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The end of roleplaying games
I guess I am just a dying breed, but I thought roleplaying games were about..idk...roleplaying. The games I love and remember most were immersive, they were full of choice, player driven worlds and fear of death. Ha, actual fear of death is pretty much nonexistant in games now a days. I've searched long and wide looking for a world...not just a game. A world where I can be that blacksmith...I can be a fisherman or a local bard, but I've found nothing. Ultima Online seems to be similar, but even that has been watered down over the years. Many, hoped games like darkfall would take it's place, but all I see is a fixation on pvp and large siege warfare. I've considered going over to single players again..just getting involved in a game such as skyrim, but they feel so empty withouth others to experience it with. I had great fun with guild wars 2 recently, but not the same feeling. I've played maybe one or two games once before that actually felt..alive. It was incredibly fun and something I'd give up all my others games to have again. Many of the games that try this method die in despair after a few years..seems not much of a market for it. It seems I am a dying breed, and I guess it's time to face that.
Comments
The thing with the MMORPGs we have right now is that you can't really roleplay in most of them.
You can pretend that you're some great blacksmith or whatever, but there is no way to make that actually happen in the game. The games are just too restrictive. They want you to go through the content and that's about it.
Why? It's simple. I think companies have figured out that if they want to retain customers in MMORPGs then there needs to be some sort of investment into their avatars. I sure hope so
1000% AGREE WITH THIS.
If ANY player can level cap in a week or less. If ANY player can max crafting in a week or less. IMHO the game is to easy and broken. No investment=no love for my character.
I only make male toons. Why? Because it makes me feel like a real Hero. In every game I played a female character I never stuck with it. It took me a year or so to realize this.
Hero Evermore
Guild Master of Dragonspine since 1982.
Playing Path of Exile and deeply in love with it.
^ This is curious. Did you ever play AD&D? I'd be interested in viewing your character sheet.
I agree that the ease with which you can reach max level is crazy now. Maybe it's to cater to casual gamers who can't afford a time sink?
Roleplayers are a different class of gamers. I have not played even a quarter of every MMO out there, but I did see a lot more RP type gamers in Ultima Online than any other world. I'd attribute that to the freedom of choice in game, for sure.
Played: Ultima Online - DaoC - WoW -
Another rant of "end of this", "end of that" ...
Yeah ... so? I was playing AD&D with college friends before ... it was fun .. but so are modern day video games. Just different.
You can still play PnP D&D, you know. Personally, i don't want to play a blacksmith, or a carpenter. If i want to carve wood for a job, i do it for real.
If you dont like this kind of thread why do you answer them? This is a forum you know and this topics is good as any.
To the op, most modern mmo are exactly that mmo and not mmorpg. Now you got fast action mmo, with mindless gameplay. That what people want so that what the devs give. You want to play real rpg games well play single player game and the old ones like i do.
Plenty of games around for your taste - but you have to avoid the big AAA releases from the well-known publishers. Look at the small indie games and you can find what you are looking for.
Of course with those games you don't get polish and graphics and marketing hype.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
let's turn this around.
If you dont like this kind of answer why do you answer? ^^
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Thane.. the more you speak, the less sense you make.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I used to play a san andreas RP server with my brother a few years back...it was so ridiculously fun. You could become a police officer and stop other players, you could become a new anchor and broadcast the gang fights as they occurred, you could make guns and sell them to other gangs or start a warfare that police in helicopters needed to come and try to fight down. Everything was the players choices...it was absolutely amazing.
People have such a misconception that a role playing game is a game with swords, spells and mideival armor. It's not though, its a game where you play the role of a character...any many games are just that, but they DO NOT feel immersive. Why care about my character in gw2 if I can max level in no time and anyone on earth could do it. WAAAY to easy...no achievment there besides that you either have a lot of time on your hands or are good at time management.
what took you so long, i never was a fan of you
and actually i am typing ^^
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Companies are scared to give a RP server ruleset and enforce it. I for instance would without any problem give disclaimers saying (This is a roleplaying server, upon entering you are in character, if you wish to go OOC use private chat or an OOC channel which you can turn on in settings. Any disruption of said ruleset to troll and act inappropriately towards a community within our own will not be tolerated and will result an a Ban of your account.)
Then again I'm tired of people hand holding other players to encourage them to act right. Act right or waste your money, do a charge back and your credit card will be black listed from ever working. I don't care about those people I'd be completely about the community who makes the game worth others time.
OP.. you are not a dying breed.. We are just a small niche community that gets no respect from the big companies that chase the almighty dollar to no end.. I have pleaded and beg with companies to do ONE thing to allow us RPGers the freedom to play the way we are accustomed to playing..
GIVE US OUR OWN SERVER.. DAMMMIT.. Yes, I know that companies like Blizzard label select servers are RPG, but they are no different then any other server.. What I want with a special RPG server is:
My gaming blog
Yeah, nicely summed up. There's no facility, point or incentive to roleplay in MMORPGs, and if you're the only person in 1,000 to even try, it's not even fun.
I answer the op at least.. unlike you who just trying to be smart.
For me, roleplay has been reduced to interactions with friends who welcome (and understand) the activity. Even something as simple as chatting "in character" is foreign to most players. It's a shame because it adds a whole other dimension to gameplay.
City of Heroes was the last, great roleplaying MMORPG I played, and I played it until it got snatched out from under me.
I suspect the reason CoH was a great place for roleplayers can be summed up in a few things it did well:
1) Costumes and props
Roleplayers need these things to make their characters unique. CoH had two things going for it that helped roleplay: unrestricted avatar costume parts, and a wide variety of costume options. If you wanted armor, you could have armor, regardless of class. If you wanted to be orange, you could be orange. The costume creator allowed players to make the characters fit the backstory and theme they have in mind for them. It also allowed them to create uniforms, disguises, alterations and so on to reflect the charater's journey.
2) Emotes
This game had a very robust emote system, second only to SWG. It allowed you to walk, run, use jet packs, spraypaint, dig a ditch, dance, and so many other things. Roleplayers appreciate systems that can make their characters move the way they need them to move, and do the things they need them to do.
3) Settings
The base editor allowed roleplayers to create as many settings or playsets as they needed to in order to get their stories told. I've seen the base editor create spaceships, naval vessels, apartment complexes, clubs, dungeons, libraries, arenas, crypts and so much more! This, plus the variety of settings that were available in the world (gardens, clubs, universities, factories, etc.), provided the roleplaying community with great settings in which to act.
4) Mission Architect
This is last on my list, because the above three were so much more important. But the AE system allowed players to create immersive storylines when text-based tools couldn't suffice. I've seen players recreate their characters in AE to tell stories inside the missions when they were not "available" in an IC way to explain.
All of these reasons made CoH the best roleplaying game I've had for the last several years. Sadly, it's no longer with us, and I don't see anything that does the above four as well as CoH did. Which, to me, is a shame. It really doesn't take much to foster roleplay in the games.
All in all, roleplayers are some of the easiest players to satisfy, from a design standpoint. They don't need fast action combat, endgame content, cutscenes, loot, balance, or anything else like that. All they need are the abilities to create the costumes they want, the props they want, to express what they want to do with emotes, and the ability to use and design sets. Give them those things, and they'll entertain themselves.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky