For all the talk of 'how things used to be'...
They weren't. Ever. I distinctly remember someone commenting about how 90% of characters were stereotypical, one-dimensional cutouts in the first 100 pages of the thread or so.
Granted - you can make an argument that it was an improvement over zero-dimensional characters some newfriends play that amount to player avatars, but still... a major difference was that even for the lamest of characters, they were characters played by forumites, so you could have a casual chat with 'em or bitch 'em out in the thread, so those characters were at least somewhat personable at any rate.
Aside from a couple notable exceptions, a number of newcomers are either cancer, whose established characters are fucking awful, or ephemera of little depth and occasionally cluelessness (I swear, the arrivals shuttle is a brilliant filter - if you cannot figure it out alone nor will ask someone what to do, you're right out). That said, it is true that there is very few situations where I see people talk about themselves to each other, which is a thing that more or less subliminally forces character development.
To be honest, claiming to be HRP might as well just change the flavor of bad we get from bald thirty year old assistant to rainbow-haired half-Xenomorph hybrids that are Spess Nam decorated veterans at 17 and the youngest Captain and NT's CEO personal assistant.
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Topic: Space Station 13: Urist McStation (Read 2146857 times)