Posted by The Ponderer on August 12, 1999 at 04:38:04:
The CF experience, so grand, so engulfing. I'm sure it has ruined a life, a relationship, or maybe just a semester. We become so engrossed in making the experience enjoyable, so fulfilling that we often forget about the real world. What happens though when the experience expands into the real world? What happens when we begin to embrace EVERYTHING CF, the forum, IRC, ICQ relationships, the soap opera that is CF? I'll tell you what happened to me. CF itself was made a lot less fun. When you begin to form relationships outside of the game, when you begin to realize and take notice of the other relationships between people who play the game, the game itself suffers. Like it or not there is a monstrous web of relationships out there that is getting people special favors. I'm not going to sit here and say that these favors are a result of nepotism and the like, but what I am going to say is that these favors happen. It might just be because one player who knows another player knows them well enough to know that they won't screw it up. They won't take advantage of, abuse, or ruin the favor. However, knowing that this takes place takes from the game. You examine it and realize that it's not necessarily excellent roleplay or skill, but ooc relationships that leaderships, quests, titles and so forth are based on. Not all mind you, but just enough to make it less enjoyable. Then there's IRC. You spend a lot of time here and you begin to realize that the CF playerbase(at least those that go to IRC) is a sorry bunch of people. Monstrous egos, delusions of grandeur, jealousy, cheating, and name-calling abound. Maturity sits in the corner and weaps at its lack of power. People begin hating other people. They begin to scheme, waiting for that person to name one of his chars so that they can jump on the opportunity and ridicule and degrade them for any little thing they've done in the past. Read the forum and realize that not only is the playerbase immature, but they're also a whiners. Whining goes on endlessly. Whether it be because something isn't going their chars way, or because the player is trying to use some hightened form of morality to degrade a certain cabal, player, or immortal. Again, people wait for opportunities to harm another player, assassinating their char, posting a log of the char going against its "belief" system. Sit back and look at this closely enough and you begin to hate the game. You begin to despise the other people that play it. You begin to wish you'd never even started partaking in these ooc forums of discussion. You begin to yearn for the blissful ignorance that is simply playing the game and leaving it at that. I encourage all of you to cut ties with at least one form of ooc forum. Whether it be IRC, the forum, or the relationships you've formed. I think you'll find much more enjoyment when playing the game.