Playing PlaneShift

[Zan]

* Zan thanks UtM for the application.

I've considered playing on the team for a long time but decided I could probably do just a much from the tribunes than I would be able to do on the field.

[Donari Tyndale]

You think so? Well, your sword isn't even bloody.

[Under the moon]

If you had seen the things I have seen, and helped create the things I have helped create, then you might change your mind. Being a prospect Dev is freaking awesome!

We have been allowed to have a very large hand in shaping the history, culture, and current events of the game in a way that players never could. Remember the Ethos, Zan? Well, I am living it now. Only this time, it makes a difference.

Join with us! There is yet much culture, history, and stories to create! Help bring the game to life.

[Waoknie]

After partially reading this thread and a few others, I should warn you: I'm not as good or experienced as most of you but I still consider myself as a typical PS player.
I think that the approach when altering mechanics to favor RP is wrong. IMO (and pls. correct me if i'm mistaken) leaving less 'mechanical' things to do or extending the time it takes to do something with the expectation of any RP improvement is partially decreasing RPing possibilities. RP is like love.. it happens when it does: it cannot be forced.
This is opposite to the chances of interaction that physical actions lead to.  Roleplaying is having less room to grow from actions and excessive rooting from simple words. Long tasks consume too much time for me to RP and in my experience, the things I can do that may lead to interesting conversations IG are less these days.
When I created this char (when I started playing PS), I allways thought that there are two main ways to move with many derivations but essentially: good or evil. Almost all RP situations have to deal with this: To have a counterpart, an opponent(s).
People are affraid of bad things happening to their chars actionwise (getting robbed, killed, etc..) and many have great ideas of how the system can be twisted to 'protect' their interests whichever those be. But then, the counterpart is lost, for me, the fun is lost (actionwise).
I would like for things (good and bad) happen to everyone. I would say that maybe if our inventory would have 'lockable' items, it may solve the worries of losing our beloved belongings. From actions, great RPing I've seen evolve.. but from simple words, a few.
How nice it is to chase the opponent, to confront him/her, to have a true interaction, engage in personal vendettas, testing one's limits and revising what to improve in order to achieve a goal (whichever it is). Nowdays there are fewer 'physical' situations to feed RP.

PS: Please be gentle

[Hydrolyzer]

i vote for player training, i know that planeshift is a 'classless' game. but people still specialise, and really, even though its not set, your a miner, a fighter, a mage, or you just rp or whatever. what you really want from these specializations is to make money, and advance yourself. whats to say a trainer cant charge for their services? they become a proffessional trainer. that adds another possible niche specialisation for us, and eventually after more mechanics are implemented, there is no such thing as niches, because there are many pheasible methods of developing your character both rp and mechanically.

[StitchedChin]

Yep, I agree, a training/teaching skill would be good.  It takes knowledge in the skill and a trained teaching level to be able to train someone effectively.  Not sure the trainer actually has to be level 50 in swords though because some of the best pitching coaches can't throw a 92 slider on the outside corner, but they can sure teach someone with the talent how to do it.  And then again, someone that has a .330 career batting average, won't be able to teach everyone to be able to hit .330.  So for sparring, you can only learn so much wacking each other on the head, but you need an effective teacher around to really improve the skill to a meaningful level.  And yep, they should be able to charge or barter for it.  Going to need a few super computers to be able to put this thing together, anyone have any lying around...  Can't wait for the next tech boom...

[MustangMR]

Wow.  This is a game, right?  If you don't want game mechanics to get in the way of your roleplaying, then why put all this effort into building a world?  Go straight to fan fiction or chat rooms.  You'll role play a million times better if you remove all the game play problems you say get in the way of true role playing, and your imagination does it all so much better.

But since you are building a full game environment to RP in, why the heck would you limit your character development?  One aspect of RP'ing in a fantasy world is to fight against evil, or be an evil villain if that's what you like.  For me, RP'ing has always revolved around a story.  Something is happening in the world.  It needs to be addressed, and that drives the focus of the role playing and the story we want to live in.  Without a driving force, RP'ing is just boring "thou's" and "Ye's" or whatever.  There is no reason to be a weaponsmith if there is no enemy to fight with.  There's no reason to be a better weaponsmith if the world doesn't provide bigger challenges for new and better weapons.  There is no reason to build up talents if rat keeping is your goal.  We play the game to improve our character.  It is up to the game developers, and this is where the whole thing falls apart to me, to provide a driving force to let people grow as characters.  Many MMORPG's simply fail at providing that atmosphere where I care about fighting the evil in the world, because as soon as I kill something, it respawns. 

The panacea here is a dynamic world.  Impossible to do given most resources, and I'm not suggesting that.  I like what you have built here, a system that removes leveling and revolves instead around skills.  That is the best solution to the whole thing because it makes every skill equal.  A simple farmer with high level skill in farming can be just as valuable as a highly skilled warrior with max weapon skills.  Once you finish that segment of the game, you should work on things that will enhance RP'ing and give reason for people to build skills in the first place.  RP'ing is at it's best when people believe there is a real reason for them to RP, not just to move into a fantasy world that has less excitement than their own real life.

[Waoknie]

MustangMR: On another thread, I was addressing the same topic... "Get paid for RP.." If you read a bit of it, you will see that I agree with most of your post here. Yes, the thread heading may have not much to do with it but well.., there it is.

Now, on that thread, the point of my posts was somehow diluted by other's way to 'see' things.

I hope that in this case whoever reads your post here won't be picking the wrong parts of it and derive into a discussion that has nothing to do with the main issue.

Or perhaps a new topic should be placed.

[MustangMR]

Sorry if I sidetracked the thread.  My post was mainly aimed at the comments in the OP that seemed to me to say that leveling and skills shouldn't be included in the game.  I kind of bit when I read the idea that we should just apply to skill up and not have the actual mechanics of it get in the way of RP'ing.  I really just wanted to stress that the mechanics should be driven and designed to enhance RP'ing, and not grinding, if such a design is possible.  I would love to see the game where being a high level farmer is just as rewarding as being a towering warrior.  Not sure how that can be done, but something to think about.

[Waoknie]

On the contrary, I agree.. and also believe it's such an important issue that perhaps it needs it's own thread.

[Eliseth]

Sorry if I sidetracked the thread.  My post was mainly aimed at the comments in the OP that seemed to me to say that leveling and skills shouldn't be included in the game.

If your post was aimed at my comments then you obviously didn't read it my post properly, because no where did I say that there shouldn't be leveling and skills. I simply said that players usually don't know how to roleplay effectively and still have time to level their characters skills, which is why I suggested that people shouldn't try to level their skills as quickly as they do, but rather slow down to the pace of your RPing.

Someone did make a valid point however (sorry can't remember who). If a player wants to create a new character who is supposed to be an elite master of swords, he can't very well do that with his swords level hovering below 5. If this is the case, then there's nothing to be done at this moment in time, you'll just have to sacrifice you RPing for grinding until you're at the level you want. This however, is not something I support. I believe people should work to develop their character properly if they want to RP a high level character.

If you look at the principal behind leveling, you will see why I say this. The whole point of the skills system is for players to develop there characters skills over time. It is therefore impossible for players to start new characters with high skill levels. Since this is first and foremost an RP game (as apposed to a PVP or PVE game), it stands to reason that players were never meant to RP high level characters unless they'd taken the time to develop their character, in both the leveling and RP contexts.

Unfortunately, the current system allows for rapid grinding, which is why I support Donari's idea for player trainers and time delays and such. It would make it so that leveling can not be done without roleplaying, and it would therefore finally merge RPing and leveling so that they are no longer two separate aspects to Planeshift.

[Noriin]

Unfortunately, the current system allows for rapid grinding, which is why I support Donari's idea for player trainers and time delays and such. It would make it so that leveling can not be done without roleplaying, and it would therefore finally merge RPing and leveling so that they are no longer two separate aspects to Planeshift.

The idea is good no doubt. However, I can't agree with that statement.
Giving all players the ability to train other players would probably mean having the same old PLers being the ones ruling the training and making profit from it, just like they usually rule the furnaces, the weapon making.. and everything else related to the game mechanics. I have quite trained my char, I could train other chars.. but I would obviously do it by roleplay and refuse to gather scholars by OOC tells or other means alike. That, as usual, would leave me in disadvantage towards the ones who just don't care, thus I would be getting less students. As usual, probably the RPers who also care would come to me or others who would roleplay it.. but as we know, that's still a minority.
To enhance roleplay by player to player training some other measure should be taken in addition.

I like people supporting their roleplay by stats and skills that can be trained within the game mechanics, but I must as well disagree with the point regarding the character development. I don't see why somebody wouldn't RP an already skilled swordwielder/mage/whatever as long as they have a consistent RP and have taken some time to train their characters. There is no need to have spent years (months, whatever) in-game to have a skilled character. You can have a skilled negotiator/merchant/talker/preacher without having RPed his/her first words when he/she was a baby (just because you can do with your own negotiating/merchantile/talking/preaching skills and call it RP), why can't you have a skilled fighter without having RPed the first time he/she slayed a rat?

[Prolix]

You can do that Noriin, just remember though that people pretend to be something they are not in real life often end up on the wrong side of a set of bars. They are called frauds, charlatans and frequently convicts. If there is no way to tell the difference between someone playing a fraud and a well meaning person playing an advanced character without the benefit of the levels, is there a difference?

[Noriin]

Well, the key for me is the consistency of every character's roleplay, and the feeling of reality they may transmit.
The same way that I refuse to treat somebody like a master of masters just because he's trained every single skill to the max (which shouldn't be possible for a start, imho) when he hasn't bothered to actually play his character at all, I do treat other players who don't like/don't have time to train as skilled <whatever they are> if they have a good background and actions in-game supporting it as well as some convincing roleplay.

Mind you, my char is far more trained than 85% of the people I use to roleplay with. If I decided only stats are meaningful and acted in consequence, thus roleplaying an invincible dagger wielder and black mage.. how many of those people would enjoy playing with me, if any? Also, if I would use pvp-duel to decide the outcome of a struggle or any RP.. would I loose at all.. ever? You've got to make things fun for everybody, sticking to stats just because you can train them and roleplaying them (masters of everything are unrealistic and often annoying) is not always a good thing...

So yes, you can decide yourself when a character is a fraud or not. Spectate, evaluate, and act regarding your thoughts. You can always not get involved with that char's RP and everything will be fine. No need for jails and the likes.. ^_^'