[MUD-Dev] Levels of immersion

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 9 December 2000, Yves K wrote:

> The avatar is your body, the character the role you adopt through a
> choice of clothes, manners and other social behaviors, and the
> personae is your real you.

I'm not convinced that the analogy is quite this direct.  Whether you
choose to role-play in an online game or not isn't an intrinsic part
of immersion. In real life, I may well choose to present myself in
certain different ways depending on the social context, but I can do
that in an online game as well.  The issue I was raising wasn't to do
with whether I can role-play or not, but whether I feel that I am
present in a virtual world or not. If I'm so immersed to be at the
persona level, I can still present myself as facetious one moment,
full of gravitas the next, polite in front of my enemies and abusive
behind their backs. All those roles I can adopt are still open to me
in an online world, so the analogy breaks down at that point.

> So, this leads me to ask the dreaded question: is real life a
> mud?

If it is, I want to buy an account with 3 persona slots on it, please.

		Richard
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