Originally posted by Kiern
\"How to Play Planeshift Without Actually Using It\"
Hardly seems worth the effort to load the game, to me.
Yes, this way of doing things bypasses most of the PS system, for a very good reason: the PvP system is, at best, poorly suited for RP, for several reasons:
- fairness: RL limitations like time you can spend to level and computer / connection (hence lag) will differ regardless of character. By using the PvP system, you let RL have a rule on your RP: if you have a slow / lossy connection, then this would force you to be someone with reflexes like a rock (a non-Kran rock, that is). Likewise, if you have only few time to level, or prefer to actually RP, then your stats and items won\'t be nearly as good as that of others, regardless of what your char actually is supposed to be and also regardless of how well it is RPd.
- bugs: this is a more or less temporary issue, but even the most advanced combat system has bugs or exploitable deficiencies. You might be able to use these to your advantage, but your opponent can\'t. This is also purely OOC.
- limitation: any battling system necessarily has limitations that disallow your char to employ specialities. You can hardly expect a combat system to take into account that your char has a broken leg at the time, or that your char has the shield not in the hand, but mounted on the back. Also, you are limited to the maneuvers the system can do, excluding any special maneuvering that takes into account the envoronment, for example, or special ways of your char.
Originally posted by Draklar
Damn good job on the guide... Although the ammount of extremism showed in it rather turns me off...
Originally posted by amogorkon
True RPers get their things, at least the mighty ones, by RP with others.
Following this logic, True Role-players don\'t play MMORPGs, only role-play in tabletops (or maybe scratch that one too...) and on irc.
You are, in part, correct. Due to the limitations I listed above, true RP is not completely feasible within the mere game mechanics. The most important difference is time you can spend ingame, but there are others as well.
Due to that, the entire result is skewed towards certain people for entirely OOC reasons. I\'m not talking about when one joined, as that is the only thing that more or less remedies itself over time (within boundaries).
But the use of the PvP system, or anything besides relative stats, means that you are
forced to PL and thus the time to actually RP, which is a RPer\'s
real intention, is severely reduced. Thus, an RPer who wants to use the PvP system would be more or less forced away from RP and towards PL, especially if that player has only limited time to spend on PS.
Thus, you must make a compromise. The PvP system is mostly unusable, so you need to RP the fights properly, as the OP explained.
The degree to which you can (or rather:
should) use items gained ingame for that RP depends a lot on the items. If they fit your char very well (including the power of the item vs. the power of your char, i.e., realism), and you have a good RP reason to have them (not a random MOB drop), then they likely are fine.
Also, you likely have items that are
not ingame, or not in your posession. While these must obviously also fit the criteria above, they will also have to be balanced with the items you have by game mechanics and use in RP. The game allows you to walk around with literally tens of weapons, but that hardly is realistic. If you then add ten other RP-only weapons, this becomes even more ridiculous.
Thus you must RP to
not have items with you that you do have in your inventory. Same for RP only items. It can be challenging to decide whether that super-cool item you just found in a drop goes IC or remains OOC. Likewise, one needs to stay within reasonable, realistic limits when creating RP-only items. These two, if not done well, can easily lead to the invincibility issue the OP listed.
So the idea is not to abandon one or the other, but to mix them using a huge portion of (un)common sense. MMORPGs aren\'t suited for true RP, but true RP can make use of some parts of the MMORPG. If things that fit your RP are available ingame, then it is better to use them instead of making up RP-only replacements.
In summary: it is easy to create an invincible god-like \"char\" using both ways (game mechanics and RP-only things), so the combination will allow the same. \"True\" RP doesn\'t refer to either one, nor to the sum. Instead, it means \"realism, coherence, fairness and common sense\".
Edit:
Yes, it is even possible, in some occasions, to use the PvP system for actual RP. These times are when you know that your and your opponent\'s chars are IC-ly of similar relative strength as they are by OOC stats and equipment. This means that if your opponent is a superiour warrior and you are a mere farmer, then, when your char has low stats and few items and the other has maxed stats and the dreaded uber weapons this wouldn\'t matter much since your chances are realistically about zero. Likewise if they\'re both similar, though the fun will be greatly reduced by the one-hit death weapons even for powerful warriors, but that likely is a temporary balancing issue.
Nontheless, most of the time PvP isn\'t suited for RP.
Edit: corrected quote attribution due to name misreading
Edit2: corrected formatting tag
