I've said in in threads past, but Roleplay for me, not typically because I do roleplay in character all the time (but I would on that server/group depending on the player wishes), but because I like the player maturity that usually exists on them. And, probably most importantly, with Brad McQuaid developed/inspired game - I would wager it will l have a great ruleset which, with EQ, contained keypoints such as follows:
I'd play on a server like that again for Pantheon in a heartbeat - the only point I wasn't a huge fan of was the trivial loot code, but there were ways around it - especially with most everything being tradeable.
Raidan - many of the rules you mention may be desirable but some of them seem to have nothing to do with roleplaying as many of us understand it.
Specifically the buffing, trivial loot code and no drop rules and probably the one character per server rule.
Any of those could be included in the basic game. Any of those could be a spearate ruleset if VR went crazy and had a lot of different rulesets. But what does trivial loot code, for example, have to do with whther people roleplay or not?
dorotea said:Raidan - many of the rules you mention may be desirable but some of them seem to have nothing to do with roleplaying as many of us understand it.
Specifically the buffing, trivial loot code and no drop rules and probably the one character per server rule.
Any of those could be included in the basic game. Any of those could be a spearate ruleset if VR went crazy and had a lot of different rulesets. But what does trivial loot code, for example, have to do with whther people roleplay or not?
I think a lot of those are to do with the 'realism' aspect of role-playing. Inhabiting your character, rather than just playing a game.
The trivial loot code encourages you to take on realistic challenge rather than doing something 'gamey' like camping for loot.
I suppose the whole concept of killing 'the same' monster is unreal, in itself, but doing it repeatedly specifically in order obtain easy loot or XP is gamifying things to an excessive level if you are wanting a 'role-playing' experience.
I know what you mean, though. You could just as well say it's less realistic to add all those 'false' limits. A monster shouldn't not have its loot just because the character killing it finds the fight easy.
@Dorotea
The one character per server made it much more difficult to escape your reputation and encouraged more mature play. Does mature play = roleplay, not always, but I'd argue there's more to roleplaying than just speaking in Ogre.
The others you mentioned arguably you are correct, they are rulesets that could be placed on any server. I could discuss reasons why I do think they encourage roleplay, but you could easily counter to argue the opposite. Disposalist touched on a few.
Trivial loot code - I think is good to have on any server. I would like it on a RP server but I don't think it should be limited to such servers. That is a debatable point, of course, and this thread isn;t the place to debate it.
Free trade - some games have this as a special ruleset as with EQ2's free trade servers. I have never quite seen the point other than to generate revenue by having players pay to transfer characters loaded with items they couldn't normally amass to regular servers. Something that would be prevented as an exploit if it wasn't the reaon the developer created the free trade servers in the first place. At least in EQ2 few people treated them as real servers to actually stay on. One of the two free trade servers had so few players (sometimes less than 10 even at peak times) that it was merged out of existance. Again, the plusses and minuses are debatable and this isn't the right place to debate them bit it is something I see as an issue for the basic ruleset not something to be done differently on a RP server.
One character per server. I understand your point but I am not sure that reputation should matter that much more on a RP server than on a non-RP server. It should be important anywhere. I could argue that there is *more* need for multiple characters on a RP server. Ignore the desire to cover multiple crafts or multiple combat roles on one account. That is fairly universal regardless of ruleset. But suppose I want to roleplay a very good (in the moral sense not the skill sense) paladin and a not so good drow-type. I could not. Not on one server and if there was only one RP server not at all, not ever, without deleting one of them to try the other.
Since I do get your point I defer judgment until I see how they handle naming under the basic ruleset. Suppose, because they want reputation to be important on any server, they force visibility of an account identifier. Such as forcing every character on an account to have the same last name (almost necessarily meaning that first names would not be unique and we could have hundreds of the same first name). Love such a system or hate it - this would undercut the reason to limit us to one character per server since the reputation would go with the visible account identifier not the first name.
dorotea said:Suppose, because they want reputation to be important on any server, they force visibility of an account identifier. Such as forcing every character on an account to have the same last name (almost necessarily meaning that first names would not be unique and we could have hundreds of the same first name). Love such a system or hate it - this would undercut the reason to limit us to one character per server since the reputation would go with the visible account identifier not the first name.
I wouldn't want to see the account name alongside the character name in the main UI, but I think associating player and character is a no-brainer choice for any MMO that cares about reputation.
When I /ignore or /report or whatever, it's not because of 'what a fantasy character did', it's because of what a player did. I expect that /ignore or /report to reference that player, not just be associated with a character that player can use as an offensive/abusive alter-ego they can switch out whenever they want.
I would like a Reputation UI dialog that keeps track of /ignore, /report, etc (and let's me make notes) and it should tell me the character's player and/or their other characters, because they also should be being /ignored and I'll want to know why, if I see them in the world, I can't hear them.
To relate this back to the OP: It's a weird two-sided coin. On the one side, when role-playing, the player is divorced from their character. They should be allowed multiple 'roles' if they want - why not? - and those roles/characters should be treated completely separately. To associate a character with a player is to breach what is referred to in acting as 'the third wall' - the barrier between the fictional character and reality. It would be like a character in a film realising they are just a character in a film.
The other side of course is that we *are* playing a game with other people. It is an undeniable fundamental part of the experience in an MMO. We aren't actors in a movie getting paid and directed. Behaviour and reputation matter unless we want the game to be unpleasant and stressful, which defeats the point of 'playing a game' at all.
So, yeah, whilst I don't think we need to use old school mechanics like a single character limit, there should definitely be mechanics that ensure reputation matters, and, of course, for it to 'matter' it shouldn't be circumventable.
But, I don't think this is a 'role-playing' thing, really. When we talk about reuptation, we talk about the player, not the character.
I was thinking about another rule that could be in place on an RP server:
Real time day progression. Normally, I get the argument that you'd want to avoid doing that so that people have access to more content, so people who can only play at night can still experience the daytime. On an RP server, well, I think I would be happier having time pass exactly as it does in real time. Tomorrow, for your character, should be the next day in game time, too. Often, I've roleplayed for 3-4 hours at night, and 3-4 game days have passed in this time. This ended up meaning that we would just have to pretend and retcon out the days passing, otherwise our characters would've sat there talking for days. And roleplay, in this case, usually takes place over a longer amount of time... what would normally be a 10 minute conversation could take 45m-1h because it takes time for people to respond.
This type of alternate ruleset would also have interesting implications, too. People who can only play at night would be 'night people' and might specialize in content that only shows up at night, and vice versa. Obviously, this type of timescale shouldn't be on every server for the aforementioned FOMO reasons, but it makes a lot of sense for roleplay servers, especially with the passing of seasons.
I would prefer not to lock my PC out the day night cycle. While I do appreciate your idea that RPing a night specialist, find dungeons to delve into during the daylight hours, run errands, play an alt, whatever you need to do to make it work is not going to be that bad.
Rather than all of the rules being talked about for the RP server, in my opinion the worst thing MMOs like to do that is detrimental to RP is bad writing. RPing in a world of bad writing is so much more annoying than RPing in a minimal world.
Some guy wants to RP a down and out Sergeant from the war? Well guess what everyone you see in town was a general in that war. They promoted everyone to General rank then tossed them all out on the street when they were done with them. The rulers are clearly horrible people using their citizens like this, why do we still support them? Hell all I did was cook a few meals in that war and I am a Supreme General of the Hounds! I never even figured out why hounds are involved, I swear I wasn't cooking them!
I've played on a lot of RP servers in various games over the years.
Generally they weren't much different than non-RP servers, in my experience, with one notable and seemingly obvious exception: there was roleplay.
Example might be you would find people hanging out in the tavern or other spots rarely frequented by players on non-RP servers, roleplaying a bit. You could even engage in some RP with them, which is a fun diversion. There is a general expectation of RP; but nobody really dings you for not getting into it. It's just encouraged. Being on an RP server kinda just meant that nobody could really balk at someone being in-character because, well, you're on a damn RP server.
There's often a misconception that in RP people are in-character constantly and obnoxiously act stupid whenever anything out-of-character comes up. Sure that happens sometimes but mostly not. If you've ever played D&D you'd know that there is tons of out-of-character chatter and it's perfectly normal; it's just that when it comes to something in-character relevant that might be fun to express from your character's perspective, such as your loathing for elves - you're encouraged to engage in a manner consistent with your character, speak from his/her perspective. That's all there is to it really.
Roleplaying is something that was the core of every RPG to begin with, and was omnipresent in MMORPG's first years. It was common back then to have some easy "roleplay chat" with anyone because players came there for the game and the ambiance and not for the successes or the griefs.
Things went done quite much and most people player RPG's now are just here to beat the game and beat other players, which is fine as long as they don't overstep on other player's reasons to play.
Which is why, to me, a good server favouring roleplay should have detterence against players considering it as "a server with low competition for endgame", by slowing progression, giving less loots and even less bosses. If the server drives a bit away the PVE opportunity, then it will naturally repulse non roleplayers.
Now what do roleplay brings to the game ? It's endless player made content outside of the game's boundaries, it makes the game 10x better, longer, striving just be exploiting the magnificient designed areas and creating plots, schemes and events. I've never player more and longer than on a game I spent hours making scenarios for players in my guild, only to unfold them session after sessions until the grand finale, than games where I'm stuck to do content anfd only content how the game designers wanted me to do.
The only issue with roleplaying on servers, are antagonist roleplayers. It's hard, and require a lot of smartness and imagination, to make a PC that will be an antagonist without beeing either truly player hated or considered as a mob to slay. While players will kindly engage with NPC thrown by their game master as antagonists, they don't trust strangers doing antagonists as it can lead to many bad situations bringing zero interest in interractions, speechs, and character development.
Mauvais_Oeil said:...
Which is why, to me, a good server favouring roleplay should have detterence against players considering it as "a server with low competition for endgame", by slowing progression, giving less loots and even less bosses. If the server drives a bit away the PVE opportunity, then it will naturally repulse non roleplayers.
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You raise an interesting issue here.
I have heard it said before and have seen it happen to some extent, that some players/guilds will go to a role-playing server knowing there will be a tendancy for folks going there for legitimate 'role-playing' reasons to be much less interested in competing at 'high end' activities on a server.
I too would be interested, if there are role-playing servers, in there being some settings that seek to ensure those going there are actually like-minded players.
I imagine most role-players won't care if others choose to rush to 'end game' content or whatever they want to do, but if there is a significant proportion of players/guilds going to RP servers that are not interested in RP, then the people that *do* want to will have a considerably smaller pot of players to RP with.
You might even end up with unpleasant situations like RP being unpopular on an RP server if there isn't anything to discourage non-RP players from going there in order to 'exploit' the non-competitve nature of the average player.
I wouldn't want to be too negative and put off people who might like to just try an RP server to see what it's about, but I think there should definitely be additional, clear, up-front guidelines and, as Mauvais_Oeil suggests, perhaps some compatible settings that might make it unattractive to those looking to 'exploit' an RP server atmosphere.
It should also be noted that VR have a few times made comments that suggest they wish to reduce the negative effects seen in competitive situations in past MMORPGs, so it perhaps wouldn't be as much of an issue, but still, if you have lots of people going to an RP server that aren't interested, really, then it at least reduces the number of like-minded folks to group (and maybe RP) with.
Interesting. I have been on many roleplaying servers over many years and I never thought of them as a place where the pve was any different. I thought of them as a place where the names were less offensive and, on average, the maturity level was a bit higher. Though in recent years I am not at all sure the latter still applies.
In a game where a key focus will be slow progress and a world that feels large - should a roleplaying server have elements to its ruleset that are not focused on the actual roleplaying but rather are extra speedbumps in a game where the basic ruleset is full of speedbumps?
There are a few key assumptions here that are just that - assumptions not facts. I don't say that at all critically nor do I necessarily disagree with them. But analysis should factor in that they are assumptions.
1. It is better for roleplayers to be on a server with fewer non-roleplayers. Partly true - this is likely to make roleplaying a bit easier. Partly not true - roleplayers also craft, adventure, group. raid and do whatever else the game provides for. A low population server makes this harder. An average population server where even 1/3 of the prople are focused more on roleplaying than game playing might as well be low population for this purpose. In my experience most of the roleplaying population wants to play the game the same way as everyone else - but they *also* want to be able to roleplay occasionally. Not all the time - not most of the time. Occasionally. If groups are hard to get - if guilds that do normal "guild stuff" and don't limit themselves to roleplaying are hard to find - it will become like a very low population server. A small number of players - perhaps including myself - crowing about the advantages of being on a low population server but most people avoiding it. Maybe most roleplayers avoiding it.
2. Extra speedbumps will increase the percentage of roleplayers on the server. Maybe so. Maybe not so. The hardcore players that want the slowest progress they can find are not necessarily roleplayers. Instead of a server with roleplayers and people looking for less competition from other players we may have a server with roleplayers and people that love speedbumps. Will that reduce the percentage of roleplayers or increase it? I have no idea.
On balance I would be attracted by the ruleset changes Mauvais_Oeil hypothesizes. So any questioning of the underlying assumptions is intended to participate in a fair analysis not to criticize.
If the spawn rate of raiding content were server specific and adjusted weekly based on the number of level-appropriate characters active that week, then there would be zero advantage to switching servers. That would remove any motivation for top raid guilds to chose RP servers.
Either that, or require all RP server characters to have a 500+ word count character bio and force all characters to walk at normal walking speed (except for short sprints). /sarcasm.
Note that I am, at no point, not enjoying PVE aspect of games and I also tend to be obsessive with it to the point I am thrilled by abilities, synergies and theorycrafting itself.
But on the other side, we are far from the 90's where people wanted to play together and in respect with each other. People want to pick what benefits them the most, and while it was allways true in human and gaming history, it became more a norm than a rare phenomenon of outcasts. It even happened lately on "classic wow" where the roleplaying server held roleplay for maybe, 7 days, and was at half it's lifespan invaded by a famous Streamer (wasn't it like, Kungen from the old classic/TBC era Nihilium scorers ?) as a target for low population low competition PVE server and it shoveled whatever roleplay could have been left there.
Now even on page one, Vandraad - Known for going with extreme arguments and hyperbolic situations - stated he would do it, which outside of beeing an obvious provocation, is simply exposing a state of mind of "everything is good if it benefits me" which will happen sooner or later if the server is just a regular PVE server with a bit of a code of conduct.
I'm also not saying Roleplay server should be PVE shutdown, as it remain the core and spine of the game design. But it can't be unaltered if there is zero active policy, and it would be both costly in ressources and too much subjective to be of any efficiency.
Hence why it should, to me, be solely based on making this unattractive to players focused on getting zero competition. Spawns rates and such based on players overall levels and such are also tools people can manipulate to benefit numbers but neuter competition and just get more loots.
-Language, is a good point as it reinforces character investment and long term hardwork
-One character per account would personally kill me as I love to play different classes, gameplays and level spans, but if it's necessary then it is
-Lore and such level restriction would be fine if mentoring is in, as getting something in a challenging way is acceptable, but beeing entirely cut out of it due to outlevelling it is something you can never catch up especially with one single character
-Having to manage resting in camps / inns and beeing even more enforced not to fight constantly could also be a possibility, making endless grinds or hardcore raiding impossible (but it can be messy for players schedule)
Many other ideas exists, some have already been done and some others will be found by others.
Mauvais_Oeil said:-Lore and such level restriction would be fine if mentoring is in, as getting something in a challenging way is acceptable, but beeing entirely cut out of it due to outlevelling it is something you can never catch up especially with one single character
-Having to manage resting in camps / inns and beeing even more enforced not to fight constantly could also be a possibility, making endless grinds or hardcore raiding impossible (but it can be messy for players schedule)
The leveling one of those mechanics I think we may some day see an end of precisely for the overleveling problem it creates in MMOs. But Pantheon will have levels so using alts for access is understandable. I personally hope to have an off button for class xp.
Managing various aspects of the game is so important to an MMO having that world feel, which is the goal of RP. Sadly the current plan of instant teleportations will remove a great deal of that gameplay. In Eve transporting goods around the galaxy was a lucrative and dangerous job. In Pantheon transporting goods around the world will be an /ooc request instead of a 30 minute trade route. I am happy to settle for out of combat resting being a cornerstone, but I am worried that may not make get through the eventual beta changes. The menality of current MMOs goes against needing more than 10 seconds of downtime. I fear the focus on efficiency crowd will be too few. But that simple time between fights is great for RP. I find the most RP happens in these downtime situations as well as when group traveling is required.
"Now even on page one, Vandraad - Known for going with extreme arguments and hyperbolic situations - stated he would do it, which outside of beeing an obvious provocation, is simply exposing a state of mind of "everything is good if it benefits me" which will happen sooner or later if the server is just a regular PVE server with a bit of a code of conduct."
Nothing extreme, hyperbolic or even provocative IMO in pointing out that a server with a lot of active roleplaying has less competition than a similar sized server with little roleplaying. Nor is it a "everything is good if it benefits me" statement since to me that means selfish and lacking in empathy whereas killing mobs while other people are roleplaying hurts no one and reflects no lack of concern for the welfare of other players.
I myself as a frequent habitue of roleplaying servers consider one of the plusses to be that if there actually is a lot of roleplaying it is a bit easier to find nodes to harvest and mobs to kill to do quests. Not *much* easier but a little and I tend to prefer less crowded servers.
dorotea said:...
1. It is better for roleplayers to be on a server with fewer non-roleplayers. Partly true - this is likely to make roleplaying a bit easier. Partly not true - roleplayers also craft, adventure, group. raid and do whatever else the game provides for. A low population server makes this harder. An average population server where even 1/3 of the prople are focused more on roleplaying than game playing might as well be low population for this purpose. In my experience most of the roleplaying population wants to play the game the same way as everyone else - but they *also* want to be able to roleplay occasionally. Not all the time - not most of the time. Occasionally. If groups are hard to get - if guilds that do normal "guild stuff" and don't limit themselves to roleplaying are hard to find - it will become like a very low population server. A small number of players - perhaps including myself - crowing about the advantages of being on a low population server but most people avoiding it. Maybe most roleplayers avoiding it.
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I'm not sure that role-playing servers would be 'low population' and, as you say, I think most 'role-players' actually play 'the normal game' most of the time and probably only have soley role-playing sessions quite infrequently.
So, I don't really think that servers with a good proportion of 'role-players' would suffer for a lack of crafters or raid power or whatnot. They would indeed play 'the same' as anyone else, *except* they would emphasise immersion and RP while doing 'normal' stuff, and be less likely to play in a competitive 'must beat the game' manner.
It's an interesting point though.