Recommendation system for MMORPG players

Community General Discussion
1

Hello everyone!
I’m new here, and I apologize if I’m doing anything against the rules. Also, sorry for my broken English — it’s not my native language. I’m a second-year Master’s student at ITMO University (Game Development School) in Saint Petersburg, and my thesis is about creating a recommendation system for MMORPG players.

How does the system work?

Right now, it’s just a small prototype that analyzes the following data:

  • Number of PvP kills
  • Gathering of ore/herbs/fish
  • Time spent in dungeons and raids
  • Number of in-game chat messages

(We plan to expand these metrics in the future.)

Based on this data, the system determines your affinity for each of Bartle’s types (Killer, Explorer, Socializer, Achiever). We assume that users can have traits from multiple types, so the recommended activities are distributed according to your percentages. If your playstyle changes (for instance, less PvP and more dungeon runs), the system will adjust its recommendations.

Activity ratings

To decide which specific activities to suggest within each category, they have an internal rating:

  • Each activity has three parameters: Goal, Difficulty, and Communication (on a scale of 1–10).
  • Each player has three “weight coefficients” indicating sensitivity to these parameters.
  • After completing a task, the user answers three short questions, and the system updates these coefficients accordingly.

What am I working on now?

I’m developing a **simple WoW addon show how this recommendation system might function in practice. Currently, it provides basic suggestions:

  • Where to farm (e.g., routes for mining ore)
  • Which dungeon or raid to visit
  • Which achievements you might complete

Additionally, the addon tracks the completion of chosen activities and presents a short survey afterward. Once the testing is finished, you’ll also need to complete a brief Google Docs questionnaire (with multiple-choice questions) and provide free-form feedback.

I’ll need about **another week fully finish the addon, but I’m already looking for volunteers to help with testing.

Why do I need testers?

  • I’m looking for 20–25 people who can install the addon according to my instructions.
  • You’ll also need TomTom, GatherMate2, and Routes so that the system can generate and display routes.
  • The testing involves one 4-hour gaming session (which I consider to be an average play session).
  • During this test, the addon will collect basic statistics:
    • Number of chat messages
    • PvP kills
    • Resource gathering
    • Time spent in dungeons and current raids

Finally, I’ll ask you to send me the SavedVariables file, where all collected data is stored.

Small bonus

** to

How to contact me?

You can write here and i contact with you or use for that discord
My Discord : andreydobrynin
I’m also can sharing links to my previous works but only in pm or discord because i cant attach that here. Since my main language is Russian, I translated them into English using a neural network, so parts of the translation may be inaccurate.

Thank you very much to everyone who responds! Your help is extremely important for my thesis and will show whether this system is truly useful and interesting to players.

2

I can help out. I’ve done some minor research on recommendation systems for my internship at a federal organization that I won’t go into here. I love the stuff.

1 Like
3

Thank you so much! I’ll let you know once I’ve updated the addon and prepared the installation instructions. If you’d like, I can send you the work I did in previous semesters, though the English there is a bit rough—hopefully you’ll still get the main idea.

1 Like
4

How does this line of study or work help society?

1 Like
5

My thesis begins with an analysis of the current state of the MMORPG genre.
It’s undeniable that this genre is currently facing a crisis: declining player numbers, reduced popularity, and fewer mentions on top streaming platforms. I set out to understand why and concluded that one of the primary reasons is the negative association with “grind.”

What is “grind,” and is it really that bad?

Essentially, grind refers to repetitive actions, but it only feels uncomfortable when players perceive it as something they’re forced to do. If the process itself is engaging or the reward outweighs the tedium of routine, then grinding stops feeling like an unpleasant obligation.

Searching for player motivation

To disguise repetitive tasks, it’s crucial to understand what genuinely motivates each individual player. That’s why I examined different types of player motivation. If an MMORPG can adapt to each player’s needs, it can:

  1. Retain new players by offering a smooth entry without relying on external guides.
  2. Draw veteran players’ attention to aspects of the game they might have overlooked.

A recommendation system

One solution to the genre’s loss of popularity among new generations could be a recommendation system that takes into account each player’s internal motivations. Such a system would recommend tasks and activities that cater to a user’s specific interests, boosting engagement and reducing the feeling of “forced” grinding.

Practical value

My work can help MMORPG developers (and potentially creators in other genres) attract new players, retain existing ones, and make content more approachable. For me personally, it’s also a crucial step toward completing my university studies!

The state of the market

Ask yourself: how many new MMORPGs do we see topping the Twitch charts? Usually, it’s just World of Warcraft, played by the same community for years. Lineage 2 and EVE Online are also older titles. The influx of new players isn’t very high, which underscores the need for fresh approaches to revitalize the genre.

1 Like
6

I don’t get it. How can this be justified as education?

What purpose does this serve for society?

They give degrees out for anything now it seems.

1 Like
7

Are you really asking how getting a degree in game design, a multi-billion dollar industry, can be justified as education?

There are much less useful things to get a degree in.

4 Likes
8

I don’t really see what practical use this addon would offer to be honest.

1 Like
9

Thanks Einstein, your bot post has been filed under ‘Q’
I’ll get back to you

1 Like
10

Can you explain please what that’s mean
I don’t understand

11

They’re trolling

1 Like
12

The idea behind the addon is to test whether the proposed method actually works and produces any noticeable results when user behavior changes (even if the dataset is relatively small). Essentially, there’s no practical benefit to my addon—it exists solely to test certain theoretical assumptions.

The main concept of my thesis is that I’m suggesting one possible way to increase player engagement. The core idea is to provide clear recommendations and guidance on what to do at each moment, rather than relying on free-form “wandering” gameplay. I believe detailed instructions are especially important for new players, since they tend not to use external resources (guides, videos, articles) and often need built-in assistance directly within the game.

13

Seriously? Analytics, software engineering, critical thinking, innovation, complex math, coding all seem required for his project and that is just what my dumb a** can think of so what is your degree in animal husbandry? Why even chime in with this level of ignorance…just to troll? I hate these forums lol, just came in to see if any thing interesting was going on since I quit playing I guess it is good to see nothing changes here

1 Like
14

It’s just easy bait to throw out.

1 Like
15

I don’t need recommendations for this. “Killer” is too broad. I assume it references sweaty PvPers, but traditional rated (3v3) is a completely different mode from all the rest. Apart from that I like exploring aesthetically pleasing, non underground zones. And I like socializing in chat with amiable, interesting people.

So what exactly do I need recommendations for?

1 Like
16

cool, but i feel like raider io does this fairly well

1 Like
17

But as the text states, I assume that we are not in a vacuum and that every user has a predisposition toward different gaming types. Therefore, I don’t have a strict classification; a player’s gaming type is considered as a percentage distribution across all four types simultaneously.

18

Part of me wants to believe this is completely on the level and that you are both genuine and sincere about developing an application that would in no way jeopardize gamers, but actually enhance their interaction with the games they choose to play. Then there is the part of me that looks at this entire layout and smells some really incredible English in a ChatGPT format, which makes it extremely legible and understandable for someone who apologized for their English. The only other real hangup I have was the ability to provide your contact information so that folks could actually give this a try without fully understanding what all is baked into this application and how it could either improve or jeopardize their systems. I am both skeptical and cynical, and I would have to see a legitimate trusted website with all of the details before I would even go anywhere near any of this stuff.

1 Like
19

I understand your concern; I wouldn’t get involved with something like that either. As for ChatGPT, of course I’m using it here because I find it difficult to communicate adequately in English, and it would be foolish not to use new technologies that simplify this. However, I don’t really understand why people here are looking for something global and innovative, when it’s just a project as part of a university course and I asked who could help.

1 Like
20

This feels incredibly superfluous and misguided. MMOs didn’t fall off because people had choice paralysis or whatever - like half the point of an MMO is that you’re not so tightly held to the rails in the first place. They fell off because the concept of interacting with thousands of other players across the world at the same time was no longer novel (and the market was always fairly niche outside of WoW to begin with).

But I get that it’s for College. That’s fine. Hope you get the data you need.

1 Like