The "Power Levelers"

[Efflixi Aduro]

Now, most of the older people around here belive in enjoying a game, talking with people, having a great guild, some RPing, and then some \"leveling\" on the side.  Now, with the flood of of the newbies theres no doubt people will show up wanting to get strong and rich, then own a guild that goes around winning guild wars.  People have already gotten hundredes (in some cases, thousands) of P-points.  These people will recruit others that power level which will turn into a bunch of power levelers in seperate \"guilds\" fighting for no apparant reason. These kind of people may seem controlable now, but, these guys will turn PS into a game like PT, RS, MU, etc.
And we all know this is not what we want.  I think this is due to people looking for a new game to play when they quit playing whatever they used to play, and insead of looking at the whole ps site they think its just another MMORPG that they can try out, and ofcourse, play the same way they did the others.

So, I think somthing must be done to stop people from doing this before our community gets destroyed. Now, this doesn\'t mean we go kick out anyopne that is strong. I simply prupose that we put up more of somthing like a \"special note\" or somthing that would give people the actual idea of what the PS community is.
Just simply saying \"this is a rp game\" is not enough.  A game we all know called Lineage 2 claims to be a RP game. Now, though it is a good game, we who have played it know that its far from rp.

To sum this all up I just think that we need a quick and bold message to post on the main page to get through to these people. A new intro movie might help too. Maybe showing some actual in-game rping or somthing,

Thanks for your time,
-Efflixi

EDIT, just noticed moggies thread. A mod can close or delet this if it seems useless. Not that its my choice anyways

[Saiorse]

cant really force someone to RP either they RP or they dont

[Merdarion]

I just had an idea.

A wipe each month,

Those who are RPing should have some possiblity of laying their back (some RP sequence a 1337er would never even touch).

[confused]

Well I just thought of a method that could be implimented that will discourage Power Playing (leveling), causing the players either to become more involved in RPing or leave the community all together on their on will. There should not be the need for GMs to be wasting time on the look out for these PPers, but rather observe RPers and award them with extra XP for good role playing.

Here is my idea of a solution to the problem, and yes the PPers will utterly dislike the idea. Restrict the amount of XP and PP that one can gather in a specified period. The period is a specified amount of real time the character is played, not account total playing time. For example 1 PP per 5 hours of real life time of playing the specific character. Each character has an accumulator recording the total amount of time the character has been logon, and another accumulator could be used that resets to zero each time the character is logon and the value could be saved into a DB for statictical purposes.

[Merdarion]

This wold make it impossible to train for those who cant spend hours on the PC.

*sees the angerly starring corwd*

Hey what to do in a war inflicted by two concurrenting guilds, without ANY experience?

[Zjovaz]

Well first of all you can interpret so much in the world RP. We all know that there are hardcore RP and those who are beginners.
The best would be one or two races that only can be played through RP players.

This means that you need to learn some basic words of this races (otherwise no quests).
This means that other races can?t go in the zones where these RP races lives. In other hand you need to allow that these RP races to go everywhere.

Allowing HC RP to access some special areas where they can be under like-minded.

You must do something to separate all these OOC players from RP ones.

[burntlikefire]

Im glad that you enjoy rping but not everyone does and people are gonna play the game how they want to.  Plus isnt it understood that theres going to be more then one server, I think a server dedicated to the hardcore RP\'ers would ensure that you can roleplay to your hearts content along with others that want to do the same.

[Xordan]

Originally posted by burntlikefire
Im glad that you enjoy rping but not everyone does and people are gonna play the game how they want to.  Plus isnt it understood that theres going to be more then one server, I think a server dedicated to the hardcore RP\'ers would ensure that you can roleplay to your hearts content along with others that want to do the same.

No, it\'s firmly understood that there\'s only going to be one cluster of servers, which means only one world. There won\'t be seperate servers for RP\'ers, powerlevelers, etc.

[Sulatorc]

Originally posted by Xordan

Originally posted by burntlikefire
Im glad that you enjoy rping but not everyone does and people are gonna play the game how they want to.  Plus isnt it understood that theres going to be more then one server, I think a server dedicated to the hardcore RP\'ers would ensure that you can roleplay to your hearts content along with others that want to do the same.

No, it\'s firmly understood that there\'s only going to be one cluster of servers, which means only one world. There won\'t be seperate servers for RP\'ers, powerlevelers, etc.

Which is why it is imperative that the RPers stop acting like brownshirts and start trying to coexist with the other players. I have yet on this board to see a persons who does not RP start a topic that express as much hate as the topics started by the RPers towards the other playing styles. I have also yet to see in the Player\'s Guide or this website an official rule that state that one must always role play while on the server. It being implied is not good enough for me.

I think it is great people have different ways to play a game therefore i do not hate role players. I however hate people who tell me how i should and shouldn\'t play a game. Unfortunately, they are the same people on this board.

[Black_rose]

good idea fes, but what if we forced a test, so that they had to have read it

[Darakus]

I admit to not understanding the problem, or maybe I understand it too well, you do not want to roleplay you want to enact, simulate without the need for accessories in fact what you want is what MB was a world where imagination ruled it all.

What the developpers are giving us is a theater with accessories and everything in it to help us play our character, you want to play a dwarven miner now you\'ll be able to get into the galleries and raise your pick to do so, you want to play an enki magician, now you have spells that you can cast.

Yes those accessories have given a lead to what you call levelling which is a way that was found to show the progress a person could make but do you really believe treating the people who at first only see this progress in the form of stats as outcasts is the way to go ?  If so you are no better than they are because you only see it from your point of view and do not make any move to help them understand the beauty of roleplaying.

If I had one wish to make about stats it would not be to suppress them or suppress the speed at which you can progress but to hide them, no PPs anymore, no strength stats to show, you would only know about having progressed through being able to do more than you could before, this would not halt people from giving a background to their character but it would certainly stop the run for experience, PPs and the like, what would be the reason for power levelling when progress could not be quantified.  

However such a move would be really hard to make as to do so you would need a perfectly well thought and balanced stats system to lay invisible behind the scene which is why I understand what we have now, don\'t look at it as an end you don\'t like look at it as a step in the way to the perfect game, and if that step so happens to bring levellers to our world then so be it, and lets try to show them that levelling is not the begin all end all (which is not something we are achieving by treating them as lower than dirt)

[Mezasa]

While suggesting not showing stats is a good idea, there is no reason for it.  I roleplay a little, but not all the time.  I want to know what I\'ve accomplished, and my stats show me.  Sure, I have \"memorys\", but I don\'t remember any of the battles from my other games.  This isn\'t rl, and you people can\'t make it rl.  This is a GAME.  Sure, you roleplay in games, but you can only go so far.  Some people may enjoy rp 100% of the time, but the fact is 95% of the rest of the gaming community either has no preference, or likes it a little, or not at all.  If this game is made for JUST RPers, then it will fail.  For most people, the feeling of getting a level is a reason to keep playing, but you are trying to take that away.  And when you take that away, you take away 95% of the people who play this game.  

I\'m not saying RPing is bad, or OOC \"power leveling\" is bad either.  I\'m saying, as quite a few others have, we must all learn to live together.  They make VERY valid points about how RPers keep making these topics, yet the bad-guy \"power levelers\" are doing nothing to the RPers.  Maybe you guys should rethink your actions...

[Efflixi Aduro]

I think a simple yet bold message on the site should do the job. And a test might actually help But ofcourse people would cheat their way out of it...
Im really running out of ideas on how to stop this. I still think the whole GM thing should do the job. And if people are too lazy to go around policing ps I would gladly do it for now. I mean theres a wipe coming anyways so I ould just go in game and \"teach\" people how to play ps

[Azuros]

Guys, this discussion is very weird....


PS is a GAME: a role playing one!  not a role playing chat!  There are threads for this in the forum.

im agree that somehow, players should have to do more than killing and killing, which means really have to interact with NPCs and other players and maybe rewards by implication in the game community could be a good idea.

But, delete char every month or even every year? So I spend one month or one year to build up a character, have a great Guild or be a part of one, have a house, have an important role to play and i\'ll start up all over?

Nobody will play PS this way....

[Seytra]

@ Sulatorc: We\'re all nazis here, didn\'t you know? We simply don\'t want to put up with the kind of people / behaviour that\'s destroying all other MMORPGs. Obviously, you never have been serious in RP, because otherwise you\'d know why we don\'t want powerlevelling and 1337. It\'s because of the one, most important thing that is required for RP: atmosphere. Not the breathing stuff, but the feelof the game. It is important to have this feel, and powerlevelling and 1337 destroys it, and makes RP less enjoyable or even impossible.
It\'s just like smokers vs. non-smokers: the smokers usually don\'t understand that they are extremely bothering everyone else. Usually they think \"it doesn\'t even smell very strong\", because to themselves it doesn\'t as they\'re used to it. Obviously, it is the one who bothers to contain it, and not that everyone else needs to \"tolerate\" it. Therefore, PS has every right to not tolerate powerlevelling and 1337, as it directly goes against PS\'s intent and meaning. It\'s the job of the non-RPers to either RP in PS or to leave.

As for \"there will always be people who play the game their way\": then they need to play a different game, because PS is not meant for them, just as a non-smoking area isn\'t meant for smoking. That\'s why it sais \"MMORPG\", not \"MMOPLG\" or something. The fact is, that they have been tolerated by commercial games because money is more important for them, but in PS, the emphasis is on RP, not money.
Just as ego-shooters aren\'t meant for RP, MMORPGs aren\'t meant for powerlevelling, and the players of each have every right to demand that everyone either accepts that or leaves.

Summarising, \"we RPers\" don\'t hate powerlevellers or 1337ers, we just don\'t want them in PS, because it\'s not the right game for them, and they destroy it for everyone for whom it is the right game. They can go destroy commercial games, but not PS.

Edit: @ Azuros: I don\'t think this should be implemented, either, and also think that there needs to be char development through skills. However, it must be somehow tied to RP so that it\'s not possible to grind,. Alternatively, GMs need to go hard on everyone who powerlevels or 1337s.