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Which is silly! Thus the circle is complete.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I think that's what screwed me up. I actually had a mental image of a chilly Chilean eating chili in Chile.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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After playing on Virtue for 17 months, I've yet to be hit on, asked for, or offered cybersex. I suspect it's because almost all my characters are very scantily-clad and I show some interest in the numbers side of the game, so people just assume it's a male player behind the controls.|
Originally Posted by Smurch
When we first started playing the game in 2006, we rolled initially on Virtue. However, after the first day my wife was so tired of being hit on constantly that we moved over to protector instead. We've been back on virtue for the past few years when most everyone we knew on Protector left the game and it doesn't happen nearly as often as it did then, but it still does happen. She had one guy actually send her tells RPing how he.. ahem... took her character by force on the bar in pocket D in very explicit details. She left the area right away and put him on ignore, but that sort of thing is the kind of thing that really makes people think they don't want to be around the kind of people who ERP.
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(edit) I know Virtue has a (somewhat exaggerated) reputation for being a den of beastiality, pedophilia and cybersex, but most of us are well-adjusted, normal adults, really. The majority of this server doesn't even RP.
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Right, like I said, it's not so bad anymore. Spend enough time in Pocket D, however, and it'll happen eventually.|
Originally Posted by Laevateinn
After playing on Virtue for 17 months
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The funny thing is, my wife plays often scantilly clad female characters as well. About half believe she's a girl and about half don't. She's been accused of being a guy more than once. So that could have something to do with it.
Outside Pocket D, she's only been hit on a couple of times in the past few years. When CoV launched in 2006? It was non-stop.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
These fake relationships are about as odd as they come. It's one thing to meet people online it's another to not meet them and ERP with them.
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I used to ERP and just generally RP with a person in Star Wars Galaxies who played a blue-skinned Twi'lek female. We eventually did meet IRL, and we're now married.
ERP can be a very dangerous thing. I try to keep my virtual partners down to one at a time and schedule regular scans with my SGs Auto-Doc.
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If you catch a Chinchilla in Chile|
Originally Posted by Smurch
Which is silly! Thus the circle is complete.
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And cut off its beard, willy-nilly
You can honestly say
That you have just made
A Chilean Chinchilla's chin chilly
@Demobot
Also on Steam
I've seen a lot of responses and varying opinions and stances, I really like that and I'd like to thank all of you that have kept civil in the conversation and offered up balanced arguments. It's nice to receive such.
A couple of things I'll touch in response to some people posting here.
- I'm not judging anyone. I never said that 'they shouldn't and that was that' I said I thought they shouldn't and that it was my opinion, unlike those that simply state it as being wrong and leave it at that I explicitly state that these are my opinions and in no way, shape or form are fact or absolute. Not only that, but I never condemned anyone for their behaviour or actions. Although my words may seem condemning, they're not, I'm actually rather if you'll notice just asking why people seem to think in the manner I'm observing.
- I can understand the dislike of those that do it in public, again, like I've said.. If it's not in public I think it's okay, private is okay but public is not. As I've said it can bleed into the public without even being posted there by the MRPers or ERPers by those who read their profiles and decide to berate them for no reason. This is the problem I have.
- I can also understand the dislike of those MRPers and ERPers who don't respect that not everyone wishes to do this and by all means, report them and ignore them. If someone tried to do that to me forcefully and didn't take no, I would. I wouldn't stand for it and I'd be offended as well. I'm not defending those, I'm defending the ERPers and MRPers that keep it amongst themselves. Some are perfectly nice and innocent people.
To be perfectly frank, I don't see that it's an issue. Do people think it's weird? Sure. Plenty of people don't get RP in general as a practice, and compounding that by introducing adult themes and/or sexuality just brings it one further step beyond.
Nevertheless, I don't believe there's any active persecution of those who MRP/ERP or ridicule of them in a serious sense. Perhaps some teasing, but this is frankly to be expected if someone makes it known that they enjoy engaging in such practices (what can I say, most people as a general collective never entirely get past the giggling at dirty words stage of maturity on the sex issue).
Ultimately, if this kind of RP is being done with consideration for others, it should be entirely private and no one else should know it is happening at all. So, no issue aside from genuine accidents of the mistell variety. However, if the intent is to be 'overheard' or to force this sort of experience on an unwilling party (who may or may not be an adult and certainly is not consenting), then it's unacceptable as well as rather creepy. As for the profiles thing, that's a bit of a sticky issue (no pun intended). On the one hand, I support the right of any player to put forth the description/RP that fits the character - I don't believe in curtailing creativity or in censorship as a general rule. That said, this is a Teen rated game and something placed in a profile is akin to a public posting. Yes, someone has to click to read it, but many people (especially on a high-RP server like Virtue) are going to open profiles as a matter of course. Essentially what all this boils down to is that I think profiles which serve as a 'teaser' are acceptable, but X-rated profiles not so much. This line, like much of this issue, is a subjective judgment.
I'd also add that the accusation of hypocrisy here only works if we accept the assumption that everyone who condemns or dislikes MRP/ERP is secretly doing it themselves or would like to be doing it themselves. Such arguments hold little weight with me. It boils down to the 'you're just jealous' argument and such a statement implies a smug sense of superiority with one's own positon (that surely everyone else secretly wants to be the same way). I find that sort of presumption repugnant.
As for uptight, granted. I think America could stand to be significantly less uptight concerning sexual matters and adult content across the board, and possibly a bit more uptight when it comes to graphic violence. But that's just me. YMMV.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server
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Bwhahahahaha!|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I had one clown that must have put one of my characters on his friends list because he'd hit on her everytime he ran across her. He didn't stop bugging me until I bought the Science Booster and turned the tables on him by hitting the costume change and turning into a 10' tall monstrous escaped prisoner and telling him, "You gots a real purty mouf, now bendover and squeal like a pig fo yo daddy, cuz you my little puppy now!"
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You win an Internet!
I'll add this, and it's been said already in different forms.
Some people find this "creepy" or personally unappealing. However, they don't really care if it's going on in private. What raises people's ire, and invites ridicule, are the poor schlubs who do this in open zones, and don't have the tact to at least do it in team chat or some other form of truly private communication. Or worse, harass people with it who don't desire to participate.
Again, it's the "one rotten apple" syndrome (talk to the PvP crowd, they're INTIMATELY familiar with the situation).
And Perfect Pain. Who appointed me to judge others?
Me.
It's called personal choice, discernment if you will.
People without this skill usually have a very hard time going through life and/or wind up dead in a ditch for lack of it.
Is this cynicism? Probably. But it keeps me out of trouble (mostly), so I'll go with it.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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I don't dislike ERP because I'm immature or uptight. I dislike it because I think ERP is immature and a even bit uptight itself. It screams of frustrated sexuality, of unvented urges coming out in an odd way, through the medium of a Video Game. It seems sophmoric.|
Originally Posted by Justaris
Nevertheless, I don't believe there's any active persecution of those who MRP/ERP or ridicule of them in a serious sense. Perhaps some teasing, but this is frankly to be expected if someone makes it known that they enjoy engaging in such practices (what can I say, most people as a general collective never entirely get past the giggling at dirty words stage of maturity on the sex issue).
<snip> As for uptight, granted. I think America could stand to be significantly less uptight concerning sexual matters and adult content across the board, and possibly a bit more uptight when it comes to graphic violence. But that's just me. YMMV. |
I can't imagine anything more BORING as a sexual experience than watching someone else type dirty words into a computer poorly. I can do much much better than that in real life.
I saw a character bio on Virtue once that said "I no longer ERP as I have found someone in real life". That about says it all. Whenever I see someone ERPing, I think "maybe they, too, should go find someone in real life."
However, as long as people do it in private with people they know to be actual real adults and everyone's happy, I don't really care.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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I get the impression a lot of ERPers like to wave it in our faces (ugh! Mental image!) by publicly ERPing... at least that's the impression I get from the number of people who complain about ERPers in Pocket D... it's not like anyone would notice if they were doing it privately right?
Played 5 years and never noticed anyone ERP or MRT'ing so I doubt that it is much of an issue or that people are discreet. But I have to agree with previous posters that since you cannot be sure that the person on the other side of the screen is not a minor that doing either of those activities in this game is inappropriate.
Well, I've also noticed.. Excuse this post.. A lot of hostility in reaction to this thread and aimed towards me in particular, I've tried to be civil and really I refuse to lower myself to the level of flinging insults at people, bickering with them and berating them for having a differing opinion from my own.. Nay and rather, I respect them for having a differing opinion.
With all the bad blood, though and all the anger and hostility I'm beginning to perceive from many of the posts made recently in this thread I think I'm going to quietly bow out and allow it to die away. Perhaps I made a mistake in thinking this was an issue that could be talked over, it seems people are not ready to look at things objectively and without malice or bigotry.
Everyone, be well. I mean that.
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Originally Posted by JadeTora
Well, I've also noticed.. Excuse this post.. A lot of hostility in reaction to this thread and aimed towards me in particular, I've tried to be civil and really I refuse to lower myself to the level of flinging insults at people, bickering with them and berating them for having a differing opinion from my own.. Nay and rather, I respect them for having a differing opinion.
With all the bad blood, though and all the anger and hostility I'm beginning to perceive from many of the posts made recently in this thread I think I'm going to quietly bow out and allow it to die away. Perhaps I made a mistake in thinking this was an issue that could be talked over, it seems people are not ready to look at things objectively and without malice or bigotry. Everyone, be well. I mean that. |
With all due respect please quote the people you think are being hostlile to you. I read and re-read this thread and I honestly don't see it.
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With all due respect, OP, there was no "bad blood" fomented by this thread.|
Originally Posted by JadeTora
Well, I've also noticed.. Excuse this post.. A lot of hostility in reaction to this thread and aimed towards me in particular, I've tried to be civil and really I refuse to lower myself to the level of flinging insults at people, bickering with them and berating them for having a differing opinion from my own.. Nay and rather, I respect them for having a differing opinion.
With all the bad blood, though and all the anger and hostility I'm beginning to perceive from many of the posts made recently in this thread I think I'm going to quietly bow out and allow it to die away. Perhaps I made a mistake in thinking this was an issue that could be talked over, it seems people are not ready to look at things objectively and without malice or bigotry. Everyone, be well. I mean that. |
Your definitions seem a bit thin-skinned and skewed. You assume that anyone who has stated a distaste for MRP & ERP as being hostile at best and outright hypocritical at worst.
I saw little actual hostility, more an attitude that a poster here and there found it a puzzling behavior while some others found it creepy. I suppose that because you are advocating such behavior you have now taken their comment to be some sort of personal criticism. There is a difference, and no one in this thread has said that you should stop doing the ERP you apparently find enjoyable - with a few warnings that you should be careful that the other party is indeed a "consenting adult" not a minor.
But I also found your stance that those who criticize ERP are "hypocritical" because they must indulge in ERP themselves (and now lie about doing so) to be a rush to judgement on your part. I can assure you that many people do not ERP in this game or elsewhere....
As for objectivity - given that you have read posts that were made in a fairly balanced tone to be personal criticisms - I guess you may want to examine your own objectivity in this matter.
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
I like my ERP hostile...
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Eh... if I didn't say it outright, I meant to. It's simply not realistic to believe that you can keep ERP activity secluded only to verifiable adults in this sort of environment. And given the nature of the activity, the possibility of kids being involved is actually the certainty of kids being involved. ERP is fine and dandy, a vice I've indulged in myself, but it has no place whatsoever in a Teen rated game.|
Originally Posted by Ad Astra
There is a difference, and no one in this thread has said that you should stop doing the ERP you apparently find enjoyable - with a few warnings that you should be careful that the other party is indeed a "consenting adult" not a minor.
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And if my last post isn't the one he was pointing at for unspecified hostilities, let this one be it. The OP managed to very carefully ignore the question of underaged participation, and the damage that could be done to the game if the right people caught word of a kid using CoH to hook up for sex chat, while manufacturing a wholly illusory grudge to drive him out of the conversation. That's some incredibly weak bullcrap. It feels to me like he couldn't come up with a compelling counter-argument for that point, and just wanted to try and make the rest of us look like badguys before he ran.
@Eisenzahn
GW2 - Melchior.2135
AIM - Euroclydon23
Email - scorpany@yahoo.com or <sameasmyAIM>@aol.com (for the sheer novelty of an almost 20 year old email address that hasn't been overwhelmed by spambots yet)
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It's not always this, sometimes part of a character's identity can be established during these scenes, there are also other reasons. I confess to having done ERP, but for a very strange reason (Perhaps weirder than any fetish), I wanted to know if I could actually write a decent erotic scene. (Wannabe author here.)|
Originally Posted by Smurch
I actually find ERP to be a silly thing to do (I can't imagine people typing that stuff in earnest), but it doesn't bother me if two consenting adults (confirmed adults) want to type dirty things at each other to get off.
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You might say some... *Puts on sun glasses* Do it for the art.
Click here to find all the All Things Art Threads!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.
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I like my ERP hypocritical.|
Originally Posted by LISAR
I like my ERP hostile...
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No... wait... what's the word I'm looking for.........
a palindrome! Yeah, that's it. It's a palindrome.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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Erpre?
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
I like my ERP hypocritical.
No... wait... what's the word I'm looking for......... a palindrome! Yeah, that's it. It's a palindrome. |
*slips into something a bit more comfortable*
))))CLAAAANNNNNKKKK((((
Can Someone turn off that giant electromagnet?!
It's making this Armored Suit chaffe.
Ok, seriously, I think the whole ERP thing is ridiculous. As it's been said before, a 45 year old fat guy, pretending to be a 22 year old hot chick, who's cybering with a 12 year old boy who's pretending to be a 20 year old college jock... Creepy!
Comic and Hero/Villain Culture
Saturday January 29th, 2005 (12:37 PM) ~ Monday August 9th, 2010
Those Who Lived It Will Remember Long after your Ban Hammer Crumbles and the servers flicker dead.
We Will Remember This One Moment In Time! ~ Shadow Ravenwolf
Meh. Never really had any problem of that on Union, which is the unofficial RP server EU side. Once or twice had people doing something in local in PD, once in Cap while trying to RP with two friends, IC supergroup invite. The two in Cap were just people getting a kick out of ruining other peoples fun, so we simply moved. Problem solved.
I will say it does seem there is far less tolerance of...well, anything in the US. Which amuses me for a number of reasons, none of which I till touch on because I don't want to get a Rikti Mob throwing me into a Riktification Pod (Actually...I wouldnt say no. All your base: Belong to us)
As for it being 'creepy'...well, so are many things in life. So are people, right off the bat. Its like, omg it's teh interwebs, our kiddies will get raeped!' Worse things happen. Every single day.
Yes, you do get some stuff that is probably fairly 'Meh', on any scale. Then there is stuff which you might expect to find in a slightly more mature novel. Its like any RP, you get the dross, and then you get the quality stuff.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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and here was I thinking ERP was something totally different. At least, it used to be when I was selling it... 
Thelonious Monk
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I'll disagree with that.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I will say it does seem there is far less tolerance of...well, anything in the US. |
Sex - yup, we are huge prudes.
Violence - I think there are a lot more societies who actively prohibit violence in their entertainment.
The US is a county in which you can whack 1,000 people in a movie, but show a nipple and the world ends.
Depending on where the participants live, ERP with a minor (even one who has not been identified as such by the other partner) may constitute criminal behavior according to the local authorities. Extremely difficult to prosecute in any jurisdiction, perhaps, but it doesn't need to go to court to have a devastating impact... it just needs to wind up on the news.
Imagine some concerned parents catching their beloved, blameless, perfect, wonderful little spud doing some One Handed Typing while logged into a dark corner of Pocket D. Imagine them getting irate that such evil was permitted to enter their home and corrupt their innocent cherub, and flailing around for someone to blame (because it couldn't possibly be their own damn fault for allowing the kid unrestricted internet access and putting the computer anywhere other than a high traffic central location in the home) until they catch the attention of some blog schmuck looking for a story that can be spun into an acceptably profitable ratio of maximum pagehit yield to minimum necessary research. Imagine that our opportunistic blog schmuck is marginally competent at drumming up traffic, and smears links to his stuff all over the internet (but especially around conservative religious groups where the overlap of users who actually know anything about how MMORPGs work is likely to be minimal), where someone from a larger news outlet picks it up. Now imagine "City of Heroes is a haven for child molesters" every ten minutes on FOX News.
I'm a big fat Republican, and even I get queasy imagining Bill O'Reilly's hammy melodramatic grimace while "reporting" on such a "story".
That risk, no matter how minute it may actually be (and it's not... you know the scenario I've painted above is entirely reasonable), makes any kind of ERP taking place inside the game an act of profound disrespect to every other person playing. That's one big reason why a lot of other players don't like ERPers. You can't prove that the other player is an adult, and by persisting in playing that specific sort of activity with them you put the entire game at risk.
Edit: And before it comes up, yeah, there's been plenty of ERP generated from my own account in the past. I was even at the keyboard for some of it. Not all of it, or most of it, or even a large portion of it. Just how much of it was going on (Holy Crap, so much!), and how it was influencing the offline portion of our relationship (guess...), were major contributing factors to my breakup with the other person who used to use this account. Which, uh, was also against the rules. Don't worry mods, no ERPing OR account sharing from @Eisenzahn any more! That whole sequence also, unsurprisingly, is what prompted me to think so much about just how this sort of behavior can endanger the whole game, even when it's happening in "private". There's no such thing as private, the moment you involve a second person. You want to safely ERP? Until they start checking ID against biometrics at login, the only way to do that is in a solo mission instance. Whee!
@Eisenzahn
GW2 - Melchior.2135
AIM - Euroclydon23
Email - scorpany@yahoo.com or <sameasmyAIM>@aol.com (for the sheer novelty of an almost 20 year old email address that hasn't been overwhelmed by spambots yet)