I'd RP more if I didn't catch guys RPing girls. It's creepy... and... I'm fine with them playing a girl character, but RPing one, no...
On a side note. My best RPing experience was in SWG, it was only one night and it was upon joining an extremely small guild, but I had to much fun...
Roleplaying isn't cyber sex so the difference between someone just playing a girl and someone roleplaying her should be zero. Unless we are talking ERP, that is creepy.
I don't ERP, I just don't like guys RPing girls.
Playing - Champions Online Unsure Of - Darkfall, Star Trek Online Waiting For - Star Wars: The Old Republic, All Points Bulletin Played - Age Of Conan, Everquest II, Mabinogi, Tabula Rasa, Star Wars Galaxies, World Of Warcraft
I'd RP more if I didn't catch guys RPing girls. It's creepy... and... I'm fine with them playing a girl character, but RPing one, no...
On a side note. My best RPing experience was in SWG, it was only one night and it was upon joining an extremely small guild, but I had to much fun...
Really, it doesn't bother me to roleplay with another person playing a female character. Mostly because my characters act no different towards characters of either gender. I'm not out to find a mate for my character in any game, because that IS ERP, and that IS creepy. Once you take any gender bias out of your character, you can almost totally forget whether or not it's a female avatar, and consequently, whether or not it's a guy or girl playing the character.
The only differences I consider when roleplaying with a female character is to use gender appropriate titles. You wouldn't call a female character "M'Lord."
I've seen many mentions of LoTRO as having a great RP community, so I'll have to consider giving that game a try. I never really tried it beyond participating in beta.
And nariusseldon, it seems you may be right. But, it's a sad day for MMORPGs when the players have edged the RP out of it completely.
Haven't you heard? With linear "storyline" gameplay, dev's are basically playing our characters for us.
It's not really that, it's that MMOs just aren't built for roleplaying. Roleplaying requires freedom, MMOs do not provide it. Roleplaying requires the ability to change the world, MMOs generally forbid it. At best, MMOs give you the ability to pretend within a very narrow context, so long as you're playing along within the rules of the game, you can make believe you're taking the role of a character, but those characters have a very limited set of choices. There are very few roles you can take within an MMO, the point of being there is to kill things, get XP, be a gear-whore and advance to end-game. Just talking funny, taking on a few odd eccentricities and hanging around chatting with others doesn't make you a roleplayer.
Originally posted by Torik Originally posted by Meridion Originally posted by Torik I used to be a PnP roleplayer back in my high school and university days yet I could never get into RP in online games. It just seemed too much like LARPing which frankly weirded me out. I guess I was always more into acting like I was in an imaginary world then pretending I was in one.
Where's the difference?
To me the difference is based on letting my characters actions (as controlled by me) define who or what he is. To do that I do not have to speak in character or pretend that my character is motivated by some tragic backstory. My mage is a 'kickass delivery mechanism of fire and arcane mechanism' because it is what I do with him rather than just saying that he is that. My playing the character creates a story and personality rather than me making them up ahead of time and trying to force my actions to fit them. eg my character's actions make him chaotic good rather than me deciding that he is chaotic good and then tailoring my actions to fit that template.
I can dig the distinction here and I tend to do the same thing.
I suppose it is in the 'spirit' of the character rather than an on-the-fly script.
Well...I RP...and out of the games I have played, the best RP communities were in LotRO and AoC...yes, AoC has a good RP community believe it or not...
If you think about it AoC is a great setting for RP, I'm not sure why it would be surprising to have a good RP community there.
Because despite the setting, the game offers few tools to take advantage of it. Combined with the zoning and heavy instancing, there just isn't much of a coherent world feel.
EDIT: in addition the dynamic of having ALL the chars within about 80% the exact same starting story, and are told that they are the ONE whose coming was foretold in the heavens, also kinda detracts from the rp feel of the game, that otherwise should be an awesome rp environment.
It always fascinates me that these threads keep coming up. We role players are out here. We have not gone. We still carry forth the character building, back story making, creative thought and creative writing we have had since the days of TSR and White Wolf. We would gather our twenty sided dice once more if that would help prove that we are here and we are here to stay. It matters not what world we play in, we are there. Come this February you will see many of us in force as STO goes live. And later in the year when TOR is realized, we will be there too.. and every game in between. You will see us. You will hear of our tales. There will always be roleplayers.. always.. onward now I go to create my next character. Now where did I put my trusty d20? :-)
Haven't you heard? With linear "storyline" gameplay, dev's are basically playing our characters for us.
I heard that in TOR they'll be providing a voice over for YOUR character. I suppose some people (ok, a lot) like that but, (reserving full judgement till I see it in practice) it sounds like more of the dev determining who are chars are for us.
It always fascinates me that these threads keep coming up. We role players are out here. We have not gone. We still carry forth the character building, back story making, creative thought and creative writing we have had since the days of TSR and White Wolf. We would gather our twenty sided dice once more if that would help prove that we are here and we are here to stay. It matters not what world we play in, we are there. Come this February you will see many of us in force as STO goes live. And later in the year when TOR is realized, we will be there too.. and every game in between. You will see us. You will hear of our tales. There will always be roleplayers.. always.. onward now I go to create my next character. Now where did I put my trusty d20? :-)
Ok yes, the roleplayers haven't gone anywhere. However as MMO's became mainstream, the ratio of roleplayers to videogameplayers has shifted dramatically towards videogameplayers. As a result, and what I think the real issue is, mmo's are scaling back, removing, or de-emphasizing elements of the game that foster or encourage roleplay, and are more focused on dynamics that just foster play.
The increase in themepark games, overuse of instancing (for the entire gameworld, not just dungeons, for example), gimped communication systems (chat, emote, etc...), no open world housing (housing in an instance outside of the game world is nothing more than a glorified bank), limited or complete lack of social clothing. As I noted in another post, I read that TOR is supposedly providing voiceover for your character. And so on. These are becoming the norm.
And nariusseldon, it seems you may be right. But, it's a sad day for MMORPGs when the players have edged the RP out of it completely.
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
And nariusseldon, it seems you may be right. But, it's a sad day for MMORPGs when the players have edged the RP out of it completely.
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
That would be the result of your misinterpretation of what RPG means in the video game industry. If anything, it has become more true to the definition as time has gone on.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I rp'd my insane Taru-Taru, Lansid... all happy-wappy it made people sicky-wiky... with sudden outbursts of rage and anger screaming Johnny the Homicidal Maniac quotes like "PREPARE ALL ASSES FOR VICIOUS ENTRY!" and when I died "You've broken my secret elbow" or "Yum, Dirt!"
Roleplaying is still out there and still happens, but most of the time we filter it out.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
I just wish more games would let me choose what armor set, weapon, shield appears on my character visually. It throws everything off for me when my character looks like a clown just to function in the rat race.
I miss the days of highly customizable gear appearance. Curse you 3-d engines. At least in MUDS there was no appearances so it didn't matter to me.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Most left when WoW and its clones killed real MMOs and brought in the pseudo Diablo single player games of instant gratification and very very shallow gameplay and RPG elements.
Vanguard had some, but then SoE killed Vanguard. Darkfall also has some, but most of them are the thicker skinned RPers.
And nariusseldon, it seems you may be right. But, it's a sad day for MMORPGs when the players have edged the RP out of it completely.
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
That would be the result of your misinterpretation of what RPG means in the video game industry. If anything, it has become more true to the definition as time has gone on.
I disagree. Definition is, in many cases, applied relatively. Tomatoes "fits" the definition of a vegetable for the cook (and the United States Government); they are however, botanically, a fruit. This is where our disagreement stems from. The term role-playing meant something very different 7 years ago. Originally, that actually meant playing the role of your character not only as a particular class or set of skills, but as a personality altogether unique to you. Nowadays, you could apply that term to any game in which there is a character role assumed by the player, and not directly violate the modern definition of a "role-playing" game. God of War could now be considered a role-playing game in the same vein as World of Warcraft. The only difference between the two here is that in one, the personality is provided for your character, and in the other, it's simply a visual representation of an IP address. Neither qualify in the more traditional definition of the term. And this is what I find discouraging.
We're in the era of MMOGs, phasing out traditional role-playing with each new generation of MMOGs in favor of a more mainstream-friendly appeal. Indeed, as MMOGs start to garner more and more popularity within the general society, I feel world lore and role-playing will become abandoned in favor of developer-shaped avatars deemed "cool" enough to compete with the likes of the Niko Bellic, Lara Croft, and Kratos.
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, when she used it in context with the meaning behind a name. At least from the post, it seems like you're asking where the roleplayers have gone. But I'm no english major hehe :P (engineering)
Playing - FFXIV, ESO Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
I disagree. Definition is, in many cases, applied relatively. Tomatoes "fits" the definition of a vegetable for the cook (and the United States Government); they are however, botanically, a fruit. This is where our disagreement stems from. The term role-playing meant something very different 7 years ago. Originally, that actually meant playing the role of your character not only as a particular class or set of skills, but as a personality altogether unique to you. Nowadays, you could apply that term to any game in which there is a character role assumed by the player, and not directly violate the modern definition of a "role-playing" game. God of War could now be considered a role-playing game in the same vein as World of Warcraft. The only difference between the two here is that in one, the personality is provided for your character, and in the other, it's simply a visual representation of an IP address. Neither qualify in the more traditional definition of the term. And this is what I find discouraging. We're in the era of MMOGs, phasing out traditional role-playing with each new generation of MMOGs in favor of a more mainstream-friendly appeal. Indeed, as MMOGs start to garner more and more popularity within the general society, I feel world lore and role-playing will become abandoned in favor of developer-shaped avatars deemed "cool" enough to compete with the likes of the Niko Bellic, Lara Croft, and Kratos.
This is a very thoughtful and truthful post. Also a sad post in the truth of it. We are seeing the RPG elements of the mmorpg disappear more and more as we watch.
Originally MMO’s were a online dreamland for roleplayers, but that was a long time ago. Since then we have seen the games flooded with players who think you are roleplaying when you play a single player RPG. We also got a reputation for being difficult and demanding more, which was catered for when we were are larger proportion of the MMO population. Now the sad fact is we are not needed, MMO’s are awash with people who are not roleplayers so why bother to spend so much time and money on roleplayers?
I do not see sandbox MMO as being more suitable to roleplayers than a theme park game. But with the shift to theme park MMOs has come a loss of nearly all RP tools and a supremacy of graphics over all other design considerations.
But I regard us to blame too, we bought into the lure of better graphics and who is saying lets go back and play a really old game that has good RP?
Many roleplayers gave up on MMO’s, you can still find small communities in the likes of AoC Hyrkania server and Lotro Laurelin server, for those in Europe.
Comments
Roleplaying isn't cyber sex so the difference between someone just playing a girl and someone roleplaying her should be zero. Unless we are talking ERP, that is creepy.
I don't ERP, I just don't like guys RPing girls.
Playing - Champions Online
Unsure Of - Darkfall, Star Trek Online
Waiting For - Star Wars: The Old Republic, All Points Bulletin
Played - Age Of Conan, Everquest II, Mabinogi, Tabula Rasa, Star Wars Galaxies, World Of Warcraft
Because RPing is not fun for most people.
The core of modern MMORPG are hack-n-slash, progression and minmaxing. Most players would care less about other things.
Really, it doesn't bother me to roleplay with another person playing a female character. Mostly because my characters act no different towards characters of either gender. I'm not out to find a mate for my character in any game, because that IS ERP, and that IS creepy. Once you take any gender bias out of your character, you can almost totally forget whether or not it's a female avatar, and consequently, whether or not it's a guy or girl playing the character.
The only differences I consider when roleplaying with a female character is to use gender appropriate titles. You wouldn't call a female character "M'Lord."
I've seen many mentions of LoTRO as having a great RP community, so I'll have to consider giving that game a try. I never really tried it beyond participating in beta.
And nariusseldon, it seems you may be right. But, it's a sad day for MMORPGs when the players have edged the RP out of it completely.
Used to be in the RP community... the ERPers pretty much soiled every one of my old grounds....
...I wish PSU had a stronger community, though... it's an awesome world to play with
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
It's not really that, it's that MMOs just aren't built for roleplaying. Roleplaying requires freedom, MMOs do not provide it. Roleplaying requires the ability to change the world, MMOs generally forbid it. At best, MMOs give you the ability to pretend within a very narrow context, so long as you're playing along within the rules of the game, you can make believe you're taking the role of a character, but those characters have a very limited set of choices. There are very few roles you can take within an MMO, the point of being there is to kill things, get XP, be a gear-whore and advance to end-game. Just talking funny, taking on a few odd eccentricities and hanging around chatting with others doesn't make you a roleplayer.
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
To me the difference is based on letting my characters actions (as controlled by me) define who or what he is. To do that I do not have to speak in character or pretend that my character is motivated by some tragic backstory. My mage is a 'kickass delivery mechanism of fire and arcane mechanism' because it is what I do with him rather than just saying that he is that. My playing the character creates a story and personality rather than me making them up ahead of time and trying to force my actions to fit them.
eg my character's actions make him chaotic good rather than me deciding that he is chaotic good and then tailoring my actions to fit that template.
I can dig the distinction here and I tend to do the same thing.
I suppose it is in the 'spirit' of the character rather than an on-the-fly script.
If you think about it AoC is a great setting for RP, I'm not sure why it would be surprising to have a good RP community there.
Because despite the setting, the game offers few tools to take advantage of it. Combined with the zoning and heavy instancing, there just isn't much of a coherent world feel.
EDIT: in addition the dynamic of having ALL the chars within about 80% the exact same starting story, and are told that they are the ONE whose coming was foretold in the heavens, also kinda detracts from the rp feel of the game, that otherwise should be an awesome rp environment.
It always fascinates me that these threads keep coming up. We role players are out here. We have not gone. We still carry forth the character building, back story making, creative thought and creative writing we have had since the days of TSR and White Wolf. We would gather our twenty sided dice once more if that would help prove that we are here and we are here to stay. It matters not what world we play in, we are there. Come this February you will see many of us in force as STO goes live. And later in the year when TOR is realized, we will be there too.. and every game in between. You will see us. You will hear of our tales. There will always be roleplayers.. always.. onward now I go to create my next character. Now where did I put my trusty d20? :-)
I heard that in TOR they'll be providing a voice over for YOUR character. I suppose some people (ok, a lot) like that but, (reserving full judgement till I see it in practice) it sounds like more of the dev determining who are chars are for us.
Ok yes, the roleplayers haven't gone anywhere. However as MMO's became mainstream, the ratio of roleplayers to videogameplayers has shifted dramatically towards videogameplayers. As a result, and what I think the real issue is, mmo's are scaling back, removing, or de-emphasizing elements of the game that foster or encourage roleplay, and are more focused on dynamics that just foster play.
The increase in themepark games, overuse of instancing (for the entire gameworld, not just dungeons, for example), gimped communication systems (chat, emote, etc...), no open world housing (housing in an instance outside of the game world is nothing more than a glorified bank), limited or complete lack of social clothing. As I noted in another post, I read that TOR is supposedly providing voiceover for your character. And so on. These are becoming the norm.
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
That would be the result of your misinterpretation of what RPG means in the video game industry. If anything, it has become more true to the definition as time has gone on.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I rp'd my insane Taru-Taru, Lansid... all happy-wappy it made people sicky-wiky... with sudden outbursts of rage and anger screaming Johnny the Homicidal Maniac quotes like "PREPARE ALL ASSES FOR VICIOUS ENTRY!" and when I died "You've broken my secret elbow" or "Yum, Dirt!"
Roleplaying is still out there and still happens, but most of the time we filter it out.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
I just wish more games would let me choose what armor set, weapon, shield appears on my character visually. It throws everything off for me when my character looks like a clown just to function in the rat race.
I miss the days of highly customizable gear appearance. Curse you 3-d engines. At least in MUDS there was no appearances so it didn't matter to me.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Most left when WoW and its clones killed real MMOs and brought in the pseudo Diablo single player games of instant gratification and very very shallow gameplay and RPG elements.
Vanguard had some, but then SoE killed Vanguard. Darkfall also has some, but most of them are the thicker skinned RPers.
I just wanted to say that "wherefore" does not mean "where" hehe... Should've learned that in your high school lit class :P
Playing - FFXIV, ESO
Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW
"Sad" is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe so, but no matter who the beholder is, you cannot deny seeing the "RP" in MMORPG. And the fact that players (and even devs) are slowly leaving this out, bit by bit, is a slight to the genre.
That would be the result of your misinterpretation of what RPG means in the video game industry. If anything, it has become more true to the definition as time has gone on.
I disagree. Definition is, in many cases, applied relatively. Tomatoes "fits" the definition of a vegetable for the cook (and the United States Government); they are however, botanically, a fruit. This is where our disagreement stems from. The term role-playing meant something very different 7 years ago. Originally, that actually meant playing the role of your character not only as a particular class or set of skills, but as a personality altogether unique to you. Nowadays, you could apply that term to any game in which there is a character role assumed by the player, and not directly violate the modern definition of a "role-playing" game. God of War could now be considered a role-playing game in the same vein as World of Warcraft. The only difference between the two here is that in one, the personality is provided for your character, and in the other, it's simply a visual representation of an IP address. Neither qualify in the more traditional definition of the term. And this is what I find discouraging.
We're in the era of MMOGs, phasing out traditional role-playing with each new generation of MMOGs in favor of a more mainstream-friendly appeal. Indeed, as MMOGs start to garner more and more popularity within the general society, I feel world lore and role-playing will become abandoned in favor of developer-shaped avatars deemed "cool" enough to compete with the likes of the Niko Bellic, Lara Croft, and Kratos.
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, when she used it in context with the meaning behind a name. At least from the post, it seems like you're asking where the roleplayers have gone. But I'm no english major hehe :P (engineering)
Playing - FFXIV, ESO
Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW
Actually, learning the difference between "wherefore" and "where" would occur in an English composition class... In a literature class, you would learn things like the reason I would choose to use the term "wherefore," when "where" is compositionally correct. Hint: Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet.
Oh so "wherefore" can be synonymous with "where?" I was just going off of what I remembered from Romeo and Juliet, where she used it in context with the meaning behind a name.
Ahh, and here I thought you hadn't studied the play. Shame on my arrogance. But surely you would recognize that the only reason I would opt to use "wherefore" instead of "where" is to maintain semblance to the famous line. Saying "Where Art Thou, Roleplayers" just doesn't provide the same amount of pizzazz that using the original line, save for substituting for Romeo, does. It's not only harder to recognize the connection, but it also throws the number of syllables off, further detracting from my pizzazz. Now leave my pizzazz alone!
Ah so you just wanted to make an eye-catching title, fair enough :P. It worked very well; I wouldn't have clicked on it otherwise hehe
Playing - FFXIV, ESO
Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW
Haha, it did make you click, even if it wasn't because of my original intention, but just because you recognized grammatical absurdity of it all!
This is a very thoughtful and truthful post. Also a sad post in the truth of it. We are seeing the RPG elements of the mmorpg disappear more and more as we watch.
Originally MMO’s were a online dreamland for roleplayers, but that was a long time ago. Since then we have seen the games flooded with players who think you are roleplaying when you play a single player RPG. We also got a reputation for being difficult and demanding more, which was catered for when we were are larger proportion of the MMO population. Now the sad fact is we are not needed, MMO’s are awash with people who are not roleplayers so why bother to spend so much time and money on roleplayers?
I do not see sandbox MMO as being more suitable to roleplayers than a theme park game. But with the shift to theme park MMOs has come a loss of nearly all RP tools and a supremacy of graphics over all other design considerations.
But I regard us to blame too, we bought into the lure of better graphics and who is saying lets go back and play a really old game that has good RP?
Many roleplayers gave up on MMO’s, you can still find small communities in the likes of AoC Hyrkania server and Lotro Laurelin server, for those in Europe.