Has educational level effected your gameplay?

Kakotas

I'm curious to know A. what level of education you have (IE-College/Grad School/High School) and B. whether that educational level has increased your ability to roleplay/increased your enjoyment of roleplay or it has stiffled it in some way. The Poll is annonymous. But I would love comments on how you feel education has impacted your gameplay. Thought this might be an interesting discussion considering the number of scholarly characters we have running around. Also do you roleplay learning all the information or do you just show up suddenly more enlightened.

Aodfionn

I'm an undergrad student, but find it kind of odd and possibly telling that there's no option for those who didn't pursue secondary education

Lyr

I think you mean post-secondary. Secondary school is high school

Mishgul

I have done a lot of post grad courses. I completed a year in technical writing recently for my current job as a technical author at a telecomms company. I write user manuals, documentation, and educational material for Telenor Group. I just enrolled to do Game Design and Theory. Hoping to go into board game design, and eventually maybe doing video game design.

I feel like both these things are affecting my disposition as a player placing me on higher horses than ever before, but @Taraus is always at hand to put me down like the animal i have become.

Krypton

It's affected my ability to use "affected" correctly.

Reiloch

My thoughts on the matter can be summed up by this video.



Somebody wants me to jump through hoops proving I know the things that I know so that they can give me a piece of paper affirming that I know the things that I know? Seems to me to be a waste of everybody's time.

Seftin

I am better than all of you, but that's just fact as opposed to personal opinion.

Kasya

I don't see my college education affecting my playing style at all, and certainly most of the information I learned in school has little practical application in Achaea with the possible exception of some literature and creative writing classes that I took as electives.

And shit, there are players who have English as their second or third language here who write better than I do... So no, I really don't see an influence of my education on RP.

Sobriquet

I left school nearly 25 years ago. Not sure it had any relevance to the way I play

Melodie

I'd say it's the opposite - I think Achaea has influenced my schooling choices and interests and things I want to do, not the other way around. I've not yet attended secondary school, however.

Taraus

Why is "some high school" not an option? DISCRIMINATION, I HAVE NO CATEGORY :@

Daeir said:

Taraus is like that assistant Daniel Radcliffe hired.

I'm a graduate psychology student with honors and honestly don't feel it has affected a thing. I can't even remember half of my degree, for what it's worth.

I don't understand this reference

Shirszae

The only thing that have in any way shaped my roleplay are not things you usually learn in an education center, but rather things like other videogames/books I've read/movies I've seen and such that have introduced me to particular tropes or ideas that I would have probably not thought about otherwise.

School and college have little relevance on this, except perhaps for the few books I first read as homework as such, like Les Miserables.

Sybilla

Taraus said:

Why is "some high school" not an option? DISCRIMINATION, I HAVE NO CATEGORY :@

Daeir said:

Taraus is like that assistant Daniel Radcliffe hired.

I'm a graduate psychology student with honors and honestly don't feel it has affected a thing. I can't even remember half of my degree, for what it's worth.

I don't understand this reference

 

Anedhel

I had plans to get a Master's, but stopped pursuing school after my undergrad, because... well, boy, am I a bad student (not in terms of grades, but I hate school).

I find that being well-read makes a huge difference, of course. More so than anything else, since I suspect that reading a great deal gives you a better feel for both being able to picture a world, as well as being able to express yourself in a way that others can visualize and understand, both key elements of good roleplaying.

Adet

Educational level has affected how much I play, certainly: I created Adet during exam time, and seem to go back to him whenever I need something to procrastinate with (I'm currently (avoiding) writing my PhD thesis).  In terms of how I play, it's hard to draw a distinction between the changes that have come about as a result of a higher level of education as I've moved from secondary school, sixth form, undergraduate, postgraduate, and the changes that have come about as I've matured generally over the past thirteen or fourteen years.

Antonius

It hasn't affected my roleplay, but it has affected a lot of other aspects of gameplay. I've been writing scripts for Achaea for years (well before I ever studied a programming course) but doing a BSc in Computer Science, and then subsequently moving into coding professionally, has definitely improved those.

Rohai

Gameplay has affected my education insofar as holy crap, if I had spent half the hours I have on Achaea taking night classes instead I could have so many graduate degrees right now

Deladan

I play achaea for fun to vent. I do shit here that I normally wouldn't do. In my honest opinion, I really don't know any of you people here. I'm friends with a few people from Achaea, even have a couple people on Skype. But I don't -know- any of you. Now everyone here has an opinion of me, and frankly, I don't give a fuck. I just use achaea to let off steam, and act crazy/stupid. Because honestly, 90% of the time, even when I'm logged in up here. I'm doing schoolwork towards my bachlor's. And I've had people comment with "Why don't you do school work in class..." Technically I'm in class right now. I only have one course in a physical classroom, everything else I do online. I don't have a "teacher" more as I have someone who checks my answers and gives me a grade. 

Elowin

When I saw this topic, my first thought was, 'Well no, of course not.'

But then I thought about a particular issue I'm having playing Elowin.

Elowin is meant to be a sort of anthropologist in both her personal interests and her role in the GoM (HELP GOM if you don't know what that is.) She's currently supposed to be researching the culture of Moghedu and writing a report or book that she'd planned to donate to the Outriders.

However, I've come to realize that aside from small clues in the room descriptions in Moghedu, there's precious little information to be found. And without Someone possessing an NPC and explicitly telling me things (which, no matter how much I talk at the NPCs in Mog, no one does,) I've come to discover that doing that kind of research is... really hard.

I literally don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know how to ask anyone.

A similar example is how a few years ago, last time I was playing Achaea regularly, I had an idea to make a sort of primer on logic and argument for students in the Mojushai, considering that was supposed to be their schtick. However, I've never taken a logic nor a philosophy class, even in high school. So, I had to actually try and learn this stuff IRL so I could write. It proved to be more difficult than I anticipated, and I never finished.

Maybe this all says more about my personal capacity than my education, IDK.

Trevize

It's saved me time and probably given me many ideas.

Beyond that, not really.

Kondar

So, honestly I barely made it out of High School, other than sports Schooling was never really my thing. I've taken some classes to further a passion in Sign Language and Deaf Culture (I am not Deaf myself, but my brother is, and translation was always interesting to me) I've never attended an actual college class. I feel like I have some intelligence, but most of that is due to a love of reading. Most things I've learned came out of a Novel, more than a Textbook. To that end, I don't honestly believe higher education would in any way affect one's level of play in Achaea. It doesn't take school to enjoy Role Playing, nor does it take a degree to read.

Aodfionn

The only thing college has yet done for me so far in regards to Achaea is show me that almost all of the Achaean religions have their names or beliefs straight up jacked from random world religions. 

Trey

Kondar said:

So, honestly I barely made it out of High School, other than sports Schooling was never really my thing. I've taken some classes to further a passion in Sign Language and Deaf Culture (I am not Deaf myself, but my brother is, and translation was always interesting to me) I've never attended an actual college class. I feel like I have some intelligence, but most of that is due to a love of reading. Most things I've learned came out of a Novel, more than a Textbook. To that end, I don't honestly believe higher education would in any way affect one's level of play in Achaea. It doesn't take school to enjoy Role Playing, nor does it take a degree to read.

So you have one brother who's deaf and another who's dumb?

Isaeah

The only thing school has done for my ability to enjoy IRE is increase my reading comprehension and my ability to convey emotion and meaning through the written word. However, I will also say IRE is largely responsible (even more than middle/high school) for my initial ability to write and my increased reading speed (thank you combat).

I think the only distinctive change before and after college was my ability to crank out a properly-formed essay in 30 minutes for some requirement. Also, to fill said essay with complete drivel that maybe has one or two nuggets of information worth reviewing. 

Krypton said:

It's affected my ability to use "affected" correctly.

Thank you, @Krypton, I read this and clapped my hands together in glee from the irony.

Jeslyn

I got my bachelors in construction and design, I don't think it affected my gameplay.... Unless an unusually high obsession with picking apart the unrealistic qualities of the game's structures, and an aversion towards anything not written in layman's terms counts. :chuffed: 

Anyways! I find this subject very interesting! I really don't think the amount of education one has necessarily changes gameplay, and a good amount of writers, I do know, don't have a college degree. (Honestly who wants to spend $50k+ on an English degree?) A lot of them run off of pure talent (also experience) and it makes me jealous!

Kondar

Trey said:

Kondar said:

So, honestly I barely made it out of High School, other than sports Schooling was never really my thing. I've taken some classes to further a passion in Sign Language and Deaf Culture (I am not Deaf myself, but my brother is, and translation was always interesting to me) I've never attended an actual college class. I feel like I have some intelligence, but most of that is due to a love of reading. Most things I've learned came out of a Novel, more than a Textbook. To that end, I don't honestly believe higher education would in any way affect one's level of play in Achaea. It doesn't take school to enjoy Role Playing, nor does it take a degree to read.

So you have one brother who's deaf and another who's dumb?

Believe it or not...they are the same brother.

Sena

Given my likely areas of study, I think the only things that higher education (I don't have anything beyond high school) might add is slightly faster typing speed (though Achaea has made a big difference there on its own), and possibly some coding skills that could be applied to Achaea (most of what would be useful in Achaea is easy to learn myself though).

Essay-writing skills may also be improved, but I'd still avoid that like the plague even if I was a little better at it.

Aepas

I joined the military instead of doing school.
It really just killed my enjoyment of game play since I had to try and telnet onto the server through random terminals on ships or out in the middle of nowhere.

So much lag.

Aereidhna

If anything I'd say it's negatively affected my gameplay and life in general because I think (at least in reference to myself) the higher you go up the academia food chain the more likely you are to fall prey to self-importance, to thinking you know everything, to thinking education makes you better than other people.

Since I left graduate school I've tried to deprogram myself of that bullshit, especially because the vast majority of my work is with people who are from my same background (poor, rural, lucky to have finished high school - I was a first gen college student) and I have to be able to communicate with them in a way that is accessible and that builds rapport in order to do my job effectively.

But yeah, it has in the past brought out my inner know-it-all asshat ICly (and still occasionally does). I could say education's positively affected my gameplay in terms of writing ability and whatnot, but to be honest, I had a pretty good grasp of grammar, spelling, and vocabulary in high school and that hasn't changed much. Higher education just taught me how to write to a certain audience.

I've moved away from playing uber-scholarly characters - Aereidhna just skirts the edge of that, really, it's an interest but it's not central to her personality - but I do think it's possible to play a scholarly character without any experience in academia because scholarship in Achaea is (in my opinion) somewhat different from scholarship in real life. If you do get really into analysis and theory in Achaea perhaps having that experience from producing your own academic papers and such can be beneficial, though.

With Aereidhna I try to roleplay learning all the information as much as possible. My experiences with non-academic/formal learning more closely mimic my experiences in Achaea (working one-on-one with a teacher, producing work and having it picked apart and going away and working on it and coming back again and again to improve).

Szanthax

Gameplay effected my educational level...not the other way around

Valkyn

Well-read, not highly educated, at least not through the official system. I have a very high understanding of english and writing considering I quit high school as soon as I turned 16. I'm currently doing a diploma in Journalism, no plans to go back for a full on 3 year degree for the foreseeable future.