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

[J C Lawrence]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:55:50 +0000 (GMT) 
Matt Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> wrote:

> See, I'd say that roleplayers are using less of their brain,
> myself, and experiencing less emotionally. A role is like putting
> on a mask. It is comforting, and shelters you emotionally to some
> extent. It is easier to endure humiliation, for instance, with a
> mask on.

> By far the highest level of emotional experience I've ever seen in
> MUDs comes from people who are dealing with each other, rather
> than roleplaying. It's players who met online, fell in love, and
> are having a fight. Their emotions were not pretend. THEY were
> infatuated with each other, not the characters. It's players who
> have spent time ICQing and AIMing each other, and totally get off
> on crushing their enemies, together. Etc. The roleplayers I see
> always seem somewhat sedated. 

Which assumes that "true emotion" cannot be the result of conscious
decision -- that you cannot decide to be happy, angry, sad or
whatever, and actually have and experience that emotion fully and
without reserve.

I don't buy it.  

> Calm and calculated in their behavior, which is great for
> roleplaying, but doesn't make me think much of its capability for
> emotional experience.

There's an implicit divide here between subjective and objective
perception.  All of the analytical commentary by roleplayers that I
currently recall/find has been written from the point of defining
subjective perception; of what viewpoints, effects, results, and
events occurred within their own mental landscape during and as a
result of roleplaying.  Conversely the more GoP commentary (not that
GoP is opposed to RP, but that's another discussion) concentrates on
objective perception, or if you wish, what can or could be seen by
others not intimately involved in the individual mental landscapes
of the RP'ers involved.

  Its likely that this represents only a subset of the RP spectrum
  -- for instance storytelling RP players would seem significantly
  more interested in objective perception than others.

Do you play to be seen to achieve X, or to achieve X?

--
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
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