Take this on for a 'fact'. As a 'good' speed fighter you must also be a good 'role-player'. None of you nigga's role-play. Amicus is the only on up there who can be a badass and still stay in character without anyone telling her " Be in character. "
NONE OF YOU NIGGA'S ARE EVER IN CHARACTER, YOU JUST FIGHT.Read the capped text. Repeatedly. And you'll see why all the RPers really died and you don't see any new talent coming out of the woodwork.
Back before most of you were really getting into the fray of fighting and what not, you were still RPers. You actually used your character, you kept with what was going on... hell, there was actually a storyline going on. And not only were you in it, but so were the people around you.
However, the time changed. Consider it like the breaking of kayfabe in professional wrestling. No storyline... just a couple of guys fighting in the ring. That's what it boils down to.
And unfortunately, it's also ridiculously boring.
Quite honestly, if you want to compare who's faster, honestly, you can have people type the same paragraph over and over and see who's faster. Easier way to stroke your e-cock, since it's the same thing and you don't have to worry about variables factoring in, such as chat lag, other people in the room, etc.
To answer the question about best fighter = best RPer, to be honest, yeah, it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. But before, when RP was actually good, and people actually put time and effort into this, the best fighter wasn't the one who simply made the connection time as fast as possible without actually using a macro or a copy-paste. It was about wit, dexterity, and a cohesive sentence that actually made sense. Most of you don't even realize that the reason we used action quotes was that, in the Xoom, MultiCity, and ParaChats, there were no ways to create an action. Yahoo and RC allowed the option of a colon or a "/me" or something absurd like that, so automatically, we used those.
The key was to make it sound like your character actually performed a move in a sentence that, well, was grammatically correct. For example, take note of the following, as if it were an actual text log in a Parachat:
Cloud Strife: There isn't a thing in this world I don't cherish!
Cloud Strife: <swings his Buster Sword for the chest of Sephiroth.>
The character is obviously Cloud Strife, and he's going up against Sephiroth. Note that the action to strike (the attempt) actually makes sense as a sentence.
Now, take a look at what things have (de)evolved to.
Cloud Strife: There isn't a thing in this world I don't cherish!
Cloud Strife: <a sword to the chest of seph.>
Understandably, you're cutting down on length in order to create efficiency. But as a result, you've also killed off the RP sense of it. It's no longer a legit action. It's just sentences. They state actions. But there's no flow to it. It's just about who gets their shit out faster than the other guy.
Case in point, the reason why best RPer = best fighter was that, in all fairness, it actually made sense when you fought. It wasn't just about whose fingers moved faster. That's like John Cena and his five moves of doom. Classically, we'd much rather see a better performance. Something like Shawn Michaels or The Rock. Substance behind the execution.
Hence why those who only "fight" and wonder why people take this whole online thing so seriously... it's kinda hypocritical, actually, because you take this whole "I'm faster than everyone" thing so seriously, and it's an online thing... you do the math.