[MUD-Dev] It's just a game (?) [was: Information sharing]

[F. Randall Farmer]

> Greg Munt responded to 
>> (Me) F. Randall Farmer's response to
>>> Greg Munt's original paragraph:

>>> I am of the opinion that cancelling your account has a number of
>>> parallels to suicide. Those that deny this are "trivializing" the
>>> online experience.

>> I am of the opinion that making generalizations about any
>> equivalence between "canceling an online account" and a real-life
>> suicide trivializes real-life suicide. This is especially sensitive
>> to people who know people who have committed/attempted suicide.

> You are trying to interpret online events in a real-life way. The
> suicide comparison is simply a metaphor to convey an idea.

Actually, I'm interpreting your post to this list as written by a real
human being. We were discussing how we might interpret "canceling an
account" (a real world event) in the in context of game play, and the
use or misuse of the real world "metaphor" of suicide in describing
this act. My post addressed my thoughts from several points of view:
That of the canceling player AND the characters in world who would not
be interacting with the reaped character. I don't see myself
restricting my view as you state above (and several more times
throughout). I'll see if I can clarify some points.

> Someone doesn't want to go on with their life. Or doesn't want to
> deal with an event that has, will or may happen. So they end their
> life. In "virtual" terms, ending your life can be equated with
> canceling your account.

Please support this statement. Why isn't canceling an account more
like emigration? Why must it be the death metaphor? Especially in
worlds where there is no perma-death; in those worlds in-world death
has an entirely different meaning.

>> Sure, there are people who cancel their accounts because they are
>> depressed. There are also people whose accounts are canceled
>> because they have committed R-L suicide. These are a tiny fraction
>> of the players.

> I don't believe I was talking about any player being depressed. The
> example that I gave was social exclusion, and a player's inability
> to deal with it.  This may cause in-game depression, which could
> very feasibly cause in-game suicide.

Ok, add "social exclusion" to the group I mentioned above. You admit
that this is a form of depression (or at least acting-out.) I agreed
that this does happen, in a minority of cases. Thank goodness!

>> Without a doubt in my mind, most accounts are cancelled (characters
>> reaped/recycled) for reasons completely unrelated to depression or
>> any other suicide-like issues, in world or out. If it were any
>> other way, I'd leave this industry immediately: Who wants to work
>> on something that has people quit only in virtual or real
>> body-bags? Yipe!

> This is overexaggeration used in an attempt to win an argument by
> its shock value. Where did "real body-bags" have any relevance to
> this thread? We are not talking about real-life suicide.

I've never won an argument by shock value. It was not my intent.:-)

I meant what I wrote: If our players ALWAYS quit via either real
suicide (has happened) or in-world suicide (as we agree does happen),
I'd quit the business in a second.

The intensity of your reaction to my comment demonstrates perfectly my
point about the use of power-word metaphors, like "suicide." I
unintentionally triggered the same response in you that your original
post triggered in me! :-)

> We are talking about a player ending the life of a character.

Here's were we fundamentally disagree. Characters do not intrinsically
have life a life to "end" just because they have records with names in
a database.

>> Mules are recycled like used toilet paper. They a used and thrown
>> away. No attachment. No suicide here. They never developed any
>> particular relationship with others.

> You are missing the point. The existence of a mule does not
> constitute life.  Mules are not life; they "never completed fleshed
> out" - in fact, I'd argue that they aren't ever fleshed out at all!

Then, please take a moment defining what it takes to have a life that
a player can willfully take in "suicide."

Can we end this debate quickly and say the following?:

"Some people take their characters in online games so seriously that
they play out ritual character suicide when they cancel their
accounts." No one denies this.

What prompted my post was the generalization in your original post. I
made the case that in most cases Reaping is NOT Suicide.  I think that
your generalization is less than helpful, and I took umbrage that you
said that by holding this opinion I was "trivializing" the online
experience.

Perhaps this is just a problem of logic: Players acting out Character
Suicide will most often include Reaping/Canceling.  But the reverse is
not true, by your own admission re:Mules.

If this is enough for you, stop reading now. If I've missed the boat,
read on... :-) It gets squishier!

> Account cancellation does not mean not using your account
> anymore. It means canceling your account.

How can others in the world tell the difference (unless you tell them
or the system tells them?) If they can't tell, how can it be suicide
to them?

>> A large number of accounts are cancelled in the fall because Johnny
>> isn't doing his homework. Sometimes Johnny is an adult and does
>> this for himself; sometime it's his parents. Suicide is often
>> accompanied by a sense of the loss of control of one's life. This
>> case may well be interpreted of Johnny putting his life back under
>> his control, not losing it. If it's his parents canceling the
>> account, are they committing virtual murder? Grounding <> Murder!

> I disagree. A life has been ended. Sounds like murder to me. Instead
> of looking at things from the real world, look at them from the game
> world - from the world which the character lived in.

Where Johnny's mules murdered too? I guess I'm just not getting your
definition of in-world "life." When does Johnny's character get
imbibed with life enough to commit suicide or be murdered by his
parents?

>> Then there's service cancellation by TOS and/or legal reasons. This
>> is probably where the life/death metaphors disturbs me the
>> most. The natural extension of this metaphorical space says this
>> kind of cancellation is murder, or divine judgment. Again, words
>> with very deep meanings and social baggage of their own. Canceling
>> your account for harassing the girls or hacking the system is *not*
>> the same as me coming into your house an poisoning you or your dog.

> Again, you need to look at this from the game-world side, rather
> than from the real world. If your account is cancelled by someone
> other than the player, how is this different to them being given
> permadeath-poison in-game?

It's a world of difference. Accounts can be reactivated. The player
knows the difference. In some worlds, the other players can tell the
difference. The players KNOW that the service is run by a real-world
company with real-world rules and if they break them, their accounts
will be cancelled. This is NOT in-world murder.

There is no wall separating the company, the software, the server, the
world, RL, the player, and the character. They are all merged.  Each
effects the other, piercing the veil(s) dozens (hundreds?) of times
each user-session.

In-world permadeath poison is a in-world peril, presumably a part of
the experience designed for the character. If he imbibes it, he dies
of poison. A character death by definition. It doesn't matter if he
drank it on purpose (suicide), accident (ignorance/bad UI), or because
the evil wizard made him (murder.) The player is upset. The other
characters have much roleplaying to do at a funeral, and maybe an evil
wizard to repay.

TOS violation enforcement is part of the experience of the player. The
player loses access to the character. There are at least three *other*
common metaphors for this action: Banishment, Imprisonment,
Deportation (or Forced Emigration.) In my case I don't think any
specific character metaphor is required. The player got his account
cancelled/suspended. If anyone gets ticked, it's the PLAYERS who may
feel the cancellation/suspension was an injustice, etc. The players
may take their action OOC to the DevBoard or transfer their
displeasure to their characters acting out...

These are VERY different things.

>> This metaphor has a weakness at its core: In order for a character
>> to be murdered/commit suicide (via account
>> cancellation/reaping/etc.), it must first be alive. Characters are
>> ideas that are manifested as bits in a set of computers and in the
>> imaginations of the people who interact with them. Though they may
>> be alive in some people's imaginations, that does not make them
>> alive at all. Some may act out a character suicide "performance",
>> but that doesn't make it so. Heck, in AC you can clone a exact(1st
>> level) copy of the same chacter. What kind of life is that?

> It depends on your definition of life. If life requires a physical
> container, sure. Can people you've never met commune with the
> essence of what is you? Yes. A character is not a collection of
> bits. If anything, the bits are the character's body. The "life" is
> provided by the player - and can be taken away by the player, too.

>> Oh yeah: I don't think that "It's just a game."  It is more than a
>> game, but it is much less than a life.

> That's a rather ill-defined definition. Would you care to elaborate?
> Remember that we are talking about in-game life - not real life.

OK. I'll do it if you will, especially since my very point is that we
should be careful how we use our metaphors. :-) A point that I am fi
nding easier to defend each post. :-)

>From Webster's:

  Main Entry: life [noun]

  1 a : the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional
        being from a dead body
  1 b : a principle or force that is considered to underlie
        the distinctive quality of animate beings
  1 c : an organismic state characterized by capacity for
        metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and
        reproduction
  2 a : the sequence of physical and mental experiences that
        make up the existence of an individual
    b : one or more aspects of the process of living.

[Note: there are many entries there, I invite the interested parties
to read them all. This is the definition that applies from my POV.]

I'll defer to the list to define this so-called in-game life.  Perhaps
a new thread is in order?

Keep in mind that I'll be a tough critic though. It'll be put to the
Chess Knight, Barbie, Monopoly Hat, Plastic Soldier, and the "how can
you tell?" tests, to name a few. :-)

Starting to hunt around for my copy of The Velveteen Rabbit in
preparation for my inevitable attitude adjustment ... Randy

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