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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7085208" data-attributes="member: 16814">[MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]You've said a number of interesting things regarding playstyle categorization, but I think you're taking a very narrow view of the Robin Law's verision in insisting that they're sole, selfish motivations and not general tendencies, and in that they cannot be addressed in simultaneous fashion by a game.  You're much more lenient in the application of your preferred model and easily grant that one can belong to multiple categories and that games can simultaneously address multiple categories at once.  I think you're creating a false dichotomy in application.That said, you make valid points between the categorization and motivation, which are separate things.  However, I don't see how your preferred method teases out motivation, as it's categories are still things you do, not reasons why you do them.  And many of those correlations are pretty weak (r=.45 isn't a very strong correlation, frex).  Still, some of them make sense when hypothesizing motivation, like the above mentioned correlation between community and competition -- I strongly enjoy competitive games, and that makes me care about the community.  If it's full of jerks, or people that are outside of my investment range (too many casuals or too many tweakers, depending), then I dislike that community and can't enjoy the competition.  This, however, doesn't mean that if the game features both competitive and PVE play that I seek out community play in PVE.  I tend to do PVE solo or with friends, as then I focus more on my action, strategy, and exploration desires.  So the social field in that model doesn't always map correctly to motivation.  It misses me, in large part, because it's correlation fails to capture what I want from social games.  This maps to tabletop extremely well -- I enjoy playing RPGs with friends because I enjoy sharing my exploration, action, and strategy with friends.  I rarely play with strangers, for the same reasons as computer games -- even though I often enjoy it, it's not something high on my interest lists.  I don't do social for social's sake.  On the other hand, I love community, even strangers, in competitive games, like boardgames, wargaming, and CCGs.  There, the facets of community I value are fair play, lack of jerks, and a relatively even level of available competition.  Knock one of those legs out and I don't participate.So, any model you pick is likely going to focus on outcomes and not motivations, because motivations are hard and complex and unique to individuals.  You can stereotype a bit, like Robin does or your method does, but it still has large holes.  The real point is to be aware of what your players value, and then work to weave that into your game, not one at a time, but as a tapestry.</blockquote>

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