best

rp

article

ever

written

thanks!

I rp for some games, some games not. Personally, I never encountered the problem you described, all you really need is an active imagination and the ability to block out everything else. And of course a /ignore feature for the trolls, or good fast GMs that ban them FAST.

Good grief. MMORPG.com could really do without these opinion pieces from the staff instructing us on something we're too naïve to realize (because their conclusions couldn't possibly by false or subjective), don't you think? I haven't agreed with or felt challenged by any I can remember, and I've rolled my eyes rather than grinned or stooped in thought on every occasion.

I've always looked forward to Dana's artciles, this piece was a real blow to my respect for him.

There is and has been a little misconception about Roleplaying.There are several ways t oroleplay ina game,Everquest offers a certain aspect ,witch is quite good,however roleplaying can be as simple as playing out a Paladin or mage withing the confines of the game.It does not have to be more elaborate than that to be considered roleplaying.There are cases as in EQ2 where your player icon is purple and you are in role playing mode,most games offer nothing beyond the roleplaying of the set character.

The opposite end of the spectrum is actually how MOST people play and that is nothing but see how fast they can level up.Levelling has NOTHING to do with ANY form of Roleplaying,unless you think someone in real life is out there trying to find ways to speed up their age and their life,i think the truth is 99.9% are trying to find ways to slow down the aging process and get the most out of each year in their life.

People in games as in real life should be trying to enjoy the real world content or gaming content,nobody in real life is thinking" i need to hurry up and turn 25 because at 22 i am no good and not respcted".So take your in game character and enjoy playing out that Paladin as a protector a group leader/tank,it does not have to be more than that,to be considered RP'ing.

Dana, kcuf ouy!

I don't understand what is dark and foul about a server that encourages people to have fun using their own imaginations.  How about a little heart and appreciation for people simply doing what makes them happy?

It's interesting to see all the responces from posters with old accounts and less than 10 posts, talk about hitting a nerve.  One guy posted on an account from 04 for the first time in this thread.

I wanted to blame you mercilessly for what you posted (To the OP).  I cannot, looking at the present day mmorpg genre deny what you stated.

However, do not be blinded by the golden calf of mmorpgs (WoW) or any other mmo where dudespeak is the norm or where Rp exists in some sort of sickly twisted emo format.

In Dark Age of Camelot - for a few good years - we had three solid rp servers where even OOC was only in private chat.  We knew that trade channels, public chats, etc., while not "magically accurate," had to be kept rp.  We could use a very small portion of our frontal lobes and assume when someone offered the selling of a crafted product that we had heard this or read this information while wandering through a bazaar or out in the field heard this stated by merchants attempting to sell their wares to hero and commoner alike. 

In Dark Age of Camelot - on these three servers (Guinevere, Percival and Nimue) CSRs accepted the responsibility of ensuring names of guilds and players lent to the air of the genre.  We were most ex Dungeons and Dragons/MERP/GURPS/and other pencil and paper gamers that brought an air of class and imagination to an already exciting new genre called the mmo - RPG. We knew RP meant to stay loyal to behaving and conversing in the same way your race and class and class level would converse and behave.  This made the game so (explitive) real for us - and while we were a "niche" audience - do not in any (explitive) way think for one second we are a minority deserving to be pushed aside for the WoW directed gamers of today's mmorpg generation.

Like old marines we still walk the same streets proudly ready to defend our cause in a world where games like Dark Age of Camelot have been swept under the rug of mediocrity by her own forgetful creators - we should not be cast aside and are arguable worthy of one server per mmorpg that is loyal to the genre. Rp can happen - and many many of us remember this to be true.

If any UO/EQ fans want to speak up on some of their experiences on an rp server (most likely pre 2004) please speak up in order to politely re-educate the OP and his converts.

Let me rename your article to, "The Myth that RP Does Not Exist"

this is just a bad article you have no clue what you're saying. i don't rp but i've always played on rp servers. the reason being its always in my experience been a more mature community. nobody rp's in vent or chat so of course you'll never see any "thou" or "whilst". sounds like you just made some stuff up to me....guess you really couldn't come up with a better subject?

Wow, just...wow.

That was absolutely the the most thoughtless, poorly-considered article I have ever seen posted on this site. I'm not an rp'er, but at least I respect that other people don't game the way I do.

Mmorpg.com brought a lot of gamers with various interests together over the years. I'm stunned that they would let *any* author post an article that so completely disregards the interests of even a minority segment of our community. 

You owe those players a damn serious apology for putting that crap on the front page. 

This article is a joke, plain and simple.

Mr. OP - I must add humbly that it is shameful to the mmo community and to this excellent website that you have been appointed the...

PR Manager??!!

This article seems to come for a "know-it-all" that really doesn't know what he is talking about.

Sure people in guild chat  talk like everyone else, but it's not like we don't rp in team chat or in vin chat.

Seems the author spent a small amount of time on a RP sever, but never tried to get into the groove of it.

Talking about gear and dungon runs all the time probably made the role players stand-offish and guessed he was not going to be around for long. which he wasn't.

 Wow, is MMORPG suddenly accepting articles from trolls? They should really just get it over with and throw this bullshit into its own Humor column and get it over with. 

10% of the people on a RP server are roleplayers.

10% of the people on a RP server are griefers.

80% of the people are non-roleplayers looking for a server with naming conventions and a more mature player base.

That's pretty much how every RP server I've played on has ended up.   If the server is a PvP-RP server, the RP tends to be a little bit better.  The best RPing I've seen has been on RP-PvP FFA.

Originally posted by red_cruiser

That's pretty much how every RP server I've played on has ended up.   If the server is a PvP-RP server, the RP tends to be a little bit better.  The best RPing I've seen has been on RP-PvP FFA.

That's actually an observation that over my years of playing mmo's I've noticed as well.  More pvp focused games bring out the real "roleplaying" in gamers.  Ultima Online easily had the best roleplaying of any game I've ever played hands down.  Shadowbane at it's release was probably a good second.  From what I read the Cimmeria server in AoC had some pretty good roleplaying guilds doing their thing for awhile, which happens to be a FFA-RPPVP server.

Dunno, I suppose in the end having real conflict with other players to deal with brings out better roleplaying than just whacking mobs and collecting loot 24/7 has to offer.

I do have to say how ridiculous it was to read though some posters accusing Dana of being a "leet pvper" and him having no clue because of that.  Probably one of the best, oldest, most respected and hardcore roleplaying guilds to ever exist since UO's release has been Shadowclan which just also happens to be a PvP centric guild (and they are quite good at it).  I mean these guys create and use their own friggin languages in the games they play and are forced to always stay in character.  And No I'm not a member, but guilds like them actually make a server more fun just being there.

Don't assume because someone prefers pvp they can't roleplay their ass off, the best roleplaying guilds I've run across were usually all about the PvP.

From personal experience.

I would rather do, in your eyes, the impossible and RP while I am logged into whatever game it is I am playin, it is hard as f*** to do with ass-hats logging in and talking their s***.

RPers are there and they abound, how many times do they need to be beat over the head for being "weird" and "gay"?

Weak argument if you ask me...

In all the time I have been coming to MMORPG.com, never before have I read an article so full of misrepresentations, half-truths, and mean-spirited diatribe as I have in this article. Some have come close to being as trite and ridiculous, but none have crossed the threshold into an out-and-out attack on the one form of gameplay that few people understand but many enjoy picking on.

The article is simply disgusting.  I could spend inordinate amounts of time explaining what was wrong in that article... but what would be the point?  Some would say I spend too much time on such a thing, and almost nobody who already doesn't like RP will care to listen to reason.  They just want to be "right", facts and logic and common sense regardless.

I fully intend to contact the website's staff/admins to make a short complaint against the article.  If anyone is similarly outraged and has a couple of minutes to spare, I'd recommend doing the same thing.  Making posts here isn't going to do much other than make us all upset.  Get it off your chest, and let the cards fall where they may.

Regardless of the outcome, I will certainly not be reading or commenting on any further articles by the author.  I think 4chan has about as much intellectual merit as this article has bothered showing.

This wins my award for biggest ever troll article by the staff and guest authors.

Very few things in life that are worthwhile are easy to achieve. RP servers are one of them. Yes it is true that no online game is ever going to be like table top, but it does not have to be.

RP servers are their own genre, with players doing what RP they can with the tools at hand, we should be celebrating that achievement rather than heralding only the drawbacks. But I guess a pat on the back does not make for such a big splash does it?

So many people on here state that Dana is wrong about RP servers being filled with non-RPers, yet many people have posted proclaiming that a majority of people play on RP servers not for the RP element, but to play with other "mature" people. Interesting, I didn't realize you could say someone was "wrong" and then support their side with your opposing view.

I also find it funny how many people claim "normal" MMO servers are filled with leetspeak talking asshats, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Sound like you guys are no better than Dana at passing judgement on online communities.

Whoops! Irony!

Originally posted by Coir

 Then I thought about it. An editor gave this the nod. This is simply MMORPG drumming up controversy to get hits to sell advertising. 

Undobtedly they are 'hits whores'. Jon has pretty much admited as much. Having said that as a portal it fullfils my needs broadly speaking but it does seem more and more of the featured content needs taking with a grain of sand. Inciting controversy generates trafic.

Dana, this is called "projection" in psychology. Stop projecting your own fantasies and playstyles onto the rest of the MMORPG world. You're the victim and the griefer all in one, but that doesn't mean the majority of RPers out there are. You don't even know what it truly is to be an RPer, and most who go onto RP servers probably don't because they don't have a background in D&D style games.

Bad Dana, no biscuit. Don't knock it until you've tried it, or at least made an attempt to understand it. Oh and

Lightning bolt! Lightning Bolt! LIGHTNING BOLT!!!

I have never disagreed more with an article from the staff at mmorpg like I do with this one.  Roleplaying, while not the most popular online gaming aspect, is still alive and thriving.  Thriving because with every new generation of gamers, there will be a new batch of roleplayers out of that bunch.

ALSO, you get those adults who are just discovering online gaming and want to take it to the next level.  "God bless them" right?  Come on now, they aren't kid with down syndrome trying to put on a musical.  They are just normal people who want to get into the roles of their online characters.  Nothing wrong with that.

Originally posted by kaydinv

So many people on here state that Dana is wrong about RP servers being filled with non-RPers, yet many people have posted proclaiming that a majority of people play on RP servers not for the RP element, but to play with other "mature" people. Interesting, I didn't realize you could say someone was "wrong" and then support their side with your opposing view.

I also find it funny how many people claim "normal" MMO servers are filled with leetspeak talking asshats, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Sound like you guys are no better than Dana at passing judgement on online communities.

Whoops! Irony!

 

The sad thing here is: it is your perspective that is ironic and you are not even aware of it.

Forum posters can and *do* pass judgment on this and that, it is to be expected. They are not professionals and do not see themselves as bound by the tenets of journalism. However, we hope and expect that the media are, and we're usually frustrated when they are patently not.

Going by the reaction in this thread, we can see that the posters expect the staff of this website to hold themselves to such quality of professionalism. This may make the job of the writers a bit harder, but in fact it's a blessing. It means the users are taking this website seriously, and seeing it as a creditable source of information or even opinion. So when a staff member goes and writes a poorly thought out, poorly realized article like this one, they are disappointed. And yes, even angry.

On this website, I have many times tried to defend the concept of honest and noble journalism, argued that it is possible on websites, too - and revenue models be damned. But for this to happen, the staff members have to hold themselves to the tenets and ideals that can make writing professionally a vocation to respect.

I may personally agree with every single point an article makes, but if it's not done in a professional and respectful manner, the writer simply cannot expect to be taken seriously at all. It's not a question of the arguments being wrong or right (which is usually subjective after all). It's a question of respecting your readers, respecting the medium you are working for, and respecting yourself.

Trying to incite discussion by what is tantamount to straight out flaming is *not* respecting any of the above.