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Old 12-14-2004, 06:20 AM   #6
Aminaka
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 12
Aminaka is on a distinguished road
I think it might be useful for a mutually acceptable definition of 'avatar'. Which end of the spectrum shall we go for? We can explore possibilities that an avatar is an extension of 'self', or we can go the other way and claim that the avatar is one or more distinctly indentifiable roles, as if acted out by one actor, a definition I prefer. The late, great, Peter Sellers, for example, thought of himself as merely a collection of his roles with the core person (Peter Sellers) as someone he didn't recognise. Or rather, he considered himself 'at his best' when performing these roles -we might say that in this case the creator was subsumed by both the process and by the product of his (superb) craft.

We've all seen it though. Sometimes the identification with character x is too strong, and this character migrates across with the player, fairly intact, needing only to adapt to a new environment. The base avatar remains the same. The investment has been too great to risk throwing away.

Bravo.

Heavens. Mary Shelley would be pleased. Yours is a thought-provoking and somewhat disturbing claim. But, yes.

Potential and realisation of same. We're very high up (or low-down) in Maslow's triangle here. A question begs to be asked when we get deeper into this. Can we argue that a role of an Immortal, if earned by level-treadmilling and other in-game mechanisms, equals Enlightenment? Character X is now level 99...one more (exhausting level) to go and she becomes a demi-God. She transcends mere mortality and becomes a perfect being who, serpent-like, sheds her mortal skin and...transcends, as it were. She has fully realised her potential and at the apex(?) of Maslow's triangle.

I'd imagine that, at the very moment of obtaining 'Enlightenment' in this fashion, the player might feel very elated, to say the least, especially if a story arc reveals this to every other player in glorious style.
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