Roleplaying

[Amberlee]

Its not the game per say.
Its that many RPers have moved on to other games that offer RP and.. graphics.
Like Lord of the Rings Online, Neverwinter, EverQuest 2 et cetra.
MMO's that cater a bit more to the RP crowd, and provide an interesting setting.

I do not think it is that people quit because you do not enforce the RP as much now.
I think people quit because they move on to something else, and Genesis remains a second hand option.
Then their closest friends leave because they played genesis to play with their friends.

Chain reaction.

The people that remain are those that love a certain aspect of the game.
Like Ethan and Celly that I suspect wouldnt even play anymore if it werent for the Morgul Mages.
Those that are just robots because that gives them something which I am not sure what is, like Irk.

And those that pretty much are friends with everyone.

[Creed]

I must say..
I never played an MMO where RP was visible or aimed for.

All of those I played has, for more or less everyone, been about levels, gear and PvP.
Not once did I hear anyone say: "No, I won't do that quest, since I won't kill X race."

I believe we lost a lot of RP people due to the stat/level changes.
Not easy playing someone dangerous, if everyone can see you're "tiny".
And those people didn't want to go grinding to keep up the illusion of being dangerous..

When it was said that scripting was allowed, I believe a bunch left.

And I agree with the chain reactions.. when all the other RP people leave, the last bugger off too.

[Arcon]

I must say..
I never played an MMO where RP was visible or aimed for.

All of those I played has, for more or less everyone, been about levels, gear and PvP.
Not once did I hear anyone say: "No, I won't do that quest, since I won't kill X race."

I believe we lost a lot of RP people due to the stat/level changes.
Not easy playing someone dangerous, if everyone can see you're "tiny".
And those people didn't want to go grinding to keep up the illusion of being dangerous..

When it was said that scripting was allowed, I believe a bunch left.

And I agree with the chain reactions.. when all the other RP people leave, the last bugger off too.

+1


I also want to add that I think that the only way to have rp return to the game is if the players enforce it themself. Stricter access to guilds with higher RP standard and no more one week applications. Put some pressure on the applicants and full members. Make them RP the guild or tell them to leave and the members that don't like it you can ask why they are there? Have they joined just to for the specials of that guild or for the guild itself?

[Kiara]

Good notes, both of you Arcon and Creed!

I too think the now pretty sloppy guild joining process is at least partly to blame for less RP in guilds. However, we should also remember it was implemented since people complained about having to wait for ages since there were no people to respond to their applications. So... we will still have that issue. We simply have too many guilds and too few players, so all guilds can't be active at once. Guilds enjoy bursts of activity, and then return to slumber, while others return bursts of activity, and so on.

How do you solve that? I dont really know. Perhaps we should still let people join fairly easy, but guilds should actually be more serious about enforcing their RP once people have joined, and simply kick those who do not?

Either way, it means someone in every guild has to feel motivated to work for this. And like I said in an earlier post my general impression is that most current players DONT want more RP. And if you dont want something, why would you work for it?

The crazy high soft cap and the crazy amount of time and/or scripting/botting needed to reach them I definitely also agree is a reason many left. It's definitely a reason I have been absent from the game long periods. I think grinding is utterly boring, but like you say, you need quite a lot of it to be able to do other things, like PVP and RP many roles. Even in this latest event you have a clear benefit if you're a myth. Size matters. Maybe too much.

[Kas]

One approach the tower usually utilize is to engage the applicant immediately. Review app, if it's not entirely crap we toss the candidate into the grinder. From this moment on, the wait for application acceptance/rejection is over and testing starts.

Then ofcourse, it's entirely up to the candidate.

[Manglor]

One approach the tower usually utilize is to engage the applicant immediately. Review app, if it's not entirely crap we toss the candidate into the grinder. From this moment on, the wait for application acceptance/rejection is over and testing starts.

Then ofcourse, it's entirely up to the candidate.

And to further Kas' point, everyone gets a shot to be an Apprentice. There's no such thing as 'nope, I don't like him because of XYZ.' Everyone gets a fair shake as Tuvale. It's then up to you to wow Us. I don't remember the last time that someone was declined admission as Apprentice.

[Kiara]

One approach the tower usually utilize is to engage the applicant immediately. Review app, if it's not entirely crap we toss the candidate into the grinder. From this moment on, the wait for application acceptance/rejection is over and testing starts.

Then ofcourse, it's entirely up to the candidate.

And to further Kas' point, everyone gets a shot to be an Apprentice. There's no such thing as 'nope, I don't like him because of XYZ.' Everyone gets a fair shake as Tuvale. It's then up to you to wow Us. I don't remember the last time that someone was declined admission as Apprentice.

The problem though, and as I remember the reasons why many guilds were changed to become more free, was that there simply was nobody around to test the applicant. Or even answer the application.

Maybe mages always have been active enough to do that, but then I think it is one of the very few guilds who have.

[Manglor]

One approach the tower usually utilize is to engage the applicant immediately. Review app, if it's not entirely crap we toss the candidate into the grinder. From this moment on, the wait for application acceptance/rejection is over and testing starts.

Then ofcourse, it's entirely up to the candidate.

And to further Kas' point, everyone gets a shot to be an Apprentice. There's no such thing as 'nope, I don't like him because of XYZ.' Everyone gets a fair shake as Tuvale. It's then up to you to wow Us. I don't remember the last time that someone was declined admission as Apprentice.

The problem though, and as I remember the reasons why many guilds were changed to become more free, was that there simply was nobody around to test the applicant. Or even answer the application.

Maybe mages always have been active enough to do that, but then I think it is one of the very few guilds who have.

To Kas' credit, he's usually _the_ one to test, train and tutor all Apprentices. Other "elite" guilds have fallen prey to inactivity, but the Mages continue to thrive in this regard.

[Kiara]

Well thats the thing. Many guilds doesnt really have someone like that. We just have too many guilds for our number of players for all to be active at the same time. So I understand why the choice was made to open up guilds, but RP probably took a hit because of it.

[Kas]

I think you need a "whip" to encourage roleplay, some consequence if you regulary break character. In the tower you rarely if ever do that. Hammered into your skull from the second you apply to you reach full magehood, which at that point it has become a routine or muscle memory.

Ofcourse, if the council is compromised, the whole guild is in jeopardy and any standard may drop like a rock to such a level that it's beyond recovery.

What do you do if a guild is hostage to some council that thinks "rp" is some sort of a car, or never plays and compromising the integrity of the guild?