Where is the RP?

[jhazor]

Now i\'m not intending this to be an attack of any kind

but one of the things that attracted me to this game was

1. The chance to be in on something like this from the early stages and help the game develop

2. the intended heavy focus on RP within the game


yet all i tend to find is people constantly spawn camping any mob that gives you money, constant OOC talking and any attempts I make to be In character with my questioning and reaction to things generally gets people asking me what i\'m on about.

I never seem to be online at the same time as the roleplayers perhaps you guys could furnish me with what times things generally tend to get rolling (uk time if poss) cause i really really want to get involved but i\'m starting to get pretty disillusioned about it atm.

[windwalker]

you want Hardcore RP i suggest you either join a guild like the AO or find another game....because PS has not come through on its promise to be a roleplaying game

[jhazor]

wind walker

it\'s not that planeshift  hasn\'t come through on it\'s promise, developers can only do so much,

It needs the players to want to go in that direction too and i know that there is a fair number of people out there and those are the people i\'m trying to make contact with, but having little success.

[windwalker]

check out Kada\'s tavern... most people there are RPers
arcane-order.com/forums has a full board devoted to RPing
go on irc and you might find a few in teh various planeshift channels

[jhazor]

which tavern is that one cause the only tavern i can find is the one on the left hand side when you head towards the city gates from the spawn point and it\'s permanently empty.

and the rest of your post makes it sound like the only reliable way to get involved with Rp in planeshift is to Not play the game but go onto guild forums and IRC

can you see the irony in your statement?

How is PS ever going to be primarily a RP based game With so much RP  taking place outside of the game - to the point of the being almost no RP inside game at all.

it just seems backward to me

cause then why play PS at all why not just have a Chat or Forum Based Game

[windwalker]

un... the places i dirrected you to ... their for forum RP and seting up ingame rp... and Kada\'s tavern is a website.... it also happens to be a place ingame.... but the website is where you should head

[jhazor]

and can i point out again - the lack of in game rp and the necessity to have to use a website for the rp.

and people complain about the lack of rp in the game - but is it any suprise when it\'s impossible to RP without the need for external sites

[zabeal]

Is it possible to roleplay without using the forums or other sources? Yes, it\'s just much easier with help. Personally the only thing I use websites for is contacting people I haven\'t had the chance to meet ingame. If you want to get started in a hurry, and if you can\'t find anyone in-game, then you might as well use other sources.

[Kiva]

People stopped having a reason to roleplay ever since numbers and points were implemented. So now it\'s all about winning the game by getting the highest numbers, and not about playing for fun, however if you joined PS looking for a roleplaying game, I suggest you leave and come back in 10 years when maybe there is more game to the game. All this is, is a test of the fighting systems and AI systems. Nothing more.

[Duvik]

I found out about PS a few months ago and persevered through a download with me ol\' dial up modem.  I was intrigued by the hint of a world that was to have an RP focus.  

I was very impressed by what Atomic Blue has accomplished in only 4 yrs or so of spare time work.  

The world seems very inviting and begs for exploration.
The creatures are interesting (well, as much as Gobbles, rats, and rogues can be) and I expect to keep tabs with this project over the years.

The RP element is virtually non existent though, and that is disappointing.  

I\'m hoping that upon the full release, the promise of RP police will be enforced.  Hell, I say anyone caught speaking OOC in RP channel should be flagged as a lunatic who is \"posessed by evil spirits\" and chastised accordingly (perhaps imposing a fine or something).

Perhaps he could have his Charisma score affected for 1 hour or a host of other undesirable but interesting penalties, to be bestowed by moderators.

I also recall reading some posts a few months ago wherein people were complaining about moderator actions and abuse of power.

Every institution with authority is prone to have abusers of the power. Deal with it, it adds that much more realism to the game.

[Icefalcon]

There is more, people just don\'t look hard enough. All the oldies take one look at the Hydlaa Plaza, and leave. Why don\'t you do something about it instead of sit around your forums and say \"Oh, what a shame, Planeshift is just another hack-n-slash,\" and not do anything about it. The players are who shape the game, but unfortunately, the good players refuse to shape it.

I totally agree with you Jhazor. It is pathetic. However, there are a few good roleplayers. You just have to stick around long enough to find them.

[Duvik]

http://www.pstimes.co.uk/issues.html

This could be the beginning of the rp cure

[Under the moon]

@ Grom> Grrrrr! X(  This makes me angry. In one short statement you have reduced PS from an RPG to a Hack-n-slash. You know what makes me the angriest? The Queen is absolutely right. RPing has been relatively abandoned. No one seems to understand anymore when you try to RP.

Why, I ask, did the Devs take this road? We didn\'t need combat. We didn\'t need powerlevers. We didn\'t need to kill hoards of rats. What we needed was to go in a different direction first. RPing does not have to built on strife. Why could we have not started in a world of peace instead of turmoil? Let the realm develop a bit before we destroy it.

Ok, now that I\'ve had my rant, this is what needs to be done to rescue PS from itself. I\'m talking to you Talad.

1. Get rid of the reason for killing mobs and camping to get money. How? Easy. There is a list of jobs in the game. Use it. Pick a job; get a salary. The more you play the game, the more you get paid. No need to actually do anything. At this point, all we need is a source of income. Like the game of \'Life\'.

2. Get rid of powerlevers. How? Limit the amount of \'levels\' you can achieve in a given amount of time. If that limit is pressed, start taking away PP instead of giving it. This is how it works in RL. If you work too hard, you get tired, you burn out, you hurt. I\'m sure the Devs know all about this.

3. Kick the duelers out of town. Need I say more? What kind of outlaw game are we making here? Perhaps even turn off fighting for a while, or limit it severly. We don\'t need to kill each other to RP.

4. What is the point of guilds if they can\'t do anything? Give them guild \'quests\'. Something to do besides declaring war on everything in sight. Create some sort of political \'influence\' system they can effect. Nothing fancy now, to start with. That can come later.

5. Let players run/work in some shops. The NPCs do it. I\'m sure we have a few players out there that can assist the NPCs. Even if they\'re just a stock boy. Let them hand out a few quests.

6. Paper. This would increase PRing by more than you would think. Players could give out missions of their own. Either \'deliver this to so and so\' or \'I have lost my baked rat eye tartar recipe, I?ll pay to find it\' or so many other scenarios. The world runs on information.

There are many other things that can bring RPing back to Planeshift, but it needs to be done before all the roleplayers leave. If that happens, you might as well start handing out swords, because that\'s all you\'ll need.

[Vandel]

Hmmm, I see the anti-thesis of RP has been established.  It really is degrading, and fast.  There\'s tons of ideas floating around in the Wish List, and other portions of the forums...  all we\'re doing is recycling our frustration, and recycling ideas.  It\'s not cool... we can write \'til were blue in the face... what good does it do?

There\'s enough of us, someone is bound to be able to help something along.  There\'s vacancies galore on the \'Help Us\' page.  Apply, instead of griping.  It\'s pointless, it serves no purpose.  Woooohoooo.

Peace... and happy trails my fellow travellers.

[Seytra]

I agree, and have always done so. I still don\'t know why fighting was implemented first. I think the focus should have been on jobs. Mining, for example, can\'t even remotely compete with hunting rats for newbies, because they cannot buy the equipment and skill to mine nearly as well as hunting rats works, and also it cannot compete with hunting tefusangs for the advanced players, because there is no way of training mining higher than 10 AFAIK, while sword goes to 70, and also the walks that were long already have been made longer by stamina, whereas the tefusang slayer isn\'t impacted by stamina at all except for two walks that occur much less frequently. And yes, the spawn abuses skyrocket.

I hear that work is being done on the crafting side of things, which might help shift the balance.

Anyway, I am RPing ingame, but naturally I shun the plaza, and indeed the tavern is mostly empty or there is OOC talk as well. Still I have found some other RPers with whom I can RP, and the buddylist and /tell help in coordination.

To find RPers, you must venture out of Hydlaa, and to the places less interesting to powerlevellers.

Also, I think the duelling point counting needs to stop immediately, because that is what caters to the powerleveller! Killing in the plaza should be punished.

However, I totally disagree with this

Originally posted by Duvik
Every institution with authority is prone to have abusers of the power. Deal with it, it adds that much more realism to the game.

Realism isn\'t good if it makes chances uneven. If a game was perfectly realistic, it would be just like RL and thus not worth playing. The DR is there for this reason.

Furthermore, GM power abuse that would be OOC and thus not even remotely RP. The only way to \"deal with it\" is to keep very close check on GMs to prevent abuse.

Yes, we are testing an engine, not playing a game, but we\'re also shaping the future community, and therefore we cannot simply ignore the effects the available features have on the playerbase.
There were reports of ingame books being tested, though I haven\'t seen them yet.

Anyway, I prefer to RP in PS, not outside of it. Of course I will train occasionally, but only mildy.