Spoken like a true - if slightly stereotyped - gamer.

Now please bash the "Hardcore gamers" who neither know or care anything about it. They should be relabled "hardcore buttonmashers". This is the industry of mislabels, whether this stems from lack of knowledge or marketing ploys. 

thanks again.

In the greater scheme of things RP might be dead to some extend, but so far this hasn't stopped me from RP'ing in MMORPGs. Maybe I have a different approach than alot of RPers? The way I go about it is whenever I'm using in-game chat channels xcept from whispers I stay in character and behave the way and speak the way I envision my character would in the constraints that are set by the game worl, lore etc. I do not force my roleplay upon others and expect them to act or react a certain way to my actions or words, nor do I make stuff up and so far it works like a charm, I even manage on a regular basis to get ppl to join in, even if they only do it for laughs. When out in the world an running into players from an opposing faction there's nothing mre amusing than trolling and taunting them in character. The possibilities are there, one just needs to make due with the tools at hand.

What I never understood and still don't is the kind of roleplayers that feel the need to enact events that are not organic in regards to the game engine because those are the most immersion breaking that can happen to me in an MMORPG. If I want to go kill a dragon I do so actively in game, and don't just RP it thru the chat interface, what purpose would that serve? When I'm out in the world hunting mobs or looking for victims (I often play the chaotic neutral scumbag type pirate or rogue) then through my actions I'm already actively roleplaying.

Take a look at The Mittani, currently chairman of the CSM, one of the most famous EVE players and the Spy Master of the Goons, he is an active role player, altho he might not do it on purpose, but it comes organically due to his actions in game.

When I as a pirate hang out at some gate camp or scout the belts and find some worthy victim, offering the poor lad to pay a ransom or to drop his cargo so he may leave the system in peace w/o blasting his ship to pieces while staying in character all the way thru that to me is roleplaying.

To sum it up, if you want to roleplay a character there is nothing there that stops you from it, even in todays MMO's. The tools at hand might be a bit more restrictive, but honestly aside from a chat interface how much do you need to be able to RP?

Best article that I've ever read on an industry MMO site. I wish more people "got it" when it comes to the RP in the MMORPG.

I'm a pretty avid role-player.

I stopped reading the article..

Please, if you ever decide to play an mmorpg besides D&D online don't..

Originally posted by JackyD30

To sum it up, if you want to roleplay a character there is nothing there that stops you from it, even in todays MMO's. The tools at hand might be a bit more restrictive, but honestly aside from a chat interface how much do you need to be able to RP?

 

Well, you know, if you want to play tennis it'd be nice to have a court to play on.

OK I have a theory, there is going to be more roleplaying in a future MMORPG and its going to be by accident, bear with me, the MMORPG in question is the Space Marines.

THink about it, how many people do you come across now acting like a complete bigoted A hole, they can become a raciest, bigoted kill everything A hole and its all in char, they wont have to try.

Same theory applies to the Orc faction, the game is going to be roleplaying heaven.....

(This was written with sarcasm and a healthy dose or wry boredom humour)

You see I never had the chance to role-play all that much mainly because I'm stuck in a part of the world that coumputer games in general is treated at the same level of a 3 year old riding a tricycle, childish and all. Classic RP never was sighted in here, I only read about em and played computer RPGs and I felt of that feels great. What I'm saying is I always envied role-players but couldn't actually try it. In WoW atleast most RPers wont really put time for raiding that would seem a no brainer for many, including me. I love to raid and pushing that to the side is not an option for me. 

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Originally posted by Gwynbleidd
You see I never had the chance to role-play all that much mainly because I'm stuck in a part of the world that coumputer games in general is treated at the same level of a 3 year old riding a tricycle, childish and all. Classic RP never was sighted in here, I only read about em and played computer RPGs and I felt of that feels great. What I'm saying is I always envied role-players but couldn't actually try it. In WoW atleast most RPers wont really put time for raiding that would seem a no brainer for many, including me. I love to raid and pushing that to the side is not an option for me. 

---

Yep you are definitely right here. I was one of the few that had the chance to get a d&d box back then, i had a friend of mine coming from Canada (even in there it was unknown), and strangely we formed a group around this. But nobody back then even knew what an rpg was about. Few years later the genre was a hit everywhere in the western world (US + Europe). Then like 20 years later i went into the eastern world, nobody have a clue what pen&paper is about, nobody, those country were mostly disconnected from the western trends, and i'm sure asia is pretty similar except maybe japan and Korea. They all saw the Lord of the Ring movies, they all played few Bioware games and read some fantasy books,and some even know what are mmorpg. But pen & paper role playing, what the fuck is it? They clearly have no clue even today, i'm not even sure they are some pen&paper shop in the country i live actually, maybe in the main city. I guess 90% of the gamer don't know what a d20 even look like. So how it was back then, during the ultima serie or Muds? The % must be really low, like 0.00001% of the mmo gamer.

It's all about NOT playing the game anymore.  How horribly sad.

It's about picking apart mechanics so the entire gaming experience can be canned into farming runs.  Beta players (some of them), but specifically the "hard core" . . . "gamers" simply pick things apart to document their mechanical operations, which is then posted up to websites, which in turn are referenced by "everybody" when the game is released and the NDA is lifted, so that . . .

. . . people log in and simply, mechanically, run through spoiler driven farming runs.

I'd love to see MMORPGs start showing attributes that would mitigate this:

Live release and boss configurations at variance with what is seen in Beta.

Significant reduction in the structure of how "quests" and "rewards" and "recognition" are awarded to players based on a static model, instead operating on random presentation/appearance and configuration based on player game play and choice/decisions by the player.  In other words:  "on farm, or farmable or spoiler driven" is enabled by virtue of a static, predictable model that can be fed on.  So, change the model to encourage GAME PLAY, not mechanical farming of static entities (at least to the degree it's seen currently, which is nigh on 100%).

Dev houses with financial management astute enough you don't need to go to the general public for Beta testing.  heh-heh. Have a vision, TEST it hard.  But somehow, in some way, I can't help but feel there are a whole lot of unintended evils that come out of the gaming beta testing dynamic.  That we ignore because of all the sugar pasted all over it, and by the (seeming) sense to do it.  Open beta where every knob-job on the planet can log in . . . to pick apart mechanics to get the heads up when it finally goes live . . . and be the first on every shard/server in the game to hit (the cap) or to (kill this boss) . . . before everyone else.

After all, why PLAY the game when you can simply drive through it based on spoilers.  Why play with people when you can play over them based on spoilers.

Now, I roleplay. I also play Warhammer Online. I've played many a tabletop and many an mmo. However, I find that Warhammer gives me a very unique role-playing experience in a game where PvP is the name of the game(which pretty well excludes any actual Roleplaying.) Age of Conan does have some of the most dedicated RP-PvP guilds i've seen, and often the RP section of the game was done over voicechat gizmos like Teamspeak or Ventrillo. However, Warhammer Online as I said, has given me a VERY unique RP opportunity. As my name handle suggests, I play an Ork. Greenskin. Those lovable fluff-machines the Warhammer and WH40K have made fairly famous for goofy accents and zaney engineering. However, as soon as I roll out with my Ork, Orknbeans, and break out the accent, and really play it up, other people seem to get into it. My theory is, Warhammer Online is filled with closet RP'ers just looking for an excuse but too shy to try it themselves.

"Oi, you'z gitz grab da Big Shootas while I getz da Door Smasha and we can go stomp and naff da Ordah Boyz fort right and proppa! WAAAAAGH!" instead of "grab siege and all 2 keep", for example. I expected to get a lot of "F**king RP'er, take it to the carebear server!" but instead I often get a rousing cry of "WAAAAAAGH!" and some compliments on how well I can keep up "Bein' proppa Orky." It helps that I can type quickly, accurately, and keep it to non-vital combat unless I need to encourage people or get some orders out.

Point being, Roleplay isn't dead, not yet. I suspect that there's a hidden gamer crowd out there that really does want to get into it, but is too afraid of the almighty guild-kick notice or being burned on the forums/chatboxes. It's there, you just have to know how to find it, and when/where ta proppaly uze it, see?

The "Role Playing" aspects of the game are when I do Quest/Missions

The only way you can really roleplay, is if the quest givers are Run by a Game Master that you can talk to and respond to you in kind.

But I dont see paid employees for a gamining company doing that on a MMO anytime soon, jeez think of the cost

Originally posted by Matticus75

The "Role Playing" aspects of the game are when I do Quest/Missions

 

The only way you can really roleplay, is if the quest givers are Run by a Game Master that you can talk to and respond to you in kind.

 

But I dont see paid employees for a gamining company doing that on a MMO anytime soon, jeez think of the cost

 

This isn't really true.  "Role Playing" isn't just the fluffy make believe stuff.  It can also be the techiques for playing a class.

Unfortunately, class play has devolved over the past several years, homogenizing into, for the most part, DPS and Heals.

All I hear anymore, incessantly, is MAH DPS IS TOPS!  Lookee mah DEEPS!  Everyone staring glassy eyed and drooling from slack jawed mouths at DPS meters . . . .

. . . . even to the exclusion of actual Warfront Match objectives. lololol.  I had one guy in a match CROWING on Raid chat how he, and he alone carried everyone (his words) because his DPS was three times that of anyone else.

Yet not a single point of what he did contributed to the Match Points.  No Runes run.  Just standing in a (lousy spot where people for some odd reason gather to wail on each other).

On Topic to this post:

Rogues as an example.  Those that don't actually "role play" their class run around hither and yon wailing on anything they see.  See it, ambush it, wave arms around a lot, rinse and repeat.

Truly great Rogues actually PLAY their class.  Thus, in Codex for example in Rift, good Rogues will KNOW how to slink out to the flags and flip them whenever opposition caps them and run off.  In Port Scion, another Rift Warfront, a truly great Rogue will be in position to INTERCEPT and ambush opposition Rune runners on their way to their drop off point.

Sadly, players who actually have the awareness to play their classes tactically, e.g. "role play" aren't interested.

Because in today's MMOs it's all just become a binary DPS and AoE brawl fest where all the kiddies in their "leet gears" run at each other and mash buttons.

But the Great Ones, those are the ones who "role play" if you will, by actually thinking about their class, and where they are best used.

"In order to role-play, you need other players, but the fact of the matter is – no one can be bothered. There is no longer a group dynamic.  Your fellow players have ceased to be an intricate part of your gaming experience. They’re not an element, they’re an obstacle; an annoyance that keeps you from your next fast-paced Michael Bay explosion of action and ass."

Great Column Coyote!

I think it's truly sad that it's come to this though, where the masses are just happy to be force-fed, and furthermore that they can't be bothered, and anything outside the quest for purple is a distraction. I'm not really a role-player, at least not in the dress up as a Vampire type of role-player, but I just want the freedom to determine the direction I see fit for a characater that I create. I just don't have any fun with the directed linear style of MMOs these days. If I want that kind of entertainment I'll watch a movie or read a book.

In the end though I think (I hope) that due to cookie-cutter design philosophy and repetative gameplay of most MMOs, where gamers are starting to want something different, we'll eventually have more (polished) titles available that allow more freedom. If not, I certainly won't be spending much time in the new hot "Alone Together Game".

I also was lucky enough to get a D&D box set at a garage sale when I was a kid. As a family we were all avid readers of fiction so using our imaginations wasn't hard. The land that we transported ourselves to while the sun went down on a summer evening we epic and intimate. This is also the problem for those of us that seek that same experience "role playing" online.

It seemed almost too good to be true, didn't it? 3D technology had progressed to the point where it was affordable and modular enough to be hookd up to a d-base over the burgeoning internet and the proto-MMO was born. We were so happy to finally be able to SEE and HEAR the events and actions that we had locked inside our heads for so long. What we didn't expect was that "broadcasting" an RPG would have the same effect on players imaginations as broadcasting television would have on our youths. Whereas before the shared epic world inside our heads was limitless, the worlds we encountered online were just big. And you could actually walk up to the edge of the world and peek over because it was truely flat. The stunningly new 3D images on the screen blinded us to the fact that our imagination had been commoditised. It was no longer our world but a  vision of someone else's. It is ironic that the depth that 3D brought to gaming bled away the depth of our own internal worlds.

Did anyone ever reach endgame in D&D? Did anyone really ever stop playing because their character had reached max level and there was nothing but grind? When you reached the back of the expansion you just went down to Cam-Bo-Rec and picked up a moster manual and started making stuff up. At it's core, online gaming has formed the habit of letting someone else make the rules and write the scripts. Why imagine when someone else has gone through the trouble for us? All rendered in crispe anti-aliased 3D.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

 

The RPG has been ripped from the industry by "Fat Cat" industry leaders who want a quick buck for a low quality product, ala: WoW, SWTOR, RIFT, Aion, etc etc. You simply CANNOT roleplay in these games, and if you try hard enough you'll only strain yourself :/!

 

This an example of why some people feel less enthused about Role Players; its the overly gratuitous self rightous indignant attitude some have towrds anything that does not fit the bill of what they percieve as a "true MMORPG gaming experiance". The fact is all those games(for the exception of SW:TOR do to its newness) have well developed and mature Role Playing communities. This idea that all game developers are greedy "fat cats" is preposterous and only demonstrates ones inability to look at things rationally.

While my porn-strained eyes have read the article, my avid role-playing mind must contradict some of the finer points: there has never been, or there was/is never any true enactment in computer-games. We simulate being a hero, we don’t emulate one.

Maybe this is -mainly- due because of the inapt way of depicting reality in this medium, I don’t know. The rpg has never supposed to be thé roleplaying thing Coyote wants it to be. The same way we have never been roofie-ing up girls in Chevrolets. Maybe this last occupation has blurred his own mind, but down here on the continent we keep our feet on the ground and we drive less fancy cars. At least we used them for what they are meant to do: transportation, the cars that is.

I don’t know of anybody who has been really laughing at me because I “play pretended” to be somebody or something else. Not in regard to gaming anyway. You can’t blame the jocks for that. They are usually busy with gays and the lesbians, the transvestites and drag queens, cross dressers and the swingers, the prostitutes and the call-girls, the unbelievers and misbelievers. In short they are busy somewhere else to be bothered with computer-nerds and gamefreaks.
I certainly don’t know if these, complete and utterly counted for, 47 million gamers have become that number as a result to the hypocrisy of those most explicit xenophobicians.

I doubt it. I would guess the growing implantation and the declining costs of digital infrastructure has been a bigger benign  factor. When I was a kid, there were no computergames. There were no computers in fact.
Now movies make games as merchandising, games become movie-scenarios. Big advertising, big hypes, big business and growing. Kids these day get console games just to keep them busy, so they can’t do any other mischief. Or so mom believes. Till she discovers “mild sexual themes” means there is a cleavage or worse to be seen, while she thought slashing NPCs was why her innocent sprout liked the game so much.

Meanwhile “reading” is becoming a dull and dark art among those 47 indeed. Practiced only by few adepts, though lot of us are initiates in this forsaken lore. This is not only the case with game-dialogues.  Make a text which is longer as 20 lines and put it on a forum, and just note how many there are who actually read it. Is this the reason voice-overs are considered a blessing ? A feature for the lazy illiterates we have become ?

And as with each entertainment, games are to be taken very seriously. And in that regard I have to write: mind-twisting is very much more painful then nipple-twisting. As is proven by the holes the game companies leave in our wallets. Since they all sell us those “exiting”, “new”, “state of the art” fancy electronic enhanced games. Which, dixit the advertising, ameliorates, enhances, without any doubt, something written on paper, using a analog 20-dice. And makes our own limited power of imagination redundant obsolete.

This way, while true life was about kissing girls and more, we learned the “ways of the force” the hard way. Reason why we uphold the title of “nerd” as truly honest deserved title. “To be or not to be” is not a misconception, it is exactly the kind of question “thou” should ask if playing “Prince Hamlet” in a Shakespearean game.
Out of the game this is pretty lame. As lame as your average dull neighbour dreaming about Monica Belluci, while doing something with his thing under his own belly. But this is what fantasy really means: it only comes to life if you play ( with ) your part. If this involves putting “ith” behind any word, then this is the only legal communication in the game,  the rest is bulshith.

This does not mean “we” will hang “Drizzt” on his entrails. Not in real life anyway. Also because “we” are a nice complex mixed community, with only as many fanatics as you would find in said real life. On the other hand the only friends he will find are the outcasts of his own liking and he can forget cyber sex all together.

As such the single player MMO is a welcome addition. While at first sight this could be regarded as nothing less but weird, on second, and more thorough looking this has become a freedom of choice. In a world were freedom is been restricted by company policies, rigid game “mechanics” this gives some respite. Whether to group up or not is now entirely upon the mad individual searching for some well-deserved entertainment online.
And this is where the future of RPG should be going, to an open world where human interaction is defined by the individual, not by money greedy business or anything else for that matter.

Role playing, in the truest sense of the term, is impossible in the context of an MMO.   There are two main reasons for this.  The linear progression of leveling and quests.  (Which get more linear and streamlined every year) and the limitations...or lack there of...of the interface.

In table top role-playing the players can actually have an effect on the world as a whole.  Something they do in game can change the world for everyone else (especially new characters that come into the campaign.) 

Players can have sub-plots,  interfere with the plots and sub-plots of other players and NPCs.  In short they have no limitations other than what the gamemaster/dungeonmaster enforces.  And any good GM/DM lets the players develop the campaign as much as he/she does.

But there are other role-playing limitations set by the online games.  In D&D if you need to navigate rough terrain, track down where the monsters lair is you had to ask the ranger.  In WoW, the map and markers take care of all of this, no ranger (hunter) neded.  In WoW you don't NEED that healer when questing, just take a 2 minute or so break and you're good to go.  In D&D if you offended the clerics god in some way the clerics healing spells MAY NOT EVEN work on yo..that's if the cleric was willing to heal you even after you offended his god.

While it is possible in WoW (and other MMOs) to role-play your story withing the confines of the game even then it is but a shadow of what honest to goodness "true" roleplaying is all about.  That's why most people don't even bother. 

Ultimately tho, as a player in an MMO you lack any true power to shape the world around you which is one of the most important fundamentals of  a role-playing game.

The poster you responded to was however probably more true than not.

Very little evolution of the genre has occurred in the past 10 years, mainly due to the gravitation away from actual skill based paradigms, World artifact and dynamics development, instead routed into the stagnant pool of simple gerbil-wheel grind mechanisms with frosting slapped on.  PvP maps with little, or in some cases no, objectives based dyanmics, instead reduced to fast boxing ring sessions.

"Role Playing" isn't the exclusive domain of people who insist on using "thee" and "thou" in sentences, playing pretend.  It includes actual game play of a character class in whatever setting that class finds itself.

Unfortunately, with gap closers, heals, and all sorts of other mechanics slathered all over classes . . . to promote running at each other and mashing buttons . . . I'd have to generally agree with that poster.

Heh-heh.  My above post was a response to:

Originally posted by Fadedbomb



 

The RPG has been ripped from the industry by "Fat Cat" industry leaders who want a quick buck for a low quality product, ala: WoW, SWTOR, RIFT, Aion, etc etc. You simply CANNOT roleplay in these games, and if you try hard enough you'll only strain yourself :/!

This an example of why some people feel less enthused about Role Players; its the overly gratuitous self rightous indignant attitude some have towrds anything that does not fit the bill of what they percieve as a "true MMORPG gaming experiance". The fact is all those games(for the exception of SW:TOR do to its newness) have well developed and mature Role Playing communities. This idea that all game developers are greedy "fat cats" is preposterous and only demonstrates ones inability to look at things rationally.

Originally posted by Silverbranch

Heh-heh.  My above post was a response to:

Originally posted by Fadedbomb





 

The RPG has been ripped from the industry by "Fat Cat" industry leaders who want a quick buck for a low quality product, ala: WoW, SWTOR, RIFT, Aion, etc etc. You simply CANNOT roleplay in these games, and if you try hard enough you'll only strain yourself :/!

This an example of why some people feel less enthused about Role Players; its the overly gratuitous self rightous indignant attitude some have towrds anything that does not fit the bill of what they percieve as a "true MMORPG gaming experiance". The fact is all those games(for the exception of SW:TOR do to its newness) have well developed and mature Role Playing communities. This idea that all game developers are greedy "fat cats" is preposterous and only demonstrates ones inability to look at things rationally.

What are you kidding me? The yellow text dude has it right on. In the begining you had books, you had to read somewhat decent and have some basic math skills and alot of imagination to make it worthwhile. And it was worthwhile. Things you put EFFORT into tend to be that way.

Fast forward now you have big corps making games that are run forward (can only go that way) to the highlighted guy (the only one) click on him to recieve your prize (skinner box) and then proceed to the next highlighted guy (only one way to move and go to) and repeat process..... by the 3rd guy there is your mandatory advertisement to stop by the RMT house to purchase a way to skip all these "lame" guys and go to the better guys for $5.99 ..............you know , games for the stupid masses that sell well and make alot of money for selling an addiction.

Skinner box is mental conditioning. Look it up. Big Business Money. Ask Acticrap. Bobby K gets it and is making alot of money with it. Sure it might be fun playing some pos game like that, but it's not the same fun we had as kids using our brains. Not even close.