I think the initial post raises valid points and I do not want to see them summarily dismissed. A disproportionate number of talented rpers are older, and more of the difficult players are younger. Education maturity and innate RP talent all play into what makes a good rper. Planeshift will not be going adult only. However, players should be aware there is effort being put into promoting and encouraging RP as well as game features to train people regardless of age how to play a character in Yliakum. As always, patience is needed for the many good ideas to come to fruition. Most people who refuse to RP do eventually quit Planeshift, if the question is whether tolerating obnoxious folks of all ages for the 2-5% who can be “redeemed” and turned toward beginning the long road to learning to be a good role player and create good stories is worthwhile, my answer is yes.
Should PS support RPers primarily? Yes and it does, and will more so as time progresses.
More can be done and is being done. I doubt there is a way I can assure players that their voices are heard or that the developers are working around the clock to better PS. I can however make the attempt. We do verily trouble ourselves over how best to support RP and provide opportunities for those who come to PS not knowing how to RP to learn it.
The “for all ages” thing will not change but we can work toward other methods of facilitating good immersive RP. You can pm me the player name of the person who blew you off when you tried to help them and I will make the attempt however foolish it might be to teach them to RP. Some people are not ready to learn RP or have no desire this is just true.
Dowanger and I are friends have been since he began I helped him throughout his training and him and I practiced dueling quite a bit before he won Proglin’s tournament. Initially, he never really learned how to RP, and never seemed to care too much for it. He just wanted to be the best duelist in the game. He accomplished that. I have not been able to get him to RP, (perhaps he is now I have not been IG for some time) but I have made great strides toward getting him to respect other people’s roleplaying. He is not a child neither is he unintelligent. At one time he may have been a detriment to several people’s immersion (he outright refused to speak IC OR use brackets for a time) but this does not seem to be the case as much anymore. Regardless of how Dowanger behaves or behaved, he has given many hours to people, both RPers and non teaching them how to become better duelists. This willingness to teach others to me is an asset to the game and should be coupled with a willingness to learn RP. Dowanger has at points asked for help learning to RP. Many of his early indiscretions or his dismissive attitude toward RP at the beginning haunts him now, but I do not know how much they should. I for one am glad he stayed and now displays a willingness to learn RP.
Roleplaying is a complex skill I have been doing it for 17 years now, 16 by the time I got to PS. In PS, I have been called a godmodder a pler and a poor RPer here and there due to subjective criteria of some players. RP in PS in a way that reflects the settings is very difficult. When you couple that complexity with the need to understand the histories of players and player events to be a good fit for the community, you have an incredibly daunting task for a random person of any age who happened upon PS. It took me months to get to know the books, the npc dialogues, the history of players, the forums, IRC, all vital elements of RP in PS at this point in development.
Very few people know how to RP well enough to teach it to others. The common set of instructions given to a new player by older players is not sufficient to teach this elaborate skill. Many good RPers are not good teachers. Many people are intuitively good at RP but do not have the linguistic proficiency to pull it off well. Many who think they RP well do not. Many who think they RP poorly do not. Almost all of the above can be alleviated at least to a degree by turning our eyes inward and focusing on building our own skills to match the needs of this wonderful game.
As for intelligence, I think PS community already has an IQ advantage on other games.
I further believe this will increase over time. The fact PS it is cross-platformed is a huge advantage in this regard, as it promotes a reduction of tensions and elitism based on ridiculous matters of which OS beats which other OS. The conversations even about the topic of OS are more civilized, intelligent, and not so pseudo religious as I have encountered elsewhere. I believe that the need to RP to be accepted in the PS community aids this by providing a criteria for success in this community that is related to English literacy, acting ability, and knowledge of the settings levels out all other arguments fairly effectively.
PS is and will remain a self-selecting community.
I encourage patience as opposed to frustration, suggestion over complaint.
