information Article MMORPG Evolution Analysis from Explorer and Achiever Perspectives: A Case Study Using the Final Fantasy Series Haolan Wang 1,2,†, Zeliang Zhang 1,† , Mohd Nor Akmal Khalid 1,3,*,† , Hiroyuki Iida 1,3,† and Keqiu Li 2,4,† 1 School of Information Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa 923-1211, Japan;
[email protected] (H.W.);
[email protected] (Z.Z.);
[email protected] (H.I.) 2 School of Computer Software, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China;
[email protected] 3 Research Center for Entertainment Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa 923-1211, Japan 4 Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Networking (TANK Lab), Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: Due to the advent of the Internet, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have been enjoyed worldwide by many players simultaneously, and game publishers’ revenues have reached billions of dollars from subscriptions alone. Frequent updates (e.g., version- ing) and new contents (e.g., quest system) are the typical strategies adopted by developers to keep MMORPG experiences fresh and attractive. What makes such strategies attractive and retains the interest of players in MMORPGs? This study focuses on one aspect of a popular MMORPG: the player’s experience of the quest systems of Final Fantasy XIV (FF14). The different quest systems were analyzed considering Bartle’s players’ classification, specifically for the explorers and achievers. From an information science perspective, such an analysis can be achieved via game refinement (GR) theory, which formulates the information of the game’s progression into a measurable model of game Citation: Wang, H.; Zhang, Z.; sophistication.