...you would read messages in trade chat to the effect of, "Isildur, Master-Smithy of Caer Diogel, at your service! Finest Armors and Weapons this side of the Isle of Glass!" What caused this unfortunate decrease in the prevalence of roleplaying?
Florid, over-blown waffle as you described above, and laughably uninventive character backgrounds where every other RP'er was a half-dragon or half-vampire, or even more boring, "My parents were killed by Orcs/Wolves/Whatever and I have vowed to avenge them."
The RP was so thin it would have been laughed out of any decent tabletop game. It's so bad it's embarrassing! Plus, while I might be interested in the interaction and character development between the avatars of people I have known for years, I have no interest whatsoever in Random Stranger No. 8, 254 as a player, never mind having to listen to what they think passes for roleplaying.
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Wherefore means 'why' When juliet said it, she was basically saying, 'crap, why are you, the guy I love, a member of my family's enemy's family?'
And nariusseldon, it seems you may be right. But, it's a sad day for MMORPGs when the players have edged the RP out of it completely.
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
The meaning of terms changes all the time. RP in the video game industry just means a different thing than how you use the term. It is only semantic. I do NOT see a problem.
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Wherefore means 'why' When juliet said it, she was basically saying, 'crap, why are you, the guy I love, a member of my family's enemy's family?'
Originally MMO’s were a online dreamland for roleplayers, but that was a long time ago. Since then we have seen the games flooded with players who think you are roleplaying when you play a single player RPG. We also got a reputation for being difficult and demanding more, which was catered for when we were are larger proportion of the MMO population. Now the sad fact is we are not needed, MMO’s are awash with people who are not roleplayers so why bother to spend so much time and money on roleplayers? I do not see sandbox MMO as being more suitable to roleplayers than a theme park game. But with the shift to theme park MMOs has come a loss of nearly all RP tools and a supremacy of graphics over all other design considerations. But I regard us to blame too, we bought into the lure of better graphics and who is saying lets go back and play a really old game that has good RP? Many roleplayers gave up on MMO’s, you can still find small communities in the likes of AoC Hyrkania server and Lotro Laurelin server, for those in Europe.
Well said.
In EQ2 have all us EU roleplayers moved to US servers, there just isn't enough players.
But I think pen and paper RPGs will make a large comeback soon. They got boring to todays kids because their parents play them but all things like that moves in circles. RPGs first started to get popular in the late 70s nad early 80s with (A)D&D, Runequest, Warhammer FRPG and a few others. The second coming was around 1990 with Vampire, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun and R.I.F.T.S.
There should be a third wave coming sooner or later and that will affect MMOs also. You can just do so many things in a computer game, a PnP game have many advantages still.
Of course that might just be a theory since I am an old RPGer but the amount of young people on RPG conventions have started to go up a lot the last 2 years, I usually write stuff for one or 2 every year and before that were the most player 25+, now it seems like more people around 16.18 seems to show up for each time.
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Wherefore means 'why' When juliet said it, she was basically saying, 'crap, why are you, the guy I love, a member of my family's enemy's family?'
Yes we're aware of this. As previously established from those posts, the OP purposely ignored grammatical correctness in order to hook the reader in with an eye-catching title.
It worked obviously, as most people are familiar with the line, even if they don't recognize that it doesn't really make sense in this context. If they do recognize the error, well it will likely compel them to click on the thread. So it's a win-win situation for the OP.
Playing - FFXIV, ESO Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW
I play in a RP guild in LOTRO on Elendilmir. There ARE still quite a few of us out there rp-ing....but I'll agree that it isn't as visible as it used to be. Part of the issue is that MMO mechanics don't really support it well (not like the old style MUDs even, let alone PnP). RP is alot more difficult/less rewarding if your choices for effecting the action are severely constrained/non-existant (.i.e. "You must solve the quest by picking the lock on the door".... Why, I'm a big burly guy with axe...the door is wood...do the math, etc) and the game world is entirely static...meaning nothing you choose to do really matters anyway.
Note that these conditions were true in the old style graphical MMO's as well....but people RP'd inspite of the limitations of the mechanics.... because most people had the real desire to RP no matter what. One difference I do note is in the old days companies used to at least occasionaly let GM's come out and act like actual GM's. You'd see them come out and run small plot lines or unleash a few invading monsters or run some NPC's. At least change the static game-world a little bit for a little while? How often do you see stuff like that anymore?
These days most companies seem to constrain GM's to be nothing more the glorified customer service reps. I'm guessing that during some of these events that some twerps that didn't have the first clue about what RPG's were really about complained that they couldn't go to town and sell thier +3 wand of monkey-butts in peace because there were monsters running around invading....and the suits got all flustered about loosing a few customers and therefore put the muzzle on what actualy makes live RPG games special.
It's also a darn shame that will all the technilogical advances in games in other areas (graphics, combat mechanics, server load etc).... there has been nearly ZERO progress on making the game world/environment more dynamic and responsive to the players actions and allowing for a greater latitude in player actions/choices. In those areas we are still pretty much dealing with the same technology that shiped in Meridian 59.
Comments
Florid, over-blown waffle as you described above, and laughably uninventive character backgrounds where every other RP'er was a half-dragon or half-vampire, or even more boring, "My parents were killed by Orcs/Wolves/Whatever and I have vowed to avenge them."
The RP was so thin it would have been laughed out of any decent tabletop game. It's so bad it's embarrassing! Plus, while I might be interested in the interaction and character development between the avatars of people I have known for years, I have no interest whatsoever in Random Stranger No. 8, 254 as a player, never mind having to listen to what they think passes for roleplaying.
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Wherefore means 'why' When juliet said it, she was basically saying, 'crap, why are you, the guy I love, a member of my family's enemy's family?'
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
The meaning of terms changes all the time. RP in the video game industry just means a different thing than how you use the term. It is only semantic. I do NOT see a problem.
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Wherefore means 'why' When juliet said it, she was basically saying, 'crap, why are you, the guy I love, a member of my family's enemy's family?'
Came here to say this.
Well said.
In EQ2 have all us EU roleplayers moved to US servers, there just isn't enough players.
But I think pen and paper RPGs will make a large comeback soon. They got boring to todays kids because their parents play them but all things like that moves in circles. RPGs first started to get popular in the late 70s nad early 80s with (A)D&D, Runequest, Warhammer FRPG and a few others. The second coming was around 1990 with Vampire, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun and R.I.F.T.S.
There should be a third wave coming sooner or later and that will affect MMOs also. You can just do so many things in a computer game, a PnP game have many advantages still.
Of course that might just be a theory since I am an old RPGer but the amount of young people on RPG conventions have started to go up a lot the last 2 years, I usually write stuff for one or 2 every year and before that were the most player 25+, now it seems like more people around 16.18 seems to show up for each time.
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Wherefore means 'why' When juliet said it, she was basically saying, 'crap, why are you, the guy I love, a member of my family's enemy's family?'
Yes we're aware of this. As previously established from those posts, the OP purposely ignored grammatical correctness in order to hook the reader in with an eye-catching title.
It worked obviously, as most people are familiar with the line, even if they don't recognize that it doesn't really make sense in this context. If they do recognize the error, well it will likely compel them to click on the thread. So it's a win-win situation for the OP.
Playing - FFXIV, ESO
Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW
I play in a RP guild in LOTRO on Elendilmir. There ARE still quite a few of us out there rp-ing....but I'll agree that it isn't as visible as it used to be. Part of the issue is that MMO mechanics don't really support it well (not like the old style MUDs even, let alone PnP). RP is alot more difficult/less rewarding if your choices for effecting the action are severely constrained/non-existant (.i.e. "You must solve the quest by picking the lock on the door".... Why, I'm a big burly guy with axe...the door is wood...do the math, etc) and the game world is entirely static...meaning nothing you choose to do really matters anyway.
Note that these conditions were true in the old style graphical MMO's as well....but people RP'd inspite of the limitations of the mechanics.... because most people had the real desire to RP no matter what. One difference I do note is in the old days companies used to at least occasionaly let GM's come out and act like actual GM's. You'd see them come out and run small plot lines or unleash a few invading monsters or run some NPC's. At least change the static game-world a little bit for a little while? How often do you see stuff like that anymore?
These days most companies seem to constrain GM's to be nothing more the glorified customer service reps. I'm guessing that during some of these events that some twerps that didn't have the first clue about what RPG's were really about complained that they couldn't go to town and sell thier +3 wand of monkey-butts in peace because there were monsters running around invading....and the suits got all flustered about loosing a few customers and therefore put the muzzle on what actualy makes live RPG games special.
It's also a darn shame that will all the technilogical advances in games in other areas (graphics, combat mechanics, server load etc).... there has been nearly ZERO progress on making the game world/environment more dynamic and responsive to the players actions and allowing for a greater latitude in player actions/choices. In those areas we are still pretty much dealing with the same technology that shiped in Meridian 59.