Comments on: Pat the Rat: Beyond the Valley of the Webcams

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:32:28 +0000

I agree that web camming must be much less common that plain ole cybering, and it also seems signficantly more “out of game.” –for obvious reasons. Something I haven’t thought about is using a YIM voice connection while in tso. Do people do that? Does it combine the best (worst?) of both worlds?

By: Alpha Native

Alpha Native — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 08:55:35 +0000

I think web-camming is less common. Cybering on the other hand…***woah how many hands do ya think I have? sorry. I agree cybering more common then Web camming. I get offers to cam from my yahoo addy never have in game.

I agree with Uri you hit it right on the head. It is interesting how one game can be taken in so many different directions. I personally started because a friend who I met years before in mIRC or pIRCh asked me to be a Beta tester with him. I LOVED it. I could be who ever I wanted and have chats with people from all over. I still miss my Norwegian “boyfriend”. I know that there are people I met in game that I have friendships outside of the game. Sometimes it is hard to keep your rl out of sl and vise versa. I just wish I had more time to play, but alas, rl has taken over.

By: Banshee

Banshee — Tue, 16 Mar 2004 11:41:18 +0000

Uri –

I guess that must be what is happening. It is interesting to me how different people utilize TSO really differently …. some are they to play a game as themselves, some are there to fantasy role play an alternative vision of themselves, and some are there to meet people for relationships outside TSO … the game allows all of these different uses, and it is interesting to me at least to observe the diversity of needs that the game seems to satisfy to some degree for its user base.

By: urizenus

urizenus — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 21:00:17 +0000

That’s a really good question Banshee. The way I think about it, tso is really a kind of portal into other activities and games. So, for example, a lot of the mafia gaming takes place in YIM. I think a lot of the romantic connections are forged in TSO, but then move into IM and webcamming. People go back “in game” but it is a kind of staging area or base camp for the real games that utilize other communications media.

By: Banshee

Banshee — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 12:14:14 +0000

The question I have about this is why bother at all with TSO if you are into web-camming? I had thought that one of the ideas behind TSO was “be somebody …. else”, but the whole point of a webcam is simply broadcasting yourself to someone else … heck, who needs to pay for TSO and the monthly fee to do something you can do outside TSO completely … namely be your real life self and broadcast that to others. One wonders why these folks don’t stick with AOL or some other service that offers video chatting without the need to pay subscription fees for an online video game like TSO.

By: Urizenus

Urizenus — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 18:03:40 +0000

I think web-camming is less common. Cybering on the other hand…

By: TC

TC — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:57:10 +0000

How often does this kind of thing happen? Is this secretely what Sims Online is all about, or is this more peripheral behavior?

By: Over Yonder

Over Yonder — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 19:29:37 +0000

Fucking ICK.

By: just somesim

just somesim — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:48:20 +0000

Thank you ever so much for bringing up good old SG. It was such fun for this female sim to play mouse to his cat. I belatedly applaud his months of untiring and imaginative efforts to sweet talk me into cyberland. Alas, I was too ignorant *wink* to understand exactly what he was trying to get me to do. (Isn’t there some sort of sim statue for such acting?) I was wondering when this would come up and have to add that I actually miss the guy. lol