Anyone know some of the more popular games where people actually roleplay in?

I know there is a roleplaying community in just about every MMORPG, anyone know of one that is actually populated?

 I am looking for a good RP game.

MMORPG or NwN style games..

Thanks in advance.

Risen was just released and I heard that it is pretty good. As far as MMORPGs go, my recent experience is that most of the roleplaying in the genre has been replaced by  action gameplay with item progression. I would predict a large majority of MMORPG players these days think that roleplaying requires players to use "thy" and "thou".

Ryzom, Lotro, Fallen earth, DDO, EQ2 are the only games ive actually noticed some role playing happening.

I would add Vanguard and AoC to that list.

What the two posters above said, though I would put my money on LotRO being the game with the most RP-friendly community. :-)

Originally posted by Palebane

I would predict a large majority of MMORPG players these days think that roleplaying requires players to use "thy" and "thou".

Heh, does anyone else remember when people used to commonly argue on forums about this sort of thing?  What constitutes roleplaying and what doesn't and so on. 

Hardly ever see that sort of discussion any more.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Palebane

I would predict a large majority of MMORPG players these days think that roleplaying requires players to use "thy" and "thou".

Heh, does anyone else remember when people used to commonly argue on forums about this sort of thing?  What constitutes roleplaying and what doesn't and so on. 

Hardly ever see that sort of discussion any more.

I once remember someone arguing on this forum that "roleplaying" just meant whether your character was a tank, healer or DPS. I died a little inside on the inside.

To answer the OP LotRO used to be the RP haven; I remember seeing tons of people RPing (with various degrees of cringeworthiness). That was a year or two ago though, so I don't know if it still holds true.

 I am playing Risen, and yea, is very good.

Other goods are Mass Effect (yes, is good, but ultra-short),  The Witcher (EXCELLENT game),  Drakensang (not a bad game, but I don't like it at all... , but is pretty, and very cheap).

Risen is the game to buy, if you likes RPG's. 

Dragon Age... Is a enigma..  The game was completes months ago, so we don't know what EA has ben doing with it. Seems that removing parts of the game to make DLC's for consoles. Or making the game less a RPG, and more a cinematic experience (what console guys like).   Anyway.. It will probably have some decent combat, with some nice quest, ....a "kotor" like game. 

Note: Is bloody obvius, but any RPG fan, sould play all the KOTOR games, and all the Baldurs Gate games FIRST.

Nietsche said: God is dead.

Well,

Roleplaying is dead.

When was the last time you saw Roleplaying centric MMORPG or even a Roleplaying Feature.

And no, Im not talking about socializing.

Im talking about players roleplaying a character with its own personality, values, history, objectives. SOMEONE UNIQUE.

I think that back when customization hadnt evolved so much, we all looked like clones and it killed whatever sense of immersion. Nowadays I suppose we could re-ignite the flame technologically speaking, but the community changed.

What about the technologies such as voice communication, ventrilo, teamspeak.

I still remember the day when I made a guild, and the rule was to have teamspeak, and then that 12 year old guy logged on... Now that killed it for me, I died a bit inside.

How could you possibly ever think of Roleplaying in this time and age, where 12 year old childs are everywhere.

What about brazilians (Im one), polish, filipinos and other players from asiatic countries that flood the worldwide servers. Thats another big barrier.

If its not the language, or age, its the completelly different cultural standards, behaviours and moral values of a worldwide community.

I  REPEAT

Roleplaying is dead.

Roleplaying is not dead but it’s bastard problem child on MMORPG's has been in and out of jail for years now.

Tabletop roleplaying is doing fine, the transfer of RP from tabletop to MMORPG’s never went that well. It was a basterd childer, but we did our best with it and had some great times.

Then the MMO’s started to dumb down and roleplaying tools were dropped, leaving only a chat box, guilds and animated emotes to help us run this disobedient offspring.

WoW’s success brought hordes of teenagers into the MMO genre. Soon after that consoles started invading MMO’s, and brought loads of children with them. What hope had any form of adult roleplaying then?

Language is a huge barrier, I advocate separate language severs or where that is not possible English being the official server language.

There are steps you can take, some guilds have a lower age limit for example. But these are difficult times for roleplaying on MMO’s and I don’t see them getting any better.

In my opinion roleplaying doesn't work very well unless BOTH sides are roleplayed.

In a paper and pencil game the players roleplay their characters and the Game Master roleplays the NPC's like shopkeepers, guards, farmers, bad guys, monsters, etc.

IMO, without anyone to roleplay the other side, it's kind of like roleplaying with a brick wall.

And it's still the same when you play with other people.

Look at these two simple scenarios:

Roleplay with your friend. You will be a warrior, mage, thief, etc. Your friend will be an innkeeper that has clues to solve a mystery in the town, and will fill you in on local gossip.

Now, do the same thing, except you and your friend will each play a warrior, mage, etc., working together to solve the myster, but now the Innkeeper is a brick wall.

See how it's not quite as fun anymore?

Computer scripted NPC's = brick wall.

Always depends on what people except I guess. Sure, you can give the NPCs something like a night/day cycle where they go home at night and sleep and return to their shops at day, or some kind of different and deeper system to interact with them. But most players would find that tedious. They'd go to a shop and maybe it's closed or the shopkeeper is gone. Or the shopkeeper is in a bad mood or won't like the looks of the car, and doesn't want to sell important items. Interesting? Sure. But most players wouldn't want that.

Games where more than half a percent of the population is roleplaying? Well, in matters of computer games, I guess the only ones would be MUDs.

Roleplaying is dead .. but it has nothing to do with children.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001365.php

The data is quite clear. For example, in WOW, "the average age of the WoW player is 28.3 (SD = 8.4). 84% of players are male. 16% are female. Female players are significantly older (M = 32.5, SD = 10.0) than male players (M = 28.0, SD = 8.4).".

This is quite consistent with what I see in game. Almost all of my guildmates are working adults. There are may be 1 or 2 high schoolers, and NO ONE below 16 except my guilds (my guild has like hundreds of toons, and like ~30 online at normal playing time).

And most adults i have met in game (including myself) has ZERO intention to role-play. It basically boils down to the fact that most people do NOT find role-playing fun. In my observation, many play these games for progression, and a bit of real-life socialization thrown-in.

We chat about our real world lives, game mechanics, and other hobbies.

I would argue that most people are not custom to, and thus not interested in, to pretend to be someone else completely. Their character is more or less an extension of THEMSELVES, in the game world that can do all these fantastic stuff (mostly killing monsters).

Fun really comes in the form of getting something done (kill that boss, get that epic, ...) and helping people doing it. Pretending to be someone else is a) too much work, and b) distracting from the central goal of progression. (For example, it is hard to "stay in char" when you are discussing gear optimization).

LOTRO is officially most Roleplay oriented. Especially in europe where you have roleplay servers.

Scot and Ihmotepp are both right for different reasons.

MMO's these days simply don't provide the proper tools necessary to let roleplaying flourish. Features like global chat, while convenient, actually hinder roleplaying. I think a big reason why roleplaying flourished in UO was because everyone related their characters identity to the avatar onscreen, rather than a name in a chatbox. You physically had to be in the presence of a character to talk to them. That makes a huge difference in how you approach the game and interactions with others ingame.

I haven't seen a game since UO provide the same tools to make roleplaying completely accessible. I'll never forget walking into a player owned tavern, seeing every table bustling with activity and being greeted immediately by a serving wench. I should mention that this is something I experienced within the first week of playing (also my first MMO). It's something so simple, but I've never seen that happen in a game since and it's been 11 years!

A major downfall is that MMO devs truly don't care if their players roleplay or not. I think that for an MMO to have a strong roleplaying presence, the devs have to want it and have an ingame presence to foster roleplaying in the community. This means an active team of dungeon masters, acting ingame, doling out quests, flavour and fluff. I would be perfectly willing to pay a premium subscription price for a game with a team of dungeon masters as a main feature.

Compounding this issue is an ever expanding population that has never roleplayed, or is anti-roleplaying, which is frustrating to say the least.

If a fantasy themed MMO came out that was really pushing roleplaying as a main feature, I would sign up.

I think the only way RPing will ever find a home is if a game's developers set out, from the get-go, to make a Role Playing Game, market it as such, and take steps to punish folks who hinder role-playing.

I'm not saying everyone would have to role-play, but there would have to be mechanisms where role-players could report folks actively antagonizing and/or interrupting role-playing.

Games that leave it to the communities to police themselves, even on specifically designated RPing servers, all ultimately end up with RPers retreating to private channels, which kills the world RPing.

Obviously you'd be left with a niche market, and I have no idea if it would be enough to build a game around. Of course, the game would also have to not suck to have a chance of success.

The best roleplay I ever encountered was in SWG.  Starsider server always had things going on, with many guilds full roleplay.  From what I hear now though that's not the case.  I think the downfall is 2 fold.  Half is the influx character transfers who just went to Starsider because of it's population and the other half is because it's SWG.