I was playing SWTOR the other day on a new Trooper* and landed in Nar Shadda to catch the beginning of a long conversation in Gen Chat. It started talking about who is the best companion, then (naturally) morphed into which companion is the "most shaggable". Someone brought up Corso, and how his inability to see that women don't need anybody to be a white knight** kept them from wanting to follow the Corso romance to completion.
At that time I was entering the cantina just off the Promenade and discovered several toons RPing at the bar, so I kind of lost track of the Gen Chat conversation while I watched the spoken word RP going on for a few minutes.***
Once I left for the Nitko Sector, however, I discovered the Gen Chat had taken yet another turn, into group therapy.
One player was asking for advice about asking out a coworker, and several other players were providing advice. The advice ranged from being positive to being direct to providing pick up lines. A female toon was providing tips about flirting****, and then others were chiming in on what works and what doesn't.
In the 8+ years I've been playing MMOs, I've seen some conversations that go into potentially sensitive territory, but this was the first one in a while where I started to wonder just how explicit people were going to go.
And then they went there, talking about how if you flirt well enough, you can have sex on a first date.
I'm not exactly a noob in either MMOs or life, but I was starting to get uncomfortable at seeing this in Gen Chat.
It was then that the flirting commenced.
A female and male toon in the conversation started flirting in Gen Chat about "playing the flute." You know, how good she was at it, how he liked people who could play it well, and she said she was so good she didn't need encouraging. And so on, and so forth.
Yes, in Gen Chat.
"Get a room," I thought as I worked my way to my meeting with The Mountain.
The last time I saw flirting or other activity like this in public in an MMO***** it was when somebody asked Azshandra to go topless in the Isle of Conquest so he could fool around. If the two players were merely saying it in regular chat or whispering it --not posting in Gen Chat-- I don't think I'd have cared. But come on, Gen Chat is planet wide.
I'm not even thinking about kids, here, because SWTOR definitely has some PG/PG-13 moments, but just that it was so public and so freaking obvious that my eyes were rolling so hard that they practically rolled into the back of my head.
My guess is that the two people were so caught up in the moment that they simply didn't notice or care where they were.
That brings up the obvious question: why doesn't this happen more often?
I honestly don't have an answer for that one. Of course, in SWTOR you've got built-in romances with your companions that helps to alleviate the "let's get online and have some virtual sex" angle, but other MMOs tend to have this sort of thing happen in seclusion rather than in a very public setting.
Soul once told me a story of when he was on his Rogue back in BC days, creeping along in Ashenvale, and he came across two players hidden in a corner who were obviously engaging in some virtual shenanigans. He was relaying the blow by blow (as it were) to his guildies when one of the participants managed to see him while hidden in the shadows. Discovered, he bailed out.
So, based on that story and my own experiences, I know that this sort of things still goes on in MMOs. And maybe I'm just not online enough to see this happen in public more often, but maybe I am also getting old in that I'm simply not comfortable with this idea.
*Yeah, another new toon. Yeah, I'm a bit of an altoholic.
**That's one way of putting it. I believe the words "fucking stupid" or a baseline equivalent were also used in the chat session.
***It was actually very well done, which is why it caught my eye.
****I'm quite aware of the "assume every player on the internet is male" rule, but for the sake of simplicity I'm sticking with the gender they were presenting.
*****I think I asked myself the question "Is Goldshire still as... well... active as it used to be?" and checked that out before I unsubbed from WoW in 2014, but at the time it looked like Goldshire was not the legendary place it once was.
At that time I was entering the cantina just off the Promenade and discovered several toons RPing at the bar, so I kind of lost track of the Gen Chat conversation while I watched the spoken word RP going on for a few minutes.***
Once I left for the Nitko Sector, however, I discovered the Gen Chat had taken yet another turn, into group therapy.
One player was asking for advice about asking out a coworker, and several other players were providing advice. The advice ranged from being positive to being direct to providing pick up lines. A female toon was providing tips about flirting****, and then others were chiming in on what works and what doesn't.
In the 8+ years I've been playing MMOs, I've seen some conversations that go into potentially sensitive territory, but this was the first one in a while where I started to wonder just how explicit people were going to go.
And then they went there, talking about how if you flirt well enough, you can have sex on a first date.
I'm not exactly a noob in either MMOs or life, but I was starting to get uncomfortable at seeing this in Gen Chat.
It was then that the flirting commenced.
A female and male toon in the conversation started flirting in Gen Chat about "playing the flute." You know, how good she was at it, how he liked people who could play it well, and she said she was so good she didn't need encouraging. And so on, and so forth.
Yes, in Gen Chat.
"Get a room," I thought as I worked my way to my meeting with The Mountain.
***
The last time I saw flirting or other activity like this in public in an MMO***** it was when somebody asked Azshandra to go topless in the Isle of Conquest so he could fool around. If the two players were merely saying it in regular chat or whispering it --not posting in Gen Chat-- I don't think I'd have cared. But come on, Gen Chat is planet wide.
 |
| Even Romeo knew to not be quite so obvious in public. From sutori.com. |
My guess is that the two people were so caught up in the moment that they simply didn't notice or care where they were.
That brings up the obvious question: why doesn't this happen more often?
I honestly don't have an answer for that one. Of course, in SWTOR you've got built-in romances with your companions that helps to alleviate the "let's get online and have some virtual sex" angle, but other MMOs tend to have this sort of thing happen in seclusion rather than in a very public setting.
Soul once told me a story of when he was on his Rogue back in BC days, creeping along in Ashenvale, and he came across two players hidden in a corner who were obviously engaging in some virtual shenanigans. He was relaying the blow by blow (as it were) to his guildies when one of the participants managed to see him while hidden in the shadows. Discovered, he bailed out.
So, based on that story and my own experiences, I know that this sort of things still goes on in MMOs. And maybe I'm just not online enough to see this happen in public more often, but maybe I am also getting old in that I'm simply not comfortable with this idea.
 |
| You tell 'em, Murtaugh. From Lethal Weapon. |
*Yeah, another new toon. Yeah, I'm a bit of an altoholic.
**That's one way of putting it. I believe the words "fucking stupid" or a baseline equivalent were also used in the chat session.
***It was actually very well done, which is why it caught my eye.
****I'm quite aware of the "assume every player on the internet is male" rule, but for the sake of simplicity I'm sticking with the gender they were presenting.
*****I think I asked myself the question "Is Goldshire still as... well... active as it used to be?" and checked that out before I unsubbed from WoW in 2014, but at the time it looked like Goldshire was not the legendary place it once was.
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