RPing Planeshift: How to "Enforce" it

[Zulus]

I like the idea of Quest Master Mode, this would allow players to check themselves if this role. This could also make some chaos with good and bad quests however in my opinion this would give definitley the more color into game

[Zan]

Lol Wired ... nice scenario. A good idea though, I agree that there should be a global, or at least a larger chat tab than the shouts, for questing.

Another point about quests that I have is ...
The current quests, well those that should be operational, aren\'t bad but I don\'t believe they enhance roleplay. The only results I \'ve seen from them is people shouting \"Where can I find lamp oil?\".
What we need are team quests, like Zulus suggested. The quests should be too hard or even impossible for a single player so they have no choice but to co-operate and engage in roleplaying. This could be done in a few ways .. either create tougher monsters or make sure there are areas where you need different races for. For example you are on a quest to gather the four elemental crystals. After a while you find out where they are: the water crystal deep under the lake surface, the earth crystal in a small tunnel under the ground, the fire crystal in a volcano and the air crystal floating high up in the clouds. You alone could never get all of those so what you need is a Dwarf to delve for the earth crystal, where taller men and women can\'t venture. A Nolthrir or Kran to dive under water and retrieve the water crystal. A person with a Pterosaur to search the skies for the air crystal and a powerful mage who can protect him/herself against molten rock for the fire crystal.

Now a quest like that, just not that cheesy , would really enhance rping.

[Orthallen]

Well..Really good idea Zan But I doubt that these \"n00bs\" as some call them, will come together and RP for the quest the first time, or first few times even. Lets see a scenerio with some greedy newcomers going for them crystals.

Dwarf: Hurry n00b! Swim!!!

Kran: STFU DIG Noob!!111oneoneone!!

Wizard: Fly Idi0t anim4l!!!  

*Wizard killed by petrosaur*

Dwarf: n00bz0r pr0n!!!!111!!!

*Dwarf killed by Petrosaur*

*petrosaur killed by Kran*

Guy with Petrosaur: N00bz0rs!!! *killed by rat*

But as you said. There can be RPers mixed with these guys to help..Lets say the wizard is an rper.

Dwarf: STFU n SWin N00bZ0rr!!

Kran: Oh ******* !!11!! Noobz0r hellllppp!!

*Kran killed by goldfish*

Guy/petrosaur: Noob Dwarf SwiIm!!!

Dwarf: STFU N))B I KIll YoU!!

*Dwarf his guy/petrosaur for 0.00000001 damage.*

Dwarf: Die Noobzor!!

RPer Mage: I shall smight all you pathetic creatures! *powerful RP attack* *Mage walks off to tavern*

What I\'m sayin is..they wont get used to it..for  a while. Unless talad gives us a miracle.

[Wired_Crawler]

ROTFL, LOL, ROFL, LOL, ROTFL
Orthallen, did You witness anything like that ?
You see, they probably haven\'t completed noobtutor1 (2,3,4...) quest

Zan, I like Your idea very much. I hope developers will program such cooperative quests. They WILL \"enforce\" roleplaying. But first the world must be expanded.

Cheers
@Zan (and all): Wired is a place, through which I crawl. Fell free to call me... Crawler  

[Orthallen]

Actually I did. I witnessed all of the \"n00b on n00b\" action before. Except for the Kran being killed by the goldfish, of cource.  

Dont take it wrong, I mean, I love the idea Zan. But too many people have made team quests things like \"team quests mean bigger rewards\" It wil take some work from the RPers in this community to make the non-rpers get what these quests are actually about. Once and if that happens, your idea will be pure gold

[Niavard]

thing is, cooperation != rp, if someone got one of these quests, it doesn\'t mean that person will rp to find helpers, it is probably more likely that he/she/it goes around shouting \"needz groupz0r for quest, moeny 500!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!11111\" than go to a tavern or similar and look for participants there, the point is not to force people to cooperate, for powerlevelers can cooperate (they just do it in a more braindead way, like camping a rouge/ulb/other strong creature without a reason together), the point is not making the quests hard in terms of high ranks needed, for powerlevelers tend to have those higher than normal roleplayers, the point is to reward rping while doing those quests! and not giving quests nor rewards to people who use \"cna heav eust plz? 0kthx!!!\", personally I think this could work if we increased the number of gms greatly, and the QM mode is bound to be exploited.

[Zulus]

Well the only way i see now for rewarding true roleplayers and (erase this from mind if you dont like it) punishing 1337ers is checking everybody spelling and behawing by bunch of volunteered GMs or donated Cray with words analizing software straight from CIA

But seriously :
The quests must be constructed in a way wich \'enforce\' roleplaying - simple \"go there, do that and bring me this\" or \"kill that scary monster\" only leads to powerleveling or boring, dependent of reward.
I dont want to say that those quests are useless - they can be used by starting players for getting used to doing quests.

The Zan quest example is quite good - it requires cooperation of players wich not all of them had to be newbies of 1337ers.


RP-er: Hello GoodKiller, I managed to get you an item you requested, where can we meet ?.

GoodKiller: C00l, i\'11 w417 f0r u @ pl44z4, t0 gimm3 th4t !

RP-er: tsk, tsk, I can hardly understand what are you saying to me, behawe properly or you will have to search another person for this job.


This way the chance of succesfully doing quest not in the roleplaying spirit would be much smaller.


The quests could be also assigned by guilds. Each guild could have a job-table where available quests could be posted and other players could assign themselves for the quest(job). The idea is to lead the quest participants by guild member in order to have fun together and get the reward at end(for participans and the member of guild). If someone would behawe in bad way - fails the quest.
Quests could be assigned to guild by GMs, and GMs would have to check the results only for assigning more rewarding quests for the quild, while the members of guild would be responsible for quest leading.

(there are others ways to get the fun while doing that \'quild jobs\' but its little offtopic as i wanted to show main idea only)

I can think of guild where all members are PLevelers and/or 1337ers but simply occasionaly inspections of GMs (invisible mode)  while progressing the quest would stop overusing.


Another good type of quest wich my memory brings, are epic quests from EQ - they were long, complicated, reqired help from other players (as the player couldn\'t get to all zones due to racial hostility of NPCs) and long time waiting for spawning specified monster - but the reward was uniqe and everyone was looking with envy at player who finished his epic quest.

PS. sorry for my english, if something isn\'t clear, don\'t hesitate to ask

[druke]

Posting for Cha0s, since his access privileges got screwed up.

You\'re missing the solution here, guys. The solution is to directly reward people for role-playing. In the game, GMs need to be given the power to award progression points and trias (and items). A GM sees people role-playing in the plaza, he/she awards 2 PPs and 100 tria (example). He/she can stop by every 15 minutes or so and continue to reward the people if they continue to role-play.  Blatant non-RPers could be warned, and then docked trias and progression points. Again, the optimum solution is to make role-play rewards the fastest way to advance in the game. For example, a person RPing constantly and participating in GM events (discussed below) would advance twice as fast (or more) than a \"power-leveler.\"

The other part of this is the quests. Someone (Zan?) said that GM quests would be boring for both players and GMs. The way they\'ve been proposed thus far, yes, they probably would be. The solution is to allow GMs to spawn and posses NPCs. GMs could then possess an NPC, offer a quest, then go off elsewhere, spawn some baddies en route, and possess another NPC. This NPC could redirect the players elsewhere, maybe in the wrong way where the players would \"bump into\" another (GM-possessed) NPC that would set them on the right path. The GMs could work together and gather a bunch of NPCs to role-play with the players to create a truly immersive environment. That way, you not only have players role-playing with players, but players role-playing with GMs, creating a funner game-environment for all. Please don\'t criticize that exact example of a quest, by the way: I\'m in a rush and I scrambled a quick example together.

Two other things that would help this system would be:
1. Global GM shout. This would allow GMs to inform players OOC that an event was planned. They could also set times, meeting places, etc.
2. Invisible GMs when not possessing NPCs. GMs could then roam the world wherever they wanted without the players noticing them. They could use player RP to start their GM events, allowing everything to flow together in a more realistic way. It also would help with the RP reward system as players would not know if they were being observed and thus would be encouraged to RP all the time.

[Zan]

You are all right that quests can\'t enforce roleplaying, all it can do is create ideas and give the storyline for the players. Of course there will be noobs or whatever doing those quests as well but it is a player\'s choice with whom to co-operate. The main problem with roleplaying that I see currently is that all the roleplayers stand somewhere and talk, there is nothing to do. Give them something to do if you want roleplaying to bloom, I say.

[Zulus]

Directly rewarding the good roleplayers .... hmm (!idea!) - role-playing points given by GMs - similar to the PP. To rank up the skill player would need not only PP and practice, but also some RP points. this is the solution for enforcing roleplaying (and the rebelion reason for others players - but its yours choice to keep the non-roleplayers away from this game, personally i would let them live around as they want to live in game, except gathering more profits than roleplayers)

Cha0s :
For the DM jobs is responsible software wich present the world as we see it and interact with us. GMs are \'above\' that software handling the situations that aren\'t predicted by software to keep the world running smoothly (occasionally organising/leading the events)

So who should encourage players to behawe in the right (roleplaying) way ? The rules build into the world or GM who is standing after me , checking all the time how do i behave ?

I would vote for the rules, as everyone must obey them with no exceptions.

Zan :
I agree fully with you, usually when i spot roleplayers standing at plazaa talking, i have to wait minimum 5 minutes to greet them and get orientation what are they talking about , next 5 minutes thinking how to match my texts to not to broke athmosphere, and usually im ending with few fun/stupid texts/emotions as i missed the part of this roleplaying event. Thats why i would like to participate in roleplaying events from start to end, not from half to middle end (Event/Quest Chat Tab).

Well im not the good storyteller and dont have silvertongue for instant reaction at others speech(no to mention that im not native speaker), but who said that i cannot be good roleplayer without it ? Who would GM reward if the reward for roleplaying would only one for group ? -  the player who says the wonderfull story or the player who is silent mostly all the time.
I think if rewarding will be introduced there should be reward for participating also, not only for the most bright player(s) in group.


Another thing :
For me  \"Doing something while talking about it\" is much more roleplaying than \"Talking only about doing something\"

Usually i get better fun while constantly whacking the Rogues for swords (!yes i admit im kinda PLer - because there is no other way for me to test this world to its maximums. Talking only about how good wizard/fighter I am won\'t make me that person)
And while constantly killing the rogue for loot with few others players im throwing texts about taking revenge on the poor Rogue for not dropping enough swords, i usually get \"lool\"s and \":)\" but sometimes the other players could think theirs own replies plotting with main - and there fun begins.
I know its stupid example but isn\'t that roleplaying also ?

.. instead of :

GroupChat :  looted
GroupChat :  looted
GroupChat :  looted
GroupChat :  looted
....

[Orthallen]

Very nice Idea. Maybe make it so that you need 1 RP point every time you want to train something. I\'m using one as an example, because I dont think that you should demand too many, since GMs might not really see a person RP for a bit. So keep it low. Another idea. Every month or so, The traders can bring in special weapons, armor, and  robes (I\'m getting ahead of myself) that can only be purchased by RP points. Again, good idea Zulus.

[Niavard]

The RP point solution could work, but you\'d need alot of gms for it to be able to check everything, a better solution would be to give ooc points, if a player speaks ooc without showing it (with brackets, ooc: or some other way) and a gm sees it, the player gets ooc points, and if you have enough ooc points, the npcs will refuse to train/sell to you saying that they don\'t understand your blabbering or similar, the ooc points can be removed by gms if the characters are found engaging in rp later.
I think this system has an advantage to rp points, in that it\'s (slightly) more realistic since the npcs would probably fear the people running around screaming \"w00t\" or knowing everyone elses names without knowing the people, and that it will probably require less gms, rather than reward everyone lest they be unable to advance, just leave the unrpers behind.

[Orthallen]

Very nice idea Niavard! Even with this..we would need some more willing GM\'s. not as much as RP points, but some. And the not training/selling thing is great. I\'m sure it\'ll effect some of those power levelers.

[Zulus]

1337ers could be punished in the same way as chat flooding is - the only need is chatspeak dictionary on serwer side and the n99b would be given warning after two uses of those words , and after next three uses he would be muted.

Harder way would be make difference between IC and OOC chat in different situations, i think this would require as much GMs attention as RP points. OOC idea is also quite good , as it prevents non-roleplayers from progression as good as RP points, in fact both methods are the sides of the same medal, Lets just say for good roleplaying you will get +1 RP and for wrong use of OOC chat -1 RP (with negative RP points - the same way as duel points are)

And yes Orthallen, one RP point per skill point is the right number

So, after introducing this in game the most often question asked by newbies would be \"Plz tell me how can i make RP poins\"

[Orthallen]

Well..I think that OOC points is the more likely concept to catch. because most \"noobs\" hang around at the plaza, and so do most GM\'s, making it easier to the GM\'s to just give em out, rather than searching for RPers all across Yliakum. I mean, not all \"n99bs\" are in the plaza, if some would be smart enough to read this, and avoid the plaza, they would be pretty safe. Then again, if they could do that, they\'d just RP

EDIT: Since the GM\'s are the ones who will have to enforce this, lets see what they think is better/easier. *hint* *hint* post GM\'s