PvP was a major part of UO and was a big part of a lot of role-players daily gaming lives.
Shadowclan was a bunch of people in orc masks that RPed as orcs would, everyone was KOS unless you were another orc, and then they would question why you are in their fort.
They were such a big part of the server they played on that Origins actually gave them the orc fort they had inhabited.
Another example is the Adventures of Adam Ant; a guardian of the Liches that inhabited the Wind dungeon. You were allowed to pass unless you started killing Liches. Later on he expanded this to other dungeons and you had to wear a red bandana or you were KOS but if you had the bandana on you were allowed to pass as long as you did not kill the monsters his guild protected.
This kind of stuff just doesn't happen any more.
I agree with the OP. I think it was a combination of no global chat, fixed camera angles, chat bubbles, AND the freedom that was built into UO.
I think the next step in catering to RPers would be a combination of voice chat + proximity to the player built into the game. Basically it would be a voice chat system that mirrors real life. I think it would work best in a modern or future MMO game where cell phones are avaliable for long distance chat, then the chat boxes could be eliminated entirely.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
As someone whose been roleplaying in one form or another for like the last thirty years.. Im not sure I buy into the notion that it is in a decline at all lol
I've always thought the answer to this question was relatively simple. Players didn't kill roleplay nor did PvP, which UO had plenty of. What honestly killed roleplaying was simple game mechanics. The mechanics of a most modern day MMORPGs simply don't fit a roleplaying environment. There's just not a whole lot of fun roleplaying in a game where the only actions that a player can actually do are running dungeons and gear whoring. Modern day MMORPGs only allow for the player to make a minimal impact on the gaming world if an impact at all. I believe part of the reason why there's so much more roleplaying in games like UO, SWG, and Ryzom is because the player has more ways to interact with the world other than simply playing whack-a-mole with computer controlled monsters. The ability to change the world is still relatively minimal but little things like player housing, heavily player driven economies, and alternate routes of advancement go a long way into drawing the player into the game world.
Honestly, I'm quite baffled at the idea that people still roleplay in games like EQ 1 & 2 and WoW when there are other games out there which are fit the roleplaying ideal to a much greater degree such as Ryzom or practically any NWN 1 or 2 persistent world.
First time in a long time I got this interested in a thread. There's been so much input I'm not sure where to start. There's a v ery good point in one of the posts about the number of role-players not really decreasing. There's a lot of merit into that since the number of people who would play MMOs practically exploded. The fixed POV is also a very interesting theory which didn't really occur to me until today. PvP itself didn't help decrease the role-playing factor but the rise of competitve PvP. We all enjoy a good match or two against other players to see how we fare against them but then comes the breed of those who see the game as nothing but numbers of wins, losses, stats, etc.
I like 1st person shooters, I used to be pretty good at TF, Quake 2, and even the first CounterStrike when it came out. 1st person shooters are great games, but they are not at all what I look for in an MMORPG. When I play an MMORPG I want to spend time developing my character, both statistics and personality, interacting with other people (not just in raids or pvp, but actual interaction), doing meaningful quests that feel important to my character and the world around me, and most of all, relaxing. I play 1st person shooters when I want an adreneline rush and a half hour of intense seat-of-my-pants gaming, and I play RPGs when I want to chill out and socialize.
I'm tired of developers crossing the two in EVERY TITLE that's released.
Comments
I'm sorry, but you are flat out wrong here.
PvP was a major part of UO and was a big part of a lot of role-players daily gaming lives.
Shadowclan was a bunch of people in orc masks that RPed as orcs would, everyone was KOS unless you were another orc, and then they would question why you are in their fort.
They were such a big part of the server they played on that Origins actually gave them the orc fort they had inhabited.
Another example is the Adventures of Adam Ant; a guardian of the Liches that inhabited the Wind dungeon. You were allowed to pass unless you started killing Liches. Later on he expanded this to other dungeons and you had to wear a red bandana or you were KOS but if you had the bandana on you were allowed to pass as long as you did not kill the monsters his guild protected.
This kind of stuff just doesn't happen any more.
I agree with the OP. I think it was a combination of no global chat, fixed camera angles, chat bubbles, AND the freedom that was built into UO.
I think the next step in catering to RPers would be a combination of voice chat + proximity to the player built into the game. Basically it would be a voice chat system that mirrors real life. I think it would work best in a modern or future MMO game where cell phones are avaliable for long distance chat, then the chat boxes could be eliminated entirely.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
As someone whose been roleplaying in one form or another for like the last thirty years.. Im not sure I buy into the notion that it is in a decline at all lol
I've always thought the answer to this question was relatively simple. Players didn't kill roleplay nor did PvP, which UO had plenty of. What honestly killed roleplaying was simple game mechanics. The mechanics of a most modern day MMORPGs simply don't fit a roleplaying environment. There's just not a whole lot of fun roleplaying in a game where the only actions that a player can actually do are running dungeons and gear whoring. Modern day MMORPGs only allow for the player to make a minimal impact on the gaming world if an impact at all. I believe part of the reason why there's so much more roleplaying in games like UO, SWG, and Ryzom is because the player has more ways to interact with the world other than simply playing whack-a-mole with computer controlled monsters. The ability to change the world is still relatively minimal but little things like player housing, heavily player driven economies, and alternate routes of advancement go a long way into drawing the player into the game world.
Honestly, I'm quite baffled at the idea that people still roleplay in games like EQ 1 & 2 and WoW when there are other games out there which are fit the roleplaying ideal to a much greater degree such as Ryzom or practically any NWN 1 or 2 persistent world.
First time in a long time I got this interested in a thread. There's been so much input I'm not sure where to start. There's a v ery good point in one of the posts about the number of role-players not really decreasing. There's a lot of merit into that since the number of people who would play MMOs practically exploded. The fixed POV is also a very interesting theory which didn't really occur to me until today. PvP itself didn't help decrease the role-playing factor but the rise of competitve PvP. We all enjoy a good match or two against other players to see how we fare against them but then comes the breed of those who see the game as nothing but numbers of wins, losses, stats, etc.