Cassidy said:
Zetor said:
Back in SWG, my guild operated a very well-known city with plenty of 'RP' (not the soap opera anime princess unicorn furry vampire sort, either) and events happening. We could do all this by just playing a few hours (<20) a week, too. Sadly, most of the 'modern' (hah) MMOGs dislike giving players tools to actually alter the gameworld for better or worse.
You just put the main question of it.
Most of roleplaying I saw in the few MMORPGs I played was almost the same as the way Oblivion's roleplaying is described in Codex threads about it,
as a pretext for levelling and also
as a Non-supported by game mechanics chat-room roleplaying. What is the point of roleplaying in a game which mechanics don't support, but instead detract roleplaying, attracting all types of "LOLZ" boys? What is the point of inventing a dumb history behind an instanced dungeon raid to get "teh phat l00t"? That's the problem, no matter how good is a community, if the gameplay doesn't support things like Choices and Consequences and offer other methods of character development instead of level treadmill, roleplaying will always be crippled.
Well in WoW you pick a roleplaying server
From the information I gathered, these "roleplaying" servers don't enforce really strict roleplay and tend to involve mostly the "soap opera anime princess unicorn furry vampire sort".
To sum it up,
most MMORPGs are massively multiplayer versions of Oblivion's gameplay with a more discrete level scaling.
Stop being obtuse. I've already mentioned (several times) that some systems are better for RP than others. Consider that level-based games SUCK for roleplaying. Making the decision about whether to make a "virtual world" vs. a "game" is usually a no-brainer at this point, considering virtual worlds cost a LOT to create and maintain, while having potentially fewer players than a derivative dikumud grindfest.
So if I wanted to "rank" the MMORPGs in order of "RP-friendliness", it'd be something like (bigger numbers are better):
-1. instance-based game (guild wars, city of heroes, hellgate): There is very little possibility of interaction with others, you spend most of your gametime in an instance either by yourself or with a small group. Town zones ("hubs") are typically separated from the instances with actual gameplay (not completely, in the case of CoH), and while you can find other people to RP with there, your options are limited. I'd say you could do anything you could do in an openrpg/fantasygrounds/IRC setting, which itself isn't too bad.
These games typically have no non-instanced pvp either.
0. DIKUstyle game with possible instancing (daoc, eq, wow, AO): The world is segregated into level-based zones, which kills a lot of potential interaction right there (this is actually a step down from instanced games, as those hubs tend to collect more people overall from all levels). On the other hand, the world is a coherent (static) place with all sorts of possible-if-limited RP encounters out there in the wild. PVP is possible in these games, but generally an afterthought (level- and class-based games are absolutely horrible when it comes to pvp balance).
Since you have some limited ways of interacting with the world, you can even set up scenarios and in-game events if you want to. Most of these games have instanced pvp and pve zones, but those are only for very specific areas, and connected to the world itself. If these games have player housing (ie. dynamic areas), they are always instanced, meaning only a predetermined group of people will be inside at any time, with nobody accidentally walking past and noticing something going on, so RP is possible in a "separate" area, but not really in the main world itself.
1. open-world game with no systems in place for player-created content, but no restrictions either (uo): This is a huge step up; the biggest difference is that players can actually
change the world here. While you can temporarily kill a bunch of orcs in a diku-game and have the area cleared for a few minutes, you can't do anything permanent to them; in UO, you could just build a house in the middle of the forest and have it become a part of the world.
Virtual-world games typically have full pvp, meaning you can attack and kill anyone you meet, with appropriate consequences (being flagged a murderer, unable to enter cities without the guards killing you, others being able to put a hit on you, etc), and then loot their entire inventory (unless they insured some items, but that gets expensive). This also means that virtually any sort of RP scenario is possible (you can place items and buildings in the world, remember), the only limit is the graphics of the in-game item models. And by RP, I don't mean the fairy-princess-anime-catgirl-vampire sort, but tournaments, manhunts, clashes between separate factions, thievery, etc.
These games do NOT have any instancing whatsoever, it'd defeat the entire point.
2. open-world game with systems in place for player-created content (swg): I'd say this is the best model for a RP-friendly game I've seen so far, but the only game brave enough to try it has sadly regressed to suckiness 3-4 years ago (I don't have an account anymore), and is slowly dying. The main difference between this and a standard virtual world is giving actual ingame tools to players to shape the world.
In SWG's case you could build player cities (with taxes, votes, shops, shuttleports and everything), build harvesters out in the world to get materials for crafting (EVERYTHING ingame was crafted by players) and factories to mass-produce said items, you had rivalries between crafters trying to create their own "brands", and of course pvp (SWG actually suffered a bit here, since it had an optional pvp system that was exploited to hell and back, not to mention the combat classes were pretty badly balanced in pvp for a long while). They also had actual implementations of "entertainer" classes (class is a bit of a misnomer, as anyone could pick up any number of "classes" as long as the collective skillpoint# was under a certain number).
I've actually planned, "DM"-d and executed a "pen-and-paper"-esque adventure with my guild in SWG, using areas in the world, items/houses set up in the world by me in advance, pre-written books and notes and such. It wasn't a linear adventure either, and they failed in the end due to making a few wrong choices and running out of time.
This is a (overly) simplistic breakdown, the distinction between "virtual worlds" and "games" is a lot more complex, I just wanted to point out some relevant bits for RP-friendliness. And yes, you might note that SWG is all-but-dead, and UO is hardly the juggernaut it used to be; is it because both games suck? Or is it because people aren't that interested in a more immersive setting? You decide.
BTW, I find it amusing that you're so quick to cast judgement without ever having actually played a MMOG. (crappy free ones like runescape don't count, fyi)
-- Z.
