So I decided that it would be a really great idea to analyze the internet personalities of people that play scrabble. Now to be 100% accurate and politically correct, it wasn't Scrabble(R) that I was playing online, rather it was a variation offered by Yahoo! Games called Literati. Go to www.games.yahoo.com/lt if you're interested in knowing more about the game. It's the same concept as Scrabble but with different quantities of tiles and scores for each tile, which is a huge plus cause I really hate the Scrabble format thereof.
In any case, so in my experience, after several long games of Literati such that I couldn't bear to look at another Literati board, I have determined that there were a certain number of degrees in coldness or warmth in the opponent that I played. I am not going to bother numbering them, but they are in ascending order of warmth.
Before I go into my analysis though, it's important that I describe my own personality as a Literati player, because the plays that you make convey a certain amount of information as to who you are in the game. First of all, I must make it known that I'm quite seasoned as a Literati player. I've played both Literati and Scrabble a lot (but never with the aim of analyzing my opponent's personality). In the games I have played that were recorded, I have 4 wins and 1 loss (obviously, I don't play a lot of rated games; in my opinion it's extremely distracting). In my estimation, if I were on an account with few wins and several losses, then I would find it quite easy to settle into a game, seeing as my opponent would be more than willing to take on some fresh meat. In the other extreme, if it was made apparent that I had a lot of wins and few losses, it might be more difficult to find an opponent and that opponent would probably be more challenging than otherwise.
Additionally, when I play, I try to play defensively and conservatively unless going for a really big score. It's important to say this because someone that plays a different style than me will probably convey a different image to the opponent. I feel that my style conveys a great deal of coldness to my opponent because when I play, it seems quite apparent that my biggest aim is to either to score a lot (not that big of a problem) and not let my opponent score at all (which isn't nice really). I think if I played a different style, then I would have drawn out different reactions.
Now on to the analysis. As I said above, there are several degrees of warmness that I perceived in my opponent. Usually, I'm not the one to make the first comment (aha! guess my personality doesn't change that much on the internet), but if someone else speaks, I usually try to make a conversation. These are the tactics that I used to analyze their personalities. Here are my categories:
- First come the people that do not talk, do not communicate in any way whatsoever except for the fact that they play their tiles really quickly. And when they make pretty bad plays, it becomes apparent that they have no interest in playing a good game or meeting and communicating with another person. Instead, they're only interested in making their own plays, getting new tiles (hopefully just a bunch of really easy consonants), waiting for their opponent to make a play, and then making another word, reiterating the cycle.
An even colder version of people in this group will take action if the game does not go on their own terms. Either they will leave on their own, boot their opponent (me) if they have the permission or make a verbal comment in the chat area.
However, their gestures are primarily nonverbal, but most notably, overwhelmingly cold. An interesting correlation is that they often are not very skilled opponents and often, they are novices, or people who have only joined because they're interested in learning some new game (but probably not committing to it). They could also just be killing boredom. - Next come the people that make minimal conversation. Sometimes they will offer a salutation at the beginning of the session, say "gg [good game]" at the end or even "vgg [very good game]" if it's particularly close or enjoyable. They may also comment on a particularly strong play, for example, if you use all your tiles for a bonus. In terms of gameplay, their style is more sophisticated than the previous category as well. They are much more likely to make hook words and take advantage of simple and often obscure two letter words(like sh, et, re, etc.) to hook on longer scoring words. They are also more inclined to make words that are simply extensions of others like taking the word "ever" and adding "for" to make "forever" or something like that. In essence, all that need be told is that these players are much more resourceful with the board and sophisticated the words that they make.
What I find important to note about these people is that they are playing out of interest in the game and possibly in finding a good opponent. Their skills vary across the board, but often they can be quite good indicating that they are committed to the game regardless of the outcome (more or less). These people are considerably warmer than the previous group in that they are much more inviting and seem more personable in their online identities. Personally, I am quite satisfied when talking with my opponent about the game. Otherwise I feel like either a big bully at Literati when I do well or well, let's just say the alternative doesn't occur that much, shall we? -chuckles- - Finally comes the group of people that converse a lot during the course of the game. In fact, sometimes you and your opponent talk so much that gameplay stops. Clearly, both my opponent and I are most interested in connecting interpersonally. Again, these people have skills that vary greatly, but they can (and usually are) be more skilled than people in the first category. Their gameplay is quite similar to the people in the previous category.
In fact, these three categories can be separated through two simple traits. The first would be people that are impertinent to the game and largely antisocial. The second and third groups are people that are largely committed to the game, but the third group just happens to be more social/extroverted than the second. It also happens that you (or I, rather) rarely come across people that are social and impertinent.
It should be obvious that my impressions are largely hyperpersonality theory at play. There is no way that I can know so much about these people. However, I keep my impressions largely speculative. There are always games where you play a full game and say nothing until your opponent surprises you with a "gg" or something like that. So it's impossible to be certain whether your opponent is really in group one, but usually my impressions are accurate given the minimal feedback that s/he offers. As is with most CFO situations, there aren't many things to judge upon. Avatars are used in the simplest implementation, all font is a basic 12-point times new roman font (boring) and other than that, there's nothing but gameplay to judge by. Is it accurate to guess that the more you have played, the better you can judge on gameplay? It would be interesting, but I'm sure someone has already looked for it. But once again, my impressions reflect hyperpersonality theory and not CFO.
Thus summarizes my findings in internet personalities through the Yahoo! Literati game. There are two main categories for analysis. The gameplay, and the chatting. In the future, I might consider analyzing their behavior by acting differently myself, like playing a simpler game or being the first one to greet the other player instead. Maybe. I'm sure that when I become the next great Freud or Nietzsche, you'll see my paper on Literati gameplay and remember this post.
Ashish.
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