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Roleplay is no longer supported by Trion.
Gm Giant has announced that all servers will have the same ruleset. You may now roll on a RP server as "ScoopMyPoop" and relax knowing that it will remained unchanged. They are removing all rules involving sentence and nonsense/spam names, as well as many "references to pop culture and icons". Yes, you may now roll "Ipwnjoo" on the roleplay server, as well as "roxxorsmyboxxors" if they aren't already taken.
He called them lighthearted cute names, that RPers shouldn't take offense to.
He also compared roleplayers to smokers in a particularly bad analogy.
As always, decide for yourself :
8th post down is where it really starts:
"Thank you. I have been in discussions with the necessary parties and we will be removing the following from our Terms of Use in the near future.
9. Comprised of partial or complete sentence (e.g., "Getpwned", "Luvtodance", etc);
11. Referring to pop culture icons or personas (e.g. "McLovin", "Kyle Broflovski", "Catwoman");
12. That utilizes "Leet" or "Dudespeak" (e.g., "Roflmao", "Roxxurboxx", "Lolzumad"); or
13. That incorporates titles. For purposes of this subsection, "titles" shall include without limitation 'rank' titles (e.g., "General Chow," or “Captain Kangaroo”), monarchist or fantasy titles (e.g., "KingLoko", "LordPauleyC"), and religious titles (e.g., "ThePope," or "Reverend Run").
Giant "
Another GM posts further on linking 2 other discussion threads about it, feel free to read those as well if you want to know more.
Again, this post is for Roleplayers trying to decide if Rift is for you. It no longer is.
Comments
Posted the same subject ten minutes ago
It's a shame I had a lot of respect for Trion but this has bought them right down in my eyes.
While I think that they should enforce name policies on RP servers I dont see it as that big of a deal.
IMO RPing has more to do with the guild ( or guilds / alliance ) and the people you play with more than some random tard running around with RoxxorsMyBoxxors as a name.
I have played several MMos on RP servers and there was always a few people who would go out of their way to grief RPers, just having a stupid name isnt going to make or break the experience.
I think if the RP community would just pretty much ignore these people the servers would be fine. Sure they could solo to 50, but if NO ONE on the server would group or guild these people then they would not last long.
Police the servers yourselves, dont group, guild or respond to any of the people who may "ruin" your RPing and it should still be a good game to RP in.
Just my opinion tho.
Meh who truly full out actually "role-plays" anyway. Although I must admit that after doing this, they might as well just not call it an RP server anymore. And I'm also not quite sure I see why Trion would do this to the few people left in the world that still "hardcore!" role play.
I dunno I just think that although games are designed to immerse players into their character, people shouldn't take it so seriously. There's life and then there's video games but no in between imo. But this is just my boggle with role-playing doesn't mean that Trion should feel the same way, as a matter of fact they absolutely shouldn't.
[EDIT] AWWWWW SHIT SON!! TRION'S GOIN AND PISSEN MORE PEOPLE OFF!! Another example of a game that had potential and could have been good but will slowly deteriorate because of a bad publisher and shady customer care.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
...we've had to do this in far too many games.
I'm serious. What you talk about is standard operating procedure for RP players in any friggin game...and you know what? MAYBE WE'RE TIRED OF IT!
Trion got a hell of a lot of us to come to rift by marketing TO us. Rp-servers Naming conventions for those servers. Events and other things on these servers that would help enhance RP. Enforcing Griefing penalties. (god knows no company ever does it enough)
Trion's broken too many promises. Just too goddamned many.
RPing takes in the world and lets you create a character separated from your real life, it isn't some replacement for real life it just means taking the creation and playing of your character a step further and providing you with a sense of immersion in that world, that world is larger than your guild or the people you are partying with. An RP server should recognise what RP is about at its creation and not be something that is open to abuse from griefers and people who cant or wont appreciate the requirements of RP.
If you're immersed in your character and on a journey then that journey is going to get a sudden jolt when confronted by a player with a ridiculous name not fitting to that environment. A poster on the official forum made a good analogy ; Imagine you're watching a gritty war film, your engrossed in the content and in the believable characters then out of nowhere comes a a brightly dressed clown with a bright orange wig, completely untouched by the context of the movie, that clown then continues to randomly run through scenes or just stop and stare at the camera occasionally, how would that affect your enjoyment of the movie if up until that point you'd been engrossed in a gritty drama? Non RP players with RP names wouldn't have the same effect, they would simply be extras in the movie without speaking parts.
So don't role play.... play the game to PWN NUBZ AND KIDZ
Whoa simmer down now guys, I'm not saying that role-playing is "bad" I just don't see the point. And yea I will play to "PWN NUBZ AND KIDZ" and I'll play on a competitive PvP/PvE level and enjoy myself while socializing and joking with friends. Don't you judge me sir!
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
I know! That sudden jolt of reality always comin back to bite you in your fantasy worlds ass, sucks!
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
Lol @ Trion.
Didn't take them long to go from "promising up and comer" to "one of the worst AAA MMORPG companies in the genre". All they need now is a security compromise that exposes people's account info and they will be right down at the bottom with SOE.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Rift's story is rediculous anyway, ascended "chosen ones" everywhere you look?
I doubt any RP'ers will shed many tears, trying to RP around the generic fantasy of Rift was futile anyway.
It is nothing new and frankly are there few companies that actually back up RPG servers anymore. The current system just tells RP people that there will be more likely to find other RPers on those servers.
Compared to when SOE merged my RP server with a none RP server in EQ2 is this nothing.
I actually wish there was an option where you could pay an extra buck in a game to get access to a RP server with better moderating, I think no none RP people would want to cough up a dollar extra to annoy people anyways.
RP is dissapearing more ond more from MMOs, but the process have been going on since before Wow even launched, and Trion wasn't even founded.
I could not agree more. Roleplayers are statistically quiet, polite, social, individuals who do not spend their days trolling and shaking their fist at 'the man' on the forums. Developers read only the desires of the more vocal 1337 contingent and assume that must be the way all their customer feel. To offer an RP server and entice customers to pay for your service only to change it on them is a textbook 'bait and switch' and illegal in most areas. However, they put a truck load of 'we can because we say so' escape clauses in the ToC so not much players can do but leave. Stop playing their games and stop giving them money.
I rolled on an RP server with the hopes that it would be more quiet. I did RP a bit with someone who refused to speak ooc but generally RP was done in specific guilds not server-wide. Plenty of names that were not RP though not so many 'Ihazboobz' type names.
Trion is just lifting a very small lid. *shrug*
Pretty sad they're backpeddling, AFTER taking your hard earned money.
I wasn't expecting this after seeing what they had built up community wise so far.
I'm not sure what this will do with the community on an RP realm but the rules had their purpose...the best server I was ever in, in any game, was an RP server. Friendliest, most amount of helpful folk, most amount of mature folk I've ever met to this day.
The rules being there is why I went there. It seemed I wasn't alone in doing that.
I'm just curious what the pop count was like on those servers.
Other than that, I'm not entirely certain how you can rationalize "immersion" with being able to read someone's name majically floating above their heads anyways.....O_o
"Heart grow stronger, Will becomes firm, the Mind more calm, as our Strength lessens..." Battle of Maldon 991 AD
Its the roleplayers own fault
Just visit their forums and you'll see how hardcore they are on reporting anyone and everything they feel inappropriate or breaking their immersion. One discussion that comes to mind is a person was forced to rename his character that was named "Boulder". In that same thread, someone said they were forced to rename their character that was named "Bronco".
the list goes on...I think if they just stuck to reporting inappropriate names that were the severe cases this issue wouldnt have even come up. The fact that they created a queue so huge that the it would be impossible for the GM's to address is the more likely reason theyre removing these rules.
*edit* and on a side note, I dont really understand forcing someone to choose a name that conforms with server harmony. On a private server, this may seem appropriate but when the customer is paying to play on a roleplay server and wants a nickname like Boulder I think the community just needs to relax.
besides, when you see someone with a jacked up name doesnt it sort of tell you something? Think of it like a big mark on the persons head telling you their an asshole and carry on. It will definitely make a guild leaders job easier in accidentally recruting someone who used to be "chocolatedouche" who was forced to rename his character to "Bolvar" or whatever is appropriate for an rp server (actually I think bolvar would be reportable..meh too many rules lighten up)
That's some terrible customer service. Both the terrible analogy and the Moderator coming in later to say "This discussion has gotten far off topic, please go create another thread to discuss what that other GM brought up in the first place."
That and the whole incident where the public policy that players had thought to be true actually wasn't being followed at all. "All of our policies have always been public." Except when they're false. Lol.
.. But in a good way.
Couldn't agree more
+1.373 for this one sir
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
In related news, roleplayers will be discontinuing support for Trion...
5 of the top 8 population NA servers are RP servers. Consistantly highest is Sunrest, which is an RP-PVP server. I now play a backup RP server regularly so I don't have to wait in queues for events ( Last event, both RP servers I played had long queues, ended up playing on a normal server).
After one of the fastest growing threads on any subject on the Rift forums Scott Hartsman has recently made a post detailing that their will in fact now be seperate naming policies for RP server. Kudos for acting so quickly on the matter, here's a quote but the full post can be found here.
I'm not resubbing until some of my guildmates say actual action has been taken ( a few they reported along the DeadBabyInAMicrowave lines). Giant already made it clear they weren't doing anything about the violations all along, and didn't have an intention of doing so. I expect action, not words. I have 150 days of sub time left, which is more than enough time to see which way the wind is blowing. They've gotten out of the hacked accounts backlog, so should be acting on these fairly quickly.
Lets cut out the baiting guys. Thanks!
This is the big question- will we see action? The other question is how will the community react? It doesn't bode well with me that some RP players will waste time reporting names they think violate the naming policy when in fact it just doesn't fit in to their little world, those kind of RPers are rare though. Discussions are going to be interesting on what constitutes violations.
Don't expect them to act quickly, if you read the original post from which all this stemmed it was about their GM services and they aren't in a state any of us would like them to be in.
And in before someone accuses me of hypocrisy here - it was a policy change that seriously affected RP that got me annoyed, I can understand the reality of their GM response times.