Richard Bartle
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Richard Allan Bartle, born on January 10, 1960, in Ripon, England, is a British writer and game researcher, best known for being the co-author of MUD1, the first persistent virtual world, which subsequently spawned the MUD genre. He is one of the pioneers of the MMORPG industry.
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[edit] Life and career
As a teenager Bartle wrote and published a single-player roleplaying gamebook computer program and ran a national gamers magazine for two years prior to going to Essex University in 1978. In his first week as an undergraduate Bartle met Roy Trubshaw, who shared his interest for gaming, and who soon after decided to write a multi-user version of the game Colossal Cave Adventure. Trubshaw called his creation MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) and developed it further with the help of Bartle.
Trubshaw finished the engine by the end of his course, passing the project on to Bartle who employed it to create a fully functional virtual world. Bartle switched from mathematics to computer science after his first year and went on to receive a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and lecture at Essex University.
In 1985 Bartle befriended Simon Dally, a book publisher, and together with Roy Trubshaw they formed a company, "MUSE", to market MUD. In his free time Bartle wrote a new game engine that was dubbed MUD2 and left Essex University in 1987 to work full time for MUSE until 2000.
After working as a game consultant Bartle returned to Essex university in 2002 as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development.[1]
In 2003, he published Designing Virtual Worlds, a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of virtual worlds.
Bartle is also a contributing editor to Terra Nova, a collaborative blog that deals with virtual world issues.
Bartle studied player personality types in MUDs and categorized players into four types: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers.[2] His research was later adapted into an online test by Erwin Andreasen and is generally referred to as the Bartle Test.[3] The test is very popular and scores are often exchanged on MMORPG forums and networking sites.[4]
In 2005 at the Game Developers Choice Awards Richard Bartle was awarded the "First Penguin Award" (now called "The Pioneer Award") for his part in creating the first MUD.
[edit] Works
- Spellbinder, 1977, a pencil and paper game also known as Waving Hands, first described in Bartle's fanzine Sauce of the Nile[5][6]
- MUD1, 1978, with Roy Trubshaw
- MUD2, 1985.
[edit] Books
- Artificial Intelligence and Computer Games, Paperback, 256 pages, Century Communications, 25 Jul 1985, ISBN 978-0712606615
- Designing Virtual Worlds, Paperback, 768 pages, New Riders Pub., 25 July 2003 ISBN 978-0131018167
- INsightflames, 1999, Online publication. Also 2 Paperbacks, NotByUs, "IN Sight", 422 pages, July 2007, ISBN 978-0955649400 & "IN Flames", 416 pages, August 2007, ISBN 978-0955649417
[edit] References
- ↑ "University of Essex Module Details - EE224-5-FY: Computer Games Architecture and Design".
- ↑ Richard Bartle. "Players Who Suit MUDs".
- ↑ "Random Dialogue: You Shuffle, I'll Deal(archived)" (2004 April 26).
- ↑ "Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology".
- ↑ "Waving Hands from Duel Purpose".
- ↑ "Spellbinder".
[edit] External links
- Richard Bartle's website
- Richard Bartle's blog
- Dr. Bartle's MUD history page
- Terra Nova collaborative blog
- Sci-Tech Today, January 4, 2006, "Inside the Underground Economy of Computer Gaming" (see page 4)
- GameSpy interview, October 27, 2003
- GameZombie.tv, Videotaped Discussion of Hero's Journey with Lee Sheldon
- INsightflames HTML and PDF versions of the book, and link to the 2-volume print version at Cafe Press
