In all fairness, yes, there are role players that make the rest of us look bad.  Are all role players jerkwads?  not at all.

In all fairness, yes, there are PVPers that make the rest of us look bad. Are all PVPers jerkwads?  not at all.

Funny how many bitter english majors I have met in my life that lack IMAGINATION & seem offended by those who have it.

Next week, lets see Dana do an article about how all PVP players are spoiled rotten, couldnt make the foot ball team jerks that all talk like John Wayne & see what kind of response that gives you.

Lotta hate on these posts, but sad to say a lot of what Dana says I've seen to be true.

I've spent time on a lot of MMOs, and most of them offered some kind of RP server. Usually the kinds of people I ran into broke down into 4 categories:

1) The cyberfiends: Interested in one thing: what's under that Orc's breeches.

2) The griefers: Do whatever it takes to disrupt ayone trying to roleplay in any form. Usually spend all day in any ooc chat channels griping about how they hate RP servers.

3) The RP juniors: No idea how to tell a story or create a character. They copy whatever anime or teen novel is popular this week. Case in point- DBZ and "Twilight" vampire roleplay in World of Warcraft. Yes I've seen these. Often.

4) Real RPers: They spend most of their time levelling, because there's nothing else to do.

That was the most ill-informed column I have ever read on mmorpg.com.  RP servers, even the unofficial ones, exist for a reason.  Role players enjoy the game more on an RP server than they do on a regular server.  This will be true for every mmorpg even if Dana doesn't understand why.  Many people go to the RP server because the community there acts more friendly and mature, even when they are not role playing.  Others go there because they want to RP as part of an RP guild.  Guess which servers have the RP guilds?  Oh, yeah, it is the "mythical" RP servers.

I don't really get the attraction of powergaming or raiding but clearly some people enjoy those things. I'm glad they have servers where they can do that as a community.  But since I don't understand what their style of gaming is all about I think I will refrain from writing a column called "The Myth of Regular Servers".

Now I know why I never read your articles.  You obviously don't know much about RPing and the RP community so I'll chock your article up to ignorance. 

Your entire article sounds like somewhere along the line some RPer pissed in your cheerioes and now you have a chance (as you think) to get back at them so have come up with this steaming pile of an article/rant... Or was your purpose in writing this an attempt to create what?  Drama?  A spreading of misinformation?  Over generalizations are fine for dramatic effect but are not fine when you're trying (at least I think you are) to get your readers to take you seriously. 

There are elitest in the RP commnity as there are in the PvP and PvE communities, but they none of them should be considered as being the norm for that community.  Your willingness to focus on that one subgroup of the RP community and use them as a basis for denigrating RPers is shameful.

RP servers do exist.  The ONLY reason RP servers degrade because of lack of support, poor rulesets, and player apathy.  Player apathy usually comes after we figure out the support system is a POS.  RP degrading in guilds is up to guildleaders.  RP degrading in voice chat?  WTH?  Who cares?  Really.  It's not in game.  The point is to try and be your character in game, not be your character 24/7 in and out of game because you say you're an RPer.  Do you expect PvPers to PvP in voice chat as well? 

Pen and Paper RP had their limitations and immersion breakers as well.  You're sitting at a table or on the floor with the person next to you drinking a bottle of beer or soda and the one on the other side might check their watch every now and then or ask for a dorito, and then you roll dice which has to be interpreted, etc... How is that so vastly different from the immersion breakers we deal with in MMOs?  Seriously.  Did you think before you wrote that article?  The dice and DM positions are now just the interface and game mechanics as in combat engines and whatnot.

And if I were to use your logic for server types I could say, why in the world do devs create PvP servers when all PvPers are griefers, whiners, and socially inept kids looking for attention.  They can never decide on what ruleset they want and CS is constantly bogged down with complaints of ganking and cheating so why bother? 

Devs bother because players in their community have demonstrated a credible desire for a PvP server and it's the same for RP servers.  They also bother because they care about their community. 

If you cared about this community you'd rethink the next time you thought about writing about a subject you obviously know very little about.

I hope Sanya doesn't try to pass off similar BS.  There's a reason RP servers have problems and it's not because they're impossible to maintain, but I'll wait to read her article.

Written from the point of view of someone that doesn't sound as if they've gotten into many RP guilds.I've been in hardcore RP guilds, family RP guilds, family raiding guilds and hardcore raiding guilds.

Myself, I only join a game if they have an RP server. I refused to join Age of Conan when they said no RPPvE. I myself have witnessed a number of guilds where the majority of the members were all about RP first and foremost. In time there would be those that would come along and 'taint' the concept but for the most part, there are a lot of true roleplayers out there.

Why then, does it seem like there are those that believe that the RP populace is so small? I believe that is because roleplayers are isolationists as opposed to elitists. They tend to stick around others of their preferred playstyle, which is no different to other playstyles. Ever try to be a roleplayer in a hardcore raiding guild? Good luck. You'll likely be insulted and booted for wasting precious time roleplaying when you should be out grinding and gearing to get to end game.

Some roleplayers are elitist. But, honestly, can you say that raiders aren't? Can you truly say that raiders don't puff out their chests and behave holier-than-thou because of the epic level raid gear that they have thereby proving how much better than you they are? People make a big deal because of the rules RP Guilds enforce upon would be members and say it's elitist but for a raiding guild asking you to have X tier gear, X number of Advancement Points, and be available for x number raids per week are seen as normal? Sounds like a double standard to me.

I've been on both ends of the spectrum. I have played as a hardcore roleplayer who's character passes on certain gear if it doesn't fit their character and I've played as the raider, raiding 2+ times a day, 10+ times a week. All in all, after these many years I can tell you I can still remember the storylines I was a part of with other players but for th life of me I can't remember one single piece of gear gained during the raider days. Names and descriptions didn't matter, it was all about the stats.

I remeber when SOE first came up with the FV server for EQ.  It had all the Rp rules you could think of.. restrictiosn on who could group with who  even who could talk to who..ie no SK iskar could group with a Human paladin. 

I recall a fight..  Group leader was a High elf he gave an order  which the wood elf translated into dwarf  the dwarf then translated it to common  then Human then translated it to Barbarian  thus finally  everyone in the group knew what the leader was saying.

I'm actually now wondering what purpose this article even tried to serve in the first place, and what exactly was going through both the pseudo-writer that concocted this fallacy, and the editor that approved it.

To be honest, I've lost a lot of faith in the credibility of this site after this debaucle.

It is my opinion, and that of quite a few others reacting to the rude and downright stupid article that this was, that some sort of official statement, or reasoning should be made. I want to know what research your douche bag of a writer did before cut-and-pasting his my-pretend article togeather.

Hey! Guess what? People are multi-faceted. No medium actively supports Roleplaying, because roleplaying is, newsflash, a creation of the mind. It's taking text, a.k.a what you attempt to work with, and using this text to tell a story. That's it.

In a sense, ever great entertainer, every great writer (hint: Not you, Dana. And not ever.) is a Roleplayer.

So I guess if you want your MMO's to be little grey, un-sculped blocks running around firing similar, smaller un-sculpted little grey blocks at each other, I'd suggest you stop insulting the RPer community, and allow them to collectively continue to create the story content that you yourself get to enjoy, you stupid little man.

>>"It’s time to face the fact that no video game, noRPG, let alone MMORPG, has ever truly fostered role-playing"<<

Actually, if you consider some of the early "MUD's" as video games, there was a lot of serious role-playing there. The Simutronics series (Gemstone/Dragonrealms) were the closest  I've ever been to feeling like I was playing a character removed from RL.

I spent  3 years as a "Bard"...and didn't worry about leveling...just composed songs, and got decent tips as a reward.  I don't see that possibilty in any current game though...and that's something I really miss.

The most acual RP I've seen in a game was in LOTRO on Landroval, the unofficial RP server. That being said, I think the most usual reason I've played on an RP server being official or not is looking for a more mature crowd. I mean if you think about it and its so kid's first MMO why would they roll on an RP server?

Honestly there are about 3 reasons to roll on a RP server, none of which are to RP : p

1 - More Mature

2 - Likely to meet some of those same mature people from game to game

3 - hopefully no dumb names. (Within second of logging into Aion's 3rd beta event I saw PussyLover as a name) I don't mind some of the non rp clever names out there but names like the aforementioned one are just well something I'ld like to never see again.

Not to say there aren't people who RP, but the best reasons for RP servers are the reasons above.

Originally posted by Dana
I definitely got a reaction out of you all. Mind you while I obviously am not a fan of rp servers I may have been a bit over the top. The goal of this is to incite debate not riots. :)

If you want debate and not riots it'd be wise not to insult a whole portion (not the major portion perhaps, but one of the portions (pve, pvp & rp)) in your article. :P

Perhaps you've had bad luck, but from the article you really come off as an asshat. I love the RP, though I dislike those who come in only to mess up the server for the RP:ers - something I've mostly noticed and encountered in AoC - and granted, not all of us RP 100% of our gametime, but we Do RP, and do it A Lot - at leat those I play. Oh, and we do it without the "thou shalt not kill" english. :P

Originally posted by Dana
I definitely got a reaction out of you all. Mind you while I obviously am not a fan of rp servers I may have been a bit over the top. The goal of this is to incite debate not riots. :)

Dude... your article wasn't "over the top" it was just nasty.

No I'm not an RP'er...

You wern't 'inciting debate' you're just trolling, you got your reaction now fuck off and be happy with yourself that you managed to be venomous to a large group of this site and passed it off as 'journalism'.

This article failed as hard as your game 'wish'. (As someone else stated).

Articles like this should not be featured, writers like this not hired and opinion should not be put across as fact.

[Mod Edit]

While a lot of what you said was spot-on...you definitely picked the wrong group to piss off. 

I believed the hype I'd read about RP servers.  I rolled a character on a WoW RP realm, under the assumption there would be a more mature, less obnoxious crowd, with enforced naming rules and behavior guidelines.  Not so much that I wanted to RP, or had any real interest in it, I was just sick of being perpetually annoyed in a game I enjoyed. 

The hype was wrong.

While there was (marginally, at best) less of the annoying behavior that had originally sent me looking at RP realms, rolling a toon on one opened up a whole new and exciting world of annoyances that are totally unique to those server types.  The vast majority of the people on those realms really -really- just need to get up and go outside for awhile.  That is, if they can tear themselves away from the ERP overload.  Perhaps other games are different, but WoW RP realms seem to be the stomping ground for the most socially-inept freaks I've ever had the misfortune to happen upon.

About the only thing this guy is somewhat right about are the game companies lack of enforcement and a vast majority of people not RP on a RP server.  However, I think that if companies actually enforced their own RP standards we may naturally see interested RP migrating to their servers.  I enjoy RP but never have found it in any MMORPG... I have even seen leet names on so called RP severs.  Other than that Massey your a quack!  Seriously do some real research before you write an article... 

Originally posted by sairusco

Hehe I usually pick roleplaying servers since they often have at least a naming policy, so I wont run in "Urdaddy" s and the like.

(For that matter I think rp servers are lovely)

Im not really enjoying the actual roleplaying, but I respect the rp-rules and I always rp in return when players approach me, staying in character isn't very hard.

I really agree!

Seeing so many people named Roxxormcownage and Lookoutbehindyou gets old.  Generally the RP servers have a little bit more mature player base too I've noticed.

Originally posted by Dana
I definitely got a reaction out of you all. Mind you while I obviously am not a fan of rp servers I may have been a bit over the top. The goal of this is to incite debate not riots. :)

Well, that you did, lol. I mean, if you look at it and take into context that you aren't a fan of RP (and you were on a dev team) and factor in that many of your peers hold your view, you guys for the most part don't like RP (being too nerdy for your nerdom) and thus don't really put any real thought into things/systems you put into your game to aid in RP. You only worry about things to make people "uber" and how they fit into combat. Yes, it takes a good imagination to RP, but how interesting would the movies you like be without props? If you had to imagine the gun in the actors hand, the car they drive, the building they blow up? Not very. There have been very few games (SWG, UO, AC) that have made decent offerings in that realm.

So, you take that lack lustre approach to RP facilitation by devs in games, a serious lack of effort by devs to enforce the rulesets (I can't wait to see Sanya's excuses/pointed fingers) and combine it with an opinion piece blasting RPers saying RP servers don't work and the RPing crowd doesn't exist (factoring in you personally don't like RP and thus reason would dictate you don't hang with that crowd much less roll a character on an RP server)...yeah, it's going to be more riot and less debate, lol.

I really can't wait to read Sanya's opinion piece (I guess you succeded in that vein as you ensured your viewer base would come back for at least another day; admittedly, I wasn't offended by your writing (as my personal gaming experience gives me factual information that 99% of this writing is...anti-RP biased and not fact...and I wasn't going to stop coming here as this is probably the best hub for MMO information as far as new MMO announcements). Your lead in for her piece tomorrow lets the reader believe she stands shoulder to shoulder with your in this viewpoint and as I was on Percival the day they opened it to gamers it'll be interesting to see her spin.

RP servers do work. People do RP in open chat (and like others have pointed out to call yourself an RPer doesn't mean you have to 100% of the time (in open chat absolutely, but not 100% of logged on time or in OOC chat, etc.). The players have/continue to do their part. It's the devs and their lack of effort to support it beyond the act of throwing up an RP tagged server is where the failure and the "myth" of their support comes.

Originally posted by Shadin

Originally posted by Dana
I definitely got a reaction out of you all. Mind you while I obviously am not a fan of rp servers I may have been a bit over the top. The goal of this is to incite debate not riots. :)

If you want debate and not riots it'd be wise not to insult a whole portion (not the major portion perhaps, but one of the portions (pve, pvp & rp)) in your article. :P

Perhaps you've had bad luck, but from the article you really come off as an asshat. I love the RP, though I dislike those who come in only to mess up the server for the RP:ers - something I've mostly noticed and encountered in AoC - and granted, not all of us RP 100% of our gametime, but we Do RP, and do it A Lot - at leat those I play. Oh, and we do it without the "thou shalt not kill" english. :P

If I ever liked an Article they wrote it was so long ago I couldn't tell you.  I know the last few things I have read *ponders*  Well I just think that maybe Dana should apply to be a developer with a game company.  They seem to have the perfect mind-set to work for one.

Forums are great places to go debate, agree or disagree with people.  It just seems if you are supposedly a "writer" you should actually write something and seem informed on the topic.  You know appear to at least have a clue what you are talking about.

Forum posters (like me) can have drool making the letter in our posts smear... but there should be something slightly elevated about being a writer.

The only question is why can't I put "staff" on my block list?  Honestly if they need to communicate with me they can do it outside of a forum post...

You know, Dana, I've read multiple articles of yours and I normally agree with them, but this one is so full of bias and egregious exaggerations that it's absolutely appalling. I think it should be removed as it has no basis for being thought of as factual, as you seemed to imply. I don't think I can ever possibly take you seriously after this, as it's  obvious that you're willing to go to whatever lengths that you must to make a point, even if it means falsifying information. To me, your article came off as little more than a flagrant diatribe directed at anyone who has ever role-played or played on an RP server. This is hardly what I would refer to as "journalism" of any type.

While I don't currently play on an RP server, I have played on two different RP realms in WoW for a total of nearly three years, and the "unofficial" RP server on SWG.

Yes, there are the people who flock to RP servers just to grief the drama-queen role-players (the victims you described -- note that these are NOT role-players but TROUBLE-MAKERS who exist for the very same purpose as the "griefers" since you can't seem to discern the difference); yes, there are the self-proclaimed "role-players" who just want to make the game into Second Life 2.0 and "cyber "all day, but there are, believe it or not, people who just enjoy playing on a server/realm/whatever where they can immerse themselves as if they were reading a novel or watching a movie (or playing an RPG like Oblivion or KotOR). Perhaps I am a "minority" as you say, but when I played on the RP servers, most people knew me because I was someone who actually created storylines for other people to follow (I love writing, and if I had time, I would love to author a work of fiction), and I'm one of those people who reports both the "griefers" and the "cyberers." I've gotten a few of them banned, even if only temporarily, suffice to say, and I have no regrets. Oh, but wait, people like me don't exist. That's right. I MUST be someone who just wants  to virtually hook-up with a troll or an orc, or maybe I just like harassing people. Yeeeeah. (If you can't detect the sarcasm, I'll point out that it's supposed to be there.)

Yes, I'll be the first to admit that there are plenty of stodgy old farts and prepubescent boys who just want to "cyber" with a hot set of pixels, but I personally, and all of my friends I used to play with, found such behavior to be both abhorrent and repulsive.

The real problem here isn't that "real" role-players don't exist; it's that they want to avoid interacting with the stereotypes you mentioned so they exclusively associate with their own (usually small) circle of friends, at least from my experience. This creates an aura of  hostility and a general sense of disorganization for players who are new to the community on such a server, leaving the impression that there are no people to role-play with and/or that the role-players who do exist only wish to remain within their clique, which might be true to a degree. Sadly, it's difficult to combat this problem because, as a new player, how would you even know where to look to find these people? I found my guild simply by combing through forums and websites, but it took me a while. And I suppose I'm fortunate in the respect that I had RL friends who liked to collaboratively write stories with me, but we always included anyone who wanted to be involved, including some players who were new to the game and/or server.

I performed a little experiment not too long ago by creating  a brand new character on a role-playing realm on WoW and started observing people, and at times casually approaching them in an attempt to strike up a conversation. I'll give you credit for one thing, Dana -- I was met with mostly indifference or outright hostility, although I presumed that this would be the case since most normal people on the RP servers I have played on typically keep to themselves, as I've already repeatedly emphasized. HOWEVER, while, as I said, there is a modicum of truth to the things you wrote, you have vilified people such as myself who deplore "cybering" and "annoying others" and only seek to flesh out an interactive storyline with other players. Again, we tend to keep to ourselves for the very reasons you described -- that is, to avoid people with attitudes such as yours. It's like living next-door to an annoying neighbor; I would close my windows and try to avoid him or her at all costs.

I don't know what a "hardcore" RP guild is, but if you joined a cybering guild accidentally, I pity you. I know that I was in an excellent guild that held its members to high standards while I was an officer within it, and although I can't vouch for some of the players' generally bad attitudes (every guild has rotten apples), no one EVER got away with harassing others and/or cybering, both of which were against our rules. We had an application process just as most organized guilds do, so perhaps we were simply adept at straining out the more undesirable players, such as the ones you described.

But still, as an official staff member of this website, I would hope that you would refrain from engaging in such patently obvious prejudicial behavior, or at least acknowledge that you have made some blatant generalizations. I think the article needs a disclaimer at the top stating that its contents are purely subjective if you are going to leave it in place. I expect you to hold yourself to a higher set of standards in contrast to us average posters, and I find your article to be quite disappointing on top of being offensive.

Do you like the cop who abuses his/her powers just because he/she thinks he/she can? Or what about the teacher who breaks the rules imposed by the institution at which he/she teaches?  Breaches of conduct such as these are usually frowned upon, and when you hold a position of authority, you should be mindful of your position, if you ask me.

(EDIT: Corrected a number of mistakes.  

OH, and I NEVER have/never will employ the use of words such as "thee" or "thou." Thanks.)

EDIT #2:

You know, after reading the original post again, I'm starting to feel as if I'm "feeding the troll" here. It's unfortunate that I should have to think this about a FEATURED article on a professional website.

Originally posted by Spezz

Originally posted by Dana
I definitely got a reaction out of you all. Mind you while I obviously am not a fan of rp servers I may have been a bit over the top. The goal of this is to incite debate not riots. :)

 

Dude... your article wasn't "over the top" it was just nasty.

 

No I'm not an RP'er...

 

You wern't 'inciting debate' you're just trolling, you got your reaction now fuck off and be happy with yourself that you managed to be venomous to a large group of this site and passed it off as 'journalism'.

 

This article failed as hard as your game 'wish'. (As someone else stated).

 

Articles like this should not be featured, writers like this not hired and opinion should not be put across as fact.

 

Now, please, crawl into a dark place (your cupboard maybe? =] ) go into the fetal position and die.

Allow me to add to the desired reaction.  The above post is quoted for emphasis, truth, righteousness, and Scripture.  Not everyone is either a leet-speaking, griefing douchebag or a powerless, whiny trouble-maker.  Otherwise this place would be called MMODB.com.  And maybe it should be, with staffers like the author.

Originally posted by Cypt1

But still, as an official staff member of this website, I would hope that you would refrain from engaging in such patently obvious prejudicial behavior, or at least acknowledge that you have made some blatant generalizations. I think the article needs a disclaimer at the top stating that its contents are purely subjective if you are going to leave it in place. I expect you to hold yourself to a higher set of standards in contrast to us average posters, and I find your article to be quite disappointing on top of being offensive.

Do you like the cop who abuses his/her powers just because he/she thinks he/she can?

QFT.

Edit:- Kylrathin, many thanks.