Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>Sayeed wrote:
>I wasn't strictly talking about immersion as a roleplayer, but being
>immersed into the environment. That is, feeling present, being in control
>of your own body (my character's body is my body, and it is the real me
>you are offending) etc.
I was focusing on the immersion of people who role-play a character
in-context with the established history, environment, etc. of the mud,
but I think (agree?) that immersion is largely independent of style of play.
>There are a wide variety of roleplaying types. You have those that
>roll-play (stat/strategy driven), those that go for in-context simulation
>(based on history or fiction), those that go for creating a dramatic
>context, those that go for mindgames etc. I am personally of the
>dramatic/create-your-own-story/mindgames type, not of the simulation type
>that are willing to work in the fields. I don't think immersion depends
>on "realism" (newbies being an exception). I don't think roleplaying
>depends upon the environment either, although the environment can provide
>a good stage, with nice props and tools.
Realism doesn't necessarily mean working in the fields or permanent
death from the lowest orc. I tend to believe in a world if it has a
relatively convincing cause/effect environment. Again, not necessarily
'realistic,' in an Einsteinium (since he's such a topic these days :->)
physics sort of way, but in a belief that the effect is worthy of the
cause sort of way (with muds being able to justifiably warp classic
cause/effect beliefs). An aspect of this would be risk/reward situations.
This has a great affect on immersion. If I play a stock market game,
it's just a game to me, enjoyable depending on how much ego/time/etc
I risk, but if I put real money into it, then I'm much more 'immersed.'
(I'll tell you the real truth of this in about a week or two :-<)
Similarly, if a player risks his character when fighting a monster,
it will be more immersive/real for him.
>> Though all games cross over into our real lives in some ways, role-players
>> want muds to do solely this. They want muds to, as much as possible, BE
>> our real worlds. This is a role-player's immersion.
>
>Hmm... If somebody harass in-character it is more easily accepted,
>probably because it is not seen as being motivated by an objective
>judgement about the person being harassed... MUDs are real (IRC is real
>too), perhaps more real for non-roleplayers than for the roleplayers?
>Roleplayers actually believe that the MUD-world IS different from the
>physical world, that it is and should be entirely disconnected and
>preserved as a valid "unreality". In the roleplaying paradigm no
>character or moral has more intrinsic value than another which indeed is
>extremely unreal compared to how we otherwise reason... Evil is not
>really evil, jerks are not really jerks. If they happen to be real jerks
>it doesn't matter because it is still perceived as valid as long as all
>out-of-context references are avoided. (It is a paradox that being a jerk
>is ok as long as we don't know that you really are a jerk :-) Perhaps I
>misinterpret you here.
Misinterpretation because of my mistake. I should have said that this
is IMMERSION, not solely a role-player's immersion. I'd say there's
a difference between affecting our real lives and affecting our mud
lives. Complete immersion is impossible right now,(I'm waiting for
retinal laser painting + Turing level AI) , and so when someone insults
us in-character, it is hard for us to be truly insulted. We still
consider it only a game and if it's a fantasy game, we may not truly
understand or feel the effect of his words.
(
http://alabanza.com/kabacoff/Inter-Links/cgi/bard.cgi for amusement)
If someone said "Thou dankish beef-witted haggard." (extreme) to you,
would you really identify? However, if someone said 'F--- You' in a
cyberpunk mud, you would probably be irritated when not immersed, and
so when immersed you would also find it hard to shake off. If the
goal is immersion, it's harder for role-players to get there.
>Hmm... No, what I need is other people. Not dismissing risk as a tool,
>but it isn't necessary... Rollplayers need risk, because rollplayers
>depend upon their stats to keep them (somewhat) in character. *evil grin*
>(Meaning, I don't fully agree with your "risk makes real" argument.
>Making love to a physical girl is more real than having sex with a
>martian robot, but HIV doesn't make it more real? What makes it real is
>that having sex with a girl is something that I value and are fully
>willing to participate in and believe in as a reality. Freaks that walks
>around having sex with robots from outer space and talking about their
>sexual stats and super bowl is something which doesn't fit into the world
>which I want to believe in, I see them as the physical world snerts they
>are and the immersion is ruined)
Risk makes 'immersion.' My definition of a 'real world' for someone
is a world where he/she is immersed.
Example: From the hundreds women I've made love to, the time I was
most 'immersed' (not necessarily in a good way & no pun intended) was
when I couldn't resist that HIV+ girl. An exciting, dangerous, immersive
experience which I can remember. The risk helped in making it, amid
many similar experiences, more 'immersive,' but perhaps 'real' is too
vague a term. (This example is theoretical by the way)
>You don't need risk, but you need focus and engagement. Managing risk can
>be something to focus on. When you focus on managing risk, you are less
>aware of other disturbing aspects of the situation. What you need is to
>"mentally remove" the components that contradicts the reality you are
>immersing yourself into. Especially the unfitting ties to the physical
>world.
I missed your focus here, though I agree there are a lot of things you
should try to 'mentally remove' to be immersed. Do you mean managing
risk detracts from what should purely be a focus on engagement?
>> Using a good 'reward justifies risk' implementation, permadeath could be a
>> very viable option in some muds.
>Yes, but the trouble is that in player versus player, you do not seek
>risk. The risk seeks you! If all you want is to let monsters deal out
>different types of damage, with the most dangerous monsters in the
>deepest dungeons being able to permakill then the concept becomes fairly
>innocent...
>Ola Fosheim Groestad,Norway
http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~olag/
Permadeath really IS an innocent thing, if implemented properly, but
it has terrible connotations. Not that I'm saying PvP permadeath
implementation is impossible, but proper measures should be taken to
Drastically curb PvP if PvPermaDeath is in place. (Another discussion
topic I guess)