I don't RP in MMORPGs, I save that for my tabletop, and I don't think the genre is defined by it in the literal sense.
RP has always been a minority practice in these games.
As someone who plays and writes for tabletop I find MMORPGs to be a very poor medium for that type of play. The game worlds do basically everything they can to oppose your RP, and what the world doesn't squash other players do the job of destroying.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Start playing tabletop RPG's. D&D 5th Ed is pretty good. Mutants and Masterminds is a lot of fun if you like superheroes. Savage World gets very good reviews though I have not tried it. I bought Shadowrun 5th Ed for my sci-fi fix but haven't played it yet.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Its hard to get any sort of rp going when most of the newer communities are filled with the "stfu noobz" type people. That's why most people tend to form these guilds that stick together
I never stated nor implied that rpg did not mean Role playing. I stated it was never what defined the genre as in differentiated it from other games. If the vast majority of the people don't role play (yes even in the beginning) than it cannot be considered an activity that seperates it from others.people Role play in these games exactly the same way they do in skyrim or heroes of might and magic or pong.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
There are other venues that support roleplaying much better than MMORPGs do.
I will agree with the idea that other venues support role playing better than MMORPGs do, but I will also offer a possible explanation. In roughly 20 years of MMORPG development, there hasn't been any effort put in by developers to expand the tools for the player to play a role. If you could time-travel back to 1999 and revisit one of the first generation MMORPGs for the first time, you'd notice that the same mechanisms were present -- a chat interface, a few emotes, mysterious things called 'factions' and that's about it. A first generation game would look like the 2016 game, at least as far as the functions and systems in the game. Only the chat interface and emotes were really capable of sharing -- your faction was something only you (and the NPCs) could see. There simply weren't many tools to support building your own story, and even fewer ways to share your story with others.
This has been a great failure with games and game developers. The genre hasn't evolved, no new tools grew to support role playing. Worse yet, there was no incentive to role play in game. There was no way for others to evaluate your actions, speech and be able to see the motives behind them. I can't craft the best urn imaginable, and prove it by winning a prize at the county fair. The developers haven't bothered with systems beyond the combat/magic system, and a supplemental crafting system to include content that promotes role playing. Games are basically devoid of politics, religious and social mechanisms. There aren't social gatherings with in-game meaning -- a political rally to elect the next mayor or decides to build a new fence; a festival to celebrate the coming of Spring; or a crafting competition where the king awards a grand prize allowing the most skilled craftsmen to sell their wares with a premium price; or even a religious ceremony to acknowledge marriages, cast ritualistic magics, group ceremonies to gain favor with the gods, or even creating a new holy relic to honor some worshipers deeds.
There's all sorts of games with extensive cosmetic outfits, but there generally isn't some social benefit to wearing nice clothes. There aren't enough parties in-game, where the goal isn't to use combat skills to achieve something. What about using social skills to achieve things? How about a concept of sanitation and cleanliness? There's no dress code for characters in game, something that even the lowest school levels have. Don't wear nice, clean clothes and you won't be allowed into the Mayor's Ball.
Games don't support role playing because the developers haven't given us ways to share our imaginations with others except for the limited, original tools. There isn't content to encourage social interaction, and precious few in-game rewards for actually using these aspects. It is time for the genre to grow beyond the combat simulators they have focused on for the past two decades.
Players don't want them, because we've never had them before. We have no history with these types of things, and have been happy with what we've be given. But let a GM provide cookies to a PnP session, and see if that doesn't quickly become the norm. I'm waiting for the first developer to bring the e-cookies to their game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I never stated nor implied that rpg did not mean Role playing. I stated it was never what defined the genre as in differentiated it from other games. If the vast majority of the people don't role play (yes even in the beginning) than it cannot be considered an activity that seperates it from others.people Role play in these games exactly the same way they do in skyrim or heroes of might and magic or pong.
I think you are talking about what I think of as 'immersion roleplaying'. The fact that you can do this in solo games shows it is not really roleplaying, more really getting into a character you have designed for yourself.
There was a lot of proper RP back then, I am not saying it is gone, some of the posters here have shown that. But that sort of immersion roleplaying is the baulk of what occurs now, if any does at all.
I remember making up a poem for local chat when we won our first 'keep' back in the day, no one thought it was odd at all. Today I would probably get asked if I was feeling alright.
Role playing doesn't mean you have to be an actor/actress or anything of the sorts. It usually just encompasses playing in the spirit of your game character.
Like a Paladin wouldn't go around picking pockets. They would probably help someone in distress. That kind of thing.
Ok, A little old lady in obvious distress approaches your Paladin. She seems disheveled and points out a man she said had stolen her coin purse. What do you do?
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I made the mistake once of opening the RP chat channel in Black Desert. It was the creepiest thing I have ever witnessed, not the act of role playing, but the stuff they were roleplaying itself would make Donald Trump's recent comments sound mild in comparison. It was like a bunch of guys from the Darkweb found BDO and where holding a group roleplaying meeting. People who tried to call them out were just chased off, and of course there was at the time no way to report anything.
I'm not saying all roleplaying is like this, but more times than not it devolves into trollish behavior like this, which is why I assume most roleplayers stay kinda of hidden, due to being chastised for others who turn into something negative.
My main was on a WoW RP server and I was in a RP guild. between 2006-2008 I saw people fall away never to return. Eventually the guild disbanded as those who remained looked for more active players or guilds.
I was a healer, to me RP is performing that role. Not improve sional acting in a fantasy setting. The social actors had to focus on real life, earning a living and paying bills. Things that became harder to do over time. People who RPed in MMOs, now have social media to spend their time in. They sold their cars, and now take the train, or bus so that eats into their MMO time.
When will they return? When everyone has more disposable income. Things don't ever get cheaper, but eventually we do have more money. When the republicans are out of power for a long time things will get better. That isn't shade on republican and conservative, it's just the truth. Why do they hate the Clintons? Because that was the most prosperous time in the history of this nation.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
My main was on a WoW RP server and I was in a RP guild. between 2006-2008 I saw people fall away never to return. Eventually the guild disbanded as those who remained looked for more active players or guilds.
I was a healer, to me RP is performing that role. Not improve sional acting in a fantasy setting. The social actors had to focus on real life, earning a living and paying bills. Things that became harder to do over time. People who RPed in MMOs, now have social media to spend their time in. They sold their cars, and now take the train, or bus so that eats into their MMO time.
When will they return? When everyone has more disposable income. Things don't ever get cheaper, but eventually we do have more money. When the republicans are out of power for a long time things will get better. That isn't shade on republican and conservative, it's just the truth. Why do they hate the Clintons? Because that was the most prosperous time in the history of this nation.
What makes MMORPG's different from any other game? Why not play yet another Assassins Creed or Dragon Age? What makes MMO's different from other multiplayer games? The LoL of this world?
What do MMOs have to offer that they don't? Because if they offer nothing else, MMORPG's are doomed as a genre, in fact many would say we have already past that point.
There were two things, the roleplayers and the massive multiplayer in massive worlds. Without at least one of those you might as well play Diablo etc.
Over the years the roleplaying community was lost as MMORPG's were designed for other players. Now they only exist in roleplaying guilds, huddled together like Melniboneans as the waves of non-roleplayers crash about them.
Indeed the site we post on MMORPG has dropped its roleplaying forum. Do I blame them? Well it did not see much activity, roleplaying has moved on, it has become an irrelevance to MMORPG's now for so long just MMO's. But with its loss one of the only two features MMORPG's had which made them stand out was lost.
Yes, some MMORPG's still value roleplaying, but once its marginalised in mainstream, its gone from the genre. R.I.P.
So then we have the massive multiplayer in fact that's all we talk about today, because MMO's have nothing else to separate them from the herd. And that in turn is diluted, the playstyle of those who expect a ping when they turn around every quickly reached corner of these miniMMO's is the only one catered for, with but few honourable exceptions.
If your gaming genre has nothing to distinguish itself from other games, it ceases to be a genre, simple as that.
There are different breeds of roleplayers IMO.
The kind that you are referring to are the thee and thou roleplayers who talk in character and denote out of character speech. While it can be kind of fun to play along with those kinds of roleplayers occasionally I consider myself a roleplayer of a different breed.
I simply like a world I can feel immersed in. I prefer first person action based combat not because I have the best reflexes ever but it puts me more in the drivers seat of my character. I like worlds where I can actually make a difference by fighting for or against different player made groups and alliances rather than doing scripted quests that say they further my faction but actually do nothing.
Where are those Roleplayers? We're playing EVE, Darkfall, Mortal and Wurm. We're waiting on Crowfall, Star Citizen, and Life is Feudal. We are the PvP sandbox community.
I don't know, man. As someone who's been actively RP'ing for the last seventeen years or more, I haven't had trouble finding communities of players that share like interests. In World of Warcraft, the Wyrmrest Accord and Moon Guard servers host thousands of RP'ers you can interact with across a wide vareity of styles and approaches. Ultima Online still has private shards dedicated to role-play, and Project Zomboid still has New Dawn and Dead Pixels, which both have very different environments and rules. Arma is still huge for RP across every mod, in some fashion or another.
These are just a few examples.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I made the mistake once of opening the RP chat channel in Black Desert. It was the creepiest thing I have ever witnessed, not the act of role playing, but the stuff they were roleplaying itself would make Donald Trump's recent comments sound mild in comparison. It was like a bunch of guys from the Darkweb found BDO and where holding a group roleplaying meeting. People who tried to call them out were just chased off, and of course there was at the time no way to report anything.
I'm not saying all roleplaying is like this, but more times than not it devolves into trollish behavior like this, which is why I assume most roleplayers stay kinda of hidden, due to being chastised for others who turn into something negative.
The RP channel in Black Desert was mostly populated by trolls who hated RP and just commented in the channel to piss off people who really did RP. None of the "real" role players ever said anything on that channel. So I guess the trolls won.
I don't know, man. As someone who's been actively RP'ing for the last seventeen years or more, I haven't had trouble finding communities of players that share like interests. In World of Warcraft, the Wyrmrest Accord and Moon Guard servers host thousands of RP'ers you can interact with across a wide vareity of styles and approaches. Ultima Online still has private shards dedicated to role-play, and Project Zomboid still has New Dawn and Dead Pixels, which both have very different environments and rules. Arma is still huge for RP across every mod, in some fashion or another.
These are just a few examples.
Indeed, in older MMOs roleplaying lives on, but in newer MMOs where have the roleplayers gone? We have not moved to the newer MMOs because they are so antithetical in design to roleplayers. RP guilds in modern MMOs are an oasis in a desert of gamers. As was mentioned in BDO the RP channel is just there for gamers to take the piss out of roleplayers.
My theme here is not you cannot find roleplaying anywhere in the world of MMOs, just that mainstream modern MMOs have abandoned it. MMOs also now only tenuously cling to massive multiplayer as the definition of the genre. With the multiplayer of "solo" games snapping at their heels.
If you were to ask what are the key features of the racing game genre, that is easily answered. MMOs are a genre that has been stripped down to bare essentials (what they see as essentials anyway). In the process what was MMORPG is now better defined as Online Only Play.
I can't be bothered with RP'ing anymore. After 20 years, I've heard it all; seen it all. I'm frankly beyond bored with anything anyone has to say about their characters. It's already been done a thousand times over. I can stand around town being bored to death with all the mental masturbation or I can go out and kill stuff and explore the world. I think I'll opt for the latter.
Comments
It takes all sorts, and never say we don't have them on here.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
This has been a great failure with games and game developers. The genre hasn't evolved, no new tools grew to support role playing. Worse yet, there was no incentive to role play in game. There was no way for others to evaluate your actions, speech and be able to see the motives behind them. I can't craft the best urn imaginable, and prove it by winning a prize at the county fair. The developers haven't bothered with systems beyond the combat/magic system, and a supplemental crafting system to include content that promotes role playing. Games are basically devoid of politics, religious and social mechanisms. There aren't social gatherings with in-game meaning -- a political rally to elect the next mayor or decides to build a new fence; a festival to celebrate the coming of Spring; or a crafting competition where the king awards a grand prize allowing the most skilled craftsmen to sell their wares with a premium price; or even a religious ceremony to acknowledge marriages, cast ritualistic magics, group ceremonies to gain favor with the gods, or even creating a new holy relic to honor some worshipers deeds.
There's all sorts of games with extensive cosmetic outfits, but there generally isn't some social benefit to wearing nice clothes. There aren't enough parties in-game, where the goal isn't to use combat skills to achieve something. What about using social skills to achieve things? How about a concept of sanitation and cleanliness? There's no dress code for characters in game, something that even the lowest school levels have. Don't wear nice, clean clothes and you won't be allowed into the Mayor's Ball.
Games don't support role playing because the developers haven't given us ways to share our imaginations with others except for the limited, original tools. There isn't content to encourage social interaction, and precious few in-game rewards for actually using these aspects. It is time for the genre to grow beyond the combat simulators they have focused on for the past two decades.
Players don't want them, because we've never had them before. We have no history with these types of things, and have been happy with what we've be given. But let a GM provide cookies to a PnP session, and see if that doesn't quickly become the norm. I'm waiting for the first developer to bring the e-cookies to their game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think you are talking about what I think of as 'immersion roleplaying'. The fact that you can do this in solo games shows it is not really roleplaying, more really getting into a character you have designed for yourself.
There was a lot of proper RP back then, I am not saying it is gone, some of the posters here have shown that. But that sort of immersion roleplaying is the baulk of what occurs now, if any does at all.
I remember making up a poem for local chat when we won our first 'keep' back in the day, no one thought it was odd at all. Today I would probably get asked if I was feeling alright.
Ok, A little old lady in obvious distress approaches your Paladin. She seems disheveled and points out a man she said had stolen her coin purse. What do you do?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I'm not saying all roleplaying is like this, but more times than not it devolves into trollish behavior like this, which is why I assume most roleplayers stay kinda of hidden, due to being chastised for others who turn into something negative.
I was a healer, to me RP is performing that role. Not improve sional acting in a fantasy setting. The social actors had to focus on real life, earning a living and paying bills. Things that became harder to do over time. People who RPed in MMOs, now have social media to spend their time in. They sold their cars, and now take the train, or bus so that eats into their MMO time.
When will they return? When everyone has more disposable income. Things don't ever get cheaper, but eventually we do have more money. When the republicans are out of power for a long time things will get better. That isn't shade on republican and conservative, it's just the truth. Why do they hate the Clintons? Because that was the most prosperous time in the history of this nation.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
The kind that you are referring to are the thee and thou roleplayers who talk in character and denote out of character speech. While it can be kind of fun to play along with those kinds of roleplayers occasionally I consider myself a roleplayer of a different breed.
I simply like a world I can feel immersed in. I prefer first person action based combat not because I have the best reflexes ever but it puts me more in the drivers seat of my character. I like worlds where I can actually make a difference by fighting for or against different player made groups and alliances rather than doing scripted quests that say they further my faction but actually do nothing.
Where are those Roleplayers? We're playing EVE, Darkfall, Mortal and Wurm. We're waiting on Crowfall, Star Citizen, and Life is Feudal. We are the PvP sandbox community.
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan
These are just a few examples.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
The RP channel in Black Desert was mostly populated by trolls who hated RP and just commented in the channel to piss off people who really did RP. None of the "real" role players ever said anything on that channel. So I guess the trolls won.
Otherwise you or won't find, or will end up with some messy experiences.
Indeed, in older MMOs roleplaying lives on, but in newer MMOs where have the roleplayers gone? We have not moved to the newer MMOs because they are so antithetical in design to roleplayers. RP guilds in modern MMOs are an oasis in a desert of gamers. As was mentioned in BDO the RP channel is just there for gamers to take the piss out of roleplayers.
My theme here is not you cannot find roleplaying anywhere in the world of MMOs, just that mainstream modern MMOs have abandoned it. MMOs also now only tenuously cling to massive multiplayer as the definition of the genre. With the multiplayer of "solo" games snapping at their heels.
If you were to ask what are the key features of the racing game genre, that is easily answered. MMOs are a genre that has been stripped down to bare essentials (what they see as essentials anyway). In the process what was MMORPG is now better defined as Online Only Play.