Who Killed Role-Playing in MMOs?

Frankly people saying that RP is dead in every MMO just tells me those people haven't bothered looking for it. I see a ton of RP every day in The Secret World. Even casually playing The Elder Scrolls Online I've stumbled into random RP between people in a random castle. I used to see a ton of role-play in World of Warcraft though my server has gone kinda bleh I still hear about a lot on Moonguard and Wyrmrest Accord.

 

Like a friend of mine said...
A good GM can make a bad group be good.
A bad GM can make a good group be bad.
But a really good group can make even a bad GM be good.

 

As a GM for Rifts my head almost exploded. I spent a month making an epic campaign only to discover that one player wanted to be a rogue scientist (nice), another wanted to be a Juicer (fine), the third wanted to be an adult dragon (seriously??) and the forth wanted to be a god (Oh come ON!)... none of them would budge on their selections. On the fly i had to alter the campaign to somehow accommodate the most unbalanced and unlikely party in the history of role-playing.

 

If so, which old MMOs are they refering to? Because at the start UO of old had less support for RP than what any casual MMO off the rack has today. So it can't be UO.
The rest were single player, which had much more single player RP but doesn't compare to multi player RP.

This sounds very much like exactly what I was hinting at above. RP peoples demands for RP and RP support has increased over time. So they think back on the old days and say "hey I used to love RP in X game" then faultly assume "that must mean that X game had all the features I now demand of games today". When it simply isn't true.

Hence the D&D example.

 

When in doubt throw in Nazi Zombies. Can't go wrong with nazi zombies. And that was true long before the younglings of today was even a gleam in their mother's eye.

 

I have actually replied to this thread, in another thread:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-it-more-interactive.19845/page-2#post-303386

in a weird, non-cross posty-ish kind of way.

 

I did not know rifts was an RPG. Cool I am on some web page looking at it. It seems to have a steampunkish feel to it. Our DMs were strict we played everything by the book 100%.

It did help minimize arguments, but its funny how to people can read the same thing and see two different things...

Anyways just taking me back to those days makes me relive so many good memories.

Good stuff.

 

Was part of the Paladium system, pretty much allowed the import of any games sourcebook into one big wonderful mess heh

 

Spoon,

I don't know what everyone else is referring to, but I'm referring to role-playing experiences both MMO and SP.

Its not that the games back then were perfect role-playing devices in that regard; they weren't. In fact, I think the single-players Ultimas were very limited in role-playing in certain ways. The later games ended focusing a bit more on story than open-ended gameplay. But the developers did aim at a certain audience who liked complexity in role-playing. UO isn't the best example, but maybe its design objectives were. In the end was an extremely flawed game, IMO, and a lot of these types of features fell through and didn't work well or scared away players or were abandoned. In fact UO I feel has often been used as an example for why certain things don't work in games.

Nonetheless, a lot of things started becoming very common in games after that, whether it was quest markers, or button mashing, or easy healing, or fast travel, or auto-loot, or whatever else, that I think were aimed at a different audience who expected different things from the games they played.

 

Wow, I remember coming across this video! I wanted to find it again! Thank you! Haha.

In my opinion RP has died because our generation has changed. It is looked down upon as almost taboo. Even when I role-play I am always looking over my shoulder embarrassed if anyone were to walk in. Especially when things start to get freaky..

 

~looks from left to right~ What is this non - sense? Roleplay is dead? When did that happen?

I mean seriously! Richard Garriott is sincerely one of the most chaotic (yes!) men on the planet. Pay attention to him, he is! Yet - Lord British is orderly.

Starr Long - Very Orderly, he keeps the ship tight (just ask them!) - DarkStarr - Chaotic

Roleplay is dead? When did this happen?

I shant then shatter the fantasy that "I" as a player - am nothing like Amber/Ember. Perhaps it is not that roleplay is dead. It is more the perspective that people take upon you when they see you "act". ...

' They act this way, they must really be this way. '

Do not judge a book by its cover - For under that dark one who threatens to remove the very breath that keeps you alive, the beating heart from the cage of your chest it rests in, or to take you as their pet and control you daily. Could be a very soft spoken, gentle person, who is displaying what they wish others would do to them,. a mere act to depict how they see others in their life already acting. Perhaps, they are acting! One can never tell.

Roleplay is dead? No... i think the way people think... is broken.

 

I really want this game to be RP but I know I'm dreaming.

I remember being on a server in NWN. Everyone RP'd. PKing was RP'd. It was so great. Probably my greatest experience in gaming. I miss that. I am very excited about SotA but I know that the experience I am looking for may never be.

 

I have never consciously role played before (SotA and Star Citizen are my first forays into multiplayer), however I see opportunities for it everywhere. For example, I added a touch of role play to my home decoration entry:

Although I have never done RP before, and don't know the first thing about it, I have some familiarity with making up stories - another thing that I love.
Combining playing SotA with making up stories seems like an obvious thing to do.

 

I think it's a general issue with how MMORPGs work: There are too many players. With hundreds or thousands of players around, you can't expect all of them to roleplay. Some don't want to, some simply want to disrupt the fun others have... And if you are roleplaying and d4rkMasta66 hops around before you, telling silly things then the atmosphere is ruined.
If you think about pen & paper RPGs there are not hundreds or thousands of heroes hopping around. There is a small group of heroes experiencing an adventure - without distraction.

 

I think is is because MMO's became too easy to group. Guilds are the center of RP play, so guild strength is a key metric for RP success. For example, when when WoW did not have a grouping feature, the guilds were the center of the universe. People were more social and RP'ed together and generally adventured and played together more. The PUG killed so many things, game play reached a new level of rudeness and social value dropped like a rock. Now that there is a raid finder, the only use of guilds is for the stat/experience bonuses. So instead of socializing, people just wear a guild like a piece of gear.

 

Don't forget this isn't just an "MMO" per se, the idea is you can play with just friends. So RPers are going to be perfectly able to just encounter each other and not Sir Dicksalot.

 

Amen. Lots of good RP in NWN. It kinda ruined MMOs for me. Here's hope to SOTA finally meeting up with the gold standard.

 

Some tend to forget the "friends only option"


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