Roleplaying Focus

[Under the moon]

Factions are based on how the NPCs perceive you, nothing more. They have nothing to do with your character's alignment. You can be a complete evil monster on the inside, yet NPCs (and other players) will think your character is a saint by the way you act. You could be a saint, but one wrong action will make everyone see you as the monster. Alignments are your choice, not the system's.

[Camazotz]

In many cases, a new person would like to role play, but everyone seems to ignore them. this is often because they don't have a description, so people assume they are a non-rper and don't role play. thats why some newbies try to force others to rp.

[Thinzall]

[/quote]
I'm not too sure I understand what you mean.  There is already a faction system in PlaneShift that is like the old DnD alignments but expanded.
[/quote]


Yes the faction reads 110 good, 55 evil, 35 chaos, 85 law..... all which means totalled Neutral..... one can not choose  path unless they roleplay it... there should be a set scripture in the path you choose as there is in getting into the winch... so should the path of the quests and factions

[Gothi[c]]

I don't think changing the focus away from RP is a good idea, because that is one of the things making planeshift unique and valuable.

However, I do think the community should be more welcoming. If someone violates the rules, try to inform the person of the way we do things in a way that doesn't make him feel like he/she is "getting yelled at". People leave when they feel unwelcome. Most people don't read the documentation before playing, since with most other games they are used to, you just download and play. The tutorial area was a good step forward. More of that stuff.

We don't have enough people to fill all the areas we have, however, to attract more people, I suggest making these areas more interesting. Put more neat random hidden stuff in the vast planes (eg: bdroad2 and the ojaroad's), making it more worth the effort to actually wander around and explore!!

Also, consider having more diversity for the lower level characters. Spending all day killing rats or mining gets old VERY quick. Put in some more low-level creatures with loot that would be useful to low level characters, perhaps.

[Lolitra, Celorrim Purrty Twins]

No.

The game cannot dictate to the players in such a way to 'make' them role play.  It can only encourage it.  As it is at the moment, role playing is encouraged, both in the mechanics of the game, and in the forums - it is now up to the player base to exploit that which is available to aid their imaginative role playing.   Also it is up to the players to ensure that they stay within the settings...  Something that is hard to do when it is ever changing - I know this only too well having played here for a number of years now.

Obviously, the game will do best expanding the playable areas... and introducing more 'objects' that can be used as props... and so on and so forth, to help stimulate the less creative of players.

[Draklar]

The game cannot dictate to the players in such a way to 'make' them role play.

Has been done over and over again in many recent single player games.

I don't think it was achieved in any MMO game yet, but for these the question isn't whether it can be achieved - rather how it can be achieved.
Most MMORPGs use the same gaming system that obviously doesn't go hand-in-hand with roleplay, but in this still relatively fresh genre many systems are yet to be explored, so don't talk as if the road was already closed.

[zorbels]

I find this interesting .......

I think the community should try to be more welcoming. Number of voters ----> 35 (27.3%)

I really wonder if half the people if not all of them who voted for this option are as nice to new comers as they request from other players? From all the people who voted this option it is the second choice in the running and it seems silly to me to see this voted so high up in the options when I know from my own experiences that the people of PlaneShift are pertty friendly. Very rarely did I see rude players. I also wonder if some of these votes are just because the player had one bad run in with another. If that is the case, that doesn't mean the community should try to turn up the niceness  just because of one bad experience.

It would be nice to see a poll about "Is the PlaneShift community welcoming and polite" and leave options to choose if the player has had one bad experience or more. I think that poll would help alot of players see that it isn't as bad as some make it out to be. From all of the communities online that I am apart of I still find this to be one of the most friendly communities out there. Then again maybe I was just lucky and the friendly community I see is possibly an illusion?

[Draklar]

But Zorbels, you're the sort of person this community craves for :x
It's obvious you won't experience rude behaviour from the PS commoners.

Myself, I remember being assumed to be a non-roleplayer for the most ridiculous reasons (never for anything I've been doing ingame) and for this simply attacked.
I can only imagine what the actual non-roleplayers receive when they decide to open their mouths :P

For the record, I didn't vote.

[Prolix]

I think it was a 'best of a bad lot' choice for many, Xillix as much as said the options were skewed to make a point. The greatest number of votes went to an even worse option if you ask me. Of course you didn't

[NirAntae]

I think shifting the focus away from RP will replace quality of players with quantities of players.  It's a balance only the head staff can decide on, but personally, I would be very sada to see the focus shift away from RP..  and then would go find another game that does focus on RP.

As things stand, RP is encouraged but not enforced.  Those that do not want to RP can still have fun here.  I think it's a good mix.

Actual RP-focused MMORPG's are relatively small as a general rule.  For an incomplete game, the playerbase here, honestly, is huge.  Of the two other 'good' (IMHO) RP MMORPG's I've played, the playerbase here is about double one of them, and triple the other, based solely on number of players online at any given time.  I recall not so long ago throwing a party in the staff channel when we hit 65 players online in the smaller (and IMO better) of them...  first time it had ever happened.  And that is, by most accounts, a thriving RPG.

[Raa]

I have a question... Was this game supposed to be purely RP-based in the first place?

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Oh but according to many rp is dying and everyone is leaving!

oh noes!

and according to others the cities are empty and everyone is only mining!

oh noes!

and according to others planeshift is NOT rp oriented enough!

oh noes!

Ps was conceived by rpers, built by various people though.

[NirAntae]

Oh but according to many rp is dying and everyone is leaving!

oh noes!

That's pretty normal for most RP games.  They go in cycles, and when 'the old crowd' starts growing thin, people tend not to notice that 'the new crowd' has something to offer, and so complain about RP dying out.  It evens out eventually.

and according to others the cities are empty and everyone is only mining!

oh noes!

Well...  in part...  though I've found no lack of RP whatsoever.  However...  now that I have been working a little more on gaining skill instead of only RPing, I see the problem a little more.  Gaining skill is VERY time consuming on here.  But that's another matter entirely

I also think the attempts to strictly keep large-scale 'fighting' between the players has backfired a bit in this.  In many of the RPGs I've been a part of, town-against-town conflicts have been the life's blood of the large-scale RP, not to mention player-based governments of said towns.

and according to others planeshift is NOT rp oriented enough!

oh noes!

As I said, I think it's a pretty good mix between 'video game' and RPG.  You can do both quite well here.  Just my personal opinion, of course.  And again, it is incomplete; there are a lot of things missing that will add tremendously to the RP (all the player graphics, clothes, expanded/elaborated areas, the rest of the skills (esp. crafting), etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum).

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Oh and zorbels, also according to the poll results fully one in five people on this poll say "to hell with anyone who doesn't rp" that means that the average noob has roughly a one in five chance of running into someone who will act like a complete ass to them if they have not altered their description or come up asking a noob question. So technically, we could probably be a bit nicer

[Raa]

I voted "to hell with anyone who doesn't rp," but that doesn't mean I'd be a complete ass to noobs. There's a difference between noobs and people who don't roleplay on a roleplaying game. I don't think anyone who voted that option actually meant they hate noobs. They just don't want people who don't want to roleplay on a game that's meant for roleplaying. Doesn't really make sense, anyway...