Roleplay - A guide

[joojoo1975]

From my lofty status as someone who has played role playing games for a decade MORE than Del has (get my cane and rocking chair, I really AM a grandpa - :lol:) - I consider this to be a symptom of video game consoles.

We grew up playing board games with the family, and you'd have to interact with real, live people at the kitchen table. While you could move into larger games, those tended to fill up 4'x8' sheets of plywood. (Anyone who's ever played Terrible Swift Sword or World in Flames knows what I'm talking about.) Role playing comes from the roots of make-believe, and you actually had to use your imaginations. Sure, we would use miniatures on the table to represent our characters - but we'd also use an assortment of dice to represent monsters, or just pieces of paper sketched out quickly.

Nowadays, you don't have to pretend. The graphics immerse you into the game. And unfortunately, with the prevelance of games such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and other first person shooters - even though they can have a roleplay-like element in the game, they're just not truly RP games. With the ability of Freelancer as a game to be just another starship shoot'em-up game - and with so many other servers primarily just BEING shoot'em ups with no real RP elements - what happens is that people see the Disco Mod, think - "wow, cool, I can fly the big ships that I never could in the single player game" - and just join, never actually paying attention to the rules.

Then they get banned for violating the rules two weeks into playing - and that's when they make their first post on the forum, asking why they were punished.

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On a lighter note, Del forgot one term: The Akumabinto - the annoying player that has something happen to him and NEVER lets it drop, to point of ad nauseum. In real world games, this person would be told to never come back and play. Online, you're stuck with him until he gets perma-banned from the game and the forum.

Excellent work Del and Agmenatwork

i only been RP'n for nearly a decade, but i would like to add my 0.02$ on something else that puts the "taint" on RP'n

Just like Agmenatwork had said, the "yesteryears" of gaming(sittin around with your friends or family playin D&D, Risk, Monopoly or whatever floats your boat) was heavily dependant of immagination and fairplay. you inter-reacted with actual live people, these people you generally liked and wanted to enjoy a few hours(or days, when we would have D&D weekends) of thier time, hence you didn't try to pester them with annoying sub rules or try to anniahilate them from the get go. But then the Nintendo(imho Gaming became mainstream here) came out and we all were introduced to Single Player Games. There was no interaction with other people, no comroddery with mates. just you and your console taking on aliens, mobsters, or what ever "bad guy" the game threw at ya. now lets flash forward 23 years(nintendo hit N america in 85) with all the console wars the PS, PS2, PS3, N-64, lets not forget sega and we have a generation or 2 of people playing consoles in basically firet player. in first player, you didn't care what the computer felt, the computer didn't have any feelings. you did what you wanted.(you see where i'm going with this?) so after all that time we have people coming into Disco with the "Single player" attitude. Which basically is. . . my actions doesn't affect anyone but me, so i wanna do what will make me happy.
Now lets take a look at the MMO outlook. I would bet my house on the fact that anybody who's been playing any MMO longer than a month has a Gank story. For me it was (WoW)in Ashenvale my 20 something alliance character being pwned by a lvl 70 horde char(ashenvale was the first contested land, and coincidentally after you reached 20 you had to goto contested lands to level up and contested lands were a open pvp zone) that's like saying a pirate GB fighting a rhino. no way in hell the rhino is gonna survive this. I was gonna give you a gank example from my Jumpgate days, but everybody and thier brother has heard of WoW

The bottom line is when you have anonymity, your going to see the "worst" in people. because integrity is doing what is right even when no one will see you do it, and nobody can look into your face, when your staring at a computer screen.

so in conclusion will we always have these problems. Yes, cause if the game system can't enforce all the rules, then your gonna have people bend and abuse them. the admins can only do so much.

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To Protect The Helpless From The Heartless