PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: Wavan Levironk on August 06, 2009, 06:17:54 pm
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So first... forgive my english, after 2 years playing, I believe it's still not good enough :-\
And second... I mention the words "developer" and "veteran player" here, I don't mean all the devs or all the players, it's up to you, being objective, to believe if it is your case.
Now, what you were expecting to read:
I have read many complains about the newcomers, and how they ruin the game. I have seen the same replies and opinions over and over again. As if one of the newcomers will join the forums and say "hey, it's my case, I will stop being a noob and become a pro roleplayer".
I would really like to know... who do you address those complains? to the developers, the GMs, the newcomers who won't read this post? Developers make the game, not the players that play it, and GMs aren't always present!
So, instead of writing a post to those ones who will never read the forums, I post it to the ones who actually read and complain in it and what you can (and should) change to make roleplay better. There we go:
Part one: Veteran Roleplayers and elitism.
1. Change your mind: Change your mind, your thoughts. I have heard "The good roleplayers are gone", but never "The good roleplayers are growing". I don't mean literally growing, I mean that they are being trained, they are learning to roleplay, they are on the way. The past, as the word says, it's just the past, it's not the present and it's gone, stop saying "those good days" and start saying "These good days".
2. You are not the best: You may have been playing for 5 years, congratulations, honestly, but that doesn't make you -by far- the best. You have maxed all the stats, swords, daggers, light, medium and heavy armor, red way and crystal way, and melee is on the way. Then what happens? You make a stupid mistake or have an argument with another player and you have one of those veterans behind you, saying they are better than anyone else. My message will always be the same: Do you really believe you are that important?
3. Stop making no-sense: Some of the players I mentioned above, say that since you can fight and powerlevel, roleplay is dead. Pardon? erase your character and start again with low stats and low skills then, and never say you're the best again 8) .
4. Don't expect to be asked for help: You are the god of roleplaying, and as a god of roleplaying you are, you are always willing to help. But if you think people will come to you asking for help and suggestions, you are saying there is no shy people. You are wrong, I'm one of those who will never ask you, sorry, I am that way, and so are many players here. If you see someone not roleplaying, or saying stupid things in main, send him a tell in a friendly way, and give him the chance to join a roleplaying group. I know that won't always work and that there are some trolls out there, like anywhere else.
5. Make more open events: I logged in with my character for an hour, I didn't find any events or anyone roleplaying, just two people talking about their issues (that's roleplaying, but there was no way I could join). In an hour, a newcomer meets the game mechanics and the atmosphere of the game, if there are no roleplays, he won't roleplay, it is that simple.
6. You make stupid mistakes: Again, I saw a character who has been around for years, and in its description it said "His eyes make you feel respect". Why would I respect someone I don't know? I respect them as I respect any person I don't know, right?
7. Be realistic: You have been into a lot roleplay events, now in your description it says your eyes change its color, you are full of scars, your body is strong, you have -no one knows how many- medals, it says you're a master mage in your leather torso armor you are not even wearing. Now you make another character, it's a beautiful fenki who moves her tail and makes your character feel lost in a world of feelings. You know I am a blue eyed, blond guy, with the highest IQ you will ever see and I have everyone admiring me because I have Arnold Schwarzenegger's genetics and the perfect abs, but I am also tall and perfect, and I am the best kisser? Is it your real life that way? Then don't expect your character to be!
8. Your character is not you: And not because he has to think in a different way. The same people are 24/7 on IRC and in game. They play for hours. The feeling of being in an elite is great, I know, and because your life is not the way you expect, you feel more powerful because you have a powerful character, I understand you, but it leads you to the second point I wrote. I know how it feels having no friends (or not going out often) and being fat (wishing your body was better) so you go and develop a Wavan Levironk, you max his stats and some skills and random players tell you they have heard about you and that you are a good guild leader. I have been there. And then, you behave like a complete jerk, and you live for playing because you have nothing else to do. Completely wrong. Go jogging, join a gym, no matter what, do some exercise, get to meet people (I know it's not as easy as it sounds), join a martial art, have a hobby... no matter what, but forget about PlaneShift for a while... surprise, your life got so much better and you're not a jerk anymore :).
NOTE: I'm not saying everyone is that way. This only applies to people who, like me, have been through that. Please, if you don't know how it is or feels, don't critize about it, and if you feel that way, my suggestion is not to admit it but to do something about it (and if you want, send me a PM). People playing games like WoW or RS for hours are ruining their lifes, and PS is a great game and with the roleplaying thing, it can be a good game to play in your spare time or it can ruin your life. I will try to write more about this in a post later.
8. Your character is not you, be willing to loose: Your character might be epic, but things happen, and it's only a game, your reputation can go to 0 in just one day. Don't feel bad about it, even if it's your main character. Just roleplay how bad your character feels, but don't let the feeling get to you.
Part 2: Developers and GMs.
I know how it feels being in the elite, but developers and GMs must be in heaven if they really think that way. And it happens. Developers and GMs being unfair happen everyday, and shutting up mouths against them. Be sensitive, critics are good and everyone makes mistakes, and accepting that is what make good devs and GMs.
Another thing it's hard for me to understand is that when someone gives a developer an idea or a complain, I hear a "don't complain, contribute!" or a "don't just give ideas, make them come true, contribute!". I don't know anything about programming... does that mean I don't have a voice when it comes to give suggestions or report bugs? I try to understand developers are stressed, but instead of just whining about that, say "I will take it into account" and note it (write it down) and put it in the TODO list. If the reported bug is already being worked on, just tell them to be patient. I know sometimes it's hard, but believe me, you will reduce a lot your stress.
And now I repeat again: At least one of the points will fit you (I'd say point 4 would fit most of us), but I am not saying all developers, GMs and players are wrong. And of course newcomers are also guilty, but don't forget they are just newcomers, english might not be their main language and they need to practice. I'm sure 90% of players would roleplay if they were given a chance..
Please, I accept critics and suggestions to add to this post, but be sensitive, don't feel insulted, you know how it works, start changing the world by changing yourself first. Thank you for reading.
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The blue text is darn near impossible to read. If you want anyone to care about this post, I suggest you ditch colours altogether or choose ones that are aesthetically pleasing.
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True, sorry changed that :)
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this seems like a combination of common sense, which we dont need to be told, and moderately offensive generalizations. and of course a nice helping of patronizing advice to the team.
:thumbdown:
the colors make me want to gouge out my eyes, red green blue doesnt matter.
too mean?
if so im sorry, but i dont see a point here
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I've had similar complains as a minimal rper, but overall I don't have much of a problem with the senior members. it's the legions of fenkis whose descriptions state that they are so beautiful and unnaturally agile that I can't help but drool all over myself or some variation therein that really irks me. my main is a bit racist against fenkis and certainly isn't enraptured by any of them, it really irks me when their bio says that. also, how can all fenkis be unnaturally agile? alright kids, we can't all be above average.
I'd like to make a shout out to the nice fellows who invited me in to a two person conversation they were having in the tavern. I had minimal contact with either of them previously yet they invited me to join them regardless. This group quickly grew to a tableful of 5 rpers, most of whom had never met each other. if rp was dead that wouldn't happen. if people didn't invite each other to rp it wouldn't happen. but rp happens, and the way I see it, there are a lot of jerks living in yliakum but there are also some really cool people. just have to learn to rp around it.
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Most people have at least decent amount of common sense and some knowledge of what they should and what they shouldn't do. Most certainly, they usually strive to do what they feel is right. Of course, very few wish to be forced into following other's view of what right and wrong is. On the other side of the spectrum, yes, the obvious "truths" do appear as unneeded, but that doesn't necessarily mean people should avoid speaking it up.
Because knowing doesn't mean doing and it's always good if there are people that will occasionally point it all out again. However, this thread could only benefit if it had been presented as loose guidelines rather than (sure, mild) criticism.
6. You make stupid mistakes: Again, I saw a character who has been around for years, and in its description it said "His eyes make you feel respect". Why would I respect someone I don't know? I respect them as I respect any person I don't know, right?
I'd read that as "he appears to be very confident". At least that's how I'd feel about someone who maintains a strong eye contact. Most people shy away from prolonged gaze and yes, I actually feel more respect for people that don't. Alternatively he may be setting his eyes on your forehead, but that's more likely to cause intimidation than respect, I guess.
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Another thing it's hard for me to understand is that when someone gives a developer an idea or a complain, I hear a "don't complain, contribute!" or a "don't just give ideas, make them come true, contribute!". I don't know anything about programming... does that mean I don't have a voice when it comes to give suggestions or report bugs? I try to understand developers are stressed, but instead of just whining about that, say "I will take it into account" and note it (write it down) and put it in the TODO list. If the reported bug is already being worked on, just tell them to be patient. I know sometimes it's hard, but believe me, you will reduce a lot your stress.
You do realize the Devs don't owe you anything, right? If you want to report a bug, do it on the bugtracker. It exists for a reason.
The Devs already have a TODO list and if they added every stupid suggestion nothing would ever get done. Why say you'll take something into account if that isn't going to happen?
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6. You make stupid mistakes: Again, I saw a character who has been around for years, and in its description it said "His eyes make you feel respect". Why would I respect someone I don't know? I respect them as I respect any person I don't know, right?
I'd read that as "he appears to be very confident". At least that's how I'd feel about someone who maintains a strong eye contact. Most people shy away from prolonged gaze and yes, I actually feel more respect for people that don't. Alternatively he may be setting his eyes on your forehead, but that's more likely to cause intimidation than respect, I guess.
First, what are you doing here, Drak? Get out :P
And second, telling somebody else what they should feel is wrong. "He appears to be very confident" is fine "His eyes make you feel respect" is very much along the lines of "His teeth make you give him all your tria", it's godmoding, just accidental and to a small degree.
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I thoroughly enjoyed this post. And I know it seems like this stuff is common sense, but often times the simplest stuff gets lost and we need reminders of it. The thing i take most out of this is patience for fellow players and working together instead of yelling at each other. And I do agree it is very easy to get lost in a character because whether people admit it or not, a lot of ourselves do end up as part of these characters. I am fortunate to be involved in a lot of jobs and projects in my real life to help me keep my head there more than here, because honestly if i found PlaneShift or any other MMORPG 5 or 6 years ago I probably would have totally lost myself to it. That said, PlaneShift is a place I have found to make friends and have fun, and if that's why you are here then awesome! But also like he said, take some time for you as well. We'll be here when you get back :)
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And second, telling somebody else what they should feel is wrong. "He appears to be very confident" is fine "His eyes make you feel respect" is very much along the lines of "His teeth make you give him all your tria", it's godmoding, just accidental and to a small degree.
Yes, people shouldn't try to impose emotions onto other characters. After all, no one can fully predict what's going to happen inside another's head. Here I'm speaking merely on a personal note and stating that I wouldn't be turned off by such a description (or maybe I would, it's hard to predict -- but I shouldn't ;)
It probably is some sort of a faux pas. Just saying 'you' can turn out to be so offensive... But if the rest of the description is at least decent, I think I should feel compelled to actually play out this enforced scenario. Maybe I wouldn't, but again - I should ;)
Overall I admit though, you're right. Now that you brought it up, it does appear to be a mild form of godmodding, and as such, it may fall under "bad rp". I don't think I can argue against that. I still find it to make sense though. We do usually make our first impressions of other people before they even speak a word. Their bodies can send signals that trigger respect, among other feelings (Unlike what the 6th point says, I do experience varying levels of respect towards people I only met just now). There, it was presented in an unproper way, but it's certainly not that intuitive to present such a first impression in a "clean" manner.
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It's definitely not a line that would be a description breaker it's just not a good trend to follow. I do agree that the same line worded differently "His eyes seem filled with a respectful aura" or some such would be fine. Perhaps it wasn't the best example.
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this seems like a combination of common sense, which we dont need to be told, and moderately offensive generalizations. and of course a nice helping of patronizing advice to the team.
:thumbdown:
the colors make me want to gouge out my eyes, red green blue doesnt matter.
too mean?
if so im sorry, but i dont see a point here
It's a good post and many people need to be reminded to use common sense. How are the generalizations offensive? It's not pointed at YOU it's what we see in general and I mostly agree.
Looking at the post and the reply given by you I'd say the post has far more points.
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As I said, this doesn't apply to everyone, there are players and players.
About the devs thing I wrote, I understand they have a lot of work and I know we have to use the bug tracker and that stuff, but what I have seen is SOME (not all) developers always saying they feel stressful, whinning more than the players.
And of course this post is all common sense, but if I didn't think it's necessary to remind some things, I wouldn't have posted it.
And once again, about the respect thing. Just reading "You evaluate he might be impossible to defeat" is respectful enough, you don't have to say how your tail moves or what your eyes make you feel others since up to others' characters, not to yours.
Again, I don't want people to argue or to be offended, once again, this post is meant to be constructive.
And of course there could be more points, but this is just to give a general idea.
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6. You make stupid mistakes: Again, I saw a character who has been around for years, and in its description it said "His eyes make you feel respect". Why would I respect someone I don't know? I respect them as I respect any person I don't know, right?
I'd read that as "he appears to be very confident". At least that's how I'd feel about someone who maintains a strong eye contact. Most people shy away from prolonged gaze and yes, I actually feel more respect for people that don't. Alternatively he may be setting his eyes on your forehead, but that's more likely to cause intimidation than respect, I guess.
First, what are you doing here, Drak? Get out :P
And second, telling somebody else what they should feel is wrong. "He appears to be very confident" is fine "His eyes make you feel respect" is very much along the lines of "His teeth make you give him all your tria", it's godmoding, just accidental and to a small degree.
To a small degree? God modding is god modding. Don't make fine lines, that will just confuse people. In my opinion, "His eyes make you feel respect" should be treated the same as "Anyone who looks in his eyes turns to stone and can never be cured, even by the strongest healers." (I know these are totally opposite and should be treated differently due to the obvious differences in intent, but intent should be the only difference maker. You should think god-mod first, then wonder how it should be treated.)
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I think this point is trivial. If you don't like someone's character description then either ignore it or politely inform them.
A larger annoyance is flat out godmodding during rp however thats easy to remedy - just ignore it.
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"About the devs thing I wrote, I understand they have a lot of work and I know we have to use the bug tracker and that stuff, but what I have seen is SOME (not all) developers always saying they feel stressful, whinning more than the players."
That's because being a dev is more stressful than being a player. Why wouldn't it be? I don't see the devs whining a lot, I see them being a hell of a lot nicer than I would be. I don't think you understand at all.
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"About the devs thing I wrote, I understand they have a lot of work and I know we have to use the bug tracker and that stuff, but what I have seen is SOME (not all) developers always saying they feel stressful, whinning more than the players."
That's because being a dev is more stressful than being a player. Why wouldn't it be? I don't see the devs whining a lot, I see them being a hell of a lot nicer than I would be. I don't think you understand at all.
I have to see I haven't seen many devs whinning, so this applies to a very few cases, but still, I said what I've seen, there's nothing to understand about it.
Don't forget PS is made with the spare time of the developers, they are not going to get a profit so getting stressed is not really productive or necessary, I'm not saying is wrong, it's understandable, but think about that.
Anyway, the post's aim wasn't to blame the devs, that was a note, the important part is the one involving the players (I didn't want it to sound mean, and some may have feel offended, then, sorry)
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Don't forget PS is made with the spare time of the developers, they are not going to get a profit so getting stressed is not really productive or necessary, I'm not saying is wrong, it's understandable, but think about that.
Okay. I'll just go tell the devs not to be stressed and I'm sure that will fix everything. You're brilliant. I'm working as prospect and even that is s a bit stressful for me. I really really don't think you get it at all. You can not "profit" from something and still be stressed by it.
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Being such a jerk replying just gives me more points to add to the list, blaming about how mean the post sounded, getting still meaner replies. Time to get mature, go out and take fresh air.
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I think that while there is not fiscal profit, there is profit. The ability to create, discover, and contribute to an existing world is, in my opinion, a profit. Therefore, if things aren't going as smoothly or quickly as hoped, then there is the possibility of less profit, the profit being the growth of the world. Also, afaik devs do want players to enjoy what they've done. This enjoyment from the people experiencing the world they've helped shape is a profit too.
I'm not particularly money driven. If I'm doing something for money, it is because I need the money for something else. I prefer to do things I enjoy and can learn from.
If I'm wrong about this, I'm sorry. This is just my opinion.
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Being such a jerk replying just gives me more points to add to the list, blaming about how mean the post sounded, getting still meaner replies. Time to get mature, go out and take fresh air.
I didn't realize disagreeing with you made me a jerk. The post isn't mean, it's irreverent. I actaully can't go out, but thanks for the unneeded advice.
Zweitholou, you are right, that's why i had profit in quotes.
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I think that while there is not fiscal profit, there is profit. The ability to create, discover, and contribute to an existing world is, in my opinion, a profit. Therefore, if things aren't going as smoothly or quickly as hoped, then there is the possibility of less profit, the profit being the growth of the world. Also, afaik devs do want players to enjoy what they've done. This enjoyment from the people experiencing the world they've helped shape is a profit too.
I'm not particularly money driven. If I'm doing something for money, it is because I need the money for something else. I prefer to do things I enjoy and can learn from.
If I'm wrong about this, I'm sorry. This is just my opinion.
That's actually a good way to write a kind reponse, not the ones Keldrena was writing.
Again, I get your point, and as I said, there was just a few cases about devs whinning more than players, still I thought I should put it. Sorry for those ones who felt hurt about it.
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Great post, Wavan and calm down Keldrena. In short:
I didn't realize disagreeing with you made me a jerk.
It doesn't but:
Okay. I'll just go tell the devs not to be stressed and I'm sure that will fix everything. You're brilliant. I'm working as prospect and even that is s a bit stressful for me. I really really don't think you get it at all. You can not "profit" from something and still be stressed by it.
That post does make you a jerk. There's no need for sarcasm unless you want this thread to turn into a bunch of flames.
As a former prospect who's living with a former dev and is friends with many former devs (and hopefully not on too bad footing with current ones) I do agree with Wavan. The Devs do tend to get over stressed and perhaps taking more time to relax would benefit all, especially them.
Saying devs make mistakes and get overly stressed shouldn't be met with such hostility. It's two simple facts.
I understand the demands of players are hard to ignore but, if you do it for just a few hours a week it'll help immensely.
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Hmm.... *looks at the title of the thread*
*reads the posts* You have ventured into :offtopic: land. Please get back on track or the thread will be locked.
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Waylander, telling people to relax doesn't make them relax.
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Rizin is right, let's get back to the aim of the post, just focus on what I wrote about the players.
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I expect better behaviour from a prospect, Keldrena, Rizin said leave it alone.
Speaking of what Rizin said, I don't see how stressed devs have an effect on Roleplay so perhaps Wavan a different title would have been more appropriate. "A few things unwell about the state of PS" or some such.
Anyways, I reread the first post and just wanted to bring attention to this (in order to sneak the thread back on topic):
8. Your character is not you, be willing to loose: Your character might be epic, but things happen, and it's only a game, your reputation can go to 0 in just one day. Don't feel bad about it, even if it's your main character. Just roleplay how bad your character feels, but don't let the feeling get to you.
How many people do get too attached to their characters? God knows I was much too attached to Nurahk and would never let anything happen to him (something Rizin can attest to! :P ). Is there a way to keep players from getting so attached and if so, would it increase RolePlay?
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Roleplaying means "acting". The best way not to get too attached to your character is paying your real life more attention. As I wrote in one of the points, switching your life from your character's is a common mistake that should be avoided.
Getting attached to your character ensures a better roleplay (you feel it's the only life you have, the people your character knows are your friends, etc...) but it's dangerous, and may cause the player to fall into another stupid mistakes, if you count ignoring your real life (and only life) a stupid mistake.
PlaneShift, because one world is not enough, but, unfortunately or not, there is only one world.
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"The truth about why roleplaying is dying (aka, something you won't ever admit)"
Roleplay is suicidal. That's all there is to it. Some people love it so much they kill roleplay with roleplay./me reviews his post with a confused look on his face...
:detective:
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The amusing thing is, the title says RP is dying, but I got the opposite impression out of the message content.
Good post though; and yes, obvious (or apparently obvious) things should be reminded once in a while.
Getting attached to your character ensures a better roleplay (you feel it's the only life you have, the people your character knows are your friends, etc...)
Just to mention what I disagree with (I'll keep silent on what I agree with). To me, by getting too close to one's character, RP loses it's R part, and that isn't very good. One ends up playing oneself. It is very difficult to play a consistent role for a long time; even a strong stereotype.
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PlaneShift, because one world is not enough
Oooh, I like that. Can I have that as a sig?
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PlaneShift, because one world is not enough
Oooh, I like that. Can I have that as a sig?
I believe that's like the official slogan :p
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To me, by getting too close to one's character, RP loses it's R part, and that isn't very good. One ends up playing oneself. It is very difficult to play a consistent role for a long time; even a strong stereotype.
We are in total agreement on this point!
If we look at RPing like any skill then we can probably agree that it is something which one hones over time; or conversely is something that one will simply not get; just as some folks get better at playing the piano and others do not get much farther than Row Row Row Your Boat.
That said there were two approaches which are commonly used in my rpg world. One was to let the characters procreate. In that way it is not OOC to have the character's children have traits of the parent character. In other words it is a way to allow those players that simply play alter-egos of themselves to continue to do so in an IC way.
Another approach is to only let such players play certain character types; that is ones that are not all that different than themselves... normally humans.
Such an approach may be something to consider for PlaneShift. That is, when starting out; unless sponsored by a PlaneShift GM; all new players can only play Human types. That is something they know something about and will be less likely to play them OOC. Once they have proven themselves to be able to RP a human then more character types will be offered them during character creation. In this way a progression of character types could be added to their character creation list as time goes on.
With GMed RP Events in PlaneShift; it seems like a perfect opportunity for GMs to assess the RP skills of the players and allot them RP Skill Points in that process. This would also probably make RP Events a more saught after pass time. An old GM of mine used to use Karma Points which he allotted for good RPing. The player could then use those Karma Points to go deeper into the list of character types that they could create in the future.
Just some thoughts to deal with a situation that is not likely to go away.
- Nova
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Do you refer to an old ~DnD GM, or a Plane Shift GM?
Stereotypes are harder to role-play than a simple person, even a full person, since stereotypes tend not to exist outside our imagination. At least in my experience.
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Your experience is wrong. I've met people who actually work to retain adherance to a stereotype in reality.
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[...]
Another approach is to only let such players play certain character types; that is ones that are not all that different than themselves... normally humans.
Such an approach may be something to consider for PlaneShift. That is, when starting out; unless sponsored by a PlaneShift GM; all new players can only play Human types.
[...]
I wouldn't really want that because of two things:
- There are new players who RP very well and that wouldn't like that limit (even not when create the char). I also assume that there are people who feel that it is easier to rp something foreign, but Im not sure about that.
- I don't think GMs should be allowed to decide something basic like what race someone is allowed to play.
Sen
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Stereotypes are harder to role-play than a simple person, even a full person, since stereotypes tend not to exist outside our imagination. At least in my experience.
The reason that there are stereotypes is because they do exist outside of our imaginations. Stereotypes are also always true in regards to the greater population, they just tend to break down when you look at an individual specifically. They are easier to play than full characters in the same way it is easier to be a character actor than to try and adapt to many different roles. In many cases people will settle for a stereotype for their personality because then, at least, everyone knows where they stand. I agree that people work to keep themselves within stereotypes, but we shouldn't judge people on it too much because you can never fully know the depths of a person.
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Do you refer to an old ~DnD GM, or a Plane Shift GM?
A DnD GM.
It was my pleasure to have an RP encounter today above and beyond chit chat and relating game experiences. A thief type approached me asking if there would be an interest by me to RP. After agreement, the thief made an attempt at a mugging. We came up with an interesting handling of the event which seemed to work well for both of us. This approach is more easily done with one on one RP.
Firstly, any conversation that did not affect either character was ok as always.
Once in combat we took action turns. One player would give their attempted action and then both of us rolled a 1d6 to see the outcome. Winning the highest roll would mean success and ties would be open to interpretation.
Using this technique we had a stunning and bloody battle. My character was finally bested and left for dead by the thief; bound with the sash from a robe. Once the thief had departed my character shouted for help which was eventually responded to by a randomly passing character and carried to the infirmary. Healers were brought in and a recovery is expected.
This technique worked well for a more traditional storyline RP player as well as myself; who loves the dice to have an input into the story line.
My question is would other traditional planeshift RPers fine such a system playable? Such a system seemed to work well for a more traditional RPGer as myself and one more schooled in traditional planeshift RP.
- Nova
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Thats the nice thing about dicing, its fair and fun as long as both parties can agree on the terms, though it can get complicated and the rolling can be a little distracting. In another game that I play, one of the players coded an addon that would enable players to dice roll their rp actions automatically. I don't know how the system works in detail, but in brief, each player sets up a simple profile containing the stats they wish to play ( yes, they are honest about this ). When they enter an RP fight or whatever, they can issue a command that does a number of dice rolls that take their declared stats into consideration. They are then left to rp the action and consequence based on the result for that action.
Personally, I don't really care for dicing. I prefer to leave it up to the other player to decide the outcome of my action. If the other player is mature and fair then they will choose a reasonable outcome. If I am reasonable and fair then I'll be able to accept their choice and go with it. Players who are mature enough to do this are fun to play with IMHO. The downfall of course is when you run into a player who is mentally incapable of letting their character take lose. They will make up all kinds of BS in order to take control of the rp and force the outcome to their liking.
This is why I say that the bar needs to be raised, not lowered. With high standards for rp and consequences for repeatedly falling below the bar, players will aspire to improve so long as they are enticed by what the rp community is engaging in. If the bar is too low, then they will not aspire to improve and tarnish the playing field in the process. I do not advocate being an rp nazi prick and ruining other people's fun over trivial nonsense like spelling errors, rather I advocate issuing some form of correction and punishment to those who fail to meet the standard in order to discourage bad rp.
As for where to set the bar, I would suggest enforcing the following very simple rules for rp. I would say educate offenders the first time, warn and progressively ban anyone who falls below the bar. This is not being an elitist, rather is just setting a very basic standard that anyone with half a brain can follow.
1. No metagaming
2. Characters must be setting compliant. Characters should be reviewed and approved before they can be played.
3. Player must stay in character at all times. period.
4. Guards/Npcs must be respected. ( Guards should automatically kill anyone who is cloaked or enters the city with weapons drawn )
* weapons should sheathe automatically when entering a town or when one respawns
5. IC and OOC must remain separate. period.
6. Guilds must be approved by gm or settings team and must serve a valid ic purpose. There should be no "jarad'z homiez" guilds on the rp server.
When rules like this are NOT enforced they are nothing more than text art. But with a set of *enforced* rules like this, crappy players will step up or step out and those who rp will be lift with a mixture of good players and aspiring players who wish to learn. This is what I meant earlier when I spoke about fixing up the playground.
One last point, and yes, this is on topic as it pertains to why rp has taken a nosedive, is settings. It would help if the settings web page was updated/corrected, and if setting info was put in one easy to access place - preferable a web page. A player could then study the setting before making a charater. They would not need to stumble though the game like an ooc ass and do a million mile long quests in order to learn about the setting. The setting and background info should also be completed... This is just story writing.. its not that hard to do for someone who is creative and organized. Hell, I would volunteer to do it except I've pissed off quite a few folks with my angry comments... likewise it would probably never make it into the game.
* No, I'm not drunk... I'm just another disgruntled player with an opinion and a little too much spare time on his hands *
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I agree with all Rigwyn's numbered points except the latter part of 2).
Characters shouldn't be reviewed before they can be played. Let's face it, on our first character, most of us (including you Rigwyn) weren't really too knowledged about RP and just made a character and then learned roleplay as we encountered roleplayers in PlaneShift. The majority of roleplayers in PlaneShift learned roleplay by being on the roleplay server and taking an active interest in the roleplay.
That point (or part thereof) in my opinion is elitist and would put a severe dent in the "new blood" of roleplay we get. I'd be more for a checkup system every couple of months.
Seriously, I can't believe how much you've changed Rigwyn, it actually saddens me to see you becoming so elitist and nazi towards newbs.
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In Rigwyn's defense, it's not elitist. Regulation doesn't equal being a nazi. It's just to prevent a Ylian named Harry Porter that's a mage at a prestigious mage school name Porgwarts from getting through. Or a character with absolutely NO backstory or ulber mega leet characters getting in. Genuine effort can be taken into account even if the writing isn't all that great or fully thought out. Also, the people doing the review can give suggestions for improvement. It's not too bad an idea.
I have more problem with the guards just killing people with cloaks. I think arresting them would be a far better idea. And players should be in character most of the time ;) . Let's face it, OOC slips out, but it should be stopped as soon as possible.
I think having a personality creator would help, like on the website. A big problem I see is that people have trouble giving their characters distinct personalities that they can play true to. Events in the backstory are nice, but the characters need to be people in of themselves.
Oookaaayy... that's more than enough typing out of me.
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Rigwyn is not acting elitist. Nor are the rules that he proposes. Role play is either enforced by rules, or it isn't. It isn't to an acceptable degree: to where settings are complied with and OOC is differentiated from IC.
New players aren't harmed by these regulations. With a sufficient tutorial, new players, supposing of course that they have "half a brain", and that they are compliant with the regulations, will have no issue being part of Planeshift.
A higher standard of roleplaying, enforced?
Niiiiiiiiiice.
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Oh please, Illysia, you'd be the first to complain there's no new blood because they're scared off by the regulations.
And if by guards killing cloaked people, you mean KIC (not official guards) killing Outlaws in Oja, do note that we tried to get them to remove their cloaks, and then most of the time they drew their weapons to fight armed combat, the result of which is someone dead, often us.
Also note that during this time KIC came under attack from masked, cloaked assailants many times in Oja, we had reason to suspect any cloaked person in Oja of meaning us harm.
My opinion is that the real problem with RP is guilds. They need stronger regulation, you can always /ignore a crap character, you can't ignore a <guild tag>.
I'd assume you guys are aware Rigwyn is referring directly to the Conquest of the Horde (illegal WoW server) rules. They make you write a character description in their forums, a GM sees this and approves/declines this. To be honest, most people are a bit shy about learning to RP would be turned off by such a measure.
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I'd assume you guys are aware Rigwyn is referring directly to the Conquest of the Horde (illegal WoW server) rules. They make you write a character description in their forums, a GM sees this and approves/declines this. To be honest, most people are a bit shy about learning to RP would be turned off by such a measure.
Actually it works very well. You don't have to do it immediately, but as it is a strict RP server you are encouraged to get on it. And they have a large community of people who are very pleasant and well informed and only too happy to help anyone, including noobs with any aspect of their RP, including the character profile.
Seriously, I can't believe how much you've changed Rigwyn, it actually saddens me to see you becoming so elitist and nazi towards newbs.
*Imagines Rigwyn goose stepping noobs to the gas chambers* ;D
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I think personally, the better path to go is to police guilds far more strictly. This is where crap RP manifests. Then tackle bad descriptions using a /descriptionreport command, and OOC in Main with the usual /report ....
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Thats the nice thing about dicing, its fair and fun as long as both parties can agree on the terms, though it can get complicated and the rolling can be a little distracting. In another game that I play, one of the players coded an addon that would enable players to dice roll their rp actions automatically. I don't know how the system works in detail, but in brief, each player sets up a simple profile containing the stats they wish to play ( yes, they are honest about this ). When they enter an RP fight or whatever, they can issue a command that does a number of dice rolls that take their declared stats into consideration. They are then left to rp the action and consequence based on the result for that action.
Perhaps easier than an add on would be a PvP option like the Duel Invitation scheme where one could set One Step style PvP. With both characters being set to One Step then when choosing attack only one hit would be calculated; making all appropriate adjustments like any PvP hit. The respected guidelines could be that each player takes their turn in making an action. They could speak, move or what-have-you. Any of them being considered an action.
To implement such a scheme should be fairly easy; as you would just need to take the loop out of PvP combat and have only one hit calculated before exiting if the setting is One Step.
n00bs to PlaneShift are likely coming from an RPG background like myself. They may ultimately move on to the more traditional Planeshift RP Combat; yet would allow them to do so cautiously as trust is formed with fellow RPers. Without that trust then dice are a nice umpire. Personally they appeal to me as they take the outcome out of the hands of me, the player.
Do you think there would be any interest for such a scheme and do you think it would garner any weight in the Wish List?
- Nova
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One last point, and yes, this is on topic as it pertains to why rp has taken a nosedive, is settings. It would help if the settings web page was updated/corrected, and if setting info was put in one easy to access place - preferable a web page. A player could then study the setting before making a charater. They would not need to stumble though the game like an ooc ass and do a million mile long quests in order to learn about the setting. The setting and background info should also be completed... This is just story writing.. its not that hard to do for someone who is creative and organized.
Yep. I am looking for these settings a million times. People would say "do some quests" or "Go to the library?". If your character cannot read, why would you go to the library? I found this great website with the books of PS and people here said that is was spoilers. I mean come on. Those books in the web actually helped me but now it is gone. (who removed it?)
Also, I agree with Rigwyn's number two. To be honest, I am tired of seeing one-dimensional characters. Most characters are "I am a warrior because I like fighting." It is very dull. Flavourless. It does not show weakness, strengths, anything that might change your character's intention etc. Maybe the reason why many don't want their characters to lose?
Another thing is the mechanics. As it is right now. Everyone can be a warrior-mage-smith-crafter-fisherman. There is no limitations. I know most would say "be true to your character" and stuff like that but that is the point. People abuse it.. Unless if the money system for these works, not only that but also able to not learn everything to "level 100" I can't imagine people with complex characters. THey will be focused on grinding and money making. Some indeed do not grind and level and etc. but for roleplay to improve, it must involve everybody not just a group of people that are actually WILLING to roleplay. Roleplaying is not only about making yourself good,. It is also about making the others that you roleplay with better as well
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@Akaiddo: No... I would not complain about the regulations as frankly there has been some disappointing stuff in game as of late. I am one of the few that say keep the tutorial. The tutorial is what kept most of the SA guys out of the game to troll it. It makes people have to slow down and consider if they really want to bother. Regulations would probably have the same affect. I don't want to have to deal with the common MMO fare as they seem to have an IQ smaller than their shoe size and the maturity level of a grape. More importantly, I can play other games if I want to deal with them that badly.
Basically, what Rigwyn is saying is like the broken window principle. If you leave the bar down, it will only go lower. If you raise it, people will eventually get to the point where they do better. I want to accommodate newbs, not n00bz, and you need people willing to come up to a higher standard first. It's not that they have to be great at it, but they, at least, need to want to be good at it. Even CotH is pretty forgiving if you read the accepted intros. I was surprised.
On the cloaks and guards thing, that problem would be because your guild isn't the official guard. The official guard would be given more consideration as they have more force to bring to bare. Rogues are likely to view vigilantes as little more than a slightly "Do Gooder" version of themselves and will blow off any perceived meddling.
Also, keep in mind that many players never come in contact with guilds beyond knowing who is in what guild. Many players are completely unaffiliated or they guild is so dead that they might as well be guildless. Most guilds are so dead that they can't possibly be contributing that much to bad RP. The bigger help would be measures that work person by person which goes back to Rigwyn's ideas. I think the basic problem in this regard is that there are too many differing opinions on what is right and what is wrong. Regulation would offer some consistency and give people something to base their arguments for right and wrong on.
Ok, I'll address some of the other stuff in the posts since mine later as this is more typing than my arm can handle.
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I think this was a good post
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@Akaiddo: No... I would not complain about the regulations as frankly there has been some disappointing stuff in game as of late. I am one of the few that say keep the tutorial. The tutorial is what kept most of the SA guys out of the game to troll it. It makes people have to slow down and consider if they really want to bother. Regulations would probably have the same affect. I don't want to have to deal with the common MMO fare as they seem to have an IQ smaller than their shoe size and the maturity level of a grape. More importantly, I can play other games if I want to deal with them that badly.
Basically, what Rigwyn is saying is like the broken window principle. If you leave the bar down, it will only go lower. If you raise it, people will eventually get to the point where they do better. I want to accommodate newbs, not n00bz, and you need people willing to come up to a higher standard first. It's not that they have to be great at it, but they, at least, need to want to be good at it. Even CotH is pretty forgiving if you read the accepted intros. I was surprised.
I didn't say "remove the tutorial", what I am saying is "don't make newbs get a forum account and feel they have to try and look good enough for us".
This "appalling stuff" you have seen in game, well in my opinion, on the RP server, you should be able to report that to a GM and have the player talked to/warned/punished if repetitive. We have the function to record 5 minutes, we should be able to use it. That's a way to raise the bar.
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If PS truly is to be a role playing game many changes has to be made. For example:
*Clear rules about godmodding, meta gaming and playing a character that is not yourself.
*GM's enforcing the said rules
*Clear stat, skill, race and class restrictions. [Leaving players unable to improve upon the stats they start out with dramatically, as well as being unable to master all skills. The "improvement's" that could be made should rather be Dependant on ones characters race and class. This would at a large scale defeat the purpose of PLing]
*Making roll combat the tool of choice. This way RP battles can transpire smoothly, without any frustrating deadlocks such as characters being unable to be hit.
I'm not going to obfuscate my own origin however. I learned role playing by listening to others, doing many mistakes before I began to consider myself as able to play my character accordingly. Making mistakes is a natural part of learning after all.
With that said, setting rules and restrictions in not elitist or meant to offend anyone. I enjoyed PS a lot at one point in time, and I assure you reading that I'm not here to say that I'm superior to you in the terms of role playing or any other.
With that said, what I have seen on these forums during my absence is disappointing. The community appears to have grown spiteful, malicious and last but not least: plain childish.
As far as the RP community goes it appears to have been reduced to shame as well, with only a few glints of hope to be had.
In conclusion, for role playing to work there has to be rules that are being enforced. For as of now, RP seems to have died and been buried six feet under.
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I would just like to clarify a few points as several others did on my behalf. The point in approving a character before the player can use it is to prevent players from starting out with something that they cannot rp. If Joe Blow makes a succubus, then what am I supposed to do if he tries to rp with my characters? In the setting, there is no such thing. This character is invalid. If he started out with something that made sense then he would at least fit in.
The point here is not to be an elitist or nazi but to help the new player to get off to a good start. It would also filter out those players who don't have the time or interest to learn a little bit about the settings and write a simple character profile. I'm not talking about a novel, just a simple one page description that does not violate the setting.
Perhaps we have different definitions for the words "nazi" and "elitist". To me, these are very negative and oppressive types of people. If you call coaching a newcomer and teaching him to learn the setting and rp well elitism, then I suppose I am guilty of that by your definition, however I see nothing wrong with that. Elitist does not mean "good", "professional", or "talented"... its more in line with words like "jerk", "ahole" and "troll".
As a new player I think I might have felt more confident about trying to role play if I had help setting up a character on the forums and started playing with the knowledge that my character had the approval of other well respected players or Gms. Yes, I started out as a mild PLer, and then learned from others how to RP by looking up RP guilds on the forum and then seeking out one of the listed players. I am not suggesting that a new player be good before they start, they should just be required to set up a simple character profile and have it approved. ( approved = it does not violate settings, it makes sense, perhaps some other very basic criteria )
Having a character approval process is just one idea.. its not critical, but I think it would help.
As for mentioning other games, I really tried not to drag in the names of other games out of courtesy.. ( Yes, I still have a small shred of decency left )
Regarding the rp attacks in Oja.. at the time, masked rogue npcs were walking around and attacking people on the spot. Entering Oja masked therefore did not seem like it would violate the setting for Oja at least.After all, there are only two guards .. and they ignore all the masked rogues. The last time I played the rogue NPCs were lined up nicely and not moving .. is that because of game limitations or is it because settings -wise they do not run the town anymore? As a player I can only guess. Anyway ... Akaiddo, while Jacula's character did some serious damage, I yielded my character to you in an rp fight. ( and to Emmara, Atagal and Shoral ). I think you guys got a good mix of victory and defeat. You should not complain about that .. thats as fair as it gets.
I agree with you Illy, an auto-incarcerate feature would be just as good. Or perhaps just a light toasting with a tazer ( freeze for 1 minute ). How a guard would know you are cloaked would be a game mechanics issue .. it could be done if the devs felt like implementing hoods or something. As for the issue with seds .. tough luck. Its an rp server. Swords are swords on the rp server, not ooc stat bufs.
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Already asked, it won't happen. If it didn't while XilliX was here, let alone now that there's no dev left that can RP.
Not to mention that any of the regulations that have been enacted haven't helped the community much, if at all. But anyway, now that all the real RP'ers have decided to introduce a higher level of regulation to the game, I'm sure it will happen straightaway. Not. Face it, the developers have completely different ideas on what constitutes roleplay versus what the community thinks is roleplay. This isn't a roleplaying game yet, its just a game that asks you to roleplay your characters.
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zing
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Roleplay:
-To newbs:
-remember what you learned in the tutorial, which should NEVER be taken out of the game.
-Stay in the settings. (like countless others have said)
-Don't godmod.
-Fill out a page or two of character creation for each of your characters, it's not that difficult.
-When you play this game, it is not to be "the strongest player in the world!" There will be a wipe that will destroy that quote in the future.
-Using your characters history and status in society, play him/her/kra out to that accordingly.
-You don't have to type out walls of text, or have your character be overemotional, or some crazy killer. (Anything overdoing things)
-Play your character out according to what the character around him/her/kra are doing/saying.
-If your character will have more to RP when he/she/kra gets a job, joins a guild (depends on the guild though), or joins a religion. I'm sure that is not all that could help your character interact, but they are good starters.
-Please don't leave your character standing around while you are afk for hours, log off.
To people who know how to RP:
-Don't just RP with people you know, and all their alts. Those are RP clicks, a no-no, roleplay with everybody.
-If you see a new player, don't let him run around looking for stuff, get his character included in some interesting situation. Perhaps actually greeting somebody would be a good start, and I'm not talking about /greet.
-Don't play on too many alts at once, it just causes you to be slow on each one. (unless you are REALLY good at that.)
-Don't pre-plan any RP's or make up some random story about characters. (Your character doesn't suddenly know that there has been a kidnapping in ojaveda when he/she/kra is in Hydlaa. Unless he/she/kra gets a message or hears it from somebody, he/she/kra doesn't know about it.)
-If you find that new player that you greeted or put in a situation (remember him?) Have your character talk to that person again instead of running by him, or letting him run by you. Constant immersion will get new players to want to roleplay more. (That's how it got me interested.)
-If you complain about RP being dead, either get in game and help by roleplaying, or shut up and stop complaining about how things aren't what they used to be.
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Roleplay:
-If you complain about RP being dead, either get in game and help by roleplaying, or shut up and stop complaining about how things aren't what they used to be.
Those are wise words, Geoni!
From the perspective of a somewhat new player the level of RP has been very satisfactory to me. So far, more established players have been very kind to my character in an IC manner. Even when acting out nasty thieves, those players have been helpful to me via OOC tells to help me with my RP questions. One player kindly spent a lot of time chatting in group chat to me about ideas on RP battles and how it traditionally works on PS in the tavern one night.
This newbie feels that there is a strong caring community of RP players on PS. From my limited experience new players quickly fall into RP as a rule. Only two player encounters went against that observation and they were bare fisted while battling rats in the sewers; so that indicates how new they
were. :)
Bottom line is that all players which have interacted with me IC online seem to trying their best. Can one ask for more than that from any player in any game?
- Nova
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Future Planeshift will likely have less role play rules and consequently less enforcement than it does now.
Planeshift caters to casual role players. COTH caters to another "niche" of what you might call "hardcore" role players. That is just the way it is, and the way it will be.
This is just what I think. I'm sure most of you think something else. I'm still right though. ;D
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There's still lots of room for players who would like a specific part in one of the 4 interwoven plots now happening...
PM me here or find anyone involved in the recent engagements, or the recent abductions, the recent gatherings of Crystal Mages {and one more set of occurrences that are just starting..] If you PM please tell me just a short bit about your character motivations and the core creators will do our best to fit your character into the action and give you something important and fun to do. And it's collaborative , so you're input is essential. check our Long Form thread please.
And you don't have to have a specific part, please join in the rp in any way that your character would!. New to the game? Ask in game in character, and we'll welcome you.
Anyone else find it ironic that this thread was started almost a year ago?.. such a long, drawn out 'dying' of these apparently illusive ghosts called role players...[/i] ;D
RR
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Yes Roled, its because the problem has been going on for that long. I remember people moaning about rp dying and the community eroding back in feb 08. Its the same thing now except there are far less players left then there were back then.
Regarding this grand rp event Roled, I hope you haven't told anyone about our little secret ;)
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So I guess that means natural state of Plane Shift's role-playing is "dying", and any action can be considered "death throws". Well, I guess that can be said for all life on our planet.
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The past is something not known to me... yet last night's RP in the city plaza was witnessed. From what Roled said it seemed part of his plot. For me the RP was extremely good. All characters which my character interacted with had a strong presence and deep interweave of story lines. Some things that had caught my attention in the forum came out IC. It was great to see a face behind the posted logs!
Maybe it is as simple as some older characters have died; in the sense that their players no longer want to play them. This is not meant as a reproach for there can be many reasons for that. Numbers may have dropped, yet many reasons can be given for that too. The growth pains of the new releases can only be a major one. Yet do numbers really matter? When 4 or 5 players drop round to take their characters out for a stroll in my D&D world it is enough for good role play. There were enough players present last night to lag my outdated tech.
My advice would be to stop sitting on the sidelines bemoaning the past... it helps little those that want to play in the present.
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For a group RP, 4 or 5 participating players is a nice number. When you log in and hours pass and either there are no role players on line, or else the few that are on are in different regions, involved in different things, then its no fun. You cannot rp by yourself. Also, when the few players that are on have a seriously misguided notion of what rp is, when they are mostly ooc or out of setting, you really cannot interact with them. The most grievous case imho is when you come accross a player who simply does not care.
Now don't get me wrong, Im all for teaching those who wish to learn, and I have spent hours teaching anyone who wanted to learn.
The population on the server is horribly low because of a number of things mentioned previously. No need to repeat. With so few role players on at a given moment, I personally find it more enjoyable to play on another game where good rp is the norm, and the population is about the same. It bugs me to waste the few hours that I have hoping to run into another role player or newbie and come out with nothing. To me, thats a waste of my time - which I have little of. What really burns my ass is that the planeshift environment is responsible for this and nobody really cares. That right there tells me that this game is not for me at the moment .. perhaps this will change in the future ...
Now, it sounds like you have found some players who rp to your liking. Thats terriffic. When I played everyone was saying that rp was dead. I stuck with a few solid players and we did what we could to include as many other players as we could in hopes of building up the community. We had fun running our events and posting writeups in the "In Game Roleplay Events" section of the forum. I encourage you to do the same.
Remember, its a game. It should be fun.
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For a group RP, 4 or 5 participating players is a nice number. When you log in and hours pass and either there are no role players on line, or else the few that are on are in different regions, involved in different things, then its no fun. You cannot rp by yourself.
Point well taken. Being new gives me an advantage in that regard. When things are quiet its off to the sewers to hopefully impress Percival. It is solo play yet as the character progresses she seems to flesh out further for me. Which skill to study? Which goal to set? If you have a well developed character that is not likely such an option for you.
New players also have the advantage of exploring and quests that do not require much interaction with other players. This again has an end benefit to RP, when it happens, giving tales to tell and questions to ask; as well as impressions of new places visited.
Without that newness to the planeshift world my feelings may be more like yours. Yet when a new player, like myself, hears over and over again that RP is dead and that you should have been here in the good old days it does nothing to encourage them to remain to help bring back the community to those standards which are bemoaned.
One suggestion, if time is short , is to focus on posted upcoming events that you know will offer RP.
The point that the dev team is somehow contributing to the RP demise perhaps misses me because of my newbie-ness. From a newbie perspective one sees a free and open game with countless programming hours dedicated to it. If you could enlighten me as to what they are not doing to foster RP it would be of interest to me to hear it. This is not meant in any sarcastic manner but in all seriousness. Should it be breaking forum etiquette to comment on it publicly then please send a pm if you get the chance.
- Nova
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I'll just say that last night I had about 5 hours of RP involving 11 other people in major ways ( and a few others in minor ways). I wasn't involved with the 11 other people all at one time but one RP scene flowed into the next once smoothly. it started off with a RP fight where the participants let the roll of the dice decide the outcome ( for each attack or attack like action the person being attacked rolled a 6 sided dice with 1-3 being a hit or successful action on the part of the attacker and 4-6 being a miss.
It was a very enjoyable evening for me and congrats to everyone involved.
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Yeah, for me the problem is less that RP happens and more that I can find the kind I like to do. I don't mind a little action here and there but constant, kidnaping to murder to robbery really wears me down and fast. I can't keep going on that. I think the problem for most oldbies is not so much that RP is dying, but that the standard has changed so much that they don't recognize it. RP have gone in many cases from book like epics all the way down to 2 hour action flicks... metaphorically speaking. ;)
RP seems to have lost it's variety and complexity as of late. For instance, just because your character is a thief, it doesn't mean you should always go from one robbery to the next. A thief character could steal food off of people instead of tria, then go back to share his meager banquet with his close friends who have also stolen bits of food to bring. They could sit around and dream of what they would do with X amount of tria and what they want to accomplish one day. Then gradually they plan their thefts so that they can work to pull themselves out of their poverty and accomplish their goals.
Maybe they keep their hope alive by practicing their talents. Maybe the one with a gift for pottery sneaks in a potter's house during and makes pots to try to sell back to people... That has hasn't robbed. :whistling: Or the one with a gift for music carries a flute given by a friend and plays during the slow times. Maybe the one with a flair for cooking thinks of all sorts of recipes for the day we he has enough food.
To me, the problem is that a large portion of the community is in the infancy stages of RP and it just hasn't grown beyond that. People pick a role and play it, but they don't tell an integrated story while playing their roles. For instance, I have a character that started out as a common thieving street urchin that tried to rob the wrong lady. But rather than getting spun on her ear for the attempt, the woman saw potential, took her in and trained her. Now that character has made something of herself, however she remembers where she came from and if presented with a similar situation, she would do the same and repeat the cycle. Once you get past the stage where game mechanics limits your imagination as much as your actions, and once you have a good feel for the borders of godmodding and metagaming, then you can get into the integrated stories that go down in the annals of PS history. After all, countless characters get robbed everyday, but the characters with compelling stories are remembered later.
Oowww.... How do you guys keep making me care enough to type these long posts? ::| No more explainy time for you. *goes to find an ice pack for her arm*
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Good comments and reminders today- thanks to us all for posting...
Elady yes last night's conversations around Harn's did seem to flow naturally , just as they might if you met a group of people you're acquainted with, coming and going from a mutual and natural destination. Plus several plot lines that I am aware of were forwarded, and several more characters got involved, just as Illysia suggested, naturally, without immediate high drama. Gossip, joking around, friendships deepening, characters revealing themselves to others. It was fun.
How I wish I could somehow be omnipresent throughout Yliakum, to see all the other players/ characters breaking bread, sharing secrets, planning heists, recovering from drinking, teaching each other things, discussing the news of the town, deepening rivalries and planting seeds of chaos or security, and even yes even training up skills because their CHARACTER wants to fight better, defend themselves, or master a craft or skill. Or get in the winch. ;D
We don't know, as a FORUM community, how rp is progressing unless we post to forum, which I know a lot of folks don't do. Or OOC talk in gossip, which I personally don't have the gossip channel on. Illysia I happen to know last night a couple of very calm friends chatting rps happened as well as the more dramatic ones. In the interwoven plot series we are trying hard to create story lines that span the breadth of rp from drama to ordinary daily life in Yliakum.
And we learn, each time, I think. We learn by practicing the differences between god modding {master mages who haven't learned any mechanics magic yet} and imaginative implementation {the potter you mentioned} . To me , and this is my opinion, there are 'many roads to Buddha', many many ways for rp to happen and for fun experiences in game to happen. When I was new questing was ridiculous fun {I still like solving new quests a lot}. RR didn't talk that much. Now that RR has done a lot of the quests ( 2-3 10 times) the story and character development are more intriguing and challenging.
I believe in individuality AND I believe a small set of rules helps everyone play together. I like the mechanics frankly, when RR doesn't feel like talking or is broke and needs to mine, I put an away message on my tells. I try to do things, all things, from mining to gossip to questing, in character. It's hard for RR's typist to resist doing BF quests, to see that the answer to certainly npc's will certainly take him to unexplored places in game, but I have to resist, because RR would never do that. Sigh. OR at least unless some things very very .... challenging... happen to the little elf. Every body can change with sufficient motivation.
This is long, I know. Sorry.
Thanks everyone for the insights we keep offering each other!
Roled
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Roled your wish could be granted if you joined the GM team. There is lots of RP going on often in smaller groups in tucked away places. As I GM who can pop all over Ylikum I get to see a lot of different RP going on.
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I give you credit Roled, as your RP storylines have easily been the best thing to happen to RP in PS in a long time. But the fact remains that many players are still at the early stages of RP. Since so many of the RPers that were farther along left (some of them even new players- I miss zephan :( ), we kinda have to wait for RP in general to broaden out. You plots are encompassing but players in of themselves get to the point where they can't see the grand story forest for the individual RP trees. ;) But it is resulting in good RP than many players enjoy so kudos to you. :thumbup:
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Pepito-
Your opinions and your reactions are your own and are valid in your experience.
Please don't god mod by attempting to apply your attitudes to my reactions and opinions.
Roled your wish could be granted if you joined the GM team. There is lots of RP going on often in smaller groups in tucked away places. As I GM who can pop all over Ylikum I get to see a lot of different RP going on.
Cheap. 'Sides Roled deserves a better fate than that.
I didn't find Sarva's comment 'cheap'. In fact, it was an inside joke and made me laugh.
And in my opinion, being a GM is not a 'fate' that I might 'deserve better' than. In my experience, each dealing I've had in this game with GMs has been respectful and helpful and not sarcastic. No GM has every tried to make me feel inferior in any way. And in my opinion being a GM is a tough job and not one to be taken lightly. I don't feel like I am experienced enough yet to be skilled enough to attempt to do that job. Maybe in another year or so I might potentially know enough be as helpful as the GMs who have helped me.
I do sincerely believe in the freedom to express one's opinions. Please be respectful and try not to put your words or attitudes into my mouth.
I do wish you well.
Roled Rolak
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I would also like to apply to be a GM. ;D
Whaddya think Sarva? Put in a good word for me?
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Get back to us Irishman when you are old enough to apply for the position.
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Get back to us Irishman when you are old enough to apply for the position.
I'm an old soul kid. I'll do well. 8)
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@Roled: I can't godmod you since we are not roleplaying, this is a forum and you confuse the terms, much like you confuse IC and OOC in-game and here often. 'Sides I don't see when I put my words in your mouth, wasn't even addressing you. I don't know, maybe you see things in my post that I can't see.
But I was wrong, you'd make a great GM for PS.
Godmodding in forum debates: Representing someone's opinion without their consent, deciding their value for them, etc.
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Hi all. This is my first post in quite a while, actually since I have left the PS Staff about 10 months ago.
I read what you all think is wrong in how PS is being developed and how the staff is being blamed for it over and over.
As a former Prospect for the Settings and former GM I know quite a lot of the internal ongings and can say yes, the team is not perfect. It never has been nor will it ever be...why? Because we're humans. We all have different opinions, different personalities and different interests and we all do mistakes at times.
However, the maingoal of the staff is to bring PS forward and to achieve that everyone puts in their part. Be it the engine devs who fix bugs or implement new features, the settings devs who sit night and day and work on ideas on how to bring you all more story line to include into your rp, the testers who help with verifying and fixing bugs or the GMs who keep the peace in the game by moderating issues, or bring you stroies through GM events.
Having been part of planeshift as a player before and as part of the staff I know about both sides. Lets try to look at it.
Simple event to drive away the boredom at the mines: Ulber Raid
A herd of Ulbers makes their way through the passage way and attacks the miners. Killing some, getting slain by wizards and warriors.
It's abut half an hour fun for the players who enjoy fighting, it's about half an hour frustration for those power miners who suffer from the death course, but what about roleplayers? In my time as a GM I often hung out at the mines, before and after we did such a raid. the topic has quickly been put aside again and the silent grind for ores continues.
People, both staff members and players have brought non combat RP to the mines and either players jumped on to get a shiney new GM item or they continued their mining (I am generalizing here, of curse there have also been a few players who got in for the RP)
Also there have been events that built up, over days and weeks. But hardly anyone continued the stories once the GM char disappeared again.
Quests are done to gain rewards and entrance to some locations, some players roleplay it, using the knowledge they gained fro quests for their roleplay, but not many do.
Why people keep blaming the staff for not making this an RP game escapes me, because the staff tries very hard to do so.
Players try to host events too, be it outlaws lurking around and robbing people on the roads or be it story telling in the taverns. be it festivities hosted by groups, or be it market days. Roleplay is there and is created all the time. Is it dying? Maybe, I have not been in PS in a long while and don't know what is going on currently. But if it is dying, then ask yourself for the reason. Ask yourself those questions: Do I participate in GM events to get items or short time fun in combat, or do I participate because the story is appealing to my character and can help me further my own RP story? Am I participating in player events or am I doing my own stuff and don't care what others do?
However, roleplay does not necessarily mean huge events with lots of players in it...roleplay is also happening when just two people meet somewhere and talk, or if a smith emotes his actions, which can be quite some fun too, a young smith hitting his thumb and yelling out in pain...or such things. The important part is, that you do more than stand around and use game mechanics day in and out... and, of course, to stay in character and keep out of character talk to a minimum. It doesn't even matter whether you type a screen long paragraph emote or if you just talk as if you're chatting, both is RP when done IC - sure, detailed emotes where the reader gets a mental picture before his eyes is always better for immersion, but not everyone likes it r is able to.
Now I have moved on to another game and I can say, that eventhough behind the engine, server and client is a HUGE company which charges LOTS of money from people who host a region, there are lots of bugs and lag too. Player created content, combat systems and weapons all player created. Of course there's a lot going on behind the scenes as well, because it's RL money. However, besides all the troubles, which affects EVERY community in EVERY game, there is a lot of RP going on - if that works there, why not here in PS too? Look around, see a player standing somewhere alone? Go over there and play according to how your character would...You'll entertain them with RP and you'll get RP in return and you never know what may come out of a simple "Hello" :-)
Long story short: Don't hang on the forums and look for reasons why RP is dying, instead go in game and create RP
Vonor
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Why people keep blaming the staff for not making this an RP game escapes me, because the staff tries very hard to do so.
Because there is no hard definition of what a "roleplay" game is. It means different things to different people. Consider the arguments over short-form and long-form RP. Some do not consider just emoting during a conversation RP. To others, long-form RP is getting to close to scripting things that should be expository. To others, the system should have more RP mechanics and less of a reliance on player-generated RP. To others, player-generated RP should be the focus, and mechanics should be removed in favor of a system that lets anyone play any type of character they want to from the get go. Those are just a couple of the interpretations.
But since you took the time to post a nice composition, perhaps you would detail to us why you left the game?
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Because there is no hard definition of what a "roleplay" game is.
Having played live rpg with a number of Game Masters, it is clear that the style of even a game that shares common rules can vary greatly from one Game Master to another. For example my game is played strictly by the dice and PCs die. Other Game Masters will travel to the moon and back before bringing death to a PC. Each has their opinion and it is up to the player to decide under which style they wish to play.
So it is with such a game as PlaneShift. With software development it is wise to keep a sharp ear open to the players' likes and dislikes; yet in the end (in this case) it is the devs that are our Game Masters.
From my new perspective here it seems that PlaneShift offers a wide range of styles to the players. Just taking combat as an example, one could go the PvP route, use /roll or simply craft it in a storyline approach. All three have been experience by my character.
If a player is trying to role play a character; be that tavern talk, map wide adventures or even a simple thing like my character going to her knees after each kill in the sewer to send an offering to the Goddess; then the players are role playing. Perhaps if we were less to judge how others choose to do their role playing and concentrate on our own, then things may move more smoothly towards developments which are pleasing to all.... or at least except-able.
Every action can tell one more about ones character. Every increase in their stats through game mechanics can change them for you. Every tale heard in a tavern can increase their world perspective. Every bemoaning from the side lines can take the wind out of those sails.
If PlaneShift does not appeal to a player then my advise would be to seek another Game Master(s) which is more satisfactory to their taste.
It is only through hands on involvement that compromise can be made. One on the side lines bemoaning gets no vote on the play. It would be like someone phoning my house on game night to bemoan the harshness of my dice. It would not be the place nor the time and the phone would likely be off the hook.
Is role play on its death throes here? Some may think so it seems; yet others like myself would disagree. Let's wait till out of Beta, at least, to make that call.
- Nova
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Why people keep blaming the staff for not making this an RP game escapes me, because the staff tries very hard to do so.
Because there is no hard definition of what a "roleplay" game is. It means different things to different people. Consider the arguments over short-form and long-form RP. Some do not consider just emoting during a conversation RP. To others, long-form RP is getting to close to scripting things that should be expository. To others, the system should have more RP mechanics and less of a reliance on player-generated RP. To others, player-generated RP should be the focus, and mechanics should be removed in favor of a system that lets anyone play any type of character they want to from the get go. Those are just a couple of the interpretations.
But since you took the time to post a nice composition, perhaps you would detail to us why you left the game?
Verden you just pointed out something very important. RP is going to be different things to different people. I think one of the major problems in the endless debates on this forum is to many people don't realize this simple fact. To many people feel that only their form of RP is the correct form and everyone else needs to fall in line with their version of RP. The sad part is the lack of tolerance to many people seem to have to different styles of RP. We have all sorts of different views on what is RP in this community. Personally I think that is a good thing since it exposes one to many different styles and approaches. In the end I think by being exposed to and trying many different styles of RP it makes me a stronger RP'er in the end. There are types of RP that I have though were silly. Sometimes though I try them and I'm surprised how much fun I've had.
JUst like any game different people will have different ways of of enjoying the game. If people would be a little more tolerant I think the whole community would be better off. There is no correct single way to RP no matter what some people may say in these discussions. Trying to come up with a bunch of restrictive rules designed to enforces a single style of RP will do nothing in the long run but drive away all those who dislike that style or RP and leave us with a smaller number of people who like that style of RP. There is no rule that forces you to RP with someone who has a style of RP you don't agree with or dislike. You can just act like that person isn't there { I'm sure many people have done that in RL to people they dislike so why should the game be any different}. If things get really bad there is always the /ignore option. Of course if tolerance just isn't in you then maybe finding a new community that agrees with your views would bring you more happiness than spending a lot of time trying to convince everyone here that your way of RP is the best ( or only) way.
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Seems to me like in game it's less people not adapting to other styles, and more people not RPing outside of their clique. However, Roled's RPs seem to be helping with that. Considering how many of the usual flame warriors aren't even playing the game any more, just "ignoring players in game" won't change much. True there is a need for style tolerance, but verden is right. There is a distinct need from the team to come up with some clear and firm definitions. It's like dragons. If the settings team sorta waffled on it, you'd be seeing a whole lot more of them, but since it has been said "no dragons", that stands.
If the team is tired of the battles, they will eventually have to step on some toes and put their foot down. Somebody is going to walk away with hurt feelings but oh well. You can't make everybody happy but you can have a large body of malcontents. They just have to pick which is more agreeable, a large body of malcontents or a specific group of happy people. Not saying which they would choose but that is what it comes down to. You can't have a complete democracy on things involving the internet as there are waay too many opposing opinions. Being a centrist will give you a heart attack if you try to fight every battle, so you have picks your issues carefully, then act decisively.
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The PS team prefers to straddle the fence no matter how much it hurts.
We asked for improvement on the rp rules over and over again but got nowhere.
When the last player leaves perhaps they will reconsider.
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PS will never be completely playerless but it can still have a much larger playerbase than it has now even though it's a niche game.
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As for where to set the bar, I would suggest enforcing the following very simple rules for rp. I would say educate offenders the first time, warn and progressively ban anyone who falls below the bar. This is not being an elitist, rather is just setting a very basic standard that anyone with half a brain can follow.
1. No metagaming
2. Characters must be setting compliant. Characters should be reviewed and approved before they can be played.
3. Player must stay in character at all times. period.
4. Guards/Npcs must be respected. ( Guards should automatically kill anyone who is cloaked or enters the city with weapons drawn )
* weapons should sheathe automatically when entering a town or when one respawns
5. IC and OOC must remain separate. period.
6. Guilds must be approved by gm or settings team and must serve a valid ic purpose. There should be no "jarad'z homiez" guilds on the rp server.
When rules like this are NOT enforced they are nothing more than text art.
I think we absolutely need this.
My petty disagreements (oops, I'm going to disagree with Rigwyn! i'll think about that tomorrow...) follow.
1. No metagaming. Also: no godmoding, no marysueing. Descriptions moderation/approval would be a good place to start. Clear the mess without straining some poor chaps' brains too much. Maybe if they are said (atm, they are not!) their female cannot be 'beautiful' or their warrior 'powerful' or their mage 'intimidating' just because they think so, it will prevent a lot of in-game griefing from happening later. Every bad character description which exists in-game means spoiling one more noob's chance to start RPing. The process itself is actually very simple and frustrating: noobs start with being godmoded -> continue with godmoding others -> GRIEF.
2. Not 'before' they can be played, but during a set period of time after they started being played. One or two weeks should be enough to find a GM online and to ask for that magic stamp on your IC profile... unless it's another pile of godmoding/marysueing dung.
6. Bad (non-RP) guilds must be either forcefully transferred to EZPC or just deleted from an RP-server, along with every member character they hold. Send them a warning, give them a month or two to mend their ways, abolish them if they don't care. Also, any serious violation of RP rules committed by anyone higher than 'on probation' in rank must affect the guild's RP reputation; negative numbers would mean deletion/transfer as well. (That much about mass recruiting.)
(x) When rules like this are not enforced they are more than 'text art'. They mean putting honest people (from reasonable noobs eager to learn and all the way up to most skilled RPers) on mercy of every next jerk that just happened to register, or keeps playing (and griefing people by spoiling as much RP in a day as that person can) for years. Yeah, we have those as well, and one of them is worse than an army of 5yo.
RP works very much like a chain: the quality of every piece done is bound to and defined by the weakest participant's skill. Kids and noobs must be tolerated and taught, idiots must not be tolerated and cannot be taught. Right now, about every 2 out of 3 RPs done on Skylab get spoiled or downright ruined by another idiot. That is why people are, and will keep, leaving.
In general, the thou shalt not enforce rules on thy fellow player rule is what PS lacks most of all. Players are supposed (and left) to do what GMs should do. No wonder people quarrel too much, then either leave or start ignoring anyone they don't know as a good RP partner already. I don't know if it's something one must be ashamed of or not, but I already started doing the same, and no matter how much forum 'let's all be friends' threads there are, I will keep doing that... until the game as much as makes the effort of being fair.
At the moment, it isn't.
Edited because of speaking tyop.
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Yep... no disagreement here. The idea of having a probation period might be better.
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Back to square one. And around and around we go.
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The PS team prefers to straddle the fence no matter how much it hurts.
We asked for improvement on the rp rules over and over again but got nowhere.
When the last player leaves perhaps they will reconsider.
You think too much of the PS team as one agreeing, one-minded entity. They debated this stuff for weeks, and one side pushed one way and the non-RPer side of the team pushed the other... in the end they had to compromise internally.
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They debated this stuff for weeks, and one side pushed one way and the non-RPer side of the team pushed the other... in the end they had to compromise internally.
To the trolls, please don't flame this one up to badly... :sweatdrop:
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"no marysueing"
Sadly, in trying to avoid being a mary-sue, one often becomes predictably opposite.
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Well, the compromise is a bad thing. They should make rules that support ROLE PLAYING for the ROLE PLAYING SERVER
::|
and rules that support LEVELING for the LEVELING SERVER...
Perhaps the role playing server should be called the "General Purpose" server instead? :detective:
This way people don't expect so much.
Its a damn shame, the game is so much like those old single player RPGs where you got your fun out of leveling and beating the next boss. Planeshift could be much better than that.
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Well, the compromise is a bad thing. They should make rules that support ROLE PLAYING for the ROLE PLAYING SERVER
My feelings are the same. Granted my newness does not give that opinion much weight perhaps, yet so far Tavern talks have been great, game mechanic offerings quite robust and romantic outings delightful... yet when it comes down to resolving conflict between characters it has been a quagmire.
This is not to say that all styles of RP conflict (storyline, use of /roll and PvP) cannot be in the offing; yet there should be some way to make it clear which style is to be employed before embarking in the RP. Perhaps something like Trade mechanic; which both could agree to the style of combat. It would then be clearly understood by all; even those not directly involved so they can decide their input to the RP.
With everyone trying to be their own GM (meant as Dungeon/Game Master not the title used on PS) it is very difficult to resolve physical disputes, from my experience so far, without some clear guidelines to draw from. Perhaps those who agree to a conflict style (and others welcome to join in at any time) could then be locked in a turn sequence with each taking an action like in live rpg. This could allow modifiers to allow more actions to those with more agility and less armoured for example too.
Just some thoughts about an area that seems to need some massaging.
- Nova
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that actually sounds really cool, nova. especially if it were like pokemon! ;D (i'm being serious)
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that actually sounds really cool, nova. especially if it were like pokemon! ;D (i'm being serious)
Pokemon rings a bell as something my daughter may have been familiar. Yet your example flew past me.
It may be that my analysis overlooked the fourth most favoured form of PS combat... the sharp tongues of the forum threads.
- Nova
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Well, the compromise is a bad thing. They should make rules that support ROLE PLAYING for the ROLE PLAYING SERVER
::|
and rules that support LEVELING for the LEVELING SERVER...
Perhaps the role playing server should be called the "General Purpose" server instead? :detective:
This way people don't expect so much.
Its a damn shame, the game is so much like those old single player RPGs where you got your fun out of leveling and beating the next boss. Planeshift could be much better than that.
When you understand game design perhaps you'll one day understand why the mechanics are the same on any official server of any game. Also, note that many RPers LIKE (OMFG, yes they do!) levelling. If I remember correctly YOU levelled before learning to roleplay Rigwyn, don't be a hypocrite about this because frankly, had there been no levelling on the roleplay server and the levelling server was full, you would never have learned to roleplay.
In fact, most of that clique of yours that left levelled their characters up a fair bit, I remember Aiwendil mentioning magic being levelled on that char, I've seen your player character stats, which matched mine, and was even slightly higher, and I've been on the receiving end of Jacula's brute power. Levelling does have a place in roleplay, because otehrwise everyone would play an ULTIMATE FIGHTING HERO with no brains, and roleplay would die.
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Levelling does have a place in roleplay, because otehrwise everyone would play an ULTIMATE FIGHTING HERO with no brains, and roleplay would die.
Ok, I have to take issue with this statement as it assumes everyone is a 3 yr old that can't self regulate and although most probably are, not all are. Leveling in my opinion only serves to enable skills, once you have the needed skill no need to level any more. But you do have to cap leveling at some point. If you care about your character's qualities, you won't just go and level them to no end. If a character has high levels in something, as long as it's not leveling like that's the equivalent to beating the game, it's not too bad. But Rig is right. Until there are some more hard and fast rules, there's not going to be much improvement. It's like lines on the road. You can get by without them, but it helps to keep everybody moving more easily when there are guides. Not perfect, but better. ;) Rules wouldn't ban leveling but each server should be more strongly focused on it's sphere of influence.
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I am sure you know how to read, Xoel, but obviously you still need to try much harder to comprehend. Rigwyn was talking about rules, ones to support roleplaying, and ones to support Leveling. First, this has nothing to do with mechanics. Second, to support roleplaying in this regard does not exclude leveling but could provide GMs, for example, with means to enforce roleplaying. But it also would make any player to join the pretended Roleplaying Server aware. No need to go much into detail here, these forums are stuffed with threads discussing that topic. As for the Testing Server, some creative rules to motivate players to max their levels could as well help you developers (or wannabes or whatever) to improve things. This is what that server is meant for, for players raise their levels and test the mechanics, no?
Well, to not roleplay any skills could be covered by such rules. Apart from that they might also give a more or less strict definition of what is roleplaying, to establish a consensus.. meh, again: Just check those numerous threads.
I would go more into detail, once more, but my time runs short, and "to be brutally honest", I am not convinced at all you would understand much.
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Xoel, perhaps you could teach me about game design one day. Surely that will clear up my misconceptions :)
When I joined the gam I had read the web pages carefully and was interested in the idea of playing a role. It sounded something these rennisance festivals that friends of mine had gone to. I tried talking in character but every time I did, the othet player either spoke out of characted or had a very awkward reaction, like "oh yeah, right... Hey bud, I don't rp." Needless to say I dropped the silly "rp" thing and just acted like everyone else in order to fit in. I learned through experience that ps was about grinding. That's all anyone did.
The game started to tank and for weeks at a time, mobs could not be attacked. It seemed pointless. People discussed rp on the forums but I had never seen anyone rp in game. I wondered what the hell this secretive "rp" was about and where to find such people. Eventually I was about to quit and move on. I made one last attemp to try out this rp thing. I looked through the guilds pages and came accross "the outlaws". Tried a few different names in the thread and finally got a seen by kaisa. ( I was playing as phenerie ).
Kaisa actually role played! I couldn't believe it.. I was actually doing this rp thing with someone. She put mu up to robbing an unsuspecting menki named "jonoth". She said he was a local weapons merchant. Rich too. She said to rob him and then report back to her.
I tried to sneak behind him. He was sleeping. I then ran back to kaisa (taking the long way so as not to be noticed ) and said "I tried, however when I right click on him there is no option to 'rob'. How do I do this?"
Kaisa took the time to explain how one roleplays such actions. She said "if you want, just send him a tell first asking if you may rob him"
I thought this was the stupidest thing ever. I asked "are you kidding? Ask him 'may I rob you?' "
To make a long story short, phenerie managed to fish a few circles out of his pocket despite kra's enormous stony hands. Jonoth work up and started to come after phenerie. I got a case of "oh shit!" and started to crack up. This was 20x more fun than grinding.
I joined the outlaws that day and became more and more engrossed in rp from that point on.
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Then he should say "Server rules" not "rules".
From my perspective, "Rules" is the script sets that define how combat works etc... yes, that's what the "Rules" team in PS does.
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Once apon a time there was a farmer who decided to seed his plot. He scattered his seeds randomly. Some fell in rich, fertile soil, some in rocky soil, some in weed infested soil.
The seeds that landed in the fertile soil grew to be strong healthy plants and bore fruit.
The seeds that fell in the rock soil were plucked out by birds.few grew into plants.
The seeds that fell into the weed infested soil got choked by the weeds and died. Some grew but were weak.
Understand the importance of the soil ?
Yes? Ok, then apply this logic to planeshift.
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First of all, there's an Octarchial decree saying all citizens must be trained to help defend Yliakum blah blah blah...
If by current leader, you mean Talad, or HaniX, I've roleplayed with them both... wasn't too bad. Not everyone is perfect, as you seem to expect.
Let's also look at the "soil" analogy. You don't know what seed you're casting. So you can turn perfectly good soil into weeds. It doesn't matter if you make good soil if the seeds thrown at it are poison ivy.
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First of all, there's an Octarchial decree saying all citizens must be trained to help defend Yliakum blah blah blah...
Define "trained". If a character with starting values in fighting related skills is against the rules to be played, change the rules or the starting values. Who would want to start playing a game only to stupidly grind several weeks only to have a valid character to start off with?
If by current leader, you mean Talad, or HaniX, I've roleplayed with them both... wasn't too bad. Not everyone is perfect, as you seem to expect.
I had the same "pleasure", but obviously expectations or demands can differ tremendously.
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Levelling does have a place in roleplay, because otehrwise everyone would play an ULTIMATE FIGHTING HERO with no brains, and roleplay would die.
Just a tiny note.
"No leveling" does not equal "no stats". You can create a fixed-stats system, which in natural way will promote player cooperation as opposed to personal character development. Plus, there are roleplaying systems that lack any stats whatsoever (there was no stats in the early forms of rpg's, for example).
Stats-building is actually a device used in story development: increasingly powerful characters can take part in increasingly epic adventures. For this reason it is much more prevalent in high fantasy games (most notably D&D) than in dark fantasy games, which reject the idea of epic characters, making leveling much more limited (if existant at all).
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HaniX definitely can roleplay. I was in his player guild on my player character for quite some time.
Also, do note that PlaneShift is a tech demo/alpha/beta....
If we didn't make anyone test things, we'd get nowhere, wouldn't we. And believe it or not, the team considers getting the project to 1.0 more important than making things perfect for the purists. Which is all you can expect, really. Sad fact of life, if the roleplayers bothered to test things for the team, as is the general idea of the game at this point in development, we wouldn't have to write it into settings to make you.
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Xoel, the soil story that I told you was originally used to teach a spititual concept to uneducated peasants who probably knew little more than how to grow a few kinds of plants. I rather surprised that it flew right over your head.
I'm sorry, but I cannot make this concept any simpler.
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And: Talad can't RP. Hanix is only GM leader afaik, feel free to correct me. And he can't RP either.
Pepito can you clarify what you mean by Talad can't RP. Thanks.
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Xoel, the soil story that I told you was originally used to teach a spititual concept to uneducated peasants who probably knew little more than how to grow a few kinds of plants. I rather surprised that it flew right over your head.
I'm sorry, but I cannot make this concept any simpler.
I was merely pointing out that your analogy doesn't really work to well with PlaneShift, which supports multiple playstyles.
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Talad,
my personal reasons for why I think you are not really a good RPer are all those events you made up to introduce new technical game-features. The way it was played out was anything but immersive, in fact it totally destroyed my own mood, and the ones I was playing with.
Now why is that? I can understand that you want to introduce major new features in a big event, and preferably even do that yourself. But it appears as if you rarely to never roleplay in PS, and when doing so for the reasons mentioned above, it feels to be pretty much out of place, OOCish and not integrated into the game and its atmosphere, but in fact like a "Making-of" for, say, Lord of the Rings right after having watched that movie - your roleplays to introduce new stuff always feel like granting a glimpse behind the developments curtain. And thats just anything but immersion.
For example, when you introduced guildhouses and you auctioned the first one. Your play implied that this was the first time ever in the history of Yliakum that a house was sold - you see what I mean?
On the other hand I want to be understood properly that I dont see anything wrong in all that, after all you are the head dev, you dont have to play the game all day long, but rather focus on coding, for playing out events and such you have your people, GMs or whoever - just leave it up to them to weave a nice and fancy story around the new features and have them flow into the game smoothly, by people who are at least more used to roleplaying in PS. And as for the cheers, the one to be thanked most at the end will be you anyway.
Xoel,
I am sure you assume your aphorisms way smarter than they actually are - plus, you just dont get the point.
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Sad fact of life, if the roleplayers bothered to test things for the team, as is the general idea of the game at this point in development, we wouldn't have to write it into settings to make you.
I find this irritating. Pushing the players vs devs is counter productive. If you want testing you need to create test plans and test cases. Just throwing software at a bunch of gamers is no way to get a descent cover. Nor is pissing them off by telling them they can't be bothered.
I feel that any comments communicated to the players at large really should come from someone that knows what they are talking about and has some notion of PR.
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There's several places where the project has said "This is a tech demo" all over their website. Players = Testers.
Pushing the player-dev divide? There is no player dev divide, the devs all were mere players once, then they decided to volunteer and help, so that in a shorter period of time, there'd be a finished roleplaying game. Better that than to complain about it all the time.
What's the point in putting it all on a PR guy? Does that mean I should be silenced in a community because I can use Blender and decided to help? Way to encourage contribution...
I used to just post off my player account, but everyone gave me a hard time for having two accounts, and participating in this community as a dev and a player. And making the odd post-of-the-wrong account. Then they left, asking to have their accounts deleted. Then they came back, to annoy everyone. And I should be silenced?
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"Mere players" ?
You're a snob who denies the existence of the player dev divide. This snobbery does not help bridge that divide.
Why have a PR person?
Perhaps you should google "public relations"
A good PR person would not stick their foot in their mouth like you just did. Whether you realize it or not you are making dev side bad by doing that.
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Oh, great, you judge my ability to roleplay from 10 lines of chat, in which we were testing the auctions of houses for the first time and it was not supposed to be an RP event, but just an auction to see the mechanics.
Anyway you have the same IP of Nevera, who has been banned from this forum for trolling, so I warn you to avoid trolling in here, or you will be banned by IP this time (and in game as well this time).
Your comments on changing the game about page can easily be classified as trolling as well.
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Reading this thread made me lose the little faith I had left in PS. :sleeping:
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Reading this thread made me lose the little faith I had left in PS. :sleeping:
nearly same, but it makes me lose faith in the players :sweatdrop:
seems nobody is able to discuss something without starting a flamewar about something totally unrelated, anymore :-\
PS:
No big deal, I'll use another proxy, a new email, and a new username if you ban this one.
that's what makes you a troll ;)
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@Xoel: Telling someone they are a tester doesn't make them any good at it. There needs to be clear instruction of how to test. How to get complete cover of a module being tested etc. Put up all the notices up you like, but if the game isn't being tested then something needs to change. Players need to be encouraged, not told "they can't be bothered". If something isn't working it would be more constructive to look at ways of getting it working rather than blaming. In that regard I would suggest someone who isn't so close to building the actual game and not so emotional, like a PR person.
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@Xoel: Telling someone they are a tester doesn't make them any good at it. There needs to be clear instruction of how to test. How to get complete cover of a module being tested etc. Put up all the notices up you like, but if the game isn't being tested then something needs to change. Players need to be encouraged, not told "they can't be bothered". If something isn't working it would be more constructive to look at ways of getting it working rather than blaming. In that regard I would suggest someone who isn't so close to building the actual game and not so emotional, like a PR person.
1) The Bugtracker. Not that hard to use. Simple as if you find a bug, see if it's in there, then if it's not, make a new thread, it's rather similar to forum posting. Put your system specs in so that the bug can be tested.
2) The dev team haven't complained about lack of testing, it's the players complaining about the dev team :P
3) Not all players "can't be bothered". Just the ones who put their RPs, and imaginary characters before the advancement of the project. They know who they are ;)
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The comment about me not roleplaying much when I show up new features it's a fair comment. That's usually dictated by lack of time, and the will to show some previews without having to spend hours on it. Most of those features are in early stages and there is really no good way to roleplay those, so they remain break in reality for few minutes. Let's say my Talad character is prone to be OOC in those cases. Anyway I don't think those 20 minutes of intervention on my side can ruin the overall atmosphere like someone said in here, but on the contrary can give some nice preview to players. On a different note, there are many occasions in which I join in game with other chars or creatures to roleplay, which go unseen, and are supposed to go unseen anyway, because those are part of the world.
@Pepito: well, maybe instead of trolling, getting banned and changing IPs, it's better to stop trolling.
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Why is it, when you look through the PS forums, you see a pattern. The same people moaning about the same things all the time and they are the ones claiming hard done by... funny that.. morons.
Noone has the right to say anyone can or cant RP. One persons RP may not be compatible with anothers, doesnt mean they are not RPing at all. And sure, some are better than others. But as long as people TRY to RP and join in with the game and the settings, whats the problem?
As for the people who dont lvl or train... well your not playing PS are you, your txt chatting. PS is an RP game WITH mechanical aspects to aid and to help develop RP. If yoiu refuse to use those aspects of the game, then your not playing PS in the way it was designed and you have absolutely zero right to dictate in any way what YOU think should be done. Play the game as it was designed to be played useing ALL aspects of the game and maybe people will take you serioiusly. Until then, dont moan.
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Oh im sorry, you were making sooooooo many generalisations, i thought i would join in with a general comment addressing the many people in here that have stated they wont train.
You see its easy to generalise isnt it.
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Always come with the same crap, which usually nobody said.
same goes for you and most others who posted here ::)
RP is nothing to be enforced via mechanics - that's simply not possible in a sane way.
devs try to deliver some base you can build upon - in other words the game itself (being it the mechanics, the settings, the quests, rules, ...). what is made out of it isn't something within the dev's scope.
e.g. as an engine dev I can surerly implement a new feature that may be used. however that doesn't automatically mean it will be used - especially not in the way it was thought of. however that's not a bad thing.
if you have a great idea how to promote RP better, shoot it, but honestly: the complaint department is probably not the right place to do it. work out some real proposal in the discussion area and post it on the wish list or the bugtracker (maybe as feature request?) once it's ellaborate enough to be taken serious.
however such flame threads blaming each other like this one really doesn't help anyone.
also keep in mind that there's barerly any staff, so it's impossible to donate all time being ingame kicking off events, etc.
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[..]
@Pepito: [..] better to stop trolling.
May happen Pepito sounds offensive or trolling by times, but he virtually always makes a point. Generally speaking, if you want to stay on a high level you must not stop to question yourself and your motivations - Pepito seems like doing that all the time, and in the worst case in between the lines, there is always substance in his posts that can as well be taken as constructive criticism, useful to improve things.
Hm, no offense, but I cannot see how is your post any useful, Hanix.
But since you are making generalizations without pointing at anyone specific, let me add one: At least one department head here is an idiot, you disagree?
PS:
Always come with the same crap, which usually nobody said.
same goes for you and most others who posted here ::)
In fact it was discussed a lot whether implementing some focus on roleplaying in form of a guideline to be agreed to would be a good idea or not - at last I havent seen a good reason why not. Instead PS is announced and advertized as a roleplaying game, whereas thats not a reasonable claim considering the circumstances. Same goes for numerous other things that have never changed. And to solve that conflict would be simple for most of those: Soften the definition of PS to "tolerates/ welcomes" roleplaying. But as long as it is the players to the most part to provide immersion and roleplaying flavor and not the responsible staff, the current definition is just not right.
Of course same things will come up again and again, thats the way a community works, always opposing powers that at last give rise to changes - unless you wont tolerate anybody to not agree with your official opinion.
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In fact it was discussed a lot whether implementing some focus on roleplaying in form of a guideline to be agreed to would be a good idea or not - at last I havent seen a good reason why not.
the proposals I have seen don't try to promote RP, but try to enforce a *certain style* of RP - that's just not right imo
Instead PS is announced and advertized as a roleplaying game, whereas thats not a reasonable claim considering the circumstances.
how so? you can build a character, follow the story, build your own upon it, have a great range of choices what to become ingame without any real restrictions, etc. - that does sound like a roleplay game, doesn't it? maybe our definitions differ though (note: RP doesn't mean "always act like you'd be writing a stage play" to everyone)
Of course same things will come up again and again, thats the way a community works, always opposing powers that at last give rise to changes - unless you wont tolerate anybody to not agree with your official opinion.
at least I am posting as a player ;) I don't think there are "opposing powers", that's something you make up in your mind imo. pretty much anyone can contribute or give an ellaborate thesis why something should be changed/expanded/..., though I barerly see such proposals.
just my 2 cents, though ;)
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Quite a but has been proposed and discussed on the forums for improving the rp environment. Its all been ignored. As for Pepito not using the mechanics I personally know that he has used the mechanics quite extensively. In fact, more than I have.
So why do some of us stick around and discuss how to make RP better? Personally I don't really care as much as I once did as I've left for now. It would be nice to return one day and find that PS is in better condition but at this rate I don't see that happening. Some of us still stick around on the forums because we still care somewhat .. or perhaps because we still have friends here.
Most of the people who have complained about the need to better support RP in PS have not been saying that noobs should be bashed or shunned, rather that some basic standard be put in place in order to guide them. All players start out as noobs. I'm not trying to sound condescending or anything. People will grow and change in ways that are influenced by their environment. A game full of ooc noob guilds and with no rules to enforce rp will not produce many role players. Likewise, a game full of solid role players with good rules and policies will produce fewer noobish players. This is just common sense.
These issues can be fixed by simply making some agreed upon definitions, rules and standards. Its not like anything needs to be coded or worked on.
Lastly, as stated earlier, this isn't much of a team left. It might be a good idea to take a look at why and then ask yourselves what could be done to change that ;)
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Quite a but has been proposed and discussed on the forums for improving the rp environment. Its all been ignored.
I've yet to see something that's to the point outlining what can be done, how, why, etc. without 20 sites of pointless flaming around it, but correct me if I'm wrong, that's just my impression.
If you find anywhere I did that at just post it and I'll point it out, it's most likely a confusion, given that I'm not a native english speaker... or maybe I just wanted to piss somebody off. ;)
don't post to piss others off, that way you'll surerly be taken more serious ;)
Nein, rules aren't meant to impose only one style of RP, are meant to dismiss certain types of "RP" since everything that isn't forbidden is officially accepted by the "we support all kinds of RP" wave. At the moment, godmoding is officially accepted, metagaming is officially accepted, mistaking IC by OOC is officially accepted, blatantly playing off-setting is officially accepted and so on. It's nothing to do with styles, but with usually unacceptable behavior.
lemme point you to the policies (http://www.planeshift.it/policies.html) and the related explanation of roleplay (http://www.planeshift.it/roleplay.html) as well as the policy extension (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=31960) again.
it is quite clear about OOC, godmodding, etc., isn't it? correct me if I'm wrong, but unless I get our current rules totally wrong, anything beyond those is pretty much enforcing a certain style.
I would love to think you're right and that putting down proposals about how to improve RP is welcome, but you only have to browse all of Illysia's threads (and they are not in the complaints department) to realize they are not so welcome, even usually flamed sooner or later. And this, sadly, it's not only the devs to blame for, it's the same players that misunderstand or do want to misunderstand.
it is welcome as long as it's dicussed properly (aka don't get personal, stay on topic, no flame wars, ...), at least from my point of view.
though I do agree some users like to get off track - pretty sad actually :/
Agreed. I'm not sure if you meant to say this is what I said, or if anything I said sounded like this, but wasn't what I meant. What I meant is that mechanics have to always take RP into consideration when you're making an RP game. Mechanics should be done so that they do support RP instead of hindering it or even forcing it.
thanks for the clarficiation, it did sound like enforcing mechanics wise for me, but maybe that's just due to the ideas that came up lately (check the DR one or the furnances one on the wish list o_O)
You, as an engine dev, can either choose to do this or not, and to do it properly (assuming your intention is to) you must know how does the current game state influence on RP. For instance, you could now implement a 255 characters limit per line like most MMORPGs have because let's say there is too much spam going IG. This would hinder RP and probably piss off many RPers, so you, knowing that would happen, would just look for a fix to the spam that suits both the mechs' needs and the RP's needs (mind you,. the current spam filter isn't so bad anyway). Just an example... hope it was clear now. Problem with this, applying it to the whole development with all it implies, is that when devs don't have a detailed view on what happens IG things are done the wrong way.
we are trying our best on that, however of course not everything always goes right. if you have some feedback, bring it up in a constructive way on whatever channel (to a dev on irc, on the bt, here on the forum, ...). just stay constructive if you want it to be taken into account, e.g. a "it sucks" or "it ain't no werk" usually doesn't get much attention :D
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No proposal in this forum will go without derailing and flaming... it is the nature of this forum and that should be quite obvious. Most of the people flaming my threads don't take as much offense at what I proposed but the fact that I spoke up. I don't think it's fair that having the nerve to try and bring the community together despite people flaming me is being held against me. Did you read what I said or just the what the flamers said? :( "Just get out there and RP" is not much of a proposal I however have had detailed proposals and it doesn't just promote one style but if you only read the flamers then I suppose there is no reason to know that.
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No proposal in this forum will go without derailing and flaming... it is the nature of this forum and that should be quite obvious. Most of the people flaming my threads don't take as much offense at what I proposed but the fact that I spoke up. I don't think it's fair that having the nerve to try and bring the community together despite people flaming me is being held against me.
it's not held against you, but if I may make a suggestion: once you got something ellaborate put together that was discussed properly, make a nice summary of the outcome outlining in detail what should be done and why.
I think this (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=35352.0) is a good example of how such a summary can look like. something like that is really helpful after all and is taken into account.
Did you read what I said or just the what the flamers said? :( "Just get out there and RP" is not much of a proposal I however have had detailed proposals and it doesn't just promote one style but if you only read the flamers then I suppose there is no reason to know that.
to be honest: after a maximum of 3 sites flaming I stop reading. I know this isn't really good, but I just can't stand pages of pointless flame wars.
it's kinda like reading a book. it can be very good, but if it starts being good after 200 pages and is just plain annoying before, it will probably not be read to the end ;)
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So, tell me... if I get flamed every time I say something just because yet another person misunderstood because they look at me through the "hateful oldbie" lens, how does anything get discussed properly? I've tried every way possible and still somebody like Xoel comes through and misunderstands and it goes from there. I've even told players too keep the issues out of the threads and PM me too keep the threads clean. What else is there to be done?
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@Rly - Funny, I don't see any comments from anyone on the PS team on that thread acknowledging the value of his contribution. Not even a simple, "thanks for your feedback" or a "cool, we'll take a look at this", or "noted". Nada. Zip. The game remained in the same unbalanced state for quite some time after that too. If that was me, I would assume from the lack of response that the message was ignored or tossed aside.
What impression do you suppose that leaves other members who read this thread? Does it encourage them to do the same and submit useful feedback? Why would someone put in that much effort if they thought that it would go to waste?
The problem is not that PS does not have a neatly typed document detailing the rp related problems and suggestions of fixing it. The problem is that nobody really cares.
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@Rly - Funny, I don't see any comments from anyone on the PS team on that thread acknowledging the value of his contribution. Not even a simple, "thanks for your feedback" or a "cool, we'll take a look at this", or "noted". Nada. Zip. The game remained in the same unbalanced state for quite some time after that too. If that was me, I would assume from the lack of response that the message was ignored or tossed aside.
it was posted on the bugtracker (PS#2956 (http://hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=2956)) afterwards and was used as a basis for the magic rebalancing done by jorrit
also it's still taken into account for further balancing ;)
edit: sorry, yeah, was indeed the wrong one :x
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You sure thats the right bug tracker link?
That one was made 15 months later and says nothing about Org or his report.
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No proposal in this forum will go without derailing and flaming... it is the nature of this forum and that should be quite obvious. Most of the people flaming my threads don't take as much offense at what I proposed but the fact that I spoke up. I don't think it's fair that having the nerve to try and bring the community together despite people flaming me is being held against me. Did you read what I said or just the what the flamers said? :( "Just get out there and RP" is not much of a proposal I however have had detailed proposals and it doesn't just promote one style but if you only read the flamers then I suppose there is no reason to know that.
While your intentions are admirable, there's a few reasons why making new "Get out there and RP" threads won't work.
1) Alot of the forum browsers don't even play anymore.
2) There's already alot of roleplay in the game. Everytime I am in a city I see some, especially in Hydlaa.
3) It's just annoying, like you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.
Rather than saying "We need more RP" it'd be better to accept that not all RP is at the -finest standard- and work on improving roleplay rather than alienating those who don't fit so well.
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And people like you, miss the point which is exactly the problem that proposals will never get around. ;) There is a problem. A very real problem. I never proposed that there wasn't any RP but other people come into my threads, miss the point, derail the topic and then the original purpose gets lost in the flamewar. People just saying "Just RP and stop whining" haven't gotten back the 100+ players PS used to have, so obviously there is not only a problem but a need for another solution as that one isn't working. And if you bothered to actually read my threads you'd already know that improving the RP IS the point.
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I'm just surprised that there are people like Illysia who care enough and persevere.
Was I like that once ? ???
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I'm just surprised that there are people like Illysia who care enough and persevere.
Was I like that once ? ???
No, you weren't.
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Hopefully it is not OT to thank the Dev Team for working on providing a quality game software as well as thanking Players like illysia, Roled, the Daughters, etc., etc., etc., etc. which have offered me a friendly RP hand when coming to PS.
My role is a new one here yet if you folks think RP is dead it makes me shake my head in wonderment. At the moment one cannot walk down the street without having a chance to get involved in some major RP plots and it only takes a /greet to find oneself in an RP chat that can take one anywhere.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Let's give credit to all that contribute in their own way to PS. Be that the Devs who give the world to play upon, the seasoned RPers who give a bench mark and a guiding hand, as well as the Newbies who are the PS future.
To one and all you have my grateful thanks!
- Nova
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I roleplayed with many other characters today. It was fun. There was death involved. :whistling:
I'm sorry, this is all I have to add. I was playing the game.
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novacadian, I must say you've earned my respect with that post.
:)
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O_O Vakachehk left himself logged in on my laptop again, sorry about that.
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Nice post. I think the biggest problem with your ideals is that they don't suit everyone in this community. If they did, the vast majority of PlaneShift players would be on here screaming for your ideals.
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Eh .. no Xoel, its the other way around. Loads of good players have left because the game does not support role play adequately. Incorporating these ideals long ago may have helped to prevent a lot of good players from leaving. ;)
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People leave anyway, the only game that has broken the three month play average is WoW.
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Xoel, that's the problem.
When you have a lot of good players, information that originally took a long time to learn is handed down to newer players. They learn rapidly, avoiding many mistakes. Players learn quickly and efficiently.
When a student goes to a university he learns at an accelerated rate because of this synergy.
Yes, new players can rediscover all of this from scratch but it will take a long long time.
Fortunately there are a few experienced role players left who care enought to promote and encourage role play.
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The real question is, will your solutions cull off more newbies (with the rather elitist rules being thrown at them before they even get a chance to login and see what the game's like) than it'll save oldbies?
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I would wirk with other seasoned role players to draft a set of rp rules and guidelines if I had reason to believe that it would be taken seriously, reviewed, discussed, and revised by the community. I would not want to spend the time only to see it get tossed aside.
You seem to thing that we want oppressively strict rules. That is not the case. That would indeed turn players away and cause further damage.
Is requiring players to stay in characyer elitist ?
I don't think so.
No godmodding.
Is that elitist ?
No. This is very fundamental.
Keep ic and ooc separate.
Is this elitist?
No. Again this is a fundamental skill that newbies need to learn. They will make mistakes and that's ok. People just meed to be proactive and teach when they mess up.
Stick to the setting.
Is this elitist? No.
New players need to learn a little about the setting before they can role play.
If you were thrown onto a movie set and told to play the part of "professor txpia", whould you know what to do ?
No, you know nothing about him.
And if you knew nothing about the movie'setting you would be really lost.
Same thing here.
This is why I suggest that new players draft a SIMPLE CHARACTER PROFILE and that it be ok'd by a gm before they enter.
Is this elitist?
It setting the bar above the ground, but no. Its not.
What is elitism?
Beating up on somwone for not being as good as you are even though they are doing their best.
Harassing others just for the sake of being a prick.
Looking for trivial reasons to exclude people from your click
To dat I have not come accross any players like this. Every role players I've met in ps has been more than willing to help me when I was new and tolerated my many mistakes.
Anyway, this is a rough taste of what is needed to start.
For a player to get better, hopefully they learn more things over time like:
* reacting to other players actions.
* accepting the consequences of their actions
* separating from their character
* allowing themselves to lose at times
* being vulnerable
* winning graciously
* how to run events
* how to deal with godmodders
* how to deal with players that drag in ooc info
* how to make good characters
* how to keep themselves from rushing the plot
* how to spy
* how to include quiet players
The list of things that mage a player good goes on and on. I am an average player. Someone who is more advanced could probably double or triple the length of this list.
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Again and again Rigwyn, you mention things that PS has already fixed - though I couldn't find anything on godmodding when I skimmed over the RolePlay guide.
heck, characters are meant to stay IC even in Guild and Group, according to the Roleplay guide. This piles onto your "Keep IC and OOC seperate", as if players are meant to be IC at all times, then OOC is seperated... meant to be kept on the forums, IRC channels, email, etc.
Requiring players to create a profile to be checked by a GM may not in truth be elitist, as let's face it, PS's GMs aren't fanatical about roleplay, but to the unknowing newb, it's very much an elitist appearance. Which is the only real reason I am against it. I wouldn't be against it, however, if the non-RP server was more active, and we as a community could afford to be picky about new members on what is currently our most active server.
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Xoel, fixed implies it's not a problem any more. ;)
Scaring off newbs is bad, but so is appearing wishy washy. Not all newbs are completely new to the concept of RP, but without more guidlines, RP will come off as wishy washy and probably lame. Better to have everybody on the same page and need to turn your head for newbs, than to have way too much wacky stuff happening RPwise and people can't turn away for the train wreck. ;D
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Good god, the guidelines ARE THERE. As RlyDontKnow pointed out so so long ago.
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Look, to you people who want to change Planeshift Rules & Enforcement, it's not happening. The style of leadership in this game is constant, and the leader is the one who judges the rules and how they are enforced. For all the time I've been around this game, the law has not changed a whole lot.
This game won't ever be as strict as a server like Conquest of the Horde. It'll be a role play game, but "wishy washy" as was said.
If you want to change the game from within, join the GM Team or become an mover and a shaker within the community. The latter will change people's role playing because they will see how the alpha dogs to it, and in turn learn.
Don't waste your time with Role play drafts and all that gob. Molding the community is the best way to get role play to a "higher level" or fit your tastes.
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Xoel, remember how there have been graphics bugs in the past.... you know how we fixed them? Does that mean there are no graphics bugs now just because measures were taken in the past? Is it possible that new problems might have come up recently that make those old fixes not as useful as they used to be? And isn't it true that sometimes you just have to go through and upgrade? ;)
Blooded, but that requires enough "Alpha players". Back at square one. Not that this shouldn't be done but it is going to take many measures to build up the community.
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bloodedIrishman is right tbh.
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I still have to agree with Xoel to some part - the rules are pretty much there (godmodding could indeed be explicitly stated, but w/e - imo that's part of "stay IC")
the real problem is that we don't have *short* rules that are really "to the point". instead we have those way too long drafts nobody even dares to read or knows where they are written after all. that *is* an issue imo and it's been pointed out often enough - though something nearly nobody can change ;)
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This is the internet, practically everything needs to be stated explicitly. And I'm with Lhaa on this one, since when do you give up because you don't know what to do about the problem yet? Letting a problem fester never fixed it, it only for sure gets worse that way.
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"letting a problem fester"
I don't think there is a problem with the current system at all. There ARE guidelines. People on the RP server DO roleplay. Sure, some of it is sub-standard, but whether or not a guide existed, there would always be players who need to learn as they play.
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There is a problem. The framework for them learning is shakier than shoddy scaffolding. The information is there, but that does not equate a working, efficient system... it doesn't even equate a working system. And people stopped saying there is no RP long ago Xoel, nobody but you keep bring that old argument up.
...long drafts nobody even dares to read or knows where they are written after all.
Even RlyDontKNow has pointed out that random info floating around is not particularly helpful.
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No, he pointed out that nobody reads the T&Cs.
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I assume that the intention of the rules regarding RP is to guide and mould players towards an acceptable standard. Onec achieved, players should be able to interact satisfactorily. There should be clear understanding of what is acceptable and what is not. When disputes about what is acceptable arise they should be able to refer back to the rules in order to settle the matter themselves. Shoudl it go beyond that point and they need help with resolving their conflict they might call in a GM for assistance. That GM would use their judgement to decide on how the rules apply to their dilema.
Rules that are not clear cut detract from this.
Likewise, rules that do not define an acceptable standard for play do not achieve this goal.
Yes, the rules are there and cover some important aspects of acceptable of play however I think many of the more experienced role players would conceede that there is much room for improvement. Many of the more experienced role players have left unfortunately so there are not that many left to ask.
Consider for a moment, the effect of removing these rules altogether. Would that encourage more newcomers to play? Would it be good for the community?
Perhaps new players would find it much easier and less intimidating. Anything they say or do would be valid. Super. But what about those who are serious about role play?
You might say, well they can just go somewhere else, or teach the newcommers themselves. Fine. A player starts ruining an RP by dragginh in ooc info. You very politely inform him of his error in a tell. He says, "Well, the rules don't say anything about that, so piss off you elitist pig"
Any thing above that ultra low standard would eventually be called elitism :)
You say there is role play on the server now, however it is substandard. You also seems to suggest that there are no problems. Everything is fine the way it us. Perhaps for you everything is fine and dandy. You are up to your nose in a pile of liquid shit. If it gets any higher you will drown, but as long as you stay still and balance on your toes you will be fine. We all have different ideas about what is acceptable and fun. What is acceptable and fun for you is not necessarily acceptable and fun for others.
/me tosses a huge boulder into Xoel's tranquil cesspool and laughs as the ripples approach him.
Anyway, maybe its just me. Perhaps my idea of what is good and acceptable has grown to a point that make me incompatible with the game.
Perhaps I need to take a better look at myself.
There was a lot of wisdom in Pepito's post.
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Did you stop to think that when someone else's playstyle is incompatible with yours, you have, OMFG, wait for it.... an /ignore button?!
Most players with any inkling of intelligence realise godmodding is unacceptable the first time they're told.
Besides, players break the rules all the time. Then they get banned. Then they ban-evade. What's the point?
The truth about why roleplaying is dying is because no one can be bothered taking any time to teach new players. Only, it's not dying.
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Honestly, I give up.
Enjoy.
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Sorry simply having better written rules isn't going to solve the problems. First off the vast majority of people will never read the rules. Having come from a sports officials background before becoming a GM I am painfully aware of how people will not read rules, IN fact most of the time the people who will read the rules are troublemakers who will read the rules and then use them to argue their case against you.
Let's look at an example. I think the people who argue for better more explicit rules can agree that the naming guidelines is more along the lines of that they are looking for for RP in general. Does the well written out naming guidelines prevent people from selecting unacceptable names? NO not at all. Does the naming guidelines prevent fights over what is an acceptable name? Once again no not at all. Just the other day we had a case where a player argued for 45 minutes with 3 GM saying his name was acceptable when clearly it wasn't. The GMs finally just gave him a random name and the player then asked that his account be deleted.
I think the guidelines the way there are now are good enough to prevent most of the behavior people are complaining about here. The problem with more specific rules like hoe the naming guidelines are is that they will tend to scare more people off , since in general more rules/restrictions means a more authoritarian system to most people, and it will give those who wish to fight over matter more ammunition since they will tend to point out " Well this specific situation isn't covered while all these other specific situations are."
I think the real problem is we don't have, and I don't think we ever will, enough GMs to be all places at all times and see all the problems as soon as they occur. We need players to help be our eyes and ears. you see a bad name you report it. you see an improper character Desc you report it you see excessive OOC in main or godmoding report it. If there are problems with what another character has said in main, or in a tell or group to you , then use the /report <player> command then after doing the report contact a GM either via tell or if none is online file a petition.
Yes when GMs know of problems we take action. I have been involved in a few character description changes and I am waiting for a player with a problem desc to come back online, since he logged off before we could talk about the problems in his desc. I have talked to players who had OOC in main that didn't relate to the ongoing RP and told them to knock it off.I have worked with new players having a problem with IC and OOC chat in main to try and teach them what they have been dong wrong.
The other problem is that even with well written rules there will always be different views as to what is allowed and what isn't allowed under those rules. Even on the GM team we will have different opinions as to what is allowed. That is always going to be an area of contention. Remember when you ask for better enforcement of the rules you need to realize that the rule enforcers ( aka the GMs here) may not always see things the way you do.
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OK, I give up on this too.. It will take far too much to bother explaining and it would just be more spinning wheels needlessly. I would like to attempt to get RPers together in order to discuss possible RP rules without the usual forum Hooha, if you would like to get in on it. Please PM me. Those that left this forum should try the OL forums to reach me. I'd like to use IRC for the discussion so if possible try to catch me in IRC. If you want to be a part just to say it's a bad idea, or a waste of time, etc... don't bother, stay here on the forums and spin your wheels like has been happening. I'm actually going to try one last push to get something useful accomplished.
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@Rigwyn I'm sorry to see you leave the forums, as one of the people who actually took the time to say the things that mattered and have that torn apart by people who don't understand what you are talking about makes me worry for the community.
@Xoel you keep using this word "elitist" when all these "elitists" are doing is trying to improve RP on the server, since it is becoming less and less of what it used to be, and more of an exclusive V.I.P. club. However I do agree with you that we need to teach newbs how to RP and stay in the settings. However, this isn't the easiest thing to do and that leads me to...
@Sarva: The problem with the new players is that they are either here to become a PLer or they find something interesting about the settings of the game that makes them want to play it. Now just because they began to play because of that interest doesn't mean they are doing it right, and when people spend more and more time doing things wrong while thinking those things are right, they begin to become stubborn, and those are the types who won't change even if a GM tells them to. There are also those PLers who think they are in the settings and they are not, and those can be a stubborn fight too. I agree that more reporting from players would help the little GM's that there are, and I'll try my best to lookout for OOC descriptions and names that just can't fit into the RP server.
@Pepito: Even if it was a bit saddening to read, I agree with your last post on this thread. Though you forgot to mention that some people don't play the game anymore because of technical issues. These technical issues is what has led us to where we are now, with such a low player count.
So why is RP dying?
Low Player Count
I can't think of any other reason why there is less RP as there used to be. Many people who were avid roleplayers left because of the technical issues to face during 0.5, the low player count that came to follow because of the issues people were having during the change to 0.5, or they just don't like the way the RP community is going.
I think now that there is little possibility to run into a different character and greet them, and roleplaying that you know that character because your character has ACTUALLY met that character, people have abandoned this, and turn to OOC roleplaying. I find it harder and harder to meet new characters in game because when I stop and try to greet somebody, they simply run past me, or if my character tries to greet somebody new, that person is ignoring your character because you are not a part of their preplanned RP's and RP clicks. There are hardly anymore characters in game who's every move is not controlled by the mind of their player, and how their other players friends agree on how things should go. Now these players like to do everything the way they want to, and ignore those who let their characters actually do the things they would do ICly. There are few players that are strictly IC anymore, and I find it sad. I think people have accustomed comfortably to pre-planning RP's and playing around certain dictated conflicts because nothing would happen if they let their characters do what they would TRULY do, because there would be no interaction due to the low player count. Hydlaa often looks like a ghost town for goodness sake.
I think what needs to be done is this:
-We should try and help new players stay IC and not get sucked into PLing.
-Enforce the settings to players who are straying from them, and making things up for their RP's.
-Do what Sarva said and report nonsense to the GM's.
-Stop running by people and stop for once, like normal people would do on the streets during the olden days. It's as if some of us don't see the characters that our characters RUN by, and that makes the "runner-byers" look like blind idiots. Lets stop that.
-Perhaps we should try not to play on so many different characters. I know some of us do because it is helping to the community, but many times characters are losing bonds because they don't see eachother as often anymore.
-Time to STOP pre-planning RP's and dictating little plots and plays for our characters to play out. You people know who you are.
-Religion is less involved in RP's these days. With all of these kidnappings and murders I would think that people would be worshiping more often, but they are not. I remember when religion was a big thing for many characters, and the only active religious guild I ever see is Daughters of Xiosia. Laanx temple seems abandoned, and the death realm is never seen as less than a 5 minute run-through. There are a few Talad worshipers around, but not many seem to pray much.
-Let's not just play because of events that could happen, lets play because your character has a life in game, not sleeping until some party comes up.
I really have nothing more to say in this thread.
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Did you stop to think that when someone else's playstyle is incompatible with yours, you have, OMFG, wait for it.... an /ignore button?!
Most players with any inkling of intelligence realise godmodding is unacceptable the first time they're told.
Besides, players break the rules all the time. Then they get banned. Then they ban-evade. What's the point?
The truth about why roleplaying is dying is because no one can be bothered taking any time to teach new players. Only, it's not dying.
there are a lot of stupid people in the world. being so "smart", you should understand that. you should always account for stupid people.
what's the point? to stop them. hell! at least when they ban-evade they'll know what they did wrong. it happens. it always happens. on every game. you have to account for rule-breakers too. don't give up. that's weak.
i'm going to go ahead and speak my mind, and i think i can speak for everyone elses' too. you are incredibly pretentious, egotistical, and obstinate. and annoying as hell. quit being such a disingenuous pain in the arse. really.
i might follow rigwyn's lead. you'll like that. your attitude is what makes people leave. you play like you're oblivious to all the problems. this game needs to start assessing the problems. ignoring problems will only make them worse. this game is in beta after all. there are going to be problems.
also, i think the GMs need to crack down. they don't need to argue with players. they're GMs for god's sake. if someone's breaking the rules, give them a warning, and if they do it again, give them a little time out. and there's no need to roleplay it. i think the GM team needs to rethink the way they do things.
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Ah Rigwyn. You'll find a better place in another game. In any case, i'm not leaving. ;D Yay! bloodedIrishman stays!
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Ah Rigwyn. You'll find a better place in another game. In any case, i'm not leaving. ;D Yay! bloodedIrishman stays!
I'm overcome with a world of joy and happiness.
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You're welcome kid
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Aw, this brings back memories. Sorry people, but a lot of you are already around long enough to know that such a discussion leads nowhere...even less change anything the PS team does/thinks. No idea why some still try...but at least it was good for me to see that a few people who disagreed with me in the past seems to have reconsidered a few things. But I thought it's clear by now that this can't be expected from the PS team...they can't have the wrong opinion as they are the ones who create this game.
There's still some hope left. There is always some hope. I mean, I've been scheduling events every once in a while to help. Some decent Role-players came, some newbies who learned. I'm not giving up.
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I wrote this post a year ago mainly blaming players and the "love" they had for their characters and how the oldbies were really closed to roleplay with newbies. Lately it seems to be the other way around, people blaming game mechanics and developers.
Maybe you haven't realized it, or maybe I'm wrong, but I have seen lots of posts complaining against developers and they don't get removed. When I left this game, every post you wrote against them was deleted in seconds/minutes. As I said, maybe I am mistaken, but I think the situation changed since now they are reading our posts, replying and listening to players, and now I see more complains than ever. Which won't happen in the vast majority of games nowadays.
I am not saying devs are doing (or will do) something about it, but listening is a first step.
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Listening is not the same as not deleting. I will give them credit, they are doing a smart thing. They aren't listening, they just aren't making martyrs out of those that step up to complain... Martyrs become more problematic than the original complaint.
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Especially ones that hang around after posting dramatic "I'm Leaving!" threads.
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Oh, don't worry your little head. Once the new semester starts I'll be good and out of your hair like so many others that posted dramatic leaving threads. ;) By the way verden, did you actually read it or do you just as assume you know what I was already going to say?
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Promises, promises. You've got the PS obsession. Just try to get away. But I'll miss you. That was sincere, and wasn't sarcastic.
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I seriously need to say this: Grow up people, the situation is not THAT dramatic. Illysia, if I were you, I wouldn't leave, unless you have better things to do, but PS is still a roleplaying game and we need people like you showing it.
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Yesterday, there was a fine rp graduation party for Tessra hosted by the Knowledge Seekers and sponsored and fed by the Stonehead team of cooks and servers. We had 18-22 folks attending, it was fun, no gore, no mayhem. Yeah for the Stonehead team! Yeah for Tess! Yeah for the KS! Yeah for everyone who came! Yeah for Elady's pies! in abundance
IC Plots were forwarded, characters who hadn't interacted much before came strangers and left... well that's for us to find our as they play. At the end there was a terrific discussion of the ethics of Dark Way led by Lord Barike and Sir Esorono, where newer, younger characters had the great fortune of learning from older more experienced characters. :sorcerer:
Thanks to all who attended and who participated.
This was fun! I wore a porg pie hat, compliments of Eso.. :D
Roled
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I'll be good and take that comment at face value Verden and as for PS obsession... Nah, I just don't have another forum to lurk during my downtime and when all is said and done, I still have the muscle memory for getting back here. I spent a lot of time here in the past. Getting out of game was easy, though, as I had lost my taste for it a year ago. But now I can let go of the feelings of responsibility that tied me to the game even while it was a miserable lot to log in. PS forums will only be hard to avoid until I have far more important things pressing me from all sides.
That leads me to my next point. I have many better things to be doing, not that I necessarily want to do them, but they're there. I spent 3 years putting PS first in my life, for some reason, and I've gotten no return on that investment but memories... memories would be fine if the game wasn't in the condition it's in now. Memories of more creativity than now wasn't what I ever expected. But it's cool, I've finally come to grips with the loss and, I might add, the ingratitude from certain people running things around here. I just had to go ahead accept that it's better to cut my losses than wasting more time trying to salvage the investment. RL should not suffer because of wanting a game to succeed... no matter how much you love the game.
However, on an on topic note. RP will never die entirely. Only the quality and/or player count will diminish. But if people are having fun, let them have their fun. It's another reason why I left. Since I'm the only one not having fun, it's time to move on.
And to Roled, it's about time there was a plot that didn't involve somebody getting hurt. ;)
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I'll be good and take that comment at face value Verden and as for PS obsession... Nah, I just don't have another forum to lurk during my downtime and when all is said and done, I still have the muscle memory for getting back here. I spent a lot of time here in the past. Getting out of game was easy, though, as I had lost my taste for it a year ago. But now I can let go of the feelings of responsibility that tied me to the game even while it was a miserable lot to log in. PS forums will only be hard to avoid until I have far more important things pressing me from all sides.
That leads me to my next point. I have many better things to be doing, not that I necessarily want to do them, but they're there. I spent 3 years putting PS first in my life, for some reason, and I've gotten no return on that investment but memories... memories would be fine if the game wasn't in the condition it's in now. Memories of more creativity than now wasn't what I ever expected. But it's cool, I've finally come to grips with the loss and, I might add, the ingratitude from certain people running things around here. I just had to go ahead accept that it's better to cut my losses than wasting more time trying to salvage the investment. RL should not suffer because of wanting a game to succeed... no matter how much you love the game.
However, on an on topic note. RP will never die entirely. Only the quality and/or player count will diminish. But if people are having fun, let them have their fun. It's another reason why I left. Since I'm the only one not having fun, it's time to move on.
And to Roled, it's about time there was a plot that didn't involve somebody getting hurt. ;)
Illysia? Will you at least post a few replies to see how we're doing? I'm going to miss you.
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I'll be good and take that comment at face value Verden and as for PS obsession
You don't actually think I dislike you personally? You have a nice personality, Illysia. You are also tenacious and bright. They are good qualities and will bear you out wherever you go. I had to troll you a little, its just my way of saying goodbye.
I honestly think we are moving into a period where the focus will be on mechanics and content. I think that we will find that things that can be done to the system to promote roleplay will happen, its simply that the schedule around here does not favor rapid changes, even as responses to immediate problems.
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@Knightspark9: Thanks, it was fun those few RPs we had together. But I won't really be dropping back around until some things change around here. I know my problem is that I have difficulty with working in groups that aren't professional enough and apparently that is the problem I faced with PS. By the way that means more than completing parts by a due date. There just isn't enough respect, restraint, organization, and accountability going around.
If one day this project has its act together a little better, then maybe around the time I'm getting my video game related Masters I might come back around. But for now and the foreseeable future, not happening. Shame too as I learned a lot about development from this game. Shame I now know what not to do as well.
@Verden: You got an odd way of saying hello and goodbye. :P Yeah, I used to be nice and whatnot before the PS burnout, but now I know what happened to many before me. I could live with focusing on mechanics, it's just the mindset that comes with it is disturbing. There is no use RPing in game where it feels like you might get kicked out for RPing at any given moment. I bothered to write that long post as a way of pointing out problems and then actually offering solutions. I personally hate it when people are "just saying...." so I tried to contribute solutions but you see how that goes.
Bashing as it was so affectionately called does not take 6000 words, not even around here. Go figure, a problem and plan of action that has been thought about hard for a long time might be longer than a memo... heaven forbid we make people stretch for a moment to read it. Also, I can see not having rapid changes and I can see disagreeing, but the lack of respect for anyone not kissing up is going to be detrimental to the development process. I refuse to butt kiss to get a chance to get heard as I am a firm believer than those tactics do no good for the project. Also it's not worth it. I have nothing to gain by doing it.
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You don't have to come and see how the game is going, just come and say hi. Please!
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Venorel opens her volume of 'Epic Goodbyes' and makes an entry.
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Maybe but I doubt I will be doing that often. I'll probably be too busy with RL, for once, but we'll see. Perhaps I'll stop by other PS related forums for saying hi periodically.
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Its been 5 days now since the epic "I'm leaving" post from Illysia. And she continues to post messages that seem to imply that she is going to continue to punish the PS community by not showing up anymore.
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[...] she is going to continue to punish the PS community by not showing up anymore.
I'm doing just that for good 6+ years now.
That'll show you guys...
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Its been 5 days now since the epic "I'm leaving" post from Illysia. And she continues to post messages that seem to imply that she is going to continue to punish the PS community by not showing up anymore.
That would require the community to actually be on the forums. ;)
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Its been 5 days now since the epic "I'm leaving" post from Illysia. And she continues to post messages that seem to imply that she is going to continue to punish the PS community by not showing up anymore.
That would require the community to actually be on the forums. ;)
...and as I already insinuated, I'm not around this place here. Her story checks out.
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I am missing Illysia, and also Rotbartgrim!
Some other people I am missing as well.
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Aww... <3 Phage. But I might add that I have not been in game since before I left it. I'm just here because it's better to waste your time in the internet blackholes you know rather than those you don't. ;D And on the note of punishment... I'd rather just smack people with the Wooden Spoon of DOOM(tm) than leave. Shame though, I can't do that either now as I have already bequeathed it to another. ::)
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It will soon be 2 months since starting PS. This does not make me an expert by any means yet it is certainly enough to give me an impression of the state of things and to have a valid opinion about it.
It is my feeling the Role Playing is not dying in the game; it is simply changing.
This perspective is based on having shared Role Plays with older players to the game as well as newer ones.
It is hard for me to speak of how things used to be; yet from reading the forum end to end and talking and Role Playing with established players it has given me a feel for it.
The game is in flux due to it being in pre-Beta development; so it is no surprise that Role Playing has changed here as well. The older style of play did not have much; by today's extent; of the game mechanics that the software now provides. This could be compared to how Role Playing has changed since early D&D to AD&D and beyond.
Even more than that it appears to me that the term RP has come to mean something unique to many of the older PS players and is not so much Role Playing but a style of Role Playing more in the vein of Chat Room style Role Playing. That is not heavy handedness of a Game Master style of play with dice rolls and exactness of outcome but more a free flow of inventive storyline based more on consensus among the players than any rule based system based heavily on dice.
As the mechanics of the software begins to offer such a rule based system with such things as PvP battles it is only normal that the style of play may shift more in that direction for many players. That is not to mean that it is forced upon those who do not wish to conform to it; yet by the same token they will not be able to force the older style on new players.
This transition has probably lead to a feeling among many players that there are many subsets of Role Playing currently being employed on the PS Role Playing server.
This transitions seems to have lead some of the older players to feel that Role Playing (or their form of it which they call RP) is dying. Perhaps in their strict definition it is; yet that does not mean that Role Playing is dying from all players' perspective.
Another observation that seems to be evident to all players is that the player base is down from what it had been. Many reasons are given for that fact; yet it must most certainly be accounted for a number of different reason; the least of which is software growing pains as well as older players being turned off by the evolution of the software mechanics and the resulting evolution of Role Playing style.
This can all be dealt with if there is a period of some active GM involvement yet it has been made clearly evident that the current staff size does not allow this at present. My experience in online games it that maybe 10% of the player base spends any consistent time in the game forums. That is likely a fair estimate of the percentage of players that move towards helping in development. So as the player base grows (which seems certain to happen to me) those percentages will translate into a larger dev team which could be more enforcing of the Role Playing standards in PS.
Even in its present state this is one of the best online Role Playing environments found to date by me. The degree of immersion that is expected and enforced seems amazing to me. My style of Role Playing in such a software environment does not have someone tell me after the fact that they have pulled some invisible string to release invisible poison which affected my character. Instead my wish is to have real hidden trap item that my Find Traps skill may detect. It is my feeling that that is where development is heading; and has headed in many way from the older days.
Does that make me less of a Role Player than the old school? You can decide; yet to make that judgement fosters the concept of schools/camps/styles of what Role Play should be.
To me, if there is a place on the internet where Role Playing is not dead, it is here on PS. What is dead is previous online verions of the game and the styles which were prevalent in their respective sandbox.
If one wants a particular style of play then play it! Bemoaning on the forums will only drive new players away. Reading much of the forum before entering the game made me think that the time had passed for real Role Playing here. That assumption could not have been more wrong from my perspective.
- Nova
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It is hard for me to speak of how things used to be; yet from reading the forum end to end and talking and Role Playing with established players it has given me a feel for it.
The game is in flux due to it being in pre-Beta development; so it is no surprise that Role Playing has changed here as well. The older style of play did not have much; by today's extent; of the game mechanics that the software now provides. This could be compared to how Role Playing has changed since early D&D to AD&D and beyond.
It used to be pretty much the same: threads dramatically revealing the death of RP for many years.
Also, you'll have to quit your tabletop RPG references at some point, you know... because not only online games have little to do with it, but also (A)D&D is not the only way to play tabletop RPG, with a GM and.throwing dice and such...
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.... but also (A)D&D is not the only way to play tabletop RPG, with a GM and.throwing dice and such...
That's fair enough, khoridor, and you are, most likely, correct. The reason it has been stressed, to date, is that the use of the term RP on the forum is very confusing to many new players regardless of their Role Playing styles and background. Particularly when such a thread, as this, suggests that RP is dying.
To a new reader on the forum It came off, to me, like calling a car a truck once my head got around what was truly being discussed.
- Nova
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@Nova There are several styles of rp that were common in ps. they are not that different and an inexperienced player can very easily adapt to these different styles. They type of RP that Illysia has described in the past is more like a slow, progressive story. The joy is in watching how characters interact with one another as the story progresses. In my mind this resembles a soap opera. Others would describe it differently.
The type that I like is similar, however things happen faster. Over the course of hours or days there may be rising action, a battlle/struggle, and denouement. Typically when I played, everything was freestyle. One player would attempt and action, and the other player would determine the effect if any. There is no planning here, no dice rolls, everything happens spontaneously. In this type of RP its critical that players be able to separate IC from OOC info as failure to do so would ruin the evolving plot. For example, if we were planning a surprise attack, and someone else learned about this oocly, and then made their character icly inform the guards of our plans. In this case, what really sucks is not the losing part, but the fact that it doesn't make any sense. You reach a point in the game where everyone sees the inconsistency and then has to stop. When stories become inconsistent like this, they are just garbage.
There are also player-run events. These are a little different from completely spontaneous role play. With player led events, one or more players will either have a pre-planned plot that they will present to other players, or else they will try to nudge the rp so that the plot evolves on its own. They may even act as a guide in the rp in the way that a Dm might. In each case, players let their characters react as they wish and are free to do anything they want. There is no script in this case, just some structure to guide the plot.
Some players did dice roll, but I have only seen that happen once or twice.
As for the quality of RP, it is shot at this point. There was a time when you could walk to the plaza and just *be* your character. Others would do the same. When I starting RPing, you had to sniff out the RPers first ( ie, check to see if they bothered to make a character descritpion ). If you are new to RP in PS then it probably does not look that bad from your perspective. People are talking in character here and there...
So what do we mean by BAD rp ?
Good RP is like watching a movie or reading a good book. You forget about yourself and get sucked into this fictional world where there are no players, just characters. You become IMMERSED. You may even imagine some details that were not typed in as you become more immersed. This makes the RP very real. Characters make sense, are believable, and fit into the PS world. When you return the next day, Joale still has the same personality and fighting technique, Caira still has a grudge against you from a week ago, Stashka is still a crackpot, and Jacula is still all firey and pissed. Better watch your back! People play out the consequences of their actions. If you slap someone, it hurts them, and they react accordingly, If you kill their best friend, they grieve. If you wrong them, they come after you... perhaps with a friend or two. Characters have likes, dislikes, opinions, preferences, fears, strengths, weaknesses, etc... They are not just cookie-cutter characters with their life history and parents name stamped on their backs.
BAD RP includes people going out of character and saying things in main like "LOL.. that was cool man. Crap! phone....[phone - brb]", or having the continuity of the story destroyed by people that drag in IC info. There are those too who dont rp at all. They usually say something stupid if you speak to them in character. There are those who dont understand that IC actions are not directed at them personally. they will feel hurt when attacked, cheated or broken up with. They may become obsessed with someone who comes on to them There are the MarySue characters who are nothing more than a hollow shell, and the Blank Characters who seem to have just sprouted up from a cabbage patch as adults with no personality, history, preferences, dislikes, etc.. You have your continuity breakers who don't remembering what was RP'd last. You killed bob brutally yesterday, and today he's like "Oh Hai! Nice to see you again buddy!". Some folks with ready your guild tag, which is ooc information, and treat your differently as a result. The most amusing imho are the overpowered characters who do things like freeze you in place with their frost spells so that they can godmod the crap out of you. Only a complete control freak would do something like this.
BAD RP also includes the GM led events that we used to see where GM's would RP badly and give way inappropriate prizes. Players would flock around them and do whatever it took to "win" a prize. If they had to quack like a duck, they would just do it. ( even if their charcter was some kind of badass or someome who's afraid of ducks ). This is called going out of character. Whats worst is that they act like players, and not like their characters. Players see this crap and say, oh, this must be legitimate.. its was a GM event. In defense of GM events, the rules have changed since then and GMs now only give out appropriate gifts. A GM black smith might reward you with a reasonable sword or axe - not an indestructible holy helm, or a nuke-everybody-at-once glyph. Gardener might reward you with a plant or something natural .. not gold plated plate armor and fancy-sticks.
Now, if I might point out one little thing .. all this BAD RP that I pointed out is acceptable in Planeshift. Planeshift does not care how crappy your RP is. This is why players have asked for better support for rp in the form of rules.
Given this info, look at how others are role playing. Which camp do they belong in ? Good or Bad ?
When I left people were not role playing at all when I was on. You couldn't even find crappy players to play with. dont get me wrong, there were a few good players, and a few excellent players in the mix. most of these players have left however...;( boo hoo.
Some say that I am an elitist because of my views on RP. If this is elitism, then so be it. its just a word. I don't agree with bashing new players and making them feel bad about their mistakes, rather I have spent a lot of time training and entertaining each and every newcomer that has come my way. If thats what an elitist is then an elitist as not such a bad thing.
From a subjective point of view, if you leave an RP feeling like "Wow, that was awesome!" then I guess its good enough for the time being - for you. This till will change with time.
Good luck.
If you want to take a step up in the RP world, look for me in IRC or on the Outlaws forum.
Rigwyn ;)
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Admirable attempt at explaining Rig, but this is what would be the only part that will probably make a difference to most. If they get that far.
From a subjective point of view, if you leave an RP feeling like "Wow, that was awesome!" then I guess its good enough for the time being - for you.
I personally give up on explaining. Those that get it get it, regardless of their ability to RP, and those that don't... don't. The problem that people whine about is that RP is unacceptable and of low quality. We have no control over the title of the thread anymore but I didn't imagine that it would give so much problem... RP is not dead, it's simple... too simple for the people that left as we know it can be so much more.
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About this Mary Sue thing, sorry Rigwyn, but I have to explain it more blatantly for those who create these "Mary Sue's". You explained the qualities but the main point people need to understand is this:
DON'T CREATE A CHARACTER JUST FOR A CERTAIN PURPOSE, TO BE IN A CERTAIN PLOT, OR TO INTERACT WITH A CERTAIN CHARACTER.
They end up having these crappy qualities:
nothing more than a hollow shell, and the Blank Characters who seem to have just sprouted up from a cabbage patch as adults with no personality, history, preferences, dislikes, etc..
Anyhoo, pretty much agree with what you've said, though I would have to say that I also haven't seen the dice roll but a few times but I noticed and have heard that people are using it more often. I think it is a good system that prevents godmodding, but it should never be done on the main like I've seen and read. Instead, people need to do it in tells or group, if that is possible. If that isn't, just RP spontaneously because all of that dice rolling just floods the main.
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Has anyone noticed that a lack of maturity or courteousness in RPers seems be the root of the problem? Dice are nice but mature individuals should be able to be reasonable in deciding actions and outcomes. Relying only on dice seems more like you can't even trust yourself to be fair. Not that there is anything wrong with dice but you should be able to switch off on having successes and losses with the other person, even without dice.
This is how Illy died. I and whoever it was that killed her switched off having things work. True it took some OOC coordinating, but that didn't hinder things too much. Also, when it was his turn to have a win and whatever he tried was unlikely to work, I suggested alternative actions that would be more reasonable, fit into the story given background stuff, and allow him a chance to do something along the lines of what had intended. Sure I didn't want Illy to die but sometimes you just have to suck it up and be reasonable.
And on the point of Mary sues... don't think of your character as a plot device, something that just pushes the plot forward, think of your character as a person with feelings, personality, and realistic motivations. Think about how a person like them would actually react. Try to anticipate the thought process of the person.
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And on the point of Mary sues... don't think of your character as a plot device, something that just pushes the plot forward, think of your character as a person with feelings, personality, and realistic motivations.
Characters should not advance stories. Stories advance characters.
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I personally give up on explaining.
That seemed too good to be true.
- Nova
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DON'T CREATE A CHARACTER JUST FOR A CERTAIN PURPOSE, TO BE IN A CERTAIN PLOT, OR TO INTERACT WITH A CERTAIN CHARACTER.
We're looking at you Alirukell/Nalelack/Jelor/OVER9000ALTS!!
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And on the point of Mary sues... don't think of your character as a plot device, something that just pushes the plot forward, think of your character as a person with feelings, personality, and realistic motivations.
Characters should not advance stories. Stories advance characters.
Bingo. Easiest way to explain it.
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About this Mary Sue thing, sorry Rigwyn, but I have to explain it more blatantly for those who create these "Mary Sue's". You explained the qualities but the main point people need to understand is this:
DON'T CREATE A CHARACTER JUST FOR A CERTAIN PURPOSE, TO BE IN A CERTAIN PLOT, OR TO INTERACT WITH A CERTAIN CHARACTER.
nothing more than a hollow shell, and the Blank Characters who seem to have just sprouted up from a cabbage patch as adults with no personality, history, preferences, dislikes, etc..
OMG yesss! i loathe those characters. you try to interact with them outside their intricate little plot and they'll ignore you completely. and they behave like mental retards in conversations. nor can you actually roleplay with them without "messing up" their plot. al;sdjflskdn!
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And on the point of Mary sues... don't think of your character as a plot device, something that just pushes the plot forward, think of your character as a person with feelings, personality, and realistic motivations.
Characters should not advance stories. Stories advance characters.
Extraordinarily well put.... I like this, and couldn't agree more :)
And Riggy, that was a fantastic explanation, I couldn't have put it any better, thanks for posting that, I only hope players can actually find this thread to read that...
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And on the point of Mary sues... don't think of your character as a plot device, something that just pushes the plot forward, think of your character as a person with feelings, personality, and realistic motivations.
Characters should not advance stories. Stories advance characters.
Extraordinarily well put.... I like this, and couldn't agree more :)
And Riggy, that was a fantastic explanation, I couldn't have put it any better, thanks for posting that, I only hope players can actually find this thread to read that...
One small clarification - By "nudging the plot" I am referring to player-led events, where it is the job of the player leading the event to steer or nudge it. In un-guided freestyle role play, nobody should be trying to manipulate the plot - they should just act as their character doing whatever he or she would do.
There was some mention of game mechanics being used to promote role play:
[quote[I honestly think we are moving into a period where the focus will be on mechanics and content. I think that we will find that things that can be done to the system to promote roleplay will happen,[/quote]
I really don't see this happening. The nice folks who developed the game don't seem to know what role play is .. nor do they really care - and thats fine. We all like different things.. Roleplay does not come from code - it comes from the creative minds of the players. If you want good role play, you need to have a population of decent players who ideally are on frequently and somewhat consistently. How do you promote role play with code and "content" ? Even if planeshift had wicked art and awesome stories, it would still suck. The power levelers would not bother to read the stories because it does not contribute to leveling, though they might notice the art work. Likewise, they will not stick around too long because the game is not that friendly to them. The role players would not stick around because the game is not conducive to good role play.
I'de like to know how code and content can promote role play.
Its nice to have a 3d world and avatars and such, but even that does not promote role play. Game play - yes, roleplay - no. The two are very different. Its a mistake to confuse them.