Conflict with RP right now...

glord

In WoW, even in NWN, in every game except UO basically my experiences with RP were crap. After sort of reevaluating the content of the RP I've HAD, and what I WANTED, it seems that most RP consists of sitting in a tavern or town square and shooting the shit with a bunch of dudes pretending to be women. I almost want to detach from the desire to RP and just 'play the damn game'.

Azaron_Nightblade

In Neverwinter Nights it depended a lot on how many DMs you had active on that particular world, and what they liked to do. I've had a lot of fun adventures on that game. A creative group of players could also do some great things with the existing in-game quests the world builders had set up.

Deivos

Try looking for actual RP groups or different RP groups, I guess? Most general RP is going to be somewhat lacking unless you have an intended event or some overarching coordinated activity with others.

Finding groups or other groups goes into the ability to set up character, themes, and plot hooks that lets collaborative storytelling take of and mature much more broadly, with actual adventure, activity, and plot progression to which you are not going to get by walking into a bar.

Keglanek

I know exactly where you are coming from, with most mmo's that are out these days they are theme park mmo's. With UO and even Star Wars Galaxies they were sandbox mmo's where people could place a house in the world and be apart of that world. Sandbox i think, gives more freedom and i think that draws in more roleplayers, also i find it alot easier to get a new character into a roleplaying group when you dont have levels.

I know meta gaming is prohibited but people still look at the level of other people, so if someone comes along trying to act like a tough guy all you have to do is look at their level and if they are a lower level then you then you know there is no problem. With a skill based game like UO you dont really know what level they are and you treat them with caution.

Maquiame

There is plenty of rp in ArcheAge which is a sandbox.  There is even an rp site for the game http://www.archeageroleplay.com/

Loke666

RP is never more fun then the people you do it with. If you can't find like minded people then you are screwed no matter what game you play.

Fredoom in the game world do help, when someone owns the tavern and the smith next door is taking a beer after work it do set a better atmosphere then people who takes a break after soloing quests.

Also, in games like UO a lot of the players were pen and paper RPers who usually tend to RP better, today most players are casual people who jump in 45 minutes after work and most of them don't have the time for mush RPing anyways.

Beatnik59

glord said:

In WoW, even in NWN, in every game except UO basically my experiences with RP were crap. After sort of reevaluating the content of the RP I've HAD, and what I WANTED, it seems that most RP consists of sitting in a tavern or town square and shooting the shit with a bunch of dudes pretending to be women. I almost want to detach from the desire to RP and just 'play the damn game'.

I see that a lot too, but we might ask ourselves this: "what is there really to do except sit in a tavern or town square shooting the shit?"  

Simple tools can help here; easy to feature, common sense things that will give people more things to do than "sitting around, shooting the shit."

One of the things developers can do is make alt creation easy.  If players can create cameos that can be created out of need for a specific kind of person (an arms dealer), players are doing more than shooting the shit.

Something as simple as a note function, where you can create an item that contains a text message, can go far in creating something for people to do.  If you can place it in the world somewhere, maybe in a chest or placed on the wall, it would be even more useful.

Combine this with a way to find a position in the game world, and now we have all the tools needed to create a murder mystery or intelligence gathering mission.

Sadly, however, a lot of the more useful tools in the game, like in-game email, have been taken out of newer games over the years.  Pretty much anything that can be acquired or used is strictly stat-based and combat-centric, meaning that narrative, expressive gameplay has been reduced to "shooting the shit."

KenFisher

I RP exclusively with real life friends, and the occasional guildie who understands us, but that's extremely rare.  Most are just puzzled by our characters chatter, thinking it's us players who are talking.

We treat RP like 'Improv' theater.

Improvisation, or improv, is a form of live theatre in which the plot, characters and dialogue of a game, scene or story are made up in the moment. Often improvisers will take a suggestion from the audience, or draw on some other source of inspiration to get started.

It's hilarious and entertaining to participate in such style of RP.  It adds a whole new dimension to the 'game' experience.  A dimension that you cannot get without other players.

Ever try to RP with an NPC?  They are usually far less than impressed.

ArChWind

XAPKen said:

I RP exclusively with real life friends, and the occasional guildie who understands us, but that's extremely rare.  Most are just puzzled by our characters chatter, thinking it's us players who are talking.

We treat RP like 'Improv' theater.

Improvisation, or improv, is a form of live theatre in which the plot, characters and dialogue of a game, scene or story are made up in the moment. Often improvisers will take a suggestion from the audience, or draw on some other source of inspiration to get started.

It's hilarious and entertaining to participate in such style of RP.  It adds a whole new dimension to the 'game' experience.  A dimension that you cannot get without other players.

Ever try to RP with an NPC?  They are usually far less than impressed.

I don't know I think my RP the other day was quite fun and unexpected in Skyrim.

I have a couple mods not published. One of them is myfriends. If you give things like gold, jewelry, gems and/or complete quests for them their dissipation toward you goes up and if it is high enough they will join you in a fight if they are close by.

Well what happened anyway was I zoned into Whiterun and had just turned level 8.  At this stage the Dawnguard quest line is triggered and if it is night there is a vampire lord and a couple minions that attack you.

 I had a dragur lord and the imperial captain as pets. The Vampire lord attacked me and my Dragur pet casts this AOE which provoked the guard next to me to attack him. The imperial captain went berserk with the 2 hand steel sword she had and decapitated the guard. This drew the guards to all start attacking but several of my friends attacked the guards and this snowballed to an all out brawl. Not one guard attacked me! I just stood there and watched until all my friends and pets were dead.

I was laughing so hard I peed myself and woke up the wife (eeks). Of course I had to reload. Half of white run was laying on the ground dead.

tom_gore

I get what the OP means. It's because most "themepark" style games today offer no tools for roleplaying. No player housing, no meaningful trade directly between players (AHs killed that), and most of all, no way to resolve conflicts between players/guilds other than emoting (which is something I refuse to do, emote-fights are about as interesting as watching paint dry).

UO offered so many RP tools it's no wonder it attracted and kept a very vibrant RP community for years. You could still have your standard tavern RP (but in a player owned tavern!), but you could also play out duels, tavern brawls and battles between rival factions - all in good spirit (and of course sometimes a bit OOC drama), because the RP community was quick to exclude any troublemakers by unwarring them, and with Trammel ruleset the troublemakers were effectively unable to continue their troublemaking.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted that no serious attempt at creating such virtual world has been taken since UO. The few indie games trying to do it have failed mostly because they've enforced FFA full loot PvP upon everyone, or offering little to none tools other than PvP. Games like GW2 offer unparalleled character customization, but that's where their RP support ends. Some games offer a lot of tools, but shoehorn all PvP into either arenas or predetermined factions, forgetting guild vs. guild conflict altogether.

I'm currently looking into Black Desert Online, which seems to offer a lot of nice tools for roleplayers while also having open world PvP, duels and guild wars. The developer also seems to listen to roleplayers, as they've recently added walking into the game.

Loke666

Nyctelios said:

Played for years on a persistent Heavy RP server on NWN2 but the best way to increase your "RP skills" is gathering a group and playing RPG, the good old classic pen and paper RPG. Doesn't matter the system.

LoTRO has some reaaaaaally hardcore RP community on RP servers. People will actually spend hours talking about crops or some big rumor in Bree.

Yeah, LOTRO is a great game to do that in since we have way more background about the middle earth then most other MMO worlds.

And P&P is the basic for any RP skill together with live action RP. Makes it easier to get in the mindset.