MMORPGs - Ruined By Non Role-Players?

Thanks to RPGDot for their new editorial discussing why actual in-character roleplaying in MMORPGs is dying out, as more and more 'action fans' are being attracted to RPGs. The article suggests: "When you take an MMORPG apart to analyze what it is, you discover pretty quickly that it's mostly a huge graphical chat room... the role-playing aspect of an MMORPG is nowhere in the [priority] list, which leaves the few poor souls who are willing to do so in the dust, grinding their teeth at the l337 speech they are subjected to." But it seems in-game bugs and glitches make it difficult for even the most hardcore role-player to keep in-character: "It's hard to sustain a willingness to role-play when the mindless android in front of you swallows your shuttle ticket without so much as an apology."

Comments

Linked article (about l33t)

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly OT, but related to one of the links in the posted story:

From the BBC article:

As the Internet was coming into its own, during the early 1980s, hackers that didn't want their websites, newsgroups, etc, to be picked up in a simple keyword search began using numbers to replace certain letters (mostly vowels) such as A = 4 or E = 3.

Funny. I don't remember anyone being concerned about their website in the early 80's (or late ones for that matter).

Swallows?

[Homology]

It's hard to sustain a willingness to role-play when the mindless android in front of you swallows your shuttle ticket without so much as an apology

My wife is pretty willing to swallow, and it's not hard at all for me sustain my will for this. And no apology is offered either, but I guess I can live with that.