I never RP'd when I was playing RPG's. I didn't act like Zelda, anyone from Legaia, any FF Game, etc. RPG video games never meant anything like that for me. MMORPGs were just an extrapolation of that same idea so I regarded them the same.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Back in my UO days I RPed. But back then RP didn't mean adding an "eth" to every thing. I RPed a shinobi. I gathered intel and sold it to enemy guilds. Some times I got paid to murder people. Some times I was sent to steal things. The way the game worked back then I could be what ever I wanted to be and act it out. Not sure how you can do any of that in the theme parks that the RP community seems to migrate to these days.
You have to find established communities that work together to find good RP. I run the same guild I've run for 12+ years and we've always roleplayed in whatever game we play. Sometimes we're stuck RPing with ourselves, but we always use it to enhance the game and get more out of it. We also have a list of contacts with other RP guilds and we always get the word out to roll together. Sadly Roleplay servers generally don't have much to offer these days anymore. A lot of people roll on them thinking they can just get the RPers to roll over for them. Our guild/community is heavy into RP-PvP so we're in our element on PvP servers and actually find better RP there than the labelled RP servers which is odd. The other issue is how you define RP. If you define it as sitting around in a tavern not actually doing anything, then, no, we don't roleplay anymore, but if its about a deeper structure, hosting events and enhancing the game environment then you can count us amongst the still actively roleplaying crowd.
Do you have any idea how many man-hours would go into policing those servers for every little thing that an RPer could call foul on?
Do you? Please, tell us. Actual staffing hours and payrolls, please.
No? Thought not.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Do you have any idea how many man-hours would go into policing those servers for every little thing that an RPer could call foul on?
Do you? Please, tell us. Actual staffing hours and payrolls, please.
No? Thought not.
Answer: The same as all other servers, because they won't give RPers preferential service.
"Thought u knew!"
= they won't enforce their own policies, regarding RP, on RP servers. That's what I said.
Correct, I did not take your baiting.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Do you have any idea how many man-hours would go into policing those servers for every little thing that an RPer could call foul on?
Do you? Please, tell us. Actual staffing hours and payrolls, please.
No? Thought not.
Answer: The same as all other servers, because they won't give RPers preferential service.
"Thought u knew!"
While true GMs and game companies do not give RPers any more service than the rest there are a lot of frivolous GM tickets placed by RPers on naming violations alone. Don't get me started on "he/she interupted an RP event" tickets. This is how RPers became their own worst enemy and have forced companies not to enforce any kind of RP rule set.
The other day i went over to my girlfriend house pretending to be the landlord collecting rent, but she didn't have any money, so she offered to pay in other ways
Do you have any idea how many man-hours would go into policing those servers for every little thing that an RPer could call foul on?
Do you? Please, tell us. Actual staffing hours and payrolls, please.
No? Thought not.
Answer: The same as all other servers, because they won't give RPers preferential service.
"Thought u knew!"
While true GMs and game companies do not give RPers any more service than the rest there are a lot of frivolous GM tickets placed by RPers on naming violations alone. Don't get me started on "he/she interupted an RP event" tickets.
Yeah, made by the kind of players I mentioned in the post that Icewhite cropped out.
The vocal minority of players in an RP server tend to point fingers just as often as they break their own "rules". I think it just attracts a mindset that likes to exert authority on others, not at all about RPing.
Maybe it's just too hard to monetize role-playing in the CS.
Maybe you could sell cosmetic ability upgrades, like the ability to sit in a chair? Or you could buy access to content including pubs, cantinas, etc. Or you could buy a biography.
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?
MORPGS are just video games now. Cut paste 5 classes and less races, x 2 for a faction mmo, and make instanced pvp where something is captured from your childhood experiences on a playground, like a flag. There's nothing to RP here.
Now, give me a 3 realm mmorpg like Dark Age of Camelot, and because each realm is uniquely different (something you just don't see anymore), different races per faction classes, and so on, no childish crap and a great political pvp system, you had something CONDUSIVE to RP.
Most of today's so called mmorpgs are really just mmoVGs (massively multiplayer online video games) and have no environment that is condusive to the act of playing one's role. As an example:
Lord of the Rings Online - sounds like huge RP potential, but you can talk to Poopypants the Dwarf after he''s done playing his spider monster in the Ettenmoors. There's no RP there.
Age of Conan - wow, another amazing RP potential title. Then you find out that the opening video (gone now) that showed Conan slamming his fist on a map of Hyperborea and knocking over his wine goblet, swears that the enemy nations that are rising up to vanquish Aquilonia, will be crushed. In reality, the game is so lore broken you can take a Necromancer with all pets out through Cimmeria, the land where you'd get a sword put through your gut for even speaking about magic. Let's not forget the Priests of Mitra can kill each other. Total nonsense. Broken lore with a cosmetic title and handful of cosmetic races tha tmean nothing.
WoW - Truly the one mmo to rule them all. Even wth Orcs dancing like MC Hammer and male Night Elves doing the Michael Jackson routine, Vanilla WoW was great. PvP between Southshore and Tarren Mill was a weekend affair. Now you go into Ogrimmar and you see Tauren Paladins flying on Reindeer. I mean, c'mon.
Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Bugs aside, the 2 faction server really had some great RP potential. They killed the server and merged the races, however, making it a free for all pvp fest in a cornfield. The other servers were typical EQ pvp. No race or class separation. My Dark Elf and your Paladin could go kill paladins if we wanted. Hence, no rp.
Rift - Two factions is a start, but the classes are mirrors of each other. But it's classless you say? Yeah well, the mage healer tank of each class for the win. No rp value here when nearly every mage was a pyro and with the advent of the MERC system, we further ignore race variation. Hurry up and get some 3 faction pvp in there...not bad, but no rp value when you see the Ascended killing each other under 3 bogus flags that again are just cosmetic excuses to add yet another team to fight in the already copy paste red team v blue team model.
The list goes on. There's nothing condusive to RP unless you (a) ignore the community of today's MMOvgs and (b) you really ignore rational sense and broken lore that occurs in most mmoVGs.
Rp was feeling realm pride, enjoying races and classes and 1-50 levels without seeing enemies killing your same 10 mobs on yonder hill because developers became too lazy to understand the concept of walls and division between religions and races.
RP is dead until a developer creates something that scares away the P** smoking population and every kid who jokes about private parts over general chat. Might have to put some real thinking into the game and sadly, I don't think the genre knows how to do that anymore.
I RP only in games that are built and intended specifically for that purpose. That is not what MMOs are built for. They are intended for combat and character progression, not roleplaying.
So no. Nor should they.
A large part of the MMO genre is the MMORPG one and that happens to have "Role-Playing" in its definition, so ya, I would say role-playing, although not always specifically the sort certain RP-guilds seek, is a core concept in many MMOs.
I never RP'd when I was playing RPG's. I didn't act like Zelda, anyone from Legaia, any FF Game, etc. RPG video games never meant anything like that for me. MMORPGs were just an extrapolation of that same idea so I regarded them the same.
Zelda is not even a playable character in the grand majority of the Zelda games, Link is. So of course, you have no reason to act ingame as if you were Zelda, you aren't playing her. *Facepalm*
I never RP'd when I was playing RPG's. I didn't act like Zelda, anyone from Legaia, any FF Game, etc. RPG video games never meant anything like that for me. MMORPGs were just an extrapolation of that same idea so I regarded them the same.
Zelda is not even a playable character in the grand majority of the Zelda games, Link is. So of course, you have no reason to act ingame as if you were Zelda, you aren't playing her. *Facepalm*
I know a lot people that played Zelda 2 and RPed Zelda herself... by turning off the game, saying "it's crap for changing the methodology", and then taking a long nap.
(not I, though. Still one of my favs)
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Sure do RP, but I usually save that for P&P nowadays.
RP is not something you can do by yourself and finding a good and fun gang for it is harder and harder nowadays.
Yes, you can RP by yourself without involving other people. You can for instance, role-play a villain just fine without ever involving another player; NPC's and other non-playable entities are enough.
A large part of the MMO genre is the MMORPG one and that happens to have "Role-Playing" in its definition, so ya, I would say role-playing, although not always specifically the sort certain RP-guilds seek, is a core concept in many MMOs.
Just because it appears in the name doesn't mean it appears in the game. It came from the Final Fantasy RPGs, which had zero roleplaying elements. They just dragged you around by the nose through a preprogrammed story that you had no choice to opt out of.
It's stayed the same in MMOs. Don't be confused by a title.
A large part of the MMO genre is the MMORPG one and that happens to have "Role-Playing" in its definition, so ya, I would say role-playing, although not always specifically the sort certain RP-guilds seek, is a core concept in many MMOs.
Just because it appears in the name doesn't mean it appears in the game. It came from the Final Fantasy RPGs, which had zero roleplaying elements. They just dragged you around by the nose through a preprogrammed story that you had no choice to opt out of.
It's stayed the same in MMOs. Don't be confused by a title.
Correction, I believe it was popularised by the *first* Final Fantasy game, and only because you could make and name a custom party from a choice of classes - similar to D&D games. The Wizardry series was another, and for the exact same reason.
Later on they ditched that and went with stock characters and such, and I think they just refused to drop the moniker.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
If sandbox mmos return people might actually roleplay alot more.
I have found that sandbox games allow for far better quality roleplaying but even so I wouldn't say there is "lots" of roleplaying going on there and I'm not even sure if I would say there is more roleplaying in sandbox than in themepark.
The closest I would come to agreeing with you would be that sandbox MMOs allow for better quality roleplaying and that they might have more roleplayers per capita than theme parks. That said I think the total number of roleplayers in all theme park games would probably be higher if anything because there is just so much more players. Furthermore recent sandbox games like Xyson, Darkfall and Mortal Online have been filled with bad communities in my opinion (lots of griefers and pkers who just gank for the sake of it) and that isn't conducive to roleplaying so I don't see roleplaying returning in strength with sandbox games should they become more popular.
Its a Yes and No Some games people roleplay alot others not at all it depends on the base comuntiy and the game itself, if you want a game that has RPG to a Extreme try Face of Mankind its Free to Play and very RPG heavy and very fun.
Others have pointed this out, but I will flag again part of the problem. Here is how it goes:
- generally, the best environments for RP are sandbox games
- however, many argue a true sandbox needs FFA PVP, preferably with full loot
- in theory this sounds good; however FFA PVP/full loot games tend to attract the worst communities
- the potential remedy is an effective system of player justice; however no one has been able to solve this puzzle since it is very difficult to design any system to account for the great ingenuity people deploy in avoiding the consequences of their actions (e.g. creating throw-away alts, manipulating game flaws and bugs, etc.)
I think in great part the trend away from sandbox/player choice games towards linear theme-parks is partly explained by that 5-10 percent of the population that grief/exploit. They have an impact larger than their numbers. Rather than watch these nasties drive off their customer base, companies make their game grief-proof by eliminating as much player freedom as possible. The griefer-morons complain about all the theme park games, but as soon as they are offered player freedom they abuse it and destroy that game - it is an endless cycle.
A large part of the MMO genre is the MMORPG one and that happens to have "Role-Playing" in its definition, so ya, I would say role-playing, although not always specifically the sort certain RP-guilds seek, is a core concept in many MMOs.
Just because it appears in the name doesn't mean it appears in the game. It came from the Final Fantasy RPGs, which had zero roleplaying elements. They just dragged you around by the nose through a preprogrammed story that you had no choice to opt out of.
It's stayed the same in MMOs. Don't be confused by a title.
Ok, this I just had to comment on. Final Fantasy had NOTHING to do with the RP in the role playing game. Nowhere close, not even remotely. Dungeons & Dragons was the first role playing game ever, which came out in the 70's and was played at a table with friends. The first real computer RPG was a text based game called Zork and others followed, one of the most popular being the Ultima series, after which many followed. The first MMORPG's, all of which came before UO, EQ, and even WoW, fostered role playing elements in them and had massively thriving role playing communities. In fact it's a fair assessment to say that the role players ruled the communities of the MMORPG's at that time and non role players were a very small minority. You can thank big business for the lack of role playing in MMORPG's nowadays. This is what happens when you have people calling the shots that are completely ignorant about the business they are running. It happens all the time in the corporate heirarchy sadly.
Banegrivm Leader of the 1st Fist of Light www.1stfistoflight.com
Correction, I believe it was popularised by the *first* Final Fantasy game, and only because you could make and name a custom party from a choice of classes - similar to D&D games. The Wizardry series was another, and for the exact same reason.
Later on they ditched that and went with stock characters and such, and I think they just refused to drop the moniker.
Good point, but let's be honest, the majority of computer games that tacked "RPG" onto their name had nothing whatsoever to do with role playing, it was a marketing tactic.
Good point, but let's be honest, the majority of computer games that tacked "RPG" onto their name had nothing whatsoever to do with role playing, it was a marketing tactic.
The question than becomes why do they still do it? Once upon a time it might have translated into more sales but now I think the mainstream doesn't really care about real roleplaying and the acronym MMORPG is too long!
Seriously I think they were so successful at abusing the term that it means something completely different to most people now.
Comments
I never RP'd when I was playing RPG's. I didn't act like Zelda, anyone from Legaia, any FF Game, etc. RPG video games never meant anything like that for me. MMORPGs were just an extrapolation of that same idea so I regarded them the same.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Back in my UO days I RPed. But back then RP didn't mean adding an "eth" to every thing. I RPed a shinobi. I gathered intel and sold it to enemy guilds. Some times I got paid to murder people. Some times I was sent to steal things. The way the game worked back then I could be what ever I wanted to be and act it out. Not sure how you can do any of that in the theme parks that the RP community seems to migrate to these days.
My theme song.
You have to find established communities that work together to find good RP. I run the same guild I've run for 12+ years and we've always roleplayed in whatever game we play. Sometimes we're stuck RPing with ourselves, but we always use it to enhance the game and get more out of it. We also have a list of contacts with other RP guilds and we always get the word out to roll together. Sadly Roleplay servers generally don't have much to offer these days anymore. A lot of people roll on them thinking they can just get the RPers to roll over for them. Our guild/community is heavy into RP-PvP so we're in our element on PvP servers and actually find better RP there than the labelled RP servers which is odd. The other issue is how you define RP. If you define it as sitting around in a tavern not actually doing anything, then, no, we don't roleplay anymore, but if its about a deeper structure, hosting events and enhancing the game environment then you can count us amongst the still actively roleplaying crowd.
Do you? Please, tell us. Actual staffing hours and payrolls, please.
No? Thought not.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Answer: The same as all other servers, because they won't give RPers preferential service.
"Thought u knew!"
(hell, the rest of my post that you cropped out already explained it. So that's on *you*)
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
"The good ole' days!"
I find, like Loke666 that P&P is the answer for RP of any significant sort, though your experience may vary radically between DM's >.<
I haven't met more than 1 RPing character at a time, and rather than it seeming like roleplay they just came off as being wierd.
= they won't enforce their own policies, regarding RP, on RP servers. That's what I said.
Correct, I did not take your baiting.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
While true GMs and game companies do not give RPers any more service than the rest there are a lot of frivolous GM tickets placed by RPers on naming violations alone. Don't get me started on "he/she interupted an RP event" tickets. This is how RPers became their own worst enemy and have forced companies not to enforce any kind of RP rule set.
My theme song.
I LOLed
Yeah, made by the kind of players I mentioned in the post that Icewhite cropped out.
The vocal minority of players in an RP server tend to point fingers just as often as they break their own "rules". I think it just attracts a mindset that likes to exert authority on others, not at all about RPing.
@Icewhite
~yet, you call me out on "baiting" when you obviously cropped my post and called me out in a baiting manner.
/kettleblack
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
/bitter saracsm on
Maybe it's just too hard to monetize role-playing in the CS.
Maybe you could sell cosmetic ability upgrades, like the ability to sit in a chair? Or you could buy access to content including pubs, cantinas, etc. Or you could buy a biography.
MORPGS are just video games now. Cut paste 5 classes and less races, x 2 for a faction mmo, and make instanced pvp where something is captured from your childhood experiences on a playground, like a flag. There's nothing to RP here.
Now, give me a 3 realm mmorpg like Dark Age of Camelot, and because each realm is uniquely different (something you just don't see anymore), different races per faction classes, and so on, no childish crap and a great political pvp system, you had something CONDUSIVE to RP.
Most of today's so called mmorpgs are really just mmoVGs (massively multiplayer online video games) and have no environment that is condusive to the act of playing one's role. As an example:
Lord of the Rings Online - sounds like huge RP potential, but you can talk to Poopypants the Dwarf after he''s done playing his spider monster in the Ettenmoors. There's no RP there.
Age of Conan - wow, another amazing RP potential title. Then you find out that the opening video (gone now) that showed Conan slamming his fist on a map of Hyperborea and knocking over his wine goblet, swears that the enemy nations that are rising up to vanquish Aquilonia, will be crushed. In reality, the game is so lore broken you can take a Necromancer with all pets out through Cimmeria, the land where you'd get a sword put through your gut for even speaking about magic. Let's not forget the Priests of Mitra can kill each other. Total nonsense. Broken lore with a cosmetic title and handful of cosmetic races tha tmean nothing.
WoW - Truly the one mmo to rule them all. Even wth Orcs dancing like MC Hammer and male Night Elves doing the Michael Jackson routine, Vanilla WoW was great. PvP between Southshore and Tarren Mill was a weekend affair. Now you go into Ogrimmar and you see Tauren Paladins flying on Reindeer. I mean, c'mon.
Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Bugs aside, the 2 faction server really had some great RP potential. They killed the server and merged the races, however, making it a free for all pvp fest in a cornfield. The other servers were typical EQ pvp. No race or class separation. My Dark Elf and your Paladin could go kill paladins if we wanted. Hence, no rp.
Rift - Two factions is a start, but the classes are mirrors of each other. But it's classless you say? Yeah well, the mage healer tank of each class for the win. No rp value here when nearly every mage was a pyro and with the advent of the MERC system, we further ignore race variation. Hurry up and get some 3 faction pvp in there...not bad, but no rp value when you see the Ascended killing each other under 3 bogus flags that again are just cosmetic excuses to add yet another team to fight in the already copy paste red team v blue team model.
The list goes on. There's nothing condusive to RP unless you (a) ignore the community of today's MMOvgs and (b) you really ignore rational sense and broken lore that occurs in most mmoVGs.
Rp was feeling realm pride, enjoying races and classes and 1-50 levels without seeing enemies killing your same 10 mobs on yonder hill because developers became too lazy to understand the concept of walls and division between religions and races.
RP is dead until a developer creates something that scares away the P** smoking population and every kid who jokes about private parts over general chat. Might have to put some real thinking into the game and sadly, I don't think the genre knows how to do that anymore.
A large part of the MMO genre is the MMORPG one and that happens to have "Role-Playing" in its definition, so ya, I would say role-playing, although not always specifically the sort certain RP-guilds seek, is a core concept in many MMOs.
Zelda is not even a playable character in the grand majority of the Zelda games, Link is. So of course, you have no reason to act ingame as if you were Zelda, you aren't playing her. *Facepalm*
I know a lot people that played Zelda 2 and RPed Zelda herself... by turning off the game, saying "it's crap for changing the methodology", and then taking a long nap.
(not I, though. Still one of my favs)
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Yes, you can RP by yourself without involving other people. You can for instance, role-play a villain just fine without ever involving another player; NPC's and other non-playable entities are enough.
Just because it appears in the name doesn't mean it appears in the game. It came from the Final Fantasy RPGs, which had zero roleplaying elements. They just dragged you around by the nose through a preprogrammed story that you had no choice to opt out of.
It's stayed the same in MMOs. Don't be confused by a title.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Sandbox mmos= lots of good RP
Non-sandbox mmos= not as much RP.
If sandbox mmos return people might actually roleplay alot more.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
Correction, I believe it was popularised by the *first* Final Fantasy game, and only because you could make and name a custom party from a choice of classes - similar to D&D games. The Wizardry series was another, and for the exact same reason.
Later on they ditched that and went with stock characters and such, and I think they just refused to drop the moniker.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I have found that sandbox games allow for far better quality roleplaying but even so I wouldn't say there is "lots" of roleplaying going on there and I'm not even sure if I would say there is more roleplaying in sandbox than in themepark.
The closest I would come to agreeing with you would be that sandbox MMOs allow for better quality roleplaying and that they might have more roleplayers per capita than theme parks. That said I think the total number of roleplayers in all theme park games would probably be higher if anything because there is just so much more players. Furthermore recent sandbox games like Xyson, Darkfall and Mortal Online have been filled with bad communities in my opinion (lots of griefers and pkers who just gank for the sake of it) and that isn't conducive to roleplaying so I don't see roleplaying returning in strength with sandbox games should they become more popular.
Its a Yes and No Some games people roleplay alot others not at all it depends on the base comuntiy and the game itself, if you want a game that has RPG to a Extreme try Face of Mankind its Free to Play and very RPG heavy and very fun.
"Its Hot Drop-o-Clock" Clear Skies 3.
Others have pointed this out, but I will flag again part of the problem. Here is how it goes:
- generally, the best environments for RP are sandbox games
- however, many argue a true sandbox needs FFA PVP, preferably with full loot
- in theory this sounds good; however FFA PVP/full loot games tend to attract the worst communities
- the potential remedy is an effective system of player justice; however no one has been able to solve this puzzle since it is very difficult to design any system to account for the great ingenuity people deploy in avoiding the consequences of their actions (e.g. creating throw-away alts, manipulating game flaws and bugs, etc.)
I think in great part the trend away from sandbox/player choice games towards linear theme-parks is partly explained by that 5-10 percent of the population that grief/exploit. They have an impact larger than their numbers. Rather than watch these nasties drive off their customer base, companies make their game grief-proof by eliminating as much player freedom as possible. The griefer-morons complain about all the theme park games, but as soon as they are offered player freedom they abuse it and destroy that game - it is an endless cycle.
Ok, this I just had to comment on. Final Fantasy had NOTHING to do with the RP in the role playing game. Nowhere close, not even remotely. Dungeons & Dragons was the first role playing game ever, which came out in the 70's and was played at a table with friends. The first real computer RPG was a text based game called Zork and others followed, one of the most popular being the Ultima series, after which many followed. The first MMORPG's, all of which came before UO, EQ, and even WoW, fostered role playing elements in them and had massively thriving role playing communities. In fact it's a fair assessment to say that the role players ruled the communities of the MMORPG's at that time and non role players were a very small minority. You can thank big business for the lack of role playing in MMORPG's nowadays. This is what happens when you have people calling the shots that are completely ignorant about the business they are running. It happens all the time in the corporate heirarchy sadly.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Good point, but let's be honest, the majority of computer games that tacked "RPG" onto their name had nothing whatsoever to do with role playing, it was a marketing tactic.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
The question than becomes why do they still do it? Once upon a time it might have translated into more sales but now I think the mainstream doesn't really care about real roleplaying and the acronym MMORPG is too long!
Seriously I think they were so successful at abusing the term that it means something completely different to most people now.