A request for help... (MTG related)

[Sacosphilz]

About two years ago I started a little personal project inspired by MTG's Ravnica set - a questionnaire to find out people's color alignment in a very comprehensive manner. The effort went rigorously for a while, but there were a few problems:

1. While test results showed that the questionnaire was very accurate and detailed that it made WotC's official simple one looks like a joke, the joke's actually on me - I couldn't find many people who are willing to read through 50 philosophical lines of text and give 50 scores. (One version of it had 90 lines, and it had been scrapped very quickly.) I was disheartened, but I might have more hope in the quality of MagicDuel community.

2. Although I can give a pretty good explanations about what each different result means off the top of my head, I am too lazy to write them all down in nicely organized articles. According to my plans, they would consist of at least 25 articles, and I couldn't decide on the right format which would fit them all, much less writing them.

3. Some other minor and trivial issues, like how I would publish it in a format other than Excel, or if I had to start writing a website/blog just for it, or if someone will ask for proof of the questionnaire's integrity when I just wanted to do it for fun, or if WotC is going to sue me, etc. which only made me lazier.

(Long story short, I am lazy. >_>; )

To this day the project is still on hiatus.

All I want to ask is: If you're interested and want to have a taste of it or want to see it comes to fruition, please let me know and keep bugging me about it. Thanks.

Thank you for reading.

(I wrote that in depressed mode but it got better, so don't worry about me or flame me for it. ^-^; )

By the way, my primary color was blue, with green and white virtually tied at 2nd an 3rd.

[Chewett]

[Redacted]

Edited December 18, 2012 by Chewett
Redacted

[Raven]

why not

i'm in

[meiche]

I would give it a try too.

[Sol]

Sounds interesting... Sure, I'll try.

[Yilasbus]

Sounds interesting. =)

[Glaistig]

I've never played MTG, and I don't know the use of assigning a color to personality.. but I would try it out of curiosity.

[Bootes]

I Love the Idea of you Breaking down My Personality and Explaining it all In a System of Colors.

I Subject Myself to Your Questioning Good Sir...

[Faraday]

I Love the Idea of you Breaking down My Personality and Explaining it all In a System of Colors.

I Subject Myself to Your Questioning Good Sir...

I too am interested. Fav colour is green, hope that's good lol

[Sacosphilz]

Wow, thanks a lot, people. I think I have some will to work on it again, sorta.

Currently I'm dusting up my old Excel and making some adjustments, so I could share it here. Be warned though, that as I stated before, only the questions and calculations are available, but not the result summaries. They might just leaving you wondering even more what the five numbers you will get mean.

I still have to figure out how I'm going to get up from this hole after that.

[Morrggana]

I have an Idea sue WotC first

BUt serioussly there's such thing as word (which i like) that can do the formating of your prargraphs for you, correct your spelling errors & even make the paragraphs look pretty.

You can do it I know you can.

much luck

[Glaistig]

Lu volunteers.

[Sacosphilz]

Before you go download the attachment right away, here's some background: (Ok, a lot of background)

Enclosed in the zip file is an excel file which contains only the first half of the "questionnaire" - the questions and the resulting graph which tells you the composition of your "colors". The second half - which should contain detailed explanations - is currently non-existent except in my head, so I'm sorry for any confusion it may cause, and please don't expect it to be completed soon. But if you all keep bugging me to work on it, and possibly with some help, it should finish... eventually.

If you can't open an excel file, please let me know so I'll post a plain text version. However, a plain text version would have no calculations built in and you will have to send the filled out text file back to me for analysis.

Now what is this "color test" all about?

If you don't already know Magic: The Gathering (MTG for short) is, please look it up because I don't want to advertise for it here. Anyway, you don't really need to know the game to understand this questionnaire, but it helps a lot.

MTG categorizes the forces in its many universes into 5 colors: White, Blue, Black, Red, Green. Each color has its ideal, values and characteristics different from 4 others', and has its unique set of strengths and weaknesses.

I personally like the concepts of these "colors", especially their outlook on the world, their values, and how they naturally support or conflict with each other.

Mark Rosewater, currently Head Designer of the game, has written great articles on the philosophies of each color and each of the 10 possible 2-color combinations. The last of those series and the links to the other 14 articles can be found >here<.

For a quicker look at how the colors oppose each other, read >here<.

I love those articles, especially the ones on each of the 5 colors, but I felt there was something missing from the articles:

1. While his articles give very good explanation about the colors' philosophies, they openly make references to the game, which is fine for regular readers of that site, but I feel that those philosophies are interesting enough to be used in real world context as well. Those references also alienate non-MTG players from grasping the concepts which, in my opinion, are too cool to pass.

2. In his 10 articles on the two-color combinations, he mainly focused on what each two colors combined could mean without going into much detail, but I also want to know in more detail what the intersection of each two colors mean. The same is true for intersections in 3-color combinations, which never got their own articles at all.

In a way, I wanted to rewrite those articles and try to apply them in the real world, but I am in no way close to a good writer that he is, so I just settled with this questionnaire for now, with the following assumptions:

- Each (sane) person is composed of all 5 colors, but with different amounts of them, representing our different priorities.

- Not only your primary color can tell what you're like. I believe that the 2nd and 3rd colors, as well as any variation in your color composition, matter. But for now, I'll focus on what each possible combination of dominant 1-, 2- or 3- colors mean.

The "messages" in the "test" comes from various places. Some are classic or famous quotes. Some are excerpts from people and places I've come across. (which I couldn't remember, shame on me) Some are personally crafted by me. While I try to make them all sound convincing, there is no right or wrong way to judge them. Just give the scores according to how you think or feel.

There would be longer explanations but this is already long enough. Thank you if you've read it this far. If there are any more questions please ask away. I'm sure there will be.

Disclaimer:

- Results' explanations currently not available. They may or may not be given and/or compiled later at my own whim. (But hopefully I'll work on it. ) So unless you have a pretty good idea what these colors represent, you may be left confused and unsatisfied. Please channel your frustration to good use, like forcing me to work on those explanations.

- May contain difficult and/or broken English. Simple English version may be provided later on request, but not promised.

- Due to lack of test subjects, result accuracy is currently guaranteed for only straight male test takers.

EDIT: A new version has been posted >here<

colortest_v10_locked.zip

[Glaistig]

Hmm.. my results, in order of greatest to least value:

Blue = 161

Green = 31

Red = -4

White = -19

Black = -169

Now, I know that the second part which explains the results hasn't been completed yet, but reading a little of the MTG articles supplied and also knowing societal stereotypes of what emotions and values colors represent, I'm not sure that's entirely accurate if I assume the concepts are similar. I was thinking of saying why, but I'll wait until you get those explanations out.

You have the responsibility now! I took some time and spent effort thinking in order to assess my feelings about those statements, and I don't want it to be for nothing.

[Raven]

White = 52

Blue = 87

Black = -33

Red = -108

Green = 2

Hurry up on explanations

[Lulu]

lol T_T blue again. If you mix blue and green. . . you get turqoise!

I'd rather it more green than blue though >_> you know, pale green, 66CC66 or 339900 or 339933, similar, you know? :/ Just concerning the aesthetics part, you know.

Order from highest to lowest:

blue = 85

green = 45

white = 0

black = -55

red = -75

I assume white is zero, but there isn't a bar nor a score under it that says it is 0. I can assume it is 0 because when I tried decreasing the points I gave one message by a unit, the bar did appear with the score 5 under it, and when I increased the points I gave that same message by a unit, the bar appeared with the score -5. It kind of tripped me up, because even if it's 0 the bar should appear on the graph. Otherwise, it looks like I received -1000. :/ I guess it just doesn't recognize/register the value 0. . .

Anyway, seeing it at the scale shown on the graph, and seeing that you can get as much as 1000 (or as low as -1000) for one color, I suppose I actually got pretty similar scores for all of them. I always was one to be uncertain.

For some of the messages I wasn't sure how to answer. It was a bit troublesome that they were put like statements, or even worse if they had "always" or "never" in them, since I generally believe there is no certainty like that. So when one of them was like: "Use of violence in any form is unnecessary and never lead to anything fruitful," I felt like putting 1, or disagreeing, for I disagree that violence will /never/ lead to anything fruitful; on the other hand, I generally believe that violence shouldn't be used, so I thought about putting 3.

Now that I think about it, I suppose it can sort of make sense for something to "usually" "never" lead to anything fruitful, but it still perplexed me (you missed the "s" for lead there, the subject is singular; if you ever modify this 1st part, you should add that "s" in ). I think most of the time I ignored the specific "never"'s and such, and just put points according to the general underlying belief, though not always. ~_~ It's just my problem. For the same reason, I never used 5, or "This message is always true in any situation," except for "We can't really judge anyone whether they are right or wrong, good or evil, for such concepts are inabsolute and varying," which of course is paradoxical (I chose 5 for it because I believed it reflected my belief that nothing is certain, but choosing 5 contradicts that very belief).

lol >_>;

In any case, I bet my score may be inaccurate due to the reasons listed above. I still look forward to the analysis, though, so : Go! Go! Explanations go!

Oh, another thing: every time I entered a number, the definition of that number came up. It was useful to remind me, but it was also bothersome to have to press backspace every time I wanted to enter something. Not /that/ bothersome, but eh.

[Sacosphilz]

Ugh, the weight of responsibility...... >_>;

It's not that the second part isn't completed yet, but there was barely any progress to it, only failed attempts. Maybe I should just wing it and compile later? Maybe it should just be left open for discussion and never fully concluded like my theory was absolute truth when it really isn't.

Let me put the simpler things out of the way first:

(this might end up way longer than I expect)

(EDIT: right, it did)

1. If you can go through the trouble of reading all those articles and you either understand the heavy references to the game or you can grasp the other concepts past those references, you will pretty much understand what the colors represent. Whatever explanations I give won't be contradicting much with those articles, if any at all. But hopefully I could add something to it.

2. Here is how I usually read the test results:

(From this point on, I mainly use my own presumptions to analyze. I have absolutely no proof about the reliability of my method should you question it, but I felt it was quite right and people were saying it was quite accurate, so why not? )

2.1. I first look at the 5 values individually without combining them. Each of these represent how you prioritize the 5 'ideals' of the 5 colors:

White - Peace (for everyone to be able to live in peace)

Blue - Omniscience (to know everything)

Black - Omnipotence (the power to do everything)

Red - Freedom (for everyone to be able to express themselves unrestricted)

Green - Nature (to preserve nature, life, and to maintain the status quo)

2.2. Then I look at the two highest values. They represent your priority of what I nickname 'secondary values'. While they're not your highest ideal, they're usually less abstract and much more attainable, concepts which guide your actions or the tools that help you do so:

White/Blue - Structure, Organization

Blue/Black - Secrecy, Deception, Manipulation

Black/Red - Individuality (one decides for oneself), Hedonism (having fun)

Red/Green - Simplicity (dirt simple), Spontaneity (following one's impulses)

Green/White - Community, Cooperation, Interdependence

White/Black - Pride, "Always means business"

Blue/Red - Creativity, Freethinking

Black/Green - Survival of the Fittest, Personal growth

Red/White - Justice, Righteousness

Green/Blue - Potential realization, Neutrality in perspective

2.3. Finally I look at the three highest values. They're usually too vague to represent tight concepts, but they can tell a bit about your outlook of the world:

(These are a bit longer than the previous two sections because they can't be found anywhere else. For the other two sections, please help yourself with MaRo's articles for now. >_> )

Green/White/Blue - Believes in harmony. Believes that everything has something to be appreciated and they can all fit together somehow without anything being left out. Hates discord brought about by Black and Red.

White/Blue/Black - Believes in subtlety. Believes that the best way to accomplish things is to plan and talk it over in civilized manner and bend the deal in your favor. Hates Red's and Green's wild, barbaric and unnegotiable nature.

Blue/Black/Red - Believes in one's own excellence. Is out there to show the world that it's different and better than everyone else, to show who's the boss. Hates Green's and White's tendency to destroy individuality and force everyone into conformity.

Black/Red/Green - Believes in one's own liberty. Believes that everyone should be left on their own accord and make their own choices, no matter what those choices are. Hates White and Blue for trying to put restrictions on everything.

Red/Green/White - Believes in honesty. Believes that everything is more easily managed when all facts are made clear. Hates Blue and Black for their deceptions and lies.

White/Black/Red - Believes in the power of conviction. Will not give up if it sets a target on something and will do everything imaginable and more to achieve its goals. Hates Green's and Blue's indifferent nature.

Blue/Red/Green - Believes in the joy of living life. Believes that the best goal in life is just to live it and treasure the experience, discoveries and/or memories, without tying oneself down with any rigid agenda. Hates White's and Black's way of being too serious and losing their souls in their 'businesses'.

Black/Green/White - Believes in life's purpose. Believes that it was born to fulfill an important role or mission and will not yield until that role or mission has been completed. Hates Blue and Red for experimenting and playing around too much without settling for any real goal in particular.

Red/White/Blue - Believes in a better world. Optimistically believes that what it does can make the world a better place somehow, no matter if it really has a plan or not. Hates Black and Green for refusing to change the world but exploiting it further.

Green/Blue/Black - Believes in self-improvement. Has a disillusioned perspective of the world and sees it as a cruel place in which one should stay strong and smart in order to improve the chance of survival. Hates Red and White for disrupting everything with their false sense of 'freedom', 'justice' and 'righteousness'.

(Up to this point I've just touched the tip of the iceberg. Did you see the potential for 25 more articles? I do, and I'm despairing over it now. >_<" )

I'll leave the 'description' of the colors and color combinations at this for today. Let me know which part you want to hear more of. Better yet, let me know if you wish to help. >_<;

Other tidbits:

3. While the graph's scale may extend quite high (and low), most people won't get such extreme scores. One of the things I do is summing up all positive scores (or all negative scores - they all add up to zero if you haven't realized already) and look at its absolute value. Here's my rough categorization: (subject to possible major changes later)

0 to 50 - You're normal. Period. Too normal, in fact, that I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you. You can blend in with most people of any nature, and any of the colors' philosophies will sound agreeable and to you and kind of works for you, though none may hit the spot.

50 to 100 - You have a slight character. People still don't see anything special about your priorities, but you do have some of them set.

100 to 200 - You have some character. You display some qualities (other than your looks, performance, grades, wealth) that make you stand out a bit. People still regard you as perfectly sane and normal, but with a slight but distinctly interesting and/or annoying personality (depending on their preferences). At this level, the 'philosophies' of you colors will likely click to you, while some others start to seem questionable.

200 to 350 - Strong character. You and other people both notice the difference in your distinct attitude and theirs. You take your colors' philosophies (or a similar version) to heart and live it.

350 to 500 - Pretty extreme. You may often get into conflict with other people because of your character.

500 or more - You're probably insane, an avatar of extreme ideal(s). >_>;

(I tried putting on fictional characters' mindsets and took the test as well, and it was fun experiment. For example, Kamina got about +500 on the Red scale. No, I don't have a point in particular. Just wanted to make that reference. >_> )

4. It was fun working on the 'first half' of this test, and I must've edited the 'messages' at least a few dozen times already. The funny thing is, sometimes I came across new realizations on some particular color combination or I though I had found serious flaws and my list of 'messages' and promptly corrected and re-tested it, only to discover that the test results never seemed to change in any significant manner at all. Never.

5. During the first tryouts of the test among my friends and acquaintances, I found that most of them scored highest in Red and Green, and it seemed like I was the only one in Blue. For MagicDuel community, however, I expect the majority of us to be in Blue, but we shall see......

@Lulu:

Thanks for finding the error(s).

I do notice the problems with frequency words such as 'always', 'never', 'usually' but I really don't know what to do with them. I did try to take them out whenever possible because I knew it might screw up with the scoring otherwise, but some lines just sound better or more right with them in. Since most people seem to get it and learn to look pass those words anyway I don't worry much about them. (with the exception of one of my friends who literally only gave 0's and 5's) But if you have any suggestions on how to make them better, please let me know.

[Lulu]

Well, the ones that were just put as statements without the "usually," "never" or "always" (yeah, I don't know what you call those. . . okay, they're adverbs of frequency, I looked it up DX) worked for me, because then I didn't find it conflicting for something to be "generally" "never" or "always (the case)" usually, and so on, and I didn't have to focus on whether I agreed about the extent of which the message was so. So for the example I used earlier, "Use of violence in any form is unnecessary and never leads to anything fruitful," I wouldn't be troubled if it was "Use of violence is unnecessary and does not lead to anything fruitful." But I can see what you mean when you say they give a better impression of the belief you want to convey when they have those. . . adverbs of frequency.

Do you want feedback on whether we think the results are accurate? :-D. . .

2.1- My top color is blue (omniscience).

I do like knowing things, but I'm not sure if I esp. care about it more than peace, freedom, power, and nature . I suppose that's why I got close enough scores anyway.

2.2- My top two colors are blue and green (neutrality in perspective and potential realization).

Hmm... I did say I'm neutral, as in, vague and uncertain about things, but I don't mean in the sense of indifference about whatever happens. Although I'd like to uhh, come to my full potential. Whatever that would be, heh.

2.3- My top three colors are blue, green and white: "Believes in harmony. Believes that everything has something to be appreciated and they can all fit together somehow without anything being left out. Hates discord brought about by Black and Red."

Hum. . . sure, I like harmony, and I believe there's a balance to everything that's needed. I don't really know if, ah, I create harmony, though. Yup, I believe there's something to be appreciated in everything. I don't know if "they" can all fit together, though, even if the former is true. I don't think black and red (individuality and having fun) are wrong, though people, who, ah, do things they think are fun (talking) while disrupting me annoys me, and I tell them to stop. Being an individual seems a good thing to me, though society's general will means the majority, so if you go against it too much, then you're causing more people pain.

2.4- The sum of my positive/negative scores is 130: "You have some character. You display some qualities (other than your looks, performance, grades, wealth) that make you stand out a bit. People still regard you as perfectly sane and normal, but with a slight but distinctly interesting and/or annoying personality (depending on their preferences). At this level, the 'philosophies' of you colors will likely click to you, while some others start to seem questionable."

Hmm... I guess so, though I think I see how each color philosophy makes sense.

Have fun writing your twenty-some articles. I'm sure it'll be interesting, just time-consuming, right?

[Glaistig]

Interesting; I had thought that you might assign characteristics to people based on the results, but it was more related to people's values and beliefs. I don't have any complaints, except there is no section for people who get positive values for less than 3 colors (don't negative values mean you don't really agree with concepts which correspond to that color?). I can see myself getting different results retaking the test, but I expect that eventually, when I have thought about statement thoroughly, I'll determine my colors.

... Do you still have that 90-question one saved? Like, see, maybe not too much work to make it work? No? Mmkay, I was only wondering.

I'd say the section about the three colors with the highest values is the one that can be developed most. You don't say which color each aspect of the beliefs originates from, and they're more involving than the other two sections. As it is, I can understand the logic behind it if I take some time to think about the colors and the other two sections.

What do you mean by "help"? Speaking of which, I should go back to homework.

EDIT: Oh, I want to do what Lu did. Maybe another time, I guess.

[Sacosphilz]

Thanks for your feedback.

Just for reference, my latest result is:

White = -6

Blue = 299

Black = -171

Red = -116

Green = -6

I took it again right away and my positive values broke 350, not a good sign. >_>

You can try taking it again if you have time. I'm sure the results will change for most people, but they won't change much.

@Lulu:

Oh, so they're called 'adverbs of frequency', thanks.

Now that I've read and taken the test again, I think removing some of those words might be better. Also in need of revision are words like 'every', 'any', 'no', 'all', etc. I guess another change is called for.

Those 25 or so articles may not be so interesting to write. >_> I have more fun when I can compare different philosophies in the same context, seeing what they have in common, where they conflict, etc. The problematic scenario that occurred when I tried to write a separate article for each philosophy was like:

- I began drafting the structure for each article.

- I drafted 1-2 articles and left them for review later.

- I drafted a few more articles, found myself unhappy with the format and had to rework the older ones again, so they're never finished.

So I'm thinking - What if instead of writing the article for each color or color combination separately, how about one article for each aspect of ALL philosophies? So far I've only detailed the colors' values and ideals, but many parts are still missing, to name a few:

- The colors' preferred methods for achieving their goals.

- The colors' strengths and weaknesses. (People's own weaknesses are the hardest thing to accept, and if the test tries to tell it to their faces, it can provoke negative feedbacks. But that is also the reason I find it one of the more interesting parts. I would consider this test a success only if it can also nail down people's weaknesses accurately and make them accept.)

- For the two- or three- color combinations, why do I think they exclusively share the values I say they do and why the other colors don't?

@Glaistig:

The 90-question version isn't as refined as this one. It's more like a less pruned version with yet-to-be-dropped quotes included. It also requires almost twice the effort for relatively the same results, so I would rather not bother with it again.

There isn't much difference between a value being positive or negative, really. Those numbers are arbitrary anyway - earlier versions have all the numbers in the positive, for example. But since I wanted to create a referencing point of balance, the graph has been changed to the current version instead. The most important features of the results are:

1. What colors come 1st, 2nd, 3nd, 4th and 5th.

2. How far apart they are, compared among themselves and compared to other people of interest.

For instance, with the result you posted earlier, Blue and Green obviously were first and second, but since Red and White were quite close, I would imply that the outlooks of Blue-Green-Red and Green-White-Blue are equally agreeable to you.

As for the sections that haven't been expanded enough yet, which one do you think I should work on first? My ideas for now are as mentioned in the reply to Lulu. And yes, the characteristics will be included too.

[Glaistig]

Hmm.. the first two parts you listed

- The colors' preferred methods for achieving their goals.

- The colors' strengths and weaknesses.

are assigning characteristics to people, not just values or beliefs. In that case, I might have some complaint, as valuing a certain belief doesn't mean you do things accordingly. I'm interested in how you'd handle it, so those are the ones I'd like to see first. Probably the latter more than the former.

Oh, but since you have the section about the two- or three- color combinations partially done and the last unfinished part (For the two- or three- color combinations, why do I think they exclusively share the values I say they do and why the other colors don't?) you listed is related to them, I kind of feel like you should do that. Um, just because I'm a organization freak, so it doesn't matter. x)

[Sacosphilz]

I've updated the 'messages' according to Lulu's suggestion and also include a plain text file for those who don't have Excel.

colortest_v10_2.zip

[Ren]

Like I told you in the Sanctuary, I don't have the exact numbers, but they were around:

Black: 250ish

Blue: 180-200

Green: 44 <- somehow just remember this number

Red: -60ish

White: -150ish

[Sacosphilz]

Like I told you in the Sanctuary, I don't have the exact numbers, but they were around:

Black: 250ish

Blue: 180-200

Green: 44 <- somehow just remember this number

Red: -60ish

White: -150ish

The numbers always sum up to 0, so some of them must be quite off. But thanks for the info anyway.

...or, you could always take the test again.

[Ren]

well, i'm positive black and blue were sky high, green just above the positive, red a fair distance under positive, and white in the freaking underworld. lol