 | MySpace Roleplaying and testing identitiesJune 22nd, 2006 |
A week or so ago, The Razor published a pair of articles on MySpace Roleplaying. The first described the phenomenon of MySpace profiles that are fictive renderings of celebrities or of the characters they play on TV. The second is an interview with a MySpace roleplayer, which contains the following gem of a quote:
It’s very popular. And let’s not go to say that all people who do this are fat ugly losers. Because I thought that, and looked in the mirror, and was all, “wait, i’m a model” aha. I’ve seen RL pics of Roleplayers and some are gorgeous as well!Do you play any other sorts of game or similar thing online?
Pssh no. Online games are for dorks. :]
A bit of self-aware irony there in that last reply?
We do tend to forget how much roleplaying — not in the gaming sense, but in the literal sense — is a major part of adolescent life. Much of maturation is about trying on different personae in different contexts trying to figure out which one is really you. From teenage girls posing in the mirror to guys acting tough with their buds, all the way over to the dorky teen playing an Amazonian barbarian princess… it’s about identity formation. Arguably, it something that we don’t stop doing just because we grow up, either.
This is why Bartle says that the core player journey through an MMO is about identity construction. We’ve seen enough Fakesters and MySpace roleplayer types come and go that perhaps we should be reaching for that core fact more in our designs; what would an MMO that was centrally about trying out personae look like?
I envision a world of shapeshifters, where we would learn quickly that you cannot trust appearances; where you advance by mastering a wide array of masks. Perhaps the mechanic is based somehow on “passing” in different areas. A tentative design might have a ton of themed rooms, and the current people present get to vote on every newcomer as they enter to see if their name and look “matches.” Add a liberal dose of wardrobe art and a scoring system that relies on both a wide array of votes in diverse rooms, and on consistent votes from a narrow set of rooms, and you might have something that both encourages tribes to form and also encourages branching out.
Would we get the teen queens to visit the dork online gamer room? Maybe, but probably only to score points with the other teen queens back home. The squick factor is probably too high for them to actually, like, stay. 
On the other hand, I can see the geeks revelling in the opportunity to quiz the teen queen on the non-Star Wars ouevre of Barbara Hambly for bonus points.
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) and a (female) dark elf necromancer (soloing, fast-moving invis, gating, such a relief.) The only similarity is they’re both damage-dealers. IRL I’m male, 6’3″, and my wife thinks I clean up nice (which is enough for me).
…about people today is statements like the “era of 8 and 16 bit games”[1]. It connotes a sense of, “In the beginning.” Well, no. Remind me to write a textbook on games someday. This is becoming aggravating. Granted, I am not all that well-versed in the history of ludology, but fuck, even I know that chess existed before the
Interestingpost from Raph Koster on role playing in MySpace something that I’ve often written about. Quoted from a MySpace Role player: “It’s very popular. And let’s not go to say that all people who do this are fat ugly losers. Because I thought that, and
world. There are people on there you start talking to and they are really cool, some have awesome personalities. And there are others who are assholes. But ya, i dont completely know how to feel about this whole thing. If your intruiged go here (More Info).
and ensure that certain lines are not crossed OR what if other real life person’s picture is being used just to be hip RPers? Apparently RPing is very popular (at least from the postings I read of which were made mid last year – read here, here and here), After reading these articles especially the interview with the RL (read “real life”) RP – gawd….they are indeed using other ppl’s pics to post on their RP stats….Hey your pic may be flying around in myspace for all you know – that’s scary!
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