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Poll: Game avatar is it you or is it someone you control?
altairzq
Member Posts: 3,811
A couple of recurrent discussions in this forum are about males playing female avatars, and people wanting a world to live in or just a game to have fun.
I think both, and probably other questions have a relation with how you feel you avatar. Is it a representation of your own self in the game, or is it a character sepparated from you, that you control?
This is The Poll!
Comments
When I'm playing a game or watching a movie or reading a book, the last thing I want to project is myself. But..there's little things I do to my avatars. All of my avatars are dark haired for instance, because I am irl. So while little things like that slip through the crack, I still consider my characters to be nothing more than an avatar I control.
I guess it is sorta like an alter ego.
Rift
Both, it is a character that is foreign to myself and different than me, could be any race or gender, but also a creation of mine that was created with a certain personality in mind that comprises different elements of my personality. So it is a different character but one I can relate to.
Seldom will I play something completely different from myself, which is why I never play priests because there is nothing interesting about a priest.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
It is without question a representation of you.The only time i would say it is not,is when you see someone use a name like "cdfvsvjknuakgjvd" you get what i mean,they are just there for business or no real care for anything.I would say 99% of the players put some thought into their player name and how it looks,so it really has a lot to do with the person.Heck even a gibberish name represents the person as probably being lazy or like i said they really don't care about the avatar at all,so it has no representation of themselves.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Always a representation of myself. Partially for the socializing factor and my way of showing others who I am, and easier to feel immersed in the game world when I feel like the avatar I'm controlling is "me". Even if I play a character whose race isn't human I will go for details like very long hair, so that it feels like me.
I have tried making characters that didn't reflect who I am at all, but it ends up feeling so out of place and fake to me for some reason. I don't have this problem in single player games, but then again I'm usually not getting immersed in a virtual fantasy world in those.
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Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
my characters are never me. they are always external, representing someone in the world that I happen to control. I have no need or desire to project myself in a online world. I consider my characters to be my companions, or friends, more then alter egos.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
My avatar is a character in a story ... not me. I press whatever keys enable the avatar to do what he (or she) would do in that story.
So those who say that a character is a rep of themselves...don't play anything but a human male/female in game?How can you say it is a rep of yourself when you play an ogre or an elf? And then you would also hafta limit yourself to certain classes, as mages/healers aren't typical of what you would find in the real world.
I think the only thing that would represent you in any MMO is your personality. If you act like a total a$$hat in a game, then I would figure you were such in RL and couldn't help yourself. As goes if you are kind and helpful in game, I would figure the same about your RL personality.
As for the physical look of your toon, it is just that...a toon. I am sure most avid gamers are not 6feet tall and rippled muscles. Along with most females are not slim with perfect hourglass figures.
Personally in any MMO, I leave my RL at the login screen and I play to enjoy and leave my RL behind for a couple hours. I controle the toon, it does not controle me.
It is just a video game character to me. Maybe I don't have the imagination to have the avatar represent me but I just can't see it. To me it is the same feeling if I play Civilization or WoW or Counterstrike. I suppose I get more of a "chess" feeling, in that I view games tactically rather than a virtual world (doesn't help that we aren't even close to having a virtual world either).
It's just a character. When I used to RP I would take a facet (or two) of my personality and take it to an extreme. Doing so made it easier to RP the characters' reactions and such. I really don't bother with RPing these days though, so my characters aren't me but nor are they developed personae.
I hadn't thought of this prior to this post, but characters, for me, have become a tool to interact with the game world; they're a means to an end. Marionettes at most.
In most games where I'm watching my avatar run on the screen, its just a character that I control.
In EVE where little of the interaction takes place face to face, I feel more like I'm really living in the EVE universe and not so much controlling a character. Only when I run multiple accounts at the same time does this immersion begin to break, but even then my corpmates refer to all of them by one single name, so I tend to fail to distinguish myself even then.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"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
I do honestly play mostly human when I get the chance, but for example my main character in world of warcraft was a night elf (at first it was a human warrior in vanilla WoW, but after TBC I rolled a druid and fell in love). Anyway my night elf had long medium tone hair, light colored skin, big eyes, small lips. Characteristics I have in real life.
Don't have a problem with people who control a character that is different from them. I like feeling connected and like it's a reflection of who I am in at least some minor way. I have a hard time feeling immersed if it's too different.
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Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
I felt the complete opposite. Usually I don't RP in MMOs and the character I'm playing is myself or a dream version of myself as a warrior or whatever, but in EVE it felt like I was ordering some ship around. It never felt like I was actually piloting the ship, just ordering it to go places and fire.
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
As with everything, it's the space that lies between.
Is it me inside that game's universe, or me appreciating the game's universe? (Spending all those hours living out a part of me versus enjoying the concept of a pixelated female toosh).
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
I would say that "parts" of me are playing through the character. but the character is completely not me.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I'm the same way. In most MMOs, the avatar is just something I control. In EVE, the interaction is personal for me - It's me interacting with other players. I equate the avatars in that game to the icons people use on a forum, which is just their particular idea of a cool/funny image and not a representationof them as a person.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I consider any character that I control to be an extension of myself.
TGWTETIPTNMAITC! -Gary Whitta
I am playing a role, as such the character is an extension of myself.
Having said that, while about half my characters are female, I no more run around ingame making passes as random people than I do in real life. Nor would a tolerate being the recipient of such behavior any more than I would in real life.
To put it in better perspective. I used to play in, and help run, LARP's. In one such game we needed an extra female actor so I put on a dress and wig. I spent the night playing the role, including flirting with a few other people. No, I don't lean in that particular direction, and everyone there knew I was just playing the role. The point is, I know who and what I am, and am secure enough in that knowledge that I have no qualms about assuming other roles. I'm not going to decieve anyone, but I'm not going to stress over playing a female avatar in an MMO either.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I hate alts and I like to get attached to my character, so I picked option 1.
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I didn't vote because you left out a third choice, which should have been, "Are you batsh*t insane!!?? Its just a flipping video game!! Get a grip already!!
Sorry to be fatuous Altrazq, I know you are passionate about online games, but to be honest I feel the recent discussions that prompted this post are being taken far more seriously than they deserve.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
There's no "both" option on your poll. My main is usually me, and alts are often more characters. I prefer spellcasters, often the support types, and playing races that aren't big and muscled. That's the projection of me. That's my main character. An alt can be anything, though, and is an extension of a smaller part of my personality.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
My characters have physical characteristics similar to what I have now, except as if I was perfect and had more control over the way I look. Meaning, if I could choose my genes, this is what I'd look like IRL. As for the class, I choose what I'd be if the world was real. My character's personality is identical to mine IRL. All of this makes it easy for me to get into the game, and enjoy my character. It also makes RPing on the fly, if I choose to RP, easier.
To be honest I'm not really sure. My characters don't really resemble myself. A lot of the time they'll have green hair that I don't in real life, facial hair that I generally don't have and it often times is green too and so on.
I don't think it's me but then again it's not fully someone I control either. It falls somewhere in the middle I think.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I voted characters. My characters don't all look alike or like me. My main in EQ, a cleric, had dark skin and hair. I have blond hair and light skin. I had no problems feeling connected. I don't necessarily roleplay my characters, but I don't feel like it's me in-game.
Thanks all for your oppinions and votes.
The players controlling a character are the majority with more than 60% of the population right now. But the ones feeling the avatar as a representation of themselves in a virtual world are a mighty minority, almost reaching 40%.