Best Of

#1) Fantasy: I daydream alot, and can easily be several layers deep in my own mental world at work. So embracing another fantasy world to absorb into my own or "solve the rubiks cube" of such worlds is pretty important to me. This usually comes out as me pointing at something i feel like is unfinished or "this needs to progress more cause the implications are *many*. (though this usually sometimes clashes with the devs vision of what is to come, in my experience)

The term 'superior internet avatar' is apt here.

#2) Narrative: This is an extremely close second, and ties in with the whole 'expand this bit more plz' mania i get from time to time (moreso now with me being in my favorite genre: space scifi) but this is more for lore and worldbuilding that happens.

#3) Challenge: I like a challenge. This largely depends on my mental energy at the time, but also whether or not I'm strongly feeling the challenge presented to me is just there to make things 'difficult for the sake of rarity'. I like multiple paths to eliminate a challenge instead of just one way that's a massive PITA because 'you asked for challenging gameplay'. Like take for example a locked door. Some would go for the key, some would see if they can kick it open, or pick it open. I'd knock, in this example, just to see if anyone opens up. I guess I like a 'problem' more than I like a challenge?

#4) Expression: I spend *way* too long in any game customizing my character in ways that a) make sense for the mental image I have of them and b) have clothes that look stylish AF. Initial chargen menus not as much because if my Fallout characters are anything to go by I seem to make the same guy over again (think modern FPS/action game protags back when hair physics were still a terrifying animation prospect), I just change their clothes. Alot.

If 'Style' was an actual defense stat in most mainline RPGs, I'd be all over it. (Yes, I'm aware that Cyberpunk has it apparently, and I'm thrilled at the idea)

#5) Discovery: I like finding little nods to things, in-world or 'easter egg' type references (the pretty floral bonnet for example), the landscape/terrain can sometimes grab my attention but its not my draw. Discovering things that make me go 'hey, waitaminnit' on some level is more my thing. I also like finding methods of using my skills to utterly devastate my enemies, though using the common/current meta for tactics isn't as fun for me. That is more like jumping into a pool, only to find out its a puddle that uses mirrors to look deep. Even better if it momentarily breaks something in the game.

#6) Submission/abnegation: It's important, but to me I need the previous five fulfilled before this condition gets tripped. I'm going to start with this though: I don't get sucked into the monotony of bashing in MUDs, I actually find it tedious, boring and my mind tends to wander quickly to something else I'd rather be doing. It's not engaging to me, and never has been. Some people enjoy the grind, for me the grind should be something I can passively do while doing the previous five things, but this isn't ever going to be the case.
I can do this well enough in console games, because I can multitask much easier, but with MUDs, if you don't pay somewhat close attention in PvE or PvP, you die quite quickly. In console games, I've already mentally 'killed' the enemy i'm already fighting and have targetted/positioned myself for the other two while dodging targets three and four. I'm not entirely sure what the issue is for me on that front, though I did grow up with console games over PC games, so that might be it.

#7) Fellowship: I'm friendly, talkative but I don't need a sense of  immediate community to play a game. I'm a solo player in the end, I do not like being forced to pair up with other players to get things done. It's not that I don't wanna share loot, or experience. It's pacing. In console games, my skill level usually gets me paired up with people trying to set speedruns, loot farmers, or people just trying to spam A through a conversation. Algorithms place me with them cause I must be doing the same thing or something based on my own rapid pace. Sometimes I wanna slow down, especially in spots where there's alot of foreshadowing, interesting somethings to look at, lore dumps in the area, et cetera. I wanna hear the story and other people get in the way of that. Sometimes the mobs do too, but I can just kill those. Can't exactly shoot my teammates because they're spamming the 'Vote to Skip Cutscene' button and screeching in my ear to get moving when I've stopped to crouch and look at a piece of paper stuck to a wall cause it has writing I can kinda make out.

In MUDs it's a similar thing. My playstyle is massively unorthodox (i will use skills that aren't as effective but are way cooler to me than the preferred methods), my stat allocation makes number crunchers/minmaxers cry because of the inefficiency (I have points in evasion because I have a soft spot for chance based skills) and my TTK is measured better on a glacial timescale (usually). While I do occasionally use the current applied meta when I'm playing MUDs, ultimately I'm in here for my own fun, and most of the time, other players get in the way of that. If I wanna noobpunch things to death, I'm going to. Even if it isn't the most effective attack.

I'm doing it cause it's fucking funny to me.

#8) Sensory: I play MUDs regularly. That should probably explain all there is to know about this. I mean sure, it's important, but it isn't the be-all for me. Though I do appreciate a colorblind friendly option cause some games are like getting a wooden mixing spoon jammed into my eye socket, and lensflares don't help the situation much.