Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The RPG in mmorpg has two meanings for me. In mmos that I like it means role playing game but in games I think suck, are badly made etc etc it stands for role playing garbage.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
When I play monopoly I usually choose the shoe as my board piece. I don't think of myself as roleplaying that shoe. I just use it as a placeholder. Even though technically I am appearing in game as a shoe and not as myself, and even through I do make choices for the shoe and move it around, that is not RP to me (or to anyone else really).
Also to me, when I play as a character in a mmorpg, I make all sorts of choices, such as race, class, ability trees, and so on. But I don't consider that "roleplaying." Again. my character is just a placeholder for me to move around as I play the game. My wizard does not behave like a wizard. She doesn't even behave like me making any effort to behave like a wizard. She's just a glorified clothes rack to hold loot who shoots fireballs when I press a button.
Now, on those rare occasions when i actually participated with other people who, like me, made an effort to act out how their character could be expected to behave in a developing dialogue or storyline, that is what roleplaying means to me. I have never been any good at it. But I do appreciate the efforts of those who are talented at this.
I remember there being quite a lot more roleplayers in mmorpgs when I started playing them circa 2002 than there are now. A shame, really.
What might be done to better encourage RPG before we lose it altogether?
I think you're confusing play-acting with RPG. It sounds like you don't suspend disbelief easily judging by your blase attitude describing your wizard as a "clothes rack." That's meta game thinking.
RPG does not mean that you have to overtly act like your character or speak in bad old English. It's just the mere act of respecting the game and the world enough to make yourself believe you're a character in that world... having zone chat turned off helps a lot in that regard.
You don't have to say a word for that to be the case. RPing is an overt enhancement on the basics of playing an RPG. It can be done well or badly but either way it's not a requirement to "get into" playing an RPG.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Role Playing Game whether you are playing your own character or in the shoes of another character you are still playing a role. So technically any character created that is controlled by the character could be considered role playing whether you make the role yourself or the role is made for you.
Like in monopoly you could chose to use the shoe as a representation of a businessman / whatever you want to chose to call yourself for the game or you could have a big long back story as to why and how a living shoe came into existence and wants to buy houses etc.
I define it to be ручной противотанковый гранатомёт, which is basically Russian for a hand-held anti-tank weapon. The "rocket-propelled grenade" meaning, while descriptive, is a backronym, and not the original meaning of RPG. Therefore, World of Tanks is the only true MMORPG.
That's because genre fans have been willing to redefine RPG to fit into "MMO". They shouldn't be so surprised then when other genres bastardize MMO the way MMORPGs have the RPG aspect.
I blame our willingness to embrace mediocrity as a compromise to "get what we want".
I think we had no choice, when MMORPG gaming companies started to look to expand into the solo PC player base they no longer needed roleplayers. We could have boycotted them to a man, the solo player base was (I don't know) a 10000 times our size?
That's been the history of MMOs, every time the MMO companies have eyed up a new playerbase it has been so much larger that although they want to keep the old players they don't actually need them.
I was in a Horde guild named "Dreadnaught" on the Greymane server back in Vanilla WoW.
We didn't run around grunting and trying to talk like Orcs would or anything like that. We rode all around Azeroth on a regular basis trying to raise hell, Burning and Pillaging.
We wanted and tried to be the bad guys. Not by ganking, camping or being assholes. We wanted to be "The Horde"
My FPS was down into the single digits on many a night.
There was also an alliance rogue at the same time who used to sneak in and around horde towns and gank you when you least expected it. I died many a time to his blade and I would always have a chuckle and a smile on my face. The bastard got me again. Here's to you "Punish"
That for me is role playing in an MMORPG
Obligatory "The Horde" aren't the bad guys of WoW.
Obligatory, Oh yes they are! (I am available for pantomimes at a reasonable rate)
The games have rules. And the rules define the games. That is why the dude's shoe cannot RP. RP could be a character progression too. Again - L2. In L2 you can become a clan leader, officer, craftsman, miner. And the roles have meaning and consequences in the game. Also the holy trinity, trade and etc.
This is an interesting position. If you occupy a role in the game, be it druid, healer, tailor, etc., you are roleplaying because you are playing a role (more than one, in your example).
But that might also make chess an RPG. Every piece on the board has a function and performs that function distinctly and differently than other chess pieces. Are you role playing your knight or your bishop in chess? I would say not.
Ikcin is talking about immersion, the game gives you a role and you play that role, it is roleplaying. But if you come from a table top background you realise RPG games can be so much more. As long as you have other players you can be far more flexible in your approach to roleplaying.
The difference is Ikcin that all clan leaders, craftsmen and miners do not have to be the same. There is more to them than the name on the label such as "miner". With immersion you bring your own personality to the game, with roleplaying you choose the sort of personality you are going to play.
Both approaches are perfectly valid in my eyes, but as a table top player I do hope immersion players come to see what they are doing as a stepping stone to roleplay.
First, you need to have a character (duh?). Then you need some form of progression and ability to differenciate your "toon". That's the basic, I'm not very "nazi" when it comes to the Role playing definition
The games have rules. And the rules define the games. That is why the dude's shoe cannot RP. RP could be a character progression too. Again - L2. In L2 you can become a clan leader, officer, craftsman, miner. And the roles have meaning and consequences in the game. Also the holy trinity, trade and etc.
This is an interesting position. If you occupy a role in the game, be it druid, healer, tailor, etc., you are roleplaying because you are playing a role (more than one, in your example).
But that might also make chess an RPG. Every piece on the board has a function and performs that function distinctly and differently than other chess pieces. Are you role playing your knight or your bishop in chess? I would say not.
It's obvious to me for years now that most MMORPG players don't understand what roleplaying means and most probably never played a table top pen & paper RPG.
No, if you tank a raid in a MMORPG while exchanging Chuck Norris jokes on voice chat, you aren't playing a role. You are just playing a game.
Just like Robert Downey JR doesn't become Tony Stark just by wearing a costume and driving an Audi R8.
Unless, of course, all MMORPG players are like this...
No, you are playing the role of the tank. Sometimes it is a small one. Sometimes you save the whole party and all the other players appreciate that. But it is a role. Unless you are a tank warrior in the real life - I doubt, but who knows. Yes, chess and any game could give you roles. Obviously if you play with the horse only - so if every figure has a player behind. It is lame RP, but still RP.
What you are talking about is to live in the game and to play mainly in your imagination - oh I'm a beauty queen! But dude this is game with wars, monsters and swords! My character is so cute, I'm a beauty queen period - this is not RP, but delusion, as you actually do not play the game, but in your mind.
Most MMORPGs these days provide very limited RP features. You even cannot be a tank without a holy trinity. In L2 all the roles above were usually separated. And to be a clan leader or a manager of corporation in EVE is a very serious role.
You simply do not talk about RP. As Robert Downey JR do not act as he decides - there is a script, director and etc. It is the same in the games. To call it RP the role should be predefined in general. As the role of the tank in the party - you can be good or bad, it is up to you, but you cannot be a healer for example. And if the developer removes the holy trinity, you cannot play the role of the tank anymore. Obviously you always could imagine one, but it is just your imagination, not the gameplay.
And then comes the so called freedom of choice - so everyone could play any role in any moment - actually that means there will not be roles in the game anymore. Look at the PvE - when you can be everything simultaneously - craftsman, miner, jeweler and etc. you do not need the other players or trade. Obviously not everyone could be a clan leader. And the RP fails when the game makes every player such. The freedom means you are free to chose one option, and to deal with the consequences, but not to chose everything.
The line between immersion and what table top roleplayers think of as roleplaying is a grey one, in some ways immersion is the more natural fit for MMORPG's, TT roleplayers impose their ideas of what rping should be about on MMOs. But then the idea of MMORPG's originally was inline with what TT roleplayers wanted, they have drifted to games better suited to immersion. "Proper" roleplaying lives on in RP guilds, these days expecting to bump into someone who will roleplay is a big ask. For immersion players that's not a problem, they do not have to interact to play their role.
Also and this is something I go on about in a few threads, just like doing Chuck Norris jokes while supposedly in character is not roleplaying so is MMORPG's having football events not suitable for a RPG. If you are a roleplaying game why are you having events which have nothing to do with the games lore and world? We tend to give the likes of Halloween and Christmas a pass because something like that could exist in most fantasy worlds, but soccer and Battle Royal?
Developers could start by making gameworlds that make players stick around in the world instead of making games where its 100 hours of leveling to reach endgame to grind gear and jump to the next game.
There have been lots of talk about living worlds where players shape the world and diplomacy within the game but that part has proven to be tricky to create.
They could also make some effort on supporting roleplaying servers with GM's helping out on server events.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
First, you need to have a character (duh?). Then you need some form of progression and ability to differenciate your "toon". That's the basic, I'm not very "nazi" when it comes to the Role playing definition
I am sitting here in my re-enactment Byzantine Empire Foederati warriors outfit while posting, but just like you, not very Nazi about roleplaying definitions of course.
The games have rules. And the rules define the games. That is why the dude's shoe cannot RP. RP could be a character progression too. Again - L2. In L2 you can become a clan leader, officer, craftsman, miner. And the roles have meaning and consequences in the game. Also the holy trinity, trade and etc.
This is an interesting position. If you occupy a role in the game, be it druid, healer, tailor, etc., you are roleplaying because you are playing a role (more than one, in your example).
But that might also make chess an RPG. Every piece on the board has a function and performs that function distinctly and differently than other chess pieces. Are you role playing your knight or your bishop in chess? I would say not.
It's obvious to me for years now that most MMORPG players don't understand what roleplaying means and most probably never played a table top pen & paper RPG.
Yep. This would be me. From when I come from only geeky weirdos played table top, pen and paper RPGs. Normal people played Risk, Axis and Allies or war games.
I did however join a role playing guild in DAOC back in 2003 because my son who was 11 at the time wanted to and I always insisted we belong in the same guilds so I could make sure it was appropriate.
Turned out they were a great bunch. Originally from UO where they RPd exclusively as Orcs, in DAOC they were Kobolds only until they decided to join with Sylvans (for game balance reasons)
All gold, gear, and housing was clan property, members were required to turn it all over to clan leaders who would in turn hand it back out to members as needed.
They had their own written "language" by removing and replacing characters from English.
There was never any public OOC chat, which was a challenge at times but helped by the fact all of this occurred before voice chat became a thing. It also kept chat a bit quieter as it took some time to think and type in "Kobo"
Never was there any discussion of real life topics or people's problems, always the focus was on what was happening in the game world, which of course was never referred to as a game, it was the reality.
Forums were used for more in depth communication and they were mostly OOC and in normal language. There people would discuss real life, and being the only place to speak openly were extremely active.
We had very specific rules about engaging other players, including allowing them to pay a small "tribuut" in order to avoid being killed. (Unless on the clans enemy list)
Non allied Kobolds were never bothered or killed (potential future members) and some non human races such as Trolls were given extra leeway.
Griefing was never permitted, unless the player kept returning to the area immediately surrounding the clans claimed keep.
It was publically known by the rest of the server if any member behaved badly they could report it to leadership and the offenders would be put on notice and dealt with.
It was one of the best gaming experience I have ever enjoyed, but you know what?
Often times outsiders would call us "geeky weirdos," which clearly we were.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All gold, gear, and housing was clan property, members were required to turn it all over to clan leaders who would in turn hand it back out to members as needed.
We had very specific rules about engaging other players, including allowing them to pay a small "tribuut" in order to avoid being killed. (Unless on the clans enemy list)
Non allied Kobolds were never bothered or killed (potential future members) and some non human races such as Trolls were given extra leeway.
Griefing was never permitted, unless the player kept returning to the area immediately surrounding the clans claimed keep.
It was publically known by the rest of the server if any member behaved badly they could report it to leadership and the offenders would be put on notice and dealt with.
It was one of the best gaming experience I have ever enjoyed, but you know what?
This looks pretty much like the old L2. Do not mess with newbies - potential new members, fight with enemies, do not grief neutral parties - every clan is a potential ally, do not act and talk bad, pretty much the same. But I never thought about that as RP, it was just the game. And I'm taking about the private server. In fact it was very different on the ofi server with less players - competition, and free bots - more solo.
The difference shows me clear how the greed ruins the games. The private server was made for the best gameplay, the ofi is made for money.
Well most of those guild polices were not there for roleplaying, just for being a sound guild. Something like In Character guild chat I think of as a hallmark or a RP guild, with OOC only if truly necessary. You can change nearly any OOC question into a IC one, it just takes some practice. Some RP guilds don't bother with it though, they have a private chat channel for RP or the like. Never been in a RP guild that used its own language, have to take my helmet of to that.
It is not a coincidence that I always advise players to join a guild, does not matter what type it is, MMOs play better in guilds.
I prefer playing a role over role-playing. I also prefer player story over developer story in MMORPG. There seems to be more balanced and engaging way to play. I want to escape into the world and be given something productive to do.
I think you're confusing play-acting with RPG. It sounds like you don't suspend disbelief easily judging by your blase attitude describing your wizard as a "clothes rack." That's meta game thinking.
RPG does not mean that you have to overtly act like your character or speak in bad old English. It's just the mere act of respecting the game and the world enough to make yourself believe you're a character in that world... having zone chat turned off helps a lot in that regard.
You don't have to say a word for that to be the case. RPing is an overt enhancement on the basics of playing an RPG. It can be done well or badly but either way it's not a requirement to "get into" playing an RPG.
Good post! I create "personas" in MMOs. It's really about the best you can do in a massively multiplayer environment. I never do play acting in the taverns or use an affected accent. That's not RPG that works for me. That's play-acting while adventurers go out and do real things in the game world.
Most MMOs don't offer room for more than that though. I mean MMOs only let you play-act RP or do "class role" work. There isn't room in their design for other real roles. I see some of the indies trying to offer that, but they're trying to shoehorn that into "MMO" and it's like oil and water.
Ikcin is talking about immersion, the game gives you a role and you play that role, it is roleplaying. But if you come from a table top background you realise RPG games can be so much more. As long as you have other players you can be far more flexible in your approach to roleplaying.
The difference is Ikcin that all clan leaders, craftsmen and miners do not have to be the same. There is more to them than the name on the label such as "miner". With immersion you bring your own personality to the game, with roleplaying you choose the sort of personality you are going to play.
Both approaches are perfectly valid in my eyes, but as a table top player I do hope immersion players come to see what they are doing as a stepping stone to roleplay.
This is a really good post. When I played PnP D&D I had character whose class was a ranger, but that wasn't his role. For one thing, he didn't have "a role". He had many that changed over the course of our adventures and life. He started out a displaced woodsman, became a companion to a thief, an advisor to a king, and eventually the lord of an area where he worked with and assisted the local druids to maintain peace between various races and nature.
I feel like a lot of MMO gamers think being a "moisture vaporator" farmer on Tatooine sounds like deep role-play. But in reality it's just a flavor skin for someone to play "MMO master crafter/trader". You're just a merchant crafter in a skin. That's not deep RP to me. It's acceptable as a form and small piece of the puzzle, but when it ends there, then it's shallow and unsatisfying to me.
That's also why "Massive" isn't very important to me in the related thread where we ask that question. The RPG of a game whether it's CRPG or TT PnP RPG is always the most important part to me. For me the rest of the design and mechanics need to support that or they're just fluff.
Well you absolutely don't need Massively for roleplaying. I know some people on the old Neverwinter still doing roleplaying, maybe fifty of them tops. Think back to MUDs, did we need Massively then? Hell did we need to be able to see a 3D graphical avatar?
The number of roleplayers as a proportion of any MMOs playerbase has shrunk to a tiny percentage. We fit "smaller" MMOs well, just wondering if SotA is seeing many roleplayers, that sort of game would suit?
So indie is also a good fit for roleplayers, I prefer Massively and but indie does not seem able to give us that. But these days how on earth are you going to fill a Massive server with roleplayers? We seem fragmented, but maybe indie will be a rallying cry for roleplayers to come back to MMOs.
I prefer playing a role over role-playing. I also prefer player story over developer story in MMORPG. There seems to be more balanced and engaging way to play. I want to escape into the world and be given something productive to do.
So being the hero like in AoC or to a lesser extent SWTOR is not for you? You have more room for immersion "your way" I would guess. Well most roleplayers are not keen on MMOs where you play the hero, just messes up backgrounds. So in AoC for example everyone was an ex-slave who escaped, you just ignore that sort of thing as it suits you.
I prefer playing a role over role-playing. I also prefer player story over developer story in MMORPG. There seems to be more balanced and engaging way to play. I want to escape into the world and be given something productive to do.
So being the hero like in AoC or to a lesser extent SWTOR is not for you? You have more room for immersion "your way" I would guess. Well most roleplayers are not keen on MMOs where you play the hero, just messes up backgrounds. So in AoC for example everyone was an ex-slave who escaped, you just ignore that sort of thing as it suits you.
I look at it like this. One is a character story which is based on my character being clone of everyone else. Then you have player story which is the story created by my interactions with other players. The latter is lacking in MMORPG.
Not only is character story distracting. It usually comes at the cost of the world being used as content to feed it and player interaction being dimished. It becomes all about doing quest on your own and nothing else. Rather do that in a Skyeim by myself.
The games have rules. And the rules define the games. That is why the dude's shoe cannot RP. RP could be a character progression too. Again - L2. In L2 you can become a clan leader, officer, craftsman, miner. And the roles have meaning and consequences in the game. Also the holy trinity, trade and etc.
This is an interesting position. If you occupy a role in the game, be it druid, healer, tailor, etc., you are roleplaying because you are playing a role (more than one, in your example).
But that might also make chess an RPG. Every piece on the board has a function and performs that function distinctly and differently than other chess pieces. Are you role playing your knight or your bishop in chess? I would say not.
It's obvious to me for years now that most MMORPG players don't understand what roleplaying means and most probably never played a table top pen & paper RPG.
Yep. This would be me. From when I come from only geeky weirdos played table top, pen and paper RPGs. Normal people played Risk, Axis and Allies or war games.
.....
It was one of the best gaming experience I have ever enjoyed, but you know what?
Often times outsiders would call us "geeky weirdos," which clearly we were.
But we had a great time.....
There's that view about the geek thaing, but in my early tabletop PnP gamers groups, two players went on to be NYT bestselling authors, several were award winning game designers, and a bunch have had long careers in the computer gaming industry. ETC. So, it's not without its possible rewards.
As for the computer game aspect, it's just much harder to do deep role playing, due to the constraints and mechanics of the situation. That Kobold guild of yours sounds exemplary though. Above and beyond, even....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
It depends on the context of use. When it refers to the table-top variety it means role-playing game to me, as players typically act out their characters when playing.
Other than that I take it to mean a game where characters will improve in ability over time with continued play, optimally with some player choice in that development.
Unlike the OP my character in a MMORPG is an in game representation of me.
You are correct that I do not see my character as myself. Not intentionally, anyway.
But to an extent the two cannot be divorced. What annoys me, for example, probably annoys my character also (or at least he or she is affected by my annoyance).
Thanks btw to everyone who posted. It was interesting seeing the various points of view.
Post edited by Amathe on
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I'd really love to see more developers embrace this concept. Give me a tree to climb. Any tree. Every tree. Have NPCs react to specific words and emotes -- not quests. If I /wave at Innkeep Elora, have her /laugh at me. Make the world and it's NPCs more responsive, with more ways to interact with them. We've had unclimbable trees and oblivious NPCs since day one, isn't it time we got something different?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
It often looks older, not quite as ruggedly handsome of course, which behaves in game as if I more or less lived in it.
I treat others decently and am always aware there are real people behind those other avatars, for better or worse.
In a game like EVE it was quite easy to slip into the role of miner, hauler, blockade runner or explorer.
It was equally easy to visualize others as pirates, mercenaries, bankers, traders, star empires or yes, even Goons.
It was very natural to slip into the role of a pod pilot sitting at his command console managing his daily affairs.
Probably the best role playing I ever did, and not a single thee, thou or get ye hence was uttered.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
RPG does not mean that you have to overtly act like your character or speak in bad old English. It's just the mere act of respecting the game and the world enough to make yourself believe you're a character in that world... having zone chat turned off helps a lot in that regard.
You don't have to say a word for that to be the case. RPing is an overt enhancement on the basics of playing an RPG. It can be done well or badly but either way it's not a requirement to "get into" playing an RPG.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Like in monopoly you could chose to use the shoe as a representation of a businessman / whatever you want to chose to call yourself for the game or you could have a big long back story as to why and how a living shoe came into existence and wants to buy houses etc.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
That's been the history of MMOs, every time the MMO companies have eyed up a new playerbase it has been so much larger that although they want to keep the old players they don't actually need them.
Obligatory, Oh yes they are! (I am available for pantomimes at a reasonable rate)
The difference is Ikcin that all clan leaders, craftsmen and miners do not have to be the same. There is more to them than the name on the label such as "miner". With immersion you bring your own personality to the game, with roleplaying you choose the sort of personality you are going to play.
Both approaches are perfectly valid in my eyes, but as a table top player I do hope immersion players come to see what they are doing as a stepping stone to roleplay.
First, you need to have a character (duh?). Then you need some form of progression and ability to differenciate your "toon". That's the basic, I'm not very "nazi" when it comes to the Role playing definition
Also and this is something I go on about in a few threads, just like doing Chuck Norris jokes while supposedly in character is not roleplaying so is MMORPG's having football events not suitable for a RPG. If you are a roleplaying game why are you having events which have nothing to do with the games lore and world? We tend to give the likes of Halloween and Christmas a pass because something like that could exist in most fantasy worlds, but soccer and Battle Royal?
There have been lots of talk about living worlds where players shape the world and diplomacy within the game but that part has proven to be tricky to create.
They could also make some effort on supporting roleplaying servers with GM's helping out on server events.
I did however join a role playing guild in DAOC back in 2003 because my son who was 11 at the time wanted to and I always insisted we belong in the same guilds so I could make sure it was appropriate.
Turned out they were a great bunch. Originally from UO where they RPd exclusively as Orcs, in DAOC they were Kobolds only until they decided to join with Sylvans (for game balance reasons)
All gold, gear, and housing was clan property, members were required to turn it all over to clan leaders who would in turn hand it back out to members as needed.
They had their own written "language" by removing and replacing characters from English.
There was never any public OOC chat, which was a challenge at times but helped by the fact all of this occurred before voice chat became a thing. It also kept chat a bit quieter as it took some time to think and type in "Kobo"
Never was there any discussion of real life topics or people's problems, always the focus was on what was happening in the game world, which of course was never referred to as a game, it was the reality.
Forums were used for more in depth communication and they were mostly OOC and in normal language. There people would discuss real life, and being the only place to speak openly were extremely active.
Non allied Kobolds were never bothered or killed (potential future members) and some non human races such as Trolls were given extra leeway.
Griefing was never permitted, unless the player kept returning to the area immediately surrounding the clans claimed keep.
It was publically known by the rest of the server if any member behaved badly they could report it to leadership and the offenders would be put on notice and dealt with.
It was one of the best gaming experience I have ever enjoyed, but you know what?
Often times outsiders would call us "geeky weirdos," which clearly we were.
But we had a great time.....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It is not a coincidence that I always advise players to join a guild, does not matter what type it is, MMOs play better in guilds.
The number of roleplayers as a proportion of any MMOs playerbase has shrunk to a tiny percentage. We fit "smaller" MMOs well, just wondering if SotA is seeing many roleplayers, that sort of game would suit?
So indie is also a good fit for roleplayers, I prefer Massively and but indie does not seem able to give us that. But these days how on earth are you going to fill a Massive server with roleplayers? We seem fragmented, but maybe indie will be a rallying cry for roleplayers to come back to MMOs.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not only is character story distracting. It usually comes at the cost of the world being used as content to feed it and player interaction being dimished. It becomes all about doing quest on your own and nothing else. Rather do that in a Skyeim by myself.
As for the computer game aspect, it's just much harder to do deep role playing, due to the constraints and mechanics of the situation. That Kobold guild of yours sounds exemplary though. Above and beyond, even....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
But to an extent the two cannot be divorced. What annoys me, for example, probably annoys my character also (or at least he or she is affected by my annoyance).
Thanks btw to everyone who posted. It was interesting seeing the various points of view.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.