shuk said: I think that a lot of the mechanics that people miss about games like EQ were mechanics developed in a time when role play was more of a consideration. The move away from some of the more hands-on social interactions and "hardcore" gameplay coincided quite strongly with the emerging mainstream and its differing priorities. As MMOs became more mainstream, the world interactions critical to role play were replaced with more efficient systems. The sort of baked in story telling: language barriers, racial hostilities, punishing deaths, slow travel, robust horizontal content, etc became rare - replaced by efficient dungeon themed loot treadmills. I'm not blaming a lack of role play for this trend. I blame the mentality that non role players can't enjoy rp mechanics without role playing themselves, because they certainly can. After all, players become immersed by the world their character lives in and not by the constant dopamine hits, whether they choose to rp or not.
There's not much of a world to enjoy with you strip out all of the rich mechanics of managing your character within that world. All you have then is your level and gear. I want more than that.
Nice writeups from a few folk on RP aspirations for Pantheon, if a bit dated. Worth checking out https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3797/roleplay
I would like to see a profile tab that players can customize. I used to roleplay quite a bit when I was a teenager and I remember the community putting a ton of effort into their bios. It's an easy way to tell a backstory and allow other players to get a feel for you before interacting. They could definitely contribute toward players having a more meaningful reputation.
I grew up playing D&D and role playing was a major aspect of all of that. My gaming experience has always benefitted with role play. I would truly love to see a dedicated population that worked toward the role play gaming experience. I understand that there are times when a role play dialogue doesn't work. That is what (...) are for. But to see an entire server truly dedicated to roleplay would certainly float my boat. Count me in!!!
I agree that roleplay mechanics need to be baked in, but not be too obtrusive for those that choose not to utilize them. One thing that would be a big help with roleplay is racial, and in some cases, class languages. I remember, in EQ for instance, Rogues had their own language, so as a Half-Elf Rogue, I could speak Common and Thieves Cant "out of the box", but could learn other languages from other players. That needs to make a comeback and will help with social interaction.
I'm hoping to do some light RPing. The idea is to let it not get in the way of other's game and not limit my own enjoyment. I haven't RP'd since the private servers of Neverwinter Nights #1, but I think I would like to break it out again.
Take a look at the suggested ruleset for roleplaying servers mentioned in the thread on what people are looking for when choosing a server.
It goes *way* beyond what most of us think of as a roleplaying ruleset. It changes many things unrelated to naming rules and OOC or IC channels.
This very much shows how different a roleplaying server can be from a normal server in ways intended to support roleplaying.
Almost all of it I like with one major exception (a one character per account limit - I am a confirmed altoholic).