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When Richard Bartle was recently interviewed at Massively, we somewhat hoped he’d redeem himself from the hole he dug before we last commented on him. Bartle, of course, is the man who many consider to be the grandfather of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), as he’s one of the men behind legacy multi-user dungeon (MUD) systems which preceded today’s MMORPGs. Only, unlike counterparts in the hardware arena like Steve Wozniak, Bartle’s retirement from commercial production has made him horribly bitter, and it’s apparent whenever we read anything he says.

Last we checked, rumours were going around that Bartle hadn’t even played World of Warcraft (WoW) for more than a few hours, but at Massively, he points out that he has not one, but three level 70 characters. That’s well and good, but then he comments on not being able to live up to his group’s expectations when he played his Mage, he describes Druid forms as “that change shape thing,” and refers to Wrath of the Lich King as “Lich Kingdom”. We wonder if Michael Zenke, who conducted the interview, could even keep a straight face when hearing/reading Bartle’s comments.

Then Bartle stumbles around another dumb statement.

I’ve already played Warhammer. It was called World of Warcraft.

This from a so-called designer? Is he unable to see the rather significant changes Mythic has implemented to rectify many of Bartle’s own complaints, such as player groups? Does he say this shit just to get a rise out of people and make headlines? On PvP implementations, he says:

You don’t know anything.

Oh right, because MUDs perfected PvP a long time ago. Which is why MUDs made so much money back in the day, and why Bartle is still employed in the industry by a major game studio. Oh, wait.

After the MUD, Bartle’s only useful contribution to the MMORPG industry is the Bartle Test, which is already showing its age with some of its questions. Bartle’s one of those guys who should have retired from the gaming scene entirely, instead of having his misguided statements publicized. We feel sorry for his students who are supposed to look up to him. Heck, we’d sooner take development advice from John-fucking-Romero.

Apparently, Bartle can’t help but be condescending:

I really ought to write up a book on how to read a virtual world so that I have a vocabulary in order to explain it to people.

Of course, because a Bartle lexicon of MMORPG terminology is necessary since the English words developers and players have been using for years simply don’t work. Bartle, you’re such a pocket-genius! Bring us your masterful newspeak such that we proles can comprehend developer-speak!

As someone who spends much of his time commenting on game design, Bartle doesn’t play many games, it seems. Maybe he was born qualified, unlike the rest of us.

When I actually play games, the games I play are either ones I created myself or they’re ones that are non-MMOs. They tend to be things like obscure European – when I say European, I mean continental European games that just don’t make it elsewhere – things like The Patrician and some things like Victoria. They’re all PC games. I don’t play any console games, because that would mean getting a console, and then my kids would play them.

So Bartle is a game designer who doesn’t want his kids playing console games, and he limits himself to playing games that he wrote (outdated MUDs and all zero commercial games he’s written), and refuses to get any face-time with the games most of the world actually pay to play? Wow. At least he explained what “European” meant, because that word is complicated.

At Waaagh!, Syp posts a response from Bartle to the teenage angst the Warhammer community built over his “I’ve already played Warhammer” comment, and it’s a doosey to be sure.

I wasn’t saying that WAR was just a knock-off of WoW, I was saying that the Warcraft universe was a knock-off of the Warhammer universe.

Even if you were, Bartle, it’s still an ignorant statement, as Warcraft is as much a rip-off of Warhammer as every fantasy game is a rip-off of Tolkien’s works which recharged fantasy entertainment in the modern era. And last I checked, most MUDs were based on Dungeons and Dragons, which, again, is chiefly influenced by Tolkien.

We won’t be all sour at Bartle because we know his heart is in the right place, even if that place happens to be a bitter one with few friends. We’re all for evolution in MMORPGs on a revolutionary level too, but it takes baby steps - the kinds of steps that Bartle will need to take in his future commentary if we’re ever to take him seriously again. gg n3wb.

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