If you really want to roleplay then play MUDs.  There are several where its not only encouraged, its enforced.

Gemstone IV and Dragonsrealms are the two best ones I've played that are still active.

No, I don't roleplay at all when I play MMOs. In fact, I leave all the roleplaying I do to Second Life. However, I do wish that there were more people who actually roleplayed. It's so lonely just roleplaying on your own when everyone else is not, which is why I do not roleplay in the first place. But if other people did, then I would gladly do so.

I remember this one time in the Marketplace in Cantha (Guild Wars) where I was buying goods and I heard two people roleplaying about finding their way though because they got lost so often in the maze that was Cantha. It definitely was roleplay; it had none of the chatspeak other players use, and they actually used aprostrophy marks when they were talking. And, they also emoted as well. It was amazing watching them and the first thing I thought of was, "I wish I could join them". But I never did, because I thought it would be impolite to just barge in like that.

I am much over the fence in this. On the one hand, I love good RP, and miss it today. But it can also get on my nerves sometimes, when I just want to go hunting and some ppl are overy complicated. I guess for me it is a matter of balance.

Back in the day when I used to play City of Heroes, prior to City of Villians coming out.  I was in a guild, where all the characters were based off of monkeys.  To be in the guild you had to follow some basic appearance requirements to make your toon look like a monkey, or one of their slave classes. It was required that you roleplay, talking in character referring to the sibian race as superior to the others.  By rolplaying like that we all seemed to develop certain traits that were unique to our character's personality.  It was a lot of fun roleplaying, just wish that CoX was a lot more fun then it actually was, but rolplaying definitely helped.

Due to real life getting in the way I haven't been keeping up with my old blog here:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/OddjobXL

But, yeah, I'm a pretty hardcore roleplayer in theory. In practice, though, I tend to get more caught up in mindless grinding and less mindless questing these days. When I've got the right character, the right company and I'm in the right mood I still do RP but often times it just takes more work than I have energy or time for. Roleplaying doesn't have to be hard but I tend to put effort into it out of habit.

Lately I've been in LoTRO and done some minor RP there. I just have trouble when my idea of how the setting works fails to mesh with others. For example, there's a wonderful guild of great roleplayers doing a storyline around the Oathbreakers - remember those ghosts that Aragorn got to attack Mordor's forces? They're all captains with a ghostly follower in game. It's a great concept and folks seem to enjoy it. My problem, and it's my problem not theirs, is that the idea of ghosts running around downtown Bree without folks batting an eyelash is just something I can't grok. I...I don't know how to roleplay around it. It makes no sense and fouls up my suspension of disbelief. So I don't. The problem is that the RP community on Landroval is pretty old and tight knit. These guys are a part of it.

So I tend not to RP much there in public. I do RP with my Kinship mates sometimes and often, randomly, with roleplayers I run into in the wilds.

Landroval, along with Starsider (SWG) and Virtue (CoH), are fairly densely populated with roleplayers. Of all three Starsider's rp community is probably the biggest, or at least seems to be, because everyone tends to network together and they hold events or run server-wide storylines all the time. The player association, Hollowood Galactic Studios, actually helps other PAs with event planning and organization as well as helping to coordinate different plotlines. But nobody's really "in charge." Folks opt in or opt out of any given thing and everyone runs storylines or events - some public and some private.

Originally posted by Kaocan

Originally posted by nariusseldon

 

LOL .. i don't remember anyone role-playing in EQ and I played that game for a year.

The answer is nope .... i don't roleplay my char. I PLAY my character. There is a difference.

 

And do you PLAY each character differently? Or do you PLAY them all the same? If they are all the same than you are right, there is a difference... If you play them all different based on their fictional persona, than you are role-playing them. Even if you feel yourself above the term and wish not to be categorized with the rest of us. Role playing does NOT mean you speak only in Ole English or act out EVERYTHING in emotes. Role Playing is simply playing the character as if it is a live person with its own idiosyncrasies, beliefs, and personality traits. Sure, some people take it to extremes, but that does not mean in order to role play a character that you have to as well. There is no reason to let the skew on extreme taint the term role play itself, or take offense to it's use.

I'm an old school PnP D&D player back in the day before all the internet stuff. In our gaming sessions we didn't dress up in funny looking outfits and carry staves just to play the game, but we did PLAY in character when we were in the gaming sessions. That was role-playing, everyone stayed to the beliefs their characters had, spoke as they believed they would, and made choices as they thought the character would.

I don't see how this has changed over the years or in response to the different medias. PLAY the character, as each individual character would, IS in fact role-playing.

I play them all the same. Leveling, getting upgrades, enjoying the content. There is no persona. My mage is me nuking stuff at range. My pally is me tanking stuff. My rogue is me meleeing stuff at close range.

If a guildmate ask me to switch to my main to help out a raid, I dont pretend it is some other person that comes for the raid.

I'll take a stab in the dark here and say you play WoW... you sound like the typical WoW player.

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On another note, I loved roleplaying, I just hated feeling like I was the only one. EQ1 was deffinetly the best game for RPing, preLuclin.

I already have a persona for my future Sith in the upcoming "StarWars: The Old Republic". Granted it may not be the most inventive roleplay for this type of character, but I will be the most evil, hatred, I hate you all, do as I tell you or die, character ever. It will be a blast. The only reason I havn't killed you yet is because you will serve me. MUAHAHAHAH

 As a low level troll shadowknight I'd talk like a thought a troll would sound as did all the other troll newbs.  I stopped doing it in later levels after realizing how geeky it was.

Once for like 30min, was not a good experience for me.

Originally posted by Karnage69

I'll take a stab in the dark here and say you play WoW... you sound like the typical WoW player.

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On another note, I loved roleplaying, I just hated feeling like I was the only one. EQ1 was deffinetly the best game for RPing, preLuclin.

I already have a persona for my future Sith in the upcoming "StarWars: The Old Republic". Granted it may not be the most inventive roleplay for this type of character, but I will be the most evil, hatred, I hate you all, do as I tell you or die, character ever. It will be a blast. The only reason I havn't killed you yet is because you will serve me. MUAHAHAHAH

LOL .. i was talking about EQ1 .. i was there since beta for about a little over a year. It is all about grinding, items & camping. I have yet to meet anyone who RP.

Oh you are half right .. i moved to WOW about 2 years ago. MUCH better game than EQ1.

My Orc Warrior was proud, brave and confident, and I played him as such.

My Gnome Rogue, however was a nasty little switch with no remorse about who he ganked regardless of level.

I play all of my characters as if I had their persona.

BTW, I am NOT a roleplayer. That stuff makes me uncomfortable.

It's good to see that there are others that not only roleplayed thier characters just by speech, but by thier actions and choices as well.

Originally posted by Mithios

   I had a Ranger that was afraid of teleportation...

"I ain't gettin in no teleporter, fool!"

"Just drink this glass of milk..."

No, I've never, ever bothered with any of that in an MMO, though I did that kind of think in tabletop RPG a lot.

I RP in every game I play in.   lol - it's a whole lot of fun!

Originally posted by Teala

I RP in every game I play in.   lol - it's a whole lot of fun!

Agreed