In related news, roleplayers will be discontinuing support for Trion...

Originally posted by ntstlkr

I'm just curious what the pop count was like on those servers.

Other than that, I'm not entirely certain how you can rationalize "immersion" with being able to read someone's name majically floating above their heads anyways.....O_o

 

5 of the top 8 population NA servers are RP servers. Consistantly highest is Sunrest, which is an RP-PVP server. I now play a backup RP server regularly so I don't have to wait in queues for events ( Last event, both RP servers I played had long queues, ended up playing on a normal server).

After one of the fastest growing threads on any subject on the Rift forums Scott Hartsman has recently made a post detailing that their will in fact now be seperate naming policies for RP server. Kudos for acting so quickly on the matter, here's a quote but the full post can be found here.

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Here’s the intent: Names should fit in this world in some explainable way, while individual creativity is still being fostered.

We want to make sure people are able to be clever and express themselves. If they’ve taken reasonable steps to create a name that does fit the world, they shouldn’t need to worry about having it taken from them.

Here are the rules that will be returning for RP servers, with some extra clarification:

9. Comprised of partial or complete sentences that are obviously out of place (e.g., "Getpwned", "Luvtodance", etc), though compound names that are fitting of RIFT, its people, the actions taken therein, and its setting are acceptable. Compound names are an important and valid part of every fiction, and ours is no different.

11. Names that refer to pop culture icons or personas (e.g. "McLovin", "Kylebroflovski", "Catwoman") may be found in violation if they do not also have a corresponding basis in RIFT, its people, its history, its characters, or its setting. While we would strongly like the RP experience in RIFT to be more fictionally pure than not, the fictional purity of Rift is not entirely humorless, and we do not expect every customer to have perfect knowledge of every fiction that exists outside of the game.

12. That utilizes "Leet" or "Dudespeak" (e.g., "Roflmao", "Roxxurboxx", "Lolzumad"); or

13. That incorporates titles in a way that is obviously out of place in Telara. For purposes of this subsection, "titles" shall include without limitation 'rank' titles (e.g., "Generalchow," or “Captkangaroo”), monarchist or fantasy titles (e.g., "Kingloko", "Lordpauleyc"), and religious titles (e.g., "Thepope," or "Reverendrun").

We definitely are interested in hearing your continued feedback on this, as we try to find the right balance between speed/quality of report handling, and the desire to provide a quality RP server experience.

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I'm not resubbing until some of my guildmates say actual action has been taken ( a few they reported along the DeadBabyInAMicrowave lines). Giant already made it clear they weren't doing anything about the violations all along, and didn't have an intention of doing so. I expect action, not words. I have 150 days of sub time left, which is more than enough time to see which way the wind is blowing. They've gotten out of the hacked accounts backlog, so should be acting on these fairly quickly.

Lets cut out the baiting guys. Thanks!

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Originally posted by Newmoon
I'm not resubbing until some of my guildmates say actual action has been taken ( a few they reported along the DeadBabyInAMicrowave lines). Giant already made it clear they weren't doing anything about the violations all along, and didn't have an intention of doing so. I expect action, not words. I have 150 days of sub time left, which is more than enough time to see which way the wind is blowing. They've gotten out of the hacked accounts backlog, so should be acting on these fairly quickly.

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This is the big question- will we see action? The other question is how will the community react? It doesn't bode well with me that some RP players will waste time reporting names they think violate the naming policy when in fact it just doesn't fit in to their little world, those kind of RPers are rare though. Discussions are going to be interesting on what constitutes violations.

Don't expect them to act quickly, if you read the original post from which all this stemmed it was about their GM services and they aren't in a state any of us would like them to be in.

And in before someone accuses me of hypocrisy here - it was a policy change that seriously affected RP that got me annoyed, I can understand the reality of their GM response times.

This has become standard procedure for Trion:

1.)  Trion rep makes a poorly thought-out decision and posts about it on the forums.

2.) Forums erupt in a firestorm.

3.) Scott sails onto the forums and retracts much, if not all, of what the original staffer said.

4.) All-around backslaps and kudoes to Trion for listening to their playerbase.

Spare me. I don't care how much collective "experience" the Rift development team allegedly has. In the final analysis, they look and act like a disorganized pack of rank amateurs. Once a well-implemented AAA MMORPG is finally released, Rift will be buried so fast that it will be little more than a memory.

I love the "Yeah, like anybody role plays in a RPG anyways! Pfft!" responses.

Solid, guys. Solid.

Why would you even pick Rift to RP in??? Its one of the least immersive RPG's I have ever played. Anyways this rule set would ruin RP'ing completely in a game for me. So I can see people getting upset.

I've got respect for those who take RPing seriously but I don't really see this as a big issue. 

Last time I checked the ignore button still worked fine.

I roleplay sometimes but this is a real non issue to me.  Most roleplaying is done within the realm of a guild / party anyways.  If I do not like someone I just pretend like they are not there.  No big deal.  This is how it was in every other game I played and it did not ruin my rp experience.

Looks like they are addressing the issue;

It does seem as someone has suggested, the GM's are being snowed under with reports on names that are subjectively not suitable.

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?183689-CS-Feedback-and-RP-Server-character-names-(or-A-visit-from-the-analogy-police)

Originally posted by SteamRanger

This has become standard procedure for Trion:

1.)  Trion rep makes a poorly thought-out decision and posts about it on the forums.

2.) Forums erupt in a firestorm.

3.) Scott sails onto the forums and retracts much, if not all, of what the original staffer said.

4.) All-around backslaps and kudoes to Trion for listening to their playerbase.

 

Spare me. I don't care how much collective "experience" the Rift development team allegedly has. In the final analysis, they look and act like a disorganized pack of rank amateurs. Once a well-implemented AAA MMORPG is finally released, Rift will be buried so fast that it will be little more than a memory.

 We've both been on these forums for a while, what game do you think is going to fit that criteria anytime in the next 10 years other than "maybe" Blizzards next MMO.

So, in ROLE PLAYING game you want Trion to restrict the name you select for your character(s)? I don't know about you, but I don't want anyone (especially Trion) to restrict how I role play and that includes my characters name. ;)

I think its extremely sad that people will and are actually raging about naming polocies.   Just to clear the confusion,  If you are role playing how ever that goes with a friend or something and you see in the distance behind your friend a guy running around with a silly name like jocksock or something,  it completely ruins your RP session and you have to log out or something?

If so then fk role playing, and if not then who fking cares what some one else names their toon?? dont play with em its as simple as that but flamming and raging about it in some forums that the devs never see is pointless and to me is actually stupid.   Its some one elses name on some one elses toon how on earth does that affect how you play your toon? 

Originally posted by kilun

Originally posted by SteamRanger

This has become standard procedure for Trion:

1.)  Trion rep makes a poorly thought-out decision and posts about it on the forums.

2.) Forums erupt in a firestorm.

3.) Scott sails onto the forums and retracts much, if not all, of what the original staffer said.

4.) All-around backslaps and kudoes to Trion for listening to their playerbase.

 

Spare me. I don't care how much collective "experience" the Rift development team allegedly has. In the final analysis, they look and act like a disorganized pack of rank amateurs. Once a well-implemented AAA MMORPG is finally released, Rift will be buried so fast that it will be little more than a memory.

 We've both been on these forums for a while, what game do you think is going to fit that criteria anytime in the next 10 years other than "maybe" Blizzards next MMO.

 From what I've seen, I think Guild Wars 2  and possibly Star Wars: The Old Republic stand a good chance of overshadowing Rift very quickly. For my money, Rift is a very shallow experience chock full of glaring shortcuts where the devs said "good enough" for the sake of expediency. Heck, I wound up re-subbing to WoW this week and it still has a deeper sense of immersion even after Ghostcrawler got finished with it. I've seen too many people who have said they bought Rift just as filler until something else comes along. That doesn't bode well for any hope of longevity to me.

I had honestly hoped Rift would be a worthy competitor to the Blizzard Behemoth, but Trion simply doesn't appear to know what they want the game to be, let alone where they're going with it. Your mileage may vary, but I find it hard to even login to Rift after a very short time. 

Personally, I dont even see this as an RP issue.  There have been times during my long MMO tenure (going back to 1999 or so) when Ive played mainly as a "power gamer", but I still would fly into a nerd rage seeing some jerkoff named "PwnZj00Mama!"

You dont need to be an RPer to want some immersion and want freedom from douchebags.

As for the idea that the names create some sort of natural filter, personally, I dont care.  If "chocolatedouche" gets renamed "Bovar", Ill still figure out that Bovar is a jackass pretty quickly.  Plus, Ive known folks who were actually good players, and decent, but picked moronic names b/c they thought it was funny (and then once got into the game regretted it) so a strict policy can actually protect people from themselves as well, like telling a friend he's had enough or taking away his keys after his 18th beer.

Allowing complete outrageous stupidity in naming really doesnt help *anyone* except the idiots who arent going to take the game seriously, and most of the time arent going to stick around.

At least at the extremes (full sentences, idiotic leet speak, contemporary references), I think pretty much everyone is in agreement, so Trion (and every other dev) should just use the 80/20 rule and at least be harsh in their enforcement of *that* aspect of the policy.  I think even a chunk of RPers could ignore a Jacque Sparrow as long as they dont have to see a "Ir0x0rZN00BZ!"

Suprised no one has put a big spot light on this yet but... how exactly do the non-RPrs come onto a forum and complain about the strict nature of the naming and conduct policies on a roleplay server if they are not roleplayer themselves? If you do not want to deal with the rules and don't want no body tellin' yo how ya gonna name yo character DON'T ROLL ON AN RP SERVER! Seriously... it's like players that create characters on PvP servers and then go to the forums and complain they got ganked.... GET OFF THE SERVER! There is a very distinct and good reason that gaming companies, the ones that do and bless them for it, make different ruleset servers. Players should be able to see the rules, choose the one that is best for them, and then enjoy the 'enforcement of said rules'. Don't walk into a Boston pub and complain about the lack of Yankee's paraphernalia and don't roll on an RP server and cry that someone didn't like your "irtehpwnmasta" character name.