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What ever happened to roleplaying in MMOs?
xblast5000
Member Posts: 68
I'm a bit of a roleplayer I like every name and every guild name to realistic of the type of game. Also talking as though you were actually your toon. Most MMOs have roleplaying server, but it is like why bother. Most people don't even follow the rules. WoW is the number one game with ignorant people that don't know what roleplaying. When I played WoW which was over a year ago I started a character on the roleplaying server. I look at the names around me and already I see one that isn't acceptable. I told him the server is roleplaying and responded with what is that?
We can't let roleplaying die, it is the basis of MMORPG.
We can't let roleplaying die, it is the basis of MMORPG.
Comments
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
They intreduced something stupid, A Lvl system this made mmorpg totally unrealistic and Roleplaying died with it.
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
I used to think the very same.
You mention WOW ... I searched all the MMOs for roleplay. And found nothing.
Sure there is few odd bunch that roleplays here and there , but they are as rare as it gets.
It is funny , i tried to form Roleplay guild on EQ2 - Most people around didnt know what roleplaying is , some even thought it is some kind of kinky sexual perversion
The truth is , todays MMOS are not designed with roleplay in mind. Some give you brute option to roleplay , while some do great job in preventing any possibility of roleplaying at all (DDO jumps to mind)
In short ROLEPLAYING died some time ago , we are just the lingering generation of roleplayers.
Your best bet will be NWN , since the nature of private run servers enables admins and DM's to enforce roleplaying and promote it as the way of playing....
Other than that
Just forget it
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
The primary problem is that MMO's are very poor RPG's. (I always find it ironic that there are "special" RPG servers in MMORPG's)
Anyway, there is a fundamental difference between RPG's and MMO's. I've made a few post in the past about it. Basically you have no real "role" to play in an MMO. You are a set of statisics with different skills based mainly on classes. While MMO's have some of the mechanical features of RPG's (Classes, levels, mobs, dungeons, loot) the are missing the role element.
In a nutshell most MMO's do not allow for any sort of real impact on the world, and there is no real consiquence of action or morality.
Most MMO have you kill mobs until your stats/level are to a point where the game introduces a new mechanical feature like raiding of capture the flag.
MMO's are missing the core elements of RP. They are modeled more after interactive arcade games.
take a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_playing_games
According to Tracy Hickman’s convictions and experience expressed in his books, novels and essays[1], in roleplaying, the characters must constantly be confronted with problems and situations strongly based on their morality, so that they face the ethical dilemma of being faithful to their beliefs or betraying them, and players must be aware of the consequences of their decisions, within the conscience of the role the player chose to play at the beginning of the game. To Hickman, roleplaying is an exploration of ethical choice; in his words, "The characters['] actions in a role playing game must have lawful consequences just as surely as we expect a mace to do damage. Anything else would be a lie ... Good fantasy demands ethics and good fantasy role playing demands ethical play and design."[2]
Totally agreed Torak.
Actually you will sonn realise that RPG in MMORPG does not stand for ROLEPLAY but rather for "computer RPG" as seen in games like DIABLO - this games are termed RPG because they all share mechanic of improving your character over levels , and not because of any MORAL choices you are forced to make...
Only moral choice in computer RPG's is " Should i kill 1000 goblins or 1000 harpies?"
In lack of better name we call this RPG - same way as we call games like Red Alert or Warcraft RTS = Real time strategy. When in fact they deal with tactics and not strategy.
As soon you come to realise this the better MMORPG doesnt stand for roleplay. Unfortunately
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
EVE is the best game to roleplay. you want to roleplay a scammer? do it. want to roleplay a pirate? do it. want to roleplay a bounty hunter? do it. a honorable corp leader? do it. a humble miner? there you go. a religious fanatical? go for it. a banker that later turns into a thief? of course. an investor? a mercenaire? a traitor? ruthless assassin? you want to start your own cruiser business? BPO reselling?
everything is possible. only limit is your imagination. roleplaying is not starting every sentence with "thee" or killing dwarfs with your level 58 elf archer. EVE offers you the possiblity of being another person on a virtual persistant universe. and that is the very definition of roleplaying. and most careers dont even need ingame skills, just your own personal skills and imagination. ingame skill only make it easir to succeed or make profit.
of course, if you need to see your own butt crawl and jump and be able to use emoticons to roleplay, then EVE is not for you.
The design of most mmorpgs kills roleplaying even for people who want to roleplay.
What generally happens is that even if you want to roleplay you'll find that it's like swimming upstream. You have to do it in spite of the game design and the community attitudes created by the game design.
I could write a lengthy analysis of this but I won't. A quick summation would go something like this:
Most mmorpgs are more like online arcade games than virtual worlds. Roleplaying in these arcade style games not only feels pointless it is almost impossible. Roleplaying should happen naturally, it shouldn't feel forced. Roleplaying will stay dead untill developers have the will and the technology to provide us with something more like a world and less like a multiplayer arcade game.
I believe role-playing is far from dead, it's just so that it doesn't happen much in your typical run-of-the-mill MMORPG. Hehe, we don't even call them MMORPGs any more, many people just call them MMOs instead, abandoning even the slightest hint to role-playing. But in my opinion that's not really the fault of the developers but instead has a lot to do with the community, i.e. the type of gamers that tend to play a certain game.
And why would someone looking for a role-playing experience join these popular games anyway? There's just no point in it. For a role-player it doesn't matter whether you're playing a game with 30 other people or with 3.000.000, thus if you're looking for a role-playing community then don't look at the popular games, look at the unique ones that have a certain atmosphere, that have some original style and you'll find a community much more friendly to role-playing.
Amongst the current crop of MMOs it's certainly Ryzom and probably EvE that have the most role-playing friendly community (we might even call these games MMORPGs, hehe) - and of course there's always NWN. I believe that these games also tend to attract a more mature community and role-players are mostly found amongst the more mature
gamers - and please note that maturity is not necessarily the same as
age: Believe me, I've seen 13 year old kids acting more mature than others twice
their age.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
C
1) UO
2) SWG-Classic
3) EVE
Sure there's some roleplay in other MMORPG's but in all of those there is too much grind and not enough RP. Any level based game will kill RP because all anyone cares about is getting to the next level. In UO this wasn't the case because it was skill based. Sure you had a few macro grinders who would max their skills as fast as possible but for the most part the game was chock-stock-full of Role Players (and still is)
SWG Classic was also skill based. It was done a little differently from UO but it was still a skill based system and had even MORE features in it to encourage players to roleplay and force social interaction. The hologrind killed some of it but the roleplay was still very strongly encouraged and survived through that. Then NGE came and killed it. Now Roleplay is next to non-existent in SWG because all the real incentives/encouragements for roleplay are gone, for the large part. Now people just run around solo till much later and never group and rarely talk (except to guildmates.
EVE is the closest thing to UO there is. And, as a previous pointer said... it's roleplay is much more visceral. In EVE you don't so much as 'pretend' to be what you are... you ARE what you are. Your reputation sticks to you in EVE. If you are a jerk in the game your reputation will grow and people will grow to hate you. Your actions have a direct and meaningful impact on the game.
Other than those three titles I have not played any other MMORPG's that encourage roleplay anywhere near that level.
So, no, MMORPG's are not, by their very nature, inimical to roleplay. It's how they are designed that either encourages it or kills it. The EQ Clone syndrome is more of the cause of lack of RP because that particular title begain the root of what causes players not to roleplay: The ultimate goal is to *level* and *get phat lewtz*. NOT to interact with other players.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Roleplaying didn't go down the drain, new games just havne't given a good platform for Roleplaying at all.
Or else, you're looking for the kind of roleplaying that is dormant, there are many varieties. Thee thou, and thy
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
Roleplay is a balance issue. It works when there is some balance between races, skills, classes, and gear. When one race/class/skill/gear combo becomes better than all the others, that's when you get a very roleplay unfriendly environment.
For example, let's say that the game background says that there are three rival races: Orcs, Humans, and Elves. Orcs are good at hand to hand, Elves are good at healing, and Humans are good at ranged combat. Orcs can use bows, and Elves can used ranged weapons, but the best Human at range will always beat the best Elf or Orc at range.
So then, what you end up getting is a handfull of Elf roleplaying groups, a handful of Human roleplaying groups, and a handfull of Orc roleplaying groups. 2/3rds of which choose to play gimped characters in the same skillset, and get owned all the time by anyone other than roleplayers that force continuity.
Then you have the powergamers and powergamer wannabes that have only Orcs as hand to hand fighters, only Elves as healers, and only Humans as bowmen. They own everyone else, but they do it because they choose to throw the background out the window when it comes to playing, and who can blame them? The game is stacked against someone who follows the background, and tries to create some immersion by sticking with continuity.
EVE is like all the other games out there in this respect. If you look for it, you can find some corps and players that try and stay true to the background fiction. The vast majority of the players I have seen though just want ISK, T2, and kills on the killboard; so they'll roll up whatever sort of character/ship/skill combo works the best, and they only look at race as a set of numbers, and nothing they need to sustain continuity-wise.
You have to do it too, if you want to survive against players who are willing to throw immersion out the window to gain an advantage. Its why I see Caldari ships being piloted by Amarr, and why I see Caldari pilots in the Minmatar corps that oppose them.
To me, if we are going to roleplay, then its got to be about playing a character, and not playing as yourself. The problem is that MMOs today often makes players choose a compromised gameplay by acting in character, or a more effective gameplay if they choose to throw immersion out the window. They are about the game mechanics, and as a player you just control the character, and are not obligated to make the character believable. Especially if it can get in the way of functionality for your guild, or it limits your gameplay efficacy.
So given that choice, its no wonder why roleplaying is in the dumps. If roleplaying means that you get gimped because you are using the equipment that is appropriate and fitting for your race, then roleplay cannot work.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
wow, wrong from the first sentence. that is some serius skills you got there
How do you explain why most pilots in Aegis Militia fly Caldari rather than Amarr? Or why everybody is rolling Caldari rather than the other three races? Because Caldari missiles and defence pwn, and so why gimp yourself when you can just break continuity and twink out?
Just like all the stone brutes in CoV.
Or all the Paladins and Shamans out in WoW.
Or the reason that everybody was dressed in composite armor rather than the faction armor in SWG.
Nobody wants to roleplay a gimp. That's why everybody goes for the best combo of race/skills/class/gear, and there is usually one combo that is better than the rest, continuity be damned.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
How do you explain why most pilots in Aegis Militia fly Caldari rather than Amarr? Or why everybody is rolling Caldari rather than the other three races? Because Caldari missiles and defence pwn, and so why gimp yourself when you can just break continuity and twink out?
---------------------------
Nobody wants to roleplay a gimp. That's why everybody goes for the best combo of race/skills/class/gear, and there is usually one combo that is better than the rest, continuity be damned.
why then all the topics on the forums about boosting, nerfing and balancing? if everybody was flying caldari you wouldnt see so many "nerf the raven" topics, or if everybody had trained for the domi we wouldnt see so many "nerf heavy nosfes" topics. why then everyday there are at least 3 topics asking to boost minmatar and to give another damage type to lasers?
why is everybody saying how overpowered the vagabond is? just train for one!!!! why are minmatars crying about the midslots on their new tier 3 BS? or the bonus on their carrier?
but dont worry. your problem lies much more deeper. it doesnt matter if you are actually right and everybody is training for a raven. what you dont understand is that doing that is in fact roleplaying. if i want to be a miner, i will train for the covetor, which is supposedly a minmatar ship, even though i may be caldari or gallente, but the covetor is the best easily-available mining ship. if i want to be a trader, i will train for a iteron 5, since its the best industrial ship, and it doesnt matter that i am amarr, i just want to be an efective trader. if i want to be a pirate, i will train for a vagabond or a pilgrim, although i am caldari, because those are 2 of the best pirating ships.
see? i do not roleplay a race. i am not roleplaying a caldari. i am roleplaying a caldari pirate. and i want to use the best ship for my career. or i could be roleplaying an amarr working for the Empire, so i will try to train for a Raven, since is the best ship to do the missions with.
you got your roleplaying definition crippled. there is much more than being an amarr religious fanatic, a rebel minmatar, a hedonistic gallente and a proud caldari.
im new to the Genre and im a roleplayer, i think its fun being a hero from the middle ages not just a guy who plays computer games.
Groth Zyrat
or
Carpsyco
cmc.mrx.ca/
Awesome Free Trading Card Game!