I personally think roleplaying your race or character in a game is a complete waste of time.

Originally posted by xusheng2

I personally think roleplaying your race or character in a game is a complete waste of time.

Some people might  argue that playing a game in general, any kind of game, is a waste of time.

I do roleplay.  To me, it would be a complete waste of time if I didn't.

To each his own, I say.  Some will feel differently.

I play MMORPGs, not MMOGs.

I RP alot. But it is only on some games like LOTRO EQ2 ect somethign with a rich lore

I enjoy role playing, but I find that people seldom take the time to RP as they rush off for their next in-game task.  I struggle is that many MMO's do not reward RP as many players rush to "end game",  Peace

Depends on what you consider Role Playing. If you mean immersing my self into my character and the world around it and get the feeling of participating in the story of the land then yes. If you mean being a grammar natzi running around bitching at people all the time then no.

I've recently returned to table-top gaming for my roleplaying fix.  The mmo market is not conducive to truly immersive RP, which is what I'm after.  The games themselves are mainly linear and focused on treadmill advancement; the few that do cater to RP playstyles (SWG, UO) are either broken or outdated. 

Don't even get me started on the communities.  For every roleplayer there are a hundred folks like the OP, or people who just view mmo's as a set of tasks to be accomplished rather than virtual worlds.

Its a shame really, and while there are some good RP communities, even the best of them pale in comparison to the fun you can have in a good group of story-focused table-top gamers.

Roleplayers have always been a relative minority in these games, but now with millions of non-traditional gamers signing up for WoW (and occasionally other games), we are even more of a niche.

Originally posted by xusheng2

I personally think roleplaying your race or character in a game is a complete waste of time.

I like roleplaying. I also like roleplaying games. However mmos dont cater to true roleplaying because the story has already been written out for you. All you can do as a player is progress through the game in the way the developers have already intended for you. As a result many people who desperately want a real roleplaying experience turn to typing meaningless crap into the chat channel as a poor substitute which obviously has no impact on the game world and actually has nothing to do with the game itself.......so basicly I just dont bother roleplaying in mmos. It really isnt worth it. I just get on with playing the game instead. Mmos simply dont cater to roleplaying and I dont see any point in trying to delude myself into thinking that they do. Why pay a monthly fee to do something that you can do equally well in a yahoo chat group?

However I do sometimes like to talk a little bit in character to help immersion a little bit (immersion in an mmo? Yeah right!) but creating a backstory for your character and trying to bring it into a static gameworld which you cannot have any effect on is a complete waste of time and an utterly sad thing to do. Each to their own though of course. Afterall everything is a waste of time and its entirely up to the individual on how they choose to waste it. Maybe if mmos started incorporating roleplaying elements into their game design so your decisions in the game actually mattered in the game then I might actually bother to take roleplaying more seriously.

I cant stand it when I come across some tosser who proclaims to be Eldrath the Druid who wanders the land protecting the wildlife from the Orcs that maraud the area and whose main mission in life is to slay the Head Warlock Jarlath who killed his parents and rules the land. This type of insane player will attempt to invite you to have a drink with him while he discusses the beauty of the changing seasons and how he is having difficulties with his daughter (another idiot will be pretending to be his daughter somewhere) because she doesnt share his viewpoint on saving the wildlife from the Orcs and instead wants to marry a rich merchant who lives in a nearby village.

Meanwhile as this player is spouting all of this meaningless crap into the chat channel other people are involved in a completely seperate activity which many refer to as playing the game which they have paid for. What gets me is that there seem to be quite a lot of roleplayers who complain about other people ruining their roleplaying fun by PKing them or taking the piss out of them which is odd really. Its a bit like a bunch of people trying to have a game of chess on a football pitch in the middle of a match and then complaining because their chess game keeps getting interrupted. Non-RPers are playing the game properly. RPers are just trying to feebly play a non-existent game which has nothing to do with the one they purchased. Very sad indeed.

Roleplaying is very common in MMOs.

Some are more geared towards it, some are less.

You will find lot of roleplayers in LOTRO , EQ2 , SWG , COX (which are geared towards roleplay and greatly support it with roleplay features)

and perhaps less in EVE, WAR, POTBS (cause they are more geared towards PVP and competition)

Rule fo the thumb , if game has roleplay servers - its a roleplay friendly game.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Roleplaying is very common in MMOs.

Some are more geared towards it, some are less.

 

You will find lot of roleplayers in LOTRO , EQ2 , SWG , COX (which are geared towards roleplay and greatly support it with roleplay features)

and perhaps less in EVE, WAR, POTBS (cause they are more geared towards PVP and competition)

 

Rule fo the thumb , if game has roleplay servers - its a roleplay friendly game.

 

 

Indeed - if you want the best RPing experience ever devised by an MMO, I suggest you go take a look at WoW (it has RP servers!). Oh, wait... Nevermind. 

On a more constructive note, usually all it takes is for one RPer to break the mold and start roleplaying in front of everyone. I generally won't RP unless someone has already started doing it aaround my general area, and I'm sure a lot of people are like this. Almost every game will have a smattering of RP Guilds, however, so that makes the whole process a little less awkward. There were quite a few in EQ2 when I played fairly avidly.

I role play. I admit, it's a waste of time - as is everything on video games. If I am to waste my time playing a MMORPG, it only makes sense for me to waste it in a way which I enjoy.

Ah... but you could role play within the context of many MMO's as RPing goes beyond talking in a chat channel, its how you approach situations in the game, action or in-action that you take at any given time.  I really hate when I read posts that make RPing about how you "talk".  What you do need is a group of fellow gamers that share your understanding and RP with them...   It really is up to the community players to make the most of the game given them... dare to stray from the NPC quests and major story line content.... friends I have played with in teh past would take turns using alts to generate our own quests with rewards of money, items, titles, status in guild, etc  for completing them.  It does take imagination which sad to say is seriously lacking in todays pixelated world.

Peace 

Originally posted by kiddyno071

Ah... but you could role play within the context of many MMO's as RPing goes beyond talking in a chat channel, its how you approach situations in the game, action or in-action that you take at any given time.  I really hate when I read posts that make RPing about how you "talk".  What you do need is a group of fellow gamers that share your understanding and RP with them...   It really is up to the community players to make the most of the game given them... dare to stray from the NPC quests and major story line content.... friends I have played with in teh past would take turns using alts to generate our own quests with rewards of money, items, titles, status in guild, etc  for completing them.  It does take imagination which sad to say is seriously lacking in todays pixelated world.

Peace 

I respect that but for me personally I need a little more substance to my roleplaying.....well....a lot more actually. I dont want to come into a game world and have to pretend that something is happening when it actually isnt. If I am paying money to play a game then I want to play that game. I dont see any point in coming into a game that cannot provide me with what I want and then going out of my way to pretend that it is actually a different a game. I just play the game for what it is and no amount of so-called "roleplaying" is ever going to turn it into something else. There is no harm in doing that of course and people are free to do what they like but to me it just seems rather ludicrous and desperate.

The problem really is that in most mmos the story has already been written so anything the players make up will never actually happen in the game.....their personal ideas have actually got nothing to do with it. In that respect all you are really doing IS typing stuff into the chat channel and just trading items between yourselves and pretending that you have been on some epic quest when in fact you havent at all. The game world just doesnt recognise your roleplaying actions and for me that makes it pointless. This innefectual level of roleplaying can take place in any online game such as Counterstrike for example. This is why many people dont roleplay in online games......because its very clearly got nothing to do with the game they have purchased. It doesnt neccessarily mean that people lack a decent imagination. It just means that people will use their imagination where they feel it is worth using it and online games simply are not set-up with rolplayers in mind......so as a result most people dont roleplay in them. Many people just simply arent interested in deluding themselves on such a large scale. Its more fun for most people to just get on with playing the game they paid for.

I think when a company finally does actually release a REAL roleplaying game where you can actually roleplay with your actions and your actions really effect the world around you then people that have been trying to roleplay in games that arent designed for it (eg WoW, EQ. AoC etc) will look back and think "What the hell was I thinking?! Why on earth did I think that was fun?!"

Wha...What?!?  Forgive me, neonwire, if I am alittle confused by the first part of your post, but when you said that you have to "pretend that something is happening when it isn't" I had to reflect on maybe I have appraoched RP all wrong... you see I thought it was all "pretend".   I would argue that it is happening and while the game NPC's may not acknowledge this is really nopt a biggie.  If you saved a peasant farmers daughter from a group of bandits teh "game" may not know that you did this but those around you could "pretend", no wait, they would know that saved her because they aided you or have heard of your feat from others(players). 

While I agree that  that MMO's are not geared to a RP audience, which is why I refer to these games as MMO's, I do think there is only so much Devs can do.  The real root of there being a lack of RP is because of the players not the game or the Devs.   Its like when I first started playing PnP games back in the day, modeules gave your the bases for the adventure, but it was up to the players to do with it what they chose.  The same could be said for MMO's; Dev's give us the world in which to interact, but it is up to us as the players what we chose to do with it.  I have seen some other posts in this thread that say that if lvling and rushing for endgame were taken out then you might see more RP.  While I don't know or think that would work; bottom line its what you make of the game, beacuse it is just a game, that really matters.

Peace

Originally posted by kiddyno071

 

Wha...What?!?  Forgive me, neonwire, if I am alittle confused by the first part of your post, but when you said that you have to "pretend that something is happening when it isn't" I had to reflect on maybe I have appraoched RP all wrong... you see I thought it was all "pretend".   I would argue that it is happening and while the game NPC's may not acknowledge this is really nopt a biggie.  If you saved a peasant farmers daughter from a group of bandits teh "game" may not know that you did this but those around you could "pretend", no wait, they would know that saved her because they aided you or have heard of your feat from others(players). 

While I agree that  that MMO's are not geared to a RP audience, which is why I refer to these games as MMO's, I do think there is only so much Devs can do.  The real root of there being a lack of RP is because of the players not the game or the Devs.   Its like when I first started playing PnP games back in the day, modeules gave your the bases for the adventure, but it was up to the players to do with it what they chose.  The same could be said for MMO's; Dev's give us the world in which to interact, but it is up to us as the players what we chose to do with it.  I have seen some other posts in this thread that say that if lvling and rushing for endgame were taken out then you might see more RP.  While I don't know or think that would work; bottom line its what you make of the game, beacuse it is just a game, that really matters.

Peace

To be honest I actually expected this answer to crop up eventually. I have had this conversation a number of times before and the roleplayer nearly always ends up saying that pretending is the same as roleplaying. Although there is a grain of truth to this (none of it is happening in real life afterall) it simply isnt true enough.

In a PnP roleplaying game there is a GM who effectively plays the part of god. He runs the game using the available rules and provides the framework of a gameworld in which the players characters exist. The players make decisions and tell the GM what their characters are doing and  the GM responds by telling them how the gameworld reacts to their actions.

In an mmo this doesnt happen as there is no-one running the game. Its a pre-written story with hard-coded outcomes to a very limited number of actions that the players can make. Consequently attempting to roleplay in an mmo results in the players having to "pretend" that there is an outcome to their actions when actually there isnt. This is a whole different level of "pretending" compared to what you would be doing in a PnP roleplaying game and it really isnt even remotely the same thing. In an mmo the players are merely typing stories to each other and doing their best to fit those stories around a game and pre-written story that is indifferent to their efforts.

This is the big difference between a PnP roleplaying game and an mmo. In a PnP roleplaying game the players dont have to pretend that things happen as a result of their actions because the GM describes to them in detail what is going on.......so in the game it really is happening. In an mmo it isnt.

But of course people are totally welcome to "roleplay" to their hearts content in any mmo of their choosing. I have nothing against that (although its definately not for me). Afterall none of their "roleplaying actions" are actually happening in the game as they are just pretending by typing stories to each other in the chat channel......so none of it matters to anyone else. If we were playing a real PnP roleplaying game then it would be a different matter as the actions of each character would actually effect everyone around them.

This is the difference between roleplaying in a roleplaying game and pretending to roleplay in a computer game. You simply cannot compare a PnP roleplaying game to an mmo 

Originally posted by xusheng2

I personally think roleplaying your race or character in a game is a complete waste of time.

VIDEO GAMES are a complete waste of time... unless you're making money off them.

As for your opinion, while you're totally entitled to it and I would defend your right to have it with my last breath, I must ask... if you don't like role playing then why play Role Playing Games [mmoRPG's]? Just seems odd, don't you think? 

But hey it's not enforced and everyone can play their game however they want to - it's what they pay for afterall.

Originally posted by DeaconX

Originally posted by xusheng2

I personally think roleplaying your race or character in a game is a complete waste of time.

VIDEO GAMES are a complete waste of time... unless you're making money off them.

As for your opinion, while you're totally entitled to it and I would defend your right to have it with my last breath, I must ask... if you don't like role playing then why play Role Playing Games [mmoRPG's]? Just seems odd, don't you think? 

 

But hey it's not enforced and everyone can play their game however they want to - it's what they pay for afterall.

Maybe he just likes playing computer games whether they are roleplaying, FPS, strategy, beat-em-ups or whatever. Besides you dont roleplay in singleplayer rpgs and its not neccessary in any of the current multiplayer ones either. Maybe when mmos get more advanced and give players a meaningful incentive to roleplay then we might see more of it. Until then most people will probably just continue to play the games as they have been designed to be played and will give the roleplaying a miss.

As to the topic does anyone actually roleplay i have to say yes a few of us out there still do. I still remember playing evercrack..er..quest and waiting for that damned king to spawn sat for four hours waiting.  I was bored so I started to roleplay my dwarven pally to the hilt. Went on about how the old beards had lied about this so called adventure...never mentioning the fear...the pain..or the sound of your own armor rusting in the confounded rain. Drove part of the server nuts for 4 hours someone even called a GM on me...GM just laughed and said to keep it up she had not laughed that much in a long time. Heck in warhammer and WoW i still roleplay!

I figure I can either spend 10 hours a week creating a complex character and flexing the right side of my brain, or i can spend 10 hours a week humping spreadsheets to find the best gear and flex the left side of my brain.

I generally choose the former, as tactics will usually (though unfortunately not always) out-do gear.

Plus, as the spreadsheeters are whining for more content or complaining about exploit XYZ I get to enjoy in-depth conversations with other people who share my interest.

Originally posted by Egamst3k

I figure I can either spend 10 hours a week creating a complex character and flexing the right side of my brain, or i can spend 10 hours a week humping spreadsheets to find the best gear and flex the left side of my brain.

LOL!  I must say that  the visual image from your post is quite disturbing.

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Originally posted by Egamst3k
I figure I can either spend 10 hours a week creating a complex character and flexing the right side of my brain, or i can spend 10 hours a week humping spreadsheets to find the best gear and flex the left side of my brain.
I generally choose the former, as tactics will usually (though unfortunately not always) out-do gear.
Plus, as the spreadsheeters are whining for more content or complaining about exploit XYZ I get to enjoy in-depth conversations with other people who share my interest.

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English majors win. I would take roleplaying over working numbers any day.

Of course, we only win if you don't love money.