Originally posted by zanzibar
You share Moogie\'s perspective. That is, there\'s a definate and widespread changing of the guard, and the old and the new have unreconcilable differences.
I think that\'s a cop out, of course. People are always trickling in it seems, and there\'s a diversity of opinions and personalities among both people who are new and people who have been here for different periods. I fall somewhere in the middle, so maybe my view is off.
I definately agree that there is a massive gulf between old players and new. There are very very few of us who where around for a very short time in MB before CB. However, the thing that makes a gulf uncrossable isn\'t bad weather or politics, it\'s just old fashioned stubborness. I don\'t know about other countries but for an American it\'s hard to take a sudden paradigm shift. When I first came to MB as Jakob Gantos, I did so because I was sick of the game Moogie dubbed \"Spoonscape.\" I\'m sure you all know how big a paradigm shift that was...
Anyway after wandering around and meeting a few interesting people over the course of a week or two Planeshift MB went down and CB came back in its place. I rejoined the world, once again as Jakob Gantos. Due to the fact that I still wasn\'t quite ready to entirely let my warlike ways die off I let myself stay in the background, being afraid of what my presence might do, because, of course I considered myself a deserter from another camp. You can see that I\'ve changed that view...
The character of Jakob Gantos is one that I haven\'t been able to develop to my liking in the past three years... He\'s not seen anymore, but Arew Silverwing is. My name is known by a few, but Arew is still somewhat in the shadows. Fortunately he\'s supposed to be...
Anyway... the point I\'m trying to make here is that having my background, which I\'m quite certain isn\'t unique, I can see that there is a distinct difference between MB and CB new players. Jakob constantly felt as though he didn\'t quite belong anywhere near the likes of Moogie or others whose names he\'d heard spoken with such reverence. It was a fairly alienating experience for both myself and my character. Now, my religious and martial arts background keeps me open to new... everythings... but not everyone can easily open up in the course of a month, or a year, or even more, and this is where the gulf becomes uncrossable. Some players, old and new, have radical ideas about how the game should be played (/me points to PL/RP flamewars) and this tension, which for the longest time underwrote a lot of what people do still leaves some people feeling alone today. It seems sometimes that for every member trying to pull someone who has a set paradigm as a PLer into RPing there is someone else shouting \"n00b don\'t PL... PLing is the suxorz 111!!!!\"... Okay, that wording\'s not so likely but you get the point. I\'ve seen marked improvements in this aspect. Especially in the Role Play Masters, or whatever their official title is.
I don\'t think that this gulf is a bunch of hooey, or bunk, or a cop out. I believe it simply stems from people having radically different worldviews and coming into nearly armed conflict over it.
I\'m done rambling now. Feel free to ignore me if you like. It\'s what I\'m here for... Oh, and I apologize to those of you who don\'t care about Jakob or Arew for giving you their OoC story...
