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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
The rp in an mmorpg.
The first time i logged in to an mmorpg i expected the majority of players to act as if they lived in the gameworld and play as the characters they had created. Oh my god what a letdown, the rp in the world did not exist outside of fixed guild events. You rarely meet someone out and about in the world that was roleplaying, I found this to be true for most mmorpg:s and i have played a few of them (WoW, SWTOR, Guild Wars, Wild Star and ESO). Everybody was just minding their own business questing and did not bother to even say hello, except then in a group for dungeons or raids. Ok, you cant hail everybody you meet but that depends on where you meet them, a random encounter in the world is well worth some interacting or maybe some light conversation in a tavern, but you don't greet everyone you see in a town (that's just common sense).
Now why is that? I mean you don't need a rich backstory to your character to rp, just a few traits to act on, are your character good, evil, kind, a backstabbing bastard, shy, proud, religious and so on.... Just two or three traits is enough to have something to go on that makes your character more alive (you can also play your archetype and profession), you can add or subtract traits as you go along and all of a sudden you are roleplaying ta daa...
If you want to go deeper make up a backstory, why did you want to or how did you become a mage, fighter or ranger? Where did you grow up, in a metropolis, small town or as a farmer? What kind of family did you have, big, small, orphan? Did you come from nobility or were you just a commoner? Have you done something special a feat of strength or an accomplishment? Any life changing event's, great opportunities taken, failures, losses or gains?
I get that the rp is optional and that it's hard to rp everything (try shouting some insults in pvp as you attack and you will probably die fast) but then why call it an mmorpg why not just an mmog, The only incentive to rp is if you like it and if you don't you wont do it. But come on people you are playing an mmorpg, a little rp goes a long way to give the world more life.
So what can be done to promote rp? I think the "living" world with nodes and player influence can help a little, i mean it's easier to rp in a ever changing world.
Are you going to rp or just drift through the world like a lifeless ghost?
Now why is that? I mean you don't need a rich backstory to your character to rp, just a few traits to act on, are your character good, evil, kind, a backstabbing bastard, shy, proud, religious and so on.... Just two or three traits is enough to have something to go on that makes your character more alive (you can also play your archetype and profession), you can add or subtract traits as you go along and all of a sudden you are roleplaying ta daa...
If you want to go deeper make up a backstory, why did you want to or how did you become a mage, fighter or ranger? Where did you grow up, in a metropolis, small town or as a farmer? What kind of family did you have, big, small, orphan? Did you come from nobility or were you just a commoner? Have you done something special a feat of strength or an accomplishment? Any life changing event's, great opportunities taken, failures, losses or gains?
I get that the rp is optional and that it's hard to rp everything (try shouting some insults in pvp as you attack and you will probably die fast) but then why call it an mmorpg why not just an mmog, The only incentive to rp is if you like it and if you don't you wont do it. But come on people you are playing an mmorpg, a little rp goes a long way to give the world more life.
So what can be done to promote rp? I think the "living" world with nodes and player influence can help a little, i mean it's easier to rp in a ever changing world.
Are you going to rp or just drift through the world like a lifeless ghost?
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Your job in real life is exterminating giant rats from farms. A farmer promises you 2 gold and a new pair of boots If you kill 10 rats. While you are hard at work, some stranger runs up to you and just starts talking while you're working about his desire to slay dragons. So are you going to stop what you're doing and start engaging in a conversation you have no interest in, or so you ignore them and hope they go away so you can get your new boots?
Think about everytime in real life a random person just walks up to me and chats me up I hope they lose interest and go away so I either ignore them or smile and go back to eating my burrito.
What if I'm RPing a deaf mute?
How about RPing someone with crippling social anxiety?
Maybe I'm just RP being a massive antisocial dick?
Maybe I'm RPing that I have a separate personality, that actually controls all my actions, and he happens to be an charming and handsome man in his early 30s who likes to say "loooool, git rexd noob"???
Why question how other people play. Focus on yourself, maye you just aren't being imaginative enough!
Not much can be done about general chat,
That being said, I dont often get randomers RP with me in the world as thats kinda few and far between as @Ironcrag said.
If others want to RP, I don't have a problem with it as long as no one tries to involve me. There are RP dedicated websites and Discord servers already - if you interact and socialise with the right people you will find what you're looking for.
isn't that right @AnduinKayvaan
All i need is Clan/Guild, Alliance, Raid/Party and whisper.
Also, the immersion is often lost if I pay undo attention to any general chat, including voice chat in guild.
Another way tog et more RP is find an RP guild that doesn't just do Tavern RP or a specific type of rp. I find when you join a guild that is a living breathing entity it will be much more enjoyable. Personally several of the guilds I have been in, in the past have been very immersive and felt you had the chance to rp around the clock with your day to day actions.
Now @nagash and myself are a part of a guild that is priding itself on trying to make a blend of all three of the styles of MMO gaming which are RP, PVP, and PVE. Now yes one must understand RPers may not like to PVE or PVP. But the same goes for PVPers or PVErs not wanting to RP. We need to respect one another and in turn make a really immersive breathing community. Honestly I would love if all of the rp guilds could legitimately get together and make a living breathing city or region. This wouldn't be too dificult based on the fact that everything a player does regardless of how big or small influences the growth of a node.
Thoughts? @CylverRayne
@AnduinKayvaan, Sorry that it has taken me a few days to respond to your post. I admire you and @Nagash making the effort to bring the three styles of play together. In a world such as Ashes’ beloved Vera, I believe your chances of accomplishing this are fairly good. That is, if your three groups can work together.
Role players can and do PvP as well as PvE. PvP and PvE player can also be role players.
Knowing the dynamics of the game, along with respect and understanding that RP, PvP and PVE can survive together as one is your key. It’s not hard to see that most people will want and need to defend their homes or get their crafted goods safely to market. They will want to insure that their gatherers and crafters are safe or that their staunch defenders are well equipped. Each type of player can and will bring a needed and valued aspect to the play of Ashes.
Years back in DAOC it was heartening to see all styles of players in our guild come together when a “Call to Arms” was made to defend the castle or gates or to help one another get through a contested area.
It can be done but in today’s world of not accepting differences and separation of groups, it will be a hard battle I think.
BTW I read your guild recruitment post and think you are headed in the right direction.
I never took RPG in MMORPG to equate to playing a Table Top RPG where you get in character shouting to other people. It's fine for those that do, but for the same reason I don't role play as the protagonist in a Final Fantasy JRPG I don't RP in a MMORPG.
At least for me, RPG is more about the mechanics of gameplay with a certain archtype than fulfilling an acting job.
Player can RP an assassin, bounty hunter, or just a crazy warrior that's killing everyone around, and be very deep in his character. This would be a RP as well.
Player can also RP a farmer or gatherer, fisher etc. All this IS RP.
What you actually think about when you say RP (I guess) is deep in character RP, with IC and OOC chats, that rarer players get into. And you probably think about player group which is more focused on social RP, then activity based RP.
But this is only small part of RP community, and RP is indeed much wider than that.
We are all RP-ers in a way, we just differ by how much we immerse ourselves in our characters.
Honestly, people who go out of their way to "roleplay" their character by using flowery Shakespearean language or tolkienesque phrasing drives me absolutely insane, and does more to shatter my immersion than just about anything else because it's so much harder to ignore than the random 4th wall breaking bs.
I often end up thinking of Eve Online. Lot's of people unintentionally end up roleplaying because the game is so immersive and the mechanics weave into the game world so diageticly that it all just happens. So you end up with stuff like racial tensions, bias, and culture representative of the in game factions. Ashes needs to emulate that if they want to get people to be invested in the node system and the lore they create.
Lesson... can't please everyone, let the game be itself and don't pander, and people will play.
Well, if pulling 50 kobolds around the world is his way of having fun, it appears to me that you are the one not respecting his fun. You are also calling him an idiot and an areshole...
Think about it.
Well true, in case of pulling kobolds straight to other people, so kobolds engage them, that would most definitely not be ok. I agree on that.
Still I would encourage people to accept that "world around them exist" and people that will do different things then them exist, and one needs to make peace with it and do what he can to co-exist.
Calling other people names though, usually only make things worse, rather then better.
After reading the latest developer blog "The Mighty Beard" I have high hopes for some amazing rp in this game, and if they keep going in this direction with their development of AoC the rp will come naturally just by playing the game.
@nagash i really hope that they will give you a spectral form in game so that you truly can drift through the world like a lifeless ghost, that would be awesome.
About the best hope you have is to find a RP guild, as I don't think they are having RP servers.
That way stricter rules could be enforced without alienating non-rp players.