MMO -> Real Life

[Hoax]

Ah my bad, like I said I always think these sorts of things are pretty fucking dumb I thought it was like the wow post where the guy has a char and the girl is just some girl.  In fact this whole thing is so dumb the only thing of merit is WUA's post about how lame WoW characters are.

[Lantyssa]

*bang*

 

[Merusk]

No no it's /facepalm  or /headdesk.  *bang* involves jail time.  :-D

[Hoax]

*bang*

 

Did I get joke-shot or did you joke-shoot yourself?  I hate this thread.

[schild]

*bang*

 

Did I get joke-shot or did you joke-shoot yourself?  I hate this thread.

It's ok. So does Harisu.

[tazelbain]

*bang*

 

Did I get joke-shot or did you joke-shoot yourself?  I hate this thread.

You never hear the one that gets you.

[Fabricated]

*bang*

 

Did I get joke-shot or did you joke-shoot yourself?  I hate this thread.

You never hear the one that gets you.

[Falconeer]

My hottie awards go to Elizabeth Brown and Wang Yao.

I still can't believe that Anshe girl was my guildleader in Shadowbane. Didn't believed for a second she was a woman in RL. What a moron.

[Lantyssa]

Did I get joke-shot or did you joke-shoot yourself?  I hate this thread.

It was for SnakeCharmer, not you.

[WindupAtheist]

Fucking WoW.  Anyway, lawl.  I didn't spot the tranny as a man, but I didn't think she was hot either.  Looked like another ugly Second Lifer.

I'm not amazed you're still single!  I certainly wouldn't have kicked her out of bed... well at least not until the wife got home. Then it's 'awkward questions' time. 

Aw c'mon, ignore the dress and look at their head.  That looks like a man.  Like I said, I didn't know it was a man.  But I wasn't surprised, either.

[Koyasha]

Whoever wrote the data like character race/class obviously knows nothing about what they're talking about.  The EQ guy's Human Warrior (you can tell it's a warrior because of the blue and red glowies in his hands that can only be the Blades of Tactics and Strategy) is listed as a Barbarian Berserker.

[Azazel]

Aw c'mon, ignore the dress and look at their head.  That looks like a man.  Like I said, I didn't know it was a man.  But I wasn't surprised, either.

That's the thing. If you look closely at random people's heads, you'll find that most or at least women who aren't overwhelmingly attractive/have a super-feminine face could be indistinguishable from men if you took away the bodies, hair, and various accessories like makeup, jewelry, etc.

[Merusk]

Aw c'mon, ignore the dress and look at their head.  That looks like a man.  Like I said, I didn't know it was a man.  But I wasn't surprised, either.

That's the thing. If you look closely at random people's heads, you'll find that most or at least women who aren't overwhelmingly attractive/have a super-feminine face could be indistinguishable from men if you took away the bodies, hair, and various accessories like makeup, jewelry, etc.

Exactly.  Hell, I know a few you can't quite be sure on even when you DO see the body, hairstyle, etc.  It's Pat! indeed.

And it only gets worse as people age.  At the start and end of our lives men and women look damn similar.

[Tebonas]

Well, in the good old days Men had Adams Apples and Women hadn't. I blame all those steroids in our meat!  :-D

[HaemishM]

The Second Live people are interesting from the "percieved body image -> reality" standpoint.  The Japanese woman was the closest out of all of them.

Yes, an awful lot of "my character looks just like me, but 75lbs thinner, slightly younger and somewhat hotter".


Don't you have to buy a penis as an aftermarket, player-crafted item in SL though?

Yes. Or a vagina. Or a furry tail. Or whatever attachments and animations you want to use said attachments.

The thing about the SL avatars is that not a lot of them are made for "normal" dimensions. I think I've seen one vendor that sells "overweight" skins, everyone else's are fairly idealized versions of the body, with funny names like "Male Chic" or "Macho" or "Surfer." But yes, even my avatar in SL has more meat on his bones than me, since even if they sold stick figure avatars I wouldn't use one. He wears a Liverpool T-shirt and spends his time dancing in casinos for money since I'm too cheap to buy Linden.

[Yegolev]

My SL avatar (way back) looked like what might happen if Poppa Smurf ate all of the other Smurfs.  Shortest and fattest I could make him, with white hair/beard.  And, I think, a white jumpsuit.  Contrarily, I do not own a white jumpsuit in real life.

[Signe]

What colour IS your jump suit, then?

[Yegolev]

Blue.  Sleeveless.

[WindupAtheist]

My SL avatar (way back) looked like what might happen if Poppa Smurf ate all of the other Smurfs.  Shortest and fattest I could make him, with white hair/beard.  And, I think, a white jumpsuit.  Contrarily, I do not own a white jumpsuit in real life.

I knew someone, a white person, who made their SL avatar a ridiculous looking caricature of a black man with absurdly huge lips and baggy jeans.  Then he would fly around shooting and griefing people until someone would snap and scream "GET OUT OF HERE AND LEAVE US ALONE YOU NIGGER!"  Then he would page and have the victim banned.

And no, it wasn't me.  My SL experience lasted all of an hour before I'd had enough.

[schild]

So, you called him a nigger.

I see.

[Signe]

Rofl Latke

[CmdrSlack]

My SL avatar (way back) looked like what might happen if Poppa Smurf ate all of the other Smurfs.  Shortest and fattest I could make him, with white hair/beard.  And, I think, a white jumpsuit.  Contrarily, I do not own a white jumpsuit in real life.

I have a Cthulu avatar. I felt rather cool finding that vendor.

[Stephen Zepp]

[broken toys] Stuff like Jason Rowe's makes me think about how important this shit can be.  For most it's just a little fun, but for some, it's a real chance for true escape from a shitty world. [/broken toys]

All jokes about overweight dudes and he/she issues aside, the quote above illustrates an aspect of this business that I find personally moving. I've had a chance to meet quite a few MMO players with disabilities ranging from mild to severe, and it's really made me aware how important these games can be to people. For someone who will never be able to get out of a wheelchair and walk across a room, MMOs provide a chance to be immortal heroes saving a world.

I have no illusions that working on MMOs is anywhere near as important as being a doctor or whatever, but I do feel a certain level of responsibility to players like this. What most of us often shrug off as just another game can mean so much more, and is another reason I feel very lucky to do what I do.

Okay, sappiness off. You may resume snarking.

I have to get all sappy as well on this one.

Back in 1997/98 when I was coding a mud, and lead admin for it, the code base was crashing left and right, the player base were driving me nuts, and I finally said 'screw it" and shut it down in a fit of frustration (I meant it though, wasn't a drama thing)--wasn't worth the effort anymore (I hadn't coded for 8 years, and didn't know much at all about muds when I inherited the damn thing)...I got an email a couple of hours later from one of the guys that was a big PITA (although a nice guy overall)--turns out he was a cancer patient, basically waiting to die, and his only interaction with other "people" was through the mud.

His description of sometimes being so weak that he couldn't type, but still laid there and watched what people said was so heart-wrenching that I took a week's vacation, hired a guy to help me figure out the bugs I was having, and got the mud back up and stable in just a couple of days.

Sure, the guy could have been lying through his teeth, but to this day I don't believe that someone could describe that kind of loneliness and feelings of community if he wasn't actually feeling it.

[UnSub]

I'm not amazed you're still single!  I certainly wouldn't have kicked her out of bed... well at least not until the wife got home. Then it's 'look what I got for you honey' time.

Fixed... and worth a shot.

[Merusk]

At the risk of sharing too much, Asians aren't her type.

[Furiously]

So..you're Asian?

[squirrel]

The Second Live people are interesting from the "percieved body image -> reality" standpoint.  The Japanese woman was the closest out of all of them.

No. I ignore the rest of thread. The parisian dude got close:

[Trippy]

He could've made himself skinner, though.

[Azazel]

That's what the fatter people do. The skinny ones want to bulk up.

[schild]

The picture on the right is him in the Real World. The picture on the left is from The Matrix City of Heroes.