Wouldn't it be cool if it was like that? But it's not. The 'so-called' roleplay servers are either a) Very underpopulated, and still weak, or b) not really roleplaying at all.
You'd think that, with a massively availible world, hundreds of locations, and a basically moldable world, MMORPGs would foster scores of beautiful roleplaying.
Well, I guess someone forgot to tell everyone.
Yes. There are people who roleplay brilliantly. But they seem to be in the minority. There seem to be retards who refuse to take the game at least in the slightest bit seriously, when it is supposed to be. I mean, come on, what were you thinking when you named your character Phatlewt McGroinGrabber ON A ROLEPLAY SERVER? (I've never seen that, but I've seen some bad ones)
In fact, that's the main problem. Not casual gamers, who just play the game. Don't get me wrong. I roleplay, and sometimes, I just goof around with friends, killing monsters and feats of stupidity. But, the people who deliberately seem to ruin the enviroment, or refuse to adapt to it. It brings down the level of everything.
Heck, even the games themselves seem to cater to the 'gasp I am l33t look at me 10101010101 crowd. Quests are sometimes lacking in thought,creativity, and fun factor (EQ especially), and, a beautiful story is marred by 13 hours of camping UglyFace. I mean, I want the reward, but a story is nice too. But it isn't fun if I only get to hear it after agonizing work.
And, as mentioned previously, quests are barely even an integral part of gaining 'levels' (even though it should). There should be more emphasis on fulfilling the world's needs and becoming a true adventurer, strong as well as famous for helping those in need.
Also, somebody has got to try a dynamic quest or two. Jeesh. At least give us a chance.
So, I guess, the question is, are game makers ruining roleplaying? Or are gamers themselves?
Only the truly dedicated roleplay, and those that might have an interest are turned off.
How do we retard-proof games? How do we show developers that we want to experience the world, not just access it?
[ 06-01-2003: Message edited by: Drysart ]
Basically, there would be no camping. There would be monsters roaming around, but these would just be weak little monsters. Killing random monsters would give you no experience (as in, exactly 0), and a bit of loot. There would also be the occasional powerful random monster, such as a gnoll general, that would give some experience and better loot, but these would mainly be for player-made quests (eg. Killing Gnoll officers).
The main source of experience and loot would be quests. You'd get experience for completing a quest, and a reward, usually money. There would be some quests where you got armour or weapons, and even a few quests that allow you to upgrade existing armour or weapons. So, basically, doing quests would be the best way to advance the game. Also, you'd only be able to do each quest once, meaning that once you've killed a quest monster, you can't kill it again. Even if you're camping its spawn point. Nor will it be able to attack you.
quote:
The Ruvyenator had this to say about Robocop:
I had an MMORPG idea once.Basically, there would be no camping. There would be monsters roaming around, but these would just be weak little monsters. Killing random monsters would give you no experience (as in, exactly 0), and a bit of loot. There would also be the occasional powerful random monster, such as a gnoll general, that would give some experience and better loot, but these would mainly be for player-made quests (eg. Killing Gnoll officers).
The main source of experience and loot would be quests. You'd get experience for completing a quest, and a reward, usually money. There would be some quests where you got armour or weapons, and even a few quests that allow you to upgrade existing armour or weapons. So, basically, doing quests would be the best way to advance the game. Also, you'd only be able to do each quest once, meaning that once you've killed a quest monster, you can't kill it again. Even if you're camping its spawn point. Nor will it be able to attack you.
That sounds almost exactly like Anarchy Online. It would just make the quests the treadmills and we would get nowhere.
Don't make it.
Yes, I know its harsh, but its true.
When you make a game for a mass market of hundreds of thousands, there will be many that dont want ot roleplay still. Even if the game was quest driven, there would still be people that wouldn't roleplay.
The ONLY way to force roleplay completely is to fully control your environment. IF a game maker were to fully control the game environment, you could possibly have a game where roleplay was commonplace, and then on roleplayers were the ones ostracized. As it is, you can't do that without extremely high costs -- I mean, look at how many people scoffed at the 40 dollars EQ legends costs -- it would cost that or MORE to have a guaranteed roleplay environment.
If you want a true RP environment, you need to do it with like minded people, and then you can get somewhere in an MMORPG. I've been parts of groups that did this, and it was a blast. We roleplayed, and roleplayed, and had loads of fun doing so.
But your best bet for roleplay? A small gaming session with a few buddies, offline.
As a reply to Tael -- I doubt hiding skills would help. I consider myself to be a roleplayer big time, but hiding skills would make me and many other roleplayers angry -- Note how in EQ near everyone was upset with all the stuff that was "hidden" from the user. I want to know what my stats do. Now, if you were to make an RPG where stats had less effect on the game, I could understand the argument.
But I am also a big fan of the "get skill by doing" camp. Something in DAOC that never made sense to me: As a nightshade, I could use piercing weapons my entire life...yet choose to get better at bladed weapons when I level up?
I kinda like how Morrowind handled stats and such in that respect. Theo nes you used most got to get the most points when you levelled up, IIRC. [ 05-31-2003: Message edited by: Falaanla Marr ]
I'm talking about fostering RP. I mean, come on, some games don't even try that hard when they really could take a few extra steps to enhance the overall experience.
And neither do I mean everyone HAS to roleplay.
But, in games, especially in EQ, to roleplay is to like...not play the game. I mean, there's all this backstory but it's not even important or anything.
The game and the story should NOT be two seperate entities.
I mean, there are people who are interested in it, but are turned off because there's no real point to roleplaying. I hate to say this, but, it should be rewarded. [ 05-31-2003: Message edited by: Lenlalron Flameblaster ]
How are you going ot foster RP anyway?
As a roleplayer m'self, I can tell you that sometimes... you just want to play the game. You don't want to go in and get your emotions all twined up in the daily drama of your character (think about it: if your life was in any way as hectic as your character's, suicide would abound. You have to worry about grades and family, they have to worry about being SKEWERED BY DEMONS AND HAVING THEIR CORPSE RITUALLY RAPED. DAILY.). Sometimes you want it, sometimes you just want to go in and kill some crap. And it can get annoying when you DO want to go get a pepsi and someone insists you're an insult to their god and wants to kill you. Roleplaying is fun as all hell and I love it, but sometimes, you DO need a break.
And I believe that while you CAN make an effort to promote roleplaying, most gamers will look at it as a game first, an opportunity for roleplay second.
Enforcing is a whole different story, and Nicole's MUD is a bit on the extreme side, but, Roleplayers are a small breed (although the internet has helped to increase such).
I'm chasing straws, but you must admit that at least the MMORPGs don't really put forth fully enough effort for true roleplaying, when people wish to roleplay in a sense.
If only dynamic quests were usable...
The people that want to powergame will ignore them unless they provide a benefit.
The ONLY way to convince a powergamer to roleplay is to make role playing hte number 1 way to advance your character.
Which, of course, no game company will EVER do, since d00ds spend their parents' money in droves on games and are the companies' meal tickets.
Thinking about your posts
(and billing you for it) since 2001
One, set it so that you can make any race/class combo. First you choose the race that you're aligned with (who rased you, who trained you, ect). Second, choose your own race and set your stats. Next, you choose any class that the aligned race can be. Pick your aligned race's city (only real choice is if you're aligned with human or half-elf), and you're good to go.
Two, set the level cap back to level 50. THIS IS IMPORTANT! That way, not only do you avoid the balance issues of a level 65 Ogre Monk, but you also make it so that people on this server will NEVER be the "best" at what they do when compared to what people on other servers can do.
Three, cut EXP in half. (Ok, maybe not half, but take a good chunk out of it.) Slow down everyone's leveling. By now, the only reason to play there is because of the unusual characters you can make there. Someone out to simply powergame will go to another server to play.
Four, give EXP for time spent online and active. Running, swimming, fishing, talking, fighting, blacksmithing, anything that requires more than just standing there. (Maybe a set amount of movements/button pushes/clicks a minute to tell?) Set it so that it gives some good EXP, but not the best you can get (1 blue/hour maybe?).
Five. Remember that bit they had were you could play as a random monster? Put that in. For some zones (ie: Blackburrow, Runnyeye) put in a chat channel that only the monster players in that zone can use to talk to each other. That way, the Blackburrow Gnolls can actually work together to defend their home, making it much different from the same old-same old that it usually is.
Six, some GMs would be nice. GM events and quests can add alot to such a server (and for the more powerful quests, they can give away some of the items that the level capped players will never earn the usual way). The first GM to pull the "High level GM monsters wipe out the lowbie zone" event get slapped in the face and kicked in the ass.
And that's how I would make a RP server for EQ. [ 05-31-2003: Message edited by: Palador ChibiDragon ]
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Gydfather said:
You foster roleplay by creating a game that is advertised for roleplayers. You make a point of saying you don't want d00ds.Which, of course, no game company will EVER do, since d00ds spend their parents' money in droves on games and are the companies' meal tickets.
Wont work.
You make a roleplay server, say you want RPers. you get 25% RPers, 75% doods who figure the RPers wont get in their way at the high end game
quote:
Falaanla Marr had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Wont work.You make a roleplay server, say you want RPers. you get 25% RPers, 75% doods who figure the RPers wont get in their way at the high end game
OMG U MISSED the LAST PART OF MY POST OMG LOLGLGDDGD
Thinking about your posts
(and billing you for it) since 2001
quote:
Falaanla Marr stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
You make a roleplay server, say you want RPers. you get 25% RPers, 75% doods who figure the RPers wont get in their way at the high end game
And if you remove the "high end game" from that server?
quote:
Palador ChibiDragon had this to say about Duck Tales:
And if you remove the "high end game" from that server?
Then you get people whining about the lack of high end content.
Like they are with SWG.
quote:
Taeldian wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
Then you get people whining about the lack of high end content.Like they are with SWG.
Yeah, but those people are the type that'll run through high end and ask for more.
That's not to say you can't have a roleplaying game though. You just can't have a roleplayign MMOG. MUDs have encouraged roleplaying for years now, but they smaller playerbase and a more easily changable universe. Of course, MUDs still aren't MMOGs, they're still small and use text over graphics.
The closest thing you'll see is the niche market, with games like A Tale in the Desert. ATitD is a small game focused ONLY on crafting. There's no combat at all. Once again though, there's a problem. Its hard to define the game as a MMOG because of its small size, and its certainly not a game focusing on the type of roleplaying that most here would like. It avoids the powergamers, for the most part, because there's simply no combat at all.
quote:
Palador ChibiDragon painfully thought these words up:
And if you remove the "high end game" from that server?
Then you still get doods who will say they made it to 50 and it was that much harder, and they will do it to proclaim their superiority.
I can't find the issue at the moment, but it does sound promising...
I hate the xp grind personally even though I can pretty easily grind through the neccecary levels to get to where I want to be, I'd love for a system that bases progression of one's character on more than the ability to slaughter endless streams of mobs that couldn't pose a threat to you under any stretch of the imagination. Or pair both of them up. Say at every few levels you have to beat an instanced 'trial' to be able to progress. At 10 you'd have to kill a lvl 15 mob with a group, at 45 you'd have to kill the ghoul lord, at 60 a BoT mini, etc. Embed those into quests and there you go.
Also most people even at the high end love for things they kill to have a meaning, that's in part what made a lot of upper Luclin feel boring. The mobs have no backtory, they're just sitting there for some unknown reason. The feeling of accomplishment (what drives me, don't know about others) is far greater if you can say 'I killed the king of the frost giants' after a hard fight than if the only thing you are left with is 'well, some snake is dead, I think it was a big snake'. On a related note, Velious and it's faction system have some of the best written quests in the game, even from a story perspective.
Plane of Time and most of PoP have storyline they go by. You won't be killing any zone bosses in PoP without knowing why you're after them. Time itself has a lot of story and dialogue between NPCs embedded into it. If a RP guild took on the Planes they could be perfectly happy up there.
The problem here is that some people want to have the cake and eat it too. On one hand you want to be able to progress your character, but on the other you don't want anyone else to be able to do it more efficiently than you chose to do it yourself. It seems to me that the premise is that you want a game that you can be the best in without investing a lot of effort, and in which noone will want to surpass you because the reward for it is not there.
This won't work since you can 'powergame' anything, it's a mode of thinking some people apply to games. They set a goal, and then think up the most efficient way to reach it, this is how I approach problems in RL too, applying it to games is someting I do for EQ and some others, those I don't play for pure relaxation. The only way to deter this type of person is to have a game with no goals at all, basically a graphic chatroom with some enviroment slapped into it, and even there you'll have those that will enjoy dreaming up the best skill combinations, hell D&D with a live GM is the most roleplay-friendly enviroment around and still you have lots of people (munchkins) who enjoy playing the numbers and working out the maximum average damage per round of their characters.
Also, why does it disturb you if someone 'proclaims their superiority' based on their level. Either speed of leveling doesn't matter to you and thus you don't care per definition, or leveling speed is indeed something you want to attain and thus he is in a way right in declaring superiority over you, since he did better in attaining level X.
Don't be shortsighted and fall for the trap of 'people asking for high end content are taking our developer time away'. The high end content of today is your content of tomorrow. Guk, Shawl / Ring quests, Solb, Chardok, Sebilis, Maiden, Kunark dragons, Vox & Naggy, VP, ToV, BoT all used to be places for the 'uber', now they're populated by people who range from casual to not quite high end. Note that the zones don't come down crashing on you on a regular basis, the scripts work unless you're really unlucky, all the quest drops actually drop, the loot is semi-balanced for the effort and untwinked level and the mobs are fairly well tuned, an effect of the hated bitching of evil high-end 'd00dz'.
[ 06-02-2003: Message edited by: Shazorx / Modrakien ]
[EDITs 1-5 I have the writing style of a 5th grader]
quote:
Shazorx / Modrakien enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
Guk, Shawl / Ring quests, Solb, Chardok, Sebilis, Maiden, Kunark dragons, Vox & Naggy, VP, ToV, BoT all used to be places for the 'uber', now they're populated by people who range from casual to not quite high end.
[/small]
To a more finely detailed point: I remember when I first saw a wood elf ranger running around in full bronze with a couple mino axes in hand. I never thought they were godly and I'd never be as good as they were. I remember when a Robe of the Keeper or FBR were pretty damn hot items. Now people destroy stuff 10 times better than all that. We've come a long way 
.png)
quote:
And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Nwizzle Fo' Shizzle was all like:
To a more finely detailed point: I remember when I first saw a wood elf ranger running around in full bronze with a couple mino axes in hand. I never thought they were godly and I'd never be as good as they were. I remember when a Robe of the Keeper or FBR were pretty damn hot items. Now people destroy stuff 10 times better than all that. We've come a long way
Doubt it was a ranger you saw since bronze = plate.
quote:
Shazorx / Modrakien had this to say about dark elf butts:
Doubt it was a ranger you saw since bronze = plate.
I was a noob. I thought every wood elf and his mom was a ranger.
"We'll never have stuff that good!!!"
We really have come a very long way in four years...
quote:
Falaanla Marr wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
i remember back when i made my money by buying FBRs and oracle robes and selling them for lots of plat.
Dude. I started hanging around newbie zones and helping people about a month before I quit (August last year), and people were still doing that. Upon asking them why, the entire zone spammed me for how stupid I was and how great the cash is farming FBRs
I was born to be a tradewhore. Curse you Luclin and your bazaar. ;_;
quote:
Xyrra had this to say about John Romero:
I remember when my roommates were pissed at me cause I got "twinked" with a suit of banded and a tentacle whip from a friend."We'll never have stuff that good!!!"
We really have come a very long way in four years...
Tentacle whips were the shit.
I had my mish mash of bronze, banded, and patchwork, my tentacle whip, and my Shiny Brass Shield that I went to Crushbone to camp, and I was kicking some ass!
I never even see people wearing bronze anymore. 
sad to say, but until AI is developed significantly more than it is, interacting with NPCs will be cardboard BS, and interacting with PCs will continue to be just what it is: interacting with powergaming roll players ad infinitum.
all hail the 12-sided die!
--me
Everquest, from day one, never clicked to me as a roleplaying game. It was a fantasy setting game of "get powerful" and "kill things." Most other games have followed this trend.
quote:
Crystali Model 2000 was programmed to say:
The only game I ever played that came close to online and true roleplaying was Underlight. However, being the fact that your advancement through the game world was driven by other player's and gm's whims, wishes, and mercy, I can see why it did not appeal to some.Everquest, from day one, never clicked to me as a roleplaying game. It was a fantasy setting game of "get powerful" and "kill things." Most other games have followed this trend.
Heh, you're the first person I've ever seen that has played that too, I tried it out for a week but that was at the point where it was already utterly deserted 
, remember reading about it as an M59 killer.
