I guess it's because people nowadays would rather just use videogames as their "roleplaying" stint. They lack the imagination that was there before wherein you really saw your paladin in plate mail, warding of chain devils and demons.
"Dungeons and Dragons? It is that 'nerd' thing-game. That is dumb as fuck" -Random 12 year old at public chat.
Because if someone has a different opinion that means he is 12 year old right. Not like in reality that "12 year old's" opinion is what 999 people out of 1000 share.
I used to roleplay quite heavily in WoW and even dabbled in RP in other games like LoTRO and DDO. I also habitually gravitate to RP servers when I start playing new MMO's like Secret World and Guild Wars 2 but, sadly, my interesnt in actually *roleplaying* doesn't really extend beyond the roleplaying I do in my head (like others, I enjoy making up my own backstories/personalities for the characters I create and play).
I became rather sick of RP in WoW since it was either very insolated (small groups of people doing their own private stories and telling me to screw off if I tried to involve myself), extremely immature, or both. Plus there was the unfortunate fact that 9 RP'ers out of 10 really only cared about making their characters the center of every story they involved themselves in.
I guess all that combined with the fact that I have a lot less free time than I used to has led to my gradual decline in RP interest, which is a shame since I still do enjoy injecting my own bit of imagination and creativity into the characters I play; I just can't find the willpower to share that creativity with others.
GW2 Tarnished Coast server plenty of Roleplay there. Moonguard in WoW- Avoid Goldshire and you're good. The rp is out there its up to you to find it, and there are plenty of rp boards like Hydaelin Roleplayers Coalistion for the upcoming relaunch of FFXIV, TESO-RP, GW2 Roleplayers, Neverwinter RP, etc.
If you can't find rp its because you haven't tried hard enough or don't want to.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Yep. Plenty of roleplaying in SWTOR. My guild often holds RP events. Having actually 2 guilds one for Reps and one for Imps, we use Reps toons for faction events... nothing better than intelligence RP... with other faction toons trying to prevent us from achieving RP event goals. Plenty of fun.
Funny is how many places SWTOR has to explore when you actually want to RP... especially sneaking into enemy teritory with plenty of guilides, killing champs and PvP during events... really good stuff.
Just as many people RPing now as there ever were,it's just that MMORPGs went mainstream so there's a lot more people mostly casual or gamers not interested in RP at all.Not too mention one of the biggest RP communities had their game shut down(CoH) so are spread out even thinner.F2P games have only made the pool bigger adding cheapskate game hoppers heh.
Yes, they do. They don't RP in public much because people will probably go out of their way to troll them off the game. Instead, they have carved out a few cliques for themselves in the form of guilds and certain areas on certain servers of certain games. Erotic roleplayers have made a bad name for all roleplayers, so you'll commonly have people think that all RPers are either basement dwellers or horny nerds.
WoW probably has the largest roleplaying population (that of course doesn't mean much - it's also incredibly popular). Certain servers like Earthen Ring have a better reputation than others (Moon Guard), but most populated RP servers will have at least a few solid RP guilds for you to join.
LotRO is also a great choice. Age of Conan has a few (as long as you avoid some of the nastier erotic roleplay guilds there).
In the end, though, if you want roleplay, you should really go to MUDs. MUDs are so much better for roleplay because of the smaller playerbases (less idiots running amok) and more attentive admins that will usually keep order in their games. You'll probably also find that a text based medium is much easier to RP in because it gives you more creative control over the scene, your character's looks, actions, and so on. Sites like topmudsites.com and mudconnect.com should help you find something you like.
It's quite rare, and typically you'll find yourself coming across a hybridization of roleplaying and out of character due to the younger crowd's inability to separate the two combined with the older folks adapting to the more casual style. As with anything, there's always exceptions...but that's the generalization. Either way, I believe games should always provide server options in the way that WoW did: you had your PVE, your RPPVE, your PVPVE, and your RPPVPVE. It gave everyone something to enjoy.
While you still have a hybridizwtion, more often than not, it was still quite refreshing to hang out on Emerald Dream and tell inquiring friends that I was deep in enemy territory hunting for a new Gnome backpack whenever they asked what I was doing. It would be nice to see a new MMORPG released that had a thick role playing community...perhaps one day.
I've a heart of pure black jade, beating forth the ebon ink of shattered dreams. So spread those thighs my darlings, and let me hear those lustful screams... For twisting coils and silken strands, my venom coursing through your veins. It's my bliss you seek, to ease those troubled pains...
MMORPGS don't generally provide systems that encourage AND facilitate role-playing. As has been mentioned, roleplaying is the realm of P&P rpgs and MUDS. I personally use both for my rp needs. MMOs, on the other hand, are structured to be almost asynchronous with role-playing, sometimes even hostile toward it (and I am not talking about the players.)
When most people talk about RP in a MMO, they are talking about the way their characters speak and interact in chat, They develop a meta-game of sorts and use various chat mediums to create stories or speak in character. Oh yeah and they also refrain from naming themselves "Gazongaz420". Whoop-de-do. To me, this is but a tiny fraction of what RPing is. When I play a P&P rpg, eveything my character does is roleplaying. The way he acts, dresses, fights, runs, speaks, feels about monarchies, etc; are all part of that character. This is possible because the medium (your brain) is able to imagine and react to almost anything in an infinite number of ways.
In MMOs, there are restrictions to RP due to the medium of the game. It's all fine and dandy to have RP chat, but once the events and actions of characters start to matter, you are playing a videogame with a very limited toolset devoted to expressing one's nature. I played on the Guinevere server in DAoC and RPed quite a bit in chat. I even tried to RP in actions. Once I had gotten my character's personality set in my head, I would act accordingly. A fair Mentalist once asked if I would kill the Amalgamated Parthenon for her as a gift. I was a level 9 blademaster. She asked this in the midst of chance roleplaying, and as my character was a romantic sort, he responded that he would do so for a kiss. She laughed and said she would MARRY me if I could kill it, but I shouldn't really try, as I was far too inexperienced and would surely die. My gallant little blademaster told her that death would be preferable to a life lived knowing he had missed the perfect kiss.
Pretty sure I got one-shotted. And yelled at/ridiculed by parth farm campers. But it was a fun bit of RP, and whenever I saw her from then on, I would act as if she reminded me of someone, and she would just laugh or make a gentle joke.
That's doing it all yourself, which is fine, but I would love to see some actual gameplay systems that encouraged role-playing. MMORPGs these days are pretty much action/adventure games with lore set in a persistent world with chat channels. Any game with a persistent world and chat channels is a mmorpg in this kind of climate. Some ideas I have had are:
*Personality systems* Not the D&D alignments per se, but a flexible, broad system of character-building. Imagine not only creating your character's look and arranging your stats before clicking on a class button, but also building a personality profile. Y'know, like a "role." Say you have four social categories: Spiritual, Amorous, Casual, and Serious. Each could have a few subcategories, such as: Spiritual (religious, mystical, unbeliever, charlatan, etc) Casual (funny, shy, poetic, nervous, calm, dour, mean, sweet, etc.) Amorous (straight, gay, chaste, bawdy, feak, etc) or Serious (steely, bloodthirsty, disciplined, cool, ostentatious, etc) for example(s). These could affect your character's quest opportunities, demeanor and body language, for three. It could also affect how NPCs react, which could affect how other players treat you in town. Perhaps when someone targets you, under your name in the UI could be a description, sort of like a MUD. "You target Vilendra, an elf with a cruel glint in her eye." for example. This is all just to encourage RP, or to easily show that you are interested in RP. Perhaps you could toggle it off to signal that you aren't interested.
*Quest-Playing* The personalities above could engender certain cooperative quest opportunities. Imagine the devs scripting and coding a quest requiring one Mystical woman and one Charlatan man. Or a Funny human a Shy elf, and two Religious folks, etc. If you are flagged for "personality quests" then local npc bards could make you aware of them to facilitate meeting your ally or allies. The content of the quest could be catered to them making choices that reflect said character aspects complete with branching paths and points of conflict. Cooperative questing could even turn into PvP! This seems far more exciting than standing around an inn "thee" and "thou"ing while you slurp down chicken wings in your chair at home, and it could open up possibilities for new friendships or alliances in unlikely places. RP isn't talking like cardboard pseudo-Shakespearean cutout #25167 in a room with five other motionless toons, and I feel that RPers should stop settling for that. (Though I enjoy a good turn of the tongue, I do not think it encompasses a very broad spectrum of RP potentiality.)
*Quest-Playing #2* Nemeses. As above, but involving players in conflict from the beginning. Develop set pieces that provide scenes where players can interact as antagonists. This could create rivalries that last as long as your acount does, and nothing brings out good RP like a good ole rivalry.
*Attractiveness* Make it a stat. Make it affect your options when creating your character's face and body. Really. Have it affect NPC reactions and the message people see when they target you. "You the lovely Eryn, an austere Silvari." Yay! "You target the homely Huntharr, Briton of playful countenance." Cruel? Yes, but awesome. Make people pay for their beauty and maybe there wouldn't be a million Adonises and Helens running around. The spice of life, and all that...
*Admin Involvement* How bout paying some well-versed team members to actively search out RPers to interact with and award experience or items to enthusiastic participants? Award them hours later perhaps, so they are less certain who it could be. Let admins spectate during notable battles, PvP or PvE, and if they see good RP going on, reward the group somehow. An exp multiplier. A set of funny, unique hats that disappear in one day. Whatever.
*Player-created content* Let players set up and run events via "hotspots." The town down the road is said to have a wonderful wedding chapel, and the little path through its eastern forest leads to the most SCANDALOUS tavern for miles around! Set up NPC criers to make players aware of local hotspots. Then, for a fee, a player can set up an event of the appropriate type there complete with promotion (if public), a selection of music styles, and even tailored mechanics (for things like jousting, etc) Encourage crowd attendance by letting them gain exp for doing so, but limit this exp reward to one event per day or two. And speaking of taverns...
*TAVERNS* Cantinas, taverns, Orbital Amusement Centers, whatever you wanna call them... we need them done right! SWG was awesome about this. Player-created and run Taverns would be amazing hotspots if enough love was given to them. Proper inebriation-mechanics? Please. Town-wide titles given to those who make a memorable scene? Awesome. It's the little things.
As for general things I think facilitate more natural, satisfying rp: Player-run economies and crafting systems, player-built structures of all kinds, no auction houses, and a strong sandbox element, if not an outright sandbox.
These ideas might sound silly or unrealistic, but if mmo role-playing is ever going to be more than just chatting in character, there has to be some dev effort beyond just lore and a RP channel. Mechanics that facilitate it (not force it) would help a lot, I think, and make it a lot more exciting for those who already keep the dream alive one in-game wedding, sidequest cyber, or "Hail" at a time.
It seems to me the More complex and the less solo friendly a game is the more roleplayers you see in that game. Alot of the newish games (mainstream MMO from WoW onwards) there been a rather declining roleplaying playerbase almost non exsistant in those game nowadays. However if you go play a game that is a little more complex to learn and isnt solo friendly there alot more pople roleplaying in them. Take darkfall for exampe Its has a complex learning curve and complex game system (Compared to nowadays MMO's) its not very solo friendly considering the dangers assosiated with being solo. And probaly atleast 40% of the player base roleplay in some way or form 20% of the population of the game are probaly full on roleplayers and right into it. I would say maybe its the older generation who have been playing the older games doing it however i see alot of young people rolplaying in the game aswell (while i was still playing it) so the younder kids can still do it they just seem to choose not to in newer games maybe its because they feel very stuck on the tracks of a themepark they dont feel like they can effectlivly in those games. Would of been nice if i asked them why when i could but i didnt
Tarnished Coast server in GW2 is full of roleplayers. I went to that server during the free transfers following a friend of mine and im already looking for a new server to move. I dont like roleplaying servers and over there most guilds are RP based so i dont feel at home on TC to even try and join a guild. If you play GW2 and want to roleplay then TC is the way to go.
I am in a guild of almost 1400 people across 7 MMOs/online games and all of them are either full time RPers or at least part time.
You just need to look to find RPers.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Oddly on that same hand I think TOR with its overabundance of storytelling may well be the saviour of RP from what I'm seeing it spins a good yarn but never to the point of you here for this reason and this reason alone your doing this for this reason and this reason alone.
Dunno.. I think the more the game dictates your storyline, the less leeway you have to use your imagination to flesh out the details... assuming one has the capacity to do so. ha ha (not so subtle reply to the 3rd grader comment above)
I disagree. I kind of wish more roleplayers would take some actual improv classes so that they could expand their tools and see what is being done by very accomplished improv artists.
There are whole improvised plays even musicals (believe it or not) where the story is already written but the actors have to find their way through to the end on their own.
If you were to do an improv excercise you wouldn't just go up on stage and do whatever you wanted, you'd be given a set guideline or "spine" of the situation and you would then apply your imagination, skill and tools to within the scene.
I would say that the more story, the more world the greater your freedom as you then know the real setting, the characters, the movers and shakers the underbelly the virtous and then you can weave your tale in and around that, having everything deeply rooted.
Or as I like to quote from Stravinsky (and I think he is correct) "Above all, the composer must submit to rules, no matter how arbitrary, for "the more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.""
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I used to enjoy rp in mmos when it meant simply acting as your character would in the world presented to us. Now it is largely a bunch of people standing around talking with 90+% of the communication done through manual emotes. This is not role playing, it is called posing.
RP is actions within the world the character exists in. You rp when fighting mobs, questing, pvp'ing, etc as long as it is what that character would do within that world. The problem over the last 10 years is that mmos have become segregated and instanced and interactions between players is sometimes 100% optional instead of a necessity. RP has become a joke because it is largely thought of as cosplay which is NOT rpg role play. Rpg roleplay includes all the mechanics of the game and how your character progresses through that game as if that person were real and EVERY action they do is real. Cosplay is acting using toons and as relevant to the game as an acting troop on stage is as relevant to real everyday life.
RP isn't what it used to be because the mmo of today does not allow a player to take control of their own destiny. THAT is 100% a requirement for rpg role play. The only thing supported is this sad and twisted cosplay variant of it where a player must make up 100% of what they do and game becomes nothing more than a graphical miniature similar to stage actors dressing up and pretending.
Mmo role play ONLY exists when the player has total control over their destiny and every moment in game is part of the overall fantasy world made real. This can only occur in sandbox or near sandbox games where players are not nurtured through safe and isolated paths to end game. Today's themeparks killed immersive role play and like invasive animal species taking over an environment, cosplay role play has taken over and the majority of players simply stop believing their character is real or never learned how because they are not rpg lovers but generic video game players brought into arcade style, generic themepark mmos (I.E. the Battle.net kiddies with names like xXxpWnAgEsxXx).
RPG, immersive role play will only return when narrowly focused, true genre mmoRPGs come into existence again and thank the rpg gods there are several on the horizon. As mentioned by others, DAOC was incredibly successful at making a player believe they truly existed within that world. Most of the older games did this well because they knew exactly what sort of game they were trying to be. I fully expect Camelot Unchained to also have this feeling. It is a game where the world IS the game and that is an absolute requirement for immersive role play.
Mmo role play isn't dead ... it is just on life support and new games in the near future will start introducing new players to true role play friendly environments. Sadly we are currently in the dark ages of mmo role play. The mmorpg golden era of UO, EQ, AC, DAOC and even AO is gone and just like the (Islamic) golden age in real history of the past (and by the way, nearly everything western culture has today with regards to advanced science and culture originated from the muslims. I bet that will freak a ton of people out once they realize it is true), it became lost and turned into yet another dark age we had to recover from.
Joined the RP server in LOTRO and regret it. The only place I've seen RP is in the Prancing Pony; none out in the world, none in groups, and nobody even speaks period in the regional channels. Wish I'd just stayed on Arkenstone.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
I recall the good old days of DAOC where, on the roleplay servers, nearly everyone roleplayed to some degree, even if it was just to say "Hail". Almost never did I encounter people who would approach my elf with their lurikeen and say "whatup dude?" Later, SWG provided a similar, even expanded immersive experience, as player cities became hubs of roleplay activity where you could wander into a cantina and find people ready, willing and able to engage in improvisational roleplay nearly any time of the day or night.
Now, though, finding anything resembling a roleplay community that approaches that of Albion/Percival or the entire Nimue server is like finding hen's teeth. Not even on roleplay servers in alleged MMORPGS do people roleplay. I know this all started with WOW and the absurd and infamous Barrens Chat, but it has speard and now nowhere provides a welcoming place for people who prefer a greater level of immersion.
My most recent escapade came about in Runes of Magic. F2P games attract the most casual of players, but on the unofficial RP server there were only a few guilds and no casual roleplay that I could find. The folks in the guilds seemed like nice enough people, but the majority of their interaction was spent in an OOC channel labeled RP, which really was just a sign to those seeking others who enjoyed RP rather than providing any true outlet. There were little to no in-game opportunities to roleplay, as there was back in DAOC and SWG.
So, is it time to drop the RPG from MMORPG and just call it MMO.Com? Do people even value random roleplay ex periences or is it all about gear/level acquisition (AKA Achievement), raiding, and PvP?
Most games aren't built to inspire RP. Before I say anything else, when I talk of RP, I am NOT referring to emo erotic mid 40s-50s year old men who say they are 14 year old girls in real life, pretending to be night elf hunters in Goldshire on the Moonguard server of World of Warcraft.
Games today are built to bring entertainment to the masses. So, when a developer gets with his pals and they get the drawing board out, they draw this gigantic fishiing net and call it an mmoRPG. The larger the fishing net, the more players it "captures." The sacrifice of so large a net, is that you must stay away from depth.
You can't inspire the Lore of Agra'Sothar in that the Lothrain Elves of that land are are locked in a perpetual war with the brutish, Pavek people of the upper Stonehold Mountains, and then play it off where they can (a) join each other's guilds (b) where they might be at war, but they all quest in the same zone mysteriously for the exact same gear rewards and sometimes just grief one another and (c) where the Lothrain Elves actually pvp each other as well and by the way, did I mention that both factions have the same armor, spells, and animations?
I liked that you pointed out Dark Age of Camelot. The mmorpg that no one will ever attempt to imitate past possibly 10-15 % of what it offered (Warhammer for example...mega sigh).
So, I'm talking about fight for your realm RP. A few years before WoW watered down the genre into a fast food theme park experience and the gaming community was wrecked from then on...there was Everquest, Asheron's Call, Ultima, and Dark Age of Camelot.
I'll speak for Dark Age of Camelot - though some huge RP went on in Ultima, AC and EQ. RP in Dark Age (DAoC) was focused on merely playing the role of your character. This also meant you also wanted to fight the other realms in order to bring honor to your own. Eventually, we had full siege warfare, castles in three frontiers (one frontier per realm), and non of it instanced.
What helped the RP feel? (just pointing out a few races etc...this title has THREE realms, 44 classes and 24 races).
For one, races and classes were separated among the realms/factions. So, Dwarves, Trolls, Kobolds, Svartalf (Dark Elves) and Norse represented one realm, that of Midgard and the frozen north. Britons, Half-Ogers, Avalonians, Highlanders, etc., represented an Arthurian realm, Albion - the age of chivalry and so forth was birthed here not long after King Arthur's death. The final realm was the bringing to life of the Emerald Isle of Ireland...better known as Hibernia. Here were the Elves, the Lurikeen (think Hobbits), Celts, Firbolgs, and so forth. The races DID NOT fight each other. They had realm pride, they defended their own as a united culture - not just a roving guild of random fantasy races.
For two, because RP/RPG was not cosmetic, this meant that there was more than a starting zone for a realm that flooded the other realms in crossover questing for all. You could go from levels 1-50 (end game) in your own culture, including epic raids and pve conquests of all sorts (non instanced).
Today, the races and classes all mingle together in random guild divisory. PvP is mostly E-Sport, i.e., just ladder rankings and personal gain that doesn't relfect on anyone but yourself. You can't RP in this kind of environment without really ignoring a majority of the cosmetically engineered environment.
Dark Age, with its clear pvp borders, separation of races and the gods they worshiped, the very differences in the names of each class (sorry ESO, but no Orc Templar vs your Elf Templar here...), and thusly, massive sense of RP and immersive quality. I really felt I was playing in a medieval fantasy world. It truly was an escape.
Sadly, this sense of variation is gone. Developers are terrified of the "grass is greener" syndrome. Either they want carbon copies on all factions of the classes (Tauren Paladin and Dwarf Shaman, anyone?) or...they want the classes to be "classless" even though they have to know that a classless system just means certain builds will be flavor of the month and still exist alive and well on every forum that begins with: Does anyone have a good Templar build for pvp? Once that one build is advertised, all three factions in ESO will be copy pasting. The white pew pew spells of the Rejuvenation Staff Templar will be the same, whether you are orc or elf or dwarf.
Shame. Whoever heard of a Tauren Paladin, anyway? Nonsense along with the flying reindeer and tiny pet wars.
There are two definitions of rp as I see it. One is the roleplay as OP mentioned, beeing in character, and the other is playing a role in the game, like healer, cc, tank, crafter.
When games does not support character roles as much as they used to, where hard set roles have softened, it has some effect on how players view their characters, and therefore also their roleplay. Also the technification of gameplay plays part, pace and briefness of player interaction does some, length of gameplay sessions, efford vs reward, and alot of other small things combined makes players not have a close bond to their characters and as a result are not interested in creating a personality for them.
And as a last factor, many of the players brought into the genre with WoW, are not as interested in rp.. There are mmorpg players and there are mmo players, roughly put.
Years ago you had to type to speak and this meant people could roleplay while playing games. These days if you try to roleplay your wife will probably look across the room at you thinking you have gone mad.
I really do dislike voice systems in fantasy MMo's. it spolis the immersivness for me.
Comments
Now you just plug in a game and that's it.
Because if someone has a different opinion that means he is 12 year old right. Not like in reality that "12 year old's" opinion is what 999 people out of 1000 share.
I used to roleplay quite heavily in WoW and even dabbled in RP in other games like LoTRO and DDO. I also habitually gravitate to RP servers when I start playing new MMO's like Secret World and Guild Wars 2 but, sadly, my interesnt in actually *roleplaying* doesn't really extend beyond the roleplaying I do in my head (like others, I enjoy making up my own backstories/personalities for the characters I create and play).
I became rather sick of RP in WoW since it was either very insolated (small groups of people doing their own private stories and telling me to screw off if I tried to involve myself), extremely immature, or both. Plus there was the unfortunate fact that 9 RP'ers out of 10 really only cared about making their characters the center of every story they involved themselves in.
I guess all that combined with the fact that I have a lot less free time than I used to has led to my gradual decline in RP interest, which is a shame since I still do enjoy injecting my own bit of imagination and creativity into the characters I play; I just can't find the willpower to share that creativity with others.
GW2 Tarnished Coast server plenty of Roleplay there. Moonguard in WoW- Avoid Goldshire and you're good. The rp is out there its up to you to find it, and there are plenty of rp boards like Hydaelin Roleplayers Coalistion for the upcoming relaunch of FFXIV, TESO-RP, GW2 Roleplayers, Neverwinter RP, etc.
If you can't find rp its because you haven't tried hard enough or don't want to.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Yep. Plenty of roleplaying in SWTOR. My guild often holds RP events. Having actually 2 guilds one for Reps and one for Imps, we use Reps toons for faction events... nothing better than intelligence RP... with other faction toons trying to prevent us from achieving RP event goals. Plenty of fun.
Funny is how many places SWTOR has to explore when you actually want to RP... especially sneaking into enemy teritory with plenty of guilides, killing champs and PvP during events... really good stuff.
Sith Warrior - Story of Hate and Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKrlwXt7Ao
Imperial Agent - Rise of Cipher Nine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBBj3eJWBvU&feature=youtu.be
Imperial Agent - Hunt for the Eagle Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQqjYYU128E
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Well, at least I didn't necro it.
Yes, they do. They don't RP in public much because people will probably go out of their way to troll them off the game. Instead, they have carved out a few cliques for themselves in the form of guilds and certain areas on certain servers of certain games. Erotic roleplayers have made a bad name for all roleplayers, so you'll commonly have people think that all RPers are either basement dwellers or horny nerds.
WoW probably has the largest roleplaying population (that of course doesn't mean much - it's also incredibly popular). Certain servers like Earthen Ring have a better reputation than others (Moon Guard), but most populated RP servers will have at least a few solid RP guilds for you to join.
LotRO is also a great choice. Age of Conan has a few (as long as you avoid some of the nastier erotic roleplay guilds there).
In the end, though, if you want roleplay, you should really go to MUDs. MUDs are so much better for roleplay because of the smaller playerbases (less idiots running amok) and more attentive admins that will usually keep order in their games. You'll probably also find that a text based medium is much easier to RP in because it gives you more creative control over the scene, your character's looks, actions, and so on. Sites like topmudsites.com and mudconnect.com should help you find something you like.
This guy is totally right. You'll face this now in EVERY single game!
While you still have a hybridizwtion, more often than not, it was still quite refreshing to hang out on Emerald Dream and tell inquiring friends that I was deep in enemy territory hunting for a new Gnome backpack whenever they asked what I was doing. It would be nice to see a new MMORPG released that had a thick role playing community...perhaps one day.
I've a heart of pure black jade, beating forth the ebon ink of shattered dreams. So spread those thighs my darlings, and let me hear those lustful screams... For twisting coils and silken strands, my venom coursing through your veins. It's my bliss you seek, to ease those troubled pains...
MMORPGS don't generally provide systems that encourage AND facilitate role-playing. As has been mentioned, roleplaying is the realm of P&P rpgs and MUDS. I personally use both for my rp needs. MMOs, on the other hand, are structured to be almost asynchronous with role-playing, sometimes even hostile toward it (and I am not talking about the players.)
When most people talk about RP in a MMO, they are talking about the way their characters speak and interact in chat, They develop a meta-game of sorts and use various chat mediums to create stories or speak in character. Oh yeah and they also refrain from naming themselves "Gazongaz420". Whoop-de-do. To me, this is but a tiny fraction of what RPing is. When I play a P&P rpg, eveything my character does is roleplaying. The way he acts, dresses, fights, runs, speaks, feels about monarchies, etc; are all part of that character. This is possible because the medium (your brain) is able to imagine and react to almost anything in an infinite number of ways.
In MMOs, there are restrictions to RP due to the medium of the game. It's all fine and dandy to have RP chat, but once the events and actions of characters start to matter, you are playing a videogame with a very limited toolset devoted to expressing one's nature. I played on the Guinevere server in DAoC and RPed quite a bit in chat. I even tried to RP in actions. Once I had gotten my character's personality set in my head, I would act accordingly. A fair Mentalist once asked if I would kill the Amalgamated Parthenon for her as a gift. I was a level 9 blademaster. She asked this in the midst of chance roleplaying, and as my character was a romantic sort, he responded that he would do so for a kiss. She laughed and said she would MARRY me if I could kill it, but I shouldn't really try, as I was far too inexperienced and would surely die. My gallant little blademaster told her that death would be preferable to a life lived knowing he had missed the perfect kiss.
Pretty sure I got one-shotted. And yelled at/ridiculed by parth farm campers. But it was a fun bit of RP, and whenever I saw her from then on, I would act as if she reminded me of someone, and she would just laugh or make a gentle joke.
That's doing it all yourself, which is fine, but I would love to see some actual gameplay systems that encouraged role-playing. MMORPGs these days are pretty much action/adventure games with lore set in a persistent world with chat channels. Any game with a persistent world and chat channels is a mmorpg in this kind of climate. Some ideas I have had are:
*Personality systems* Not the D&D alignments per se, but a flexible, broad system of character-building. Imagine not only creating your character's look and arranging your stats before clicking on a class button, but also building a personality profile. Y'know, like a "role." Say you have four social categories: Spiritual, Amorous, Casual, and Serious. Each could have a few subcategories, such as: Spiritual (religious, mystical, unbeliever, charlatan, etc) Casual (funny, shy, poetic, nervous, calm, dour, mean, sweet, etc.) Amorous (straight, gay, chaste, bawdy, feak, etc) or Serious (steely, bloodthirsty, disciplined, cool, ostentatious, etc) for example(s). These could affect your character's quest opportunities, demeanor and body language, for three. It could also affect how NPCs react, which could affect how other players treat you in town. Perhaps when someone targets you, under your name in the UI could be a description, sort of like a MUD. "You target Vilendra, an elf with a cruel glint in her eye." for example. This is all just to encourage RP, or to easily show that you are interested in RP. Perhaps you could toggle it off to signal that you aren't interested.
*Quest-Playing* The personalities above could engender certain cooperative quest opportunities. Imagine the devs scripting and coding a quest requiring one Mystical woman and one Charlatan man. Or a Funny human a Shy elf, and two Religious folks, etc. If you are flagged for "personality quests" then local npc bards could make you aware of them to facilitate meeting your ally or allies. The content of the quest could be catered to them making choices that reflect said character aspects complete with branching paths and points of conflict. Cooperative questing could even turn into PvP! This seems far more exciting than standing around an inn "thee" and "thou"ing while you slurp down chicken wings in your chair at home, and it could open up possibilities for new friendships or alliances in unlikely places. RP isn't talking like cardboard pseudo-Shakespearean cutout #25167 in a room with five other motionless toons, and I feel that RPers should stop settling for that. (Though I enjoy a good turn of the tongue, I do not think it encompasses a very broad spectrum of RP potentiality.)
*Quest-Playing #2* Nemeses. As above, but involving players in conflict from the beginning. Develop set pieces that provide scenes where players can interact as antagonists. This could create rivalries that last as long as your acount does, and nothing brings out good RP like a good ole rivalry.
*Attractiveness* Make it a stat. Make it affect your options when creating your character's face and body. Really. Have it affect NPC reactions and the message people see when they target you. "You the lovely Eryn, an austere Silvari." Yay! "You target the homely Huntharr, Briton of playful countenance." Cruel? Yes, but awesome. Make people pay for their beauty and maybe there wouldn't be a million Adonises and Helens running around. The spice of life, and all that...
*Admin Involvement* How bout paying some well-versed team members to actively search out RPers to interact with and award experience or items to enthusiastic participants? Award them hours later perhaps, so they are less certain who it could be. Let admins spectate during notable battles, PvP or PvE, and if they see good RP going on, reward the group somehow. An exp multiplier. A set of funny, unique hats that disappear in one day. Whatever.
*Player-created content* Let players set up and run events via "hotspots." The town down the road is said to have a wonderful wedding chapel, and the little path through its eastern forest leads to the most SCANDALOUS tavern for miles around! Set up NPC criers to make players aware of local hotspots. Then, for a fee, a player can set up an event of the appropriate type there complete with promotion (if public), a selection of music styles, and even tailored mechanics (for things like jousting, etc) Encourage crowd attendance by letting them gain exp for doing so, but limit this exp reward to one event per day or two. And speaking of taverns...
*TAVERNS* Cantinas, taverns, Orbital Amusement Centers, whatever you wanna call them... we need them done right! SWG was awesome about this. Player-created and run Taverns would be amazing hotspots if enough love was given to them. Proper inebriation-mechanics? Please. Town-wide titles given to those who make a memorable scene? Awesome. It's the little things.
As for general things I think facilitate more natural, satisfying rp: Player-run economies and crafting systems, player-built structures of all kinds, no auction houses, and a strong sandbox element, if not an outright sandbox.
These ideas might sound silly or unrealistic, but if mmo role-playing is ever going to be more than just chatting in character, there has to be some dev effort beyond just lore and a RP channel. Mechanics that facilitate it (not force it) would help a lot, I think, and make it a lot more exciting for those who already keep the dream alive one in-game wedding, sidequest cyber, or "Hail" at a time.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
I blame the society around me for planting a different idea when encountering the words "role play". -_-
Though based on the discussion here, it looks like some sort of a convention...?
I am in a guild of almost 1400 people across 7 MMOs/online games and all of them are either full time RPers or at least part time.
You just need to look to find RPers.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
You make me like charity
I disagree. I kind of wish more roleplayers would take some actual improv classes so that they could expand their tools and see what is being done by very accomplished improv artists.
There are whole improvised plays even musicals (believe it or not) where the story is already written but the actors have to find their way through to the end on their own.
If you were to do an improv excercise you wouldn't just go up on stage and do whatever you wanted, you'd be given a set guideline or "spine" of the situation and you would then apply your imagination, skill and tools to within the scene.
I would say that the more story, the more world the greater your freedom as you then know the real setting, the characters, the movers and shakers the underbelly the virtous and then you can weave your tale in and around that, having everything deeply rooted.
Or as I like to quote from Stravinsky (and I think he is correct) "Above all, the composer must submit to rules, no matter how arbitrary, for "the more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.""
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I used to enjoy rp in mmos when it meant simply acting as your character would in the world presented to us. Now it is largely a bunch of people standing around talking with 90+% of the communication done through manual emotes. This is not role playing, it is called posing.
RP is actions within the world the character exists in. You rp when fighting mobs, questing, pvp'ing, etc as long as it is what that character would do within that world. The problem over the last 10 years is that mmos have become segregated and instanced and interactions between players is sometimes 100% optional instead of a necessity. RP has become a joke because it is largely thought of as cosplay which is NOT rpg role play. Rpg roleplay includes all the mechanics of the game and how your character progresses through that game as if that person were real and EVERY action they do is real. Cosplay is acting using toons and as relevant to the game as an acting troop on stage is as relevant to real everyday life.
RP isn't what it used to be because the mmo of today does not allow a player to take control of their own destiny. THAT is 100% a requirement for rpg role play. The only thing supported is this sad and twisted cosplay variant of it where a player must make up 100% of what they do and game becomes nothing more than a graphical miniature similar to stage actors dressing up and pretending.
Mmo role play ONLY exists when the player has total control over their destiny and every moment in game is part of the overall fantasy world made real. This can only occur in sandbox or near sandbox games where players are not nurtured through safe and isolated paths to end game. Today's themeparks killed immersive role play and like invasive animal species taking over an environment, cosplay role play has taken over and the majority of players simply stop believing their character is real or never learned how because they are not rpg lovers but generic video game players brought into arcade style, generic themepark mmos (I.E. the Battle.net kiddies with names like xXxpWnAgEsxXx).
RPG, immersive role play will only return when narrowly focused, true genre mmoRPGs come into existence again and thank the rpg gods there are several on the horizon. As mentioned by others, DAOC was incredibly successful at making a player believe they truly existed within that world. Most of the older games did this well because they knew exactly what sort of game they were trying to be. I fully expect Camelot Unchained to also have this feeling. It is a game where the world IS the game and that is an absolute requirement for immersive role play.
Mmo role play isn't dead ... it is just on life support and new games in the near future will start introducing new players to true role play friendly environments. Sadly we are currently in the dark ages of mmo role play. The mmorpg golden era of UO, EQ, AC, DAOC and even AO is gone and just like the (Islamic) golden age in real history of the past (and by the way, nearly everything western culture has today with regards to advanced science and culture originated from the muslims. I bet that will freak a ton of people out once they realize it is true), it became lost and turned into yet another dark age we had to recover from.
You stay sassy!
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
Most games aren't built to inspire RP. Before I say anything else, when I talk of RP, I am NOT referring to emo erotic mid 40s-50s year old men who say they are 14 year old girls in real life, pretending to be night elf hunters in Goldshire on the Moonguard server of World of Warcraft.
Games today are built to bring entertainment to the masses. So, when a developer gets with his pals and they get the drawing board out, they draw this gigantic fishiing net and call it an mmoRPG. The larger the fishing net, the more players it "captures." The sacrifice of so large a net, is that you must stay away from depth.
You can't inspire the Lore of Agra'Sothar in that the Lothrain Elves of that land are are locked in a perpetual war with the brutish, Pavek people of the upper Stonehold Mountains, and then play it off where they can (a) join each other's guilds (b) where they might be at war, but they all quest in the same zone mysteriously for the exact same gear rewards and sometimes just grief one another and (c) where the Lothrain Elves actually pvp each other as well and by the way, did I mention that both factions have the same armor, spells, and animations?
I liked that you pointed out Dark Age of Camelot. The mmorpg that no one will ever attempt to imitate past possibly 10-15 % of what it offered (Warhammer for example...mega sigh).
So, I'm talking about fight for your realm RP. A few years before WoW watered down the genre into a fast food theme park experience and the gaming community was wrecked from then on...there was Everquest, Asheron's Call, Ultima, and Dark Age of Camelot.
I'll speak for Dark Age of Camelot - though some huge RP went on in Ultima, AC and EQ. RP in Dark Age (DAoC) was focused on merely playing the role of your character. This also meant you also wanted to fight the other realms in order to bring honor to your own. Eventually, we had full siege warfare, castles in three frontiers (one frontier per realm), and non of it instanced.
What helped the RP feel? (just pointing out a few races etc...this title has THREE realms, 44 classes and 24 races).
For one, races and classes were separated among the realms/factions. So, Dwarves, Trolls, Kobolds, Svartalf (Dark Elves) and Norse represented one realm, that of Midgard and the frozen north. Britons, Half-Ogers, Avalonians, Highlanders, etc., represented an Arthurian realm, Albion - the age of chivalry and so forth was birthed here not long after King Arthur's death. The final realm was the bringing to life of the Emerald Isle of Ireland...better known as Hibernia. Here were the Elves, the Lurikeen (think Hobbits), Celts, Firbolgs, and so forth. The races DID NOT fight each other. They had realm pride, they defended their own as a united culture - not just a roving guild of random fantasy races.
For two, because RP/RPG was not cosmetic, this meant that there was more than a starting zone for a realm that flooded the other realms in crossover questing for all. You could go from levels 1-50 (end game) in your own culture, including epic raids and pve conquests of all sorts (non instanced).
Today, the races and classes all mingle together in random guild divisory. PvP is mostly E-Sport, i.e., just ladder rankings and personal gain that doesn't relfect on anyone but yourself. You can't RP in this kind of environment without really ignoring a majority of the cosmetically engineered environment.
Dark Age, with its clear pvp borders, separation of races and the gods they worshiped, the very differences in the names of each class (sorry ESO, but no Orc Templar vs your Elf Templar here...), and thusly, massive sense of RP and immersive quality. I really felt I was playing in a medieval fantasy world. It truly was an escape.
Sadly, this sense of variation is gone. Developers are terrified of the "grass is greener" syndrome. Either they want carbon copies on all factions of the classes (Tauren Paladin and Dwarf Shaman, anyone?) or...they want the classes to be "classless" even though they have to know that a classless system just means certain builds will be flavor of the month and still exist alive and well on every forum that begins with: Does anyone have a good Templar build for pvp? Once that one build is advertised, all three factions in ESO will be copy pasting. The white pew pew spells of the Rejuvenation Staff Templar will be the same, whether you are orc or elf or dwarf.
Shame. Whoever heard of a Tauren Paladin, anyway? Nonsense along with the flying reindeer and tiny pet wars.
There are two definitions of rp as I see it. One is the roleplay as OP mentioned, beeing in character, and the other is playing a role in the game, like healer, cc, tank, crafter.
When games does not support character roles as much as they used to, where hard set roles have softened, it has some effect on how players view their characters, and therefore also their roleplay. Also the technification of gameplay plays part, pace and briefness of player interaction does some, length of gameplay sessions, efford vs reward, and alot of other small things combined makes players not have a close bond to their characters and as a result are not interested in creating a personality for them.
And as a last factor, many of the players brought into the genre with WoW, are not as interested in rp.. There are mmorpg players and there are mmo players, roughly put.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
most people dont roleplay due to Voice systems.
Years ago you had to type to speak and this meant people could roleplay while playing games. These days if you try to roleplay your wife will probably look across the room at you thinking you have gone mad.
I really do dislike voice systems in fantasy MMo's. it spolis the immersivness for me.