PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Golbez on January 15, 2004, 11:49:52 am
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First of all, a big \"Hello\" to those I have not seen since the last time I posted. Something like half a year, I think? Surprised to see me here? I know I am, I thought I would never come back to this place. But that discussion is for another thread.
Anyway, leaving that aside, and going straight to the point of the issue. I wish to ask the staff one simple question (and then I will ramble non-stop for a while, you have been warned):
What will be done to encourage the RolePlaying aspect of PlaneShift?
First of all, allow me to state a few obvious facts here.
PlaneShift is (or will be, if you want to get technical about it) an MMORPG. Most of us in contact with internet and computers by now are acquainted with this label. Not many realise, though, that most games that are categorised this way are not in reality MMORPG\'s per se. \"Why do you, oh you strange little man, claim such thing?\" Let me clarify!
MMORPG means \"Massive Multi-player Online RolePlaying Game\". Following? Good!
Massive Multi-Player means that it involves a vast amount of players to interact in real time in the same virtual area. We are not talking about the 16-player First Person Shooter Multiplayer option, we are speaking of hundreds of players online at the same time, obviously.
Online is pretty obvious and self-explainatory. You need Internet to access the game.
So far, so good. But here comes the tricky part. what does RPG mean? It means, and let me highlight it, underline it and put it in italics: RolePlaying Game
Alright, I caught someone\'s attention, hopefully, by making it stand out that way. Will PlaneShift be a RolePlaying game? That is what I wish to know!
But before we jump to that, we have to know, what is RolePlaying? RolePlaying is the act of empathising with your character\'s life. Your character is a persona created entirely (or mostly, at least) by your imagination. It is, obviously, not -you-. So, via this incredible concept of RolePlaying, you assume control of this character, and being his puppet master, you decide what he/she says, thinks, does and which path he/she takes.
Simple, neh? Only in theory. Coherent and cohesive RolePlaying is actually very hard to pull off. Let us take a game, for example. Many of us know of it, but I will not give its name. Now, I have not played in the p2p servers, neither I intend to, but allow me to picture you a scene of the beta testing stages of the game:
*** With the magic of imagination, we will fly to the virtual world of this game we shall call from now on \"Peanut\".
Your character was created and spawned in some altar with a strange symbol on the stone ground. You were literally in your undies, with only a dagger in hand. Now, you would see dozens of people spawning like this everyday, all of them walking past by you without uttering a word.
The directions to the north and west are blocked by some buildings, which you cannot enter, by the way. So you wander towards the southeast, into some plains where some slimes incessantly spawn and creep towards everyone nearby. There, you would find your way to initiate your survival training: Endlessly slaughter ponds of violent gooey stuff.
You will also find several warrior wannabe\'s doing the same, mumbling nonsensical statements such as \"Lol!!1!1!!\"; \"a/s/l?\"; and \"u sux!\". A language which I found intriguing and lacking the finesse of true English, to be honest, but that you soon will picke up by ear. After some monster bashing, I found myself in the city. I followed the map to the weaponsmith, which was crowded with clients.
More dramatic dialogue befell as I overheard some individuals exclaiming \"wanna buy 1 longswd +1 4 200 gp?\", which was responded with an equally confusing \"i dun have 200 gp. cmon, ill give u teh $ later, k? thx!!1!\"
*** Enough of that headache!
This game was -always- referred to as a MMORPG. Now, do you see where the game fails to fulfill the requirements for such a category? I will help you a bit...There is no RolePlaying whatsoever in any point of the gaming world!
Would your character speak that way? The dialogues -in game- reflect what the -players- want to say, when they should only contain the -character\'s- expressions, feelings, thoughts, experiences, and the like.
The conversations should not touch topics such as the Lakers vs. the Spurs, or how your Math teacher is such a pain in the back of your neck, or how you hate your 56k connection. No! NO! It is RolePlaying! Your characters would never had heard of any of that! They would speak about how frightening the increasing amount of monsters has become, or how he has been a mercenary for hire as a means to buy his food, or how he is weary about the latest orc raid.
Am I getting my point across here? Role Playing is like a theatre play (or a movie, if you despise Shakespeare so much...). Only that this play has no definite end, no strict script. You assume control of a character, and tell the story of his life in the game\'s world through your actions and speech.
That is what RolePlaying is all about. Telling a story. The story of your imaginary person.
I dread to see what those Hack and Slash games for the concept of RolePlaying. It all has come down to the point of levelling up and ostentating the rarest and most expensive items.
What has happened with the noble Knight that wished to uphold the values of Virtue and Honour among all things? What has happened with the Mage that would remain in the room of an inn studying the Art of Healing? Or the charismatic Bard that spread the word about the Knight\'s heroic deeds and the Mage\'s clever tactics?
You see nothing of that online. Not in graphic-based games, at least. Some text games are the only ones that have captured the esence of RolePlaying. In these games, you are ignored or, worse, banned, if you do not RolePlay. Why? Because those are games in which \"killin\' stuffs\" is not the main point, nor is PK, or PvP, or PvNPC.
Storytelling. One simple word.
Now, where have these MMORPGs failed? They give you a pretty game world with a lot of places to explore and visit. They give you a combat system to RolePlay the fighters and wizards, the rogues and bandits. They give you items, wound levels, skill advancement to show how the anonymous farmer rised and grew to become a Paladin in golden plate armour...But...
...But...the players choose not to take advantage of those features, and simply ignore the RolePlaying aspect of the game. The staff does not moderate the gaming world and hit the powerlevellers on the nose with a rolled newspaper, chiding \"Bad boy! Bad boy!\" with a severe tone of voice. We have a community than in general does not encourage and demands a RolePlaying atmosphere.
What to do about this? We obviously cannot kick every person that doesn\'t comply out of the game. It would be an exhausting and pointless tactic (although the staff is entitled to decide who plays and who does not. Moreso in a free game. When no monetary exchange is made, and the player who was banned or forbidden to play has not lost a penny, I believe the development team does not face a possibility of a lawsuit)
First of all, it would be in the TOS (Terms of Service), that the player is expected to RolePlay whenever he logs on and gains access to the IC grid (In Character), although he may leisure at will and converse about anything he likes in the OOC lounge (Out of Character area for taking a break).
For this we need IC and OOC sections. Mmmm...so...what else?
RP Administrators (RolePlay Administrators). These are staff members that dedicate their time to control the flow of the game, so that no abuse of a bug occurs, no player is harrassed, and that everything runs smoothly. They help new players and usually are quite learned in the game\'s general aspect.
We also have different \"speak\" functions. The ability to \"page\" another person to ask them a question, find out where his character is, and the like. Channels that would be used for spreading OOC information.
For example, the leader of the Peanut Guild would say in the Peanut Channel: \"I will be away for 2 weeks since I will visit my grandma so I will not be able to make it to this weekend\'s Guild Meeting. I will make an IC announcement, but keep your heads up!\"
But, and here is what I consider to be most important: The game must contain incentives, and catalysts to incite RolePlaying!
Let us say that character \"Woogie\" is a learned wise mage. He has been seen many times frequenting taverns, speaking about how wizardry should be controlled due to recent attacks by witches and evil sorcerers. He comments ideas about what the Octarchs could do in order to hunt down these evil doers.
Now, Woogie as a character could be an old geezer rambling on nonsensically, but Woogie\'s player is to be commended. He is contributing to make of Hydlaa a more believable world, more coherent, and cohesive. He is encouraging RolePlaying. How can we reward that?
Let me transcript you another scene, this time well RolePlayed, from a text based game I was playing the other day:
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My character will be called M, his friend, a comrade belonging to the same army, will be called F. A lady nearby will be named S.
M and F met to have a drink at the tavern. There, lady S was sitting at a solitary table going through her letters. M and F drank some wine, laughed and talked about their pasts and their careers in the martial path. However, one of M\'s comments appeared to hurt F\'s feelings (Which does not mean than me, M\'s player, had an argument with F\'s player. We just RolePlayed it that way. See? The actors of Romeo and Juliette are not truly in love, it is the same thing!).
F demanded his satisfaction to be given by a duel. M stood up from the table, unwilling to face his fellow comrade in an encounter that could cause death, for a silly misunderstanding. Lady S spoke up and mentioned how M and F were being childish, incurring M\'s wrath, who told her to stay away. S refused to be commanded like that, and initiated an argument with M.
F continued firm in his idea of challenging M, so they both went outside the tavern and discussed things through, although S quickly followed. M and F ended up settling their differences with an apology from my character\'s side, and a handshake. But M\'s unkind words had, as a consequence, a fierce feud between him and S which appears will never end.
And the three players are enjoying the scenes enormously. Why? Because we are telling the story of how our characters have conflicts and differences, and struggle to remain strong.
***
So, how can we reward good RolePlaying?
First, players can do so with a pat in the back, done via page, that says \"Good scene, I enjoyed that!\". It is very satisfying for the player, let me assure you. Specially when everyone seems to have had a good time.
Staff can toss \'Hooks\' at the players. For example, an Octarch could send a letter to Woogie, explaining how his attention was drawn by his ideas, and offering to start a \'Circle of Wizards\', which would have Woogie as the leader. This \'Circle of Wizards\' would control all magical activities and the use of the six ways of magic in Hydlaa.
Want another similar example? Garith is a particularly strong and honourable Ynnwn. On several occasions, he was seen fending off muggers and assaulters that tried to harm defenseless denizens. He also aided Guards and Soldiers in their struggle against merciless hordes of monsters.
The Captain of the Yliakum Army could use some people like Garith, so he decides to approach him one day, and invite him to join the military force as a Lieutenant.
See the pattern? Reward characters, give them an interesting role to play that has been earned by their actions.
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I will stop my train of thought right here as this post is undoubtedly long enough for all of you readers. If you managed to go through it without falling asleep, you have my appreciation. And a hug too!
I warn you, though, I could go on like this for pages and pages, but I am afraid I am hitting the 12345 characters per post limit...
Post your comments, speak up!
And Happy RolePlaying!
- Golbez
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Welcome back Golbez.
I agree with the general idea of you very long post, altough i think there is a big diffence between the creating-and-expieriencing-a-story-or-situation-part and the use of correct English.
I think i have a solution for \'punishing\' the powerlevellers: make the level-up (or skill-up, whatever) very difficult afther a while.
Example: for reaching skill-level 5 you need 100.000 (10^5) exp. points from that skill, and if you want to reach level 6 you just need 1.000.000 (10^6) exp.p. from the skill. For level 7 then you need 10.000.000 (10^7) exp.p. I admit that this is a bit to extrme example and it doesn\'t fir for the lower levels, but i hope you see my point. I think this is also more realistic.
I think the devs will find a good solution for this problem.
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No! No no no! And a thousand times no!
That was totally not the point of my thread. I used those expressions simply because the exaggeration of the way the characters express in game make the point more obvious, I think. Well...maybe I thought wrong.
I would be equally irritated if I see someone walking down the street, exclaiming quite eloquently:
\"Attention warriors and explorers alike! I sell long swords +5 for 500 gps!\"
I mean that! The \"long sword +5\" kind of dialogue, which expresses statistics, where noone in reality uses those numbers that way.
I mean the lack of coherence in the characters\' dialogues. How they include words and expressions that do not make any sense at all in the world\'s atmosphere.
It is not what I want to see people speaking in archaic thee\'s and thou\'s. But I would like to see the characters speaking like they would! If you lived in Yliakum, how would you talk? How would you act? That is what I mean!
Your character wouldn\'t say \"Jesus Christ! Look at that!\" (What is Christianism to him, after all?). Rather, he would go \"By the name of Laanx!\" or \"For Talad\'s sake!\" or \"For a Dwarf\'s beard!\", and so on.
Is it more visible now?
And \"Experiencing a story\" is the very core of \"Role Playing\". That is the idea! Where are the stories? Where are the major plots? The thrilling argument that keeps us going? That is what should exist in a MMORPG. The concept of progression. The dynamic world that changes according to the community\'s actions.
If not, you don\'t have any RolePlaying. You are not playing a MMORPG, but just a MMOG. ;)
Ideas for preventing powerlevelling? Exp levels? Leave that to another thread that is dedicated to discuss skill advancement from a mathematical point of view.
I want to discuss other things here, the lack of interest in the story-telling facet of a true and ideal MMORPG.
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Yawn,;) what a long read but i got the point just reading the subject!
I agree with your post in many ways but the problem is It needs to be policed by the players themselves. And once some one has been found not to be role playing at all even after been informed that this is the way the game is played. How are they to be stopped?
The game is free and broadband internet is on the increase, there will be hords of newbie\'s constantly.
So even with players correcting the non roleplaying players there will be a fairly large amount of in game non roleplaying talk!
It needs to be made clear when users are learning the interface that only roleplaying talk is in one channel and off topic nongame talk goes in the other.
How will repeat offenders be delt with?
They can create new accounts and so on.
Will the ignor button be enough?
Maybe there character could be branded in some way so there still in game and every one will know how this person should be treated?
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I read through the whole post, so I guess I get a hug! Yay! *hugs back*
Hehe. Okay, well, I see your points. I\'m sure the devs will have ways of encouraging proper roleplaying. But I don\'t think you should get carried away with the \'roleplaying\' and totally forget the \'game\' part. After all, a game is played because it is fun, and some people just play because they\'re with friends and it\'s a fun game to play. They might not be good at roleplaying, or might just not like doing it all the time.
I myself don\'t usually roleplay. Infact I spend most of the time talking OOC. But I don\'t speak like a l33t-d00d, like in your examples, and many many others are the same. Half the time, roleplayers don\'t even realise that I\'m talking OOC, but if I notice they\'re roleplaying, I will play along.
I\'d hate to do it all the time though... it makes doing anything drag on and become a right bore really. And that isn\'t good when I\'m supposed to be playing a (game = fun). :)
I think kicking and banning players simply because they arn\'t completely detatched from reality is a little harsh. It\'s nice to play along, but I don\'t think it should be forced for those of us who enjoy the \'game\' part more than the \'RP\'.
Well, that\'s my 2$ anyways.
(On a related note, CB will have IC and OOC chat channels, apparently).
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I read everything too, nice post you made :)
There will be different channels in CB like moogie said, and the GM\'s will have the ability to shut people up who don\'t follow the rules(/mute anyone who talks OOC in an IC channel), it\'s as simple as that :)
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zZZ... zZZ... Ah??? What??? The thread is over??? I\'ve made it! I\'ve read it!
OK and now the fun part... I agree that pure role-playing must be... but it is us, players, who make it work. If you want to RP, then...RP! If you don\'t... Well I don\'t think many people in Internet can RP for real. I had an experience of RP in real life and it\'s unbelievable... I can try to think as my char would but asking a newbie to do the same??? You don\'t want PS to be a game 4 a bunch of old veterans of RPG...
PS where\'s my hug??? :)
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well I come here directly from p&p RPGs so I\'m here just to roleplay :P
I just can\'t quest and level all the time, it gets boring for me very quick and usually I start to seek a way to roleplay life or whatever...
way to increase roleplaying among players? reduction of using player-skills...
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Wow thats quite a post. But its a good one, and worth to be read. Woei I got hugged :)
I totally agree with you, I really dont like the \"dont think, kill everything you see\" RPGs, there has to be a story. But it will be very hard for a newbie to get along if there are a lot of storys, and myths, and legends.
The idea of several channels is good too, so we can sort everythong out. Im really going to roleplay seriously, I never really did, but I want to. (I didnt do it, because I had to pay ;) )
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The best post I\'ve ever seen on this forum, no question about that.
I agree with you, I came to PS looking for a good mmorpg that actually had some RP in it. IC and OOC channels seems to be a good idea, but I\'m not sure. I don\'t think this is enough.
I would like a few thoughts on RP and its role in PS, posted by a dev.
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What has happened with the Mage that would remain in the room of an inn studying the Art of Healing?
Many would say that would be powerleveling. I believe it\'s possible to roleplay a perfectionist. So powerleveling doesn\'t really exist in an rpg.
*awaits the stupid arguments*
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yes, it is possible to roleplay that (however better example would be mage that seeks for nothing more but power)
but there is difference between when you know yer roleplaying and when you know yer powerleveling
you may lie to yourself, but what\'s the point?
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Originally posted by Draklar
way to increase roleplaying among players? reduction of using player-skills...
Reduction of using player skills or character skills? the only way i know to reduce player skills is watching tv...
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neither.
I said reduction of using player-skills
as in make fighting depend on character-skills only...
or if yer a smart guy in rl, but rp simple warrior, you shouldn\'t be able to solve hard riddles...
stuff like that
hehe... yea, TV sucks :D
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well i think if someone talks *completely* out of charachter (i agree with moggie on this one) then yeah i think he should be somewhat shunned by community in general, but i like the idea of different channels. Although i dont see a problem with powerlevellers as long as they roleplay aswell.
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First off, let me give you a warm welcome back and let you know that this is how I see things as they stand.
Since my position currently seems to be developing in the chat section of the game, let me give ya a couple of spoilers.
First off, this is PRIMARILY a role playing game. Meaning you are expected to be in chracter at ALL times, and use the OOC (Out of Character)channels (which you can mute client side if you choose) for OOC conversation.
Secondly, there is a /ignore function, if you see people doing this behavior talking OOC in the primary channel you can / ignore them and poof, no more problem.
Also I have just finished the /mute module. that will be given to GMs to shut someone up, who keeps talking OOC outside the OOC channel.
Anything more would have to be up to the players.
So stay in character it\'s alot of fun :)
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Golbez, nice to see you! :)
I read through your entire post, and while I agree with you almost completely, I can tell you right now from the way Planeshift currently stands is that is not going to happen...although really there is no point to enforce Roleplaying at the moment (not really having enough background...or game), people who wouldn\'t are the ones being aimed at currently...if it doesn\'t happen in CB then, since the community will be more stable, I doubt it will ever happen since it would be even harder to throw a big rule like that in there.
Also, I usually stay in character all the time (except during PMs) since mine basically reflects myself anyways :P
Originally posted by Mogura
Well, that\'s my 2$ anyways.
It\'s 2 cents...right?
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right now PS is at very good roleplaying stage...
I mean the ingame community. There\'s not much to do ingame, just crystal hunt and roleplay. And there\'s a result... that community is filled with people that are actually roleplaying most of the time.
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Yeah, right now if they started to enforce it or at least once CB starts, it would slip easily in since it goes pretty well without their help anyways right now...but if it happens when most people do not (which I expect will happen when combat is introduced...go figure :P) it will most likely be ignored (such as the rules of this board) and they can\'t really ban their entire community, well, they wouldn\'t want to I mean ;).
I\'m guessing though, since acraig mentioned something about advisor role, something like that, that they will also have some moderators (since I don\'t know how big the area is...) but my guess is that they would only really enforce things such as bad language and otherwise act as advisor.
Those are assumptions of course, but I think their pretty accurate by observing the attitude right now.
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*sigh*
so true...
if they\'re gonna run it same way as the boards then we can forget about having fun with roleplaying :(
well... you can always find some smaller community that will stick to roleplaying... like some guilds...
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To the ones who read the entire post, no matter if you fuond it boring, pointless or \"The best post on the forum ever\" (Heh...that tickled me :]), consider yourself hugged!
Now, to the long yawn-inspiring rambling...The game is a \"RolePlaying Game\", as it is explicitly stated in the site. The game is not the set of skills, nor the monster bashing, nor the levelling, nor the pretty graphics. Those are, granted, a big part of it. But they are the most superficial layers! By themselves, they make a ludicrously dull game. What are they true function? They serve as tools for the players. Tools for what? RolePlaying.
The core of an RPG, is the player base. The unanswered question is, how do we get to the player base, so that they understand that this game is not about the eternal struggle against PCs and NPCs alike to be the one with the most amazing skills.
RolePlaying Game = Players assuming a role.
Not complicated, eh? Quite complex, in reality. How come games like Everquest, Ultima Online, Dark Ages of Camelot...all failed to provide that RolePlaying experience that they have advertised so much?
They are, yes, in a technical aspect, great games. Lots of features, a staff that permanently performs updates, a stable company taking care of servers, technical support, and so on...
But they fail in the most important area. They do not convey a believable, enrapturing world. Sure, some people get addicted to it, but such addiction is mainly provoked by the player\'s ambition to be the highest possible level, that soon becomes an obsession.
I have been addicted to a game or two, but not because I wanted to be the most powerful fighter (Yes, I almost always RolePlay a melee combat warrior, it gives more possibilities if you consider the idea deeply than it appears at a first glance), but because I was thrilled by the way a story, a huge plot was taking place and my character was forming a part of it!
The combat system, the dynamic economy, the crafting code...those should be a trampoline for the player to say \"Look, my character is a fighter/a mage/a merchant/a weaponsmith\".
If you are only going to put together a program, add some features like battles, magic, item creation, and experience, but as a staff you do not control the flow of plots, you do not create characters that tell a story...then do not call it a RolePlaying Game. Name it whatever you want, but claiming it is an RPG when no RPing takes place...is that not false advertising?
In theory, there are very simple ways of encouraging the players to empathise with their characters. One of them is not diminishing the usage of skills. But it has indeed to do with them: Diminish the relative importance of skills.
Underline the word \"relative\", and think of it for a moment. What is more important in a character, I ask? His personality, thoughts, loyalties, and emotions? Or his skills? Both are important, yes! Who needs a cook that cannot bake a cake? But which is the one that adds depth to a character? Which one makes it interesting? Which one makes it loved or hated?
The personality, the esence of a character. Otherwise, it is just a set of number, percentages, and statistics.
There is one main skill that is often forgotten. The player\'s skill to control his or her character. It engulfs everything, from the ability to master the basic movements, to the more difficult task of being able to make the right decision for the character, from an IC perspective. (What did he just say??? That makes no sense!), some of you will croak. Let me, once again, use an example.
Suppose that Merlassia (I know, my names are awfully odd) is an average inhabitant of Yliakum. Nothing extraordinary about her, she is neither very skilled at the blade, neither is she defenseless. The player, however, claims that she has a flawless sense of honour, and clearly differenciates between right and wrong. She is, in fact, alligned with \"Good\", and remains always on the good side of the law. You get the picture, your basic \"Goody-two-shoes\".
One day, walking down the street, she sees a warrior carrying a heavy bag with all his spare armor and weapons. He is too encumbered, and unfortunately a finely crafted silver long sword falls from his backpack. Now, Merlassia and her player have two choices:
a) Do what the player would do. \"That sword will boost my skills, I will be able to cut and slash and deliver more damage with it. I will pick it, and keep it.\"
b) Do what Merlassia would do. \"Oh boy! That poor man dropped his sword! I should help him and carry some of his weight for him!\"
Call me weird, call me idealistic. But as an avid RolePlayer, I consider the second one to be more fun! If Merlassia was a heartless cuthroat, and I were her player, you can bet that I would make her keep that blade. But the IC actions depend from my character!
I confess one thing, I never played a session of table top D&D (None of my acquaintances liked those games, neither it is popular in my country). But I know what they are like, I have read the rules, I love the idea! But -those- are the true and hardcore RolePlaying Games.
The players must commit themselves and realise that giving the priority in the game to the skill advancement is what ultimately makes it dull and a bore. It becomes nothing more than a bunch of pixels running around wildly and mindlessly wiping out hordes of incessantly re-spawning monsters.
My point is this:
PlaneShift has an unlimited potential, but it also the possibility of becoming \"Just one more of a kind\". After the game is released, two major things will happen.
1) PlaneShift will be another product in an already saturated market. Games of this kind are popping out of nowhere and the concept is no longer original, nor even close to being as attractive as it was five years ago. It will not receive a remarkable critical acclaim, and albeit it may have a large player base due to the fact that it is free, it will still be \"That free MMORPG\".
2) PlaneShift will deliver a completely new and innovative experience that will utterly re-shape the RPG genre. The standard of the MMORPG will be higher, players will expect better and deeper RolePlaying games. Which is a necessity, the genre is fading from what I can gather.
Remember those point and click adventure games? Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Leisure Suit Larry...LucasArts and Sierra being seen almost like \"gods\" in that genre. No one can argue that genre has died. I am not claiming or yelling \"I am a prophet, hear me!\", but what I see is a series of games that are so alike, that their similarities will simply drive them towards extinction just because no new features are added. There is no \"Wow factor\".
As I said once before at Kada\'s Tavern:
Powerlevelling? No thanks, I prefer reading a book.
- Golbez
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This is so exteme its crazy! Ban people just because they dont role play? Thats the craziest thing ever! It sounds like those extremist preachers. Sure they have a good cause an maybe a somewhat good idea but definally taking it WAY to far! Just because i say \"hey didja get level 20 in ur cooking today?\" I shouldnt be banned! I totally recomend roleplaying and I think it is totally fun! But at the same time I\'m not going to roleplay the whole time. it seems almost impossible to me. I mean how are you going to have conversations with friends at all? \"Hey once you get level 20 strength are you logging off?\"
Also i love typing all funky! Nothing gets a buzz like runing around screaming \"EYE AM DUH L33t!!!1 lol But really cmon banning someone cus they dont roleplay is like... Sending a guy to jail cus he smoked pot once! Wait... That would put you in jail... Ok heres a better situation \"It would be like sending a guy to jail for not putting hot sauce on his Taco Bell burrito\" Some people love the spicey, some people dont. I love the spicey but on other days i have indegestion and i skip on the hot sauce. And hell you may not like the burrito at all but you can go to burger king (r00nscape) if ya feel that way.
PS: I would never say jesus christ in game. Its too long i usually say something like \"HOLY (word i cant say on message board)!!!1
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Oh, and a little add-on...For all of those that claimed RolePlaying get boring if you are forced to do so all the time, who said you had to be forced to RolePlay?
Did I not suggest an OOC lounge for players to hang around, and be themselves? Chat with your buddies, laugh a bit, tell some jokes. And when you feel like it, go back to the adventure! And back at making a name for your character (respected or feared, your choice!).
And if I could hear from the developer\'s point of view on this one, I think it would add more topic that are worthy of being considered!
Happy RolePlaying!
- Golbez
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Mmmm...I see Whemyfield\'s point, but to be frank, I doubt Whemy read the entirity of my messages.
Anyway, that silly \"l337 sp33k\" has to stop somewhere. It detracts from the game\'s enviroment. I am completely against such drastic and aesthetic deformation of a language. And *gasp* guess what? English is not even my native language! Maybe I am overly sensitive about it, but I see nothing positive about the usage of numbers and other random characters to represent letters. It is a pain in the eyes to read a sentence entirely written that way. But off to something else...
Pot? Jail? Taco Bell? Hot Sauce? Eh...right!
Read the post above, nobody expects you to -roleplay- all the time. But if the game is divided into an IC grid, and an OOC area for players to rest from the RolePlaying, then everyone is happy. Am I right? Mmm?
- Golbez
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hmm, I don\'t agree with you totally, but I think that there must be some balance between rp\'ing, and \'playing\'. The Devs can only do so much in a game, especially as their doing it for nothing. EQ\'s downfall was it\'s lack of reality, for example; If you failed to complete an objective for a quest, you failed the quest... In a game which is realistic, and fully supportive of roleplaying, even if u fail one part of that quest, you should still be able to complete it, but using a different method. Also, there must be something attractive in the game, which will even keep those \'133t ub3r\' people happy. To powerlevel is fun... but it gets boring once u realise that there was no actual reason to get to the level of skill that u\'r at. The game must be molded, so that all players will be forced into some type of roleplaying, even without them realising it. It is possible, but it\'s very hard to do.
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Warning people in a RolePlaying Game because they don\'t RolePlay? Oh yes, I see the totally lack of sense in that. Pardon my nonsensical babbling. Oh wait...
It does make sense!
But really, games are not created to \"please everyone\". Quake was not created for \"Trivial Pursuit\" kind of fellows. \"Monkey Island\" was not meant for those who liked \"Falcon 3.0\". \"Command & Conquer\" is certainly not recommended to someone that is helplessly inclined to play \"Super Bowl\".
You cannot expect to make everyone happy. There is no game that will be universally loved and praised. If you do not enjoy RolePlaying, what the heck are you doing in a RolePlaying game in the first place?
I do not think there is much else to that, really.
EDIT: Not directed to anyone in particular. I do not attack posters like that ;)
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Originally posted by whemyfield
Also i love typing all funky! Nothing gets a buzz like runing around screaming \"EYE AM DUH L33t!!!1 lol
Who so ever thinks 1337-533|<1//G is cool and healthy for games should be taken out and shot.
I like the idea of IC and OOC channels, those would be very useful. Some of these ideas are very good. I try to rp, not that I\'m good at it. :P
Btw, nice rants Golbez. :)
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Originally posted by Golbez
If you do not enjoy RolePlaying, what the heck are you doing in a RolePlaying game in the first place?
N00b bashing of course... Duh. :P
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Originally posted by Xordan
N00b bashing of course... Duh. :P
Bah! I compare that to playing Quake Arena just to explore the maps.
In a game with such a limited amount of PK, I am afraid that the \"N00b bashing\" raids will be rather dim. If I wanted to brandish my \"Sword of w00tness +3\" and ostentate my \"Armour of l337ness anti-boo boos\", I would head off towards Runescape.
Ack, I mentioned that name...
EDIT: It is censored! :D Thank you moderators!
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Havent read it all, so no idea if its been mentioned but id like to point out strict RPGing (which is something I back myself) is impossable within a combat situation, and abbreviated language like \"inc adds, ast MA, CH rot, DS Tank\" and such are a sad neccessatiy.
Lol, This statements pretty lofty isnt it?
2) PlaneShift will deliver a completely new and innovative experience that will utterly re-shape the RPG genre.
although its a rather common trait of PS fans.
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Geez, I better get cracking... :)
I think PlaneShift has the *potential* to be these things but depends on any number of things. I know there are members on the team that are totally dedicated to the cause and unless something very bad happens will be working on PS for years and years.
Maybe we can find good ways to enforce RP, maybe we can\'t. Whatever we come up with will be fun for *us* to play and we hope that will be fun for others as well.
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Dark Ages had this really cool system. You character has a Legend, which contains important events, such as when you became a Necromancer, when you got married, who got pissed off at you, when they officially forgave you, what guilds you were in... and everything. A history of your character. A plain power-leveler who doesn\'t get into governent positions, never interacts with people, won\'t have much of a legend. This doesn\'t help RP much, but certainly enhances it.
Also, how about this: More interactive NPCs! Other games have crappy, boring NPCs. Dark Ages especially. I want to see Arcanum style NPCs!
And gaining XP by doing other stuff besides fighting! Like, spell research. Why shouldn\'t researching magic give you XP? Why should you have to fight?
And you should be able to post signs and rent or buy space. THis allows you to run stores etc., and if you say that is not RPful, then you are a dumbass.
And that idea where players can officially assign quests. We are as good, if not better than NPCs! What makes NPC\'s special? That they can play 24/7.
And something you dev people should remember. This is a free game, and one-of-a-kind. That gives you a lot of power to do whatever the hell you want, because us cheap-assed geeks with no job will still play it.
And high-level GMs should have a LOT of power to create cool quests, contests, etc. Although like I said, players should be encouraged to make quests and contests, etc.
And I don\'t think people should be banned for not role-playing. It will happen very rarely, and people will complain because it isn\'t consistant and it\'s hard to make calls on this. I think the nature of the game should encourage it.
And another cool Dark Ages system: Automatically lengthening stuff! Like someone said, using acronyms etc. becomes neccesssary, but look what Dark Ages does:
lol=Amusing
brb=Be right back.
wtf=What in Danaan\'s name...
int=Intellegence
etc. etc. etc.
And here\'s an extreme idea I had once, a long long time ago when I aspired to make my own MMORPG one day:
You have power based on your position in society. Remember when Gandalf was like \"You shall not pass!\" Something like that. Just direct manifestations of power based on your membership in organizations, etc. Lord of the Rings was undoubtably the best fantasy setting ever created. And everyone\'s power came from a larger whole. Sauron, while incredibly powerful, was still a servant of the Shadow. That is the source of his power. I don\'t think it should be as extreme as only 2 uberpowerful beings, but a place in society should grant very direct power. I don\'t suggest this should be in Planeshift; think about it though.
And religion, a similar idea. If you don\'t follow your god\'s wishes and ideas, your god does not give you his power. Nice, eh? Hard to implement, but possible. Again, I am not remotely suggesting that this be in Planeshift.
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Golby, my friend, I feel your pain.
RP in today\'s online games is all but dead. There is the occasional server/shard that is \"RP only\", but these are sparsely populated. RP-ing is not everyone\'s forte, and some really suck at it. Should everyone try anyway? Absolutely.
I once tried to RP on \"that other game\", and I was resolutely ignored. I created a char named Cobb Darg and was asking how to get back to Irongate, as the RS world was unfamiliar to poor Cobb. The responses I got? \"Dood, whats ur lvl?\" \"U suxxor.\" \"LOL!!1! Lamer..\" \"N00b!\". No one was even remotely interested in playing along, they were \"getting leet skillz\" (mining). It was pretty depressing that a self-proclaimed MMORPG had no RP at all.
RP moments are among the most memorable in a game.
I come from a long tabletop RP history (20 yrs), and have found all online games lacking in RP element. Makes me wonder why I even want to play online anymore. I am hoping to bring the much-needed immersiveness to PS that will promote RP-style play. To a large extent, I feel that graphics and code have restricted a person\'s ability to freely imagine when playing a game. At a tabletop game, there are very little visual aids, and the player must \"see\" the world in his/her head. I\'m hoping to bring some of this \"free imagining\" back to the game. When someone talks about an adventure in PS, I\'d like to hear, \"we went to the Trepor\'s lair and snuck in, only to find it waiting for us. We barely escaped with our lives!\", as opposed to, \"OMG, we pwn! Ah, man, mom\'s yelling at me to take out the trash, bbiab. You get that uber video card yet? Brb, cellphone. D00d, my girl gave it up last night! I roxxors!!!\" You can walk down you RL street and hang with your sk8tr d00ds and talk like that; why bring it into a game that has completely different setting? The whole point of playing a game is to leave RL for a while. RPGs allow you to assume a totally different persona as your char exists in a virtual world.
I don\'t think that people understand what a RPG character truly is. It\'s not \"you\", nor is it an approximation of \"you\". Your char need not like the things you like, nor should it be a version of \"your perfect self\". If more people start thinking of RPGs like they\'re interactive stories and not \"just games\", then we\'d see proper RP players. All the commercial games to date have gotten hundreds of thousands of people thinking in the wrong direction. It\'s never been about who\'s got the best skills, items, or stats, but those games have conditioned those unfortunate people to think along those lines. They\'ve been conditioned to think that if they\'ve got that uber sword +8 of flaming PK, that they\'ve somehow \"won\". Can you \"win\" in a book? Of course not. Ideally, you immerse yourself in the story and relate to the chars as the story is told. You can imagine yourself there, living the story with them (at least I can). I\'ve never seen any book where the lead char went on and on about the cool sword he got from a monster drop or asked his friends what level they were.
So, yes, I\'m all for hardcore RP in PlaneShift, and will do what I can to make it happen.
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Also i love typing all funky! Nothing gets a buzz like runing around screaming \"EYE AM DUH L33t!!!1
If you\'re even remotely serious about that then you\'re just proving a reason why roleplaying should be enforced.
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One day, walking down the street, she sees a warrior carrying a heavy bag with all his spare armor and weapons. He is too encumbered, and unfortunately a finely crafted silver long sword falls from his backpack. Now, Merlassia and her player have two choices:
a) Do what the player would do. \"That sword will boost my skills, I will be able to cut and slash and deliver more damage with it. I will pick it, and keep it.\"
b) Do what Merlassia would do. \"Oh boy! That poor man dropped his sword! I should help him and carry some of his weight for him!\"
So you say we must return to fixed dialogs??? And take away one of the most interesting features of PS - real talking to NPCs??? Hmmm... I don\'t get it.
In all RPG I\'ve played one thing that bothered me the most was...fixed dialogs.
E.g. You talk to a poor man in the street. \"Hey mister can you give me 5 gp???\"
-No
-Yes
-Make it 10! (gives you X exp.)
Anyone understands that #3 will give you some XP \'cause it\'s unusual! And then you don\'t RP you get XP!!!
If you\'re not trying to get XP then you can RP... And how many people can RP here??? Not very many I suppose...
If you\'re not offering fixed dialogs then you want to make PS community real experienced RPG players...but it\'s impossible! With newbies coming here every day...NO!!!
It all stucks to people not to Devs. \"It is all us who by our action and inaction shape this world...\"
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Exactly, Darkmoon! We are thinking alike on this one. I have also been left with a bitter taste on my mouth after attempting to RolePlay in an online RolePlaying game. I find it difficult to understand how much the genre has lost is esence, how much it was shifted into something that is so different from what it truly is.
And Ice Phoenix, I -NEVER- suggested that the dialogues should be limited to close choices. You completely took my example the wrong way.
I am talking about dynamic RolePlaying and you claim I demand fixed choices for character interaction. That does not make any sense.
What I intended to do was how, the player given a determinate situation, could choose to act the way the player would act (Which is not RolePlaying, because...well...you are not assuming a role), or he could decide to act the way the character would, with its unique personality and beliefs (That do not necessarily coincide with the player\'s).
As simple as that. Act \"IC\", or act \"OOC\". In a RolePlaying game, the first is the only option. Why? Read my posts again if you did not understand.
As another example, I had a roguish character in another text game. He was crafty and cantankerous, and did not mind lying and backstabbing. He had this outgoing, utterly extrovert personality. He was a rogue that liked to be in the spotlight, and had a twisted sense of honour.
I am completely different. I am too introvert to be as deceitful as this character was. Why did I choose him to be that way? Because that game needed more controversial criminals, and playing an outlaw has some interesting opportunities.
When given the offer to reveal some dark secrets that he had come across by doing some spionage and betrayal, in exchange of a dagger, he did not doubt in writing a book and giving it to the \'client\'.
Would I have accepted? No! I never ever revealed a secret that I had sworn to keep. But my character, he is a spineless vermin, he holds loyalty to noone other than himself, he would have revealed everything if it was profitable enough.
And yes, RolePlaying is ultimately the players\' choice, as I did state that in the very first post of this thread. Although the Devs do have their place in the equation.
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Nice posts Golbez, I read all but the second long one (of which I only read half as my vision is starting to blur :P ). I agree with you on all accounts. Think of Final Fantasy, or Chrono Trigger, or Breath of Fire... or any of those games. All characters are integrated into the story of the game somehow, and I for one find that it makes for a deeply immersive game and I personally would lvoe for Planeshift to give me that feeling only more dynamically and less pre-rehearsed. Like, what if you were playing Final Fantasy X, for example, and you enter the farplane and see someone talking to his deceased accquantance and the conversation goes as follows:
Living: hi! i just found super-fancy-crazy-sword+1!!!
(not very important when speaking to a dead friend of yours)
Deceased: awesome! i have this super-magic-axe-of-hitting-things-alot! i mean, i\'m dead, but it doesnt matter ill spawn in a few seconds
(that ruins the whole emotional connection that would be present if there was actual story-telling involved)
Living:niiiice.... did you see the football game on tv last night!?
(and it would continue like this, not nearly as immersive as the original experience with, say, wakka and chapu)
anyway.... my point is, an MMORPG is supposed to be based on the players more so then the NPCs, so if the game is to be as immersive and personal as an offline RPG then the players should work towards building that world, if the world isn\'t crafted by the players this way then the game fails as a Roleplaying Game and should be considered a \"Hack-N-Slash\" the other option would be to fill the game with tons of quests and in-depth NPCs....but then.... would that not defeat the purpose of an MMORPG? I don\'t know, it\'s 5:24 AM and I haven\'t slept yet, so my post probobly reflects that, as does the burning of my eyes.
- Devoted
P.S. Yeah, I\'m back to stay, if anyone remembers me.
P.S.S. Do I atleast get half a hug? Please?
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Originally posted by Ice_Phoenix
So you say we must return to fixed dialogs??? And take away one of the most interesting features of PS - real talking to NPCs??? Hmmm... I don\'t get it.
In all RPG I\'ve played one thing that bothered me the most was...fixed dialogs.
E.g. You talk to a poor man in the street. \"Hey mister can you give me 5 gp???\"
-No
-Yes
-Make it 10! (gives you X exp.)
Anyone understands that #3 will give you some XP \'cause it\'s unusual! And then you don\'t RP you get XP!!!
If you\'re not trying to get XP then you can RP... And how many people can RP here??? Not very many I suppose...
If you\'re not offering fixed dialogs then you want to make PS community real experienced RPG players...but it\'s impossible! With newbies coming here every day...NO!!!
It all stucks to people not to Devs. \"It is all us who by our action and inaction shape this world...\"
If you don\'t have fixed dialogues, you have something worse: keyword-based conversation.
And for every situation like you described above, there is a trick one. Like this one from r00nscape.
Beggar: Can I have 10 gold?
You: OK, here\'s 10 gold.
Beggar: Thank you!
You: Now don\'t I get a quest hint or something?
Beggar: No, I just need to eat
Of course, the use of the words \"quest hint\" show how anti-RP r00nscape is.
Anyway, it worked great in Arcanum. Each NPC had a reaction level, based on what you said. They would say different things based on their reaction level. Their initial reaction level is based on your race and Beuty statistic. When you talk to them, you have options based on your Intellegence and Charisma, often varying forms of the same basic things. Just about everything you could want to say is covered. If you want info, you can just ask them for general rumors. No, Arcanum is not an MMORPG, but it is definately a good RPG. Pick up a copy.
Maybe keyword-based conversations could be combined with fixed dialogue, like with an Ask About option like in Exile.
Devoted Eternal, I agree with you entirely, as shown in my support for player-designed quests. Why should NPCs be able to do anyhting PCs can\'t, except stay up all night?
Also, I think NPCs should have limited gold and items like in Arcanum. Infinite money and items makes it harder for players to sell items, is unrealistic, and causes massive inflation due to the main way of getting money being selling the same objets to a certain NPC. Inflation doesn\'t mean much in an MMORPG, with money dissapearing with players all the time, but should NPCs be the source of money in the world?
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I agree with Davis, fixed dialogs are much closer to rp than keyword-based ones.
For example let\'s take a bit dumb kran :P
the roleplayer would probably do some spelling mistakes on purpose and maybe would be saying some silly things, but while talking with NPC it would result with \"huh?\" answer (only thing to do is saying what you would say, not thy char).
Now when you have fixed dialogs, the player gets options depending on kran\'s inteligence, therefore it fully stays in-character.
another example of cRPG: Fallout, where thanks to stuff like that you were getting quests depending on what you specialize in.
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In an offline RPG, such as Fallout, it is a necessity if one wishes to add replayability to the game, to branch conversations with multiple choices for responses/reactions/comments and opinions. The player then picks the best choice according to his idea of the character. Is he rude? Is he well-mannered? Is he idealistic or pragmatic? Open minded?self-centered? We all make an image in our head of who our character is and how he acts.
It is a very good variant to the otherwise script and repetitive same script, such as for example in the Final Fantasy series. Although Square always added special scenes when certain character combinations were in the same party at a particular time. But still, the dialogues were always scripted and one could barely see a difference when replaying the game.
In an online RolePlaying game, limiting the dialogue choices to three or four options, is an insult to the gamer\'s intelligence. Sure, it could help the player to remain In Character, but think of all the insights and comments that add to the depth and credibility of the virtual world, but that cannot be voiced because of the system!
We would cross the land reading always the same questions and answers. How repetitive would that get? And extremely annoying! In a dynamic world, we want originality! We want variables! Unpredictability!
That is achievable by reducing the amount of NPCs to a minimum. To perform all those actions than no player is interested in performing (such as cleaning the streets, perhaps room clerks for inns, waiters and waitresses at taverns). The rest of the positions that are usually filled by an NPC that does nothing else but stand there, motionless, twenty four hours a day, could be given with no problems to trusted players.
That Captain of the Royal Guard that gives out quests to whoever walks by? Give such rank to a famous character who built his reputation as a legendary warrior.
The Mayor that takes care of the city economics and politics? Give that position to a player who is honestly interested in RolePlaying a politician (There are people like this, yes!)
There is a character for everyone, and some people enjoy RolePlaying one that has the same field of expertise than them. For example, I have met a lawyer that loves playing as a medieval prosecutor. I have seen medics that studied ancient medicine to play as a surgeon in the 16th century!
Hey, I briefly studied karate, and could apply that limited knowledge to RolePlay a fencing teacher! (Basic offense and defense strategy, and reading about fencing and sword wielding does make you understand that the basics of all martial arts is similar)
Am I an extremist? I may be. I dedicate a great deal of time to create my character. I write down ideas on my persona\'s past, ideals, expectations, and personality. And I draw sketches of his physical appearance and remarkable traits (scars, if any; unforgettable factions, and the like). I investigate on my characters\' field of expertise. I have done research on the relationships between a Squire and a Knight, I have studied some fencing theory. I have learned the laws of the gaming world by heart when playing a soldier in the army. I have read about fencing with a rapier in one hand and a main gauche in the other as it was a habit in France during the 17th century. Oh and I have enjoyed dearly going over the dueling codes of that era.
I do not expect players to immerse themselves the way I do. But I do expect for them to attempt to make their characters act in the most believable and integral manner they can.
Some are good RolePlayers, some are not. I do not consider myself a great one, I am merely a perfectionist. And it is not my intention to cast away those who have a big difficulty when RolePlaying (we all have inconsistencies sometimes), as long as they are trying, and that they are having fun, we all can enjoy the game!
But allowing the players to count with only a handful of choices when they want their characters to talk, it is ludicrous! How can we, with mere five choices, represent with fidelity what our character wants to say or do?
I prefer to trust the gamers\' capability of remaining In Character. With a little effort and practice, anyone can do so!
- Golbez
EDIT: Oh, about the suggestion of writing articles for magazines and websites (In the other thread I started)...Hehe, that amused me. But I do not think I am a gaming expert in the very least.
I am, however, attempting to push my English skills to a limit and learn more vocabulary and expressions by writing a novel. I doubt I will earn anything out of it, but I am enjoying doing so, and that is what matters to me.
Money comes and goes, pleasant experiences remain in your memory forever. ;)
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Originally posted by Golbez
If you do not enjoy RolePlaying, what the heck are you doing in a RolePlaying game in the first place?
Personally, I play RPGs because I like the character customisation, skill-building, questing and leveling aspects of the genre, not because I enjoy Role Playing. AFAIK, no other genre includes all of these and is not called an RPG. That is therefore my answer to the above quoted. :)
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Problem is, all of the games that contain those features are self-proclaimed RPGs. However, not all of them are, if you take a closer look, RolePlaying games in its true meaning. They are only adaptions of the RPGs\' possibility of creating your own character and do with him as you please.
If \"Runescape\" is a RolePlaying game, I am the Queen of England. It is an action game, for there is no RolePlaying present.
Until skill-building and levelling are not seen as the sole and absolute purpose of a game, RolePlaying will not take place.
It is a problem of the players, who maintain their interest in the competitive aspect, and neglect the cooperative nature of the online RPG. In some cases, they even completely ignore it.
Also a problem is that no company in the gaming industry has realised of the way to divert the attention from this aspect. Although I think there is an explaination for that.
Why would they change their current system? It is a \"No lose\" situation for them. The players get addicted to the mindless levelling and astonishing graphics. The copies of the game are sold, and so are the expansions. The business flourishes, and the company moves on to other titles.
However, the PlaneShift team has no reason to possess that capitalistic mindset. They are in a position that allows them to distance themselves from that point of view and deliver quality RolePlaying.
You can play for the levelling, for the skills, for the joy of having a character physically different and with personalised abilities. But you cannot say that is RolePlaying, if that is all you do.
And this is a RolePlaying game, after all.
- Golbez
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I\'m not quite sure about my position in all of this.
There is the debate on what is a role-playing game.
In most games you take a role, created either by, or for you. Different games focus on different aspects of the role, even in the simplest FPS games you choose your playstyle when considering your role, even if you have no choice of character, or never even see your characters name!
So you could say that \"hardcore\" RPG\'s inhibit \"real\" roleplaying by adding another layer between the player and the character.
Todays MMORPG\'s don\'t have the technology to create a non-inhibiting RP environment. Like, if i want to play the role of a up-and-coming artist, i would need the ability to paint, and go to school, and put my paintings on display and so on and so forth. As far as i\'ve seen, no MMORPG supplies this freedom to me yet.
The only possibility i see at doing that from a development view, is making a world, applying some rules and forces, and let the players create the game, something that would take a lot of design, a lot of coding, a lot of human monitoring, and a looot of processing power.
You can get closer to RP\'ing in some MUD\'s. But the question is still, what gives me the most immersion into my role, a \"real\" MMORPG with IC/OOC and such, or a \"fake\" MMORPG where everybody does what they want to?
Trying to incorporate a life into a RPG is just silly, because life is, let\'s face it, not very action-filled.
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I was thinking if Golbez had ever played a video-game RPG, do you had played hmmn... Final Fantasil for an example !? They don\'t roleplay the entire game, it\'s something more arcade more for fun and distraction, in the game some times they sad \"press triangle to look at the tower\" hay that\'s exactly what you hate huh !? SO there\'s a huge diference from a game rpg and a \"book\" rpg, try to don\'t misanderstood that. It\'s quite realistica a \"book\" Rpg, but a Game Rpg it\'s so cool se the battle efffects, se the exp. numbers going high, and you reaching a new level... the adventure is more actions, not something you heave to be seat front your pC waiting for three months for some day you see a herb gowing... or after weeks walking in the city, you get a disscu with some one and another player from nowhere calm down the situation... seriouly it\'s the \"dumbest\" thing i had read, no one wanna play something just to watch, thay want to realy PLAY something... do quest beat dragons, find relics, vanish the evil... no heave a social life infront a pc.
Ps. sorry by my bad english ( i\'m from Brazil)
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Originally posted by Rulzern
Trying to incorporate a life into a RPG is just silly, because life is, let\'s face it, not very action-filled.
yer incorporating life into a reality, where there\'s much more adventure and action. You are just being silly :P
oh, and Sunken: speak for yourself... I actually wanna play Roleplaying game for the roleplaying factor, not some leveling or whatever. And what\'s so fun about numbers going up? :P
another thing is that you should learn difference between cRPG and MMORPG. The first one might be about leveling and stuff, but rather simply finishing it. That\'s why I never understood why is it called \'rpg\'.
What do you understand by RolePlaying Game? Killing everything on your way? You can do that in Quake, is it called rpg? no!
Just by its name, it is game about playing a role. Seriously, what does it have to do with the numbers? :P
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If you want to play a game to just watch the numbers grow big you should play Progress Quest (http://www.progressquest.com/) :D It has about the same usefulness as any other hack \'n slash \"RPG\".
But seriously though, while my thoughts do not sway quite as far as others, I have played some tabletop roleplaying games, and am currently playing some D20 Modern on a message board setup. Each have been a lot of fun, and its great to get into character and roleplay once in a while. I have to admit that I was pretty bad at first, but it sorta grows on you.
An OOC chat would be necessary in my mind though, as even in my tabletop roleplaying experiences we are not roleplaying 100% of the time.
But, I think that if we can encourage roleplaying in the game, this would definately be a good thing.
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I had no problems reading your posts, it\'s very professionaly written, and you have some interesting points there Golbez.
There is very few graphical games today that focuses on true RP rather than hack n\' slash. Well, there is Neverwinternights of course, but I\'ve only seen three servers that strictly enforces roleplay, of which only one has the true RP-feeling.
I prefer graphical MMORPG-games in front of text-based MUDs, but it also forces me to choose between a beautiful game with nice graphics, soundeffects and wonderful soundtracks, but without the true feeling of a world that live and breath, and a text-based MUD that lacks both graphics and sound, but compensates this with incredible athmosphere and story, and this much thanks to the players behind the characters.
What if those were combined into one. A graphical game where you can live out your dreams together with other players and create a world that is actually alive, instead of just another hack n\' slash MMOG. You can listen to the athmospheric sound-effects and music, and watch the azure sun rise over Yliakum \"for real\".
I think it can be done.
Roleplaying can be both hard and simple depending on who, or what you choose to play as. For example A wise and mighty wizard is usually harder to play than a dumb orc, but both roles are important since they give life to the world.
I started to play as a dumb, half-orc in NWN, and even though the role was easy to play I had many good laughts and crazy dialogs when I followed him and his companions on their adventures. Roleplaying is like watching a movie, with the difference that the manuscript is written in real-time by you and the characters around you. It\'s the players who decides if the \"movie\" will be epic, comic, dramatic, romantic and so on.
Many players doesn\'t want to roleplay because they think they suck at it, but so what? I wasn\'t very good at it from the beginning either, but I learned, and then I realised that a game can be so much more than just Hack n\' slash.
To Roleplay another being is hard, but if you never try, you\'ll never make any progress.
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I\'m not going to be original: Nice post! I\'ve been playing tabletop RPGs (I like to say \"real ones\") for years and roleplay is very important to me.
In my humble opinion, the confusion about video games is that most of them called RPGs are just games taking place in some heroic-fantasy world, whatever the player is able to (not) do.
I trust devs for making an interesting world where l33t0rz would be allowed, but would get bored. What about hiding stats of the character and not showing experience points? I remember playing landstalker on megadrive, it was an adventure game quite linear, but you had an hidden sword level. When you begin the game it takes you two slashes to kill the weakest monster, many slashes for others, but the more you play, the more you kill them easily. And that\'s really nice, because all of a sudden you realise you killed that monster in one slash instead of four a few hours ago, and you think \"wow! I\'m being better hour after hour\". The surprise effect is nice, and quite realistic. That would add more depth to the game, for instance:
Your guild, the Blitzers, is in open war against the Cabal. You\'re prudently walking in the streets, going to the wizard shop, and in the dead-end, you encounter the infamous Xordan! You grab the hilt of your sword, and nervously think about the rumours you heard about him: It is said that this guy killed a Trepor in one hit! Those damn monsters that killed two people of your party last month and left you a big scar on the chest. You chose to save your life and run the fastest you can.
What you didn\'t know is that Xordan is weaker than you at the sword, he just had a tough luck (one in a million, so according to Terry Pratchett it occured) hitting the Trepor on a vital spot.
And now that I\'m thinking about it, coupling that with the idea of giving malus when you try to use a weapon for which you don\'t have the required level skill would be even more realistic, even if it would add difficulty when choosing a weapon.
PS: The characters and events depicted in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
:P
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Geez, Leander, you read my mind even before I thought of that thing. Hiding everything that has the slightest resemblance to stats/skills/abilities or what-so-ever is the greatest thing that could be done. If you don\'t have XP, you can\'t powerlevel. If you can\'t see your sword %, you can\'t powerlevel it, etc. Of course, you can figure out how good you are by fighting tougher and tougher monsters, but think about it. Doing it that way would actually make you think about your characters safety instead of just jumping into a tough battle with a Demon+5 because you know your STR is 5000 and you can kill it in 700 hits, you just need those 386 healing pots to regenerate your 922 HP while you\'re fighting, and the Demon+5 can\'t hit you because of your l33t shield of Anti-Demon+5 and your 9915 DEX
(Yes, I think your HP should be hidden as well, or maybe you shouldn\'t even get more HP as you progress, you just have the HP your character started out with and you should just have dodge abilities (hidden as well) and toughness (makes hits do less damage to you - also hidden), etc.) ... If you get the idea..? :)
And to whoever wrote that thing about winning an MMORPG. I\'ve actually read how to win an MMORPG.
If there is a number, make it higher.
If there is a skill, get better at it.
If there is a bar, make it grow bigger.
If you just continue along those lines, you will eventually \"win\" the MMORPG because you\'ll have the highest number, the best skill, and the biggest bar, and you can complete anything in the game.
Edit: Unkillable monsters make legends, and legends are part of roleplaying. So make unkillable monsters, and we\'ll all be happy.
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Good input everyone! It is satisfying to see the thread getting this amount of attention.
Hiding stats? Hey there is an idea I had not thought of before. It could work in a very satisfying way for both players and developers! Maybe we should start a new thread with that suggestion as a specific topic, so the details can be worked out, no?
Heh, Sunken, yes. I have played RPGs. Some of them include famous titles such as Final Fantasy II (or IV), III (or VI) V, and VII, Baldur\'s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Daggerfall, Morrowind (only once, very briefly), Fallout I and Fallout II, Breath of Fire I and II, Secret of Mana I and II (Noticed the SNES famous RPG titles already? ;) Tales of Phantasia, and yadda yadda...
Oh yes! Try to find the connection between my name and Final Fantasy! =)
My low end PC and lack of console has forced me to neglect the latest titles, though (Ha! This year I shall be going away for University, to study Graphic Design. That gives me an excuse to buy a more powerful beast!)
So no, I did not play many of the new ones, and many others like Icewind Dale I regret to have missed, although I will purchase them as soon as I come across a copy! Planescape: Torment is also in my \"To Play\" list, as well as many others. And I am one of those that gasped and whined when Fallout 3 was cancelled.
And I still want to hear of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which was once said to be Morrowind\'s sequel. I never found out if it was in process of creation or just a rumour.
Firstly, I think that with \"book RPG\" you mean either table top D&D, or MUDs, MUSHes, and all those MU* games.
Secondly, cRPGs (Computer RPGs, single-player, not to be confused with an Online RolePlaying game), offer less range of choices, particularly the Final Fantasy series, that -assigns- you the control of a character. Nevertheless, the FF is a particular and original kind of game, very console style. It is quite hard to compare it to what PlaneShift can do. And do not take me wrong! I am a devoted fan of Final Fantasy! It differs in concept to a MMORPG, though.
An Online RolePlaying game offers more possibilities, more liberties. There is no \"main plot\" you must stick to. I would say that the cRPG that best reflected this freedom was The Elder Scrolls series, by Bethesda (For neophytes: Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind).
And I never suggested that the player would simply watch, did I? Quite the contrary! I am saying that the player SHOULD be the one that creates the stories, anecdotes, reputations and such through their actions in game!
I do not speak for you, but I am totally convinced that my idea is not the \"dumbest\" out there ;)
Fanomatic, I also think that an online game with real RolePlaying can, and will someday be done. I am just trying to accelerate that process by pointing out: \"Hey lookie! It can be done right here, right now, with -this- game!\".
Or that is what I believe. Either way, we shall see what happens.
Keep the thoughts flowing! I am always reading! ;)
- Golbez
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here\'s a nice quote about cRPGs:
by J. Harkavy
Computer Roleplaying Games can be a lot of fun, but when it comes to true, feel it in your blood, roleplaying, it tends to fall short. And, many gamers are very territorial or passionate about what they play. I have heard arguments about how CRPGs should not be called roleplaying because it just doesn\'t fit the bill. Don\'t get me wrong, I have been roleplaying for over 20 years and I do enjoy CRPGs. But the similarities just aren\'t enough. Typically a computer or a video RPG has you taking the perspective of the main hero. The interaction of multiple characters is lost in this focus. Instead, we have sidekicks, extensions of the main, the only differences sometimes being a different quirkiness or affectation, helping their leader achieve the required goals.
I took it from this (http://www.boystoysreview.co.uk/rpg.html) website
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Wow, I never thought about hiding stats before, but I think that this would be a great idea!
For all those people who like realism in games, this would provide another dimension of that.
Eg. A swordsman in real life has no way to tell how powerful he is with his sword, all he knows is how much he has used his blade. If, for example, he is talking with a fellow swordsman about their own abilities, each of them may have been using the sword for 5 years each.
Now, one may think that these swordsman were on equal footing if they were to duel, but unknown to each of these swordsman is how much each of them have trained & how they trained in this time.
One may not have been in a real battle before, training under a master a few days a week. The other may have been trained for a year under a master, practiced everyday, then went out adventuring for four years, where he faced many foes.
This opens other oportunities as well. Your character finds a new weapon on the ground after defeating some foe. You pick up the weapon, and find that it is something that you have never seen before.
In game, you may move your mouse over the item and the description reads:
You have no idea what this weapon is. You need to get it identified.
Once you get it identified, you now have a name, but the description now reads as such:
Case 1: The weapon feels extrememly heavy in your grasp. You feel that if you made use of it, you would hurt yourself.
Case 2: The weapon is light in your grasp, but the shape of the weapon is not what you are used to. You will need to get training to use it properly.
Or something else along those lines...
Again, this could be applied to crafters as well; say a smith gets ahold of a new ore. Now even though this smith may have been dealing with metals for a long time, they wouldn\'t know immediately how to make use of it.
Couple of options would follow, eg. the smith could experiment with it and possibly ruin the ore, or has to go on a quest to find a master smith to teach him such things.
This way, you can\'t just say to yourself: \"Oh, only 3 more points in my sword skill then I can use (weapon name).\" Everything would be in a relative sense, and this same weapon would just have a description of how comfortable you are weilding it.
Hopefully that makes sense... I\'m kinda rambling on right now :D
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aye, this would be great.
But for health you need something to show ye how does thy char feel. I\'m not talking about bar or counter, but maybe flashing screen when yer close to death and/or some other thingy that would change its color...
as for the hit points, they should be getting up in a time. When yer gaining experiance in battle (I don\'t mean the points ;)), not only yer harder to harm, but also you can lose more blood before passing out.
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There is an explaination why there is an increment in HP everytime you level up in a D&D skill set (either Editions 1, 2, 3, 3.5, or whatever)
The Health Points represent the current physical status of the character. What does it mean that, after a warrior goes from level 7 to 8, his HPs raise according to the roll of a die and an attribute modifier?
Let\'s see a particular situation. Booboo the Warrior is prowling as he advances through a damp and cavernous dungeon. The passages get narrower and the slippery mud on the ground makes it harder to advance. Were it not for his torch in his hand, Booboo would not even be able to see his hand!
A hundred feet at the distance, a tempting light invites the explorer to keep going. The end of the tunnel at last! He accelerates his pace, and in his rush trips over a thick rope and falls down. A dozen spears dart from the ceiling with a ferocious velocity, and threaten to end our brave hero\'s life.
A roll of the die indicates how much damage Booboo receives after setting the trap. If he has enough HP, he survives. If he doesn\'t, he is either swoon or dead.
A level 10 fighter has a bunch more HP than a character of the same class, but lower levels. Why? Because he has more experience. It is not that the fighter grew a thicker, steel-like skin and is now more resistant to the spearheads\' deadly attack. No! The extra HPs represent the fighter\'s ability and expertise to avoid death in a life-threatening situation. Logically, a level 10 fighter will have more experience and awareness than a level 6 one. That is why he has more HP!
Makes sense? It does to me! I have read a very similar example, I do not recall if it was from the manual of Baldur\'s Gate or the one for NeverWinter Nights, if any of those.
Statistics, skill advancement, point distribution, class based systems. They are all there to back up the RolePlaying.
When one is playing a table top RPG, it is a necessity for it to be all public and viewable at all times. We need to do the calculations and rolls, after all!
In a MMORPG, the client, the computer, does it all for us. The die rolls, the skill raises, etcetera. It is not indispensable for us to know the exact number at which our Long-Sword skill is at. But we may have a rough idea if we go to the Arena or join a Martial Tournament!
It would make everything more entertaining and add a bit of gambling to the game.
Suppose Guild A is in a war against Guild B. A member from Guild A (let us call him Aethus) and another from Guild B (Mmmm...he will be Brehlak). They both carry the emblems of their respective organisation, but Aethus is too busy checking his backpack and has not yet noticed Brehlak\'s presence.
Brehlak immediately draws his shortblade and prepares his buckler, but takes a closer inspection at Aethus\' equipment. A silver long sword, a shield with a exquisite jewel engraved on the center, a polished conical helmet that reflects the light of the Crystal as if it were a perfect mirror.
It is time to make a decision for Brehlak. Will Brehlak take the chance and face his rival, in the name of his Guild\'s honour? Or will he play safe, because judging by Aethus\' belongings, the enemy may be far more capable and powerful than him! Or perhaps, Aethus wears such elements as a deterrent for his foes, and is in reality a mere weakling?
I see some interesting possibilities...
And perhaps, the health state of a character can be indicated by its animation. Five poses for five different wound levels.
For example, when in marvellous physical condition, the character would stand without effort, appear vigorous, be able to run without problems!
On the contrary, when almost dead, the character would be barely standing, perhaps needing to kneel as his legs cannot carry his entire weight. Running is out of the question, and a deplorable limp shows that he is in dire need of a healer.
Fill in the gaps with less exaggerate animations and poses, and you have your health levels!
Just a few more cents into into the piggy bank.
- Golbez
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well Golbez i dont know where to start..... maybe with the fact that if you EVER write a book.... I\'ll read it... infact im begging you to write a book, and im dead serious.
i have never taken so long to read 1 thread... and after i post this i think i\'ll re-read it ... you should condence it Golbez and send it to a gamming magazine or something. And as for english not being your first language... you make me feal ashammed.
A) your points i agree with... Totally (unless i missed something with the first reading)... its so nice to find people likeminded on the net.
B) i have not roleplayed much in my life, mostly based on where i live but i make that up in reading and dreaming... now my reading amount makes up for the fact that i havent roleplayed much, i can roleplay.
However there are people on the internet who play games like Everquest and have no idea what an rpg are. These people are comming to Planeshift and because they do not know better they bring there language which they think is cool, shows Skill... we have to teach them what roleplaying is about. Maybe making it manditory to read the rules of the game and a section on roleplaying before they can play would help. Games become so much better with roleplaying and if people can be shown that they will keep their OOC chat to programs like MSN. they wont even bother to do much in ingame OOC channels.
C) Hidding player stats... the idea seems okay however it forces players to keep track of their character\'s development themselves... how do you know if you can kill that creature you where bragging about?... it would be a bad thing if you where trying to make your character trustable and you couldn\'t carry through with your bragging....
D) I cant formulate my thoughts as well as you Golbez... Grrrr... its annoying... Hope you play planeshift in the next update... it would be a pleasure to meet someone like you in a roleplaying state.... ( you too Darkmoon... i remember way back in IRC you came up with so many interesting deaths for me i gave up)
Hope i didn\'t contradict myself...
P.S. im serious about the book Golbez
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Originally posted by windwalker
C) Hidding player stats... the idea seems okay however it forces players to keep track of their character\'s development themselves... how do you know if you can kill that creature you where bragging about?
well in real life you can\'t know if you\'ll kill something you never fought before...
you could only listen to stories that tell about the creature and try to guess from them if yer a worthy enemy for the beast...
And this might give some fear while fighting creatures, you can\'t be sure that newly discovered one will fall under thy sword... and that I like :]
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More compliments! I feel undeserving! :D
There are RolePlaying games, and this time I am not speaking about computer gaming, in which if you are not aware of at least the basics of the context in which the plot takes place, and ignore the set of stablished rules that the GM will take for granted, then you shall find yourself completely lost and unable to make even the slightest progress.
This is a particular trait of RolePlaying, I guess! You can play almost any shooter without much awareness of what is going on outside the running, jumping and trigger-pulling. But it is a must, if you want to enjoy an RPG, to have knowledge of the background of the world.
That is the way to \"force\" players to read and find out about the setting. And that will also give them basic tools for use in their first steps towards RolePlaying.
About the hiding stats. Let me share a bit of experience from my brief martial arts training. I never got far away enough for the sensei to decide it was time to pair us up and say \"Alright, these are the rules. We will simulate a fight.\"
So, how did I know I was more skilled or less skilled than the tall fellow standing next to me, or if I could stand a chance against that bony lass? Simple, I didn\'t. We never faced each other, there was no way for us to evaluate our strengths. Until the time for us to spar arrived, we could not say who was \"the best of the class\".
Instead of checking your stats constantly before evaluating if you can defeat that monster or not, if the statistics are hidden, you would have to try!
Feel you are getting your rump kicked? Pull off and run away from that dreadful killer bunny! Train a bit, build up your confidence, and try again to whoop his fluffy tail!
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Roleplaying means that u play a role..... running about killing random things is playing a role..not knowing about the setting could be part of that role...there are lots of people in the world that know jack all about history.... so technically, u\'r talking crap about that part of it....
Remember that this is a game.... which we want people to play.... hiding stats means that everyone will think \'who\'s crap idea was this?\' so people won\'t bother to play. U\'ve gotta appeal to the majority not the minority.
There is no such thing as \'true pure roleplaying\', what your ideas are, are probably not what 3/4 of rpg\'ers think. It\'s all down to the player himself to decide what roleplaying is....
Ok, u can flame meh now. :P :D
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As I said. RolePlaying games are not for everyone. As much as Action games are not for everyone, not all enjoy Puzzles, not everyone likes Point-and-click adventures.
Aiming for the majority? That is the hugest mistake a gaming company can make. Granted, the intended audience should be as wide as possible...BUT there is a limit.
We all know the concept of the \"Bard\" class in AD&D. \"A jack of all trades, but a master of none\". A bard is versatile, but does not excel at anything.
You can apply the same concept for games. Try to stretch the player base too much, and you do not have a quality game. You have a mediocre construction that can satisfy, just mildly, a great bunch of people. They will come in, have some fun, and leave.
Call me weird, but I would choose quality over quantity. A good RolePlaying game meant for those who want to RolePlay. Although it is commendable to intend to merge two or more genres into one game, such concludes more often than not in poor results. Am I the only one to see a lower standard in the number of \"good games\" as of late? I think it is a side-effect of that desire to please everyone.
It is often agreed that tending to one extreme or the other is unhealthy or unproductive. So why instead of aiming for \"the majority\" or \"the minority\", don\'t we try to please not only the minority, but also attract a few more people to the RolePlaying genre by offering the basic features, and promoting some interesting ideas?
Want to \"kill stuff and loot\"? There are many other so-called \"MMORPGs\" where you can enjoy that kind of fun.
It is not up to the person to decide what is \"RolePlaying\". As much as it is not up to you to decide what a computer is. RolePlaying is RolePlaying is RolePlaying. It is what it is.
And I ask you one thing, is \"background\" to you only the historical aspect of the world? I am afraid to tell you that you are wrong.
Culture, traditions, geography, society, economy, politics, entertainment, technology...All of that and much more compose the background, context and setting. Not just for a game, but for real life as well!
Tell me, a person who ignores all that, can play a role in society as we know it? Consider the example of \"Tarzan\". Can he play a role in society without even being aware of the existance of others like him? I think not...
Total ignorance makes you an outcast.
And call me \"refined\", \"delicate\", or \"sensitive\". But I would never classify an idea, a thought or a way of thinking as \"crap\". It is a disgraceful insult to use that word to describe what is truly most important in a person: his mind.
It is a matter of mutual respect, I don\'t call you names, I expect you to treat me the same.
Gee, I am so picky ^_^
- Your picky rambling-prone poster, Golbez
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So Golbez, you are trying to say that games like, NeverWinter Nights, Dungueon Siege, Breath of Fire, Front Mission, Zelda, Final Fantasy, aren\'t a RPG because thay all heave battle, and a real RPG don\'t heave battles, skills and levels, the real RPG are some kind of giant 3D chats :P . If planeshift became a giant 3D chat just because of you inspertinance, it will broke, no one wanna play something too boring, if you want to chat you don\'t need a graphic based chat, go in IRC and play YOUR kind of RPG... just chating. You want to make PlaneShift a non-battle-RPG it\'s suxs, imagine how many players spactatives you are throwing out of the window.
I understand your point, but you don\'t heave the right of change a game, only because you like these kind of non-battle-RPG... :]
(Sorry again about my english)
Edit: it seems all these games: NeverWinter Nights, Dungueon Siege, Breath of Fire, Front Mission, Zelda, Final Fantasy, are same as quake for him... he said \"if run around killing mosnters and everyone, it\'s same as quake\".
So patetic ??
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I think games like Dungeon Siege are just like Quake.. all you do is run around, kill monsters and level up(that\'s the only difference..). just because you level up doesn\'t mean it\'s a role playing game.. You have to PLAY a ROLE, this means you actually talk to other people instead of just ignoring them and only ask them when you have troubles clearing a quest. You talk to them because you like talking to them, it are your friends in the role you play.
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Originally posted by Xordan
Roleplaying means that u play a role..... running about killing random things is playing a role..not knowing about the setting could be part of that role...there are lots of people in the world that know jack all about history.... so technically, u\'r talking crap about that part of it....
how wrong can one get?
yes, like I said, it is possible to rolplay all that, BUT
when you play to powerlevel (as in you want to do it as a player), then when thy char will be powerleveling, it\'ll be just YOU in some other realms, it won\'t be roleplaying.
Not knowing about the setting... sure, but if you didn\'t read the setting as a player then you\'ll be just a guy that plays a game, not roleplayer.
For example, let\'s take a dumb kran that knows nothing about his surroundings... ummm... let\'s call him Kwartz :P ;)
The kran doesn\'t know anything about setting, however when player knows a lot about the realm, then you may call that roleplaying.
Sunken: I don\'t remember Golbez saying there shouldn\'t be fighting and stuff :rolleyes:
and no, these games aren\'t real RPGs... the \"real\" RPG is the game when you use just stuff like dice, pencil, paper and mostly imagination. The ones you told are cRPGs, which don\'t realy have much to do with RP factor...
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Call me weird, but I would choose quality over quantity.
You\'re not the only one Golbez. :)
Your posts for example are pure quality, yet you produce them very fast. You have a clear goal, and you express it in a very professional way.
Keep it up, you inspire many of us. :]
It\'s hard to define a RPG, but games like Zelda, BoF, Dungeon siege or Final fantasy cannot be placed under the term RPG. great games or not. They are pure linear adventure/puzzle/hack n\' slash cRPG games.
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Aiming for the majority? That is the hugest mistake a gaming company can make.
Try telling the people behind EQ that... they\'ve made millions.... And what about morrowind?? How much of a mistake did they make when they made that??
You must appeal to the majority, while keeping the minority happy as well.
it\'ll be just YOU in some other realms, it won\'t be roleplaying.
When u run around pretending to be important, and evil, it\'ll just be YOU as well. I don\'t powerlevel in real life (is it possible??), and I hope you don\'t run around pretending to be important and evil either....
Roleplaying has unlimited possibilities. Just because you don\'t like that, doesn\'t mean it isn\'t roleplaying to do half of them. As long as your doing something, for example, which yourself (in real life) wouldn\'t be doing, it can count as roleplaying. Running about pk\'ing (generally in games) means that you are roleplaying a mass murderer, like it or not.
May I point out:
Our Aims: To become the acknowledged centre of all magic in Yliakum.
Here we find the Arcane Order. They aim to be the strongest guild of mages in PS. Aka: Guild of powerleveling mages. Like it or not, that\'s what they are. They do other things as well, e.g. have a community, but to you, they shouldn\'t be allowed to have such an \'anti-roleplaying\' goal. (no offense to AO members.)
You have to PLAY a ROLE, this means you actually talk to other people instead of just ignoring them
I have one of those feelings that this is a good point. Yes, I have to agree, that somebody who runs about killing, without interacting with anybody in the game ever, isn\'t roleplaying, that just being sad.... Myself, and (going back to my previous example) the AO, do both. Powerlevel, and interacting with the game itself would count perfectly as roleplaying.
t\'s hard to define a RPG, but games like Zelda, BoF, Dungeon siege or Final fantasy cannot be placed under the term RPG.
]
I have to disagree here. I would call them, automated RPG\'s. They have a backround, storyline, and the most important, character interaction. I call them automated because you have no real power over the direction of the story line, but they still allow you to have some direction over what you do. Morrowind is a very good example of this.
I\'ve probably contradicted myself here, but as I wrote, my ideas, and opinions changed towards this subject. :D My longest post ever probably. 8)
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Originally posted by Xordan
it\'ll be just YOU in some other realms, it won\'t be roleplaying.
When u run around pretending to be important, and evil, it\'ll just be YOU as well. I don\'t powerlevel in real life (is it possible??), and I hope you don\'t run around pretending to be important and evil either....
...
by play to powerlevel, I mean play to powerlevel
is it that hard to understand?
and roleplaying is behaving like you wouldn\'t in real life, being someone different. At least that\'s the main point.
Running around and powerleveling just because you want to isn\'t roleplaying, it\'s just playing a game.
In BiosFear ;) I\'m simply running around killing stuff... I might say I\'m roleplaying some guy that wants to kill monsters just to become stronger, but it\'s just like playing any other game... in RTS you lead an army, do you say yer roleplaying some general?
Originally posted by Xordan
I have to disagree here. I would call them, automated RPG\'s. They have a backround, storyline, and the most important, character interaction.
Unreal:
background: you are a prisoner or something :P
Storyline: you try to get away from the stinky place :P
Character Interaction: well bah :D
here we learn Unreal is RPG ;)
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lol, character interaction Draklar.... :D I don\'t see any there... :P
Originally posted by Dralkar and roleplaying is behaving like you wouldn\'t in real life, being someone different. At least that\'s the main point. Running around and powerleveling just because you want to isn\'t roleplaying, it\'s just playing a game.
I think I said that sumwhere....
Originally posted by Xordan
I have one of those feelings that this is a good point. Yes, I have to agree, that somebody who runs about killing, without interacting with anybody in the game ever, isn\'t roleplaying, that just being sad.... Myself, and (going back to my previous example) the AO, do both. Powerlevel, and interacting with the game itself would count perfectly as roleplaying.
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Originally posted by Xordan
lol, character interaction Draklar.... :D I don\'t see any there... :P
you can perfectly interact with a gun :D
Powerlevel, and interacting with the game itself would count perfectly as roleplaying.
and how do you want to powerlevel when yer not interacting with the game? :rolleyes:
argh, that was perfectly nice thread, I\'ll just leave ye with thy believes alone :P
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1) *Sigh* 8)
2) Interacting as in interacting with the storyline, and basically, your future. :D
3) And don\'t say u can either live or die as that ineteraction.... :P
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Wow, this is like an alignment argument...don\'t take it to such extremes.
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lol, an on-topic flame war... :D
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Originally posted by Xordan
I have one of those feelings that this is a good point. Yes, I have to agree, that somebody who runs about killing, without interacting with anybody in the game ever, isn\'t roleplaying, that just being sad.... Myself, and (going back to my previous example) the AO, do both. Powerlevel, and interacting with the game itself would count perfectly as roleplaying.
I think you\'re confused here, roleplaying means leveling up all the time without interacting with the game at all. this means you can not interact with the game and powerlevel at the same time...
and just because the AO aims to become the strongest magics guild in PS doesn\'t mean we are all powerlevelers, we hope this game will require getting more knowledge in magics then just killing monsters all the time.
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Nice Post, Golbez and many interesting answers. A topic, which will come up in every MMORPG some time. But who can really answer the question for _the_ playing style?
First let me introduce some phrases for the different styles of \"RPGs\", which i will then declare as short as i can. These are by no means the _correct_ words, only my personal classification. I want also to distinguish between single and multiplayer, because of the complete different playing style.
Single Player Styles
Action Adventure
This is the typical Zelda game. You use your items in the game environment, and these items are _real_ different. There are no sword and sword+1, but a grappling hook, a lantern, a bow with fire and ice arrows. The items are no decorating accessory, but used for the many, many riddles. There exists some conversation, but only for nothing. The central game play is based on the numerous riddles and on the hordes of fights against different monsters which needs different tactical work. The fights are done on the same screen like the other game play and in real-time. Other examples for this games are Metroid or System Shock. BTW, i like this style, these games made it to eat my spare time and Zelda will be my all time favourite (thx to miyamoto)
Roleplaying Game (japanese style)
Do you ever played one of the Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior titles from square and enix on the old consoles. Incredible lovely music, diversified, astonished and tearfully story line and tactical group fights on an extra screen. These games did a nice job killing my sleep at night. The game play sets its focus on the simple town-equip-assignment-dungeon-town... circle, but perfectly hidden by the varied kind of quests, fights and items. BTW, i like this style, final fantasy II (the japanese part IV) is my all-time example for a story never topped by an other game!
Roleplaying Game (american & european style)
The Ultimas, Wizardries and Bard Tales of the world. (Take out Pagan and Ascension!). Board, Attack, Ready Weapon, Talk, Ztats... the functions and possibilities of the old ultimas were rich. Do you remember the chain of grain, flour, bread = food in U7? The conversions were deep and rich. The fighting runs in an (relative) automated way. The story was non linear. Do what you want. There was a bad boy, of course. But you can also play only for fun. Many side quests and good developed NPCs. BTW, i like this style, it was the first time i get an idea about what is possible on a computer in a virtual world.
Mixed Single and Multiplayer Styles
Roleplaying Action Game
Diablo and Dungeon Siege are in this categorie. Hunting for items, for levels, for skills, for xp. Killing all and everybody. No deep story, no big conversation options. From town to village (or better from smith to smith). Selling and buying/finding the best items to use. Leveling up is the important thing. BTW, i like this style, but i don\'t know, why ;). But, sitting in front of the monitor at midnight and thinking: Only this dungeon, then i will go to bed... but when the sun rises, it sees me sitting already in front of...
Multiplayer Styles
Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game
Hm... i think, i must distinguish between three big parts of MMORPG - Ultima Online (the beginning), Everquest 2, Camelot, Horizons (the nowadays) and Neverwinter Nights (the - in my eyes - only real MMORPG _try_). The first one i never played. But in discussions you here always the same statement. The new MMORPGs are so nice looking... if only Ultima had this amazing graphics, i will never play an other game. And why? Well, UO was the first one, which gives the player also the oportunity to play as a merchant, as a beggar or any other _ROLE_ without(!) the main focus on the skills and attributes. The newer ones are already on their way to enhance their crafting system (which gives the player a base for true roleplay). But the problem of the newer ones are, that they also have to provide a way to be a hero... cause the players must pay 12,95... and many of the buyers want to get something therefore. But a consistent world can not live with only heros... and there comes Neverwinter Nights... Ok, i will go a bit deeper in this topic, because i worked on a NWN Server and i now the RP-Problem there rather good.
At first, i must remember Bioware: They tried it, they really tried it.. but they lost in the comercial mills. (That is my theory!) They tooked the D&D RP System, which is really not the best system out, but well known, widely accepted and since the 3rd version relative \"round\". And then they want to port the P&P style to a computer MMORPG... and this could not get right. P&P is at least a single campaign on an play evening with friends. All players are heros!!! That is the centre of P&P - adventuring with a hero group to resolve a quest. And NWN is in a wonderful suitable for this. It has its editor, which make you developing an \"evening campaign\" in a comfortable and nice manner. The script lets you implement nearly all you have ever dreamed. Work as a GM is so easy and really enjoyable. Everybody can setup an own server without much network knowledge. In simple words: many good tools for you. But at least... the problem is the HERO-concept. Short after the game was out, the people made their own server with 16, 32, later 64 and now up to 96 players. And - of course - they will all be heros. For a so called servervault, you must begin with level 1 (which can be advanced by the modul builder with skripts). And fast you are on the hunt for xp to build your advanced character and to not to be too weak against another player.
At least we made a local vault server (where player can go online with their single player campaign developed 20 level char) and we made an unbelievable experience... The players comes with their complete developed and high pushed chars. But now they can not focus on development and the hunt for experiance brings nothing. That was boring.. and so they begin to ROLEPLAY... they set limits in their guilds, they developed ig rules, we have something like an town coucil, we have thieves and town guard guilds, which make really good rp... cause all are on level 20 and there is no more engine fight necessary... the world lives from their characters... nice. Of course, we do have problems with PvP, with item pushers, with noobs, and so on... these are the drawbacks of a local vault server... but the GMs do their best job.
(I must add, that Bioware with their Add-Ons made a good job: They inserted Database-Access and now some little crafting - some needed items for true persistent worlds)
Back to the topic and to the conclusion:
P&P and the most MMORPG focus to make the players HEROS... and imo that makes it nearly impossible to play roles. You need real beggars, waiters, wash womans, not only NPCs. And if you have these things all together and do not have to look for your xp, your swimming skill, if there is no necessarity to adventure and hunt monsters, if you can live in your house or wander through the world only collecting the different flowers of the world... yes, i think, that would be nice.
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And what is roleplay to me?
Some posters said: \"In every game you play (somehow) a role.\" No doubt, that is correct. But i do not think, that Golbez ever meant it this way. He pointed out, that playing a role can not have any fixed setting! And that is the thing, i like. You play a _free_ role. No written story, no min\'s and max\'s for your (imaginary) skills and talents, all is possible... just play it. Take part in the community, write the plot _while_ you are playing the game, and you will _get_ the results for it...
I will not miss my hero from dungeon siege, my link in his green skirt. I will not forget the search for the heart pieces and the run for the _best_ bow. But i will definitively not miss the experiances gotten with impressive role players some nights...
Last Word:
I have fun with all genres - if they are good packaged. And like every player i have my likes and dislikes. But the question was, is and will be: What kind of server will be PS? I do not know, if it is important, if PS will be an only ROLEPLAYING server or a HACK&SLAY server or a mix from both. I think, we will see it.. and hopefully the player get the choice to decide it...
br, Winterheaven.
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finally a quality post from a newbie. Thank god. lol great post lots of interesting points. good descriptions of each type of roleplaying game also. i dont think anyone should have any questions after this post right?
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Ah, what a great thread. I too think that the term RPG has been misapplied to too many genres; basically, these days, any game with stats is called a RPG.
We need to put the RP back into RPGs, we, the players, should organize and hold in-game RP sessions. Most importantly, we need to make RP public and fun; I think we\'d likely have alot more people spontaniously join in if they were exposed to it (although not force-fed). We can\'t ask the devs to implement RP; it begins with the players and ends with the players. The devs can do all they can to support RP, but if player\'s don\'t participate, it will fail.
My P&P RP background is very limited (living in West Virginia does that to a person; I\'ve only participated in 3 campaigns total, plus a few that never went anywhere), but I have a rich, RP-Enforced MUD history. I don\'t know about the rest of you, but the most difficultly I have with RP is establishing a good backstory, especially in settings which not a lot of material is already available. I\'m always afraid I\'ll end up contradicting something, important or no, it disjoints the atmosphere.
For this reason, may I suggest a Planeshift RP Headquarters website? Chock full of stories, history, and legends to assist and streamline roleplay. It would be great if it was an official site, but it could easily be a fan-run site.
Personally, I\'ve come up with 5 or 6 story packages for my character, ranging from just backstory to complete story packages, including how I\'ll eventually retire the character. Although I\'m weary to publically release anything until I\'m absolutly sure how my character will be played; I have the broad stroke, though. I haven\'t done alot of roleplay in MB, as I prefer roleplaying on top of an established ruleset, and I believe CB will have enough for me to begin serious RP.
*Sigh* So much fluff, but I\'m sure there\'s a point to my post somewhere.
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maybe noone worships .hack//sign as much as i do but i think it has one of the best stories ever. It is cast in a mmorpg world online where technology has advanced so much its almost exactly life like in game. Well there are player controlled gaurds (i forget their name i have only seen 3 or 4 full episodes) that are really just a guild and every so often thier roleplaying steps too far and they take matters such as game development into their own hands and the devs have to step in and tell them to cease and desist. Basically this is a lesson in what too heavy of rping can do. So we really have to find a balance. and so what if its based off an anime? :D Its still a lesson we should learn :P
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Originally posted by Sunken
So Golbez, you are trying to say that games like, NeverWinter Nights, Dungueon Siege, Breath of Fire, Front Mission, Zelda, Final Fantasy, aren\'t a RPG because thay all heave battle, and a real RPG don\'t heave battles, skills and levels, the real RPG are some kind of giant 3D chats :P .
HAHA! Nope. Not what I meant in the very least. I suggest you re-read the thread.
Originally posted by Sunken
If planeshift became a giant 3D chat just because of you inspertinance, it will broke, no one wanna play something too boring, if you want to chat you don\'t need a graphic based chat, go in IRC and play YOUR kind of RPG... just chating. You want to make PlaneShift a non-battle-RPG it\'s suxs, imagine how many players spactatives you are throwing out of the window.
I understand your point, but you don\'t heave the right of change a game, only because you like these kind of non-battle-RPG... :]
Wrong. My \"impertinence\" wants people to play a role! Add depth to their virtual characters. Players should control their avatars, so that they seem more vivid and real. Did I say I did not want battle systems? That I wished for this to be a purely social RP? Never.
In fact, I stated that all my RP characters are fighters (ie: They all use melee combat as a main skill), and gave examples of some of them.
My \"impertinence\" is demanding for people to not only build up their skills, but also tell a story. Build anecdotes, memorable moments.
I can have the same experience levelling up in other games. There is nothing new about that.
Originally posted by Sunken
Edit: it seems all these games: NeverWinter Nights, Dungueon Siege, Breath of Fire, Front Mission, Zelda, Final Fantasy, are same as quake for him... he said \"if run around killing mosnters and everyone, it\'s same as quake\".
*giggles* Oh yes, I explicitly made it public that NWN is just like Quake...
What I meant by that is, if the only thing YOU do in game, is kill the monsters, level up, then you are playing an RPG the way you would a hardcore action game. That is all.
Heh. I advise you again, read my posts from the start, you are missing the point of them.
Originally posted by Sunken
So patetic ??
No comments.
Originally posted by Xordan
Try telling the people behind EQ that... they\'ve made millions.... And what about morrowind?? How much of a mistake did they make when they made that??
You must appeal to the majority, while keeping the minority happy as well.
Revert to the part in which my post mentions the capitalist approach that some companies take (sometimes, though, the market makes it a must, though).
The more you amplify the range of customers, the less specialised your product becomes. You must generalise the features, because it cannot be completely focused towards one side or the other, as that would turn off many potential buyers.
In certain aspects, the game loses in quality. Everquest has a very long list of issues that should be taken care of. Morrowind also has its bugs and annoyances, but it is a clear demonstration of a game that possesses high quality, and yet it delivers a great experience to both Action gamers and RolePlayers (for a single-player cRPG, at least). It managed to sacrifice little in both genres, although it shall never allow the liberty than a pen and paper RPG grants, or the potential present in a MMORPG.
Still an awesome, one-of-a-kind product.
In regards to those saying that powerlevelling is indeed playing a role, then I guess that shooting enemies in any first person shooter is playing a role. Thusly, first person shooting games are RolePlaying games too? No, no. I think there is a misconception here.
RolePlaying is one thing. Building up stats is another. Albeit you can do the latter while RolePlaying, and in fact I encourage for you to play your character and increase your skills, without ever neglecting however the social aspect of an RPG.
RPG games are social. Yes. That is a side-effect of its cooperative nature. Without interaction there is no storytelling, no narration, no plot. Just a bunch of lone-wolves trying to turn themselves into the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. It is rather dull, is it not? There is no conflict, there is no intrigue. No historical progress for the game world!
To Winterhaven, nice definitions for the different sub-genres of RPGs! And a good insight on online gaming too.
I am now very interested in gathering some information and personal experiences from other gamers when it comes to playing MMORPGs online. Whatever game is fine. Tibia, Helbreath, Ragnarok, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot, Everquest, Ultima Online, MUDs, MUSHes, Dransik, graphic-based, text-based, focused on socials/battles/drama, etc.
If any is willing to contribute, feel free to send me a PM, I will answer back with my instant messangers, times to contact me, and other relevant stuff.
- Golbez
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\"Ice_Phoenix takes his halberd and salutes Golbez with it\"
Great posts, Golbez.... My deepest respect... I don\'t agree with you on some points but I want to talk about smth different...
This all loud talking about what is an RPG and what isn\'t won\'t help us to do PS a real RPG. It\'s nice to say \"this will be nice, oh! That is just awesome!!!\". But I say it again - \"it is all us who by our action and inaction make this world what it is\".
We have to think about the newbies. I don\'t say all of them can\'t play Golbez\'s type RPGs but most... No. And if you want to make PS a game for not-newbies... Don\'t know what to say...
The only solution I see - ask Golbez to open an ingame school \"How to play real RPG\". I\'m dead serious here...
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uhhh.... teaching to roleplay ingame... that\'s not realistic... against roleplay itself
it would be best to (like Grakrim said) make a website about it... official, but umm.... Golbez should run it :P
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...
You should make a web page only for this thread, discussing every aspect (combat, skills, socials...). damn, i completely agree with Golbez about quality. And who says an RP game should be boring? did you RPed any time? hey, EQ became boring for me...
Will devs look at this? what do they prefeer, a game with general features aimed for noone specially, with a large comunity of players who dont intend to help devs, just to complain? or a game made for people, maybe not a lot, maybe a lot (as there are not any close-to-RP computer game), who want a coherent world, who can have fun by themselves (RP alows us to make our own adventures, enjoy only with our minds, dont need new monsters or features every time someone kills the very-high-end-mob) well, would need to fix major bugs, sure ;) dont want to see everyone flying around... Ok, the first option is easy to play, to learn, its fun too (for most people)... but who that has played an RP experience ddnt enjoy it? who are against RP... have you played any RP game? ok, another point should be that you want PS as a hack\'n slash game (i said it ok?).
Its time to make a new decission? maybe later?
...
Sorry, only questions... hope there will appear any answer...
And sorry, english is not my language too, so please, dont speak like l33ts as most people dont talk english --> dont learn well --> Hard understanding.
Thank you for this post ;( , realy needed somewhere else ;).
Erthel
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Originally posted by Erthel
And sorry, english is not my language too, so please, dont speak like l33ts as most people dont talk english --> dont learn well --> Hard understanding.
Ehh, well it was a bit confusing, but many people here don\'t speak english as their first language.
Drak, some newbies aren\'t going to go and read the forums or guides. An in-game \"Newbie School\" is a means of alerting those ignorants to the basics of RP\'ing and that Rp\'ing is the main premise of the game.
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Ingame schools would be nice to have, as there will be advisers too, that could be a place where there are lots of specialised advisers.
Draklar, do you really think all newbies are going to roleplay by themselves, i don\'t think there will be roleplayed in the newbie zones at all that way, so i don\'t see what harm a school possibly could do.
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*Xordan thinks he\'s losing this battle...*
ok, maybe u\'r right. I still think it\'s possible to roleplay a perfectionist, but your views on roleplaying must enter it, or it\'s just powerleveling/n00b bashing/battle loving. As I\'ve read through this, I have to agree, that your right on alot of points, and u\'ve changed my views of rp\'ing. :D
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so you want to force people into going to rp schools? If you think about it, it won\'t be such a good idea:
if you want to put as much info into ingame school as you might put on website (which is impossible anyway)
then you\'ll make everything trashed, and from this point:
a) you force into learning everything: ones that already have experience with roleplaying will be bored to death reading all this stuff they already know.
b) don\'t force: as above, only newbies will be clicking cancell or something :P
so we\'ll have a school which won\'t give as big possibilities as website would + it wouldn\'t be as easy to learn as from well organised website.
I wonder how many \"advisers\" would be staying there anyway....
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How about this:
1)When you first start the game up, you\'ll see a nice, semi-lengthy narrative about RP\'ing.
2)What I meant Drak was that little messages concerning RPing should be part of newbie school in general.
3)You should be able to leave (and come back to) Newb school.
4)But if you leave and don\'t know the basics, whose fault is it? Would you help said newb? (I wouldn\'t)
5)I never said there shouldn\'t be a site, foo! :P
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well still there will be people helping newbs
*cough* Mogura *cough*
uhhh... sorry, I meant Grakrim... you all humans look same ;)
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Just don\'t answer any newbie questions if they haven\'t been to school (or even /mute them with a message: go back to school :D)
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OK back to RP. I wanna know what everyone of you would do in next situation:
...
You\'re playing a lawful good knight type of char. You don\'t have any problems (you have money, nice equipment etc.), but you don\'t have anything great about you neither (no unique weapons, no famous quest done etc.).
You are walking along the street and a poor man (you can say this by his terribly old cloths) walks toward you and says: \"Please, take this sword. It\'s of no use to me now, but it can help you in your adventures.\"
You take a look at the sword and see that it is a really nice piece of weapons art, even a masterpiece (maybe unique, and, of course, very expensive).
...
What will you do? Post your answers...
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Welcome back Golbez. One of the best starting post, honestly.
I like roleplaying more and more, i found my way starting with paper RPGs like AD&D and many others, and i once roleplayed in \"real life\" (can we call it \"real life roleplay\" ? Well, it doesn\'t really matter after all).
However, I am not very good at it in english because it\'s not my native language; so i try my best to improve my RP.
All i want to say is a stupid sentence everyone will agree with: Having a MMORPG where 100% players roleplay is an utopia. But yes, RP should be rewarded.
As to me, the devs should start with talking about it in as many places as they can so that it becomes effective: on the main website, the README files, and why not on the loading screen etc... ?
Oh and i wanted to ask (if i didn t miss something about it, because i skipped a few threads): How can we reward an evil character who RP well ?
I mean yes it s possible, but in all the exemples given the characters were mostly Loyal / Good / Neutral.
So, any idea on how to reward anti-paladins ? thieves ? ...
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Take the sword, and
\"Is there anything I can do for you?\"
(Most likely involving food, of which I\'d give him plenty)
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Another, less extreme idea of mine:
You gain skill levels normally, but after a certain point, you take a huge leap into a class like Warrior or Wizard. Your skills in that class are enhanced and you skills for other ones are slightly weakened. You get a special message like, for top-level warrior, \"Your body perfects\" or for first-level wizard \"You understand the flow of magic\". The top-level characters will be really powerful major characters, like realm heroes and dark lords. The difference between each level is major, and, of course, difficult to obtain.
Examples (from LoTR, of course):
High-level wizard: Sarumon
In LoTR, all wizards are high-level.
Mid-level warrior: Aragorn
He, and the other Numenorians, are simply superior.
Of course, in LoTR, its geneological, but I think you get the general idea.
Nice?
Maybe I should make a thread for \"Ideas from the Brilliant Mind of Davis\", or even a web page. :)
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An In Game school? I am not too excited about the idea, I think it breaks the whole RolePlaying concept...UNLESS...
...Unless the In Game school is set in the OOC grid. Perhaps weekly or monthly meetings at the Player\'s Lounge, if such space ever exists in PlaneShift, can be dedicated to a \"School for RolePlaying\".
These meetings would be some kind of interactive tutorial for new players. Or a series of tutorials! In each session different topics and situations could be discussed and those who wish to do so may voice their opinion.
Each session would be logged and uploaded to a site so any who was unable to attend may read what was talked about and offer their own input.
I would also like to reiterate an idea of staff members holding the position of \"RP Administrators\". They would guide new players, help them with the basics, encourage them to RolePlay and try to make them feel comfortable with the style of the game.
However, this position can be very demanding in terms of time and dedication. Not to mention that not everyone owns the gift of being able to teach something to a complete stranger, and being patient enough with thick-skulled newcomers ;) In addition to being filtered, developers would have to keep an eye on these staff members, because since they would have extra powers and commands (the ability to teleport from one place to the other, to aid new players in an IC manner, for example), abuse and preferences towards a clique must be prevented.
And volunteers that wish to become a RP Admin should be aware that they would sacrifice personal In Game time to help others.
Many considered me to be an \"anti-newlie\" because yes, this sort of RolePlaying style can be a tad elitist. But no, I do not cast new players away from the game. Totally the opposite, I would welcome them and be willing to give them a few tips so they begin to learn how to RolePlay and behave in a game of this genre.
Now, Ice Pheonix, the lawful good Knight you describe may react in an infinite number of different ways.
First of all, assuring that your character is \"Lawful Good\" does not necessarily mean that said character has a pleasant personality, or is not greedy, or has many notable flaws :) For example, a character I enjoy RolePlaying is the one who has the values and honour of a Paladin, yet he is not the classic well-mannered, polite and always correct stereotype. Think about it, a Paladin with an arrogant gait and that is easily angered leads to many fun scenes, and is a nice target for roguish characters who enjoy mocking and teasing the \"good guys\".
I once played a brutish thug whose most heartful desire was to become a Knight. First, he had to be a Sir\'s Squire, and then be deemed worthy of Knighthood. His biggest flaw? He was not well-mannered, he was not subtle, and prone to swear like a sailor. Not to mention that he had serious problems with his diction and a terribly rude accent.
Yet he was truly a loyal, noble man with ambitious and honest goals. I had much fun playing him and he became a loved character for many people due to his unique-ness. But right there you have an example of different character that breaks a stereotype. And probably he would have never been a Knight, yet he was fun to play for me and others, and that is what matters the most.
Now, Yann touches a very delicate nerve: Villainy. It is not very hard to come up with the personality and ideals for a villain, or an \"evil\" character. But it is extremely hard to pull that off.
A bully is the lowest form of a villain, although that does not mean playing as one is boring or dull. Just think of all the bar fights and thrilling encounters ;)
But the leader of an organisation that has power and riches as ulterior motives, for example, is very hard to RolePlay. Why? Because one cannot be this kind of villain without being surrounded by other loyal followers ready to fight for the sake of their leader and organisation.
Villains also have to be aware that, in the long run, their characters may have to serve jail time, or be punished due to their criminal actions that have a negative effect on society. We all would like our characters to succeed in their goals, but a psychotic wizard that wishes to take over the city of Yliakum has little to no possibility of success. ;)
How can we reward these players, to encourage them to grace us with their enjoyable evil characters? :D First, they should be supported by the plotters (You know, those people in charge of designing major plots for the game, and that supervise some player plots as well, there should always be many of those since sometimes special actions and scenes need of a particular code or command that only a member of the staff can use.) as much as the \"good guys\". If there is more preference towards one side or the other, an imbalance will be created and the fun can be ruined by having the good guys defeating the bad guys more often than not, or viceversa.
Secondly, as there are many organisations that back up the actions of the characters whose ways are noble and honourable, there should be certain power cells that wish to see their own goals and needs fulfilled. For example, a corrupt Vigesimi that is wealthy enough to organise some sort of mafia, and is conspicuous enough to hide his true intentions could offer a portion of his riches to a villain so that he pulls off a special assignment.
Or circles of wizards may wish for their magic arts to be purely and unconditionally free, thus encouraging their apprentices and mages to use their talents to weaken and defeat those who wish to stablish a limit in the use of magic (That is to say, those who want to promote laws to decide to what point the use of magic is acceptable, and regulate these arts so that they are not abused. A \"Magic police\", to be more simplistic)
Events and ideas like these allow for characters alligned to evil to BE apart of the society and plot of the game. They would play major roles when telling the classic story of good versus evil, and it would be interesting if evil could win once or twice. Not an absolute victory that means the world changes forever and the government of Yliakum is overthrown, or anything extreme like that, of course ;)
*Gasp!* The sixth Octarch was assassinated by an unknown bandit! His corpse was taken away so that he could not be revived! What will we do? What will happen now?
Imagine that as the main gossip the day after the poor Octarch was chosen as the target. :-]
To sum up, evil characters need to be backed up and encouraged by the community as much as good characters. If there is an extremist predominance of one or the other, the lack of balance would cause the game to quickly become dull.
In some games, villains are marked and cast away. Craftsmen will not sell them items and armour, they are attacked by anyone and everyone because they have a flag toggled on that allows for everyone to see his negative reputation, and they end up being chased to death.
We should not be this way with those that give us a little excitement in our RolePlaying. Evil characters are fun, after all :)
Villainy is a tough stunt to pull off, but do not be discouraged! It is rewarded with unforgettable moments when the RolePlay is good.
- Golbez
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Yes Golbez, the Newbie school would be an OOC place. It still is a game, and tutorials to a game are hard to learn when you\'re in character.
Otherwise, how would a midieval person explain the space-bar?
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I can?t believe its taken me two hours to read three pages!! 8o
I like most of the points that have been made and am only writing to boost my posts and offer my compliments to everyone that has been discussing this.
I have played tons of pen and paper games, read tons of reviews and played a fair share of the usual ?RPG? games that are out there and I was always disappointed with the vast number of people that were never even trying to be in character. Everything has its place in a virtual world and the fact that so many people choose to power level their characters is ?I believe- in part due to the fact that the games have nothing better in them to do than hack your way through the ever revolving series of dungeons. I think it is possible to have a game that is more, as some might say, ?true? to the nature of role playing. In my opinion it only takes some people that are willing to put it into practice.
I once played a MUD or something that was online and text based called Dragon Realms and I loved it until they wanted XX amount of dollars a month for me to play. Why did I love it? Because people were not driven by their levels or ?circles? they were driven by the world. You could not help but be pulled into the story because it was everywhere in the world. This and that little place that had this or that little secret. Sometimes it was aggravating because you couldn?t figure out the riddle and other times you were the only person that seemed to know about it.
I think that with enough story or ?background? any place can become a good RPG environment but as has been said, I think that it will take everyone caring enough to actually act on the ideas here posted, in game, before it will actually happen.
No I don?t think that it can be forced on people and there will always be that person that just doesn?t seem to get it. But I have met a lot of people in the real world that don?t seem to get it either. Bygones?as the saying goes.
All that can happen is to try and make the best experience for you and your fellow role players, yourself.
As far as a school goes. I like the idea and really liked it when I read about the site that would be developed on the same subject. Though I am not sure of the feasibility of the school. Tutorials are always good though, than at least everyone knows the same info to start and you don?t hear ?hey how do I jump?Where are the monsters?etc.? constantly.
Peace out. :D
PS: I speak English natively and can?t communicate as well as some of you guys. Behold the glory of the United States educational system.
PPS: And to repeat. I speak English natively and can?t understand that number talking stuff. ?(
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Originally posted by XpYtZ
PPS: And to repeat. I speak English natively and can?t understand that number talking stuff. ?(
Nobody can, but the others won\'t atmit it. ;-) I think for example l33t means leet, because e and 3 are \'almost\' the same. For other letters there are other numbers. Another trick to make it even more UnDeRsTaNdAbLe is to change the height of the letters.
Itought it was originally hacker-slang, but now every noob that want\'s to be cool, uses leet.
PS correct me if i\'m wrong.
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Originally posted by Golbez
An In Game school? I am not too excited about the idea, I think it breaks the whole RolePlaying concept...UNLESS...
...Unless the In Game school is set in the OOC grid. Perhaps weekly or monthly meetings at the Player\'s Lounge, if such space ever exists in PlaneShift, can be dedicated to a \"School for RolePlaying\".
I think the newbie zone will become an OOC grid even without any schools or other anti-roleplaying things, all there will be talked about there is how the controls work, where the forums are, etc. so having a school in such a zone can do little to no harm IMO.
I would also like to reiterate an idea of staff members holding the position of \"RP Administrators\". They would guide new players, help them with the basics, encourage them to RolePlay and try to make them feel comfortable with the style of the game.
They are called \"advisors\", CB will already have those ;)
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hey are called \"advisors\", CB will already have those
I thought the \"Advisors\" are just CB\'s version of declared newb-helpers, although I may be wrong...
I like the concept of this in-game RP school, but I guarentee it wouldn\'t work in practice. RP is something that can\'t be taught so easily, its a hidden skill that must be released and honed, for some its more difficult than others. As I said earlier, the only way to ensure that new players participate in RP is to show it to them in action, or possibly something greater. We could have some sort of \"Newb Zone Player\'s Troop\", a travelling group of avid RPers that travel from newb area to newb area to spread the praises of roleplaying to the newest citizens of our realm.
There will always be someone who won\'t RP, most likely the fabled \"uber-l33t n00b\"; but these are most likely undesirable people that we don\'t need in our roleplayer\'s utopia. I\'ve never, in my now 8-months of experience in Planeshift and many years in other online venues, known one of these \"uber-l33t\" to actually clean up to become an acceptable person, I\'m not sure that\'s possible. The closest one I can think of is Gayne, but he was still pretty annoying after we broke him... Eliminate the powerlevers and \"uber-l33t\" (they probably coincide to a great deal) and I\'m certain we\'ll have our RP-enforced society. You see, as has been mentioned in the past, we have a grand opportunity here. This is a free, gratis game! Powerlevelers are the largest target group in this niche genre we call MMORPGs, so it makes sense, if a commercial game wants to be sucessful, that it must cater to this group; but this game isn\'t commercial, here success isn\'t measured in dollars or yen, but in players, in us, the regulars. PS will be succesful if we are happy; and seeing as how our level of expectations do not coincide with the average \"uber-l33t\"/powerleveler\'s needs and wants in a MMORPG, I\'m certain this is something we won\'t have to worry about for long.
Just my 2 tria...
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Originally posted by Grakrim
hey are called \"advisors\", CB will already have those
I thought the \"Advisors\" are just CB\'s version of declared newb-helpers, although I may be wrong...
Yeah, advisors will be people like Mogura. (In other words, help the newbies)
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Be it out of boredom, or out of curiosity, allow me to revive this thread so I can have a few questions of mine answered. Enlighten me with your responses, then!
The current advisors you speak of, that are there to \"help newbies\". First, who are they and how are they chosen? Or is it a nice term given to generous players who wish to explain the basic commands and give a quick tutorial to the newcomers? What are their duties, if they are defined?
However, I have a few concerns.
It has been stated that Mogura is an advisor. Perfect, very kind of her! She helps people who recently discovered the game and help them learn their first few ropes.
Now, she has declared that RolePlaying is not her main concern. So, are there people who \"mentor\" others (very liberal usage of the verb, mind you) regarding that aspect of the game?
So who is in charge of moderating the in-game RolePlaying? Who controls that everyone plays fair and nice? Who jumps in and difuses a conflict when two players are having an argument?
That is what I mean with a RolePlay Administrator.
And these would be the guys that get together with the staff and say. \"Hey! I have an idea. We can create a few temporary characters that we would be controlling, and create a plot to hook some people. Is \"X\" and \"Y\" doable?\"
This is actually very done in many online RolePlaying games. Although I am yet to see it in a MMORPG. A few \"VIP characters\" are created and controlled by the RP Admins to help spread the word about a plot (not so openly, it is done subtly via the wonderful art of RPing ;) ) and leave hints and tips so that many characters may get involved.
They usually have a short life, as they are not of much use after the plot is over.
Idealistically speaking, players themselves are the ones who are to create the stories and plots through their IC actions. But sometimes things are a little slow, or certain plots cannot be performed without the help of the staff. And these VIPs allow the staff to keep an eye on the plot, and steer it in one way or the other so as to provide the players with some good and much needed fun.
Besides, if the idea of a school for new players is actually implemented, these guys would be the teachers and hold the sessions and meetings. ;)
The concept is still quite rough around the edges and is in need of some polishing. Perhaps someone could toss in a few more ideas?
- Golbez
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Mentors, teachers, advisors... Call them whatever you like, but the main idea is as simple as that - they must LOVE RPGs. So I think that this \"work\" must be totally voluntary - anyone who thinks he can be an advisor must have a oppotunity to become one...
They of course will suffer the gameplay 4 the good of newbies, and I think it would be fair to give them something in exchange (e.g. give them some XP for every newbie advised). Yes, that brings up the problem of powerlevelers wanting to get XP just 4 sitting on their butts 24\\7 and typing some crap. I think we\'ll be able to overcome this problem.
The main idea is - free access to becoming advisors...
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Yeah, good idea, but I think players should be encouraged to create quests. Also, there should be a government, like in Dark Ages, except we can have PvP so all the politicians can have fun assasinating each other, vandalizing each others property, and other fun things like that! Great plot opportunities there.
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Originally posted by Golbez
This is actually very done in many online RolePlaying games. Although I am yet to see it in a MMORPG. A few \"VIP characters\" are created and controlled by the RP Admins to help spread the word about a plot (not so openly, it is done subtly via the wonderful art of RPing ) and leave hints and tips so that many characters may get involved.
They usually have a short life, as they are not of much use after the plot is over.
Idealistically speaking, players themselves are the ones who are to create the stories and plots through their IC actions. But sometimes things are a little slow, or certain plots cannot be performed without the help of the staff. And these VIPs allow the staff to keep an eye on the plot, and steer it in one way or the other so as to provide the players with some good and much needed fun.
I\'m trying a little experiment with this very concept in MB, hopefully soon. I still need to contact a few regulars to play parts in the story. They will have \"lines\" to speak IC (or a close approximation thereof, ad-libbing is ok, as long as the plot is preserved). As I\'ve never done this before (in an online setting), I\'m really hoping that I can pull it off. If it works out ok, it should be fun for all involved. :)
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Congratulations Dark for making the 100th post in this thread!
*Hands Darkmoon a tastey cookie*
I am very interested in knowing how that experiment goes. I would appreciate if I could be updated with the way it went, if it ran as expected, and what inconveniences arised, if any at all (I foresee one, though, being playing times ;)).
If not, then I guess I will just have to deal with it :P
- Golbez
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I can?t believe its taken me two hours to read three pages!!
ditto, although good reading.
May I point out:
Our Aims: To become the acknowledged centre of all magic in Yliakum.
Here we find the Arcane Order. They aim to be the strongest guild of mages in PS. Aka: Guild of powerleveling mages. Like it or not, that\'s what they are. They do other things as well, e.g. have a community, but to you, they shouldn\'t be allowed to have such an \'anti-roleplaying\' goal. (no offense to AO members.)
first off thanks for dragging us in here for that breif period of time :P .
second:you by far have takin that wrong, we aren\'t powerlevers as much as people who desire to \"study\" the ways of the shard to further hieghten our skills not at all as you have posted
(just thought i\'d get that off my chest b/c that kind grilled me up)
As for trashing NWN, grr...
NWN is one of the only games i myself also consider an RPG, basicly the game was all about its editor and teh ability to creat your own worlds and games, i myslef play DnD games on it in a private PW i created.
(also getting that off my chest)
as for the \"V.I.P\" ideas, i LOVE it layonara a PW in NWN used that, Lay was a Strict RP server and every other night or so they had events, it worked quite well, the gm\'s would make a character and go and start a story, they even had character dev gm\'s who would basicly moniter the server and if he thought you were doing somethnig that could further your personal character\'s story, they\'d do so.
I really hope something like that is implemnted
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*cough cough* spell check... *ahem* spell... CHECK...
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:P aside from it being 3am, everyone knows i cant spell for the life of me, thats why i never do any public postings, in fact i think tepsu has given up on spellchecking me all the time.
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My point about this subject is that whatever you would do, powerlevellers and pure roleplayers will exist. But if you want both to cohabitate peacefully, you must manage so that they don\'t disturb each other. And for this, a few basic tips can help a lot.
Here are a few ideas (some have already been mentionned) about how to enforce RP :
I/ Character names...[/size]
...only allow letters \"a-z\" ; \"A-Z\" ; \" \" (space bar) ; \" \' \" and \"-\" for the name of the character. This way you won\'t have any players called \"D4rk 50u1\" or \"Rambo_1987\"...
Furthermore, in-game moderators could ask players to change their name if they are not RP or badly written ( DaRk SoUl for instance would become Dark Soul, that, even if not perfect, is a more acceptable name)
II/ Enforce communication between players...[/size]
... wether it is RP or non-RP. What I mean, is the possibility to create as many channels as you want. Then players choose on their own wether it is the player or the character that speaks on the channel. There would be 3 or 4 official moderated channels (main, RP, trades, help...) and as many underground unmoderated channels as players want to. Those personnal channels must OF COURSE have a password (of course chosen by the player)
If anyone has ever player the 4th coming, I am exactely describing its cc system.
And this system solves quite a lot of problems : you want to RP peacefully ? Shut down main, trade and help cc ! You are a newbie and you have questions ? Use the help cc and older players will answer ; it both avoids RP players to be disturbed and newbies to be disdained ! You want to communicate with your guild ? Create a private channel for them ! You want to play in the evening while talking with 2 or 3 friends about your day ? Create a private channel \"myfriends\" and you\'ll be able to speak freely, without damaging the RP environement !
III/ Limit as much as possible non-RP langage[/size]
a) no weapon must be called \"long sword +5\", but \"blessed long sword\". All that devs need to do is to use adjectives such as \"blessed\", \"strong\", \"well smithed\" instead of those meaningless \"+1, +2, +3...\"
b) Set up a clever censorship :
=> on main, help and trade channels : censorship on insults ( \"****\" instead of \"fuck\").
=> on roleplay channel, /say and /shout commands (dunno if they exist, but you have the idea) :
- a censorship on most common abreviation : \"intelligence\" instead of \"int\", \"Amusing\" instead of \"lol\"... On the one hand it censors those meaningless words (mostly good towards noobs), and on the other one it shortens the typing for common expressions. (this is Davis\'idea)
- censorship words made of a mixture of letters and numbers : \"uber-l33t\" would become \" *cough* \". Simple, fun, effective.
=> on private channels : no censorship (players have to rule it on their own)
(PS : I m against a systematical censorship on slang, because rude characters could not roleplay properly, and players could not mess around with friends, so that it we would have a puritain polite well-thinking boring world)
IV/ As few NPC as possible[/size]
(idea already mentionned in an answer before)
Because this way players have to communicate and interact, and communication is the first step to RP. A powerleveller that can play without talking to anyone will never have the idea to try RP.
We only need NPCs for :
- helping newbies to start
- do very boring things (NPC merchants for a guild for instance)
but no NPC that would sell infinite weapons, or buy tons of loots.
(I am waiting for reactions about the beta of Dark and Light, where they put an offline mode, where your offline character becomes a merchant that sells what you collected while being online)
V/ Hide stats[/size]
THAT is a very innovative idea. (i don\'t remember who said it first in this post) You would not say anymore \"I have 500 strengh\" but \"once i was attacked by a group of 5 huge orcs and I killed all of them...\"
It has already been discussed before, so I\'ll make it short : it is a great stem for plots !
VI/ A strong and alive background[/size]
a) Improve the current background and make it available for everyone : an official library.
For this I would recommand an official site called \"Laanx\'library\" for instance where we could find tons of stories : the official background, player tales, poems etc... this site would look roleplay, and have only roleplay texts. This library woud be the base of the game background. A second site could be used for a FAQ, a player help etc. but it must not mix with the library.
b) A dynamic background : Game Masters.
GMs must be often connected to make alive campains and scenarios that would enlive the whole world. GMs would play important roles (a council member any famous knight back from a caimpain, an orc warlord, a prophet...) that would need the players to solve their problems.
And those GMs could reward (or not) good RPers by increasing their stats (whether their character is \"good\" or \"evil\"). The great point is that if stats are hidden, we won\'t have ppl doing the quests just for XP, since they won\'t even know they have gained any stat ! But rewards are not only stat points ; they can be unique items (unique doesn\'t mean powerful), important social roles, political secrets...
VII/ No immortal character[/size]
I am now reaching more sensitive points. If characters never die, there will be players that will want to make their character the strongest, even if stats are hidden. They will want to kill the biggest mob, to archieve the hardest quest and so on. BUT if your character finlly dies ? What would that powerful character leave behind him ? NOTHING ! The only way for a character to survive after his death is via fame, friends and family.
The only problem here is with elves, krans and klyros that can live hundreds of years old... Well my advice would be to reduce their life expectancy, but maybe I\'m going too far here.
An other aspect is to not forget CHILDREN and OLD PEOPLE. I can not imagine a realistic world with only halthy people between 20 and 40.
This is not hard to implement. Only needs other skins, hairs... to model old characters, and smaller sizes for children. Nothing more ^^
VIII/ Open PvP[/size]
Another sensitive point.
Just gives more freedom for more RP possibilities.
And for those that are affraid by pks, here are 2 reason to be confident. First, with no stat or lvl, it would be harder for pks to choose a weak victim. Furthermore, GMs could create a guild, \"Ylakium Guard\", where loyal-good characters are recruted and paid to protect other characters. Each town could even have their own council, and their own guard. How wonderful ! pks have become a new possibility for RP !
However since the idea of \"only PvP in arenas\" has been chosen, I don\'t want to discuss this anymore. I only regret that devs are too shy on this point, with this hybrid solution. All games have the same problem : devs are affraid of any excess, so they don\'t take any risk; It is understantable, but I regret it.
IX/ Help newbies to act on a RP way[/size]
Because when you are a newbie, most ofthe time you have never played a MMORPG before ; you try this game because it is free, and you are intimidated by those strange guys speaking on a strange way (i\'m talking about roleplayers). That\'s why they must be helped.
a) character creation : instead of choosing stats, jobs and so on at the character creation, the player would only choose :
- race, sex
- physical aspect (hair, eyes, size, age, build...)
- type down a short description
- type down a short background.
This way, since the very beguining of the character creation, the player knows he\'s in an uncommon game. Of course at the character creation all characters of a same race would have the same stats, but very soon each character would specialise to become unique.
b) we could have a short tutorial for the main gameplay commands (how to attack, to run, to use magic etc.)
c) we have the \"help\" cc I mentionned before.
d) It is each player\'s role to help newbies. When a noob asks \"money plz\", do not ignore him, but tell him \"what are you saying ? I don\'t understand...\" until he understands he must speak properly. And once he asks \"Would you have some money for me Sir ?\" don\'t give it right away, ask him any cheap staff he can easily get, and reward him generousely : that will be his first quest (even if it is basic ^^)
X/ Begin as soon as possible[/size]
We must use the beta to build a healthy core of roleplayers, that will help new players to integrate and make a harmonious community. It is obvious that if suddenly 2000 players settle in a few days without any knowledge about RP, we will only have another boring camping so-called RPG.
However I am confident about this, when I see all these active guilds spawning, and the number of people that want to enforce RP.
The main point in all this is mutual respect. Roleplayers and campers can live together, but they must interact on a non-aggressive way for both. Campers must not sp34k l1k3 14m3r5, and roleplayers must not be agressive towards those strange people that love crafting for hours. And here, the channel system described above seems a very good solution.
PS : I am not english, so please excuse my French ^^ Furthermore don\'t play much, because it is hard to RP in english when your vocabulary is limited. I hope a French server will come soon ^^
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Sorry, I don\'t have time to read it all now, but about the first part:
Originally posted by Thynett
I/ Character names...[/size]
...only allow letters \"a-z\" ; \"A-Z\" ; \" \" (space bar) ; \" \' \" and \"-\" for the name of the character. This way you won\'t have any players called \"D4rk 50u1\" or \"Rambo_1987\"...
Furthermore, in-game moderators could ask players to change their name if they are not RP or badly written ( DaRk SoUl for instance would become Dark Soul, that, even if not perfect, is a more acceptable name)
Usernames can only have characters a-z, the first character will be uppercase, everything else will be lower case.. this is already implemented in the current version of PS..
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I think his suggestion is better. I mean, what about last-names?
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I don\'t like the \"no immortal characters\".
I enjoy playing MMORPGs because my character don\'t die. Or when he dies, he can get back to life (what is planned).
Oh and yes, last names are great ! :D
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Originally posted by Thynett
III/ Limit as much as possible non-RP langage[/size]
- censorship words made of a mixture of letters and numbers : \"uber-l33t\" would become \" *cough* \". Simple, fun, effective.
We\'re going to have a punch of people nothing but coughing all the time and we\'ll just assume they\'ve catched a cold or something. :)
V/ Hide stats[/size]
THAT is a very innovative idea. (i don\'t remember who said it first in this post) You would not say anymore \"I have 500 strengh\" but \"once i was attacked by a group of 5 huge orcs and I killed all of them...\"
Great idea, but probably most people would be against it so it could be compromised: Instead of numeric stats we could have descriptions for your abilities. For example strength could be descriped \"strong as a trepor\" or \"can beat 5 huge orcs at a time\" or \"stonecrusher\" or anything what comes in mind. Or just plain, boring \"strong\", \"robust\", \"weak\", \"fragile\" and such. Not sure if this is already suggested (most probably by Davis) but doesn\'t matter. As for myself, I\'d prefer hidden stats though... It brings a nice comical aspect to the game as you can\'t be sure are you able to knock down that giant with your hand made axe... (Unless you have tried it before, or seen your friend trying it and being squashed like a bug.)
And what comes to the powerlevellers, they could be called barbarians, as they speak strangely and want just to kill everyone in sight. They could be teached manners by the advisors or anyone willing and thus make them civilised. That way even powerlevellers would fit the world. (For I haven\'t seen any RPG without barbarians)
PS: Powerleveling ruins lives!!
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Originally posted by Axsyrus
Usernames can only have characters a-z, the first character will be uppercase, everything else will be lower case.. this is already implemented in the current version of PS..
Yes I\'d like to see last names implemented (add the space bar), or composite names (Tar-Aldarion or such names) or irish-sounding names (O\'connor and so)
Originally posted by Ripostellar
Instead of numeric stats we could have descriptions for your abilities. For example strength could be descriped \"strong as a trepor\" or \"can beat 5 huge orcs at a time\" or \"stonecrusher\" or anything what comes in mind. Or just plain, boring \"strong\", \"robust\", \"weak\", \"fragile\" and such.
And what comes to the powerlevellers, they could be called barbarians, as they speak strangely and want just to kill everyone in sight. They could be teached manners by the advisors or anyone willing and thus make them civilised. That way even powerlevellers would fit the world. (For I haven\'t seen any RPG without barbarians)
PS: Powerleveling ruins lives!!
Nah you\'re being too shy. If you have such a scale :
strengh 1 = \"weak\"
strengh 2 = \"normal\"
strengh 3 = \"robust\"
strengh 4 = \"strung\"
strengh 5 = \"can kill 5 orcs\"
and so on, then powerlevellers won\'t be looking for a high level, but for the highest comment. It is just a lexical substitution.
On the other hand, totally invisible stats give no marks for levellers, they have no aim, then they turn more rapidely to RP.
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Well, I think we should get rid of all the Mexicans.
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Interesting points, Thynett. Let us analyse them one by one, shall we? I had to chop this post in half, it was truly a lengthy one!
Originally posted by Thynett
I/ Character names...[/size]
...only allow letters \"a-z\" ; \"A-Z\" ; \" \" (space bar) ; \" \' \" and \"-\" for the name of the character. This way you won\'t have any players called \"D4rk 50u1\" or \"Rambo_1987\"...
Furthermore, in-game moderators could ask players to change their name if they are not RP or badly written ( DaRk SoUl for instance would become Dark Soul, that, even if not perfect, is a more acceptable name)
Of course! Believable names, that is actually quite important. The name is that word assigned to a specific character, and signifies more than one would think of at a first glance.
Who would take a Dwarf named Billy_Bob_Joe_1990 seriously? Not to mention that I doubt any parent would willingly bring shame to the family by naming his child so ridiculously ;)
In many books and games, there is a certain \"sound\" and \"feel\" to the names of each race. Take Tolkien\'s Middle Earth, for example! It is clearly evident that Legolas is an Elven name, is it not? And Bilbo, and Frodo...they have that distinct characteristic of the Hobbits.
It would be appealing, from my point of view, for the developers in charge of designing the setting, of modelling this sort of feeling for each race.
There is one MUD where the story does not take place on Earth, but a similar world. The continents and history have some parallelisms, but the nations are completely different. To identify a stereotypical name, the creators assigned each country a particular ethnical sound to their names. So one nation has French-sounding names, other in the vicinity sounds like Italian, another German, and so on.
I am not saying that the same should be done with PlaneShift, but having each race totally different beliefs and bakcgrounds, I do not think that Enkidukais and Humans would possess similar names. Just a thought.
Originally posted by Thynett
II/ Enforce communication between players...[/size]
... wether it is RP or non-RP. What I mean, is the possibility to create as many channels as you want. Then players choose on their own wether it is the player or the character that speaks on the channel. There would be 3 or 4 official moderated channels (main, RP, trades, help...) and as many underground unmoderated channels as players want to. Those personnal channels must OF COURSE have a password (of course chosen by the player)
If anyone has ever player the 4th coming, I am exactely describing its cc system.
And this system solves quite a lot of problems : you want to RP peacefully ? Shut down main, trade and help cc ! You are a newbie and you have questions ? Use the help cc and older players will answer ; it both avoids RP players to be disturbed and newbies to be disdained ! You want to communicate with your guild ? Create a private channel for them ! You want to play in the evening while talking with 2 or 3 friends about your day ? Create a private channel \"myfriends\" and you\'ll be able to speak freely, without damaging the RP environement !
Channels. Already been discussed, yes! The possibility of toggling off a certain channel is a must, I say. And the active moderation of each of them a necessity.
Creating private channels is quite an idea as well. If well implemented, it could be very helpful.
Originally posted by Thynett
III/ Limit as much as possible non-RP langage[/size]
a) no weapon must be called \"long sword +5\", but \"blessed long sword\". All that devs need to do is to use adjectives such as \"blessed\", \"strong\", \"well smithed\" instead of those meaningless \"+1, +2, +3...\"
b) Set up a clever censorship :
=> on main, help and trade channels : censorship on insults ( \"****\" instead of \"fuck\").
=> on roleplay channel, /say and /shout commands (dunno if they exist, but you have the idea) :
- a censorship on most common abreviation : \"intelligence\" instead of \"int\", \"Amusing\" instead of \"lol\"... On the one hand it censors those meaningless words (mostly good towards noobs), and on the other one it shortens the typing for common expressions. (this is Davis\'idea)
- censorship words made of a mixture of letters and numbers : \"uber-l33t\" would become \" *cough* \". Simple, fun, effective.
=> on private channels : no censorship (players have to rule it on their own)
(PS : I m against a systematical censorship on slang, because rude characters could not roleplay properly, and players could not mess around with friends, so that it we would have a puritain polite well-thinking boring world)
Censorship is a tough one. I personally have RolePlayed characters with a sporadic tendency to profanity, and he was well accepted because of his crude and rough personality. It matched and made sense for him to speak that way, and I was careful enough to use his swearing responsibly. Too much of it gets annoying and dull ;)
It would annoy me to no end to see that my character would be censored with such mild profanities like \"damn\", \"darn\", and even worse. I think we are grown ups, and mature enough to know the meaning behind those words. And as the devs put it once or twice before, it is not particularly intended for PlaneShift to be a game rated as \"Everyone\".
In regards to \"1337\" speech, both players and moderators should take care of it. Players asking for the 1337 speaker to drop such \"language\" (If you can call it a language), and moderators informing the player that said kind of behaviour is disruptive, annoying and not allowed.
Originally posted by Thynett
IV/ As few NPC as possible[/size]
(idea already mentionned in an answer before)
Because this way players have to communicate and interact, and communication is the first step to RP. A powerleveller that can play without talking to anyone will never have the idea to try RP.
We only need NPCs for :
- helping newbies to start
- do very boring things (NPC merchants for a guild for instance)
but no NPC that would sell infinite weapons, or buy tons of loots.
(I am waiting for reactions about the beta of Dark and Light, where they put an offline mode, where your offline character becomes a merchant that sells what you collected while being online)
I still hope to see Merchant players. Would it not be fun to haggle with another player\'s character about the price for that silver longsword? \"I say it is 80 trias!\" \"What? Are you insane? I will not part with it for any less than 100 trias!\"
For helping newlies, NPCs are very limited, if not excessively so. A detailed Player\'s Guide, and a few staff assigned to aid new players, should be a more effective.
In key positions, I would very much like to see controlled characters. Some positions, maybe the eight octarchs, may have to be controlled by the staff to see that the government of Yliakum stays in thematic coherence (Sometimes, a player may ignore why the Octarch should choose this decision, due to the existance of plot \"X\", or to open the possibility for plot \"Y\" to happen after event \"Z\"), as well as some other jobs of -extremely- high importance (And I mean, EXTREMELY). This is why, in many MUDs and MUSHes, you see the King, President, Dictator or whoever is in charge of that game world (ICly speaking), being controlled by a staff player.
But Sergeants, Captains, Advisors, Scientists, Secretaries, Craftsmen, Ministers...Those could all be played by responsible players! Why put a limited script in charge of such potentially fun characters?
Originally posted by Thynett
V/ Hide stats[/size]
THAT is a very innovative idea. (i don\'t remember who said it first in this post) You would not say anymore \"I have 500 strengh\" but \"once i was attacked by a group of 5 huge orcs and I killed all of them...\"
It has already been discussed before, so I\'ll make it short : it is a great stem for plots !
Indeed! I totally agree with this. Besides, it would encourage players to have their characters crossing blades (or casting spells at each other) in the Arena! And people would not turn down duels just because \"The other is a level 23, he will beat me all the same!\"
And a discomforting sense of \"Is he truly as strong as he looks like?\" would strike us every once in a while! ;)
...This is not over yet. It continues on the following post. I curse that 12345 character limit!
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Welcome back! And let\'s get this over with!
Originally posted by Thynett
VI/ A strong and alive background[/size]
a) Improve the current background and make it available for everyone : an official library.
For this I would recommand an official site called \"Laanx\'library\" for instance where we could find tons of stories : the official background, player tales, poems etc... this site would look roleplay, and have only roleplay texts. This library woud be the base of the game background. A second site could be used for a FAQ, a player help etc. but it must not mix with the library.
b) A dynamic background : Game Masters.
GMs must be often connected to make alive campains and scenarios that would enlive the whole world. GMs would play important roles (a council member any famous knight back from a caimpain, an orc warlord, a prophet...) that would need the players to solve their problems.
And those GMs could reward (or not) good RPers by increasing their stats (whether their character is \"good\" or \"evil\"). The great point is that if stats are hidden, we won\'t have ppl doing the quests just for XP, since they won\'t even know they have gained any stat ! But rewards are not only stat points ; they can be unique items (unique doesn\'t mean powerful), important social roles, political secrets...
Rewards for good RolePlaying! Yes! Positions, secrets, intrigue...and why not? Perhaps staffers -may- be able to raise your skills just a wee bit, after a very dramatic situation ensued, and the RolePlaying was entertaining.
Originally posted by Thynett
VII/ No immortal character[/size]
I am now reaching more sensitive points. If characters never die, there will be players that will want to make their character the strongest, even if stats are hidden. They will want to kill the biggest mob, to archieve the hardest quest and so on. BUT if your character finlly dies ? What would that powerful character leave behind him ? NOTHING ! The only way for a character to survive after his death is via fame, friends and family.
The only problem here is with elves, krans and klyros that can live hundreds of years old... Well my advice would be to reduce their life expectancy, but maybe I\'m going too far here.
An other aspect is to not forget CHILDREN and OLD PEOPLE. I can not imagine a realistic world with only halthy people between 20 and 40.
This is not hard to implement. Only needs other skins, hairs... to model old characters, and smaller sizes for children. Nothing more ^^
This adds a very important factor, the player\'s attachment to his or her character. \"I do not want the damn drunk Dwarf to die! He is a part of me now!\". This usually leads to less \"hack n\' slashin\' \" and more RolePlaying opportunities, sometimes.
Although I doubt aging will be implemented. And I actually see little reason to code how a character grows from a child to a known old geezer.
But, for example, it would be interesting if each character has a defined age range. Perhaps, during character creation, the player could be given the chance to opt between, \"Teenager\", \"Young adult\", \"Middle aged\", \"Mature\", \"Old\", and so on.
Each would have their own characteristics. Young adults would be more vigorous and energetic, more than likely tire less than someone of the following age range. Although a trained mature man may prove to have the endurance of an ox, perhaps! Depending on how that character has grown up, or probably depending on a few points invested in personal traits!
Children in game is for many a taboo topic. Not many players would like to log on to see pre-teen beggars whimpering in the streets, or perhaps, during an orc raid, witness the crude assault from a warring green beast towards a defenseless child.
Sometimes, certain aspects of life and reality have to be ignored in order to provide a more enjoyable experience. I doubt many would be thrilled by being shown how young lives can be ruined and abused in a tough and competitive world such as Hydlaa.
Children? A discussion for another time, perhaps.
Originally posted by Thynett
VIII/ Open PvP[/size]
Another sensitive point.
Just gives more freedom for more RP possibilities.
And for those that are affraid by pks, here are 2 reason to be confident. First, with no stat or lvl, it would be harder for pks to choose a weak victim. Furthermore, GMs could create a guild, \"Ylakium Guard\", where loyal-good characters are recruted and paid to protect other characters. Each town could even have their own council, and their own guard. How wonderful ! pks have become a new possibility for RP !
However since the idea of \"only PvP in arenas\" has been chosen, I don\'t want to discuss this anymore. I only regret that devs are too shy on this point, with this hybrid solution. All games have the same problem : devs are affraid of any excess, so they don\'t take any risk; It is understantable, but I regret it.
PvP in PlaneShift. Flogging a dead horse? Maybe. But I may take \"PvP in Online RolePlaying\" as a topic for a thread in a not so distant feature, in a galaxy not so far away.
Originally posted by Thynett
IX/ Help newbies to act on a RP way[/size]
Because when you are a newbie, most ofthe time you have never played a MMORPG before ; you try this game because it is free, and you are intimidated by those strange guys speaking on a strange way (i\'m talking about roleplayers). That\'s why they must be helped.
a) character creation : instead of choosing stats, jobs and so on at the character creation, the player would only choose :
- race, sex
- physical aspect (hair, eyes, size, age, build...)
- type down a short description
- type down a short background.
This way, since the very beguining of the character creation, the player knows he\'s in an uncommon game. Of course at the character creation all characters of a same race would have the same stats, but very soon each character would specialise to become unique.
b) we could have a short tutorial for the main gameplay commands (how to attack, to run, to use magic etc.)
c) we have the \"help\" cc I mentionned before.
d) It is each player\'s role to help newbies. When a noob asks \"money plz\", do not ignore him, but tell him \"what are you saying ? I don\'t understand...\" until he understands he must speak properly. And once he asks \"Would you have some money for me Sir ?\" don\'t give it right away, ask him any cheap staff he can easily get, and reward him generousely : that will be his first quest (even if it is basic ^^)
[/QUEST]
Exactly. Not only staff and volunteers should be willing to help newlies. Not all of us have the same patience, I admit. But we should attempt to be welcoming and give them a chance to fit in. Help them as much as you can!
Originally posted by Thynett
X/ Begin as soon as possible[/size]
We must use the beta to build a healthy core of roleplayers, that will help new players to integrate and make a harmonious community. It is obvious that if suddenly 2000 players settle in a few days without any knowledge about RP, we will only have another boring camping so-called RPG.
However I am confident about this, when I see all these active guilds spawning, and the number of people that want to enforce RP.
Precisely. I would be very pleased to see RolePlaying in these releases. And jump into a session if possible, too! And if one does not enforce the expected style of playing from the beginning, it would be a utopia to think that the player base would efficiently adjust when the final release arrives and last, and time for some true RolePlaying is in order.
Rest your eyes, I am sure it has been stressful for them! And thanks for reading another of my endless rants!
Oh, and Davis, I would appreciate if you could at least, keep racist jokes to a minimum. Yes? ;)
- Golbez
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Nah you\'re being too shy. If you have such a scale :
strengh 1 = \"weak\"
strengh 2 = \"normal\"
strengh 3 = \"robust\"
strengh 4 = \"strung\"
strengh 5 = \"can kill 5 orcs\"
and so on, then powerlevellers won\'t be looking for a high level, but for the highest comment. It is just a lexical substitution.
On the other hand, totally invisible stats give no marks for levellers, they have no aim, then they turn more rapidely to RP.
Yeah, now as I consider it again, it seems even worse than the numeric stats, yet hidden stats are still the best solution.
Btw, Golbez, you write well. Hear him!
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I agree with you golbez about all 10 points exept 2: The RP-language and the hiding of stats (probabely for him the most impotant).
RP-language (III):
a. If you should do that, things couldn\'t be clear anymore for player who can\'t speak english very well: i.e. what is the diffrence between good, strong and well-smithed?? But everyone understands +2 is better then +1.
b. I think if it was implemented in the game, it should be possible to disable it. And i don\'t believe it can work, but that doen\'t matter since i just want to disable it.
Hiding of stats (V):
I dont like this idea either but only because I think it is impossible to control. If everyone does this automaticly, it\'s perfect.
I really hope nobody will quote Golbez entire posts to comment it.
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Hello @all,
Hurray, the thread is up again ;)
Something i have to say to annoy nobody:
If i speak about NWN (Neverwinter Nights) the next paragraphs, it is definitively NOT to make any advertising for the game. But i played it much and it is some of my latest online rp-experience. It is only mentioned in order to make things clear and to give some hints what is possible.
1) Character Names
@Golbez: You spoke about LOTR-Char-Names... No doubt, these are apposite names. But remember that Tolkien was a \"professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University\" - not everybody can have the feeling for the _right_ name. At least names are hollow words. Of course they can improve and affect roleplay, but should not do it in a big way.
Additional thoughts about \"visible\" ON-Lists:
In NWN you have a two-sided message window. Left side you get all your personal messages (i will come to this topic at the next point), right side you have the \"server\" window. In this server window you get all server related messages: Login/Logout of a player (only Login Name visible - Login Name = your account at Bioware and unique worldwide through all NWN-Players), script errors, server messages from an admin. For the player it is a form of recognizing... he can see, who is going on/off. Additional you can ask for a char list, which lists all connected characters (only with their char name). I know players, which connect to the server, walk the char list and if there are only unknown names, they disconnect before entering the world.
It is a \"feature\", but not good for roleplay. It destroys roleplay. ( And i hate to say that, because sometimes i am also like to see, if a special person is ingame ). But that opens group behaviour and ooc interpreted information windows and doors. You should come in, where you left the game last time, you should only have information, what you see in your view (except you have magical power). Else it should not possible to know, which player acts in which region of the game. Or i am wrong? Would like to discuss this.
2) Communication between Players
I did not like the idea of (too many) channels. To many channels can ruin the game. You must click through the whole channel list, to get something to talk with? I think, the OOC-Brackets (if really necessary), the OOC-Areas and the DM-Channel are enough for newbies. If they want to roleplay, they will take the help there, if not... they do not need any help!
On our server we have rich use of the different NWN-engine prepared \"channels\" (NWN does it name channel, but i would recommend: communication kinds).
There are 6 different kinds of communication:
+ shout (seen by: all player in the game): On our server this is restricted. Only allowed by DMs. Cause in the beginning we had something like: \"Big bards contest on xxx-Tavern.\" That interrupts the roleplay of the others. If players really needs a broadcast, they can ask the DM by its channel.
+ talk (seen by: all players on screen)
+ party (seen by: all players in the same party independend of location)
+ DM (seen by: only logged in DM)
+ whisper (seen by: players in the range of 1-2 meters)
+ tell (seen by: only the specified player, aka private message)
One additional wish would be \"by language\". So it make sense to invest some skill points on their special elfen language and only others with this talent can \"understand\" you. In game that could be so, that you see the other people speaking, but getting only wrong words and sentences with no sense.
3) limit non-rp language
nothing to say, for game objects i think this would be nice (but not easy... to find many different words ;)
4) only few NPC
Only some words: You can not play all roles by players. Nobody is ever on. Nobody has all authority. Not all children, church priests, farmers and dracos could be played by humans. (the \"normal\" dragon sits for years in its cave... a really enjoyable role for a player.)
5) Hide Stats
Uhm.. i think, players really need something to compare. That is the same as in RL. The human being grows with their comparison to other humans. Else you are soon playing on a plain social server... But, what is needed, are skills, which really make sense. And an engine, which gives you _enough_ possibilities. Remember a Planeshift, where it is possible, that a weak but clever dressmaker can defeat the tumb warrior throug tactical and strategical ideas. Or - and that is the question - there are no engine fight, and all fights are on an emotional base, e.g. \"pricks with the dagger fast in the direction of your heart\", \"the steel can not pierce the thick armor\"...
6) A strong and alive background
We have discussed this very controversial. In NWN you can have an information sheet about any player char. This sheet does not contain any statistical information, only the hint, if the player is very weak/strong (written in this words) and some of the \"visible special\" skills. The other information visible is only the character description, entered on character creation by the player. The question is now: What should the player put in here? We got many different answers. From \"the whole maintenance history\" till \"nothing\". At least we meet at the following: This data should only contain things, which the player sees, if he is not blind, but the engine could not display (that is: pointed ears, any scars and fresh wounds, special cloathes, approximately age, ...). All other things, his history, background, etc. can you get from him on an evening at a campfire. Otherwise information from outside the game, from outside the _roleplay_, would come ingame.
An Example: The dwarfen king Iztmir - played by XYZ - has brought peace to an area of Planeshift. Not only this, he is an acceptable fighter and one of the five old mages of the ring of the sages... If you read this on a website and then meet him ingame... what do you have to him? Well, RESPECT! But it comes from information out of game. Such a respect should come ingame by talking about him, reading about him in a book which is located in an ingame library. If you never heard from him, meet him and think, you can insult him... it is really ok, that he knocks out you with only a finger snip.
7) No immortal character & 8) PvP
Can write a book about this topic ;) Enough said... you got it, i think.
9) Help newbies to act on a RP way & 10) Begin as soon as possible
Nothing to add. :tup:
br, Winterheaven.
p.s. tried to make it as short as possible and hopefully without to much NWN-influence and with not bad english...
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Originally posted by Winterheaven
1) Character Names
@Golbez: You spoke about LOTR-Char-Names... No doubt, these are apposite names. But remember that Tolkien was a \"professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University\" - not everybody can have the feeling for the _right_ name. At least names are hollow words. Of course they can improve and affect roleplay, but should not do it in a big way.
there are automatic generators of names. (like in DAoC) We could impement an optionnal one for players that don\'t have ideas.
2) Communication between Players
I did not like the idea of (too many) channels. To many channels can ruin the game. You must click through the whole channel list, to get something to talk with?
There are 6 different kinds of communication:
+ shout (seen by: all player in the game)
+ talk (seen by: all players on screen)
+ party (seen by: all players in the same party independend of location)
+ DM (seen by: only logged in DM)
+ whisper (seen by: players in the range of 1-2 meters)
+ tell (seen by: only the specified player, aka private message)
I think players should have the choice if they want lots of channels or not. Then if you prefer to be quiet you only keep one or 2 interresting. And if you want to have many private conversations (IC or OCC) you must have the possibility to have many channels, otherwise players will be forced to use generic channels for private chats, which would disturb everyone.
4) only few NPC
Only some words: You can not play all roles by players. Nobody is ever on. Nobody has all authority. Not all children, church priests, farmers and dracos could be played by humans. (the \"normal\" dragon sits for years in its cave... a really enjoyable role for a player.)
wrong ! When I played the 4th coming, I played a children for almost 2 years and i LOVED it ! I had friends playing clercs, beggars, blind men, cooks, even prostitutes ! Any role outside the hero is wonderful to play. I even can\'t understand what\'s interresting in being a brave dragonslayer or a terrific demon master.
However discussion about ageing is useless since it is too complicated to implement at this stage of developpement (which I regret sooooooooooo much :\'( )
5) Hide Stats
Uhm.. i think, players really need something to compare. That is the same as in RL. The human being grows with their comparison to other humans. Else you are soon playing on a plain social server... But, what is needed, are skills, which really make sense.
As a human, do you have stats tatooed on your skin ? No, but you know that this friend of yours is stronger than you, that he runs faster, that he plays chest better but you are betgter at starcraft than him. Why do you know that ? Not because of a number saying hoiw good you are. But because you have challenged your friend, and now you can compare with him.
Hiding stats is just the same but in a RPG.
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Alright! Nice arguments. Let us see...
Originally posted by Taldor
I agree with you golbez about all 10 points exept 2: The RP-language and the hiding of stats (probabely for him the most impotant).
RP-language (III):
a. If you should do that, things couldn\'t be clear anymore for player who can\'t speak english very well: i.e. what is the diffrence between good, strong and well-smithed?? But everyone understands +2 is better then +1.
b. I think if it was implemented in the game, it should be possible to disable it. And i don\'t believe it can work, but that doen\'t matter since i just want to disable it.
I do not agree with \"things wouldn\'t be clear anymore\". Perhaps the game will not have that structured mathematical feel to it. Which is fine by me, by the way. Not that I have a dislike towards math, quite the contrary, actually!
But remember, we also possess visual aids in this game. If done correctly, a better weapon not only would be described with a \"stronger\" adjective, but it would also -look- more powerful.
There could also be a certain \"Weapon Lore\" skill, or trait, which allows the character to effectively compare two weapons in his possession. A wiser, more experienced warrior could be able to decide if this bronze longsword or this steel claymore is more suitable for his needs, as well as a mage would be able to discern whether that tome he found in the body of an evil orc shaman allows him to cast more powerful spells than the one he received at the Wizard Academy, or so on!
And for the record, English is not my native language. But you would not believe how online RolePlaying benefited my grasp on the language. I still bump against the occasional cultural barrier, but it does not feel nearly as insurmountable as before.
Plus, dictionary.com worked wonders ;)
English students should also think of this as a possibility. Learn new expressions as you play a game you enjoy! It is a \"no lose\" situation, no? :) As long as you do not get helplessly addicted and never neglect your study books, it will be productive, I reckon.
Originally posted by Taldor
Hiding of stats (V):
I dont like this idea either but only because I think it is impossible to control. If everyone does this automaticly, it\'s perfect.
Originally posted by Winterheaven
5) Hide Stats
Uhm.. i think, players really need something to compare. That is the same as in RL. The human being grows with their comparison to other humans. Else you are soon playing on a plain social server... But, what is needed, are skills, which really make sense. And an engine, which gives you _enough_ possibilities. Remember a Planeshift, where it is possible, that a weak but clever dressmaker can defeat the tumb warrior throug tactical and strategical ideas. Or - and that is the question - there are no engine fight, and all fights are on an emotional base, e.g. \"pricks with the dagger fast in the direction of your heart\", \"the steel can not pierce the thick armor\"...
Precisely. If hidden stats are implemented, there should be no way for the player to circle around the system and find out what skill level his character possesses.
Of course, this is not to say that in character creation, you would not be able to decide the relative strength, intelligence, will, charisma, and other similar traits. If they are described with a word that escalates progressively as the trait is increased, then it would add a lot to the atmosphere, in my opinion.
Granted, the human being can be excessively competitive and eager to compare himself with others of his kind. But what prevents your character from joining a tournament of sorts, or pick a fight in the arena? I think you would be more than able to make a comparison if you take advantage of the limited PvP system.
Originally posted by Winterheaven
You should come in, where you left the game last time, you should only have information, what you see in your view (except you have magical power). Else it should not possible to know, which player acts in which region of the game. Or i am wrong? Would like to discuss this.
I have been startled to see how many similar suggestions have been put forward. It is an ever increasing tendency to wish for the game to give the player the limited information that would be available to the character.
Are you meaning that the game should only tell you which players are online in your region? And what about those in other regions? I would like to be able to communicate with them as well.
I think this is not an effective approach. We all know how easy it is for players to apply OOC knowledge in IC ways, even if it is evident that the character would not be aware of such information.
The easiest and most blatant example is character A approaching character B, both having never met or heard of each other. But still character A would call out to B, and mention his name, \"Hello, Bill!\"
However, I doubt that reducing the amount of information displayed to the player will solve this. Players should, in fact, know more about the world and happenings than the character! The player should be as learned in the ways of the virtual world as possible, so that the RolePlaying can be more coherent, more enjoyable.
You cannot prevent players from not forming a tight and closed clique, causing them to disconnect ten seconds after logging on and realising none of his friends is online. It is natural! Everyone seeks to get together with those he or she feels confortable with, and I mean this from a player\'s point of view.
I still make the effort, in many games, to stay online and wander about, meeting new people, when none of the characters my persona knows is online. But many choose otherwise, and it is fine! I sometimes tend to invite other characters through an OOC invitation, \"I will be heading to Kada-El\'s tavern. If you want to RolePlay a scene, maybe have our characters meet, then you are welcome to come!\".
It encourages some players to play with you, sometimes. If you do not make the effort to invite other players to interact with you (using the method you want), you cannot really blame them for not doing so, can you? ;)
Originally posted by Winterheaven
1) Character Names
@Golbez: You spoke about LOTR-Char-Names... No doubt, these are apposite names. But remember that Tolkien was a \"professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University\" - not everybody can have the feeling for the _right_ name. At least names are hollow words. Of course they can improve and affect roleplay, but should not do it in a big way.
I do not expect a world with the depth of Tolkien\'s to be designed by the settings team. Tolkien had a particular fanatism for details and conceived the idea of a world that was practically perfectly described. One would be able to see, using the limitless power of imagination, what life in Middle Earth was like.
It is a dreadfully wearisome effort to think of all those details. A particular sound names for the names of each race is a fine example of this. But does it not add a certain depth to the world, by being shown that specias are not only physically different, but also present cultural inequalities?
Originally posted by Winterheaven
4) only few NPC
Only some words: You can not play all roles by players. Nobody is ever on. Nobody has all authority. Not all children, church priests, farmers and dracos could be played by humans. (the \"normal\" dragon sits for years in its cave... a really enjoyable role for a player.)
Of course! Player times and the restricted playing hours play a vital role in an online game where people from all over the world log on.
I already expressed my opinion about the downside of the presence of children, albeit it detracts from the believability of the world (Although some games implemented children, and they can be seen playing in the streets at 4 am in the morning ;)), there are certain issues with their participation in a game where so much combat and death is palpable.
Who is to say, that a church priest cannot leave the church? Particularly in fantastic worlds, where clerics and priests have a place in strategical combat. Perhaps the priest would hold a session every particular day at a particular hour, or leave the care of the church to one of his underlings.
Dragons? They are not a playable race, you do not have to worry about that! ;)
With a bit of effort, though, a player can turn a seemingly boring profession into a fun to play character. Or at least, fun to play from a personal perspective :D
Originally posted by Winterheaven
I did not like the idea of (too many) channels. To many channels can ruin the game.
As I said, if the amount of channels is cumbersome to you, you can always toggle a few of them off. And the suggested system would allow you to invite friends and guildmates to a channel created by you!
Certainly, players must try not to get carried away by the chatting, and RolePlay! ;)
Originally posted by Winterheaven
6) A strong and alive background
The choice for describing the details that cannot be shown by the player\'s skin would be welcome. What should be written here, you say? Well, I would list a few that I think would be a must.
The apparent age is a definite one, although it should not be accepted to have a century old character appearing to be a teenager ;) Scars, marks, tattoos that may be visible or not, etcetera. If the character has an accent when he speaks, or a particular expression that usually adorns his face.
The entire background of the character is unnecessary, because that should be discovered by RolePlaying with him, interacting, asking, talking, gossiping about him, among other things. Still, it would be helpful for the player to include which in game relatives his character has, a very concise description of the public thoughts on the individual: Is he well liked by the general population? Perhaps despised? His scars tend to cause people to withdraw? He appears to be shy, introvert, arrogant?
Players should feel free to write whatever they want, being careful enough not to use an impressive amount of words or describe their characters with one meager sentence.
That is all for now! Until next time, keep the ideas coming!
Oh, and I wonder who would read a book on online RPGs and PvP...;)
- Golbez
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I fully support hiding stats, for all the reasons Golbez stated. Golbez rhox and you should all listen to him or be smited.
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I think i forgot something to say about \"good or +2\". I think it\'s (rather) easy to make an option to disable or enable those options about he adjectives. And idon\'t think it makes it much easier, because if you understand the meaning perfectly, then there is not much diffrence between \"good\" or \"+2\".
Golbez: A website is also good.
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to golbez
hmm for the past few weeks i think, i have been reeding most of ur points/posts and seriously i wouldnt be suprised if ur a lawyer, anyway true roleplaying reely only existed in those MUDS i think they are called that u know those cheep text based games and similar stuff to that anyway if you have noticed when technology moves on in our case being able to construct better games, graphics etc, the whole pure roleplaying thing kept going down as in no1 reely roleplayed no more, i guess coz of the increase in games, graphics n such most people dont feel the need to roleplay or have never reely herd of the proper way to roleplay, anyway i think 90% of people think roleplaying is lvling up, equipment, armour, swords, abilities, quests and etc, and it reely is without that roleplayin theatre thing u say, thats how i think of a roleplaying game and as time moves on all the game industries will move away from the pure roleplaying thing and itll just be what i mentioned lvl up and so on, its just the way of roleplaying is gettin rejected and you can never fix that seriously you reely cant do anyfin about that, you can keep trying but you will end up dead trying, maybe you can post here from heaven or hell, most likely hell wont have computers its hell down there so why would hell have computers anyway jus remember dont murder the RPG company admins if they don listen to or ur goin down(hell) yeh and i know that joke is and was lame
and also sry for tha bad grammar but thats they way i write
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@Davis: \"Golbez rhox and you should all listen to him or be smited.\" ... Please let him on the earth ;)
@Golbez & Thynett: Can\'t agree at all.
Concerning naming schema: I would only say, that it is a good thing to have a login-name (which could be Winterheaven1971, cause it is not easy to find a name, which is unique worldwide and not already choosen) and the char name (which can be doubled and should be match the char background).
Concerning only few NPC: It is not the question, IF someone can have fun with playing a church priest (if you read my first post, i mentioned that the concept of everybody-is-a-hero is one of the main rp-killers). The question is, if you can find for every village, town, etc. the children, priests, etc. you need. And should the nice built church empty, the tavern closed? Only because nobody want to play the owner? Should there be no childs on the streets, because you do not find the players?
Concerning background description: We agree perfectly.
Concerning communication & name-list: NO! NO! NO!
How many channels do you want to have simultaneous? I spoke about 6 different communication _kinds_ - all messages appear on the same window (but colored to get their source). Is that your understanding of RP? To have during the conversion on screen with some adventurers 3 additional channelwindows open and talk also there about the new equipment for another guild member with a player sitting in another building?
Besides the very bad style of writing Avallok meets a grain of truth. IF you want to have a \"private friends\" channel, a \"roleplay\" channel, a \"guild of arches\" channel and talk to everybody, you can make this in ICQ, on a social server or in the old text base mud. Of course, before the graphic, sound and processor revolution we had only the bbs and the texts. And so we took the empty screen for our act. But now we have all things together and we should not use only a plain meadow for the game.
I made the experience, that it is very difficult for many people to distinguish between IC and OOC. And only a few people are able to play 2 chars in the same world (if we speak about correct behaviour). Roleplaying does not mean to speak about drinking, fighting, crafting... to speak only in emotes... if it is so, you need no impressive game engine... only simple multi-chat-program.
And the namelist is the wrongest concept at all. It should not be a feature to know, who is on. Such knowledge should only available through powerful items or magical wisdom. This On-List breaks not only the roleplay, it breaks general play. Of course we like to act in groups with our friends side by side, but... think ingame: IF the friendly adventurer moved to another town to meet his son and you moved to this damned wood to save your old fighting teacher, WHY should you have later ingame the opportunity to talk with this friend. Meet him OOC, or make a date, when you will meet at this and that village (of course BEFORE you devide in different directions).
Give the people a stage, a platform to act... make it playable as good as you can, but neither do them force for strict roleplay nor give them all to destroy any deep playing concept... that should be the target of any RP-Game.
br, Winterheaven.
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You guys are complete opposites.
And I like Golbez, so...
Planeshift is free
Thusly, Planeshift can be modified in ways commercial games cannot be. ;)
(Including Roleplaying enforcement, Mwahahaha!)
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Originally posted by Taldor
I think i forgot something to say about \"good or +2\". I think it\'s (rather) easy to make an option to disable or enable those options about he adjectives. And idon\'t think it makes it much easier, because if you understand the meaning perfectly, then there is not much diffrence between \"good\" or \"+2\".
Yeah, so?
Avallok: Yes, it\'s the way you write, and I can barely read the way you write.
Originally posted by Winterheaven
Concerning only few NPC: It is not the question, IF someone can have fun with playing a church priest (if you read my first post, i mentioned that the concept of everybody-is-a-hero is one of the main rp-killers). The question is, if you can find for every village, town, etc. the children, priests, etc. you need. And should the nice built church empty, the tavern closed? Only because nobody want to play the owner? Should there be no childs on the streets, because you do not find the players?
But PCs should be able to run plots and quests, not just have them all be NPC-run. Yes, we need someone to be in the church 24/7. A PC can\'t do that. WE need an NPC. But does every quest, every storyline, have to be focused around NPCs?
If you think anybody was saying we should have vacancys simply because there were no PCs to fill them, then either you are missing the point or I am missing an idiot.
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Originally posted by Davis
Originally posted by Taldor
I think i forgot something to say about \"good or +2\". I think it\'s (rather) easy to make an option to disable or enable those options about he adjectives. And idon\'t think it makes it much easier, because if you understand the meaning perfectly, then there is not much diffrence between \"good\" or \"+2\".
Yeah, so?
Thx, I didn\'t expect so much apreciation for my opinion.
Originally posted by Davis
Avallok: Yes, it\'s the way you write, and I can barely read the way you write.
Avallok, it doesn\'t matter the way you write. As long it is readable, only the content matters (for me).
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...if it is readable.
Anywho, showing non-english players that \"Well-smithed\" is better than \"Fairly-smithed\" could be accomplished by using a chart in the player guide. End of story.
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A lawyer? Nah...my brother is the lawyer, I learn to argument and defend my position by discussing with him ;) I am a graphic design student.
Anyway, to respond to Avallok. Yes, it is -very- true that since graphics took over the gaming industry, first via sprites, then making the huge leap to a fully three dimensional world, there is not such a need for the player to imagine what the virtual game world is like. Why should you? You see the trees, the houses, the creatures. All exquisitely drawn and animated (or not ;)). Not to mention the sound effects and even music that emphasises the sentiments provoked by a certain scene or area.
But is the human mind weak enough to succumb to these mere conjunction of blinking pixels in our monitor and sound waves emitted by the speakers? If so, I would be immensely disappointed at the capacity we have to use our imagination.
RolePlaying, again, is not the mere usage of the features given to us by the game. RolePlaying is surrounding yourself in an imaginary world, be teleported to another universe, where you take over a character of your choice and live his or her life.
Graphics and sounds do not murder that possibility. They limit it, in certain ways. For example, I probably will not be able to glare at that character that has just upset mine, or skilfully dance with that woman who owns his heart. But there are many other possibilities as well.
You say \"i think 90% of people think roleplaying is lvling up, equipment, armour, swords, abilities, quests and etc, and it reely is without that roleplayin theatre thing u say\", I say RolePlaying IS a theatre play, and removing the storytelling aspect of it is detracting the core itself of the concept.
Regarding names, one thing is the login name, which can be whatever construction and hodge podge of words and numbers that comes out of your head. But character names is a whole different deal. And they should match the world the character is in.
\"Souleater_2000\", \"I_pwn_j00\" and other similar manners of non-thematic concoctions should be strictly forbidden.
To the point of channels, whoever said that talking in all of the channels would be the very esence of RolePlaying? But there are many possibilities for using a liberal channel system.
A public channel, for all to hear, is a necessity. Why? Because the player community must be in touch. Why? Because! How one would expect to organise plots, conflicts and engulf the world with alluring stories of mystery and intrigue if you do not even know who is the guy playing the character next to you?
A guild channel. Because certain announcements have to be made public to the guild members. Player absences, the fact that a new report is available at the headquarters, reminders for meetings, etcetera.
Obviously, the possibility of paging other players, or \"whispering\", if you prefer. Simply to say \"Hi\", or to say, \"Would it be fine with you if my character approaches and does X action?\". Consent based RolePlaying should also be enforced, since we are at it ;)
And personal channels. Why yes, the ability to create your own channel, invite only the people you want to invite, and discuss what you wish to discuss. Why is this useful? If a plot involves five people, mainly, including you, then you can invite the other four players and discuss details, key events, meetings, and decide if the outcome of the plot is acceptable for everyone.
That is, with a little more detail, how I pictured the system. It detracts from RolePlaying? I do not think so, they are tools that allow the player to organise and make things run as smooth as silk...or at least try to!
I sincerely do not understand the upside of removing an \"Online list\". What is the point? I, as a player, WANT to know if my character\'s ally is online, or his nemesis is present, to be aware of the possibility of an upcoming scene.
I as a player wish to know if X player is currently in the game, to relay the message of a meeting in a designated day, to tell him I will be absent for this or that amount of time, to remind him of an upcoming event, or for crying out loud, I want to see if a friend is online so I can at least say \"Hi\"! (OOCly speaking, of course)
To allow only the owners of certain artifacts, or the casters of determinate spells to be aware of who is online and who is not, is ludicrous. Firstly, it does not make any sense to require an IC tool to be displayed OOC information.
Or do characters disappear in an endless void when the players disconnect? I like to think that characters go to their homes and get some rest, or take a room at an inn, or whatever excuse you wish to use to explain the fact that they are unreachable for a prolonged moment.
Who is online and who is not, is a reality, it is part of our lives outside the game. Why involve skills and items that have to be paid for or trained for, in game, to receive this information?
You said to give the people the stage, and the platform to act. Excellent, you have the world, the skill system, the items, and whatever coding and programming you can think of.
But also show them who they can act with. Not knowing who is out there is extremely discouraging for a player.
True, for RolePlaying, you do not need graphics, sounds, not even internet! Grab a piece of paper, a pencil and an eraser. Then have a bunch of friends get together and use a pair of die to entertain ourselves. It is, indeed, lots of fun.
But if we all followed that example, online RPGs would not exist, would them?
PlaneShift can become the FIRST free online game to offer a true RolePlaying experience, accompanied with three dimensional graphics, enrapturing sounds, and all else you can think of.
I see the enormous potential, and I would like to see the developers taking advantage of it. If they fail, or if the players fail, then it will be a great shame. But I will still have my MUDs and my text games to RolePlay with. And believe me, those fantastic nail-biting moments in which your character is taking a huge leap, and actually making history in the game, last longer in your mind than the time in which you bashed five orcs all by yourself with the sword of butt-kicking +1.
About the empty positions that may or may not be filled by a player, I would not worry about them much. If the staff comments at their site, \"Look! We have this open positions for your any interesting characters! The IC rewards are X, Y and Z!\", then the majority of them will be taken.
You just need to give the characters a reason to assume the burden of a job and its inherent responsibility.
- Golbez
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Speaking of Theatre, perhaps you could write a few scenes for us to play Golbez. ;)
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The reason I like PS is that the devs and players can never \"fail\" at creating the ideal MMORPG - as the old saying goes, you haven\'t failed until you\'ve given up!
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With the intention of adding a humorous touch, although there is indeed a message in this post, I will proffer to the members of this boards a link to the artwork of Chris Coutts: \"Tales for the l337\" (http://myboringlife.com/l33t/romeo.html).
This is the effect of the degradation of the English language online, and the crossover between thematic and non-thematic expressions and information.
Exactly how a wonderful play such as Romeo and Juliet was, in this case, completely destroyed (although for a comical effect), then another theatric event, such as RolePlaying, can be ruined as well.
Warning: It contains some adult speech, blah blah. Nothing worse that what you can find in this forum.
PS: I am sorry William, but all good plays are victims of parodies. Take it as a compliment! ;)
- Golbez
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i think that l33t sp33k is just how the english language evolves again. it is necessary... also we are studying romeo and juliet in our english class... im so going to reccomend this....
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Originally posted by whemyfield
i think that l33t sp33k is just how the english language evolves again. it is necessary... also we are studying romeo and juliet in our english class... im so going to reccomend this....
The English language is a thing of beauty.
Your 1337 sp33|< is the naturally occuring trashing of a beautiful thing.
Evolution? OMG j00 R tEh sUxOrZ!!!!!!111
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that just doesnt add up anyways. how did we get to speaking like this? the trashing of the english language of course. its just how language evolves. using slang untill it gets imbeded into our brains. people already say stuff like aw-m-guh for OMG when they are speaking sometimes. its just how the english language works. adopting till your nuts hurt.
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Say whatever you want, but l337 speech is a leap backwards in the history of alphabetism ;)
It is not evolution, it is the opposite process, a regression to a more primitive, poorer, and limited form of communication.
Glorifying it, embracing it, adopting it...Big mistakes, from where I see it. Our languages have had thousands of years of modifications and adaptations. But l337 is a parody of a language.
That is why I dislike it. I despise it. Personally, if the decision was in my hands, I would forbid its use in a RolePlaying game or community that is under my moderation.
But currently, that choice is not mine. Oh well!
- Golbez
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Good post Golbez, just to show that I have been paying attention:
Aye, I hear ya Golbez! It seems this world is not what it once was! In the good \'ol days all ya had to do was worry about the Orcs and golblins taken your children, now it has gotten so ya have to speek in numbers and letters all the time. And the world has turned evil! Even the forest healers are killin these days! While just yesturday I was in the forest hunting rabbits and a saw a one of the forest folk trackin down animals and magically settin em on fire! Then it got wierder. He came over to me and offered to buy all the animal pelts I had for a rediculously high price! When I refused, and qestioned his betrayal of forest, he said \"L-O-L\". I left in a hurry, ill tell you! I am not sure what evil hex he was castin on me!
So ya say your questing to put end to the evil OOC king! Aye now that is a quest worthy of my steel! I was fixin to deliever a letter for my Master today, so he would reward me with few copper pieces and increase my skill in swordsmanship, But your quest is far more worthy. And to tell you the truth, I think he is gone batty, I have delievered the same letter 20 times this week alone! And I mean the exact same letter!
Pen and paper was too slow for me, but quests were quests!
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okay ... i really need to speak with my uncle more often (his a lawyer)
i agree with golbez
with the additon of graphics and sound effects this makes role-playing easier instead of strangleing it
it was the power gamers that killed role playing
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hi all!
I did not read the whole thread, only the first post and some on the last page.
1. about the \"hiding stats\" issue
I think, hiding the stats of an item is always a good idea (not only to encourage \"roleplaying\" - I put that in quotes, see below why). how would a warrior know that the long sword he just looted from the corpse of his fallen enemy is a \"+5 long sword\"? he might use it for bashing more monsters and realize \"hey it does good damage!\", but that\'s all.
on the other hand, if I was a person interested in magic and if I was living in a world where magic weapons exist, I might be interested in studying these things. and maybe one day I would find out that there is such a thing as a \"damage modifier\" on many weapons, and that this \"damage modifier\" can be characterized by an integral number. and finally I might find that the \"+n\" notation is very practical to describe such weapons.
and if I was a merchant selling magic weapons, and someone else has discovered the \"damage modifiers\" before and invented the \"+n\" notation, I would certainly advertise a weapon as the above as a \"+5 long sword\".
so what\'s wrong with that?
I think the only thing wrong is that every dumb barbarian knows the stats of every weapon he finds immediately. this can easily be prevented by hiding the stats.
another objection might be that the \"+n\" notation seems a bit simplistic. that\'s true, but why should a notation be less simplistic than the system behind it? this brings us to another solution: make the magic system more complex. and soon people won\'t say \"+5 long sword\" any more because it wouldn\'t characterize the item well enough.
but believe me: as long as something can be expressed in numbers, people will express it in numbers, because numbers are ... well ... they have their advantages. that\'s why we are using them, right? and a medieval person (provided he can count at all) would prefer numbers for the same reasons as a modern person would. (it would be bad roleplaying indeed if a barbarian who can\'t count to 15 without taking his shoes off knows what a \"+15 long sword\" is...)
2. about roleplaying in general
I wonder why discussions about this subject always end up in discussions about language. as if that was all that roleplaying is about. it\'s not! roleplaying is not theatre (that contradicts with golbez first post. Well, I disagree with him).
the problem is this: if all that you can do in a game is trading and monster bashing, then what are you supposed to talk about with other players? you guessed right: it\'s trading and monster bashing. and when that gets boring, well, you may kill the time in between by talking about soccer, movies, chicks and whatever is interesting.
So my point is that if players in an RPG (yeah, I say \"players\", not \"characters\") are talking about OOC stuff, then something is wrong with the game, not with the players. if you want players to talk about IC stuff, give them something to talk about. make the virtual world interesting. the ideal should be that the game world is so fascinating that players can\'t stop talking about it in real life! no game which doesn\'t archieve this will hold me for longer than half a year I guess...
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Good post, and welcome to the PS forums Azasello.
I agree with your thinking, the more content in the game the easier it will be to roleplay.
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Hmm, I thought I had already registered.
This thread has left me somewhat confused. I did not read it entirely, far from it, but I think I got the gist of it. The problem I have is, what is being expected of the game, and more to the point, from the players?
As I understood it, the devs are making a game they thought they\'d like to play. Fashioning it after current MMORPGs out there, open for all. As Avallok stated, or atleast what I think he was saying, despite the games being called RPGs, they have precious little to do with role playing. This (exp grinding) is what most of the players will expect.
So, while it is of course possible to restrict the player base and it is of course possible to create mechanics and design that cater a certain playing style, and at the same time a certain group of players, it is not possible to have all players expect the same kind of a game. A free one at that. I believe that despite whatever preparations you take it is entirely up to the players how they play the game, and thus without some extreme measures in player selection high levels of RP can not be achieved.
For example, the methods Thynett posted would certainly drive away a lot of the players and could help towards an RP oriented game. I\'m not saying this should not be done. I am saying if it is done it should be done as conscious and clear decision to offer an RP oriented MMORPG. More than any restrictions, making that choice will encourage RP. However, that\'s a choice a part of the community talking on the forums can not make alone.
Of course any player, or a group of players can try to play any game as they wish, but that is hardly what this thread is about.
The issue reminds me of an article by Richard Bartle. I suppose most of you are familiar with him, but here\'s the link. http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm It\'s about different player types and fits the issue I think. For those unawares, there\'s also a test that you can take to find out where you fit in. http://www.andreasen.org/bartle/
Personally I can enjoy RP, but find a relaxed and mature environment far more important and rewarding than strict RPing. The path of RPing simply does not lend terribly well to computer games. Atleast to me it does not. There simply are too many game mechanics I have to take care of to merit the suspension.
Not that I would be that excellent a roleplayer in the first place. I simply play an exaggerated version of myself. But I do think a good tabletop session can be quite illuminating, besides good fun.
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New to the forums and new to the game, and of course, I have my opinion.
I just left a game that is known for its RP and its intolerance of nonRP people. It is actually been left by the wayside of the gamehosts and been up to the players for the most part completely. I left because they are charging to much for a text based game, but it was an addictive world because of its players (who some are great friends of mine now.) I do feel the future is in graphics, and as the technology develops, so will the games. In the future we will be able to glare at another player, wear clothing we designed, and emote a grand variety of emotions, ideas, and feelings.
I come here to help it, because I believe in open source, I believe in players abilities, and I am willing to learn as much as I can. I hope in the next few months, you will see Milafaer evolve into a well rounded charector, who you will enjoy playing with, conversating with, and hunting with.
I say this because I think that simply by setting the example, RPers will eventually take over and be the example others want to follow. If you were new, you might run off and join the the people who are screaming inanities because you can see its something you can relate to, but if you like the game, and you like the idea, you will eventually be a RPer, and enjoy the friendship of the majority who are patient, willing and wonderful to interact with. Eventually, non Rpers will leave, and it will be a MMORPG, not a MMOG.
The occasion will be heralded by all, and soon enough it will not be an issue, but a golden bonus of joining such a game.
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Originally posted by Golbez
Say whatever you want, but l337 speech is a leap backwards in the history of alphabetism ;)
It is not evolution, it is the opposite process, a regression to a more primitive, poorer, and limited form of communication.
Glorifying it, embracing it, adopting it...Big mistakes, from where I see it. Our languages have had thousands of years of modifications and adaptations. But l337 is a parody of a language.
I agree completely. And also, it\'s very hard to read by non-english players like me, who aren\'t accustomed to it. So most of the time I just ignore people who speak this way, coz I just can\'t understand them.
And it looks ugly too.
And about stats. I think stats shouldn\'t be visible to everyone, only characters with enough knowledge (or experience) should be able to \"examine\" them. Normal player who doesn\'t know much about weapons would get only description how the weapon \"seems\" to be good.
That\'s how I imagine it.
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What a complete waste of time. I understand the angle your coming from but from what I gathered, your suggestions are simply beyond reach at this stage. The technology in MMORPG\'s is not up to the task yet.
Your comments about the way in which people sell weapons. For me this is the role playing experience. You dont see people selling things like this in reality, nor do you get various monsters roaming the streets waiting to be killed. It is an alternate reality/world and thus the language differs.
I prefer to see 1337 speak as just a different form of language. Congratulations to those that can understand it. It was infact used by hackers back in the 1980s as a form of communication that administators could not understand.
Stats are not worth seeing. You get a vague idea of a characters level buy looking at the armour or weapon they are using and looking that particular items level up on some database. This is possible in other MMORPG\'s I have played.
Concering character names. Have a login name that can be comprised of any combination of letters and numbers and a seperate character name that must be a little more conservative and restricted to match the games atmosphere. In the case where 2 players choose the same character name. Have a system that temporarily or permanently puts I (the 1st) or II (the 2nd) etc etc. Or a system that offers the same effect. This would eliminate confusion somewhat.
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Cirque, while I appreciate that 1337 was at one point a code, if you will, it isn\'t too hard to understand now. Most people can read it, even if it takes a bit of effort. And since we aren\'t sending any sort of encrypted messages while playing PS, all it does is make communication slower and more difficult--the antithesis of language.
As to the suggestion that everyone RP--I\'m all for roleplaying and keeping in character, but sometimes nothing beats a bit of mindless monster bashing. I think it\'s great when people put extra effort towards making their characters and actions believable, but sometimes you just want to buy the damn sword for 100 gold and be gone, without having to worry about acting through the whole experience.
RP = good. Always RP or DIE = bad.
Anyways, those are my two cents. =3
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if you are ingame you roleplay automaticly i mean if your
in a bar or whatever you don\'t talk about what happend that day to you outside the game :p you talk about things ingame like things you\'ve done places you\'ve been to monsters you killed etc
i think it will happen automaticly:p...at least i hope so :)
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Originally posted by Arberar
you talk about things ingame like things you\'ve done places you\'ve been to monsters you killed etc
i think it will happen automaticly:p...at least i hope so :)
This will not happen automatically, unfortunately. Take a look at runescape for example. There are always a lot of players online, but apart from monster bashing and mining, nothing happens.
If you are in a bank in that game and there are like 50 people in there the only hting that happens is people trying to access their accounts.
The only \'roleplaying\' in that game is done by people begging for money or items, or people leveling up a character of a friend of them.
So roleplaying is not something that happens automatically, it should be encouraged. And endless monster bashing shouldn\'t.
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What is the game-that-shall-not-be-named? I saw it several times so makes me curious. *hopes someone will actually name-the-game-that-shall-not-be-named*
Ontopic A way to discourage dumb powerleveling is making the game realistic. If for instance you\'re hurt, it is difficult to heal.
Milafaer, you\'re probably right when it comes to text-rpgs but im afraid its only because the people there are more die hard rp\'rs.
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It is *rune*scape*, but it is filtered, because it is such a bad game. :) It is evil, that\'s why it is called the-game-that-shall-not-be-named...
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Originally posted by Thardin
This will not happen automatically, unfortunately. Take a look at runescape for example. There are always a lot of players online, but apart from monster bashing and mining, nothing happens.
If you are in a bank in that game and there are like 50 people in there the only hting that happens is people trying to access their accounts.
The only \'roleplaying\' in that game is done by people begging for money or items, or people leveling up a character of a friend of them.
So roleplaying is not something that happens automatically, it should be encouraged. And endless monster bashing shouldn\'t.
[/QUOTE]
i agree on that totally :)
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Originally posted by Thardin
It is *rune*scape*, but it is filtered, because it is such a bad game. :) It is evil, that\'s why it is called the-game-that-shall-not-be-named...
/me points out that there were nasty arguments about the evil game as well...
But yes, roleplaying must be encouraged. It really can not develop entirely on it\'s own in a 3-d virtual game enviroment.
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To establish roleplaying as a factor in a game it is the responsiblity of the gamers themselves to set the standard. That is why \"The game that shall not be named\" is known as an RP game, the community within it doesn\'t tolerate anything else; don\'t like go elsewhere, it\'s simple.
That being said, I don\'t feel that there is a need to roleplay every minute, ie. buying a sword, just give it to me and off I go. But when i am interacting with another player IN-Game I would like some resemblence of roleplaying to go along with that.
I think that the main misconception about Role-playing is that everyone thinks that they have to talk in old english ie, \"Thou\", \"Thoust\" and all that other stuff. As far as I\'m concerned that is unnecessary and a little bit asine.
Also \"leet\" speak is not a language, it is just a encryption of a text. When I write l337 you read it as \"leet\" and pronounce it as such, unlike in a language that you read the text, pronounce it, and then translate it into your language. A spoken example of l337 would be \"English english\". (see Austin powers)
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1337 is more like pig latin or ebonics or dubble duch.
I agree with sabertooch, it is definately NOT a language.
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Hmmm, I agree with most people, role-playing is definetly important, but it shouldn\'t go overboard so that I\'m standing in one place, typing paragraphs onto a very ugly chat box, staring at the same scene for an hour or two, not liking the story so much, missing training, or a better time.
Then again, I do like to escape once in a while, and it does upset me to see a jumble of letters and numbers on the screen. This is all due to the limitations of technology that is, having to use the keyboard to talk to some one and not wanting to type, \"Selling Mithril Longsword of Thunder, balanced and repaired, only five-thousand tria!!\" when you are trying to sell something. And it is often, a poor-implemented chat system that causes chat to veer from normal talk to nonsensical characters on the screen.
Maybe in the near-future, there will be some sort of software that will allow for voice communication in such a setting, but until then its just a matter of how lazy someone is, and well, I doub\'t such a popular game would be able to enforce such rules as for example, a graphical MUD, with exclusive membership, with essay tests for admission.
Perhaps I\'ll start a post on that subject, though I faintly remember one already....
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It would be nice to see the Lead Developer\'s view on PlaneShift as a RolePlay-enforced environment, for a change.
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Anyway, nevermind the l337 discussion. Let us just leave it at this:
l337 is a \"coded pseudo-language\", or a \"hacker\'s written jargon\", if you want. Due to its techonology-related nature, does it really have a place in a medieval fantasy atmosphere? Nah. Not at all.
Think of Frodo and Aragorn speaking l337. Realise how ridiculous and decadent it looks, and now think of the same situation but in PlaneShift. Aye, my friend! It is just the same.
Why tolerate a deplorable form of written speech that gets in the way of In-Game communication, character immersion, and roleplaying atmosphere? PlaneShift IS a RolePlaying game, after all.
Anyway, I digress.
Many have given their own definition of RolePlaying, others agree, others do not. Some truly enjoy powergaming, for some mysterious reason ;), while others like me get elated when playing a coherent and enthralling story. Being part of a dynamic world, where YOU can make the difference!
Oh yes, it is SO much easier in a text game. There, you can describe your actions any way you please! Glare, pout, dance, grin, laugh, push, kick, punch, poke, bat your eyelashes when flirting, blush, sneeze, stagger when drunk, hop on the tables, swashbuckle in the bar, and an infinite...yes INFINITE amount of other actions.
I have heard of animation systems that would allow a wide spectrum of actions in a 3d environment. However, I doubt our regular PCs and servers would be able to process all of that without a major lag reduction.
However, when graphics are not enough, text can compensate, and help to explain certain circumstances and situations.
A says \"You, B, are the most despicable being I have ever encountered!\"
B says \"Oh, truly? You are not that charming yourself!\"
A glares hatefully at B.
A says \"Let\'s take this outside, chap, I do not want to stain the pub red with your lifeless carcass.\"
Wee! And so they went outside and broke each other\'s kneecaps. So yes, the example is banal and uninteresting, but with the possibility for the players to emit certain actions, it would be possible to compensate for the graphical limitations of an MMORPG.
However, the technical horizons are not the true problem we have to tackle here, but the generalised ignorance of what responsible RolePlaying is. No, you will not be commanded to speak with the arcane Thee\'s and Thou\'s (Although I have studied those grammatical expressions to give such an accent to one or two of my characters, on occasion), but you will be expected to empathise with your character.
Empathise, you say? What is that? Those who have read Henri Louis Bergson\'s books on the human\'s mental processes would comprehend the concept, which is almost a synonym of \"sympathise\". (Suggested bibliography, truly. Even if you are not that keen on psychology. Bergson won the 1927 Novel Prize of literature, he was no crazy rambler like me)
Empathise is to abstract your mind and perception from your own self, to view and feel the world the way another formal being would (an object, an animal, or another person).
That is, you would try to perceive the world in the form that your character would. An underground world, hostile, dangerous, mysterious. Would your character be scared, or encouraged by these surroundings? Would he tackle adventures, or prefer the relative safety of the city of Yliakum? Warrior or bookworm? Etcetera. You just have to think about your persona\'s traits and attitudes, and RolePlaying flows from there.
It requires training, a lot of patience and practice, and nice players to guide you and help you when you are having problems. But it is rewarding. It is a nice way to escape from our real lives for two or three hours, have a little fun and relax.
Text game, graphic-based, or a combination of both, I think it is possible to create a good and friendly RolePlaying stage for everyone, disregarding the game platform.
However, I will admit one thing. No Multi-Player graphic game has been able to offer a solid RolePlaying experience.
PlaneShift will be that first game that breaks and re-shapes a genre? Or will it be one more in a bunch of clich? monster-bashing power-levelling and plain pseudo-RPG?
I will give you an outmost pessimistic look: From where I see it right now, it is bound to become the latter. But oh boy how I would like it to be the first option!
Time will tell!
- Golbez
PS: I did keep it short this time!
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Originally posted by Monketh
Originally posted by Thardin
It is *rune*scape*, but it is filtered, because it is such a bad game. :) It is evil, that\'s why it is called the-game-that-shall-not-be-named...
/me points out that there were nasty arguments about the evil game as well...
But yes, roleplaying must be encouraged. It really can not develop entirely on it\'s own in a 3-d virtual game enviroment.
I have nightmares about that game and wake up in a cold sweat with no joints where my knees and elbows used to be.
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This discussion seemed to stem from trading, weapon trading in particular. This thread ties in with the problem that seems to be the bain of everyones existence.
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=8374&boardid=11&sid=82d394e9334678f693d1826df980aa40
If you would mind refraining from posting messages that are in no way constructive it would be heartily appreciated.
Also I noticed I (im going out on a limb here) copped some static about my 1337 speak comment.
\"I prefer to see 1337 speak as just a different form of language.\"
Some of the replies sounded as though I spoke facts. Its simply how I view leet speak. Anyone would think that the devs are implementing it in as the primary source of communication. Personally I think if people want to speak to each other in leet in private conversations or conversations that involve no input from a 3rd party (which is what I meant) then let them.
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Originally posted by Cirque
This discussion seemed to stem from trading, weapon trading in particular.
Blatantly incorrect. Read the first post.
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Its not really that blatantly incorrect. Its blatantly my opinion. There was weapon trading mentioned in the 1st post and thats what my post was based on, along with some of the discussions that ensued.
Anyway the first 2 sentences were a means to an end. Just dont read them when you view my last post.
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CB will be, unfortunately, a monster bashing version of PS. After the calm of MB I think even the most grizzled Roleplayer out there will be eager to do some powergaming, if for a little while, if only just to enjoy the combat.
However, the Dev team are bent on RPing., and the game will gradually show this.
One last detail, tiny as it may seem: We have to remember that Yliakum is not our world, so such things as the Universal Decleration of Human Rights do not exist, and our characters have not grown up thinking everyone as equal. For example, a peasant might hang for a crime that a noble might get away with with no questions asked. Too often while RPing have I heard the phrase, \"He has as much right to live as you do.\"
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Id tread carefully on that one. Some people may use roleplaying as justification for racism and discrimination.
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i encourage racism in game (other races must hate other races etc etc)
and also discrimination since Yliakium doesnt have the same laws that humans have now and servants etc would be less prioritied.
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Technically I think that would be \"speciesism\".
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I dont mean racism towards fictional species in a game...
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In the PlaneShift website you speak of sentient races. When you describe the Humans, the Elves, the Dwarves, and their subdivisions, you use the word \'Race\'.
\'Racism\' would not particularly be an incorrect term.
However, how many times have we heard of the distrust and discrimination in medieval fantasy settings between Elves and Dwarves? Nobody ever complained about racism in there.
Keep in mind that we are setting our sights on a medieval fantasy theme. Narrowness of mind was a trait of the Middle Ages, if you check a bit of History. Equality, freedom for all, liberties and human rights did not appear fully until the Modern Age.
It is the developer\'s choice if they wish to create a cruder environment by placing racial tensions between the different possible characters, or to try to leave the parallelisms with human history aside, which we know is plagued with racism (I prefer ethnicism as a word, really. More accurate), and let us face it. These prejudices are still alive throughout the globe nowadays.
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There\'s nothing wrong with discrimination between races. Everyone knows elves and Lemurs own everything (shame on dwarves :D)
There\'s only one race in the real world and that\'s \'human\'. Human races have disappeared a long time ago (Neolithic if i remember correctly my bio lessons). And as said Golbez, discrimining Germans, Judes, Portugese, Frenchs or Americans is not discriming races, it is discrimining ethnies (BAD X( )
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Originally posted by Cirque
Id tread carefully on that one. Some people may use roleplaying as justification for racism and discrimination.
ok, tell me exactly how many times did were you cyber-raped or |3i4t<|-|e|> with racistic terms in-game in a MMORPG by a serious role-player and how many times by a 10-16 year old script kiddie who thinks he\'s the l33test guy in town?
[sensless rambling]
oooh, oooh!! idea!! why don\'t we forget the races and just play wiht gray blobs instead - and to completely exterminate any discrimination possible, let\'s cut off the skills, money and all that shite, and to be on the safe side also all pointy objects so noone will have to see blood ...oh, yea, and let\'s censor the chat - or even better, let\'s cancle it out totally, so there won\'t be ANY way someone could call somebody names
[/sensless rambling]
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Originally posted by Cirque
I dont mean racism towards fictional species in a game...
soooo, if i got your theory right, then you think that if we all role-play so that if someones character is a Kran (s)he\'ll play it like a Kran, forgetting (in game) what your IRL status, race, sex, nationality etc. are THEN you think IRL-based discrimination will magically pop up in a game where you don\'t (usually) talk about IRL stuff and don\'t let it get in the way of your role in the game? ....that\'s whack!
p.s. sorry that i got a bit carried away in the previous post
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Well RPers wouldn\'t exactly be able to be ethnicist against RL human races, becasue they\'re not in Yliakum. Also note that Yliakum is a melting point for races, so rather than being directly hostile, some races might consider themselves above other races for being the first to come to Yliakum, first to see the Azure Sun, etc.
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IIRC, Diaboli are a very selfish race that discriminate others. But it\'s true Yliakum is a melting pot.
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*EDIT* Seeing as your not coming to my party ill gate crash yours. Racism (which is a widely accepted term that can, amongst other definitions, mean to show prejudice or bias towards other races, cultures, etc) towards real life cultures and ethnicities should not be tolerated at all.
What I said wasnt a theory it was a warning that eluded to what I have said in the 1st paragraph of this current post.
Also hook rather than apologise for your 1st post why didnt you just edit it so no apology was needed in the 1st place?
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Originally posted by Cirque
Also hook rather than apologise for your 1st post why didnt you just edit it so no apology was needed in the 1st place?
What:It\'s forum etiquet (<--misspelt) that once someone has replied, you can only \'add\' edits to a post, not correct what you said.
Why:If someone called you a peanut, then said they took it back when you were about to lecture/punch them, would you really care about it being taken back? Some people are offended by it.
\"Fictional Rascism\" is not a problem, and does add some realism.
...as long as it isn\'t only against dwarves. :P
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What: He posted twice in a row. Im assuming he did this in a short period of time before anyone else had a chance to respond.
Why: Even though I dont get the relevance or context of that, yes its called forgiveness.
And im not talking about fictional racism.
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I have an idea for people to still be able to use common acronyms and still be role playing.
Have the acronyms (lol etc.) be a trigger for a sentence or character animation. If someone types lol instead of their character saying \"lol\" which is nonsense in rp have a character animation and maybe a sound of the character laughing out loud.
Also I dont think that it is possible to roleplay all the time even in ic areas. Lets say you walk up to a person and you start in character talking to them. Eventualy you have to say somethins out of character. Like you want to buy a sword you ask \"Excuse me sir but how much for that fine blade?\" he gives a price but you still dont know the stats for it.
Maybe they should implement tags you click a button and you gety an tag enclosing everything you say and if you really want to be immirsed you can check an option to ignore all text within an tag. An icon would appear above your character indicating that you are ignoring all ooc speach so people would know how to speak to you.
Just trying to get us back on topic a bit...