Fed II Star - March 26, 2006

STAR CHAMBER
by Freya

Fame and Fortune in DataSpace - Part 1

The whole point about multi-player adventures is that you're playing in the same game as other people, possibly complete strangers in real life, but whom you encounter during play and with whom you are likely to engage in conversation. If you spend a fair amount of time in Fed II chatting to other players, then, as with other similar forms of social interaction (school, work, holiday), you will strike up friendships and get to know folk.

You'll also get to hear about certain other players quite a lot, by virtue of their interesting or outrageous behaviour. If you see someone acting really strangely, then you'll naturally want to talk to other people about them; if something terrible happens to another player, you'll want to pass on the bad (or good!) news; if a staff member is a soft touch, your friends should know, and similarly if they took away your comm unit for merely daring to utter a dubious joke on the Sol comm, you may wish to warn your acquaintances!

In Fed DataSpace, with its strange ability to magnify the personalities of those who play, there are plenty of people to talk about. Stories about individuals are passed on, rumours circulate, myths form, and eventually certain players become part and parcel of the game itself, blending in with the unique Fed atmosphere almost as if they had been programmed in!

to be continued