online/'rl'

Cryn · Post by **Cryn** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 3:37 pm

They are all "friends" to me, but the context in which I socialise with them varies. In many ways, this seems no different than how I'd have formed friendships pre-Internet. Back then I'd have had my "drinking friends", "sports friends", "local friends", "work friends", "uni friends", "D&D friends", etc. Some of them would have been around in more than one of those contexts. In my case, it might be fairly rare for people to cross contexts casually. For example, people only in the "D&D friends" would have been unlikely to meet me for drinking, though it sometimes happened.

The Internet, and online game specifically I suppose, has added a new conext of "MMORPG friends" except it's actually panning out to be more like "DAoC friends", "CoV friends", etc.

The bit that is different, if you want to look for differences, is that I don't know what these people look like or sound like physically. If they don't cross contexts into a non-online one, then I may never meet them physically. This creates a bit of distance, I think, and might make those friendships less permanent, though I am not so sure. Some physical contexts also seem to be less permanent - for example, a lot of my drinking friends have come and gone over the years.

stupeh · Post by **stupeh** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 3:43 pm

I consider them all the same... except for some reason when talking in RL, i refer to saitoh as my greek mate.

Post by **Xest** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 3:48 pm

stupeh wrote:I consider them all the same... except for some reason when talking in RL, i refer to saitoh as my greek mate.

That's because if you use game names irl people look at you funny

Post by **Lieva** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:30 pm

i know alot of peeps who play daoc seem to seem the other people who play as npc as very rarely if they leave the game do they stay in contact.

That said however - i tend to treat everyone as equal

Such as if you say you'll be online at a certain time i WILL get annoyed if you dont show like i would be annoyed if a friend didnt show where i was meeting them

maybe its a girl thing
or a lack of mmorpg experience

doesnt make for happy playing tho

Satyn · Post by **Satyn** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:51 pm

Friend is a friend. Real life or not, its still real ppl.

Heta · Post by **Heta** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:58 pm

Satyn wrote:Friend is a friend. Real life or not, its still real ppl.

lies!

its a computor game, how can real people get inside it? its way to small

Gamblor · Post by **Gamblor** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:01 pm

Xest wrote:That's because if you use game names irl people look at you funny

try telling that to a guildy of mine from alb/excal , kept calling me Gamb ... made it easy when he was shouting orders up to the bar =)

Haarewin · Post by **Haarewin** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:15 pm

thanks for your responses

Xest wrote:It depends what you mean by "what you would call", are we talking about where we draw the line between someone being a friend and simply knowing someone?

I mean, if I were referring to someone as an 'online friend' or a 'real life' friend [ even though I agree with Satyn's opinion (Friend is a friend. Real life or not, its still real ppl.)] in a survey, would it be understandable? Do people think other terms are preferable? (if so, please give examples.)
I want to clarify what I mean by the terms I use when I finally construct the survey.
Cryn, damn you, your reply was far too helpful!

Moley:) · Post by **Moley:)** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:29 pm

Made more enemies than friends, including rl too

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 8:05 pm

It depends on the context at the time I am calling them something

For example, to my Mrs anyone I know from online are "online friends". But when talking online to people in Eve I then have a sub-set called "DAoC friends". Even this has sub-sets, such as "TWH friends" and "Severance friends".

For people not "into" the internet "online friends" sums things up fairly well, and doesn't open more questions unless that person is interested. They could ask for more specific information through interest, but wouldn't need to ask for clarification what you meant (Unless they have been asleep for the last 10 years).

"RL friends", as Cryn said there are many categories, drinking friends, work friends etc... I have to be honest though, since I started playing games online, most of the people I would really consider friends are "online friends", probably because we share quite few interests simply by the fact we met online usually in a specific game etc.

A few I have met or at the very least spoken to via Voice Comms, and even those I haven't I still feel I could trust as much as people I do meet in RL.