On the RP thing. There are people who RP verbally and there are people who don't do that but do like to pick a character role that ties in with the game lore and play the game according to that role. I think the the OP is addressing that and not RP as most people understand the term. In its simplest terms it's like playing an RPG that has three optional specialist paths e.g combat / stealth / diplomacy together combined with good / evil / neutral paths so there's actually nine routes through the game (although with a lot of overlap). Choosing good & combat the first time and neutral & diplomacy the second time is playing a role even if the only aim is to experience content that is only accessible though certain path combinations. And if other players are passively "roleplaying" in that way for cost / benefit reasons then it makes it easier for RPers.
I think the OP is addressing that form of roleplaying and the examples given are all good ones.
There is however another aspect to this kind of design strategy that may not be obvious. All the things that increase a game's *worldiness* pretty much always increase the game's replayability at the same time.
For example, compare a game world that is designed to have 3-4 continents with home cities for 12 playable races e.g EQ, with a game where there's one, or maybe two, starting cities and one or two starting races. Then further compare a game where there are 3-4 classes to one where there are a dozen, or maybe even better a game where each playable race has a unique version of the four archetypal classes e.g Warhammer.
If you go with the max worldiness route and have 12 cities/races with 4 unique (only semi-unique really as some things naturally overlap) classes for each race then you're already looking at a lot of replayability. You can make a troll warrior's lowbie experience very different from a human warrior's. If you further make some of the lowbie quests race & class specific then a troll warrior's experience could be at least partially different from a troll shaman's. Then at higher levels if you further add more one way choices which lock and unlock specific content like picking a god or one of two competing factions in a zone you constantly increase the replayability.
Similarly with things like a frontier zone where there are guards / merchants based on which side is winning. A player might level one character through their 20s in that zone when their side was winning, get to max level, get bored, quit. Then after a break try the game again with the same race / class but this time for whatever reason their side is losing and levelling through the same zone is completely different because they have to avoid all the hostile guards.
What do max level players do when there's nothing to do? They go play a different game. Making your game play like a different game depending on race / class and a potentially unlimited number of other one way choices is one way of partially dealing with that with the added bonus that one player's replayability content is another player's first content.
One way of maximizing player retention is to constantly add more content to the achievement treadmill. I think maximizing the social and / or replayability aspects is another way of doing the same thing while also bringing the (passive) RP back.
Good Ideas OP.. I have thought of the same thing, or slighty different renditions of yours.. Devs need to spend more time and focus on "The character" instead of the gear.. I honestly believe when you design the game to become a gear chasing game, you have turned it into an arcade game, and less a MMO.. Gear IMO should be something that tweaks a character, not makes or breaks it.. I'm dead set against any design that forces players to chase tier gear drops in raids, to advance.. There are just too mamy people that don't want to or can't spend the time doing raids.. IMO.. Raids should be "side" action of what to do when a player logs on, not the focus of his end game..
I remember years ago in EQ1 and similar games that raids was something you did on the side, or when a boss randomly spawned.. 90% of us spent 90% of our time leveling AA's or just playing the game in the OPEN world, not locked away in an instance ..
Most roleplayers I've met in MMOs were idiots. They knew nothing of roleplaying. Moreover, modern people can't roleplay on account of they got no proper feelings about those worlds. How on earth a fat american housewife would be able to roleplay a cutthroat or a bloodthirsty witch? It's just impossible. And would be look like an idiocy. And it actually looks like an idiocy in modern MMOs. That's why I prefer sandbox MMORPGs like DFO or EVE, where there are actual and RL-like (to the some extend) things such as wars, politics, scams etc. You don't need to be a roleplayer to play them. You actually need to fight, to negotiate and everything...
Well, it is roleplaying to play a character that is you if you react as the world is real. Not great imagination and most roleplayers frown on it (except the rather scare Call of Cthluhu pen and paper game "Cthluhu now" where you play yourself who is suppose to go to a roleplaying game when scary stuff happens, and since it is CoC the GM often kills you off).
Roleplaying is about pretending that the game is real and that you in fact are your character.
Things that make RP easier is things that makes the game feels more alive, It helps if you can customize your character and his/her gear. It helps with a nice guildhouse where you can socialize with other players. It helps if the world have a good background story and it helps the more freedom you have in the game.
You don't really need any RP things to RP but there are many things that makes it easier and more fun.
Role playing is about playing a role- acting a role. The term comes from theatre. While I do think there's an element of role playing inherent in games (linking into what you say about immersion and character customisation) I don't think that alone makes a person a role player. Njdevil is a prefect example. Likely s/he just plays as her/himself but it's obvious njdevil doesn't class her/himself as a RPer.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp
IMO, there is a difference in roleplay in a Computer Role Playing Game, and a Table Top game.
The difference, the HUGE difference, is a Game Master.
This is why roleplaying, the "shakesperian play" part, sucks in a MMORPG.
NPCs do not react, there is no give and take, no interaction between characters, and the story, the NPC's they interact with.
therefore, Computer Roleplaying Games, are about developing a character, with stats, gear, and abilities. Has been ever since Computer games first started, and no one was connected ot the internet, and all CRPGs were single player.
With a Game master, the NPC can react according to how the players treat them. With a computer dialog tree, it's just choose the items on the dialog tree, that's it.
It's not even like actors in a play, becaues the actors can interact among themselves, and they play good guys and bad guys.
With a computer game, the players are on one side, real people that can interact, and the other side, is a brick wall that can offer dialog trees, that's it.
All the rest of the stuff in the OP are options some players might like or dislike, but don't, IMO, necessarily add to "roleplay".
The best thing you can do for roleplay in a CRPG, is have great character development.
I've only once done tabletop role play. I don't like the GM aspect. I don't like someone telling me 'you need to role an X to pick up that item' when it's what my character would do regardless of what the die said. Most of my RP has been forum-based play-by-post with no GM. I create a character and unleash them into a world where they interact with NPCs (secondary characters) I've created, and PCs and NPCs that others have created. I can do part of that in MMOs (the interaction between PCs).
In addition, games like GW2 and SWTOR are beginning to offer flexible worlds and branching storylines, which means that the brick wall you talk about is crumbling. GW2's dynamic, persistant world is going to be a godsend to RPers who want to see their character's choices reflected in the world.
Dialog trees and branching story lines have nothing to do with what I am describing.
Better storytelling is better for immersion and makes for a better game, but roleplaying just uses the MMO as a backdrop, it is the setting in which you roleplay but not the roleplaying itself.
A benefit to an "immersive RP" as I describe, is that it makes "Acting RP" more acceptable to the community as a whole.
With Immersion RP, you have people making decisions based off of the game world instead of always the gear.
If a person from country A wants to go after Country B because of Immersion RP, it makes it easier to integrate an "Acting RP" into the group, since their "RP" may also require them to go after Country B. It also MIGHT just provoke the first person to do a light bit of acting RP as well.
A benefit to an "immersive RP" as I describe, is that it makes "Acting RP" more acceptable to the community as a whole.
With Immersion RP, you have people making decisions based off of the game world instead of always the gear.
If a person from country A wants to go after Country B because of Immersion RP, it makes it easier to integrate an "Acting RP" into the group, since their "RP" may also require them to go after Country B. It also MIGHT just provoke the first person to do a light bit of acting RP as well.
I highly doubt it. A lot of people always make decisions based on power, and gear is part of it.
Its not about the game its about the people you are with. Use your damn imagination. You think overweight middle aged computer nerds sat around blaming their pen and paper D&D book because no one there actually looked like a warrior hero?
"How to get the RP back into mmorpg"......use your imagination...literally
Its not about the game its about the people you are with. Use your damn imagination. You think overweight middle aged computer nerds sat around blaming their pen and paper D&D book because no one there actually looked like a warrior hero?
"How to get the RP back into mmorpg"......use your imagination...literally
You know, even in D&D you have this same problem. You have ROLEPLAYERS and you have ROLLPLAYERS.
ROLLPLAYERS tend to see their character as a statline. They don't play a character, they play their statistics.
A benefit to an "immersive RP" as I describe, is that it makes "Acting RP" more acceptable to the community as a whole.
With Immersion RP, you have people making decisions based off of the game world instead of always the gear.
If a person from country A wants to go after Country B because of Immersion RP, it makes it easier to integrate an "Acting RP" into the group, since their "RP" may also require them to go after Country B. It also MIGHT just provoke the first person to do a light bit of acting RP as well.
I highly doubt it. A lot of people always make decisions based on power, and gear is part of it.
This is true and it's why for this kind of system to work properly it has to be backed up by cost / benefit i.e if you don't want supposedly goodie druid players to kill the goodie unicorn then don't make it drop a really good druid item. And / or make the faction you lose for killing friendly mobs much higher per kill than the points you get for killing enemies.
A benefit to an "immersive RP" as I describe, is that it makes "Acting RP" more acceptable to the community as a whole.
With Immersion RP, you have people making decisions based off of the game world instead of always the gear.
If a person from country A wants to go after Country B because of Immersion RP, it makes it easier to integrate an "Acting RP" into the group, since their "RP" may also require them to go after Country B. It also MIGHT just provoke the first person to do a light bit of acting RP as well.
I highly doubt it. A lot of people always make decisions based on power, and gear is part of it.
This is true and it's why for this kind of system to work properly it has to be backed up by cost / benefit i.e if you don't want supposedly goodie druid players to kill the goodie unicorn then don't make it drop a really good druid item. And / or make the faction you lose for killing friendly mobs much higher per kill than the points you get for killing enemies.
I loved that part of the game.. just like back in EQ1 playing a druid.. I had to becareful who and what I killed or I became KOS myself.. lol However, complex twist like that in the game is dying out.. IMO too many carebears don't want to be bothered with RP., all they want to do is log on.. kill everything in sight and get loot.. It's more arcade now then role play
I just never played a character that adhered to stereotypes. I think that it is a shame that that i the draw for a good Role Playing character in your opinion. I like to be creative and break the mold.
I just never played a character that adhered to stereotypes. I think that it is a shame that that i the draw for a good Role Playing character in your opinion. I like to be creative and break the mold.
Feel free to break the mold.
The reason stereotypes are useful, and why I suggested that they be central to the idea, is that they provide a framework and simplicity to the world. While there is room for some complexity, the simplicity of stereotypes helps define nations better. Remember not everyone is good a doing the "acting" style of RP. In fact, more people are not than are. Since we want to appeal to masses, it makes more sense to make something accessible to them than to the "actors".
A stereotype provides a mold by which a player can form themselves around. They can break it later if they want, but its easier to get immersed the other way.
Just like with organizations and nations, the game should have a different group of religions, each with a stereotypical behavior, with rewards coming for players who hold to those tenants. Different religions should always have at least one other opposed religion that is in some form of competition.
Saw a few posts dissing #7, so I thought I'd had my alms for the poor.
EQ1 did religion really well, I thought. It was tied with faction in many ways, but the effect was engaging on its own. I remember having a level 5 dark elf who worshipped the same god as the Frost Giants. So even though I didn't have the Frost Giant faction, I was able to visit Velious and Kael Drakkal (Home of the Frost Giants) without these level 30-60 giants attacking me. haha. It was fun waltzing around all these raid groups forming as a lowly 5th level warrior. My RP persona was that I was a diplomat from Neriak. God that was fun.
Unfortunately the type of faction set up that you are talking about is a thing of the past. Today everyone has to be able to enjoy every aspect of the MMO. Even if it makes no lore or RP sense whatsoever, inclusivity of the player base is of primary importance. You can still have factions for PvP but that’s it, having factions for RP or lore reasons is seen as dividing the player base.
It is good to see that many of us still RP in MMO’s in spite of the lack of support MMO’s give, long may it be so.
It was but got re released, has a very low pop but I play it because I can roleplay in it and that it isn't plagued by WoWites . A larger population would definately improve the game and the RP, it's just Duplex don't really advertise the game and the fact it's F2P without a cash shop.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
Comments
Good post.
On the RP thing. There are people who RP verbally and there are people who don't do that but do like to pick a character role that ties in with the game lore and play the game according to that role. I think the the OP is addressing that and not RP as most people understand the term. In its simplest terms it's like playing an RPG that has three optional specialist paths e.g combat / stealth / diplomacy together combined with good / evil / neutral paths so there's actually nine routes through the game (although with a lot of overlap). Choosing good & combat the first time and neutral & diplomacy the second time is playing a role even if the only aim is to experience content that is only accessible though certain path combinations. And if other players are passively "roleplaying" in that way for cost / benefit reasons then it makes it easier for RPers.
I think the OP is addressing that form of roleplaying and the examples given are all good ones.
There is however another aspect to this kind of design strategy that may not be obvious. All the things that increase a game's *worldiness* pretty much always increase the game's replayability at the same time.
For example, compare a game world that is designed to have 3-4 continents with home cities for 12 playable races e.g EQ, with a game where there's one, or maybe two, starting cities and one or two starting races. Then further compare a game where there are 3-4 classes to one where there are a dozen, or maybe even better a game where each playable race has a unique version of the four archetypal classes e.g Warhammer.
If you go with the max worldiness route and have 12 cities/races with 4 unique (only semi-unique really as some things naturally overlap) classes for each race then you're already looking at a lot of replayability. You can make a troll warrior's lowbie experience very different from a human warrior's. If you further make some of the lowbie quests race & class specific then a troll warrior's experience could be at least partially different from a troll shaman's. Then at higher levels if you further add more one way choices which lock and unlock specific content like picking a god or one of two competing factions in a zone you constantly increase the replayability.
Similarly with things like a frontier zone where there are guards / merchants based on which side is winning. A player might level one character through their 20s in that zone when their side was winning, get to max level, get bored, quit. Then after a break try the game again with the same race / class but this time for whatever reason their side is losing and levelling through the same zone is completely different because they have to avoid all the hostile guards.
What do max level players do when there's nothing to do? They go play a different game. Making your game play like a different game depending on race / class and a potentially unlimited number of other one way choices is one way of partially dealing with that with the added bonus that one player's replayability content is another player's first content.
One way of maximizing player retention is to constantly add more content to the achievement treadmill. I think maximizing the social and / or replayability aspects is another way of doing the same thing while also bringing the (passive) RP back.
Good Ideas OP.. I have thought of the same thing, or slighty different renditions of yours.. Devs need to spend more time and focus on "The character" instead of the gear.. I honestly believe when you design the game to become a gear chasing game, you have turned it into an arcade game, and less a MMO.. Gear IMO should be something that tweaks a character, not makes or breaks it.. I'm dead set against any design that forces players to chase tier gear drops in raids, to advance.. There are just too mamy people that don't want to or can't spend the time doing raids.. IMO.. Raids should be "side" action of what to do when a player logs on, not the focus of his end game..
I remember years ago in EQ1 and similar games that raids was something you did on the side, or when a boss randomly spawned.. 90% of us spent 90% of our time leveling AA's or just playing the game in the OPEN world, not locked away in an instance ..
Most roleplayers I've met in MMOs were idiots. They knew nothing of roleplaying. Moreover, modern people can't roleplay on account of they got no proper feelings about those worlds. How on earth a fat american housewife would be able to roleplay a cutthroat or a bloodthirsty witch? It's just impossible. And would be look like an idiocy. And it actually looks like an idiocy in modern MMOs. That's why I prefer sandbox MMORPGs like DFO or EVE, where there are actual and RL-like (to the some extend) things such as wars, politics, scams etc. You don't need to be a roleplayer to play them. You actually need to fight, to negotiate and everything...
Dialog trees and branching story lines have nothing to do with what I am describing.
Better storytelling is better for immersion and makes for a better game, but roleplaying just uses the MMO as a backdrop, it is the setting in which you roleplay but not the roleplaying itself.
A benefit to an "immersive RP" as I describe, is that it makes "Acting RP" more acceptable to the community as a whole.
With Immersion RP, you have people making decisions based off of the game world instead of always the gear.
If a person from country A wants to go after Country B because of Immersion RP, it makes it easier to integrate an "Acting RP" into the group, since their "RP" may also require them to go after Country B. It also MIGHT just provoke the first person to do a light bit of acting RP as well.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I highly doubt it. A lot of people always make decisions based on power, and gear is part of it.
Its not about the game its about the people you are with. Use your damn imagination. You think overweight middle aged computer nerds sat around blaming their pen and paper D&D book because no one there actually looked like a warrior hero?
"How to get the RP back into mmorpg"......use your imagination...literally
You know, even in D&D you have this same problem.
You have ROLEPLAYERS and you have ROLLPLAYERS.
ROLLPLAYERS tend to see their character as a statline. They don't play a character, they play their statistics.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
This is true and it's why for this kind of system to work properly it has to be backed up by cost / benefit i.e if you don't want supposedly goodie druid players to kill the goodie unicorn then don't make it drop a really good druid item. And / or make the faction you lose for killing friendly mobs much higher per kill than the points you get for killing enemies.
I loved that part of the game.. just like back in EQ1 playing a druid.. I had to becareful who and what I killed or I became KOS myself.. lol However, complex twist like that in the game is dying out.. IMO too many carebears don't want to be bothered with RP., all they want to do is log on.. kill everything in sight and get loot.. It's more arcade now then role play
Never really enjoyed RP'ing ... always loved to PvP though
Check out my opinions at http://techone.weebly.com/
Check out this! Such a great Strategy! http://techone.weebly.com/blog.html
I just never played a character that adhered to stereotypes. I think that it is a shame that that i the draw for a good Role Playing character in your opinion. I like to be creative and break the mold.
www.ryzom.com
Feel free to break the mold.
The reason stereotypes are useful, and why I suggested that they be central to the idea, is that they provide a framework and simplicity to the world. While there is room for some complexity, the simplicity of stereotypes helps define nations better. Remember not everyone is good a doing the "acting" style of RP. In fact, more people are not than are. Since we want to appeal to masses, it makes more sense to make something accessible to them than to the "actors".
A stereotype provides a mold by which a player can form themselves around. They can break it later if they want, but its easier to get immersed the other way.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Saw a few posts dissing #7, so I thought I'd had my alms for the poor.
EQ1 did religion really well, I thought. It was tied with faction in many ways, but the effect was engaging on its own. I remember having a level 5 dark elf who worshipped the same god as the Frost Giants. So even though I didn't have the Frost Giant faction, I was able to visit Velious and Kael Drakkal (Home of the Frost Giants) without these level 30-60 giants attacking me. haha. It was fun waltzing around all these raid groups forming as a lowly 5th level warrior. My RP persona was that I was a diplomat from Neriak. God that was fun.
Unfortunately the type of faction set up that you are talking about is a thing of the past. Today everyone has to be able to enjoy every aspect of the MMO. Even if it makes no lore or RP sense whatsoever, inclusivity of the player base is of primary importance. You can still have factions for PvP but that’s it, having factions for RP or lore reasons is seen as dividing the player base.
It is good to see that many of us still RP in MMO’s in spite of the lack of support MMO’s give, long may it be so.
It was but got re released, has a very low pop but I play it because I can roleplay in it and that it isn't plagued by WoWites . A larger population would definately improve the game and the RP, it's just Duplex don't really advertise the game and the fact it's F2P without a cash shop.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis