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Does your RL belief (or ethics) influence your gameplay?
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
Playing a MMORPG always means playing a character in a story. To some degree. You may pick a Paladin or a Rogue, you may chose a faction to play, or you may just feel more involved in some quests than with others.
So the question is: do your RL believes, ethics or political convinctions influence your MMORPG gameplay?
You may play Defiant in Rift because you feel like a political lefty or a Paladin because you are religious Christian. You may play that greyed out quests because the story appeals to your RL morality, like defending Ashen Vale against the Orcs for chopping down trees because you are an environmentalist in RL. Or you may play a villain in CoX or DCU simply because you are a mean person in RL (or shall we say, a Darwinistic one) and there you can do what you don't dare in RL? And of course the other way around: you play a game (MMO or single player) which somehow influences your ethics in some way, lets you see things in RL in a different light? Did you ever cringe doing a quest which went against your own ethics? Or do you shrug it off?
Or do you keep these spheres totally seperated?
I must admit I am heavily influenced by the Ultima ideal. Ultima the single player RPG series, I must emphasize. The idea of Ultima RPG was always putting the player into a moral dilemma, where often the decision was not good vs evil. That's a simple choice. No, it was two different versions of good. Someone is ill and will die soon: do you tell the truth (honesty) or do you leave the person the last days without knowing (mercy)? Such where the virtue questions from Ultima. Weight different ideals of good against another. The games where often not about how many mobs you killed or that you robbed every NPC blind, but on the contrary to set an example for the world. To be the Avatar of the Eight Britannian Virtues. The ideal of these virtues were, where games influenced me. These virtues to this day look like a good ideal to me.
But it works also the other way around. Being a religious person (tho not orthodox in any certain faith) I tend to play Paladin. Or when I decide what to do in a single player RPG I often ask myself: what would a Jedi do? That's a creed I often apply to what is right and wrong in my games, because it is quite close to my own ideals. On the other hand I always cringe doing evil. When I played Deathknight start in WOW recently, I had nightmares about killing innocent people the night afterwards. As cool as the combat class Deathknight is, it really is a big hindrance of playing both the class and playing Horde, even tho the Horde players looked much more mature gamers from experience.
I vividly recall playing Planescape Torment, the good side through the first time. Then I wanted to see the evil gameplay, and when I came to some woman, who you saved the last time I was to betray and put into misery this time... and I just could not do it. I recalled all the times in RL I was miserable and treated bad... and I thought WTH how can I do this to anyone? NPC or no. It's just like a blockade I can not step over.
So for me, my ethics are a huge impact on who I play, how I play and what I chose in games, and when a game with story does not offer choices I can cope with, I soon feel distant and usually leave. For me the ideal class is the Paladin, fighter for justice and mercy, protecting the weak and bringing the evil to justice, simply because that I would do had I "magical" or "super" powers. ^^
COMMENT: Please do NOT attack any other person's opinion! This is just to say yay or nay, and whats it for you. Please respect the view of everyone. 
We are just talking about the ascpect where the games come into play. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
Err, ingame religions have little to do with christian belief.
Yes Paladin and Cleric are inspired by reallife examples, but thats really all.
But of course my ingame characters are influenced by my whole personality, and that includes my belief.
There is however not such a stupid direct influence, a la "I'm christian, therefore I play Paladin". Paladins are usually a very boring class to play.
I find myself unable to play anything but a paragon of light in any game. The evil character choices remain untouched.
Yeah, it's not 1:1 copy. But the general idea. Say you are Christian and belief in forgivance and leading a "pure" life, and you play Pally to somehow reflect that. Or you are a Pagan and play Shaman or Druid to relfect that. Just roughly of course.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Interesting topic Elikal, in contrast to a lot of your responses, I tend to play the opposite of myself in games.
It started when I worked in a call centre back in my college days, you would take a lot of abuse on the phones (and from bosses) and have to take it all, help the person yelling at you, all with a polite "thank you" and a smile in your voice. It was stressful and not a pretty window into humanity.
There's no way I would ever take that stress out on people around me, but I found an outlet in games. For one there was the escapist factor, and for another, I could blow off all the misanthropic steam I'd built up at work by playing the bad guy, and nobody would suffer for it except some pixillated NPCs.
Trouble is (and it's not really trouble), when playing KoTOR for example, there were always decisions I just could not make in order to get the dark side points (killing Carth was not one of them, I'll admit that, I relished killing him, I'm a bad person!). I balked at them. So my dark side powers suffered to a certain extent. But I could live with that.
Given the choice, I'll always be someone other than myself in games, and my own beliefs are only represented by my characters in antithetical ways. There have been enough "Noooo....I can't do that!" moments in spite of that for me to pick the "somewhat" option in the poll though.
To bowdlerize Jessica Rabbit; "I'm not bad, my characters are just drawn that way."
Every decision everyone makes has some attachment to their value system even if the correlation is buried under preference.
In some games I prefer stealth characters. Yet other times I prefer AOE types or healers. It entirely depends on the mechanics of the class/profession. Its all about what is challenging, unique, and fun. It better be if I am going to sub or renew it.
Does this mean that I identify with whatever toon/faction I pick? If it is happening it is not on a conscious level. Generally speaking, this is all about what area is the most appealing to my eye and what story is more interesting. It better be if I am going to sub or renew it.
Does this mean that if the side that has a darker (or lighter) color palette that I identify with a given ideology? The answer is no. It is about what is visually appealing.
Sometimes a puppy is cute. Why? Who cares it just is.
I don't eat meat in game because I think it is cruel and we can perfectly sustain our characters on vegetables and fruit in most mmorpgs.
Funny thing is that I eat meat on a daily basis in real life and that I really love it.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Yes. IRL, I buy a new sword and wardrobe every year when I level up...just hoping I make it to level cap cuz I hear the end game slows down a TON!
Seriously, yes. I'm intolorant of a-holes, I do whatever comes up, I love to make people laugh and have fun...IRL, I work for the IRS...very similar
I often play someone very different from me. In real life, I work in public interest as an attorney for at risk youth. I am a total softy (well some attorneys on the other side of the courtroom from me might disagree). I baby sit for my niece. I walk my sister’s dog. Aside from listening to a lot of metal, hip hop, and having a lot of tattoos, a lot of girls have presented me to their parents with little anxiety.
In game I will stab you in the back, double team headshot you from cover, and loot your stuff just to delete it. So, I play a villain mostly in CoH. I played Chaos in WAR. I was always one of the ‘dark’ classes in AoC. In Fallen Earth, I’m in the Mafioso Traveler faction.
There are some times I slip though. I recently got offered a mission to attack ugly mutants by a 'humans only' NPC faction in FE and I got there and decided not to. They weren't messing with anyone and didnt aggro onto me when I showed up, destroying my self-defense argument.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Yeah probably, in certain circumstances.
I really like rogues because they suit my personality. Alignment wise I play a true neutral. For moral choice systems I try not to get involved, although usually end up in conflict because of plot. I am an atheist in real life and prefer not to follow a god in game either. I don't like to gank people either and try to avoid conflict when I can.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
To a degree.
I played KOTOR all the way through as dark side, and light side.
I liked playing the light side better, and found it difficult to play the dark side.
it's because to play dark side, you had to act like such an a hole.
An old lady asks you to help find her lost child. What do you do?
A. help her.
B. Kill her, rob her, and have sex with her dead corpse.
It was just kinda hard to choose B. all the time it was just so over the top, oh look I'm a bad guy! sort of stuff.
My beliefs and moral code are who I am and it affects anything that I do in my life. Sometimes I can try to pretend to be something that I'm not, but only for a very short period as it makes me very uncomfortable and can even incur feelings of guilt. Anytime I make an effort to play an evil race, I usually end up being a do gooder with a bad wrap, heh.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Not at all. I would possibly care more of I had true options while questing (besides choosing whether to do the quest or not do the quest). When playing a single player RPG that allows me to make choices that are good or evil, I usually do what I feel is right. Sometimes it will depend on how the NPC treats me, or how I percieve them.
As far as MMOs go, I don't really have many choices, so it doesn't really influence me. I would never go around the world jumping people in RL. I do gank people and pvp in MMOs though.
I can play either evil or good characters and enjoy both but prefer the worlds i play in to be shades of grey rather than black and white.When playing Evil characters though there are limits I get ucomfortable with anything to do with rape or torture for torture's sake for example.
However I can say that my morals and beleiefs do influence the way I treat other people in MMOs and even in forums(unlike what seems to be most of the internet).
I'm finding it hard to gauge this kind of thing because in most MMOs don't really have good/evil and choices are often kept as neutral as possible... aside from the mandatory genocide for the sake of advancement, that is.
On one hand, in UO, when someone slighted a guildmember, I had no problem in waging a war of unholy vengeance on that player, his guild and all who came into contact with him. It was a lawless game world where I found it enjoyable to play the Anti-PK Obsessive Crusader of Good. In EVE Online, I enjoy fitting a frigate or destroyer and heading to low sec solely to stir the pot somewhere.
But then there was WOW, the place I was least convinced I would ever really face any moral challenge (or at least one that I would give a crap about) and I'm in Tarren Mills where I'm asked to go poison a dog. Now, the prisoner i had no problem poisoning, but the dog? Nothing in the text, history or context of anything I expereinced gave me any reason to have issue with the dog and, as such, I could not being myself to poison it.... a fictional dog that is nothing but a pile of pixels on my screen.
So while I normally have complete ease in separating real life values and values in the context of the game world, thinking about it, there are several scenarios where RL ethics did dictate or change my course of action in the game.
Cool post, Elikal.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Generally, yes. I try to have my morals influence everything in my life so as to maintain a mental practice. I tend to play nature-related or holy characters because they feel right. I believe our choices that we make through out each aspect of our lives reflect who we are.
This is admittedly on of the bigger problems i have with games that attempt to divide you between "moral choices". It is always presented as being far to cut and dry and morality as to what is good and what is evil when in reality it isnt nearly so black and white. Even Hitler didnt see himself or his choices as evil. As hard as it is for those of us who are not Hitler to wrap our heads around, he genuinely believed that his actions where for the greater good.
Even satanists for example actually do have a sort of code they live by which admittedly doesnt include tolerance of pedophiles, unlike the supposedly good catholic church who chooses to forgive such transgressions (which seems to have a pattern of repeating itself among the offenders). So between the 2 groups, which is right and which is wrong? Who is good/evil?
A sinner can always choose virtue, and a saint can always choose sin. And sometimes they wont even know which is which till its too late. And often times the choice is between sins, or choosing which virtues to prioritize. Every choice we make is usually framed to the individuals priorities of virtue more often than people deliberatly being evil and choosing to sin (except perhaps in this day and age where choosing evil for its own sake is glamorized).
Using myself as an example i tend to hold Honesty up a great deal higher than i do for example, Mercy or the feelings of others. And forgiveness im about convinced is nearly a sin since it seems to no longer be about redemption but merely an assumed automatic courtesy one is expected to ask for and recieve with no real expectation that the person being forgived will actually take it to heart and change accordingly. What makes forgiveness worse is that if someone wrongs you and you choose not to forgive them, you find yourself painted as the bad guy by witnessing 3rd parties despite that it is you and not the 3rd parties who have suffered as a result of whatever the offending party has done.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Once I decided to become a mean ganking UD rogue in WoW, however I just couldn't bring myself to do it when I finally was high enough level. I just ended up stalking my "victim" for some time and then I bailed out in the last second. The other person never knew I was even there... I was probably the most failed ganker ever.
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan
To a degree...
My personality in game is just like my personality in real life (for better or worse depending on who you talk to). Playing on the good / evil side makes no difference to me. I usually try most of the classes avaiable and choose the race purely by aesthetics.
I am a project leader at work in real life which causes me to avoid any leadship position in game like the plague. The last thing I want to do in a game is have to deal with the same drama with corp / guild members that I deal with at work with my staff.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
I play a villain in CoH/V because thats what I would e considered if I were a true hero in real life. Someone exposing the government and the Rotherchilds for who they really are.
Everythings not black and white like the examples of your posts. Look up Chaotic Good, Lawful good, Lawful Evil, etc etc. You make it sound as if anyone thats not holy and stuff is an evil bastard. No one just chooses to be evil except villains in fiction that arent well thoght out and people that can't handle contant rejection. Most evil people are either seen as evil but think they are doing whats right. It also works the other way around.
i guess it all comes to the mood that im in, sometimes (quite often) i feel like playing a badguy and will probably try to annoy you in world pvp servers ... then again i might be kind and go on searching for you stalker who keeps bugging you and kill him off few times so you can do your soloing alone
It influences my ROLE-PLAYING gameplay to some degree.
I am an atheist and do not believe in god in any shape or form - BUT I strongly believe in "good" and "evil", being "right" or "wrong". I hate cheaters, thieves and crooks and I do tend to help authorities in catching them if I can.
So naturally for me - I *mostly* play PALADINS.
Then again, if the gameplay is more FUN for some other class, I play that one too.
NEW IDEAS that can refresh the STALE state of MMORPGs
as an old daoc player i always tried to treat others as i would like to be treated. for me i got the most enjoyment in the game from helping others, especially my guildmates. kind of like how i would like to be thought of in RL.
live long and prosper
strength and honor
if urgent do it yourself
if you have time-delegate it
if you have forever-form a committee
Absolutely. They wouldn't be much of a belief system if they didn't.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Judging by the results it seems that the actions of people in-game do, in some real way, reflect their ethical stance in real life. This, of course, completely excludes people that do any sort of roleplaying and this also means that when you see people being incredibly rude, cruel, or anything else that is horribly negative they probably are that way in real life or want to be. The same holds true for people that are kind, generous, helpful or otherwise positive in their behaviour. However, it must be understood that some people don't have tolerance for stupidity and this shouldn't be construed as negative behaviour (cf. people not doing their jobs in PUGs and others being short with them).
I'm sure no one is surprised by this, esepcially the people who are the worst segments of both society and the mmorpg community.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.