Jocks, Nerds & Burn-outs : a POE (MMO/ARPG in general) sociological analysis

This is my broad-stoke, stereotype laden, classification of the varies players' mentalities when it comes to build and play styles in POE.

*EDIT: These are Caricatures. They are meant to be grossly exaggerated, similar to those horrible celebrity cartoonish drawings with the big heads and small bodies that blow out of proportion some physical feature or facial expression that is instantly recognizable. Three classifications are definitely not enough, I would rather have about ten, but three was all I had patience for at the time. Was actually hoping readers would add to the list but follow the format.

(no disrespect to any of these styles...yea right)
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The Jock: Before downloading an MMO/ARPG game and creating a character they will type some variant of "Most OP character/build" into a search bar somewhere. After a bit of browsing, a conclusion will be reached and a character will be created. They are believers in overwhelming force & power and dismiss experimentalism as "reinventing the wheel". They thrive in competitiveness with other jocks and although they want to distinguish themselves from other jocks with a bit of their own unique flare, they have no problem being a conformist when it comes to character builds because after all... it works and it's the best. Jocks will PVP obsessively.

Jocks in a guild environment: Jocks have the hardest time finding and keeping support players as team members to do their buffing and healing. They really want their support to be fully specced and dedicated to the job and not get too "uppity" about drops, as they want to be the sugar daddies who bequeath gear to their doc/nurse: "here...have this...this will help you heal us all better."

When a support player joins their guild they are shown a lot of respect to the point of being patronizing. The problem arises for the support player soon enough after the honeymoon is over: "Why the fuck didn't you heal me?... you're over there prancing around and healing YourMUMz69 when you knew damn well I was tanking it." There will be a period of disgrace for the support member, but when the jocks sense that the support member is going to quit, there will be a sappy "I'm sorry...I just want us to be the best" heavy affection moment given with some sort of fancy "here...have this...this will help you heal us better" gift given. This co-dependent cycle of reward/abuse continues to varies lengths until there is an ugly divorce that spills over into the forums.

How the Jock views the other 2 player personalities:

Nerd: Nerds suffer from Unique Snowflake Syndrome. If they want to fart around looking like Peter Pan and riding Unicorns then let them, but they better not get out of line or lip off or they will be given a wedgie and a good beating.

Burn-out: Jocks deal with Burn-outs on a case by case basis. They generally don't like them because they view them as anachronistic, prone to role-playing and generally flaky; however jocks will grudgingly respect a burn-out when they are strong and hard to handle.
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The Burn-out: The Burnout has aesthetic principals in mind when creating a character in an MMMO/ARPG. If the "flavor of the month" OP build does not meet their atmospheric criteria then it is OUT; regardless of its proven mathematical performance; however, if it works with what they were already thinking about, then they will consider it.

Burn-outs like themed characters such as: The Brooding Templar or the "I live...I love...I slay" Conan the Barbarian types or if they are magic based then its a "Oh... you have no Idea who your fucking with, behold my wrath" warlock/witch type. Their builds get down to business when it comes to milking out as much horsepower as they can muster, similar to jocks; however they often part ways when it comes to PvP and tend to build towards dominating PvE whereas the jock will always be considering PvP during a build.

Burn-outs in a guild environment: When Burn-outs partake in long-term grouped environments they are the most dedicated. They lean towards a role-play based interaction and can be quite selfless in matters of gear. When it comes to the support players within the group, the dynamic is the polar opposite of the jock's. Often there will be a full on support player who is in a matriarch/patriarch position of power and protected at all costs.

How the Burn-out views the other two personalities:

The Jock: Jocks have no style. They are e-peen frat boys who swallowed the blue pill and drank the Kool-Aid. Jocks view themselves as "Defenders against the Darkness"... but they ARE the darkness.

Nerds: Nerds are alright... pretentious, smug, obsessive, sarcastic with a touch of narcissism ... but alright. Nerds need to have more style and stick to their guns about what really makes them happy in a character and stop worrying so much about their build being mind-blowingly unique. So what if what you like tends to be a bit cookie-cutter, if your happy then your happy...'nuff said.

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The Nerd: No one obsesses over min-maxing and unique builds like the Nerd. The Nerd needs to be a pioneer. They loath if other people use their builds (without respect to the source) or they find out that they are not the first to think of something they thought was their idea. They would rather use their self created inefficient build purposefully if it kept themselves well clear of anything deemed cookie cutter or trendy. The Nerd will re-roll almost indefinitely until they have that light-bulb moment...then they are in ecstasy... that is until others discover it and abuse it or *gasp* improve it.

Nerds are often melancholy while gaming because they strive to be as efficient or more efficient than the jocks. They know that while they are struggling with their latest build, there is some vapid Jock (or Jock apprentice) face-rolling the same content without a care in the world and thus they play at times with a dour discontent, despairing that there may not be anything unique left in the world.

Nerds in a guild environment: Nerds have a hard time in a guild environment. It's not that they are inherently anti-social, it's just that they are too busy for such stuff. Nerds never really feel "ready" as there is always more testing to be done. Guilds need members to stop theory crafting for lengthy periods of play time and get down to the business of doing a few runs that may take a few hours. Nerds are too preoccupied and like to meditate on their character and gear too much to enjoy the dedicated group experience where there can be a lot of "hurry up and wait" downtime. When they do guild up, it is more of an experiment to see if their latest creation functions in a group combat environment.

How Nerds view the two others:

Jocks: Jocks are like fingernails across a chalk-board to a Nerd. Simply the thought of being around a bunch of jocks e-peening with their pretty boy "six pack abs" and their their pouty Paladin faces with nothing to differentiate themselves save their uninspired names is enough to make a Nerd rage-quit for a few days.

Burn-outs: Burn-outs are alright... a little too "go with the flow" for a Nerds taste. Burn-outs are a bit annoying in that they are too involved with the so called atmosphere of their character. Nerds don't have too much time for role-play environments because their tech-talk about builds breaks the mood. Another thing that is annoying to Nerds about burn-outs are the arch-types. The whole Conan the Barbarian, brooding Dark Elf/Templar, misunderstood yet oh-so deadly Warlock/Witch are too theme-parky for the Nerd. More importantly the fact that Burn-outs will not religiously shun flavor of the month, cookie cutter builds is almost unforgivable. But because Burn-outs often have a good sense of humor and are not bland, they are decent allies.

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Please,
add more stereotypes and observations.
Your author is well within the Nerd territory.

<<-- burn out.

PS : One of the more enjoyed posts in awhile around here.

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AintCare wrote:

Mentally healthy

One does not venture into gaming forums with out some sort of mental health issue ... :P

haha j/k (im sure someone will think im serious).

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AintCare wrote:

Edit: reason for not partying with random people: chance of finding yourself playing with a person like OP (thinks he is smarter then any other player)

dang... I was hoping for a bit of fun.
I am squarely in the Nerd category myself and definitely don't think I am above my own stereotype.

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AintCare wrote:

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PlNK wrote:

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AintCare wrote:

Edit: reason for not partying with random people: chance of finding yourself playing with a person like OP (thinks he is smarter then any other player)

dang... I was hoping for a bit of fun.
I am squarely in the Nerd category myself and definitely don't think I am above my own stereotype.

Trolling accomplished lol - you really thought I am mentally healthy?

ahahaha , i take back the j/k .... O.o

I called it.

j/k

Definitely a burn-out by that classification.

Funny post Pink! :)

Thanks!

Your psychological demographics don't fall too far from the "industry standard" of Spike (jock), Johnny (nerd) and Timmy (burn-out). The original concepts were published in regard to trading card games just under 10 years ago, and adapted for ARPGs since then. Unless you're trying to reinvent the wheel (how very Johnny/nerd that would be!), you'd probably be better off sticking to those demographics.

I think you also underestimate hybridization. There are Johnny/Spikes (you'd call them nerd-jocks) who are fascinated with high-level competition such as PvP, but spend more time working on creating and testing new builds/strategies than actually playing in it; these are typically the people that author the cookie-cutter builds the other Jocks end up using, and often showcase a counterpoint to your "unhappy nerd" stereotype. There are Johnny/Timmies (nerd/burnouts) who spend lots of time theorycrafting builds that have big numbers in the key stats they think are important/aesthetically fundamental, then play/build that faithfully. Timmy/Spikes (jock-burnouts) tend to be the most outspoken forum complainers, playing rather hard according to how they think the game should be played, then if that fails somehow, they lay bare their inner turmoil between "what things are" and "what things should be," using their knowledge of current competitive strategies as fuel for their argument.

The point of all that is that it's really one big continuum, while your post gives a bit of an impression that these are three mutually exclusive groups. Yes, Spikes do tend to view Johnnies and Timmies with contempt; due to Spike's highly competitive nature, Spikes tend to view virtually everyone with contempt, even other Spikes. Nevertheless, everyone shows Spike tendencies (or Johnny tendencies, or Timmy tendencies) to some degree, so to some extent everyone is a burn-out, everyone a jock, everyone a nerd.

That is a very interesting milieu-study right there. I would really appreciate it if you could share your methodological approach and provide some of your data. I would love to read some of the interviews you have made (in case you took a qualitytive approach) or look into the statistics on which you based your categories (but I don´t think you took a quantitative way).

As already pointed out, I also think you are, like most milieu-type studies, focussing mainly on the extreme ends (and in this regard only in a single aspect, ie. the hardcore players in contrast to let´s say trading enthusiasts). There need to be much more overlapping and in-between categories. Maybe you could implement some kind of scaling, like Bordieu did with that classic chart of social and economic capital. This would also allow to include people that are playing on the lower-end of itemization and game-content while still being, at least towards themselves, very serious about their characters and their respective developement.

Definitely good stuff.

Thanks for some entertainment in the morning. Nothing like relishing a cup of fresh coffee while reading a sociological analysis on gaming.


regards

/edit:

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PlNK wrote:

All that we need to remember from my analysis is the fact that there most likely is someone named "YourMUMz69" out there.

That really made me laugh.

Well said ScrotieMcB.

I am going to read that Diablo link in full, I don't know anything about Magic however.
As a Nerd, I am a bit disheartened... I had no idea it was "thing" already.