AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Last edited by Ice on Fri, Nov 21 2014, 16:12 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Iron Angles pretty much nailed my biased completely human mindset.

Everything would be easier if I could stop myself from clicking the damn portraits like a maniac each twelve seconds to check again whom I am playing with.

Iron Angel said it best.... I agree!

IronAngel wrote:

Indeed, the relative anonymity and detachment is one of the best things about RP. I don't mind making friends OOC, but the best, most honest and most rewarding RP often to happens between strangers who only know and expect of each other whatever they see IC.

Going along with this: Most of the people I have gotten the closest to on the server, I have hardly talked to OOCly. (At least while we RP.) I believe I learned that first from Yossarin, who stolidly pointed out to the playerbase that it breaks your immersion in subtle and subconscious ways when you engage in too much OOC. You might not even realize it, until you stop OOC chatting. I took a moment to swallow this, tried it out and have never gone back. I'll make jokes, and comment on silly things, but when something is happening... BYE! OOC is out.

I am everybody on this thread, but you. That's right.

That said, the only advice I can offer is - if you ever play a merchant, for goodness sake put it on an anonymous account.

MightNMagic wrote:

I am everybody on this thread, but you. That's right.

My solicitor shall be in touch with your solicitor.

In a surprise twist, it turns out that there's only one player on Amia. You were just an alt all along.

2 players!

In fact, I'm not M'N'M. MightNMagic is me.

I never had a problem separating OOC from IC, myself. I could sit and have an IC and OOC conversation with someone at the same time, and it was something that kinda pissed a lot of people off, 'cause I would sit there and be making as many OOC comments as my character was.

-PenguinNinja

Played with an alt account last night and still can't figure out who it was.

a few years back I was typecast for being a blunt asshole by my own doing. I was young when I first logged into Amia and the young often have strong opinions despite their idealistic and limited vision of the world around them. For a while such didn't bother me, but then my reputation started backfiring. I would offer my opinion on a particular context, often a strong opinion mind, and would often receive the comment: "Galenson is known for having a skewed opinion on this subject."

After I got a little older, I eventually came up with the theory that as long as "Galenson" was the person who typed it, the point would be dismissed because it was skewed based off my perceived behaviour or habits.

So, I took a break from regularly logging in for a while and upon returning created an alt. When the same people who would often ignore me as "Galenson" started listening to the ideas I suggested through the alt, which were the same ideas I suggested as "Galenson" all of those times prior, I knew my theory was correct.

Although I'm not proud of that little experiment... it proved the point that players develop opinions, sometimes even stigmas, either intentionally or unintentionally against associated log ins. In my case, I felt I needed to break that stigma against myself: the alt gave me the means to do it and it worked.

I dont get why this is a problem..its just people not wanting thier id's to give away who they are and thus avoid ooc influence on thier actions

I toyed with the idea of making an alt account, but once I settled on Ahly as my new main, it decided itself. The typecasting and the allure of ic not being impacted by as much ooc were the definite incentives for it. With a fresh account, your characters are simply not seen through previous known characters.

One of my main problems with this is the topic if metagaming. And it goes like this....

Person A doesn't want anyone to be able to 'typecast' or 'stereotype' them, or to metagame them in a general sense, so they make an alt acct, so no one knows who they are. In the same breath, they feel a relief because no one knows their style of RP, even if they know the player. Anonymity is their answer in their mind.
Conversely, they encounter someone that knows them. Person A, and person B RP together on a regular basis on person A's main acct. Person B only plays the one acct, so person A knows everything about them: Their character, their RP style ... so on and so forth. Person A is at a distinct advantage over the other person, and person B is now subject to everything person A is trying to avoid.

To me, that double standard isn't cool.

Analog Kid wrote:

To me, that double standard isn't cool.

The alternate account doesn't give rise to metagaming, favoritism, cronyism or any kind of bias though, it only prevents one party from acting on their feelings towards the other party.

The issue you're arguing is that if one player creates an alternate account, that one player then has a monopoly of the opportunity to metagame and that monopoly is a bad thing. Assuming that neither player intends to metagame, then the double standard as you describes exists only in that the player using their original account does not have to burden their mind with making the careful distinction between character perception and their own feelings towards a player. This arguably gives rise to a more genuine interaction from the player using their original account thus increasing both players' enjoyment.

Unless you believe that metagaming is only deterred by mutually assured metagaming and the availability of equal amounts of information to both players to metagame with, then players using alternate accounts tend to benefit everyone.

We're all human *hopefully*, so the knowledge that person A has over person B is still unfair. Especially when person A plans on a particular path of RP that person B could be used to encourage it. When person A's alternate would normally have /no clue/ about person B's toon, they can...and often will....encourage their RP with person B to attain their own ends. The person with the alt acct still maintains the advantage of knowing everyone else, when no one knows them, even when they normally would. If person A was simply interested in a 'fresh start' with a new toon, with no metagming to be risked, then a new toon would suffice.

I don't agree with that assessment. People make use of alternative accounts to dodge OOC disturbances, be it social stigmas or something else, not to avoid metagaming. The purpose is to avoid double standards, not create them. I'm not sure if you've been in situations where you have been treated with bias IC because of who you are OOC, Analog. It doesn't sound like you have, since you feel we should shrug it off and deal with it when it happens. It can very effectively suck the fun out of the game.

001182811 wrote:

We're all human *hopefully*, so the knowledge that person A has over person B is still unfair.

How can you reconcile the view that because of their humanity, players inadvertently and inevitably metagame when they have the knowledge to do so with your status as a human DM playing active characters of your own? I make this point not to attack you personally, or to suggest that you do not abide by the rule prohibiting metagaming, but to demonstrate that the argument that alternate accounts are damaging because the difference in knowledge they incur is something inherently unfair and often used to the empowered player's advantage is proven false by the DMs' own ability to fairly play their characters without metagaming.

If in your opinion that the DMs don't have that ability, then there's more at stake than the correctness of using alternate accounts.

Now dont' get me wrong. I understand the other side of the coin. I'm just arguing the base view from my perspective. I know, and agree with the OoC disturbance thing, and the dangers therein. The OoC disturbance is not always the case. And I'd hope that if it is, people could bring it to the staff so we could handle it so that people wouldn't feel the need to hide from their friends.

Sphinx wrote:

I'm not sure if you've been in situations where you have been treated with bias IC because of who you are OOC, Analog. It doesn't sound like you have, since you feel we should shrug it off and deal with it when it happens.

Every DM who has a character has, I'd say.

I've considered making an alternate account for the sake of doing things for the sake of other players not sending me tells asking to meet Gerald for something that ends up not really following through anyway. I never did but there was a point where I would be on an alt (for the sake of just killing stuff) and I'd be hit with a barrage of tells asking me to get on Gerald and meet them in Tarkuul.

I'm not quite that busy anymore but it was nice having that sort of attention.

Also, logins such as I WONDER WHO has joined as a player, SUPER POWERFUL RHINOCEROS OF DOOM, A SHIP FULL OF SPACE KITTENS etc are so obviously alts. Just sayin'.

To be fair, those are sometimes main accounts, but if they were you'd probably see them more. I know a bloke who used something like that as his main for yeeears.

...But, again. You'd notice if that were the case, most likely. What with the frequent logging in and all. ><

Here, I'll list all of my IG ones just for fun and transparency.

LollipopSpider, Rorg's Many Talons, Something Suspiciously Viscous, The person stalking you, A naked gamer, Against the tide, The Adama Frown, Spiraegenus.

Those are all me.

I don't use any alts anymore but my favourite alt account was probably "PCP Bear".

That's the last account I logged into before I quit last year and it greeted me when I came to Amia and it was great.

I have lots of alt accounts most of them <something>Touch, VitalTouch, DeathTouch, FatalTouch and so on but as there is a obvious theme there those accounts are not used for any sort of hidden sekret stuff and more just for me to help me separate out the RP mindset of the character tied to that account.

I do have some accounts that do not follow the <something>Touch theme but frankly if anyone has a problem with that tough titties! As far as I know there is no "rule" against it so aside from another chance for some folks to be a little elitist about something banal, who is it hurting?

LetumLux wrote:

Here, I'll list all of my IG ones just for fun and transparency.

LollipopSpider, Rorg's Many Talons, Something Suspiciously Viscous, The person stalking you, A naked gamer, Against the tide, The Adama Frown, Spiraegenus.

Those are all me.

What?

LetumLux wrote:

LollipopSpider, Rorg's Many Talons, Something Suspiciously Viscous, The person stalking you, A naked gamer, Against the tide, The Adama Frown, Spiraegenus.

Wat?

LetumLux wrote:

Rorg's Many Talons

... You didn't know? I thought that one was obvious.

Your reaction pleases me.

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