hi,

what game do you think has the best features for roleplay, as in feeling unique aswell as setting and Character controls :)  oh and that little thing called comminity :)

maybe its time to head back to EQ lol next gen games seem to be taking things away from games not adding them :(

Originally posted by phonetichalo

next gen games seem to be taking things away from games not adding them :(

 

- Oh hello there handsome sire, care to escort me to my house? There are oh so many ickies along the road and they scare me.
- But of course you damsel in distress, where do you live?
- Ehm... I live ... ehm ... *cough* ... on the streets of the largest city.
- On the streets?! The only kind of  "damsel" I know of that do that sure aint no damsel !
- Ehm, never mind... I'll just fling a myriad of fire balls and lightning bolts on the ickies on my way. There's no such thing as a damsel in distress nowadays anyways....

I've been sticking with WoW, waiting for the promised or speculated game mechanics that would encourage and help role playing efforts. Such as (customizable) Guild Houses etc. But I just cancelled my whole account, coz it seems we will never get very much of them.

Well, in addition to that, the WoW community really sucked. Even on RP servers there were more people who told the RP'ers to shut up than the people who seemed to RP :)

So what I would like to see in my mmoRPG, is:

• Extensive outlook customization, hopefully with appearance changing with acquired equipment. (the latter is most important to self, so that I can see that when I find a new Axe, the character indeed shows it, so I don't want to hear any "why can't I just set up the outlook freely myself" stuff :). That's not a role-playing GAME then, just an RP environment.)
• "Role-Playing instances", such as instanced Guild Houses, or perhaps some instances that are indeed not PVE but intended for RP. (needed to be able to do some closed RP'ing)
• Enforcing the RP behaviour - If there's too extensive non-rp on servers that claim to be RP, it tends to break the feeling down.
• "Good enough" graphics/engine. WoW was nice. Guild Wars I didn't like. I got too much the impression that I'm RP'ing in nethack or something ;)
• A game that is centered more around something else than pure grinding. Pursuing professions etc. should be rewarding. (WoW was pretty bad in this)
• Player made quests and items
• Perhaps player's actions affecting the game world somehow. This includes the world's reaction towards the player (something like WoW's faction reputations but more visible to self and others).

Any game that does this better than WoW? I thinkthe recommended Ultima Online would be too "nethackish".

I tried LoTRO but it seemed too centered on the story line. If I tried to do something else I got the nagging RP feeling that my character should be saving the world and not smoking pipe weed in shire :) So the TOO strong storyline seemed to narrow down reasonable behaviour and guilds too much.

I tried Guild Wars but hated the much too simple/boring/empty graphics (After WoW).

Have you checked if Age of Conan or Warhammer Online could save me? The graphics seem nice, but they seem pretty much more like Massive Multiplayer Online Action Games than Role-Playing games when I take a quick look at them?

I honestly don't think you can get much help from Warhammer online. Sure, it looks nice and all... but most PvP based games are impossible to roleplay properly in.

Sure, you can roleplay in any game if you put your mind to it. But it helps a lot if there's more to the game than just a big war/fight.

UO was a perfect spot for roleplaying, but that game is way too dated to even consider taking up again. Star Wars Online was a blast in the beginning. But they dumbed that one down to nothing.

There are a few things you really need in a game to make it "roleplayable";

• Casual clothes - People can't be dressed in armor 24/7
• Housing - Why would every person and their grandma live on the streets when there's so many empty/locked houses?
• Crafting - A world with only warriors/fighters wouldn't last very long, now would it?
• Character customization - This one's a no brainer really

As far as roleplaying features and feeling unique, I suggest City of Heroes. The character customization is incredible, and you get multiple costume slots with appearances that aren't affected by gear. Instead of the standard fantasy archetypes, the superhero genre is wide open as far as character concepts. You can make a character that is far more original than simply "Dwarf Warrior" or "Human Mage."

For a good roleplaying community, I recommend Everquest 2.  On Antonia Bayle, I find more roleplayers than non-roleplayers, and the majority of conversations are in-character. People just assume that if you're on a roleplaying server, you're there to roleplay. It's not always top-notch roleplaying, and you'll still find the occasional half-demon half-elf half-vampire catgirl from outer space who's just looking for some furry cybersex, but the roleplaying is there, and it's not hard to find.

Originally posted by bonobotheory

As far as roleplaying features and feeling unique, I suggest City of Heroes. The character customization is incredible, and you get multiple costume slots with appearances that aren't affected by gear. Instead of the standard fantasy archetypes, the superhero genre is wide open as far as character concepts. You can make a character that is far more original than simply "Dwarf Warrior" or "Human Mage."

For a good roleplaying community, I recommend Everquest 2.  On Antonia Bayle, I find more roleplayers than non-roleplayers, and the majority of conversations are in-character. People just assume that if you're on a roleplaying server, you're there to roleplay. It's not always top-notch roleplaying, and you'll still find the occasional half-demon half-elf half-vampire catgirl from outer space who's just looking for some furry cybersex, but the roleplaying is there, and it's not hard to find.

This man speaks the truth

EQ2 still has a fantastic [and mature] Rp community, not to mention the housing and crafting system. I did hear that Lotro was in the process of creating instanced neiborhoods which could be a great Rp element, especially with a good rp guild but of coarse the same thing that plagues the RP servers of wow plagues lotro

All these are wonderful ideas. But the thing I would like to see most is a character to character interaction system. I know there are some games out there that have poses more than silly little emotes. And there's ones no one uses like "hug" and the like.

But I would like to see like mock up battle actions for non PvP purposes. So if some one (in character of course) says some thing to offend you. You can punch him. Or put your sword up to his neck in a threating mannor. This wouldn't actully casue dmg at all. But it would add a "movie" like feel to the RPing. Not just a bunch of toons standing around swaying in thier idle animations. Sword of the New World has a very good RP community. Thier pose system was very nice and could be leanred quickly. Until K2 ruined the game as a whole. I could just stay to RP. But I want to play the game too.

Bleh. I am still mad about that. So EQ 2 is good for RPing, crafting and housing as well? I have always heard bad things about the game so I stayed away from it. But I think I will go check it out

Sounds like what you want was lost before MMOs were ever created.

Roleplaying was never the same since d20, some mudds were nice.. I like Ansalon Online but MMOs... its just too hard.

Love Rping as gnomes run by 1337 speaking about pwning you and your mother, just never gunna find it in a mmo. Even with a good RP guild, there will always be people that ruin the experience.

Have you ever tried PBP??   alot of campaigns going on multiple sites

Ultima Online was the best game I've seen for role-playing (ancient by MMO standards though). You occassionally had to use your imagination as some people wanted to play "orcs" or "vampires" when in fact there was only one playable race (humans) and there were a lot of limitations in terms of emotes (you generally had to use a lot of *smile*, *laughs*, *farts* instead of /command).  However unlike the newer games you weren't limited to instanced housing and you could in fact build a player run town of sorts (though UO became very cluttered with buildings).  The skill system allowed you to develop your character in a manner of your chosing (you could GM up to 7 skills) and the crafting system was very powerful (heck, the fishing skill itself was very useful and fun, allowing you to pull up bottles that lead to treasure chests). 

In terms of community, the RP guilds of Catskill were at one point very close (less so as more guilds joined just for the organized pvp).  There was a lot of "trust" when the community would cross declare war upon one another (20+ guilds), not to gank but just so that if an RP encounter called for a fight (battle) one could do so.  When the guilds were creating the story / encounters and the GM had hashed out some basic guildlines the pvp was more enjoyable (as you had a rp goal) than any of the contrived stuff the developers put in todays games. 

Originally posted by Woodsling

I honestly don't think you can get much help from Warhammer online. Sure, it looks nice and all... but most PvP based games are impossible to roleplay properly in.

Sure, you can roleplay in any game if you put your mind to it. But it helps a lot if there's more to the game than just a big war/fight.

UO was a perfect spot for roleplaying, but that game is way too dated to even consider taking up again. Star Wars Online was a blast in the beginning. But they dumbed that one down to nothing.

There are a few things you really need in a game to make it "roleplayable";

• Casual clothes - People can't be dressed in armor 24/7
• Housing - Why would every person and their grandma live on the streets when there's so many empty/locked houses?
• Crafting - A world with only warriors/fighters wouldn't last very long, now would it?
• Character customization - This one's a no brainer really

Casual Clothes - I think people ignore dressing casually because in PnP rpg's, movies and any other references to something other than real world images, people are always in armor and ready for the fight.

Housing - While housing is nice, I think unless you're roleplaying an interior designer, this is any area that needs a lot of help with how they implement. Instead of just decorating, it should be a storage place for your stuff, instead of a bank. In all reality, and for realism, they might include the chance that someone highly skilled could possibly break in and take things. Doubt that will ever happen, but if you're talking realism, that would definitely be real. Maybe include squatters, door to door salesmen, Hare Krishna's, all that sort've stuff. The list could go on, but I think you get my point. It might make games more interesting to include options of such details.

Crafting - My wife spends 99% of the time crafting and making money in most every game we've played. Works out great for me, since I'll always have my equipment and money. I guess this part depends on what drives you to play games. Horizons had a great crafting system, and she loved it. Still, I think most games coming out find they need to include a way to craft without leveling a character up.

Character Customization - Always a good thing to be able to make your character as unique as possible. One of the worst things a game can do is make you feel as if you look like every other guy standing around you. Some games do it better than others. I think this is one of the harder area's for game developers to design simply because you're limited to the imagination of the developers.

While I think in some area's mmo's are improving, in other ways, they're spending too much time basing a lot off of other games. A truly unique game would be one that included fundamental ideas from other games, but had a very different way of implementing them. I think we won't really see many games like that for a while til people get tired of playing these games and they decide to go a different route in how they create them. Til then, it's all about how quickly they can create the new mmo.

I would claim the Planeshift Crystal Blue is the game that is by farmost the most suitable game for roleplaying!

I have been activly playing Planeshift for about two yeara now and find allmost none of the PLing that happens around at games like WoW,  EVE and other games. I lead a guild there where i constantly keep frowning upon non-RPers and encourages RP daily, all the people in game i know does this as well and we have both large and smal RP events.

The game at first sight ain't a beauty but after all it is still in development. The game engine is flexible and most of the systems in game are far from finished, BUT i would say that it is going fine and won't change mutch since the whole GM staf and developers staf are experienced roleplayers!

For all that like (real) Roleplaying and feel that the 'big' games does not realy satisfy in that aspect, feel free to join the planeshift community, and if you have any questions feel free to contact me in game as well (Character Name: Lyaph Galangal)

I'd say that Hero Online is a very good game to play.  I like it because not only that it is free but you can be 4 different characters and 4 different classes.  It is a fairly new game and it is sweet.  You can mine, hunt, assasinate and just be a warrior in it.  If you like mmorpgs then this is the game for you.

Originally posted by Ameruno

I would claim the Planeshift Crystal Blue is the game that is by farmost the most suitable game for roleplaying!

I have been activly playing Planeshift for about two yeara now and find allmost none of the PLing that happens around at games like WoW,  EVE and other games. I lead a guild there where i constantly keep frowning upon non-RPers and encourages RP daily, all the people in game i know does this as well and we have both large and smal RP events.

The game at first sight ain't a beauty but after all it is still in development. The game engine is flexible and most of the systems in game are far from finished, BUT i would say that it is going fine and won't change mutch since the whole GM staf and developers staf are experienced roleplayers!

For all that like (real) Roleplaying and feel that the 'big' games does not realy satisfy in that aspect, feel free to join the planeshift community, and if you have any questions feel free to contact me in game as well (Character Name: Lyaph Galangal)

I was reading the about me and it seems that the people making this game are Role-Players them selfs, no only that but they want people to ROleplay in there world and even encorges roleplay! You need to go and read the about me in there website for yourself. I think it can be a great place for Role-Players.

"Planeshift is a game made by roleplayers to bring you all the immersion you need from a virtual world. " from site

"What's of critical importance is that the character you will create in game is NOT yourself. He is another being with his wills and aims and fears and joys. You have to keep this separation as strong as possible to successfully roleplay."-fromsite

well as far as mmorpg ive only played maplestory and it is sweet only that the graphics are too childish but it has a good game base, armour changes you try to level up in your profession and do quests, join guilds, it is pretty cool. but like i said graphics arent the best.

Since then ive been playing mmog like travian, even though i still do that i would like much more to role play it is really cool thought of wow but since ive heard it aint that good specially the community i dont know looking for suggestions thanks.

Final Fantasy,XD.

There is no "best" rpg out there, but there are some with very nice roleplaying.

The one i am currently playing (eve) has, in my eyes, the best rp on the market. In other games, rp feels so fake, with everyone doing old jokes about female dwarfes and similar. Roleplaying just feels too artificial.
I really love the fact about eve, that you need to stick to a certain role to succeed. If you switch from being a friendly, helpfull dude to a pirate too often, nobody will take you serious, and you end up having no group to play with. Sticking to a specific playstile is enforced by game-mechanics, and results in everybody being in-character all the time without even realizing it.

The second best rpg for me is NwN1. Its so old-school-pen&paper-like..i love it.

All these are wonderful ideas. But the thing I would like to see most is a character to character interaction system. I know there are some games out there that have poses more than silly little emotes. And there's ones no one uses like "hug" and the like.

But I would like to see like mock up battle actions for non PvP purposes. So if some one (in character of course) says some thing to offend you. You can punch him. Or put your sword up to his neck in a threating mannor. This wouldn't actully casue dmg at all. But it would add a "movie" like feel to the RPing. Not just a bunch of toons standing around swaying in thier idle animations. Sword of the New World has a very good RP community. Thier pose system was very nice and could be leanred quickly. Until K2 ruined the game as a whole. I could just stay to RP. But I want to play the game too.

Bleh. I am still mad about that. So EQ 2 is good for RPing, crafting and housing as well? I have always heard bad things about the game so I stayed away from it. But I think I will go check it out

Originally posted by sunherd

So what I would like to see in my mmoRPG, is:

• Extensive outlook customization, hopefully with appearance changing with acquired equipment. (the latter is most important to self, so that I can see that when I find a new Axe, the character indeed shows it, so I don't want to hear any "why can't I just set up the outlook freely myself" stuff :). That's not a role-playing GAME then, just an RP environment.)
• "Role-Playing instances", such as instanced Guild Houses, or perhaps some instances that are indeed not PVE but intended for RP. (needed to be able to do some closed RP'ing)
• Enforcing the RP behaviour - If there's too extensive non-rp on servers that claim to be RP, it tends to break the feeling down.
• "Good enough" graphics/engine. WoW was nice. Guild Wars I didn't like. I got too much the impression that I'm RP'ing in nethack or something ;)
• A game that is centered more around something else than pure grinding. Pursuing professions etc. should be rewarding. (WoW was pretty bad in this)
• Player made quests and items
• Perhaps player's actions affecting the game world somehow. This includes the world's reaction towards the player (something like WoW's faction reputations but more visible to self and others).

Yes, I totally agree with you , and if one game could be made like this, it will be perfect

sounds like you never played SWG pre-Cu you would have liked that since it got most of your points.

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Originally posted by batolemaeus
There is no "best" rpg out there, but there are some with very nice roleplaying.

The one i am currently playing (eve) has, in my eyes, the best rp on the market. In other games, rp feels so fake, with everyone doing old jokes about female dwarfes and similar. Roleplaying just feels too artificial.
I really love the fact about eve, that you need to stick to a certain role to succeed. If you switch from being a friendly, helpfull dude to a pirate too often, nobody will take you serious, and you end up having no group to play with. Sticking to a specific playstile is enforced by game-mechanics, and results in everybody being in-character all the time without even realizing it.

The second best rpg for me is NwN1. Its so old-school-pen&paper-like..i love it.

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yes, EVE is the best RP game on the market now. everything has a RP purpose, from forums, to a single universe game, to pvp, consequences, politics, player run market and economy. many people think that RP is only speaking with "thee"s and "thou"s, and can understand how EVE can be about RP. too bad for them. if RP is taking a role and playing it, then EVE is the game that gives most options and possibilities to players. and just wait till ambulation, then it will be even better.