"Advanced" use of virtual worlds? (Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORP Gs & MUDs)

[Travis Casey]

On Wednesday 30 January 2002 4:03, Freeman, Jeff wrote:
> Travis Casey wrote:

>>> Roleplaying in an MMO means denying yourself a great wealth of
>>> interaction with other people.

>> How do you get this?  Contrary to what some zealots think, one
>> does not have to give up OOC interaction in order to roleplay.

>> Now, I agree that roleplayers are not "more advanced" -- they're
>> just playing the game in a different way.  However, I don't see
>> how roleplaying, in and of itself, denies someone any interaction
>> with other people.

> Mostly just being facetious.

> We can define RP so loosely that it pretty much includes everyone,
> particularly if you don't see slipping into and out of OOC on a
> whim as "not roleplaying".  But then I'd have to say MMO's are
> RPGs and *everyone* roleplays whether they know it or not.
> Really, everyone *does*, more often than not, mostly always, refer
> to their avatar as themselves: "*I* did this or that" as opposed
> to "My character did this or that."

> However, self-labeled Role-Players, from what I have seen, tend to
> reject definitions that broad.  If you OOC, ever, then you aren't
> roleplaying, even if you refer to your avatar in the 1st person.
> Roleplaying means, from that perspective, never breaking
> character.  Or maybe it's never breaking fiction, since being
> yourself means you cannot break character.

Being somewhat facetious:

To me, it's like angst.  Anyone can experience angst, and I'm sure
there are plenty of people who are full of angst but don't even know
what the word means.  However, there's a certain subset of people
who are self-labeled Full of Angst, who think that having angst
means dressing in black, writing bad poetry about how awful
everything is, and talking about Nietchze (sp?) all the time.

>From my point of view, the behavior of self-labeled "Roleplayers"
has as much to do with what roleplaying is as the behavior of the
self-labeled "Full of Angst" has to do with what angst really is.

> But if you don't OOC, then we're not interacting with on a
> player-to-player level, I'm interacting with your character, or
> not at all.

> So, I'll revise that original statement: Not ever breaking-fiction
> in an MMO means denying yourself a great wealth of interaction
> with other people.

That, I'll readily agree with.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' 
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