How can role-playing be encouraged?

[Harwen]

Originally Posted by Seytra Obviously I got you wrong, then. I thought you meant to have the game world be OOC and one needed to use /tell or a buddylist-chat for RP.

Of of course not, I was seeing it more like, let the little OOC\'ers have their seperate channels so they can leave the RP\'ers alone. Of course, the main channel would still be the IC channel, the OOC\'s would be secondary channels that you would use to discuss in-game stuff. I believe that the OOC should be about things in game, like bugs, glitches weapon selling ( though that could be done IC style, preferably  :] ) talking to GM\'s and the like. Personally, the game is the game, not a chat room, that\'s that /tell is for.

Perhaps its my fault for typing like I rant.  

still @ Seytra: I agree that such a voting system could be abused, any other way would be impractical, you\'d have to have a GM sit there all day...its a little confusing. Again, like grading art, or putting a price on art.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Harwen

Originally Posted by Seytra Obviously I got you wrong, then. I thought you meant to have the game world be OOC and one needed to use /tell or a buddylist-chat for RP.

Of of course not, I was seeing it more like, let the little OOC\'ers have their seperate channels so they can leave the RP\'ers alone. Of course, the main channel would still be the IC channel, the OOC\'s would be secondary channels that you would use to discuss in-game stuff. I believe that the OOC should be about things in game, like bugs, glitches weapon selling ( though that could be done IC style, preferably  :] ) talking to GM\'s and the like. Personally, the game is the game, not a chat room, that\'s that /tell is for.

Ouch, then I got you totally wrong! O.O So in reality I was suggesting more catering to OOC than you (as I wouldn\'t even mind complerely off-topic chats, but only if this can be accepted in terms of bandwith and server capacity)! Right, then, so we had a disagreement over nothing.

Originally posted by Harwen
Perhaps its my fault for typing like I rant.  

I don\'t know, pure text sometimes completely fails to get accross meaning despite trying hard. That\'s why my posts tend to be long: so It\'ll be clear what I mean. But even this doesn\'t always work.

Originally posted by Harwen
still @ Seytra: I agree that such a voting system could be abused, any other way would be impractical, you\'d have to have a GM sit there all day...its a little confusing. Again, like grading art, or putting a price on art.

Yes, unfortunately. But maybe the voting system could be limited to 2proven\" players (like playtime), and abuse results in no chance of ever voting again. also, limited impact of one vote (like needing ~ 50 votes to effect something), and any player can only vote once a week week (and maybe only once in a month for the same person).

[Harwen]

Originally posted by Seytra
Yes, unfortunately. But maybe the voting system could be limited to 2proven\" players (like playtime), and abuse results in no chance of ever voting again. also, limited impact of one vote (like needing ~ 50 votes to effect something), and any player can only vote once a week week (and maybe only once in a month for the same person).

Hmm, then that makes me shudder at the thought of all these players shouting, vote for me! or I\'ll give you if you\'ll vote for me! It screams of abuse and I don\'t like it, maybe because its too complicated. KISS is my motto, well half the time

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Harwen

Originally posted by Seytra
Yes, unfortunately. But maybe the voting system could be limited to 2proven\" players (like playtime), and abuse results in no chance of ever voting again. also, limited impact of one vote (like needing ~ 50 votes to effect something), and any player can only vote once a week week (and maybe only once in a month for the same person).

Hmm, then that makes me shudder at the thought of all these players shouting, vote for me! or I\'ll give you if you\'ll vote for me! It screams of abuse and I don\'t like it, maybe because its too complicated. KISS is my motto, well half the time

True, it _is_ complicated. However, if there was no limit, then ppl. would make voting bots and exchange votes by the hundreds using these...
Kran Ingame Security Service? Sounds good

[Danny]

Harwen the channel concept hasw allready been discussed   theres about 4 or more in on the 2-3rd page of wish list alone lol..

the voting system is a good idea but there would definetly be some abuse of it.. maybe simple stuff like you cant voter more than once in a 24 hour time slot.. you cant vote on behalf of your self.. it would limit the amount of abuse..  

Many thanks,
   Danny  )

[Harwen]

Originally posted by Danny
Harwen the channel concept hasw allready been discussed   theres about 4 or more in on the 2-3rd page of wish list alone lol..

the voting system is a good idea but there would definetly be some abuse of it.. maybe simple stuff like you cant voter more than once in a 24 hour time slot.. you cant vote on behalf of your self.. it would limit the amount of abuse..  

Many thanks,
   Danny  )

Oh gee, thank you Danny for stating the obvious. Hmm, was i posting about channels, no its not my post. I\'m suggesting something. Sheesh.

[davo]

\"1337\" talk does break up the atmosphere and nice friendly mood to the game.

block the words \"dewd, leet, sup, words with a z on the end ect....

in game moderators should be assingened to just block out anoying little people and mute them for say 30mins.

but the community will ignore \"13373rz\" in general.

[Silverthorne]

I agree blocking leet speech.  I have had my fill of listening to it in other games.

[Darakus]

Do not block leet speech just translate it in common english and let\'s see how much longer they\'ll type that way when the output is not present

[wertigon]

Originally posted by Darakus
Do not block leet speech just translate it in common english and let\'s see how much longer they\'ll type that way when the output is not present

This would be a good idea, if not for the fact that 1337-speak can be any one of the following:

133t 5p34k
1ee7 5|?ea|<
|_337 S|?34|<
|_33-|- 5|?34|<

etc... Thanks to the (almost) endless variations of the language it\'s extremely hard to identify it properly unfortunately, and since there are next to endless variations of doing the same letter in 1337-speak, most kids will just come up with more elaborate schemes of the same thing. It\'s just to look at how the spam emails have evolved for that.

If you can device a method to recognize that random gibberish of text strings, though, I\'d like to see it implemented. =)

[steuben]

ponders a leet to english translator with a fuzzy logic ocr intermediate step.

the system doesn\'t have to be efficient or correct much of the time. well maybe efficient. there is enough standardization in leet that some could be hard coded in. if it isn\'t recognized then it renders to a graphic and uses ocr on the result. at an 80% confident level most combinations will be correctly translated. or at least that is how i think the human brain does it.

now if only we could learn them english right good.

[akaron]

im sorry, i didnt read the whole thread... so my answer may not be fitting to the last posts...

just in general to this topic:

first: how to define roleplaying?
that seems to be a point of disussion, but i think it is an rather easy question.
roleplaying means to clearly differentiate between character knowledge and player knowledge.
if you let you character act in accordance to all she/he does know (and for you character planeshift is a real world, in which he does live), than you are roleplaying, especially whenever you do thin inspite of your own knowledge (since you as the player know, doing something else might be better... regarding to the rules, or with such knowledge like \"if it wasnt important, it wouldnt be implemented.\")

especially you character does not know what computers are, what \"planeshift\" is, and he thinks talking about \"sword skill 15\" is some sort of mental disorder... she/he is living in a real world, and in real worlds, there are no skill points, no numbers on attributes... people just don\'t have character sheets.

--------------------------------

second: my opinion on roleplaying in ps.

i\'d really love to. but with my first character i couldn\'t, since the game really isn\'t self-explanatory. since many things aren\'t implemented yet, theres no chance of gettin anywhere, without asking about the game mechanics, and how things work.
but since i couldnt play the character i intendet to (human female healer - no human females yet, no healing yet...) ill promised myself to stick to roleplaying, once i can play my desired character.

i would be very happy, to see other people act in character to. to play their roles, instead of just mindless pushing their skills...

[akaron]

just some additional thoughts on stuff like word filters an the like...


im not sure if they fulfil their goal, since the very existence of a word filter makes you wann find out, how intelligent it is. it makes you try out lots of words, just to see, which ones get blocked, and which don\'t....


i would rather work in the other direction, and offer the player stuff which is fun, and which does softly push you towards roleplaying.

an example:
someday i tried some completely stupid browser game, where you could level up some char while chatting with others. the game itself was completely dumb. roleplaying wasnt encouraged at all... it was just for fun, not serious at all.
but there was gimmick which made the people roleplay, even if they didnt notice it themselves.
you could buy alkohol, and did cost ingame currency, and it really wasnt cheap. drinkin it didnt change anything on the game mechanics... all the fighting worked the same way as always.

there was just one thing happening: all the text you typed was changed a little bit. some sort of script randomly added *hicks* to your sentences, and doubled characters. it looked something like this:

\"i\'m so ddru*hicks*nk. i doon\'t knnow if i *hicks*can wwalk.\"

nothing more, nothing less. people started drinkin a lot there, and they startet playing drunk, behaving like drunk, although only their character was drunk, not themselves.

it was some basic form of roleplaying. totally uninentionally. it was really funny to watch, and not because of the transformed language.


so several things i would suggest to encourage roleplaying:

.) whenever a new character is created, there should be some intro played, in which the player gets some compressed background information about the world his new character is gonna live in.

.) ad lots of extra stuff in the game, which is not neccessary for playing the game. like the example with the alcohol above, ore there could be some sort of shooting range, where you can compare your bow skills, some sort of game to play for the characters.
maybe
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Battledore-Shuttlecock.htm
battledore-shuttlecock... which is a 2000 year old game, that later developed into badminton...
the /greet command for is already a step into this direction.
heres the site i got the link from:
http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/game-rules.html
a collection of mediveal game rules.

.) let the players have houses or some place they can live at. this does a lot to intensivy the \"realworld\" feeling of a game.

.) lots of possibilities to change the looks of an character, by different hairstyles + colors, mabe different faces and especially by clothes. it\'s hard to play an character as an unique person, if she/he exactly looks like everybody else.
it should also be possible to make smaller/taller people, and thinner/fatter ones...

.) some sort of (player made) news paper, or anything thelike. in a living world, theres always something happening. give the people information on what is happening, so that they can gossip about ingame events, instead of something out of the gameworld.

.) provide extra methods (channels/forums) for rules questions and stuff thelikes. if there areas clearly marked as intended for meta-game talk, and you have a good chance of success there, than people will less likely use the ingame channels for such activities.

.) the roleplayer should always keep in mind, that many non-roleplayers dont want to destroy their roleplaying expierince (which they may effectively do) intentionally. its just, that they have no expierience with roleplaying. so always be an good example and show others how its done. most important: always stay helpful and calm. maybe use the /tell command to explain why you cant talk about player knowledge in the game.
never try to turn somebody into a roleplayer by force.  the game should be fun for everyone... and for everyone in the whay she or he likes it.

etc...

[confused]

Yep, the Shout feature MUST be removed. It\'s is one of the most annoying things on a RP server of any ORPG. Some NWN servers actually have the Shout option removed to keep some sanity amongst the RPers.

Private chat can be left in, simple if it is not in the players with use MSN, ICQ or IRC anyway for chatting.

I like what has been mentioned about GM moderated XP (I know another name is used, but this concept is well used throughout many RPGs), more quests that are not combat related and requires a group of players with different skills to achieve a specified goal, fillin a RP form before given an account (yep the numbers will decrease but at least they be RPers), etc is a brilliant idea. Maybe when implimenting this, consider creating a separate smaller world server dedicated to Hack & Slash, call it PS Hack & Slash. Here remove most of the RPing features, like the way many NWN modules are done just for the Power Players as a means of getting these players off the RP servers. The world can definitely be smaller as they really hate travelling, just want to fight. Heck, just make it free for all combat, seeing they only interested in combat and leveling.

As for leet speech, why not just check to see if a number diget  or punction symbol appearing in the word, if so it is leet speech and let the word be translated to ####. This alone will eliminate most of leet speech without the need for complex pattern checks. Seeing \"I was ####, and #### ####.\" is not going to very readible. The key is to keep #### the same length irrespect of leet word length being translated.

[Obsidian_Black]

I\'m seeing almost varying defonitions of RP,  I understand the whole not talking about a lakers game in IC and not being an ub3r 1337, but I\'m curious is there really much more to it than that?  One of the main things I\'m pondering is if one is looking for the tavern or something how would you word it so to flow with the rp environment.


-OB