The Internet is an MMORPG - General Columns

SBFord · May 2017

The Internet is an MMORPG - General Columns

This week Tim Eisen does that melodramatic writer thing where he subtly vents about being uncomfortable with change (like most old people) while waxing about the old days in the MMORPG genre. He insults Lois Lane’s reporting abilities too…yes, he really did, we aren’t just writing that to get you to click...

Read the full story here

Phaserlight · May 2017

You're not old, Tim. Nice article. I feel much the same way.

The internet is much like William Gibson poetically predicted it, which makes his most recent novel all the more intriguing.

Sovrath · May 2017

Phaserlight said:

You're not old, Tim. Nice article. I feel much the same way.

The internet is much like William Gibson poetically predicted it, which makes his most recent novel all the more intriguing.

Unless he's, say, 60, he's not old.

I agree, it is a fascinating time to be alive.

TyranusPrime · May 2017

Image: http://forums.mmorpg.com/uploads/editor/7f/3gfyb7fiqkr4.jpg

TENTING · May 2017

Age is not about numbers, but about switching into another generation, where you suddenly find yourself on the other side of past history. Some older people for some reason manage to bypass the switch and stays on the path of constantly keeping themselves up to date with everything new that comes along.
And meanwhile this constant old youth and the actual youth is excited and intrigued by a constant curiosity to explore everything in the world, especially everything that makes their lives more convenient. Or so they imagine anyway.
When did it turn more convenient to have a mobile phone that only works half the time or a tv or digital laundry machine that has to be repaired constantly because this added glorious technology inside constantly breaks.
Back in my younger days you bought a laundry machine that would normally last 10 or more years and work well till the end.
Now all this new technology is a timewaster and moneywaster like never before and causes constant frustration.

I have to admit, I made the switch, I am not going to be one of those that will try to stay young in soul and body forever, I have never had an Ipad or a Smartphone, nor will I ever own one.

I prefer a good cup of coffee with old friends, taking a walk in their gardens and repeat conversations about health and family and quietly contemplate the weather changes, that we notice first hand because we actually spend time outside and not constantly plugged into a comp. The comp, the place where people get their news about the climate in the most dramatic way possible. After all media is made and designed for those who loves getting a rise of emotions when they engage with others. It makes them feel alive? Involved? Cant say I can relate to that, being the old fashioned face to face person I am.

Life itself as it passes on contribute with enough drama as it is on its own, I find it preferably to not dramatize things further than is necessary in an effort to still be able to sleep at night with the intend of looking forward to the next day also.

Media and what goes on at social medias in general, it does not have much to do with real life at all, nor does the actual real life get a moderate mutual respect it deserves through social medias.

Social medias is the playground for young people and those who stay young of mind. Some believe that its up to each person to decide whether to stay in touch with that kind of media and everything new that comes along. After all people have seen a 100 year old run a marathon on the media the other day, so it must be true right. All 100 years olds will do that.

This is the very reason social medias have very little interest for people who have passed the generation shift.
If people will not acknowledge that life will shape itself and be different to everybody on an individual basis, there really is no point chitchatting with people who's first idea is to say "You are not old", cause purely by saying that sentence, they deny the presence of a whole generation that freely accepts or tries to find room in this world, where they can keep living by values not dictated by the internet and the people on it. The generation shift I belong to, we do not strife for perfection, we strife for acceptance of life itself in all things possible, but my god, air that value to any gamer incarnate and you get a long lecture of how humans must always try to perfect themselves.

I never ventured into the MMORPG world to create a life for myself within these games, like a lot of people seem to wish for these days. That was and is not my goal at all.
Online games to me is instead just a piece of art. I enjoyed reading cartoons back in my youth. Later being able to see pictures move on a tv was amazing for awhile, but it did not have the same impact like looking at the artists drawings in a cartoon.
On the other hand when MMORPGs came along those drawings became alive, it was in a sense like being able to create your own character from one of those cartoons and adventure around in a drawn world.
It is the only magic I find on the internet, the rest of the internet I have no use for, nor do I find it necessary.

There is so much pain on the internet, so much suffering and so much dramatizing everything that even those who rise to become heroes in all things on the internet, turn into tiresome stereotypes that seems to only want to glorify their own ego.

In that way I do not feel any need to be a part of the comic and deep tragedy that the internet is. And I dont see the internet as a representation of the real world either.
Its all acting and reacting to that acting on the internet.

But when it comes to MMORPGs, its the most intriguing pieces of art I have ever come across. And like most art, not all pieces appeals to me, so I pick and chose between the art I wish to venture in, as a guest mind you, not a resident consumer that expects these games to make up for real life.

And I dont mind this glorious new world mind you, I like laundry machines also, those were also quite a new invention back in their day and much appreciated.
I can understand that each generation will have their toys made for them, I dont mind. Let the crowd that wants to live on the internet live there if they want.

Just wish the respect would go both ways towards those of us who do not live on the internet, nor wish to.
But we cant have that now can we, we all have to conform to the new world or else we get the evil stare..

"You're not like us, what is wrong with you?" Or the comedian response "Are you too lazy to use the internet?"

This is what makes it wrong, nothing else, not the internet itself, not the games made, nothing internet.
Its purely the lack of acceptance of other peoples choices that comes along in the wake of it.

SirLorn · May 2017

Nice article man! Tenting, UGH that's a lot of words! =P

KalebGrayson · May 2017

Interesting stream of consciousness there. Oh, and shame on you for thinking sandboxes would work.

Tamanous · May 2017

If you cannot put down the tool ... you are not the one in control of it.

The only games I see that are being made like the ones from 15 years ago are the developers who understand this and have broke from the manipulative mainstream. They know games are meant to be played and not play the player.

Sadly however, people's addiction to stimulus response exploited by everything from social media, advertising and gaming keeps the majority of consumer addicts in the dark. You have to be the stronger person to fight against the tide and this means accepting that enlightenment exists only as a minority.

Kyleran · May 2017

SirLorn said:

Nice article man! Tenting, UGH that's a lot of words! =P

He doesn't use Smartphones or social media so is not aware of their limitations and how they've changed us to communicate in small, quick bites.

I read a few books while flying on a recent vacation and actually was a bit of a challenge to stick with reading just one thing for two hours.

A far cry from the days I read several novels a month with an occasional dalliance with a newspaper. (which I still have delivered to my house.)

Kyleran · May 2017

Quote worthy line Tim, "MMORPGers have never met a pay wall we couldn't climb."

Will be adding to my sig later.

Kyleran · May 2017

Sovrath said:

Phaserlight said:

You're not old, Tim. Nice article. I feel much the same way.

The internet is much like William Gibson poetically predicted it, which makes his most recent novel all the more intriguing.

Unless he's, say, 60, he's not old.

I agree, it is a fascinating time to be alive.

Oh snap, guess who turns 60 this year?

F... all you guys.

Tamanous · May 2017

Kyleran said:

SirLorn said:

Nice article man! Tenting, UGH that's a lot of words! =P

I read a few books while flying on a recent vacation and actually was a bit of a challenge to stick with reading just one thing for two hours.

This is so very true. I've done the same recently and decided to up my traditional book reading (and not just online). One of my long time friends and old school RPG/gaming buddy (all games ... not just online) informed me he also wanted to get back into traditional pen on paper RPGs which requires a ton of reading, research and preparation.

We both immediately noticed how much harder it was than it used to be (at least to start) simply because of how out of practice our brain's were. We discussed how our imagination and ability to think on the fly when running games seemed impaired ... but also how quickly we sharpened after. We realized why we enjoyed highly complex games like Star Fleet Battles and other strategy game and knew 5+ RPG systems by heart.

I go the library once a week again and I'm like a child in a candy store. Something has woken within me ... my brain!

It became very clear how we were doing ourselves a disservice by plugging ourselves into the internet and video gaming for so long. Mainstream games have nearly completely abandoned the concept of challenging our brain and have simply became an addictive stimulus response in order to keep us playing. I once found online video games as an extension of my interests in social and strategic gaming. Something changed long ago that muted it into the soul sucking beast it is today.

This is why those relatively few players who have gone back to play old school mmorpgs on emulators have such a shock of revelation. It is why the indie revolution to make old school games is driven by older developers who have been around the block and also recognize the trend away from the thinking person's game that is meant to be played and not meant to play the player.

As for our RPG (Star Wars Saga for those wondering) ... I had to read through (literally) 15 books in order to create my character and research for campaign creation along with additional eu resources (including Kotor/Swtor lore which we gladly profit from it's lore as Kotor is our setting, even though we do not like what the game itself has become). We both did, and we both found ourselves enjoying the concept of gaming once again.

MaxBacon · May 2017

This forum is an MMORPG.

TENTING · May 2017

Kyleran said:

SirLorn said:

Nice article man! Tenting, UGH that's a lot of words! =P

He doesn't use Smartphones or social media so is not aware of their limitations and how they've changed us to communicate in small, quick bites.

I read a few books while flying on a recent vacation and actually was a bit of a challenge to stick with reading just one thing for two hours.

A far cry from the days I read several novels a month with an occasional dalliance with a newspaper. (which I still have delivered to my house.)

"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

This above is in your signature. By that signature I assume you find it humorous that some people do not read past two sentences, which I agree with, which makes your statement also humorous.

Now the above signature also implies that it was in regards of a well written article, which I dont do. There is nothing brilliant about me, nor well written since I have never had the opportunity to learn English at school.
My English is what ever I have been able to learn by myself from others on the internet, which means I have spent some time communicating with people in the MMORPGs I have played over the years.
On top of that I am an average human being and nothing that comes from my mind will ever be anything else than average.

That said, I would never pass judgement or draw full conclusions about anything or any subject unless I in some way have experience with the things in question.

So no I dont own a smartphone, but I have been spending quite some time on social medias and online games.
The difference just is, I used it and still use it to some degree, like when following the games and articles on this forum, but then I leave again.

My reasons for not using the internet for much more than games and game related foras has already been explained.

So I dont live under a rock you know.

That said, Tim is a writer I find I can identify myself with. Philosophical, longwinded, bit weird, funny, artistic, all the things I like to see in people who wish to contribute with insights to the world in one form or the other.
And he can write more than two sentences at a time, which at this point in time is enough cause to be stunned and amazed.

When I see a person like Tim make an article such as this one, I feel inspired to contribute and preferably with a little more than just a grunt and a heyho.

Now I am not saying my contribution will leave any impression, nor end up having any form of relevance, but he mentions a writers block or a form of it and that means there is a void to fill.

We as forum goers, gamers, artists, philosophers, maybe together we can give him food for thought.

And Thanks for the article Tim, if nothing else you opened up a space where I could add my two cents also.

Dead_Guy · May 2017

The internet is a glorified chat box. Anything you accomplish that goes beyond that relies on systems outside of it. MMOs are systems that utilize the internet, and without that system, you just have a network.

Now I'm not saying that makes it useless, nor am I trying to oversimplify it. You just can't call your computer a 'video game' because it lets you play one. Social media is no more an MMORPG than your phone is. If you have to make the rules, there is no game.

Nilden · May 2017

You might as well just call life a MMORPG.

Kyleran · May 2017

Nilden said:

You might as well just call life a MMORPG.

It sort of is, but with much harsher death penalties and only one resurrection, assuming you rightly ascertained the correct deity to believe in.

Sovrath · May 2017

Kyleran said:

Sovrath said:

Phaserlight said:

You're not old, Tim. Nice article. I feel much the same way.

The internet is much like William Gibson poetically predicted it, which makes his most recent novel all the more intriguing.

Unless he's, say, 60, he's not old.

I agree, it is a fascinating time to be alive.

Oh snap, guess who turns 60 this year?

F... all you guys.

You see ... now YOU can say you're old!

Kyleran · May 2017

TENTING said:

Kyleran said:

SirLorn said:

Nice article man! Tenting, UGH that's a lot of words! =P

He doesn't use Smartphones or social media so is not aware of their limitations and how they've changed us to communicate in small, quick bites.

I read a few books while flying on a recent vacation and actually was a bit of a challenge to stick with reading just one thing for two hours.

A far cry from the days I read several novels a month with an occasional dalliance with a newspaper. (which I still have delivered to my house.)

"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This above is in your signature. By that signature I assume you find it humorous that some people do not read past two sentences, which I agree with, which makes your statement also humorous.

Now the above signature also implies that it was in regards of a well written article, which I dont do. There is nothing brilliant about me, nor well written since I have never had the opportunity to learn English at school.
My English is what ever I have been able to learn by myself from others on the internet, which means I have spent some time communicating with people in the MMORPGs I have played over the years.
On top of that I am an average human being and nothing that comes from my mind will ever be anything else than average.

That said, I would never pass judgement or draw full conclusions about anything or any subject unless I in some way have experience with the things in question.

So no I dont own a smartphone, but I have been spending quite some time on social medias and online games.
The difference just is, I used it and still use it to some degree, like when following the games and articles on this forum, but then I leave again.

My reasons for not using the internet for much more than games and game related foras has already been explained.

So I dont live under a rock you know.

That said, Tim is a writer I find I can identify myself with. Philosophical, longwinded, bit weird, funny, artistic, all the things I like to see in people who wish to contribute with insights to the world in one form or the other.
And he can write more than two sentences at a time, which at this point in time is enough cause to be stunned and amazed.

When I see a person like Tim make an article such as this one, I feel inspired to contribute and preferably with a little more than just a grunt and a heyho.

Now I am not saying my contribution will leave any impression, nor end up having any form of relevance, but he mentions a writers block or a form of it and that means there is a void to fill.

We as forum goers, gamers, artists, philosophers, maybe together we can give him food for thought.

And Thanks for the article Tim, if nothing else you opened up a space where I could add my two cents also.

Whoa, you did it again.

TENTING · May 2017

Kyleran said:

TENTING said:

Kyleran said:

SirLorn said:

Nice article man! Tenting, UGH that's a lot of words! =P

He doesn't use Smartphones or social media so is not aware of their limitations and how they've changed us to communicate in small, quick bites.

I read a few books while flying on a recent vacation and actually was a bit of a challenge to stick with reading just one thing for two hours.

A far cry from the days I read several novels a month with an occasional dalliance with a newspaper. (which I still have delivered to my house.)

"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This above is in your signature. By that signature I assume you find it humorous that some people do not read past two sentences, which I agree with, which makes your statement also humorous.

Now the above signature also implies that it was in regards of a well written article, which I dont do. There is nothing brilliant about me, nor well written since I have never had the opportunity to learn English at school.
My English is what ever I have been able to learn by myself from others on the internet, which means I have spent some time communicating with people in the MMORPGs I have played over the years.
On top of that I am an average human being and nothing that comes from my mind will ever be anything else than average.

That said, I would never pass judgement or draw full conclusions about anything or any subject unless I in some way have experience with the things in question.

So no I dont own a smartphone, but I have been spending quite some time on social medias and online games.
The difference just is, I used it and still use it to some degree, like when following the games and articles on this forum, but then I leave again.

My reasons for not using the internet for much more than games and game related foras has already been explained.

So I dont live under a rock you know.

That said, Tim is a writer I find I can identify myself with. Philosophical, longwinded, bit weird, funny, artistic, all the things I like to see in people who wish to contribute with insights to the world in one form or the other.
And he can write more than two sentences at a time, which at this point in time is enough cause to be stunned and amazed.

When I see a person like Tim make an article such as this one, I feel inspired to contribute and preferably with a little more than just a grunt and a heyho.

Now I am not saying my contribution will leave any impression, nor end up having any form of relevance, but he mentions a writers block or a form of it and that means there is a void to fill.

We as forum goers, gamers, artists, philosophers, maybe together we can give him food for thought.

And Thanks for the article Tim, if nothing else you opened up a space where I could add my two cents also.

Whoa, you did it again.

Sure and that wont change.

Just like your one and two sentence responses wont change either.

The irony here is, if a media was the sole factor in how humans are shaped, like you mention that smartphones and the internet have done with people now in general, then imagine what a cartoon that speaks mainly with images rather than words, in theory would have done to my whole shifted generation.
I dont see myself or my friends running around painting images everywhere instead of communicating with words.

In that perspective I would argue it is not the media that makes you respond in short sentences.

Why you chose to, I cant not say, that is for you to answer, I just raise a thought of doubt whether it is determined by the layout of the media you are using or whether it is a conformed choice you have decided to make.

Seems to me, which is just a theory, that the less people speak and listen in RL, the fewer words they use online as well. As in the less they are used to longer pleasant conversations with others in RL, the less likely they seem to converse and share thoughts and anecdotes with others online also.

But that is just a theory of course. I can easily see how the opposite would happen also, that people with an overload social stimuli throughout the day would prefer peace and quiet when logging into a game also. I often fall into the ladder category myself, so I can relate there.
Difference between the two kinds would just be that one kind lack the face to face social practice, while the other have a free choice and is fully capable of interacting in conversations.

But you seem to have conformed to what you perceive as a certain internet behavioral norm and I dont mind.
As long as I am not expected to conform to the same pattern that is, but that is almost hardly the case is it.
People who speaks very little wish for others to do the same short communication.

But I am not an advertisement that needs to communicate with my surroundings in short powerful sentences, that will echo in your mind so you will buy a product or in this case a message.
If you dont wish to listen to what I have to say anyway, you make a poor conversation partner as it is and I am not collecting that kind of people on my FLs, not in games and not in RL either.

And while you may have interest in conforming people who speaks a lot into speaking little, cause those who writes a lot are seen as those of lesser intelligence and must be a bit slow in their minds, then I can add that I am already conformed and have been through a long life. I am just conformed to people who speaks, through which deeper longterm connections have had a foundation to be established.

What the internet crowd gets from their two sentences ping ball communication, I cant say, I just know people who use this form of communication leaves very little to be inspired from and is certainly easily forgotten as well.

Mitara · May 2017

IF the Internet is an MMORPG, then it must be classified as a pay to win

Kyleran · May 2017

TENTING said:

Kyleran said:

TENTING said:

Kyleran said:

Sure and that wont change.

Just like your one and two sentence responses wont change either.

The irony here is, if a media was the sole factor in how humans are shaped, like you mention that smartphones and the internet have done with people now in general, then imagine what a cartoon that speaks mainly with images rather than words, in theory would have done to my whole shifted generation.
I dont see myself or my friends running around painting images everywhere instead of communicating with words.

In that perspective I would argue it is not the media that makes you respond in short sentences.

Why you chose to, I cant not say, that is for you to answer, I just raise a thought of doubt whether it is determined by the layout of the media you are using or whether it is a conformed choice you have decided to make.

Seems to me, which is just a theory, that the less people speak and listen in RL, the fewer words they use online as well. As in the less they are used to longer pleasant conversations with others in RL, the less likely they seem to converse and share thoughts and anecdotes with others online also.

But that is just a theory of course. I can easily see how the opposite would happen also, that people with an overload social stimuli throughout the day would prefer peace and quiet when logging into a game also. I often fall into the ladder category myself, so I can relate there.
Difference between the two kinds would just be that one kind lack the face to face social practice, while the other have a free choice and is fully capable of interacting in conversations.

But you seem to have conformed to what you perceive as a certain internet behavioral norm and I dont mind.
As long as I am not expected to conform to the same pattern that is, but that is almost hardly the case is it.
People who speaks very little wish for others to do the same short communication.

But I am not an advertisement that needs to communicate with my surroundings in short powerful sentences, that will echo in your mind so you will buy a product or in this case a message.
If you dont wish to listen to what I have to say anyway, you make a poor conversation partner as it is and I am not collecting that kind of people on my FLs, not in games and not in RL either.

And while you may have interest in conforming people who speaks a lot into speaking little, cause those who writes a lot are seen as those of lesser intelligence and must be a bit slow in their minds, then I can add that I am already conformed and have been through a long life. I am just conformed to people who speaks, through which deeper longterm connections have had a foundation to be established.

What the internet crowd gets from their two sentences ping ball communication, I cant say, I just know people who use this form of communication leaves very little to be inspired from and is certainly easily forgotten as well.

Well if you were to review my post history you would observe that at times I'm known to wax eloquent in my responses depending on the subject and who I am conversing with.

You would also see I sometimes poke fun at or even goad people at times with my responses, just sort of something we do here sometimes.

Its sometimes said these forums are a form of PVP, a good representation I think as users here employ every sort of verbal "tactic" to argue their points.

Hyperbole, exaggerations, analogies, logic, logic falacies, aggressiveness, passive aggression, aloofness, arrogance, elitism, intentionally being obtuse, feigned ignorance, rudeness, and probably a dozen more.

All skillfully wielded (and sometimes not so skillful) into a chorus of replies which make up almost any form of communication especially on the internet.

As to the one point about length of replies I've learned to tailor my responses to my audience and their environment.

In my business emails I've learned its best to limit my emails to 3 paragraphs or less and move any key action items or questions to the first paragraph.

Bullets work better to summarize points rather than paragraphs.

In fact, its usually best to only ask one question per email as more often than not additional questions get overlooked or ignored.

Internet forums have their own rules, (i.e. short sentences, many line breaks, no walls of text, no poor spelling, grammer or punctuation etc.) as long observation has taught me what types of posts elicit responses, and overly long posts almost always generate fewer replies than shorter, more concise ones.

I've given one or two line responses which have generated more replies and upvotes than any approaching the length of this one.

Before you counter with you don't care if any one responds I'll argue that the only real purpose of posting on the internet is to elicit a reply, otherwise you might as well just write emails and send them to yourself.

Another good reason to keep it short, I couldn't send this at first, then I scrolled up to see a message saying the body was 1425 characters too long. Didn't realize there was a limit, first time I've ever exceeded it. Well we did I guess.

metareal · May 2017

Read "Ready Player One" before Spielberg releases his impossible adaptation.
The novel describes a probable future where the biggest social network merged with a multi-themes persitent world : The Oasis, where people study, work and entertain for the better or the worst.
Lot's of great examples of what will probably come in this book.

TENTING · May 2017

Kyleran said:

TENTING said:

Kyleran said:

TENTING said:

Kyleran said:

.

Well if you were to review my post history you would observe that at times I'm known to wax eloquent in my responses depending on the subject and who I am conversing with.

You would also see I sometimes poke fun at or even goad people at times with my responses, just sort of something we do here sometimes.

Its sometimes said these forums are a form of PVP, a good representation I think as users here employ every sort of verbal "tactic" to argue their points.

Hyperbole, exaggerations, analogies, logic, logic falacies, aggressiveness, passive aggression, aloofness, arrogance, elitism, intentionally being obtuse, feigned ignorance, rudeness, and probably a dozen more.

All skillfully wielded (and sometimes not so skillful) into a chorus of replies which make up almost any form of communication especially on the internet.

As to the one point about length of replies I've learned to tailor my responses to my audience and their environment.

In my business emails I've learned its best to limit my emails to 3 paragraphs or less and move any key action items or questions to the first paragraph.

Bullets work better to summarize points rather than paragraphs.

In fact, its usually best to only ask one question per email as more often than not additional questions get overlooked or ignored.

Internet forums have their own rules, (i.e. short sentences, many line breaks, no walls of text, no poor spelling, grammer or punctuation etc.) as long observation has taught me what types of posts elicit responses, and overly long posts almost always generate fewer replies than shorter, more concise ones.

I've given one or two line responses which have generated more replies and upvotes than any approaching the length of this one.

Before you counter with you don't care if any one responds I'll argue that the only real purpose of posting on the internet is to elicit a reply, otherwise you might as well just write emails and send them to yourself.

Another good reason to keep it short, I couldn't send this at first, then I scrolled up to see a message saying the body was 1425 characters too long. Didn't realize there was a limit, first time I've ever exceeded it. Well we did I guess.

I like the longer walkthrough of the different points you make.
Some things I have also noticed myself, like the PvP battleground that the internet resembles a lot and the tendency that people only read the first sentence in a post and then disregard the rest, often resulting in said people repeating and building a new case from, what was already added further down in a post, because they did not remember what they read or simply did not read it all at its full length.
Then its easy to feel like responding, "read again or please read what I wrote", but that only seems to provoke the one that did not read the full post in the first place, making the person likely to feel pressured to feel inferior.

And this reaches a core of how I perceive the use for conversation in the first place. My goal when having a conversation is not to establish some kind of dominance or in any way make others feel walked all over. This is not what conversations in my opinion should be about.

I find conversation nice for many reasons, but one of the main things is, that I like to broaden my horizon and share thoughts and ideas with people who share same interests.
And I truly enjoy reading longer posts and articles, where people invest themselves and cover many aspects of a subject, rather than just briefly touching the surface of something.
The two sentence humor is however alright also, I make use of that myself from time to time when I cant be bothered to dig deep into something, so I like a balance for sure. I just try to focus on a ball, a subject, rather than kick the teeth in on the player that happens to see things differently.

Overall the internet just seems to draw in people of the kind that likes to fight each other and this makes the internet very dull. Sure a little bit of drama now and then does not bother, but when you have seen the same verbal fights repeated in all things, it gets so terribly boring.
And my perception is, that people seem overly occupied about establishing a hierarki and finding their core group within foras, that will help maintain said hierarki.
This is of course an entirely different subject, but as a general social theme on foras, this takes away focus from subjects that could otherwise be relevant and interesting.

When it comes to spelling and grammar, there is no doubt I fall into the, "cant type English Grammar for the life of me", however considering you have a visible point, Id say that that "rule" alone makes a lot of people in my shifted generation ignore the internet. Flaws, imperfections is a part of life and to a large degree I find myself in a social circle where these things are cherished and appreciated, rather than used as an excuse to distance ourselves from one another.

Again a "rule" that makes the internet go into the bin for people like me, because why bother with people who is only concerned about building relations through perfection, nobody in my generation need friends like that at the point in life where we are.

Generally speaking the people who can only grow fond of others due to perfections or in other ways beneficial traits or material benefits, those people come a dime a dozen and one of the perks reaching and making a generation shift is, that over time we learn to disregard these people.

Seeing how people at large on the internet is very concerned with perfection and often pressuring each other into these perceptions of what is perfect, while using all the rhetorical skills you mentioned earlier, there really is little of substance and value on the internet for people who cherish others for who they are, instead of what they can be pushed into becoming.

Thank you for your insights though, they have value and more so the effort you made to meet me.

Phaserlight · May 2017

Kyleran said:

Nilden said:

You might as well just call life a MMORPG.

It sort of is, but with much harsher death penalties and only one resurrection, assuming you rightly ascertained the correct deity to believe in.

Obligatory simulation argument video (albeit a good one); a topic Elon Musk refuses to discuss in hot tubs:

MaxBacon · May 2017

Phaserlight said:
Obligatory simulation argument video (albeit a good one); a topic Elon Musk refuses to discuss in hot tubs:

That seems one idea, replacing real life with one amazing donkeys virtual simulation that replaces reality. We could be and do anything!

Just wait until computers have brains

Howdy, Stranger!

The Internet is an MMORPG - General Columns

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

The Internet is an MMORPG - General Columns

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV