Ok, this I just had to comment on. Final Fantasy had NOTHING to do with the RP in the role playing game. Nowhere close, not even remotely. Dungeons & Dragons was the first role playing game ever, which came out in the 70's and was played at a table with friends. The first real computer RPG was a text based game called Zork and others followed, one of the most popular being the Ultima series, after which many followed. The first MMORPG's, all of which came before UO, EQ, and even WoW, fostered role playing elements in them and had massively thriving role playing communities. In fact it's a fair assessment to say that the role players ruled the communities of the MMORPG's at that time and non role players were a very small minority. You can thank big business for the lack of role playing in MMORPG's nowadays. This is what happens when you have people calling the shots that are completely ignorant about the business they are running. It happens all the time in the corporate heirarchy sadly.
As someone who started playing D&D pretty much the day it came out, I have to quibble a bit. D&D was the first commercially available tabletop RPG, but it certainly wasn't the first. These things have been played underground for a long, long time with unofficial rules, in college dorm rooms, etc. The hallmark of an RPG is freedom to do anything you want, when you want to do it, with your actions guided and ruled over by the GM. No computer game ever has allowed that kind of freedom. It's just not possible. Zork wasn't an RPG, it was an adventure game where you followed a pre-programmed path to a number of predetermined endings. That's not to say Zork wasn't revolutionary for it's day, but you couldn't go entirely off the rails and do whatever you wanted in it, you were restricted in the number of actions you could perform. The same with Ultima and Wizardry and all the other computer games that came after. You had a wide variety of choices, but you were still limited by the game. There was a goal to the games and you were expected to go try to achieve that goal.
Today in MMOs, the same thing is true. You are inherently limited in the number of things you can do and still be playing the game. That makes it not an RPG, it's just an action game where you get to tweak sliders on your own character. You're no more roleplaying your character than you roleplay Master Chief in a Halo game. Just because some people run around in an MMO using funny voices no more makes it an RPG than someone pretending to be Master Chief in Halo 2.
So long as it's a computer calling the shots, it cannot be roleplaying. You cannot take actions which the programmers haven't pre-defined. That's the heart of actual roleplaying. MMOs, or any computer game, is incapable of it.
Good point, but let's be honest, the majority of computer games that tacked "RPG" onto their name had nothing whatsoever to do with role playing, it was a marketing tactic.
The question than becomes why do they still do it? Once upon a time it might have translated into more sales but now I think the mainstream doesn't really care about real roleplaying and the acronym MMORPG is too long!
Seriously I think they were so successful at abusing the term that it means something completely different to most people now.
Honestly mainstread doesn't have any idea what role playing is. Most people nowadays think that role playing in a role playing game is about chat room styled role play and it's not at all. That's a form of role play, yes, but it's not role playing in the context of a role playing game. Again we can blame the suits for that. "Damn the man" I say! :P I actually miss the old days of role playing. Those were some days for sure.
Banegrivm Leader of the 1st Fist of Light www.1stfistoflight.com
The question than becomes why do they still do it? Once upon a time it might have translated into more sales but now I think the mainstream doesn't really care about real roleplaying and the acronym MMORPG is too long!
Seriously I think they were so successful at abusing the term that it means something completely different to most people now.
Because it's the name of the genre? Most people have no idea what actual roleplaying is, they weren't alive when people sat around a table and rolled dice. Why do people call the things recording artists release "albums"? Albums are made out of vinyl. They still use the terminology.
If it makes you feel better, when they finally figure out how to make Holodecks a reality, I'm sure everyone will be so busy roleplaying, there will be people asking the exact opposite of that question.
Though, ~what~ they're roleplaying...
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I would love to take part in a serious RP server. It would be nice if the devs included a feature into the game that if a person was anti-RP on a RP server, they were moved to a different server. I don't mean that if a person said "hey dude" instead of "Hail fine sir!" they were relocated, rather just relocating people that actively try to destroy RP.
If there was a game, that kept those ideals and was consistantly monitored by mods, I would pay a subscription. But that would be the only way.
The question than becomes why do they still do it? Once upon a time it might have translated into more sales but now I think the mainstream doesn't really care about real roleplaying and the acronym MMORPG is too long!
Seriously I think they were so successful at abusing the term that it means something completely different to most people now.
Because it's the name of the genre? Most people have no idea what actual roleplaying is, they weren't alive when people sat around a table and rolled dice. Why do people call the things recording artists release "albums"? Albums are made out of vinyl. They still use the terminology.
I would say so. It's a good analogy with one possible exception that I can think of. According to some of the most popular dictionary definitions of the word album simply means “A collection of recordings, on long-playing record, cassette, or compact disc, issued as a single item.” Eventually I would imagine the most popular and most widely used definition will mean that. For now most people still recognise what album is because of it's roots. Some people have suggested that isn't the case with roleplaying including myself but to be honest I'm not really sure.
Ok, this I just had to comment on. Final Fantasy had NOTHING to do with the RP in the role playing game. Nowhere close, not even remotely. Dungeons & Dragons was the first role playing game ever, which came out in the 70's and was played at a table with friends. The first real computer RPG was a text based game called Zork and others followed, one of the most popular being the Ultima series, after which many followed. The first MMORPG's, all of which came before UO, EQ, and even WoW, fostered role playing elements in them and had massively thriving role playing communities. In fact it's a fair assessment to say that the role players ruled the communities of the MMORPG's at that time and non role players were a very small minority. You can thank big business for the lack of role playing in MMORPG's nowadays. This is what happens when you have people calling the shots that are completely ignorant about the business they are running. It happens all the time in the corporate heirarchy sadly.
As someone who started playing D&D pretty much the day it came out, I have to quibble a bit. D&D was the first commercially available tabletop RPG, but it certainly wasn't the first. These things have been played underground for a long, long time with unofficial rules, in college dorm rooms, etc. The hallmark of an RPG is freedom to do anything you want, when you want to do it, with your actions guided and ruled over by the GM. No computer game ever has allowed that kind of freedom. It's just not possible. Zork wasn't an RPG, it was an adventure game where you followed a pre-programmed path to a number of predetermined endings. That's not to say Zork wasn't revolutionary for it's day, but you couldn't go entirely off the rails and do whatever you wanted in it, you were restricted in the number of actions you could perform. The same with Ultima and Wizardry and all the other computer games that came after. You had a wide variety of choices, but you were still limited by the game. There was a goal to the games and you were expected to go try to achieve that goal.
Today in MMOs, the same thing is true. You are inherently limited in the number of things you can do and still be playing the game. That makes it not an RPG, it's just an action game where you get to tweak sliders on your own character. You're no more roleplaying your character than you roleplay Master Chief in a Halo game. Just because some people run around in an MMO using funny voices no more makes it an RPG than someone pretending to be Master Chief in Halo 2.
So long as it's a computer calling the shots, it cannot be roleplaying. You cannot take actions which the programmers haven't pre-defined. That's the heart of actual roleplaying. MMOs, or any computer game, is incapable of it.
Can't say I agree with that at all about role playing games. You could call that role playing and technically it's correct, but it still isn't a role playin game. I've heard people say "Cowboys & Inidians" are a role playing game, but I don't agree. Show me somewhere that has a published set of mechanics where there are specific rules for characters, game play, dice rolling, etc. Actual mechanics that push an interactive story driven environment. It didn't exist until Dungeons & Dragons. As far as Zork goes where the gaming industry is concerned it's considered a pivotol RPG. Many RPG's that followed at that time used a similiar template. Yes I do agree that it was limited, but even so now, many RPG's are likewise limited by the limits of technology.
I have always said that no online experience, no matter how fast, will never beat out that experience of sitting at a table with friends having that social experience that comes with it. However, I do think you can have role playing in an MMORPG. The original NWN did it. I've actually seen it happen in EverQuest with a series of GM events that were setup to interact with players. It can be done. It won't be done anytime soon however because it requires extra manpower. It requires actual people to be paid to both set up and run these events. Fiscally, it's much cheaper to create a static environment and just let it run itself, as a cold dead world that's unfeeling without any real change or interactivity to it and that is just very very sad.
Banegrivm Leader of the 1st Fist of Light www.1stfistoflight.com
I would love to take part in a serious RP server. It would be nice if the devs included a feature into the game that if a person was anti-RP on a RP server, they were moved to a different server. I don't mean that if a person said "hey dude" instead of "Hail fine sir!" they were relocated, rather just relocating people that actively try to destroy RP.
If there was a game, that kept those ideals and was consistantly monitored by mods, I would pay a subscription. But that would be the only way.
Once upon a time I would have directed you to a game called Adellion and it's still worth a look if you are interested in some cool roleplaying features but have a look at http://www.legendsofaryiure.com and if you want join us on our forums at http://www.legendsofaryiure.com/forums/index.php Things are a bit quiet at the moment but they will make a stronger push for a community when they have more to show.
I never RP'd when I was playing RPG's. I didn't act like Zelda, anyone from Legaia, any FF Game, etc. RPG video games never meant anything like that for me. MMORPGs were just an extrapolation of that same idea so I regarded them the same.
Zelda is not even a playable character in the grand majority of the Zelda games, Link is. So of course, you have no reason to act ingame as if you were Zelda, you aren't playing her. *Facepalm*
I derped.
Link, sorry.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I would say more so on older games, and ones that are more sandboxish, but I am sure you will find them in new games also, and many games still make roleplay servers and try to have some rules for them, very limited ones, but a little bit more enforced if its pvp usually.
Yep, but I certainly don't RP with the newer breed of MMO's. They're simply not conducive to an environment that promotes creativity, which is what role playing is all about, so I still rely on UO for the times that I want to be in character. There are plenty of great options out there for MUD'ers, IRC RP, various emulators: just about everywhere outside the last ten years of video gaming.
No, role-playing is not necessarely about being creative, which you seem to have implied. It is about playing a role and that's it. Creative people can indeed have fun by trying to be creative through role-playing, but the creativity is not a necessary condition.
You're kidding, right? The entire process of RP is about imagination, with or without boundaries, and is about as close as an individual can get to writing narrative fiction. Creativity is the bottom line: if you don't have it, you probably can't RP.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Yep, but I certainly don't RP with the newer breed of MMO's. They're simply not conducive to an environment that promotes creativity, which is what role playing is all about, so I still rely on UO for the times that I want to be in character. There are plenty of great options out there for MUD'ers, IRC RP, various emulators: just about everywhere outside the last ten years of video gaming.
No, role-playing is not necessarely about being creative, which you seem to have implied. It is about playing a role and that's it. Creative people can indeed have fun by trying to be creative through role-playing, but the creativity is not a necessary condition.
You're kidding, right? The entire process of RP is about imagination, with or without boundaries, and is about as close as an individual can get to writing narrative fiction. Creativity is the bottom line: if you don't have it, you probably can't RP.
OMG! Your opinion is as same as mine. Check my previous comments on page 7.
All this "rah rah rah, young people don't know what roleplay is" is complete BS. I've roleplayed heavily on NWN2 and forums, both had active and frankly very good younger roleplayers (15-18). Maybe you shouldn't just assume the reasons for things.
I still run a weekly tabletop pnp D&D session; I have done so for the past 20+ years. So I get something of a fix there.
As far as video games go, for those that don't care for RP, fine, but I would KILL just to have one game with a RP server where RP'ing was STRICTLY enforced. It's an RP server, so if you don't want to RP, don't join it. Simple as avoiding a PvP server if you're not into that.
I can see where you're coming from. When I attempt to go on RP servers there doesn't even seem to be any actual RP going on. Most games that I've tried recently don't even have many RP servers, if they have any at all...
Its funny I just read an review about UO, where the reviewer said that roleplaying is dead, but its the players not the game. I agree.
The players in todays MMORPG environment are only out for the end game content, or to powerlevel through the game. And the gaming developers are caving in to this fact. They are releasing games like SMITE, DOTA, LoL, just so kids can have these grind fest powerlevel games that have little or no story and no chance at RP, which is good BUT. But it doesnt get them out of the games that NEED good RP to be fun, or balanced, or even interesting. Games that are sandboxes like UO, Xsyon, Mortal Online, and DFO all fail not because of the developers, (well MO the devs are doing a good job of trying to fail), but they fail because of the players. The current crop of players that are on the gaming servers now days, dont bother with RP. They give themselves names that are not even close to RP, only to grief or gank, or just powerlevel because their gamertag on XBOX live is something "hard". So they name their characters things like "BUILT", Beef", "Godly", "1337zor", "uberl0rd". Names like that should be insta-banned on any Sandbox game environment. But the developers go out of their way bending over backwards for these loser kids who have no other goal than to just be pains in someones rear, or power to the max level/skill just to say they did.
Its sad but the games havent changed at the core, but the players have changed for the worse.
Its funny I just read an review about UO, where the reviewer said that roleplaying is dead, but its the players not the game. I agree.
The players in todays MMORPG environment are only out for the end game content, or to powerlevel through the game. And the gaming developers are caving in to this fact. They are releasing games like SMITE, DOTA, LoL, just so kids can have these grind fest powerlevel games that have little or no story and no chance at RP, which is good BUT. But it doesnt get them out of the games that NEED good RP to be fun, or balanced, or even interesting. Games that are sandboxes like UO, Xsyon, Mortal Online, and DFO all fail not because of the developers, (well MO the devs are doing a good job of trying to fail), but they fail because of the players. The current crop of players that are on the gaming servers now days, dont bother with RP. They give themselves names that are not even close to RP, only to grief or gank, or just powerlevel because their gamertag on XBOX live is something "hard". So they name their characters things like "BUILT", Beef", "Godly", "1337zor", "uberl0rd". Names like that should be insta-banned on any Sandbox game environment. But the developers go out of their way bending over backwards for these loser kids who have no other goal than to just be pains in someones rear, or power to the max level/skill just to say they did.
Its sad but the games havent changed at the core, but the players have changed for the worse.
You have a few points, but generalizing at the beggining. Not all kids are like that. Why? I have plenty of points ( read my posts on page 7 ).
It was more fun back in the early MMO days when even the GMs would get involved and spawn events and hand out rewards for such. EQ in particular had some of my favorite RP moments when the Mods were more involved with the player base.
WoW actually offered some of my favorite RP moments, but I think a lot of people who were moving out of their teens along side me brought a lot of unneeded drama with it so it was akward, but it was still RP.
Now a days Landrovil server on LotRO offers me my themepark RP experience and it's quite active there. As good a game as any other TP game out there and I mean it's basically free up to nearly level 30 now and you can earn a lot of Turbine Points just by playing to go further than that without dropping a dime.
A few other games like City of Heroes still offers up some RP opps for my group and I.
I don't role play in MMORPG. I do on one of the Minecraft servers I play on. They run a mod called factions, and the faction I was in collapsed when the faction owner (also a mod) left the game. The game mods setup a 'ruin' faction, so players wouldn't come in and demolish all the buildings and I was stuck there - all my stuff was now in a faction that I had no permissions for. The game mods made me a member of the faction, and none of the other members came back so I started role playing a survivor of a grabbity event that the pigs tried to warn him about. The pigs now run the faction. If anyone comes through asking questions, I defer to the pigs. It's kind of fun. I don't think I could role play a serious role though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I don't think DAOC had official RP servers, not in Europe anyway. I joined the unofficial RP server, which was decided on in their forums.
Yes not so much RP these days, but RP guilds still can be good. Steer clear of the ones that want a four page background, way too snooty. But make sure they have their own webpage and use IC speech in guild chat, that's the hallmark of a good RP guild.
Yes not so much RP these days, but RP guilds still can be good. Steer clear of the ones that want a four page background, way too snooty. But make sure they have their own webpage and use IC speech in guild chat, that's the hallmark of a good RP guild.
I happen to like those RP guilds that want a decent background for your character. If they are calling themselves an RP guild then all elements should be geared towards that end. If that makes me snooty well...if the shoe fits...
But seriously, the tragedy is that imagination has taken a back seat in MMORPGs. It takes work, care, and creativity to actually mold a good character that will immerse you in whatever world you choose. I don't believe that capitalism has anything to do with the fading aspect of roleplaying (as someone mentioned in an earlier post) as much as it has to do with progressing a worldview of vulgarizing art and then calling it such (as someone else mentioned, I believe roleplaying is an art). It is the sign of the downfall of not just roleplaying but nations. Goodness, when you can make a statement like "I don't roleplay in an MMORPG", the death knell has begun.
That being said, I do agree that if you find a genuine RP group/guild, make sure it is as such. RPing in guild chat is a mark of a true RP guild. There are those who try to get around the RP for the sake of numbers, as if having a huge guild is what makes it a good one. That kind of shallow thinking has crept into guilds all over the place. I experienced one of those in LotR where they said they were RP but only RPed in one chat and pretty much never at that. Needless to say, I am no longer a part of that guild and am seeking another. In the interim, I keep track of friends who I have had good relations with RPing and that seems to do well just nicely to fill the gap until I find another.
This lack of RPing in MMORPGs has had me evaluating the games I become a part of very carefully. I have played only one game for years before expanding to another (It was not WoW which I would never play in my life). The only other game I'm interested in playing because of the story aspect for your character is GW2. All others hold no interest for me.
Roleplaying is fast becoming the red headed step-child of MMORPGs...but I don't mind being a step-child. You have to have that attitude going in nowadays unfortunately.
But seriously, the tragedy is that imagination has taken a back seat in MMORPGs.
Well, it was a predicted tragedy, at any rate. "Massive" only conflicts with "RPG".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Comments
Lots of roleplay going on in Tera Online, Celestial Hills server. :P
As someone who started playing D&D pretty much the day it came out, I have to quibble a bit. D&D was the first commercially available tabletop RPG, but it certainly wasn't the first. These things have been played underground for a long, long time with unofficial rules, in college dorm rooms, etc. The hallmark of an RPG is freedom to do anything you want, when you want to do it, with your actions guided and ruled over by the GM. No computer game ever has allowed that kind of freedom. It's just not possible. Zork wasn't an RPG, it was an adventure game where you followed a pre-programmed path to a number of predetermined endings. That's not to say Zork wasn't revolutionary for it's day, but you couldn't go entirely off the rails and do whatever you wanted in it, you were restricted in the number of actions you could perform. The same with Ultima and Wizardry and all the other computer games that came after. You had a wide variety of choices, but you were still limited by the game. There was a goal to the games and you were expected to go try to achieve that goal.
Today in MMOs, the same thing is true. You are inherently limited in the number of things you can do and still be playing the game. That makes it not an RPG, it's just an action game where you get to tweak sliders on your own character. You're no more roleplaying your character than you roleplay Master Chief in a Halo game. Just because some people run around in an MMO using funny voices no more makes it an RPG than someone pretending to be Master Chief in Halo 2.
So long as it's a computer calling the shots, it cannot be roleplaying. You cannot take actions which the programmers haven't pre-defined. That's the heart of actual roleplaying. MMOs, or any computer game, is incapable of it.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Honestly mainstread doesn't have any idea what role playing is. Most people nowadays think that role playing in a role playing game is about chat room styled role play and it's not at all. That's a form of role play, yes, but it's not role playing in the context of a role playing game. Again we can blame the suits for that. "Damn the man" I say! :P I actually miss the old days of role playing. Those were some days for sure.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Because it's the name of the genre? Most people have no idea what actual roleplaying is, they weren't alive when people sat around a table and rolled dice. Why do people call the things recording artists release "albums"? Albums are made out of vinyl. They still use the terminology.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
If it makes you feel better, when they finally figure out how to make Holodecks a reality, I'm sure everyone will be so busy roleplaying, there will be people asking the exact opposite of that question.
Though, ~what~ they're roleplaying...
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I would love to take part in a serious RP server. It would be nice if the devs included a feature into the game that if a person was anti-RP on a RP server, they were moved to a different server. I don't mean that if a person said "hey dude" instead of "Hail fine sir!" they were relocated, rather just relocating people that actively try to destroy RP.
If there was a game, that kept those ideals and was consistantly monitored by mods, I would pay a subscription. But that would be the only way.
I would say so. It's a good analogy with one possible exception that I can think of. According to some of the most popular dictionary definitions of the word album simply means “A collection of recordings, on long-playing record, cassette, or compact disc, issued as a single item.” Eventually I would imagine the most popular and most widely used definition will mean that. For now most people still recognise what album is because of it's roots. Some people have suggested that isn't the case with roleplaying including myself but to be honest I'm not really sure.
Can't say I agree with that at all about role playing games. You could call that role playing and technically it's correct, but it still isn't a role playin game. I've heard people say "Cowboys & Inidians" are a role playing game, but I don't agree. Show me somewhere that has a published set of mechanics where there are specific rules for characters, game play, dice rolling, etc. Actual mechanics that push an interactive story driven environment. It didn't exist until Dungeons & Dragons. As far as Zork goes where the gaming industry is concerned it's considered a pivotol RPG. Many RPG's that followed at that time used a similiar template. Yes I do agree that it was limited, but even so now, many RPG's are likewise limited by the limits of technology.
I have always said that no online experience, no matter how fast, will never beat out that experience of sitting at a table with friends having that social experience that comes with it. However, I do think you can have role playing in an MMORPG. The original NWN did it. I've actually seen it happen in EverQuest with a series of GM events that were setup to interact with players. It can be done. It won't be done anytime soon however because it requires extra manpower. It requires actual people to be paid to both set up and run these events. Fiscally, it's much cheaper to create a static environment and just let it run itself, as a cold dead world that's unfeeling without any real change or interactivity to it and that is just very very sad.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Once upon a time I would have directed you to a game called Adellion and it's still worth a look if you are interested in some cool roleplaying features but have a look at http://www.legendsofaryiure.com and if you want join us on our forums at http://www.legendsofaryiure.com/forums/index.php Things are a bit quiet at the moment but they will make a stronger push for a community when they have more to show.
I derped.
Link, sorry.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I would say more so on older games, and ones that are more sandboxish, but I am sure you will find them in new games also, and many games still make roleplay servers and try to have some rules for them, very limited ones, but a little bit more enforced if its pvp usually.
( read my previous comment on page 7 )
Well, you are free to do whatever you want. It's a free world, even if most democratic countries are actually fake. But that's a whole other matter.
You're kidding, right? The entire process of RP is about imagination, with or without boundaries, and is about as close as an individual can get to writing narrative fiction. Creativity is the bottom line: if you don't have it, you probably can't RP.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
OMG! Your opinion is as same as mine. Check my previous comments on page 7.
All this "rah rah rah, young people don't know what roleplay is" is complete BS. I've roleplayed heavily on NWN2 and forums, both had active and frankly very good younger roleplayers (15-18). Maybe you shouldn't just assume the reasons for things.
I still run a weekly tabletop pnp D&D session; I have done so for the past 20+ years. So I get something of a fix there.
As far as video games go, for those that don't care for RP, fine, but I would KILL just to have one game with a RP server where RP'ing was STRICTLY enforced. It's an RP server, so if you don't want to RP, don't join it. Simple as avoiding a PvP server if you're not into that.
I can see where you're coming from. When I attempt to go on RP servers there doesn't even seem to be any actual RP going on. Most games that I've tried recently don't even have many RP servers, if they have any at all...
Its funny I just read an review about UO, where the reviewer said that roleplaying is dead, but its the players not the game. I agree.
The players in todays MMORPG environment are only out for the end game content, or to powerlevel through the game. And the gaming developers are caving in to this fact. They are releasing games like SMITE, DOTA, LoL, just so kids can have these grind fest powerlevel games that have little or no story and no chance at RP, which is good BUT. But it doesnt get them out of the games that NEED good RP to be fun, or balanced, or even interesting. Games that are sandboxes like UO, Xsyon, Mortal Online, and DFO all fail not because of the developers, (well MO the devs are doing a good job of trying to fail), but they fail because of the players. The current crop of players that are on the gaming servers now days, dont bother with RP. They give themselves names that are not even close to RP, only to grief or gank, or just powerlevel because their gamertag on XBOX live is something "hard". So they name their characters things like "BUILT", Beef", "Godly", "1337zor", "uberl0rd". Names like that should be insta-banned on any Sandbox game environment. But the developers go out of their way bending over backwards for these loser kids who have no other goal than to just be pains in someones rear, or power to the max level/skill just to say they did.
Its sad but the games havent changed at the core, but the players have changed for the worse.
So much crap, so little quality.
You have a few points, but generalizing at the beggining. Not all kids are like that. Why? I have plenty of points ( read my posts on page 7 ).
I RP daily!
So yeah, some people do.
It was more fun back in the early MMO days when even the GMs would get involved and spawn events and hand out rewards for such. EQ in particular had some of my favorite RP moments when the Mods were more involved with the player base.
WoW actually offered some of my favorite RP moments, but I think a lot of people who were moving out of their teens along side me brought a lot of unneeded drama with it so it was akward, but it was still RP.
Now a days Landrovil server on LotRO offers me my themepark RP experience and it's quite active there. As good a game as any other TP game out there and I mean it's basically free up to nearly level 30 now and you can earn a lot of Turbine Points just by playing to go further than that without dropping a dime.
A few other games like City of Heroes still offers up some RP opps for my group and I.
Just gotta look.
a yo ho ho
I don't role play in MMORPG. I do on one of the Minecraft servers I play on. They run a mod called factions, and the faction I was in collapsed when the faction owner (also a mod) left the game. The game mods setup a 'ruin' faction, so players wouldn't come in and demolish all the buildings and I was stuck there - all my stuff was now in a faction that I had no permissions for. The game mods made me a member of the faction, and none of the other members came back so I started role playing a survivor of a grabbity event that the pigs tried to warn him about. The pigs now run the faction. If anyone comes through asking questions, I defer to the pigs. It's kind of fun. I don't think I could role play a serious role though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I don't think DAOC had official RP servers, not in Europe anyway. I joined the unofficial RP server, which was decided on in their forums.
Yes not so much RP these days, but RP guilds still can be good. Steer clear of the ones that want a four page background, way too snooty. But make sure they have their own webpage and use IC speech in guild chat, that's the hallmark of a good RP guild.
I happen to like those RP guilds that want a decent background for your character. If they are calling themselves an RP guild then all elements should be geared towards that end. If that makes me snooty well...if the shoe fits...
But seriously, the tragedy is that imagination has taken a back seat in MMORPGs. It takes work, care, and creativity to actually mold a good character that will immerse you in whatever world you choose. I don't believe that capitalism has anything to do with the fading aspect of roleplaying (as someone mentioned in an earlier post) as much as it has to do with progressing a worldview of vulgarizing art and then calling it such (as someone else mentioned, I believe roleplaying is an art). It is the sign of the downfall of not just roleplaying but nations. Goodness, when you can make a statement like "I don't roleplay in an MMORPG", the death knell has begun.
That being said, I do agree that if you find a genuine RP group/guild, make sure it is as such. RPing in guild chat is a mark of a true RP guild. There are those who try to get around the RP for the sake of numbers, as if having a huge guild is what makes it a good one. That kind of shallow thinking has crept into guilds all over the place. I experienced one of those in LotR where they said they were RP but only RPed in one chat and pretty much never at that. Needless to say, I am no longer a part of that guild and am seeking another. In the interim, I keep track of friends who I have had good relations with RPing and that seems to do well just nicely to fill the gap until I find another.
This lack of RPing in MMORPGs has had me evaluating the games I become a part of very carefully. I have played only one game for years before expanding to another (It was not WoW which I would never play in my life). The only other game I'm interested in playing because of the story aspect for your character is GW2. All others hold no interest for me.
Roleplaying is fast becoming the red headed step-child of MMORPGs...but I don't mind being a step-child. You have to have that attitude going in nowadays unfortunately.
CoH Supergroup: The Millennium Paladins
Well, it was a predicted tragedy, at any rate. "Massive" only conflicts with "RPG".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It depends what game you are in, I've found, whether you'll see people roleplaying or not. MUDs are often places you'll find what you're looking for.