> It doesn't mean the person is like that in person at all.

While I defer to your expertise, I have to say I find it a bit difficult to believe. Being in an online game just changes the form of interaction between people, not the fact that they're interacting. (We couldn't, for example, say "Oh, X is a jerk over the telephone but s/he's not like that in person at all".) These players know full well that there was another human being at the other end of their misbehavior.

Whatever the online analogue of "in vino, veritas" might be, I would be willing to bet that it's true and that these players are actually revealing a significant aspect of their true nature.

Actually, we do in fact say that X is a jerk over the telephone but less so in person. It's pretty well studied. The generic term is "psychological disinhibition" and it used to come up all the time around the issue of email and tone.

Role playing.

via hanging around magical bubba, xavori and that gang I also came across many, well, less refined types who fit this mold. Meet them in RL and they were perfectly normal.

They just saw UO as a different kind of game as other folks did, something more akin to Quake where it was no holds barred PvP. There were multiple folks I knew who couldn't understand that someone wouldn't view the game that way.

Of course, even those two were quite different; Xavori roleplayed a lot whereas IIRC Bubba didn't bother.

I think the key difference is that one was a RPer who PKd and the other a PK who RPd. Most of the folks who hung around that Silk's Tavern group, both villains and good guys & myself included had a thinner veneer of RP than folks like Xavori. It's a big reason why it was never hard to concoct an IC reason why we were all banding together against a troupe of jerks, red or blue.

The article Hearths, Clubs Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit Muds ( https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm ) looks at that aspect. The types of players the designers design for and the types of players that the game creates aren't always in alignment.

One of the games that I've played over the years that specifically embraces this is Kingdom of Loathing.