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Passive Metagaming


Daquan Kingston

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I have been spending some hours throughout last month around the server and the forums, and I have noticed a lot of cases where people passively metagame. This thing lowkey bothered me though because it clashes with my character’s point of view but I don’t see much being done against it. Such examples of passive/minor metagaming would include the usage of a certain vocabulary or attitude of somebody’s internet-persona on a character that has nothing in common. There are people of various backgrounds and nationalities who speak IC like they are some young men from England, same as I have seen quite some fearless and super calm people that walk on sunshine all smiles after being mugged 10 minutes ago from teenage ruthless criminals. They look at it as a simple 600$ loss (which they can make in 10 minutes) and neglect the psychological & emotional impact. You can go to half of the business, and the ethic of service is zero, which makes you wonder how these people are hired in first place. I’m sure there are many others things, and while I have been reporting these things throughout the years, I fail to see any major improvement to stop this continuation of immersion-breaking mixing, giving me an arcade-experience as a player rather than an immersive one. What could be done better to have IC events hold IC value and consequences?

Edited by Daquan Kingston
Gave a better example, to avoid being missunderstood.
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I agree with the first part, people acting in ways that wouldn't fit their characters, and I do think that needs to change, although I have no idea how you would even be able to implement such a change.

 

Regarding the other two, though, I'm not so sure - yes, people don't react to robberies, but should they? After all, you might go through your whole life without being robbed once - it's obvious you'd be affected by one, deeply. On GTA World, though, you're likely to be robbed multiple times a week, every single week and so on. Would that really affect you as much? Same as seeing bodies in the street. Think of it as reacting to a car horn - how would a New Yorker react versus how would someone who lives in a cave react?

 

Regarding how employees treat you as a customer, that's something that only happens because people are fine with it. If, say, the press reported on a cafe where the baristas were ignoring you and treating you like a slave, then no one went there, they'd probably change their staff. If people actually reacted to being treated in such ways, the standards would change - after all, they're set by these very same players.

 

Of course that these issues should be fixed, but it's not something uniform that you can slap a rule over and fix it. At best, take action ICly (for the rude employees issue) or bring attention to them through such topics.

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I do very much agree with the internet vocabulary being used a little too much.  Seeing female characters speak, behave and act as a bunch of guys on the internet is always very immersion breaking. When women speak to Habeeb as if they're jocks on the schools football team it just doesn't seem right at all. 

 

As for the service thing, I think it stems from a lot of businesses in LS ICly being "mom and pop" type stores. Everything is owned independently and few would be corporations. Only your burger shots and bean machines (which are rare lately) could really be passed off ICly as being part of a franchise and having to uphold a set corporate standard.  

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We're RP'ing in what's supposed to be LA, I'd be more concerned if middle/upper class characters wasn't using obnoxious internet phrases, craving attention desperately.

 

The robbery stuff I can sorta agree with but 99% of the population would be sectioned if they were supposed to breakdown the moment they were robbed or witnessed something violent, I don't think it's much of a problem. The people who seem to scream the loudest about this sorta stuff are just here to live out a power fantasy.

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9 minutes ago, Shaderz said:

It would help if people stopped throwing the term 'mallrat' around IC as if it wasn't a blatantly obvious cross over from LSRP rather than using it for what it actually means. 

 

Exactly. Where's Verona Mall anyway? Besides, it's a 90s term that people are still using for whatever reason. Every UD definition is from like 2000-2005:

 

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It's like calling someone metrosexual in 2021

Edited by Sush
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I think some people may fall in the former category when they get a little tired or simply want to have fun and joke around a little, I know I do it sometimes but only with a close circle of friends so it doesn't impact other people's roleplay but I never do anything over the moon.

I think it's excusable if everyone's on board, it's not if you're in an open area with other people you don't know, it's also not excusable if you do it most of the time you roleplay because at that point you're twisting your character.
I wouldn't really call it metagame either but I wouldn't know what to call it tbf.

Edited by Eestino
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2 hours ago, Paenymion said:

I don't think what you describe is metagaming, it's more just being bad at roleplay?  We have people who barely grasp what RP is, so asking for much more than the very basics is gonna be hard.

 

I agree with this point. SA:MP didn't have as many 'bro/dude' female characters as V has. I could be wrong, but maybe common roleplay has just decreased in like... Peripheral quality? Because I see good RP still, but some small things that lightly contribute to the character aren't being RPed as much. (sorry im high so my vocab goes into a blender)

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Everyone in California is a dude or a bro, regardless of gender and you can hear people over 25 saying dude/bro easily. 25 isn't as old as you think. Neither is 30. I know it sounds odd but it seems to be a particularly accurate regional thing.

 

Regarding how quickly people recover emotionally after a robbery, tbh some robberies feel so silly to RP that if I have four dudes jump out of a car in the middle of a four lane avenue in Downtown Los Santos and they take my stuff, I can't realistically RP the drama of the situation without also having to introduce the dissonance of my character having to acknowledge that Los Santos robberies are the same as those in a Sao Paolo favela. Like I've said before, RPing around good robberies, and the shock and trauma of that is easy, and people generally do it.

Edited by Koko
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