that the only significant player interactions MMOs have come up with up to now is either killing each other, or getting each other wiped in a pickup group?