My Online Identity...

My Online Identity...
Ok I was reading a couple of peoples blogs (as you do) and one post struck me by Tom Waring, check it out, anyway and his post 'My Online Identity' where he talks about his online characters mainly his World Of Warcraft character. Although he makes some very valuable points there is one thing I disagree with 'I don't personally like to de-characterise my creations, and see them as they're own entity almost. I control the character, but I am not the character itself. That is why I don't use tom_349 for character names'.

It's not that I disagree with the fact that he makes up characters I know a lot of people that do that, but my point is I like to place myself in the game I like to think of my characters as extensions of myself not something completely different. I do however give proper names for my characters though, not adam_222 for instance my own World of Warcraft character was called 'Minaith' (very geeky I know, its a pun on Lord of the Rings 'Minas Tirath', wow I'm cool) but I still view it as me. Online games for me give the opportunity to play in a role you will never ever be able to, obviously I'm never going to be a member of the alliance or a Paladin wielding a huge sword. But I still view it as me, I play as human characters and behave as I would behave in that world. For example on my Star Wars Galaxies account I was a bounty hunter who used stealth and speed to bring down my enemies, instead of jumping straight into battles I couldn't win (I must be sounding like a right geek now).

But yeah my point is that I enter these worlds as a version of myself, unlike a lot of the people who play as a character, there's a very geeky joke about when they added voice speak to WoW 'unfortunately most of you will find out that hot night elf chick is really a dude'. Well hopefully you get my point that it is possible to play as yourself on an MMORPG even if I have sacrificed my coolness to make that point. By the Way I'm sorry there's no photo evidence of all of this but I really can't be bothered to pay £15 a month anymore.

I am really struggling to get into second life I have to admit right now so I think I'm going to download the Star Wars Galaxies Online game and hopefully get a couple of my flat mates to play it too (they're Star Wars mad too) so then it can be more of a social thing. Can I just make one point though to save me some respect I only ever played these games because my friends were at the time, I'm not like a guy who sits in his room in the dark with my pretend friends on screen I like the social aspect of being in this world with your friends. But anyway I might start playing SWG or at least the trial and see how I get on I'll post back with details later.