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What Do RPers Want?
monochrome19
Member UncommonPosts: 723
I recently made a thread: What Do Crafters Want?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/397561/What-do-crafters-want.html
(Check it out, I'd love to hear what you think)
But that's not why I'm here.
After making said thread it got me thinking about another minority in the gaming/mmo world.
Role Players.
So my question once again is: As an RPer what do you want in an MMO?
(Reading the following is up to you)
I know many people play MMOs for the social experience. So do I, to a certain degree. I have never RPed and never really saw the point honestly, for myself that is. But that never stopped me from noticing others who do it and being a bit curious about it. So, if you dont mind could you tell me why you RP and what got you started. Thanks ^_^
Edit: Oh man, I think I put this in the wrong section. Sorry.
Comments
I used to RP. But, when I did, it was always in environments built for RP'ing. Every one else where I would was an RP'er and there was no other half. So, I am not sure what an RP'er might want in a game for which the main goal is not role play. I can take some guesses though:
I like to role play in mmorpgs, although often I find it difficult.
What got me started was playing pen and paper rpg's like dungeons and dragons.
Roleplay is fun. I enjoy playing a character with a personality more than just playing the game mechanically.
What do I want in an mmorpg to roleplay?
1) I want people to have character names that are not silly or offensive. For example, a warrior named Jonas Wolfsnarl is fine, but a character name of Nosepicker is not.
2) I want less asshats playing the game. Asshat meaning people that enjoy ruining others fun.
3) I want places to explore, things to do like crafting, pve group activities that are not super hardcore raids where you can't stop to socialize.
4) I want characters to look different from each other. World of Clones is bad for roleplay.
I haven't roleplayed properly for a while now but did run a druid only roleplay guild on a roleplay server in WoW a few years ago. I started roleplaying as it made the world seem more alive. It also meant there were more things to do, especially endgame, as even in a themepark game you can create your own content as a roleplayer.
In some respects the basic needs of a roleplayer are very easy to cater for - an easy to use chat system with custom emotes.
Adding to these are things which improve the roleplay experience. Here are some of the things that as a roleplayer I would like in a game (in no particular order)
1. Well thought out, detailed and consistent lore - this help to provide a backdrop against which you roleplay and aids in creating a characters, events and guilds that fit into the world.
2. Chat bubbles - I know some people hate them as they feel they clutter up the screen but when roleplaying in a group I found them helpful to see who was saying what.
3. Dedicated roleplay servers with rules on names, OOC chat, and trolling of events - there's nothing worse than having xxxDrizztxxx jumping around in the middle of your roleplay event saying "LOL- rp noobs. Get a life"
4. Custom chat channels - helpful for organising groups of roleplayers and keeping OOC and IC chat separate.
5. Gear and items that aren't just combat based - normal clothes, fun items e.g musical instruments, fireworks, light sources etc.
6. Downlevelling or the ability to do so - I remember leading our druid guild on a mission into the Wailing Caverns in WoW as a roleplay event. However by this time everyone was lvl 80 and it did break immersion a bit when mobs just died when we looked at them.
7. Sitting on chairs - if you provide chairs around tables it's nice to be able to sit on them.
8. Emotes - I mentioned custom emotes being a basic part of roleplay but a good selection of animated/voiced emotes helps add to the experience.
9. Housing - not essential but nice to have a place you or your guild can call your own. It can get a bit awkward when two roleplay groups both end up claiming the same bit of real estate as their base.
10. A varied and interesting world to explore - I guess most MMO players would like this anyway.
I'll stop at 10 things but I could go on.
My perfect roleplay game would probably be GW2's world, downlevelling and dynamic events, combined with WoWs chat interface, EQ2s housing, and music from LOTRO in a themebox/sandpark environment with non-combat professions and crafting. I'm not a PVPer myself but PvP servers with some sort of bounty system like in Age of Wushu would be in it too. I guess I'm not asking for too much there
I typed this long reply and erased it all because it sounded argumentative.
I guess why do rp'ers want anything.
With enough constructive imagination and participation I can make a world of 2 rocks, 2 leaves, a piece of paper and a paper clip.
I see them as special interest lobbyists. They want to be "paid attention to", and if you do, you'll get a vote.
I see people say in discussions "well i could really dance the way i wanted" or " i could really sit in a chair". I think this is fluff. If they can imagine it and make it real for their participants, it doesn't matter what functionality the game has.
This is true to some extent and as I said really all we need as roleplayers is an easy to use chat system and custom emotes. After all roleplayers managed perfectly well with just their imagination when playing pen and paper games. Nevertheless there are ways of improving the experience beyond just your imagination. None of the things on my list are essential and items 5,6,7 and 8 can be managed through imagination alone.
You could apply the same argument though to things which I'm sure most players would like - does having different looking gear really make any difference (it might in PVP) or is it just fluff? The ability to customise how your character looks doesn't affect gameplay so is that fluff also? I think the argument is less about what's fluff and more about how much of your game's population does a feature benefit.
Roleplayers have to accept that they're a niche population within MMOs. However I'm not sure that should stop them letting developers know what they'd like, they just have to accept that with limited resources they are likely to be low on the list of priorities. Ultimately it's the developers who have to decide whether something's worth the time and effort or not.
I am not a big roleplayer, but the main thing I look for is my character, not me, being in the game. Give my character skills and abilities that factor into the gameplay, not my own personal twitch ability (or lack thereof).
Another thing I'd like to see gone is global and zone chat. Make it local chat only, with group and guild channels. Players would then gather around active points of interests instead of sitting in a city spamming global chat. Would it be inconvenient? You bet it would!
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I rp in gw2 bit and some things I miss there are:
Officially supported RP server(s) with name rules.
A way to tag yourself for being IC.
A random number generator ie /roll 1-x.
Dueling.
More animted and/or voiced emotes preferably with a UI to see them all.
Customizable housing.
Interactable enviornment like sitting on chairs.
An editable description others can "inspect" to provide more information that can't be displayed ingame.
And probably more along with things already in the game.
You know all i ask for is support, a roleplaying server or something simple like that.
But many games completely ignore that we exist and have no roleplay specific servers at all.
Sure there are many ways to enhance roleplay, but a pretend-filter goes a long way to making it a better experience, I'd much rather have a roleplaying specific server then lets say.. A sit emote.
1. A deicated server, which to join, would require the player to fill out a fairly lengthy Roleplay form. making it very inconvenient for people to join. ie. keep the majority of the non RPers out.
2. Chat bubbles!
3. A game with rich Character Customization!
Everything else would be sweet icing on the cake.
You will find if you look at older games like EQ2, LOtR, WoW , it is the RPservers and the PvP servers that hold their populations.
My guild, though not RP, always joins the RP servers, because the player base is usualy more mature, and curtious, we RP when needed to show respect to the other players, its a small price to pay for the high level of emersion RPers produce.
Greatest RP game: The Original Neverwinters Night!
I really like Riversdale's posts on the subject and could scarcely add much more to that first list. I got my start with PnP and quickly moved to online roleplaying via MUSHes. My RPing basically stopped with the early SWG and the Matrix Online because worlds are a bit too static for me. A dynamic world brings so much more vibrancy to roleplay, allowing players to go out in the world and have an impact as their characters which in turn adds to their verity. It's so much more fun to roleplay as a pirate and actually commit acts of piracy than it is to be one and have to carve out a nonexistent niche and hang around in bars talking about all your made up pirate adventures.
If games allow players to influence the direction of the world I believe RP will naturally prosper as a result.
I think I'm at the point where I expect any game to provide the chat channels. But I want more tools for RPing than just a simple chat system. (If a Chat System is the only RPing tool at my disposal, why isn't Total Annihilation considered a RP game?) I contend that a chat channel is a fundamental component of any online game, and that RPers have merely adapted this tool to their own purposes.
But there are many other tools that could enhance role playing that could be added to games. Embedded emotes, customizable animations, voting systems, game-related events both developer made (county fair, mayor's ball, harvest festival) and player made, a judging system to evaluate crafts and performance skills (such as dancing or singing), communal music (one of the best aspects of LotRO), additional social organizations (governments, mayor's councils, etc.), elected offices within organizations, advanced costume slots with grades (need Grade X or better to attend this event), etc. It would be extra nice if there were some minor in-game rewards for actually role-playing, even if it is just some form of recognition.
I'd just love to see the development look beyond the simple horizon and add some means for RPers to actually use the game tools to build their character's personality, something that people notice and remember.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Freedom, non combat things to do.
The best roleplay game ever was Ultima Online, cause you could actually do what you pretended to do.
Clans dressed in orc armor and spoke like orcs, defending ruined forts. People were fishermen and could survive as fishermen. Whole areas of the game were made for such non combat professions. Pick pockets, house thieves, crafters, hunters, all had viable roles in the game world. People roleplayed guards to hunt player killers. People role played pirates and sailed in boats all day and drank in their player owned houses at night. You could play checkers and chess in game.
In EverQuest, some classes could just turn into furniture, or shape shift into another race. No benefit to combat, but it made their profession feel more real.
As a roleplayer, that's what I want. The ability to actually impact the world around me.
When they were making GW2 rping was the furthest thing from the devs minds, the game is one of the least friendly rp mmo's i've ever played. It's so far away from lotro Luarelin official rp server that it's actually pathetic.
GW2 also has the worst selection of emotes i've ever come across in any mmo to date lol.
No matter what anyone thinks about lotro it has the best rp of any mmo to date imo. RP is fully supported on the only official rp server and the people who play on there are not against those who don't wish to rp as long as they follow the server rules, mainly naming your character.
It also has all the great tools you would expect to make rping enjoyable.
GW2 rp is a more of a joke than the actual game itself and that's saying something.
MMORPGS are not conducive to role-playing. Here are some examples:
1. World of Warcraft (while reading this, imagine your Night Elf /dance in Michael Jackson form in front of an Orc who is /dance the MC Hammer "You Can't Touch This" shuffle): Since day 1, the game was built with non-RP in mind. Some examples: There is no war. It's just instanced battlegrounds (RIP Tarren Mill pvp days). Classes are cloned, Tauren Paladin, Dwarf Shaman, etc. Guards can't defend squat against attackers. Watching a single hunter rape the guards that ride through Goldshire was nonsense. The gear, the flying reindeer, the overall sillyness of the game...monkeys throwing bananas at you in Deadmines; severe childishness of the game build, oh and finally, Panda bears. Talk about a deliberate method to hold onto Asian numbers while the western market dips. The pvp in this game is mostly flag and point capture. Nothing epic or RP friendly here at all.
2. Age of Conan: People of the same religion and class kill each other. Priests of MItra, for example, kill each other. This is totally lore breaking. You can run through Cimmeria as a necromancer will your pets and not get slaughtered on the spot - lore breaking...a Tempest of Set and a Priest of Mitra would never group, let alone group to kill their own. Race and class here are purely cosmetic.
3. GW 2: Same mechanics as Age of Conan in that race and class doesn't matter. Everyone pvp's everyone. Another instanced Battleground experience.
4. RIFT: So much alleged lore and then bam, they release the Merc system where players from opposing factions group each other's factions. They create a false 3 realm pvp experience where the same races and classes are once again, killing each other for the sake of E-SPORT entertainment. Finally, in a so called "classless" system (Elder Scrolls Online is copying this), you will have the same flavor of the month builds in each "classless" class across the factions. Your ranger won't be much different from mine, hell, now the race might be the exact same as well. Again, lore is just a blurb, race and class are just cosmetic. There's no factional/realm pride. It's just an e-sport.
Finally, anything I say here doesn't matter. Developers aren't going to palm face and go, "Oh, what have we done!" Players who support these games will say the Earth is truly flat, if it serves their purposes. In the end, just talking about RP seems to be a huge waste of time in an age when mmoRPGs have zero to very little available RPG at all.
We are in the age of cash shops and silly mechanics where RP is just dead. Other issues, such as: Eq2 you can buy a level 85 or in WoW you can resurrect scroll someone to 80 is just nonsense. MMO's that add expansion after expansion, while forcing players to just solo grind content to get to "end game" only to do it all over again 6 months later - is just nonsense.
We would need an mmorpg that offers real factions of varying languages and gods, varying architecture and politics that are truly at war and defensive and loyal to their own cultures.
We would need names to not be childish, "Ipeedmypants" the paladin would have to go.
We would have to have an mmorpg where RPG matters enough to make it so that your enemy on a battlefield is truly different than you. In Elder Scrolls Online, while they are advertising three factions, we are already seeing them water down and placating the masses who might complain about class variation, by their naming of all three factions' classes with the exact same names. This is of course, nonsense from a lore/RP perspective.
So even games that are yet to release, are still presenting the same anti-RP behavior. Again, though, while a nice post from the OP, I doubt anyone cares about any of this. The few who do, aren't making MMORPGs.
Above all the fluff, roleplayers probably want more roleplayers. Built-in roleplay mods and flags, sitting in chairs, and other features are nice and I'd definitely appreciate them, but the truth is that I'd rather have more players to interact with if I had to choose.
Your point is well taken but falls off the mark a bit.
They want as much attention as any interest group. PvP players, Raiders, Crafters, etc.
While I agree some requests can easily be taken care of with their imagination, some cannot.
Sitting in a chair while you are "acting" a scene lends quite a lot to the situation.
Have you ever played Skyrim? There is a part where, if you follow the Imperial Soldier, you go to his Uncle's house. There is a really nice scripted scene where the uncle says "sit down" and gets his wife to come up and everyone is gathered around while the events are told.
If you just stand there clicking through the dialogue then it's not really "all that". If you actually sit your character down and play the scene as it was intended it becomes a really great moment in the game. Not about combat or crafting or leveling but you and another taking refuge in a relative's house while they listen in rapt attention as the events of the destruction of Helgen are recounted.
It's a nice moment.
It's stuff like that which lends to the idea of immersion.
I'm not a role player but I do a bit of "internal role play" when I'm playing a single player game or soloing in an mmo. I attribute characteristics to my avatar as if they were a character in a book/movie and it really helps immerse myself in this "other world".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Now that is something you cannot buy or vote with your wallet.
If there are few who are really into RPing, there is nothing you can do about it.
I think the best RPing game I found was CoH, followed very closely by SWG. Both games had the following:
1) Chat bubbles.
2) Customizable chat channels.
3) Customizable, player managed, decorated environments (houses, forts, social spaces, etc.)
4) Dedicated public RP environments (bars, clubs, fortresses, ruins, etc.)
5) Animated emotes (I think CoH did this one better...but SWG was a good second)
6) Costumes and visual customization.
7) A rich lore and backstory, with diverse factions, races and groups.
8) Functional states (walking, sitting, lying down, kneeling, dancing...I think SWG did these better, but CoH was a good second)
9) In-game e-mail.
10) Hand props (phones, fishing poles, books, etc. I like how CoH did this, but SWG could be good as well).
Give RPers these things, they can entertain themselves for months. And the best thing about them is that non-RPers like them too.
__________________________
"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
An RP environment can only be created out of a dedicated community, one that is still present after the initial entry crowd ups and leaves. And this is because the RP crowd is choosing to play the game in a way that the game does not inherently demand, and which not all people will choose to be a part of. I am sure, then, that there are sections in various old games in which people right now are RPing. And their RPing doesn't need to be anything complicated or immense, because in all reality the well-designed game provides you with an entire world to roleplay within in the first place--all that needs happen is for the player to choose to be their character. And for the most part this is what I do: I don't change my speech or walk around everywhere where I could be running, but I do sort of mentally assimilate into my character.
Ultimately, RPers can only make a legitimate demand for the most immersive world possible. After that, it's a thing of pure community that decides RP quality.