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MMORPGs - Ruined By Non Role-Players?
Thanks to RPGDot for their new editorial discussing why actual in-character roleplaying in MMORPGs is dying out, as more and more 'action fans' are being attracted to RPGs. The article suggests: "When you take an MMORPG apart to analyze what it is, you discover pretty quickly that it's mostly a huge graphical chat room... the role-playing aspect of an MMORPG is nowhere in the [priority] list, which leaves the few poor souls who are willing to do so in the dust, grinding their teeth at the l337 speech they are subjected to." But it seems in-game bugs and glitches make it difficult for even the most hardcore role-player to keep in-character: "It's hard to sustain a willingness to role-play when the mindless android in front of you swallows your shuttle ticket without so much as an apology."
This happened with MUDs, The Realm, UO, EQ, and is still happening today. It's nothing new. Perhaps if there was some way that players (of higher levels???) could reward roleplaying, and make it an important part of the game. Even automatic filters/penalities for using leet speak? Use something akin to the grammar checking programs in various work processors to figure out your 'roleplaying level'? At one point I would have said GMs could help in these efforts, but there are too few of them, and they are always just fixing problems in the games for the most part.
The Best solution would be if quests required some degree of roleplaying (thus actually making it a roleplaying game), instead of just having to kill something, find something, or deliver something.
Tibbon
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The only MMORPG I was ever "serious with" (I had dabbled in the free trial of AO and the AC2 Beta, but neither of those took an hour of my time total) was the SWG Beta. If you've read any of my other comments, you'll know what I think of it (as a "game" it sucks). Thats not the point, however.
The problem with Role Playing in a computer game is that you are artificially limited by the constraints of the game. If the programmers have decided that you have to get past (kill) target A to get object B, then you have to kill target A to get Object B. In a "true" RPG (DnD, or whatever "flavor" you prefer), there is a DM who may *want* (or goad) you into fighting target A, but in the end, you could at least attempt to bluff your way past it or sneak around or whatever. Also, in a PnP RPG you can interact with your environment in ways that a MMORPG cannot currently let you. For instance, I've never quite been able to walk through tables or other party members in DnD, yet in SWG you have a rather incorporealness that, well, breaks immersion. Also, the NPCs can be only so engaging. If I told an NPC to "blow off" in a PnP game, he'd "hear" me, and react accordingly, whereas unless its a specific encounter, if I type "blow off" to a random NPC he'll simply ignore me.
So it all comes down to the Game Master. Without the human interaction, its very difficult to stay in character, IMHO. Of course, one day that might not be the case, and there isnt anything wrong with MMORPGs, other than they are in fact glorified chat rooms most of the time.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
The thing with MMORPGs are that they are in a perpetual state of being broken, right from the get-go. Launches are inherently troublesome times with client bugs and play balance issues. Only over time do these things become lessened. They're still doing fixes to Dark Age of Camelot after what, two years of being in operation? They're primarily fixes to balance issues, the odd glitch, no real show-stoppers.
Once you come to terms with that you'll have a pretty fun time with MMORPGs as a whole. I guarantee you though that WoW will suffer the same problems at launch that they all do. Busted registration/logon servers, lag, goofy gameplay balance, etc, etc, etc. It's the nature of the beast, and don't let the Blizzard name fool you. It's their FIRST MMORPG, and it will be at least one thing to them -- a learning experience unlike any they've had before.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Sadly in America imagination is rather dead. All the online RPGs have been reduced to Diablo-like play and sadly, due to the current cultural trends people in the US have a complete lack of imagination. After DM'ing for over a decade I have see a massive transition in play style. Now all that players do is dig through a manual and "Min-Max" their characters. They have no sense of role-playing, they mearly want to maximize their statistics realative to the game mechanics. I gave up role-playing about 2 years ago due to the fact that I could not find people with any sense of what role-playing is. The richness of teh American imagination has been replaced by spoon fed crap and television. The quality of role-playing can be measured by how much a person reads. It requires imagination to read a book (without pictures) and I see year after year book stores close and literature section sin the big "Chain" book stores fill up year after year with self-help books, technical manuals, and New Age religious crap.
My 2 cents
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
MUDs could afford to do that, because MUDs are (generally) free, running off the goodwill of the admins or the donations of the players. For-profit MMOGs have a much tougher time enforcing any set of play rules, because the player base is much larger, and the marginal rate of return per player tends to increase (so they want as many as they can get); and any subjective rule set meets up against those two facts, increasing the difficulty in enforcement as well as increasing the monetary costs of enforcement.
That's a good point. The people you are referring to act like its a privilege to play a MMORPG and you must abide by the RPG rules to play them. Sure, they'd be much happier that everyone would be playing them like RPGs, but how long would that happiness last before Sony (or whoever else is running the servers) decides that there aren't enough people playing the game and decide to cancel the service, as was recently (or will recently be) done with Motor City Online.
The role-players should realize that without all of the '1337' action-gamers, the producers of the game would not see it as a profitable endeavor.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
if its role playing, and you create your own character, then you can't possibly be out of role, because its your role. I can see this arguement holding water if you were playing an already established role, but for the most part, you don't. To put it in SWG terms, if you were playing Luke, Leia, or Han, I could see someone getting angry with you if you strayed out of line.
If its your own character, then its your own role and you can't escape it or betray it. That, to me, is the beauty of online role playing games. The universe you're in becomes much more than what you've already seen.
To me, those that complain are the ones that are really, really hardcore, those that demand that you talk in your characters native tongue, and not English, for example. Yes you exist, yes I respect your opinion, but there's a bell curve here, and you're on the edge, and that means you ain't ever gonna get your way, so long as the curve stays where it is. The converse of this in in your guys' favor though, because the people that don't even play according to the universe are few and far between also. What lies in between (the middle of the curve) is what exists in Online RPG's.
RPGs are however they are because the majority of people play the game in that way. That means that the majority of the people playing are happy with it that way. You've been outvoted. Take it or leave it.
The richness of a given social experience is directly proportional to it's significance, and the amount of options you have. If you have the option of acting maliciously if you so choose, then a positive interaction is more meaningful. In addition, a reputation or something that imparts a consequence to your choices is necessary so that you have realistic modes of interaction.
In "real life" social settings, there is no way to predict how a person will react. There is plenty of conflict - if a boss or co-worker takes a dislike to you personally, and attempts to ruin your career, they are allowed to act maliciously against you. In MMORPGs, because of the problem of persistence (I can buy a new account or make a new char, and my reputation is gone) the actions themselves lose value. This causes it to be far too easy to perform the negative actions out of dislike, and combined with the polarizing nature of the Internet.. we've all seen the flame wars via e-mail or bulletin board, you end up with people who only interact negatively, ie "Griefers."
As long as people are forced to interact with kiddie gloves such as no attacking, no stealing, no kill stealing, no harassment, no aiding monsters you are fighting, no disrupting a wedding, then you remove a lot of the conflict and interaction between players. When you remove the conflict, things get boring.
In addition, the worlds themselves are very static and unmalleable. Is it really easy to roleplay killing the 50th spawn at a given camp? What exactly are you doing there? Why are you killing these bandits? Why don't they go away? It's a really forced world architecture, meant to be condusive to one thing: Killing and powergaming, not roleplaying. Are there other ways to do it? Sure. Have any current MMORPGs gotten there? Nope.
I can't imagine anyone rolepaying in an environment as antiseptic and conflict free as one of an MMORPG. To blame the playerbase for repeatedly acting in the same way with the same environment and constraints is to ignore history and then complain when it happens to you as well. The choices that are required for meaningful interaction are tricky ones, because they require treating people like adults and policing the player base. These are two things that most MMORPGs seem unable or unwilling to do currently, so I suspect it will be some time before you see a rich roleplaying environment in an online game. But to blame the players for only interacting with the game in one way (powergaming) when that's really all the options that are given to them, is to assign the blame to the wrong party.
guarantee you though that WoW will suffer the same problems at launch that they all do
You may be right, but I'm not so sure. Blizzard has a pretty good reputation about delaying a game until it is truly ready to ship. I mean, Warcraft3 took years to make, they cancelled that Warcraft Adventures game because it simply wasn't going as well as they wanted (but come on, they coulda released a dried up turd with the name "Warcraft adventures" on it and sold a million copies - see Enter The Matrix).
So Blizzard may finally get it right. They're not Eidos. Blizzrad could have released a new Warcraft every year since 1998 (like Eidos has done with Tomb Raider), but they like to wait until a product is ready...
You are telling me it is easier to roleplay while making it all up over a coffee table, than it is in front of a computer game where you look like your character, move like your character, get to interact with mobs, explore a true virtual world and basically see what it is you are talking about? Oh and do it in realtime...
Who cares how buggy it is, it has to be a step-up from rolling a dice to see how much damage you do (yeah like that is real...).
In fact having fewer uber-geeks who have memorised the rule book, and look at me funny when I order quiche from the tavern vastly improves my gaming experience.
The problem with modern online role-playing games is that the vast majority of players are simply playing to win. "Win" is defined, in their opinions, as increasing experience, beating quests using any means necessary, and aquiring gobs of "phat l3wt".
Why? Because the game engine is spewing tons of this kind of information at them: stat points, hitpoints, experience, weapons which do Xd6 damage and have Y enchantments, etc... Numbers, numbers, and more numbers - none of which have anything to do with true role-playing. If nobody had told you that you were supposed to "role-play" in one of these games, how would you even know to do that? The game doesn't tell you. And it certainly doesn't encourage that kind of behavior.
If the social aspects of a game aren't directly included as part of the gameplay itself then the vast majority of players will ignore it. If the developers spend 95% of their time coding game math and 5% on features that encourage social interaction, you shouldn't be surprised when 95% of the players don't role-play their characters.
This is a tough topic, for me at least. I love Role Playing Games. I started with D&D back in the day and I have continued ever since, switching to computer/console based RPGs after my 'friends' ditched me.
I really do enjoy people who Role Play, ya know, assume a role and stick with it. This does not mean the l337 h4x0r posing as a level 5 mage. I want the game to keep the concept of role playing. However, not everyone sits behind their computer with a Jolt Cola in one hand and a direct copy of Sting in the other (the guy even told me it changes color when orcs are around, but I haven't had the chance to try that feature out yet) like I do.
But this poses a problem. There are not many of our kind out there (which is probably for the best), but those of us who are out there are prone to just a tensy wensy bit of elitism. We become less tolerant of people in the community who are not as extreme as we are. We want a different game than they do, but when we subscribe to an MMORPG, we are subscribing to a Mass Multiplayer Online Community. Let me say that again, Mass Multiplayer. That does not mean just those of us who are really really into RPGs, but everyone else too.
So what's the solution? Good question, thanks for asking. Maybe different servers, based on your extremism, ranging from the l337 folk, to the SCA folk. We cannot let our elitism scare others away from our community. Be kind welcoming, don't punish people, give helpful suggestions, they work better and establish a lot more good blood in the community.
DISCLAIMER: I am a big SCA fan.
Well, that's my two cents
I'm more than well aware of the people who believe that role-playing is some pure, unsullied ideal which everyone who plays these games must aspire to. I deal with them far too often, and wish they would find this role-playing nirvana they're after so they can leave me the hell alone. However, I think most of these people would be better served taking acting lessons than playing games.
Role-playing games are not the same as acting. Some of them get a good approximation thereof (like Mind's Eye Theatre stuff from White Wolf and a hard-nosed DM on a Neverwinter persistent world) but what your looking for is over there with all the theatre majors. Final Fantasy VII isn't an acting game, it's a role-playing game. The term has come to define that style of game, and all kinds of variations on the theme, but acting ain't a part of it. Most MMORPGs that have ever been are just the same kind of thing with you able to talk with tons of other people and interact with their versions of Cloud Strife, Tifa, Cid, or whomever. Frankly, Warcraft 3, Shogun: Total War, Quake, Half Life, and just about any other non-puzzle game in existance is as much an acting game as Everquest, Baldur's Gate, or any other so-called "role-playing" game.
I actually like acting, but a game is at best a mediocre stage, and online gaming is the worst of the lot. There are people who have a blast doing it, and more power to them, but acting like the rest of us are ruining your performance is sad.
Npc's just don't cut it in a good RPG they end up being flat... If a game wanted to realy be interesting they would pay select people to play. These people would be in some positions of authority guild masters, lords of a realm ect.. and they could direct the flow of the game one lord could decide to take over the entire universe and try and rally support.... The main thing is having major Events happen and people in role that make intelligent actions would help. In a large population 90 or so actors would suffice.. Soon to others would like these positions of power and players could in some ways take over them all promoteing role playing... as for OOC speech I think its ok as long as you do have IC speech along with it, Even sitting around the table rolling dice you break it up with talk about whats going on I mean come on its a game have fun.