A few months ago on these forums I made a topic on the general boards that applied Erik Erikson's theory of personality development. I believed that just like Erikson had suggested, there are several stages in a runescape player's life. Although this article will be some what modified from it's original version, it still goes over the same subject.

 

 

 

Erikson, using bits and pieces of Frued's theory, had come up with eight stages in a person's life. From stage one to stage eight, it described how a person's personality developed(i.e. gaining trust in others and finally fear of one's own death). Let me first make it clear that some players, with my first version of these stages found some parts to be offensive. Please I am not trying to insult anyone with this article; some players have found they skip over a stage and some have found they don't necessarily start on stage one. It's almost always different for everyone.

 

 

 

1) Curiosity In the first stage of a runescape player's life he is obviously fresh off tutorial island. The new player is curious, and that sparks a sense of adventure. The whole world is waiting for him, and it's pretty big. Memorizing the map has not even come to mind, the player just wants to explore. Skills are just something that he uses, he doesn't necessarily train them. Other players are just other players to him, he does not consider they are real people with real feelings.

 

 

 

2) Environment interaction Interacting with the environment would be the second stage. From learning to cut a tree, burn the log, and catch a fish, he quickly master the basics of interacting with the environment. Skills are still something to work out for him, some may be confusing to him and he may not even know how to train them.

 

 

 

3) Player interaction All the adventuring soon comes to an end, and the new player searches for something more exciting to do. Perhaps he realizes other players are real people, and not programmed NPCs. In this stage, he might make some great friends and use, if not already, the private messaging system. Also during his observation of the players, he finds some of them are rule-breaking players who sometimes get away with their wrong-doings. With this he becomes curious. He does not realize that runescape is actually a complex game with a complex community- he just views it as any old game where you can "screw around." Perhaps at this time he will try to scam other players- and in this he will receive a warning from jagex, and at that point he stops. His observations continue as he moves forward into the fourth stage.

 

 

 

4) Urge to be the best As he takes a look at his skills, he notices they are inferior compared to other players he has seen. Now comes the strive for superiority- he MUST be the best player in the game. Now perhaps comes serious training of skills; running back and worth over and over to the mining fields, killing goblins and burying bones. Now that the player has developed friends, he feels the need to be better than them. As the player reaches out to more places he realizes there are guilds and quests- and so many other things to compete with other players.

 

 

 

5) Community interaction As he meets new people he realizes runescape has a complex community- perhaps he visits the forums. As all humans, he wants to be heard as a voice in the community. He feels lost as if he is being pushed back- and he wants to make himself noticed. Now comes the time when his skills could be low to medium- and he wants to join a clan or a fansite, or a forum.

 

 

 

6) Maturity Then perhaps comes the end of the "newbie" stages. He learns that if he wants to survive in the community he must use proper grammar, spelling, and have excellent sentence structure. Not only that, the player starts acting more mature. Other players respect him more, and may recognize him from a fansite. He is more determined now, more determined to be the best. That means longer and harder goals, reaching for the higher levels. The urge to let his total level and his bank value grow arises.

 

 

 

7) Climbing ranks To be sure his social status grows, the player attempts to climb ranks in the community. He wishes to be a leader of an important group perhaps, a moderator of a popular forum. With this he develops the skills to take on a leader title- through sometimes failure and trying it out a different way.

 

 

 

8) Denial The feeling of conquering the game arises- the player suddenly feels as if he has visited every location in runescape. Being desperate, denying the fact that he is finally getting bored of runescape, he searches for anything in runescape he hasn't tried out yet. It could be his first round of barrows- or maybe he has never tried the wilderness course. Then these excitements grow to bore, and the player waits impatiently for an update- so maybe runescape will be exciting again.

 

 

 

9) Retirement Finally the amount of time played ingame daily drops- and the player finds himself bored with runescape. The community though- is an everlasting forum of change. The player may now spend a lot more time helping the community- rather than training his own character ingame. With his position as a leader, he can focus more on what he is leading. Some though, quit this job as leader just to take a break. And then soon the interest in the community will slowly fade- and he will post less and less often on forums.

 

 

 

There are my nine stages. If you wish to add you're own I would be glad to hear them. Please state the title and your explanation.

 

 

 

I'd say I'm on stage seven right now. The urge to lead something aroused a couple months ago, and now I am a proud leader of CTET- learning how to become a successful leader. Some of my friends have found it fun to see which stage they are on, try to see which one you fall under yourself and explain.

wow, thats some tip-it times stuff

 

 

 

i think i am between 5-6

2/4 and 9 sadly

6. 2 1/2 years ago I skipped 7 and 8 and went to 9 for 2 years. Came back because of friends and started right at 6.

6. 2 1/2 years ago I skipped 7 and 8 and went to 9 for 2 years. Came back because of friends and started right at 6.

 

 

 

Sometimes you can go back to stages, skip them, and even be in two stages at once. Though you should generally be flowing from 1 to 9. :?

definitely in 7, im an admin in my clan forums (not the leader of the clan itself but quite high) but ranks never did mean to much in our clan :P

 

 

 

bah edited - typos -.-

That was very interesting to read and...creepy to say the least, Mario. Good job on taking the time to make the topic and gather the information.

 

 

 

I was freaked out at first at how accurately those stages had described me (and I'm sure alot of other people) during those particular periods in my RS experience. I can't say that I skipped the first five stages, unless I wanted to lie, really badly. But I can say that I've been through stages 1-6, followed by 9 immediately at one point. After that, I came back (just two weeks ago) and now in between stages 6-7. I hope to stay around longer this time though :) .

9) Retirement Finally the amount of time played ingame daily drops- and the player finds himself bored with runescape. The community though- is an everlasting forum of change. The player may now spend a lot more time helping the community- rather than training his own character ingame. With his position as a leader, he can focus more on what he is leading. Some though, quit this job as leader just to take a break. And then soon the interest in the community will slowly fade- and he will post less and less often on forums.

 

 

 

 

 

Currently I am on this stage within the game. what I mean by this is that I am helping out new players far more often, people who regularly visit my homeworld will know me, and always willing to step in when players are about to be wronged in general.

 

 

 

I regularly read many different forums,though rarely posting, to see what is up with the world of runescape.

 

 

 

I guess there isn't much more I can say except that when I came back after a year absence I was back at stage one for a couple of days while gained my bearings back.

I gues i am kinda in stage 6, nice stuff btw =). Maybe make it a bit bigger and ask a mod if it can be a tip.it times.

I'm at around stage 6, sometimes swaying into stage 8, but able to get myself back to 6 quite easily. A nice read though, as well as a well observation. This reminded me of the Roscar's model of a country's development. :lol:

I get the feeling that quite a few players experience phase six at various stages in their rs life or never reach that point at all. Game maturity can be attained at most levels of the game imo. Good grammar would depend upon an individual's background education, age to an extent, and attitude to the value of good grammar which would not necessarily be entirely seperate from their level of maturity.

 

There are no specific levels as far as I can tell, where people can choose to be responsible and accountable for their involvement with others and choose to play the game fairly, treating others the way they would like to be treated.

im probably at stage 6-7.. i had a 1 year absence a few months ago, but have quickly risen through the ranks to find my footing and settle down again, i have been here for quite a while, but unfortunately, couldnt find the bunny ear and mask events :oops:

Jumping between 8 and 9.

i think i am in the last end of step 8 :ohnoes:

Ive been stuck at seven since about 2003

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: now that I think about it....eight seems.....fitting

5 maybe? my skills are low to medium so i guess 5 fits me

Wow :shock:

 

 

 

Are you taking a developmental psychology or something?

I would definitly say that I am stage 6 and have been for almost the whole time I have been playing (5 years), I will never make it to stage 7, because of the fact that for the most part I am a loner and leading anything is to much work with other people. I hope it will be a while before I ever make it to stage 8 or 9

Went through stages 1-7 already, Currently on stage 8. -.-

I think I'm between 7 and 8 now. Just had an "8 stage", but I'm all 7 again! But to me it seems I did the steps in a a somewhat strange order, but it still seems surprisingly accurate to me!

 

 

 

But this was a good description, too bad to realize at least 75% of the community has never reached the "majority" stage. *Sigh*

i ma definet 7 i think i skipped a few stages though

Oh god, that's from my grade 12 religion class :shock:

 

I'm probably stage 8/9 now.

 

 

 

6) Maturity Then perhaps comes the end of the "newbie" stages. He learns that if he wants to survive in the community he must use proper grammar, spelling, and have excellent sentence structure. Not only that, the player starts acting more mature. Other players respect him more, and may recognize him from a fansite. He is more determined now, more determined to be the best. That means longer and harder goals, reaching for the higher levels. The urge to let his total level and his bank value grow arises.

 

I'd say a good 5-6% of RS players actually go through this stage :lol:

this is interestign seeing that everything happens i think im on 5-7...

 

All this happened to me but i dont want get on 9.. 8-)

Step 8 for me.

 

 

 

Haven't played for 1 month (started yesterday again). Well, things were going very fast - and very, very well in real life - and I couldn't find the inspiration and even more necessary the hunger for playing. Got some goals for myself in my head for my character and those are my motivation these days.

 

 

 

Nice development steps btw. :D =D>

I am doing 7 right now, killing experiments till 90 combat. I was 9 for a year or two, but i have been at 7 for awhile now.