Aysun

[quote name='Tarquinus' date='27 May 2010 - 08:06 PM' timestamp='1275008765' post='60496']It is easy to say, in a vacuum, "things should be thus," but MagicDuel is not nor ever has been a vacuum. You ask how Yrthilian can have wound up with so many alts without necessarily wanting them, and the answer is simply that he inherited them, and that they serve meaningful roles, quasi-npc-like, in the realm. He would be remiss in his function as king of Golemus Golemicarum (to say nothing of his personal responsibility as a friend) to allow these accounts and roles to languish unused or simply disappear. You arrive after the era of the RPCs, so you do not know about certain roles and characters in the realm that are or have become somewhat institutional.[/quote] I've never argued that MagicDuel operated in a vacuum, however I will say that unfortunately not all roleplayers are equal and so generally my opinions come into play as a result of the majority- and in the minority that it does not fall under (as I mentioned in my first post in this thread that my comments were mostly geared towards those who abuse institution) I usually find myself quite impressed at their abilities to switch gears. You're right in that I come after the time of RPCs, and although I don't know the technicalities of how that worked, 'inheriting characters' to me sounds like sharing accounts in order to sustain an entity. I understand that long-standing players can they themselves become something of an institution, and that is something I personally appreciate because their continued activities are what build an exceedingly rich tapestry of history and stories, however if the man behind the curtain decides to 'lose himself to time' as it were, perhaps it is merely the cyclicity of things that he does so. Their passing away and effective departure from the public eye in itself becomes legend which further perpetuates their history and legend surrounding them. If they are continuously kept alive for the sake of being kept alive (either as a sort of icon or otherwise), and others are then needed to take over to do so, that character has the very likely chance of either having a significant split personality suddenly or just becoming a hollow shell of who they were under their original owner, and that would drastically affect the importance of that being should it happen. It's like a rock band that's outlasted their prime- they can end on a high note, or continue on and make their good name become a bit of a joke. But if they quit when they feel they need to go, their return in the scheme of things will be that much more epic when it comes. If that's not what you meant by inheriting, though, I do apologize for my misinterpretation. [quote]In my case, I invented two alts for specific purposes, and one almost never gets used because the plans I made for it did not pan out. My "primary" alternate account, Keith Moon, sees so much use it is now honestly debatable which is the "main" - Tarquinus or Keith. It is important that you understand that my public acknowledgment of Keith as Tarquinus's "alt" is a relatively recent phenomenon. I don't mean to sound pompous, as it is a simple fact that as recently as a month ago some players were still reacting with surprise to learn that Keith and Tarquinus are played by the same guy. Why is that? Mainly, it is that Keith started out as sort of a joke, a spinoff of the Tarquinus character's belief in reincarnation, and grew into a fully developed character in his own right. I play Lucius and Keith as friends, which is easy enough to understand and explain, but they are different from each other and dwell in different societies in the world of MagicDuel. Is either of them one-dimensional? Judge for yourself. [/quote] As I just said above, mostly my perspectives come from what will happen nine times out of ten, and that is a completely botched effort, intentionally, unknowingly, accidentally, or not. I know there can be magnificent exceptions to the rule (that is why I've not been quite as cut and dry about this as I perhaps could've been), but the unfortunate fact is that it often doesn't end up that way. One of my original suggestions from a completely theoretical standpoint in my first post was that in order to successfully conceive a second character, one would have to go for the totally anonymous route. From what you describe here, save for the last bit, seems as if you've done just that, and sure enough you've received due remuneration from your fellows for your efforts. By all means, I agree with that sort of course and said so in the beginning. But, for instance, such as with child alts, the people behind them are not anonymous, either because they advertised right away who their new alts were or because whatever their underlying cause for creating an alt might've been became so obvious to their fellows to the point where they were seen clear through and their cover was blown. This is the sort of thing that comes hand in hand with creating a character who's main purpose in life is to terrorize the adversary of their main which is really poor form, I think, any way you look at it. [quote]I can certainly corroborate the statement that playing multiple well-developed characters at once is challenging. Your words about the aspects of our personalities coming to the fore of these characters is accurate, but anyone who has ever game-mastered a tabletop RPG has experience borrowing different aspects of her personality and presenting them as completely different perspectives. Do I recommend it? I do not...The objections you raise about the reality of the MagicDuel setting are well taken, but they really only present challenges to the players more than insurmountable obstacles. The easy answer for me to the question of the characters' role in this reality is that Tarquinus is somewhat delusional and insane, and I have always played him that way. Multiple personality disorder is cliché and somewhat hackneyed, but I guarantee there are at least two players other than me in MagicDuel who carry it off elegantly and sometimes brilliantly.[/quote] Again, I said originally that, along with anonymity, picking an extreme to work from if one is thinking of an alt is also another way to combat the perpetuation of carried-over bias from one character to another, and you seem to have done this the other way around by making an extreme entity first and a more leveled out one later on down the road. *chuckle* Either way works, and coupled with your (mostly) anonymity in roles and working with dynamics through extremes and thus being successful with it, I feel the examples you've given have proven my point that those things are vital to pulling something like alts off. However, the reality is that it usually doesn't work out that way and we usually end up with a clash of interests such as child alts present. So therein lies the conundrum that must be untangled, if it is even possible, in how to separate such an intimate alt from its conceptor so as to avoid damaging/inane cross-overs of personalities/bias/etc. . I suppose one avenue it could take would be to quietly make a deal with someone outside of the 'family' to take over the character, thus allowing it to be truly its own being provided that the standard problems we've already mentioned here of having an alt as it is can still be handled with care. That is, of course, if the inorganic producing the organic is even possible by the laws of MagicDuel in its essence, and from what I've been able to read and understand it shouldn't because it doesn't really fit the logic and physics of the land (barring the possibility of intended paradox). That in itself is a completely different conversation, though, but since relevance is also an underlying issue I thought I'd give it a brief mention once again so that that aspect of it isn't out of mind. [quote]Your constructive criticism is welcome, Aysun, and indeed you get a certain cachet with me and others for arguing your case lucidly and logically among veteran players.[/quote] I thank you for that. Although I'm still learning, even these sorts of discussions help me better sort out the structure of things in MD so I appreciate your counter.

[quote name='Sharazhad' date='27 May 2010 - 05:46 PM' timestamp='1275000361' post='60486'] [color="#2e8b57"][i] But I dont get why this is becoming such an issue. Is this gonna develop into a rant to ban alts? cos it sure seems to be heading that way - Just makes me wonder, what kind of world is MD turning into? [/i][/color] [/quote] .....or you could begin a self-fulfilling prophecy predicting such a turn and it will therefore happen! I don't think anyone here has suggested banning alts. I personally said that, ideally, I think everyone should be kept to one character, but that's just me. I hold myself to my own ethics and no one else, but I don't see any harm in constructive criticism from time to time, and that's what this debate seems like to me. No one's been ranting, everyone's been presenting pretty good arguments for and against the practice of child alts and various philosophies behind alts to begin with. There's really no answer to the question, ultimately. It's all very subjective. The only final voice in the matter would be Mur's, and I don't think it's come to anything that serious as of yet.

[quote name='Pipstickz' date='27 May 2010 - 04:34 PM' timestamp='1274996043' post='60482'] "The cube is created AROUND" Suggests that you were there, then the cube was added. The cube is not natural, but it says nothing about the person it contains. [/quote] If the cube is unnatural but created from our own self limitations, our limitations, although created by us, would still be organic if we were the organic things that made them. If the cube is inorganic, it could be argued that something inorganic also created it, meaning that the maps of one's soul that lies within the inner walls of the cube is also of an inorganic nature, for how could something truly organic be held back by something that is inorganic? You're not really trapped in the synthetic clothes you wear, as you can remove, or rip out of them (whichever you prefer ), at any time, whereas within this cube we are very much stuck. I think that there are many ways to argue this, however. [quote name='Burns' date='27 May 2010 - 04:43 PM' timestamp='1274996612' post='60484'] http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/5784-forum-rules/page__view__findpost__p__48452 Just as a reminder, all of us should have read those rules some time Apart from that, i'm fine with alts that don't abuse the system and don't start to force their (copied) 'stories' on MD. There's... 10 of these, at best. There are also very few people who have the time, and brain capacity, to play two different accounts well. Those are the only alts worth being supported. The others... waste serverspace. And annoy me, personally, to no end. You also have to be careful with your opinions, MD is an RPG. We are NOT ourselves when we log in, we play a character. Some very smart people are capable of creating more than 1 character for the same game. A lot more tried and failed, but the potential failure shouldn't ban them from the try imo. They give up some time anyways^^ [/quote] Ah. Well my suggestion for a separate forum account for alts was to remove the conspicuous absence of that other anonymous character's presence in the forum. If someone becomes a major player in the land but is clearly absent here, suspicions could be aroused. That was all. As for saying that we are not ourselves- surely we are a [i]facet[/i] of ourselves when we step into a place like MD. That facet, although just a fragment, is still a part of ourselves. We can't create what we are not already, and that in itself has numerous implications. Also, the longer an entity exists, it only becomes a more concentrated form of itself. I think the long-time players of MD will admit that there is a large difference between their portrayal of themselves in the beginning and their portrayal of themselves now. I feel that such a thing is natural, but in creating multiple accounts that sort of progression is thwarted in favour of a safety buffer against loss, thus heralding that dreaded one-dimensionality I mentioned earlier.

[quote name='Yrthilian' date='27 May 2010 - 03:54 PM' timestamp='1274993687' post='60477'] I am sorry i have to disagree with you here. The creation of ALt's is productive in many ways. Looking at why people create an alt is in its self intresting. I am a vet, withing this system. I happen to also have a larg number of alt accounts and not intencionaly.[/quote] How do you unintentionally have a large number of alts? That doesn't make any sense. Do you create them in your sleep? This simply isn't possible. [quote]I can also argue your point about trying thing in real life. I for one have done something simlar in RL that i tried out and then droped. But i could only do it one way.[/quote] I would argue that you [i]chose[/i] to do it one way, whatever it was, because there is never only ever one option. There is usually a sea of them. Therefore, you limited yourself to a single choice, and that's not what this is about. [quote]That is to say i did it online. This is in its self a NEW skin using the internet to portray something about you that you dont do in RL. I will say from persional experience with this real i have done things i would not have done in RL but treat what i do here as something i would want to try. I have then been able to adapt myself after testing this change online. So even though in RL i cant change my skin i can how ever do something and decide if i wish to adapt my life to that new way.[/quote] In the end, it is still you making the choice, and so you've not really shed anything. Most peoples' first characters tend to be the closest to themselves personality and decision-wise. What you're describing is a sim, and I don't think MD is, or is meant to be, a sim in the slightest. It is meant to pull upon what you already know, or don't know and/or realize, in reality in order to affect the situations that have been created here. [quote]There have been many characters created by a single player look at Mur, KC, Shade sentinal, BigC, Wodin i am sure there are many mkore created that thoes players managed to keep from crossing the line. I know i have 2 other alts that have very little interaction and in no way use the knowledge Yrth has gained.[/quote] I personally think Mur is a bad example. Mur, as the Creator, really has no choice but to create everything you see around you, including some of the characters you need to interact with in order to progress in the puzzles he lays out for you. I feel he's exempt from this debate. And, if you're one of the ones that's not managed to keep things separate, then my post really wasn't intended for you. [quote]The whole reason for beeing allowed alts is to try a new path that you decided you would not go with a diffrent character.[/quote] I already mentioned previously that just making a new character every time you don't want to sacrifice a previous situation in order to move into a new one in the end merely creates a landscape of empty entities that are very one-sided. It is our experiences in many different fields that shapes who we are in an environment, and if we sequester and seal off each separate experience, we've gained nothing but a bunch of facets that cannot work together due to their compartmentalization. [quote]I also just wanted to say. you mention that the MD cube and us is unnatural. Are you sure what we are in MD in unnatural. I disagree but this i think you need to figure out for yourself [/quote] I will quote Mur: "[i]The cube is the created bx around your soul and mind. [u]It is not a natural construction[/u], or it would have been a sphere.[/i]" Therefore, we are not organic, and thus I do not think that we as inorganic entities should be able to produce that which is organic unless, of course, as I also said before, that such a paradox is intended to be one of the many mysteries of MD.

In my experience, if you're truly going to implement an alt character, or a "second" (or even a "third") as I've grown accustomed to calling them, it is absolutely best to not even let on that you are someone else that everyone already knows. If you're out to be a new person, [i]be[/i] that new person- why do they have to know you are also so-and-so? Be anonymous. Be so anonymous that you even have a separate forum account that is its own entity also. I'm sure some are already doing things like this, but it seems the more well-known players are more keen on advertising the fact that they have yet again created someone new to the very heavens themselves instead of getting into a role, picking a path, and letting others around you respond to [i]that[/i] new entity instead of according to their preconceptions of a previous incarnation that may or may not still walk the land. Carrying biases over from one account to another is also extremely counter productive, I think. Unless, of course, your plan is to go to the ultimate extreme with it. Another problem is creating a new entity that is naturally at odds with your main/original character. If you create someone new, they should most likely not cross paths at all in any sense, and yes I think that's possible- it would be one of the challenges of playing a new role. However, in the end, what I really think should happen is this: There should be no alts/seconds/thirds. You are yourself as you enter into MagicDuel, and you decide where you go and what you do and when you do it. When you want to try something totally new, do you, in real life, get to shed your skin and step into a new one just so you don't lose what you already have? No. You decide if the new thing, whatever it is, is really worth it, and you [i]make sacrifices[/i] to go a new way. This, I feel, is what gives a person, a character, depth and history that is vital to a long-surviving realm such as this. If everyone just creates a new account whenever they want to try this or that out, we are merely left with a land full of shallow, one-dimensional entities that are unable to be learned from without them crossing lines and using knowledge from another account to aide and abet another one. Child bearing, in any other setting, could work, I think. But in MD, we are all technically man-made entities within a cube that have somehow garnered a mind of our own, so how can something unnatural commit something so natural as conceiving and giving birth? I think it goes against the ethics and mechanics of the place to be able to cause something like that. Love is possible as you find other entities like unto yourself. Marriage, sure. But I don't feel that, here, you can create something organic from that which is inorganic, unless of course such a thing is yet another mystery in this great land. [u]disclaimer[/u]: Before my own opinions arouse any sort of suspicion about myself, I'd like to step outside of things and say, formally, that I will never have any sort of alt (for I'd be a hypocrite if I did, after saying what I have above), or have ever existed previously, in MD. I'm merely another new face in the crowed, and my opinions here are based on my observations thus far in exploring and traveling through MD.

"[i][url="http://www.amazon.com/Chalice-Robin-McKinley/dp/0441018742/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274984821&sr=8-2"]Chalice[/url][/i]" by Robin McKinley. I'd highly suggest her work, especially this new one. Her stories are very subtle, and often days after reading it, you'll suddenly be somewhere completely random and have an epiphany of some sort about a story element. Perhaps it is very 'MD' in that sense.

Perhaps the missing papers that were mentioned before have little to do with what the book actually is. Perhaps there actually are seven, and it has to do with destination, as a cube itself also has to do with destination. [spoiler]To get to anywhere in space and time, one must have six points- one on each wall of a cube- to create the destination, and one point outside of the cube as the point of origin. If we are all inside of one cube already- busted open or not- we would need to know the coordinates of the destination cube (aka what represents each wall of the other cube we're trying to get to) in order to transfer ourselves from this cube to gain entry into another cube. Perhaps this is far fetched, and I don't know all the details involved here, but when I heard 'cube' and 'seven papers' mentioned together, it made perfect sense to me. To me, another cube equals another destination- not necessarily that it holds something free-floating within. For instance, each individual exists inside of a cube, and so, our lives are mapped out, as it were, on the inside walls of this cube and the different 'lands' merely becoming different eras of our lives in a sense. Our dark days Necrovion, our light days Marind Bell, our contemplative days GG, our cherished memories the Archives, our innate nature Loreroot, the eastern lands our future since they are technically uncharted territories. I feel that it is not an object that we're to find inside of another cube, but another land altogether, and these papers could offer the coordinates to transport us to at least one of them.[/spoiler] Black texting eludes me, so the spoiler box will have to suffice.

I'm still quite new in the scheme of things, but I'd at least like to say that having the astral plane available to me early on is probably what has kept me in md. Through it, I could have more freedom to see where I could one day go and properly interact with, and it has further encouraged me to work towards getting there properly- one of the places I've already done so as of today. And so I would be very sad to be thus closed off from the Astral plane now, as it has often served as a road map and encouragememt to me in my early days here. -A