Meters?

LVL 15, 100% H, 100% S – RP? “LMAO ROFL”

 

To meter or not to meter?

I guess it depends on what you want out of your SL game.   I stand with the folks that say “if I want metered pew pew I go play my PS3”.   But for those that want the “pew pew” as we the RP snobs derogatorily call metered combat in SL, I guess the meter is alright.  I can see it providing some fast-paced excitement while the rest of us wait for up to 20 minutes for a well crafted post, but still… nothing gets my heart rate up like the written word.

Don’t get me wrong, it is roleplay.  They are carrying out a story, playing fictional characters, involving themselves in a fantasy.   It’s just not MY kind of roleplay.  I can also see the advantage and the fun in a combat scene with a lot of people, if we waited for each person to post  it could take a week before the dust and gun smoke settles and we figure out what happened.

So, that’s it for the pros.  I see no others.

The cons and the subject of my rant?

1.  Type of RP.   I was at first prompted to say “quality of RP”, but quality is relative.  Some people think that paragraph style RP is boring and pedantic, so it’s not “quality” for them.  Some people prefer Hemmingway or Martin, some like DC Comics (pardon the snobbery).   So lets just call it “type” of RP, even if this is MY rant about the stuff that bothers me, so let me give you an example,

/me shouted “Denny,”  his voice echoing across the tarped boxes and dusty desert air. “I know you’re in here.”  A single deafening roar from his assault rifle punctuated his call like an exclamation point. He noticed the footsteps on the dusty floor leading behind the boxes in the corner, and would bet money that that was were his target was hiding.  “Step out from behind the box,” he said. “Let me kill you quick.”   

Metered Combat RP:

PEW PEW PEW 

LMFAO DICKHEAD UR A$$ IS MINE

PEW PEW PEW

These expletives are written just like that (or worse) and often shouted across the sim.  No punctuation, unless they happen to add “!!!!!!!” at the end, or some gesture that draws out in typed letters and symbols a shooting gun or a squirting cock.  In the middle of all this there is little time to type, let alone that I find that the animations that come with the weapons are comical and most avatars wind up running around like aimless wind-up toys randomly shooting at things.

 

2.  Lack of RP.  So if TYPE of RP didn’t get ya, how about the lack of RP altogether?  You know exactly what I’m talking about.  Everyone is so concerned with XP that they park their avies (camp) in an obscure corner to collect XP while they sleep or go to work.  Sim owners are all HAPPY about their traffic, but its the same 10 people sitting in their rented apartments farming XP and doing nothing–I have counted as much as 20 to 24 parked camping avies at once.   So you wind up with a Level 15 avatar who can’t shoot, can’t rp, and has no idea what the hell is going on in the Sim.  The other downside of this?  New people coming to visit the sim will cam around to see what is going on.  What do they see?  A bunch of zombie avatars in suspended animation with nothing happening.  Some label these as bots, or false traffic, meaning that while it would seem that a sim is booming with traffic and activity, it really isn’t.  There is also that thing where it hinders rp for others because now those apartments are safe zones, cause its not fair to get killed while you are not there to defend yourself, right?  Or to try to RP with someone who isn’t there?

It might be a solution if people sought to find a happy medium.  If sim owners kicked campers or if there was something built into the script where if the avatar wasn’t active for a certain amount of time their meter would turn off… something.  As it is we get false traffic, no RP on a seemingly full sim, and poor RP.  Am I guilty of camping?  Maybe.  If you want count sitting in my shop waiting for someone to come by.  So then yes, I sit there in my store hoping for some rp, or wander about a bit, and if I find none I just go back to my store, park while I go get coffee or browse the Marketplace…

…so pew pew me.