Roleplaying Focus

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

I have been troubling myself quite a bit about the fact that we have a small player base.

The fact that this is so makes little sense and I am ready say the community's approach to RP may be at least partly to blame.

To me one of two things must happen for us to have the new players we need (mind most devs come from players so my interest is larger than the simple lack of players)

Either we become more welcoming to people who cannot or will not rp OR we resolve to be a niche game and ask the players to find us more rpers.

I am fine with ps remaining a niche genre game, and in fact that makes a bit of sense, but if that is the case we need our players to draw on people who roleplay elsewhere and bring them back here.

as kerol has pointed out we do not have enough players to fill all the areas we already have in a meaningful way.

We need more people.

I am interested in what the community thinks on this issue. Post away!

[Pizik]

Maybe we should start getting free trials for other games like WoW and spamming in large area channels about PS on RP servers ;o)

But in response to the poll, Yes, the RP agenda does limit the players we will attract heavily, alot of people (and this is shown in game frequently) dont give a dam about RP. But then, pretty much everything about PS does limit players interest also, too many good friends I have met in PS have become bored and moved on :o(  (but that stuff cant really be helped on a volunteer project). Considering that we are aiming at a global crowd and the amount of prospective players is as near to limitless as you can get, I think our player base is pitifully small ;o(.

What to do about this? I honestly dont know.

Probably, as you say, keep it niche, or change something (the thing I dont know is the 'something').

[neko kyouran]

all i will say, is that if you try to get away from the niche of RPing to get a larger playerbase, then you'll have to rethink your whole game model/engine/mechanics, as they certainly do not appeal to the average player, who holds no regards for simple things like proper English, or treating people with respect and feel they have the ability to do whatever they want becuase 'this is the internet.  lolz".

just my opinion anyways. 

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

I am not advocating such a change.

I am curious what people think.

I am also very curious about the cross section that say rp is NOT costing ps players.

[Eliseth]

I agree with Xillix, our general style of RP doesn't make it easy for new players to become involved with the community that easily. It becomes necessary for new players to almost force others to RP with them.

What I mean by that is that they have to walk up to someone and actively start an interactive conversation with them, to get to know them and become part of their RP niche. Most new players find this hard to do, which means they are reluctant to try. If we were more welcoming to new players and tried to incorporate them into our everyday RPs and not focus so much on the players we already know, our player base will grow.

[neko kyouran]

I am also very curious about the cross section that say rp is NOT costing ps players.

guess I should have included what option I voted for.  It was "no".

I personally believe that the reason the game has the amount of players it does is not due to it's foundation that RP is top priority, but more the fact that this is a game that is no where near even a solid beta type state.

[Dajoji]

While having a RP oriented environment may exclude people who are not interested in it at all or rather think of as stupid and therefore choose not to play the game, that is, in terms of product strategy, a defining element of the game. It will indeed limit the amount of players we will have to a fraction if compared to other more mainstream PKing, guild-warring, leet-speaking games but focus is a strong brand strategy and proven effective in many occasions. In terms of brand management, PS still has a good way to go but it already has a fundamental part: it's identity.

Players leave or stop playing for many reasons. Some we discussed here, specifically regarding role play. However, what would help us attract more players, I would say, has more to do with management and marketing than the product, the stage of development, RP or the community. PR efforts and advertising are a major factor in attracting new players and marketing plans play a major role here. I do not know how we are doing in that front but it might be relevant to assess that area of the project. I suggest doing a SWOT analysis. While it is a rather basic tool, it is helpful since its simplicity makes it very user-friendly.

[Velh Krome]

Firstly, I would like to ask how is it with advertisment and other games - how is it with Runescape? I dont know much about it, but as far as I know thats also "free"? They also dont advertise it in any way? Are the numbers of players comparable?

Either we become more welcoming to people who cannot or will not rp

I dont think so, the more I wonder if its, which is only my own personal feeling, the sort of hybridal state of PS, which may lay some importance on roleplay, but with its elements to as well encourage PLing, it may let people "taste blood", and finally they run off to WoW or alikes. I at least know of quite a number of people who left for WoW.
So if its considered to be a niche game, then I would as well and subconsequently suggest to give increasing importance on roleplay.

That starts with unique items. Sure its all nice and fine to have an item that only exist 3 times in the game, but whats the point of it? Regarding roleplay it doesnt make any sense, in contrast it boosts the feeling of "leetness". Then people want more of it.. finally the number of different items in the game isnt enough anymore and .. well, you know.
Levelling.. spend incredible amounts of time into levelling. Soon you can run around and cast spells most people never have seen ever. Leetness. Same thing.

On the other hand, whats with roleplay? Where is it encouraged? I mean.. Donari once suggested to have roleplay have some solid impact on the game, positions, guards, vigesimis and whatnot. Without wanting to discuss that suggestion, my point is, that roleplay per se just has no significant impact on the game, it wont help to gain spells and stuff, nor will it let you earn cash or experience points (yes I know, currently).

To sum it up: Planeshift is meant to be Roleplaying game as one of a kind. So forget about players who would join without any intention to roleplay. If you are that, dont take it offensive now please, that deperate to hope for PLing people to join the dev-team, in the end the team will consist of original players who never had any idea nor interest in roleplay, and the game will decay to a poor WoW clone.

My vote goes to hell, although I always willingly try to involve people who apparently "still arent roleplaying", for they may find interest about it. So, "To hell" in terms of aiming at the game's future development.

[Ravenguard]

In some ways, yes, the focus on role play does cost players.

Although more of what drives people away is a combination of things, rather than simply 'role play,' for instance.

I haven't been playing for several weeks now, it's kinda dropped off for me.  If anything I mention has changed in these past few weeks, by all means let me know.

Here are my reasons for not being on more often:
1) Role Play can be touchy
- Although role playing is abound, and yes, that is the suggestion of things to do when one is looking for things to do, my schedule isn't written down.  Planeshift doesn't get its own little three hour category during my day.  School, work, house crises, those take major importance over computer gaming.  Thus, I don't want to leave people waiting for me the next day if something IRL comes up.  So, I don't long term role play, which would be more fun.  I do, however, like my day-to-day activities as my character.
- People can be major jerks.  Rush in, comment on your intelligence, creativity, then leave while saying, 'This RP sucks major and so do you.'  You can have a thick skin, but it still upsets the RP going on.  Can't change that, but it's an issue.

2) Issues with things to do
- Quests are fun, but it would be nice to know how 'difficult' a quest will be, as the more difficult, generally the higher reward.  I don't care about it being too tough, I only care about it being too easy and end up spending time getting 100 exp and an octa, where I could've done the other quest and received 600 exp, 2 circles, and some pack rat trinket.  A comment by the npc on your ability to handle it, perhaps?  Based on similar things like how you can examine a creature.
      i.e. 'Hunt down various materials for me.'  (program looks at average strength/difficulty of monsters that give the materials, measures against player's stats) 'Looks like it should be a cakewalk for you.'
- The economy.  This is where I spend most of my time.  I like crafting materials to sell to other people.  But, it's very shaky on when I can actually sell things, and how much I can sell them for.  I'd really like to be able to sell extra things to the NPCs, so I'm still working and doing stuff, but can offload when selling to players gets spotty.  But selling a Steel Stock for 60 tria isn't worth it at all.
- Killing monsters can be fun, but it's really hit or miss for me.  Either I kill it in 1 or 2 swings, or it kills me in 1 or 2 swings.  It's then very difficult to level up my skills when these things happen, so then I end up using other weapons on the weaker monsters to level up, say, armor.  Or, I use completely broken (q1) swords so I don't kill them immediately.  Not to mention the times when the monsters are 'impervious.'
- Lack of group activity.  Although people can work together on matters of the economy, or role play, going out a-Viking and killing monsters is really a 1 person job.  This is up there with the quick kill mosters (either the monster or you).  I'd be all for increasing monster's HP or armor, but decreasing their damage.

The average on-line player (in my experience) does have the ability to role play.  But, sometimes you want to take a break and there should be things you can fall back on.

Hope that this helps idea wise.

[Zan]

I'm only playing this game because it (promises to) focus on roleplayers and doesn't go mainstream. So I picked option "To hell with non-roleplayers" Though I wouldn't put it that harshly. I just like the game because it focusses on a minority group I happen to be a part of.

[Prolix]

I chose option three, be more welcoming. Mostly, though, it was the least objectionable option to me; not that any options were offensive mind you except maybe the snarky (snorks?) one. I think a major problem with the game is the non-standard license but I am not suggesting it be changed as that is a non-starter. For me, I like this style of game and since I only use Linux this is one of the few free games available. I think there may be more people like me but the licensing causes the games profile to be restricted in the open source community. With a gpl type license you may well find much more support there.

Really then I think the major problems are visibility and the slow pace of development. There are a few who are more critical of the less well played characters but they are fewer than even a year ago. Perhaps I just do not see them anymore. But if you look at the success of the WOW or NWN role play servers it is hard to put the blame on the role play focus here.

Well ... you did ask ....

[LigH]

After the disaster with the moved market today, I wonder if limited imagination and tolerance cost the roleplaying members, and the not-much-roleplaying members will stay... So the roleplaying focus may get removed by the players, the opposite of the asked question.

[Donari Tyndale]

I believe that the roleplaying focus costs players. But I am willing to live with that. PlaneShift should stick with this focus, it's the reason I play it. If it would be like any other mmorpg, I'd not play it. Of course you could easily change PlaneShift into another R* and have masses of players, but I think quality goes first, even with a lesser amount of players.

[Zwenze]

I and Aturon tried to set up a monthy market.http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=32351.0 Lessons learnt. Such things wont work out. Instead of participating people just flame on you and seek for every tiny reason to nit pick on you. First market was on plaza and people complained about lag. Second market tried to be held at gugrontid and after reading the reactions about that I hardly feel like taking part there. The market at gug is dead, no rp going on there. Now we have a weapon only market as we had every day at plaza.

The problem with rp in planeshift is, that you have to many compromises and many older player are just lurking on some reason to nitpick and roast you in flames. Lesson learnt, market dead. You only can rp in a very tiny way. As soon as you try to do something usuall you get flamed.

[Donari Tyndale]

Zwenze, critic isn't to put you down, but to perfect your roleplay. We are trying to aid you to make your roleplay events as perfect as possible, so you can look back at them and say "Wow, that went well.".