~Identity, The Internet, and Computer Gaming
An Introduction to Ultima Online
Throughout my life, I've put myself into a vast array of roles. This is,
as far as I can tell, the closest approximation I'll ever find for knowing
the life of another. Ever since I stopped doing my own imagining and instead
put myself into worlds I read of or saw, most of these roles have been the
main characters of books and electronic games. Over the years I have been,
to varying degrees, a great many different people, each with their own names,
histories, selves, and realities, their existence as little but a few passing
electrical currents merely a seed for their greater existence within my mind.
This time, however, while
still in a game, I was not part of some pre-laid story. I did not fit myself
into a character, already born of another's mind, but instead created one.
Half my own and half a product of the world she lives in, Asina tel Seyenne
lives, her mind my own, in a world completely different from ours, like all
fictional characters. But, unlike most of those characers, not one with scripted
non-players and carefully laid plotlines, but a world of other real people,
governed by chance and decision. Asina's life takes place within a game called
Ultima Online, or UO, as its playesr call it; it is a world of tens of thousands
of real people playing in dozens of different shards of the same shattered
reality, a world in which at least a few of those people attempt to fall into
the role that they play within it.
The World of Shards
Asina's life is immediately different from the one in which I live, and thus
she immediately different from me in small but important ways. While we live
in a modern society, Asina's life takes place in a world called Britannia,
a world that is if anything, the epitome of 'Might and Magic' tales of glory,
monsters, and fame, as told by story after story in the last few centuries.
We, as the observers we are, can easily see this and often quickly discount
the world's validity because of it.
To her, though, and to me
when I am in it, it is a very real place, one with (admittedly limited) towns,
castles, forests and mountains, much like our own. It is a world in which
one must work to survive each and every day, one with its own social and economic
problems, which she... which I deal with on a regular basis, as I try to sell
my wares (Asina is a bowyer, for the most part) and attempt to save for a
home of my own.
Were this not such a complex world, were money not required for food, food for survival, and skill for that money, this world would not be real enough, despite its difference from our own, to create situations worth finding myself in- but, fortunately, any place where people gather, society is found, and it is in that society that Asina's life takes place.
Shaped by Society
And so this world, with its various geographical, social, and economic situations,
plays a great part in shaping her life. In attempting to make a different
character of Asina than myself, I emphasized parts of myself and attempted
to cut others—she is far more independent than I ever will be, living
days or weeks (in her time) away from the towns of Britannia, living off animals,
carving bows and useful goods to sell at the next town.
Unlike me, she lives in a
world in which this sort of thing is possible; and, as I play her, I find
myself away from anything resembling civilization, with time to think to myself.
I have noticed, over time, that I as Asina spend much more time, even when
around others, sitting back in thought rather than speaking my mind. Certainly
this behavior is among my own, but in her, due to her circumstances and my
placement of character, it is emphasized in a different way than in myself.
Such changes in behavior occur at least in part whenever one plays a role, even to the difference from ordering fast food to being an obedient son or daughter—but when you create an entirely new person, these behaviors drive that person, drive qualities from you into actions you never would find yourself thinking, much less taking. Said Socrates: "Know Thyself" ... I think that most of us much further from that than we think.
What do you mean, 'she'?
One more quite notable aspect of Asina's life, as compared to mine or those
of most people, is her difference in gender. I, a male, have generally been
the same in all of my own created roles. Asina is female specifically because
of that; she is, in a way, my attempt to cross the line and understand women
a bit better (something all us males would love to be able to do, yes?).
With the help of some female
friends of mine over time and the simple expected norms in the society Asina
lives in, I feel that I have managed to at least imperfectly approximate even
the ways in which she differs from me in gender when I have 'been' Asina in
UO. From being hit on by guys wearing nothing but a skirt (it does happen)
to actually caring about how I dress (for the purpose of avoiding the aforementioned),
I have put myself into situations that no male would ordinarily find himself
in, and I think gained understanding as a result.
And, of course, that is the purpose of the entire thing; This special experiment in inhabiting another life, so unlike simply reading a book or watching a movie, has actually put me into situations I would not ordinarily know and forced me, rather than some author or screenwriter, to decide what to do about them. Nothing compares to experience... but even experiencing another life's problems is far from actually living one.