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

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

J C Lawrence wrote:

> Part of the problem here is that RP covers a sufficiently broad
> spectrum of activities and definitions that its difficult if not
> impossible to get a single conclusive definition -- especially
> since members towards the various edges of the definitional space
> tend to define those at the other edges as "not roleplay{ing|ers}.
> There's quite a lot of internal structure in there for such a core
> field, especially one which is so poorly represented on the list.

I have yet to meet roleplayers in large scale MUDs (MMOs) that do
not recognize my roleplay as roleplay and who complain about other
people's roleplay to any significant extent. The main concern seems
to be "how to get more people to add to the atmosphere and
drama". While there may be blurry borders players that add to the
roleplay experience are fully capable of recognizing each
other. Roleplayers in MMOs are happy that people roleplay at all!

Here is a characteristic for you: "roleplayers are those players who
pay attention to how talking about experiencepoints and game
mechanics may reduce the experience for other players". Here is a
definition: "A roleplayer is a player that intentionally 'paint' a
personality and emphasize drama through their activities".
Pragmatically I strongly suspect that most roleplayers tend to play
on their own emotional repertory and put a lot of qualities which
they identify with into their characters, while still maintaining a
separation between themselves and their characters. This is NOT the
same as being somebody in the virtual world which you cannot be in
the physical.

Now, there obviously is a subset of odd roleplayers that go to
message boards in order to debate their particular views of what
would be optimal or their odd perception of what roleplay is and
isn't. There also exist small MUD communities where a few people
enforce their strict norms on others. You also have some roleplayers
that insist on adopting their face-2-face style in virtual worlds,
which by necessity is different because in f2f OOC is signified by
sheer physical attributes (i.e. you need more "roleplay signifiers"
to achieve the same result).  These should be considered obscure
cases and not really descriptive of what constitutes "roleplay" as
it tends to evolve in a setting where people have some freedom to
develop their own norms. This type of roleplay you find in some
non-roleplay MUDs or large scale MUDs.

> Humans (largely) live to communicate.  To a very large extent,
> everything else is either window dressing or an excuse to
> communicate more.

Humans live to have their existence (and identities) confirmed... :P

Ola.
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