EJP - The fatal flaw in the system?

What is EJP? How does it work?

I've thought about those question long and hard, even worked out several concepts inolving network strategies, "RSI buffering", firewalls, "RSI-cloning", etc. but sadly never came around to write them down anywhere. However over the last few month those questions have changed, the concepts of "how" suddenly stopped having a meaning in constrast to the much more substantial question "why"?

Why does EJP exist? And more importantly: Why does the concept of the EJP not affect us at all?

Naturally the first answer to those questions is "because it's a game; if we died so easily just after 10 minutes into the game why begin anew?" That answer has always satisfied us, though some have indeed thought about it more than that, found the problem behind the concept: Immortalism, god complex.

Of course the EJP is meant to make us immortal, making a new character after each death has no meaning in an MMORPG ... and yet that is also the fatal flaw in the system, of the whole storyline up to now, of each and every choice we, the players, have made. The EJP is something every roleplayer has seen as a hindrance to roleplaying at some point, even if they more or less successfully included the concept into their roleplay the most fundamental effects have been mostly ignored.

I don't say that I've considered everything the EJP involves, most likely many things I'm going to mention next could be considered complete bull****, but even so, I write this so that you may reflect upon what I say and add your own experience (no flaming plz T_T). Naturally I try to consider all things from a roleplaying point of view,  but inevitably I will include game mechanics and the decision made by the devs because this is ultimately what defines the very basis of our roleplay, our very game.

Mhm ... where to begin. I'd say to understand the flaw we need to understand the consequences of the EJP on both body and soul. Even though nobody knows how EJP works, it is however more or less generally excepted that each and every virtual death we experience is preceded and followed by a near-death experience that does affect our psyche and thus transcends the security of the EJP, even if it's only for a short while.

Generally we could say from the standpoint we've had up to now that the more you die, the less you'll be affected by it. Seasoned operatives no longer "fear death" (nobody wants to die, but even if we did, it wouldn't matter, we'd be "knocked out" for a few minutes and that's all). That experience is what drives all of us and our decisions. That lack of ... can we call it "sense of self-preservation"? ... lets us consider making decisions and actions normally any normal human being would consider suicide, crazy. Most situations, even in times of peace, can easily end up in a massacre with no real losses on either sides, except for those in between, the very people we swore to dedicate our lives to.

How can we possible decide the future of those who are affected by our actions, if we gradually lose the connection we have with them? In the end our fake immortality granted to us by the EJP makes us develop a god complex, where all who others a mere cattle. I'm sure most of you disagree about this, but that's where I believe that you are wrong. No matter how much we try to relate to those people (namely bluepills primarily), in the end their death remains only of little importance to us. Sure their death affects us, however the effect is much smaller than what it would be if we really would give our lives to them but we cannot. How can we dedicate our lives to them if we are immortal, if they are like ants, living and dieing, while we are the little boys and girls with the magnifieing glasses watching them from above? There is no threat to our lives, we are save, they die, we continue.

Heh, I know what you're thinking right now, (most) probably (not). Right about now I try to reflect upon what I said up until now and try to make sure I myself know what I was thinking what I wrote there, if I myself understand it. I'm bad at expressing my thoughts, but I guess replies will uncover the many errors I made up until now and till the end of this.

In any case, back to the "I know what you're thinking right now" part. There is one more thing to consider and that is "the Real". "The Real" is yet another topic of importance to the EJP. We may be immortal in the Matrix, but not so in the Real. We die in the Real, we really die. Sadly this is another limitation given to us by the game. The Real does not exist, what happens there mostly out of our hands (there are a few occasions where we did affect it, yes). Exactly because of this the factor of mortality in the real is of no importance to us. How believable can we display it anyways? There are and were many roleplays that included actions in the real, even LEs and cinematics, crucial parts of the story-line. Ultimately that doesn't change anything, sadly.

Which is why because of this inability to reflect of what happens in this other world, the Real, where each and every one of our actions would have much more live-crucial outcomes, that the storyline has begun to take turns to the worst. The Real is static and nobody can or should be allowed to change it and yet this static enviroment, if changed, would need to affect our very personalities, our very actions. Peace, the enviroment in which nothing happens, in which nothing affects us in the Matrix, the world we practically dedicated our lives to, to preserve that peace, has been changed. A simple action, a declaration of war, which inevitably needs to affect both worlds, ours and the static one, couldn't possibly affect either in the end. How can we be in a state of turmoil, life and death, if we can't do anything about it? Even in the Matrix a state of war is impossible, wether it be done through story-line or game mechanics. This game is not made for war, it's made for peace. Nobody of us has changed, how can we?

What does this have to do with the EJP? Without the possiblity of our very own death, especially ones not decided by our own, which is the only possible decision any of us choose in roleplay, but by outside forces, none of our actions have any affect (with the exception of a few very lucky or talented roleplayers). Otherwise the declaration of war would have affected us, because the probability that we will be killed would be extreme, just like in the movies and that change would have also affected on how we see the other world purely depicted by roleplay and some story-line aspects, the Real. But that is a thing impossible for an MMORPG. The very thing that is so crucial to the game is the fatal weakness of the roleplay and storyline we love.

We can't change the fact, but there is one thing that we could have done from the very beginning. Actually no, not we, but the makers of this game and the universe we play in: A detailed description for both role- and non-roleplayers for all things that I have mentioned up to now. What is the EJP? How does it work? How does it affect our bodies, RSI and especially the very psyche of those using it in both short- and longterms. How, for a realistic display of roleplay, should it affect us? What is the real? How can we possible include it into our roleplay and therefore what are dos and don'ts? There are so many other questions that still linger around that wait to be answered. All of those questions may have at some point been explained individually by someone somewhere, but there is no generally acceptable basis. Although I do blame the devs and such for this, I'm being incredibly idealistic here.

All those questions are so very essential to our very lives in the Matrix, yet all of them stay unanswered. All those actions, decisions, choices we made were made purely from a standpoint we decided for ourselves, without broad knowledge of the actual facts, which for all we know don't exist. After all we decided for ourselves what the Matrix is within in the limitations of what was given to us and yet nowadays I can't help but think that it's no longer a Matrix related to the one we loved so much, a realisation that took 3 years, and which is somewhat painful.

I actually wanted to include my very own description of how the EJP affects our bodies and psyche, where the limitations of RSI reconstruction lie and how we should have behaved, if we really wanted to include a basis of knowledge that is acceptable for the community and can be used for active roleplay. To be honest, right now I'm a little exhausted, it's been some time I have written something like this and the whole text is so very "me" (plus I don't think I could have done it very well anyways, much like this very text); incoherent, made up of words that sometimes make no sense in the context they were put in, I admit I'm bad at this, but I think it's something that has to be said by someone at some point, even though I guess ... it's nearly 3 and a half years too late.

Mfg, GG

P.S.: Any bad grammar or sentences that make no sense are purely coincidential, you could say bad translation of thoughs?

Very.

(( well.. yeah...

EJP ever so clearly was conceived as a way to fit the Matrix concept with an MMO. Just like the *cough* operator loading bullets into your gun thing. At an RP level, I honestly don't have any real beef with it, I actually like it, though I agree it limits... consequences.

I look at it this way... when you die in your dreams, you just wake up. At least , I do. That or I start to realize its a dream and become invulnerable, fly, etc. Maybe I'm wierd in that regard. But to me, that was always one of my issues with the movies. The Matrix is a dream, so why the h*ll would dieng there kill me? I actually had to look at that as a Movie Mechanics issue. I think the movies ought ot have had EJP, but that would have made them pretty lame, as you note, no consequences.

My beef has always been more with the way the game treats this stuff inconsistently. Such as assasianation missions for Mech's or Merv's where you kill Zion Operatives. It's like.. uhhh.. but they didnt really die right? or do we have signal lock? we can signal lock every mission, but not other times? or ... uhh...

It goes along with the other inconsistencies in the game, like the above gun thing. That supposedly was because, with the Truce, ships can operate shallower, and so Operators can hack the bullets into your gun. Course, the Truce is over now... so why don't I need ammunition? And then there's the whole agent thing. The Truce is over, so Agents pop up to attack Zion. Yet, the Merv has NEVER had a truce with the Machines, but Agents don't show up to pop Merv's. It seems to me like they should have alll along, since launch!

And, as you note, there is also not really a REAL world in the game mechanics, so even though my character should technically have to worry about sentinels attacking the ship, they somehow never do. So, even the one area where there SHOULD be consequences, there just arent any. I think this is why I never bothered with the Hovercraft Battles, even though they seemed cool. Its like, well, alll I can do is damage their ship, and vice versa, its not like if i beat em they are gonna throw away a lvl50 char and start over. So who cares? IC, I'd love to go take down some Cyph vessels. But I can't, so why bother pretending?

I assume all of these examples begin with the original game dev's just kind of figured we'd all look the other way on this sort of thing. Which we do. What I find wierd is that, from everything I hear, the Brother's intended for the plot to do away with the Truce from the get go, possibly much sooner in Real time than it did. It flabbergasts me that this game engine is built around a Truce that was always intended to end!

But yeah, form the psychological part of the EJP, I don't think you have to see there being some major impact. As I say, just like dieng in a dream. You shake it off, go back to sleep.))

The reason why the Matrix is much more than a dream is so people who live in there (the blues) don't find out it's not real. If even blues couldn't die (cause it's a dream, the EJP concepts suddenly becomes unneeded), what meaning would the illusion have? The Matrix would just degrade into a huge battlefield with nobody having regards to each others lives, economy and everyday-life would suddenly become non-existant (how would the Machines then supply food and everyday needs to them? How would they prevent the blues to become self-aware of the Matrix?). Such a concept wasn't needed by the Machines and Zion couldn't create an immortal concept like that by itself during the war (how Wright did it in the first place at the beginning of the truth is still a riddle).

psilody wrote:

((But yeah, form the psychological part of the EJP, I don't think you have to see there being some major impact. As I say, just like dieng in a dream. You shake it off, go back to sleep.))

That's one of my beefs with the concept. The Matrix is not only a "dream", something most people just forget about. No matter how realistic the dream is, it couldn't possibly inflict a mental wound that would affect you, but that's exactly what happens in the Matrix. Any reaction, any emotion is as real as it is just in the Real. But there again what does the EJP do to limit the consequences of that? Of course I've always thought wounds in the Matrix don't directly reflect in wounds on your physical body if you're hurt (I mean, if you suddenly started a nosebleed or something ok, but nothing major). But the Matrix is incredibly realistic, in fact it's so realistic that if you nearly die, how can you possibly shake off the notion that you just died? Do you have a mental gap of a few seconds so you don't remember what just happened? As a matter of fact, any operative has died a thousand times over quite possibly with any conceivable wound there is. How can it not affect your psyche ulitmately? You get shot in your head, you feel the gaping hole in your head before and even after you get reconstructed (and instinctively check your head if the hole is really not there anymore). Through the EJP it may be possible that the RSI can be regenerated instantly but not what goes through your brain. The effects on what you think aren't reseted (as far as we know), they take it's course until you somehow manage to reason against you being dead against having deadly wounds that just were inflicted onto you (death effect). Something like a "ghost-hand" effect, whereyou feel as if something is there that is not ("ghost hand" [though that isn't the real term since I can't remember it] is where you can still "feel" limbs that you lost due to an injury).

And exactly that happens over and over. Somehow you may get accustomed to the ghost hand effect but how it not scar you in the long run? One possible outcome: Your mind becomes dull to wounds inflicted to you and the residual self image will be constructed accordingly, with less sensitivty to effects on it's function. But there we enter a point where people would become numb to anything that happens to them (which also effects the way they make decisions and act). The RSI suddenly has a low sensitivity, but the body in the Real does not change like the RSI does, a gap between the real you and the virtual you is forming.

To me, the problems and questions the EJP pose on anything that happens to you connected to the Matrix has an immense impact on anything you do. It's more than just quite possible that if we knew much more about the questions I posed in the end of the starting post, we would have decided against doing some things, against starting fights in some places, those decisions would have changed the outcome of some story-line aspects.

But then again, even if we knew the answers now, it wouldn't change anything anymore. How many people would actually accept those answers and how many would even implement those into their daily roleplay?

An interesting read, but I don't think half the things you're worrying about are actually worth being bothering by. As far as I'm concerned, there's no great secret behind the EJP mechanism, nor are there serious and long-lasting repercussions resulting from its use. All EJP does is return your consciousness to your body before the Matrix completes the death cycle, which would normally destroy (delete?) the consciousness, leaving the body with nothing to control it. You get killed in the Matrix, you instantly wake up on your hovercraft, most likely in a reasonable amount of pain from either a) the injuries experienced up until death, or b) the sudden emergency transfer of your entire consciousness.

The effects felt after waking up will vary depending on the injuries sustained, but something as severe and immediately fatal as a headshot wouldn't even be noticed by the person in question; they'd wake up in their chair before the shock even got to them in the Matrix.

As for harming the psyche... I'm not convinced, but I have a rather narrow view of things like this anyway. Near death experiences are pure nonsense if you ask me, especially as the mind won't have time to mull over its life before it's yanked back to the hovercraft. You won't develop a god complex either, not if you have an understanding of the (frankly simple) reason you didn't die. Not sure why you'd develop an apathy towards Bluepills either, certainly if your job is to protect them.

I must say I don't have the time to read your whole post, or blog if you wish. I'll only address the "why?" question from a more pragmatic angle (off-RP) : If you didnt have the EJP you'd have probably quit a long time ago because you'd most likely have to create a new character everytime one of them died. If you don't like it, you could always try to hyper-jump rooftops IRL. That's always fun. And hey, no EJP!

...

well, again I think this is a matter of perspective. You have trouble with the EJP concept, because it makes light of death in the Matrix.

I have a problem with the death in the Matrix concept at all, ESPECIALLY for the awakened. I don't care how realistic the simulation is, as an operative, you know that it is not your body there. Heck, even your Brain is not in the Matrix, its just that your outward senses have been overridden by a signal. If you know its not real, then why, psychologically, would you die?

 I honestly even have problems with the notion that Bluepills die from dieing in the Matrix, especially since technically speaking they don't have to. That is to say, that when the simulation creates the death of a bluepill, they don't actually have to die in the simulation. They could wake up. It's just not gonna do 'em any d**n good because they immediately get flushed.

I have even more problem with the whole "your body makes it real" bit. I mean, come on, I get shot int he Matrix and start spitting up blood? thats kinda preposterous. I always took that whole bit as a neccessity brought on by movie dynamics. If you couldn't die in the Matrix, the movie would lack drama.

So, yeah, I still don't see the need for getting whacked in the Matrix to be some big drama. You already know its not real! Why would you be psychologically traumatized? Especially when our whole deal as operatives is that we have learned to bend reality, suppress pain, do super-kungfu, because we know its not real. To me, its not EJP that begs for explaining, its why you die in the real at all.

But, again, I do agree with you that it affects story dynamics. Thats why they had people die in the movies, to give it suspense. We do lack that suspense in day-to-day gameplay, but then again, do you want to make a new character every ten-minutes? Honestly, this is why I don't think this should have been a leveling MMO to begin with, but there you have it. And even if we did die and have to remake our characters, wouldn't most players just recreate the same character? Be kinda challenging to maintain associations. "yeah, hey there, rmember me? I used to be John, and before that Jack, and before that Paul, Luke, Jim, etc, Ive died about ten times now..."

I think the real bottom line is that Video games in general dismiss death. MxO is no exception.

psilody wrote:

I have even more problem with the whole "your body makes it real" bit. I mean, come on, I get shot int he Matrix and start spitting up blood? thats kinda preposterous. I always took that whole bit as a neccessity brought on by movie dynamics. If you couldn't die in the Matrix, the movie would lack drama.

Ever experience the sensation of falling when lying in bed? Phantom smells? Taken a placebo? It's even been reported that some amputees still feel pain coming from a part of their aputated limb. It's your mind playing tricks on the bodies senses and giving out instructions.

The brain doesn't just accept signals, it sends them out, it tells the body to compensate for the the experience.

Smacked in the gob? So a signal to the brain from a jack telling you you just got puched in the mouth not only makes you feel the pain but the brain tells the body to send more blood and antibodies to compensate for 'loss' of blood. This sudden rush would burst small blood vessels in the gums and thin tissue.

Got shot? The brain instructs the body to react doing it's best to heal. Now I don't think it ever showed a shot up operative jacking out with bulletholes in their chest but probably a lot of pain and severe bruising and again blood vessels rupturing hence the coughing up blood.

Dead? If the Simulation reports to your brain that you are dead, you think it's gonna argue? Do you think it'll keep sending signals to a 'dead' heart to keep beating?

Getting your rocks off? Prepare for a cleanup job.

It's your mind, you may know it's not real but the submind, the primitive side wouldn't know any different. No matter how aware you are of the truth, the brain still reacts to the stimulous, not as much as it would if you weren't aware, hence the strength and endurance etc. for the aware are exponentially increased over the un-aware. The intelligent mind is a buffer but there's only so much it can take.