[MUD-Dev2] Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants)

[Sean Howard]

"Shannon Sullivan" <sdshannons at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/2/07, Jeffrey Kesselman <jeffpk at gmail.com> wrote:
>> To roleplayers, acting tools (chat, emotion etc) is everything.
>>
>> To strategic players, its virtually nothing.
>
> My experience has shown that even strategic players will use emotes to
> make rude gestures, taunt, and generally heap abuse on other players
> and/or mobs.

This is absolutely true, but I'd say not limited to just flicking off
others. I'm a hardcore soloer and a vocal opponent of forced grouping and
socializing (I'd rather deal with a vending machine than another player,
and by golly, I deserve the right to have that option). However, I have
used emotes as a sort of secondary socializing - a way to communicate with
other players without directly involving myself in discussion. Ego once
removed.

For instance, in Guild Wars, some jerk was spamming the local channel that
he would give a plat to the hottest chick that danced in her underwear for
him. So, being a big bulky male warrior, I decided that his meat market
needed a bit more sausage. Following my lead, this guy eventually had a
dozen males of all shapes and ugliness prancing around in their underwear
with not a single bra and panty in sight. It was quite effective in
shutting him up, whereas the people who actually engaged in conversation
with him (calling him a teenager who needed higher standards in wank
material - though said with less politeness and vocabulary) just got in a
rather nasty session of name calling and insults.

Despite the verbosity of my posts on the internet, I do not like talking
in game. However, I am more than willing to communicate through emotes if
possible - it just rarely is. Some of my most interesting encounters in
World of Warcraft have been with Alliance players (I'm Horde) who couldn't
use verbal communication at all (good thing, those Night Elves, you know?)
- so we used emotes and body language to insinuate things about each
other's stench and propensity for engaging in sexual favors with
particular farm animals.

Perhaps it is that emoting allows me to isolate myself from truer social
interactions. I don't know. It is probably for this reasons that I don't
use the headset when I play my Xbox 360 online. I'll play with other
people as long as I don't have to talk to them. For the life of me, I
can't explain why, but it probably stems from the crippling social anxiety
I suffered through during my teenage and college years. If I had to guess,
I'd say that emotes boil down communication to the most basic gestures and
meaning. I don't have to read when they type "ur ghey" and I don't have to
worry about spelling "propensity" correctly under fire... or something.

These days, I stick to role playing servers where I role play a mute.

-- 
Sean Howard