[MUD-Dev] Pay for Play (or Commercial Rolecall)

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Freeman <SkeptAck at antisocial.com>
>From: "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com>
>
>> A few months back, Verant banned a player from EQ for Roleplaying.

> No, the player was banned for writing a story about rape in the
> world of Norrath.  Had nothing to do with ropleplaying whatsoever.

So RP that takes place on discussion forums doesn't count?

>> "Dark Elf Torture Porn", posting them to a fansite RP board.  

> EQ is a game for kids.  Rape, in any context, gets you an "R" rating
> (for those on the list not from the U.S. - "R" stands for "Not for
> kids"... has something to do with New Math).

It wasn't in the game.  Much of the RP stories that are posted to
those boards is a little "Blue", this wasn't much more extreme or less
appropriate for kids than the bump-fuzzle crowd.  Again, EQ's "Teen"
rating is probably due to the ESRB rater not having played an evil
race and seeing the dismembered corpses and implied cannabilism to be
found in the game, Mystere's stories, taken in context, fit.  Which,
of course, is probably why Verant felt they had to respond
drastically.

>> So yes, paying customers can be banned for RP the game operators
>> feel is inappropriate.

> Writing a story and posting it on a fansite isn't roleplaying.

It also isn't in the game.  The *player*, a paying customer, did
something outside of the game which was intended as roleplay, and lost
his account over it.

>> The interesting thing about this was that it was RP that occurred
>> entirely outside of the game.

> What I find interesting about it is that people call it RP.

> The title of the news blurb should be "Player banned for writing
> torture rape story based in Norrath" instead of, say, "Banned for
> roleplaying".

You say Too-may-toe, I say Toe-maht-toe.  The question is, if a player
can be banned for writing a torture-rape story, can he also be banned
for racial-hatred stories (when the races are fictional)?  Should we
start banning players for troll-speak?  What other out-of-game actions
can they be banned for?  Should we also ban convicted sex-offenders?
Drunk drivers?  People who commit "adultery" with consensual "hot
chat" through EQ /tell?

Even the most social and innocuous of online games has its seemy side,
wasn't Dr. Cat sharing an anecdote a month or so back about a player
pretending to be a squirrel cybering with a player pretending to be a
horse (and both of them males pretending to be females) in Furcadia?
How many layers of "icky" are in there?

> Since roleplaying had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Since it is possible to endlessly split hairs over what is and isn't
roleplay, I'll simply state that the author and the audience of the
board he posted to felt it was roleplay.  Nobody else is entitled to a
judgement.

--Dave Rickey

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