PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Idoru on January 15, 2007, 11:15:51 pm
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Well, I thought I would see how quickly the community would come to help a new player if they actually tried to RP.
I was dissapointed :(
It took about 15 minutes at harnquist before someone offered help OOC, that was while I was asking for help IC. I am greatful for that help but it wasnt exactly what I was after.
20 minutes later, a player finally offered me help IC.
Does the community not bother with those who try to RP their 1st day in game? or do you need to stand at harnquist saying, 'I need money' like a player stood doing while I was there.
If the community wants to try to improve its inclusiveness then they really do need to actually offer assistance when its asked IC. I dont mind if you ignore the annoying newbie types, but trying to help those that have bothered to read the settings should be a high priority for any player.
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Harnquist is often not the right place to try to RP.
I'd prefer a drink in the tavern.
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Well, I must have missed that in the settings or on the Char creation screen.
My point was to try and do it from a total newbies point of view. I started as a dwarf and Harnquist has the largest concentration of players in the area.
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Yeah, doesn't mean the "good ones" sit on Harny's lap all day.
When you're a newbie you should try to discover the game a bit first and get to know some individuals, instead of walking into the first, probably uninterested, crowd and trying to RP with them.
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But they should be interested, they were all just stood around doing not alot.
And you can hardly expect a newbie to have the knowledge to not go ther, they will instantly be attracted to the large group, its human nature.
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Do you really think that the majority of the population of PS really care? Do you think any of the people that don't RP are going to a)see this and in that unlikely case b) Think 'golly, I best clean up my act?'
I do care and I would've (depending on which character I'm playing) helped.
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Do you really think that the majority of the population of PS really care? Do you think any of the people that don't RP are going to a)see this and in that unlikely case b) Think 'golly, I best clean up my act?'
Unfortunatly, No on all counts. That is what bothers me.
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People come here to play, test, and enjoy planeshift. It is up to them if they want to help and to what level. We have a great rep for this community as helpful and friendly. I think Idoru you have just seen a down day. Try not to focus so much on the role-play others are doing and just contribute your own. If everyone did that we wouldn't hear so much complaining.
The newbie is clueless when first entering game unless they have read the information provided in the forums and on the main planeshift website. It would be nice if some could help the newbie if they are talking to Harnquist and you know for a fact they need to just say a few key words. But remember some newbies don't know what role-play is yet. Not only that but some players have issues with trying to explain game mechanics in character. Personally when I am with a newbie I group with them and introduce them to the game first before I unleash my role-plays onto them. Give them a chance to adjust and become familiar with the game. The person may find they don't like role-play. This game is full of wonderful role-players but remember this game isn't just for the role-players. It is for everyone.
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@Akaye, I think you may misunderstand me. I was attempting to contribute to the RP by being a new person to the town (or the game but with the knowlege that RP is a requirement.)
I tried in the best way I could to do an impersonation of a person RPing being new to PS. I wasnt focusing on anyone elses RP, just the fact that I as new and wanted to RP.
I failed to mention that actually 2 players did try to help aswell but both these were brand new also, they were quite helpful actually. I made no attempt to imply that I needed help with the mechanics of the game. I used '/me' and '/my' in my open chats to try to display this fact. I walked and ran and jumped.
I was, in effect, a non-clueless newbie, like I had read and understood the setings and understood the mechanics of the game.
this game isn't just for the role-players. It is for everyone.
Unfortunatly, and I mean that most sincerely, I think many would disagree with you.
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this game isn't just for the role-players. It is for everyone.
Unfortunatly, and I mean that most sincerely, I think many would disagree with you.
That is fine they can disagree all they want. This was posted in a thread by a dev (unfortantly I can't remember which one, otherwise I would post it). It is their game and I think the players forget that at times. This is not my out look but the out look of the people who created the game. I am a role-player but I am not going to push it on everyone who logs onto the server. If they clearly don't want to role-play, then they are still welcome to play this game and do what they do whether it is a power leveler or a quester. We try and make this game meet everyones needs. It is not the job of a role-player to be a pain in the ass if this is the players choice and they choose not to role-play.
As for misunderstanding I think I have read your post word for word and I have a clear idea with what you are saying. At the same time when I was a new role-player I didn't wait for a group of role-players to pick me up and role-play with me just because I knew how to use the /me command. I went looking for it. A newbie to role-play has to learn how to involve themselves creatively. This is part of the growing pains of becoming a role-player. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter, and sometimes it is down right frustrating to join a group. If I couldn't find a group to role-play with I would create a story of my own and begin to involve those who were interested in it. There are many ways around this problem that you present, it is just a matter of how much effort the new role-player wants to put in.
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So, are you saying that oyu have a background story, then if it doesnt work after quite a while of trying, you then scrap it and go for another?
You would have to delete your Char of course because you would end up with the old story coming back to haunt you.
I was disappointed by my experience of the players I met (with a few exceptions, primarily Stelanso who cared enought to fully in RP lead me to the tavern because I had journied a long time and Ecuetas) (that dissapointment includes a member of the guild I am the leader of) I was just plain ignored other than these two people. I am quite sure that most would have just blatantly ignored me forever.
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So, are you saying that oyu have a background story, then if it doesnt work after quite a while of trying, you then scrap it and go for another?
You would have to delete your Char of course because you would end up with the old story coming back to haunt you.
I would never suggest scrapping your background story. My god as a newbie how much of a story could you have anyway? You are living the story as you role-play. Otherwise if not you have everything planned which means you are not a true role-player. You are just a puppet master with strings.
I can't see what a back ground story has to do with role-playing with others in the community anyway. I mean your background story is just that, some of your history already taken place for you to chat with people on the server about to give them an idea of your characters personality. A starting point basically. The role-play begins when you start adding to the story. I have lived many role-play stories in Yliakum as Zorbels, I don't just go with my background story. If you are trying to role-play your back ground story and not getting a response to it then my suggestion would be come up with a (I call them) sub story. A little out line of a very small role-play. (This next suggestion I did once) Maybe your groffel got stolen and you are searching for it. So you start to ask the people in Hydlaa if they have seen it. This opens up a conversation and a possible adventure in searching for this groffel. Maybe one of the players says "Yes I have seen it in ojaveda" well because you are supposably new you can explain you don't know the way. This opens up a position for someone to play the travel guide, etc. Then the role-play begins and before you know it, it was bedtime hours ago and your eyes are bloodshot.
I can understand your disappointment with people not just jumping to help you. But seriously it isn't the end of the world and there are bound to be days were no one is around to help or the people on the server are in huge role-plays and don't want to break them to bring a newbie into it. Don't let one time discourage you.
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Just a matter of inteterst, what race/name was your toon?
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@Akaye: so nothing has happened to this character before he gets created by you? He've just been stoning all his life not really anything interesting has happened to him? His personality comes from his life, and this life is his background story :). I'm sure you know that :O.
@Idoru: A shame I wasn't around, I try to help, both IC and OOC. Maybe I could have depleeted(umm wrong word :p?) your disappointment a bit by acting as you asked. Although maybe the rp'ers at harnquist who wasn't really doing anthing were semi afk. Or spammed up with their chatbox so they ignored you and red what their friends was writing to follow that, maybe their characters ignored you. Many things it could have been.
As for the game being for rp'ers only, I think that's what is stated on the main site if I am right... if someone talks ooc'ly they are asked, by a game master too... to keep it in brackets.
And there's not really much else to do than rp'ing... if yo uwant to spend your time powerlevelling and questing you'll get bored real fast real quick.
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Maybe you were so short no-one could see you. Dwavres are a dime a dozen and always underfoot no wonder you were ignored. On a serious note if you are not a familiar face you often get ignored, if you are a familiar face that is outside the current clique you also often get ignored. Life is tough in the big city, people standing around Harnquist apparently doing nothing are often deep in thought (/telling, AFK talking in a group or guild channel or rooting through their inventory) Perhaps your role play came off as rude and overly annoying. There are many factors that might habe been involved. I wasn't there so I mention possibilities not certainties, you understand.
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Agreed, unfortunately. The other day an enki who seemed quite skilled in RP was attempting to get involved, but most ignored him, I tried to help but was being hassled at the same time irl so it was a bit difficult. To be honest, I had similar problems when first starting the game, while everyone was willing to show me the sewers and where to train, jumping into an RP was far more difficult. Fortunately I:
a) managed to find one of those popular players who basically greets all newcomers warmly, and introduces them to others
b) decided to be really assertive, and jump at every opportunity to RP, almost forcing my way in some of the time
It shouldn't be that hard though, you all wonder why there are so many "1337's" around. Everyone's willing to help with the OOC part, but not the IC part, it's not exactly complicated.
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consider this RL scenario you are a newcomer to a big city, you spot a large cluster of heavily armed people in small groups, maybe talking, shopping or just enjoying the day. You walk up to this group of strangers some of whom have weapons in hand and you ask random people for help.
Unfortunately it is a sad indictment of our society today that you would be more likely to get abuse than help, and that would carry over into a medieval society you'd be lucky to keep your head.
I would hope that anyone who knows enough to roleplay in the first place would understand that real people do not just drop everything and rush to help, secondly the community that makes PS great is by and large an OOC one most help is given OOCly and a little [hi i'm new and trying to learn to rp] works with most.
A third point with your experiment if your new char was so obviously able to handle the interface, (run jump use of /me /my) that to me says that the player may not be as new as the char and should be looking for rp as mentioned at the tavern or fountain
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A third point with your experiment if your new char was so obviously able to handle the interface, (run jump use of /me /my) that to me says that the player may not be as new as the char and should be looking for rp as mentioned at the tavern or fountain
True, but my attempt was not purposefully not to get OOC help. Trying my best to look new but having actually read up on the game. We as a community are constantly irritated by those who dont bother to read the settings or the newbie guides on this forum. Then when someone comes along who has, they get little help from those around them because they think it is just an alt. Even if it is 'just' an alt, IC it should make little or no difference to people.
b) decided to be really assertive, and jump at every opportunity to RP, almost forcing my way in some of the time
People in the past have seemed to get quite annoyed when people do that, and ICly, its understandable. If I was having a conversation in the street IRL and some one just walked up, stood for a while then joined in the conversation id tell them where to go. However, if someone IRL came up to this same scenario and said to me, 'Excuse me, but im lost, could you show me.....' I would be more than happy to help them out.
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Maybe I was just on at the right times, but I never had a problem with RPing as a newbie. Of course, I suppose I might not have come across as much of a newbie, 'cause there was a long wait for the download, and I spent most of the time excitedly reading all the guides I could... (The only things that identified me as a newbie were things like lack of equipment, money and knowledge of spoilers. But people usually don't pay that much attention to those things anyway)
I never asked for help in how to RP, or even asked to RP with someone. I'd just find one or more people, stalk them, then make up interesting 'mini-plot twists' as I went along.
I'm interested to know exactly how you simulated a 'newbie'. Personally, I'd be far more likely to RP with someone who was a little more original than "Hail, friends. I'm new to this Level. Can you help me?"
(For example, one newbie heard me making random IC comments and got my attention by stealing my purse and refusing to return it until I agreed to help him)
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Personally, when I try to help I will do it as in character as possible. I do my best to RP all the time and if some new person asks help I'll respond in character most of the time. Now since not all my characters are bent on helping out strangers, let alone being friendly towards them this isn't always easy. So when I help someone IC it can be rather 'rude' or demanding .. this usually ends up in the person disliking me or going away but if they play their cards right (aka stay in character as well) they'll usually get something out of me.
Thing here is you shouldn't be waiting to join into RP. RP should ideally be going on all the time, a good RPer is always in character unless s/he talks in brackets and if you want to RP as a new player you should just stay in character as well. Now RPing some interesting event going on .. that is another matter. There isn't always something interesting going on in Hydlaa but that doesn't mean there is no RP going on.
One of my characters is found a lot around Harnquist, since he is a smith. He'll seem to be just standing around if you don't interact with him but he's usually at work. Of course I can't make him do every detailed smithing act in /me commands because then I'll probably get complaints about flooding the chat with useless babbling :P
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@Akaye: so nothing has happened to this character before he gets created by you? He've just been stoning all his life not really anything interesting has happened to him? His personality comes from his life, and this life is his background story :). I'm sure you know that :O.
Peacer if you are going to respond to my posts then can you please read them and not just skim them. You more often than not misunderstand what I am saying or talk about something that has nothing to do with what I said.
I clearly stated that a character has a background story, yes. What is a background story? It is your life that has already come to pass. So of course interesting things have happened to your character. Or maybe not, maybe your character leads a boring life. The point is you build on that story as you role-play in Yliakum everytime you log into the server. You have role-played long enough that I am sure you know that. :/
BTW his/her personality comes from you and the stories you tell or the actions you role-play out as that character. It doesn't all come from the background story. I have nothing in my "Zorbels life story" thread that tells of her fear of heights (That is my background story, and it was created since the first day I started playing planeshift. I didn't make a background story until I had enough role-play in planeshift to begin one). It just became because I wanted to have a weakness for her and I decided one day to start role-playing it out.
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re-read your post again, but it tells more about the story you actually rp on the server and not the one you write, about your characters life things that have happened, not a substory rp taking your previvous example, your groffle missing and you're in hydlaa to look for it.
but both are stories, one which you live out on the server and one to determines your characters personality before he became independent and went out on his own (or whatever happened :p.)
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Idoru, I wouldnt mind seeing your chat log for the experiment. You can edit the names of others so no one gets ticked off. It would give us a clearer picture of what the general mood was at the time and might help some in rethinking their RPs when it comes to Newbies.
With all the "here to help" guilds, it is funny that we ever see a disappointed or frustrated newbie at all. I would guess that 2/3rds of the guilds have, as one of their main priorities, 'help those in need' but it doesnt always work that way. How many of the helper guilds have a member posted at Harnys for this pupose alone? I understand it isnt an exiting job for a lot people, and there are many other ways to help the newcomer. I was once a member of a small secret guild whos main purpose was to help the newbies, with a search for family RP theme. I found it very difficult to be in the right places to actualy help that many newcomers. With a total of 29 members, 4 of which were knowledgable enough to help, we had many other duties to aid our own members which made it almost impossible to help anyone else. I was able to help many more newbies when I was alone than part of a 'helper guild', I had no time to be a part of any mass RPs that were going on around me because all my time was for helping.
I dont get in-game much any more, due to crashes and RL responsibilities, but when I do, most of my time is for the Newbie.
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re-read your post again, but it tells more about the story you actually rp on the server and not the one you write, about your characters life things that have happened, not a substory rp taking your previvous example, your groffle missing and you're in hydlaa to look for it.
but both are stories, one which you live out on the server and one to determines your characters personality before he became independent and went out on his own (or whatever happened :p.)
Thanks for re reading my post. :)
My concern from your last post is that you are seprating the background story from what you role-play on the server. Don't they all go together into one story at one point? That is what I have done. I could log in today and do a role-play and once done it becomes an event in my life that has come to pass, therefore adding itself to my background story. So there is the main story but sub stories with in the main. As I have said before your stories are just your character written by you and it is you who gives that character the personality. You can add things to your character without even having a story for it. That is the beauty of creation of a character. Then you have something in which you can role-play out and build on the characteristic.
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How I see it is the same as RL, you cant, now, influence your past, that is as it is written. You can influence your future and present. I can have a premise, although not written down, as I did with the Character in question (Hew had run from his village, it would have been OOC for him to have explained further unless engaged in RP and been befriended by some one he could trust to explain it to) that is fixed, although I should not change anything that invalidates that original idea. (just as you can BS about your past in RL aslong as it doesnt invalidate what you have already told someone or you will end up with a bad reputation as a BSer)
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How I see it is the same as RL, you cant, now, influence your past, that is as it is written. You can influence your future and present. I can have a premise, although not written down, as I did with the Character in question (Hew had run from his village, it would have been OOC for him to have explained further unless engaged in RP and been befriended by some one he could trust to explain it to) that is fixed, although I should not change anything that invalidates that original idea. (just as you can BS about your past in RL aslong as it doesnt invalidate what you have already told someone or you will end up with a bad reputation as a BSer)
Not necessarily; you could say you were lying, or had amnesia, or was brainwashed, or your memories were tampered with in some other way. There's always a way out.
But I can see how that might clash with your belief in your own character - If your character was 'real', you wouldn't be able to change his/her past on a whim. 'Course you wouldn't be able to control them either...
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re-read your post again, but it tells more about the story you actually rp on the server and not the one you write, about your characters life things that have happened, not a substory rp taking your previvous example, your groffle missing and you're in hydlaa to look for it.
but both are stories, one which you live out on the server and one to determines your characters personality before he became independent and went out on his own (or whatever happened :p.)
Thanks for re reading my post. :)
My concern from your last post is that you are seprating the background story from what you role-play on the server. Don't they all go together into one story at one point? That is what I have done. I could log in today and do a role-play and once done it becomes an event in my life that has come to pass, therefore adding itself to my background story. So there is the main story but sub stories with in the main. As I have said before your stories are just your character written by you and it is you who gives that character the personality. You can add things to your character without even having a story for it. That is the beauty of creation of a character. Then you have something in which you can role-play out and build on the characteristic.
they indeed do go together in one story at the time, you continue the story you wrote for your character before you have logged into the server when you actually log into the server to play this character, maybe it's public, maybe it's not, maybe it's public but undone. As long as you have the story though :).
as emeraldfool says you can't really change your characters past if you try to make him real in the world he lives in.
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Not necessarily; you could say you were lying, or had amnesia, or was brainwashed, or your memories were tampered with in some other way. There's always a way out.
But I can see how that might clash with your belief in your own character - If your character was 'real', you wouldn't be able to change his/her past on a whim. 'Course you wouldn't be able to control them either...
Well if a real person comes to me with a story of being brainwashed etc. ... I'm not going to believe him unless there is very compelling evidence of it. If a character comes to my character with such a story I treat that character in the same way. Whether it's a compulsive liar or an insane person, I don't want anything to do with him/her.
You should always roleplay your character as 'real' and never be able to change their past or personality without a reason (sadly I see this happen too often when players notice their character isn't as popular as they wanted it to be), you have to create their past before you start playing your character. And you wouldn't be able to control them no, you would have to be them :P
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I changed my history a bit, but i've been away long enough for anyone to know me or remember what my story was muahahah ^_^
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Well if a real person comes to me with a story of being brainwashed etc. ... I'm not going to believe him unless there is very compelling evidence of it. If a character comes to my character with such a story I treat that character in the same way. Whether it's a compulsive liar or an insane person, I don't want anything to do with him/her.
You must miss out on a lot of interesting RPs that way...
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I don't .. I don't miss out on any RP because I'm always RPing. :P
RP is not a situation or an event for me. RP is getting into the skin of my character and being that character. Ignoring and despising (in character of course :D ) characters like your Vexus is just as much RP to me as trying to help or fight them.
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I don't .. I don't miss out on any RP because I'm always RPing. :P
RP is not a situation or an event for me. RP is getting into the skin of my character and being that character. Ignoring and despising (in character of course :D ) characters like your Vexus is just as much RP to me as trying to help or fight them.
You know what I mean. I'm sure Vexusssss is at least somewhat interesting to you, otherwise you wouldn't remember him ;) By 'ignoring and despising' him, you're missing out on the potential for an interesting role to play. I mean, how much fun can you have if you only interact with 'good', socially acceptable characters?
I suppose to each his own though...
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But despising the mentally unstable is exactly the role I play. I do know what you mean but I don't agree with you fully. I interact from my character's point of view and I don't take on every roleplaying oppertunity that presents itself, only those where my character would like to be involved in. As to the fun I have, trust me, it is plenty and I hardly only interact with good characters.
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I've never had a problem with not finding help. The only real problem I've faced in that regard is finding someone who knows what the hell they're talking about :P
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a LOT of cross information in this game