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

[Freeman]

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.

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.


Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
> Jeff Freeman wrote:

>> Actually, from my own perspective, I started out roleplaying in
>> the MMO environment and "advanced" beyond it.  In fact, I've
>> never met anyone that started out Not roleplaying and then
>> eventually "advanced into it".  It's always been the other way
>> around.

> You mean they gave up on it?

They gave up on the definition of RP so narrow that it precludes
breaking fiction.

>From my own perspective, MMO's are just more fun if I never think
about what roleplaying is and who might or might not be doing it.

People "just being themselves" are more interesting and compelling
to me than any characters they might dream up.

Well, unless they're really, really good at it and I just don't even
realize that they aren't being themselves - but even then the big
payoff is the result of not wondering about it too much.
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