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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Object Searching
Message-ID: <GzozDL.1xE@world.std.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 07:56:08 GMT
References: <Xns92503B45C9869joaomendesnetcabopt@194.65.14.158> <ur8hzbuq3.fsf@dfan.thecia.net> <cWWZ8.867$Fb6.406@nwrddc02.gnilink.net> <3d3b75d0$1@news1.warwick.net>
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L. Ross Raszewski wrote:
> See, this is the thing. People around here have tended to throw the
> word 'mimesis' around a lot, and do it incorrectly.

Well, sure. It's an invented jargon word that does not
seem to map very well onto the problem domain, in my mind,
and certainly different people seem to think it means
different things.

Most of the time people want to use it, they could just
say "this breaks immersion"--which of course only talks
about the effect on the player without explaining *why*--but
for some reason people seem to love their 'mimesis', although
I rarely if ever see it used in a context where what it
communicates beyond "this breaks immersion" is important.

In article <3d3b75d0$1@news1.warwick.net>, JJK  <jjkc@warwick.net> wrote:
>Although I agree with the intent of your last sentence, I can assure you
>I meant what I said, that when I have to perform an arbitrary and
>unexpected action in order to accomplish what I consider a
>straightforward task, it pulls me out of the game world, and makes me
>all too aware that there was an author typing away at a keyboard.
>
>Of course, I don't pretend to be the official keeper of the word
>_mimesis_, but that seems to match my understanding of the word, and yours.

"It pulls me out of the game world and makes me all too aware that
there was an author typing away at a keyboard" is pretty much a
textbook definition of 'breaking immersion'. 'Immersion' being
the interactive (or VR) equivalent to 'suspension of disbelief'.

SeanB
