FW: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[Jon Lambert]

John Buehler wrote:
 
> My only point was that the player and the character are not
> interchangeable.  This is an obvious statement, but to read people's
> posts, you'd never think that they believed it.  Depending on the
> software, the balance point between what the player contributes and
> what the character contributes to the game experience will vary.

*kof*  

There are many more positions on this than yours or Matt Mihaly's.  I
think Matt's position is fairly clear; In summary, there is no
distinction between character and player.  And I know from past posts
that he is/was even dubious about heavy roleplayers drawing that
distinction.  I tend to agree with that position in regards to
_games_.  And he does seem to have come around to the notion that
heavy roleplayers really do intentionally make or create such
distinctions between player and character.  Whether he thinks it's
real/artificial or useful isn't really an issue here.  What is
interesting is that he has reversed that idea that a game which
implements separation of character and player identity would attract
heavy roleplayers.  I would suggest that it does not.  Strong
separation of character and player are the observable effects or
consequences of a roleplaying game.  It's something that doesn't
require code nor can it be coded, nor can it be enforced by code!
Roleplaying is 99% communication.  Sure one can manually enforce use
of channels and what not.  However the reverse notion simply doesn't
follow.  That is creating a "game" that implements strong separation
of character and player identity does not have the effect of creating
a roleplaying game nor does it attract roleplayers.

--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD        Email:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://tychomud.home.netcom.com> *--
--* If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.*--

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