Roleplaying and Discovery Freelancer

[Jinx]

i agree, - most of the roleplay happens offline on the forum. and thats mostly good roleplay indeed.

ingame, there are certain limits ( which shall not be an excuse for a bad roleplay ) - but an explanation.

firstly, the chat system sucks. you can t write down more than 1.5 lines and you can t easily PM a target. instead you either have to make a system call, which is stupid most of the time, or you have to search a long list of cryptic names manually, - letting time pass which does not enable a proper conversation. and its hard to chat with several people at once, unless you form up a group , wich - in a roleplay sense makes no sense sometimes.

secondly, each players roleplay is different. and to put it like that - roleplaying in a fantasy setting is indeed easier, cause it comes with very certain stereotypes usually provided by the hollywood movie indurstry or other shows. - in other words, in "most" ( not all ) fantasy settings, there is a much broader understanding on how certain factions act.
in freelancer, we re confronted with a science fiction setting, which is rather unusual. most science fiction settings only know war of two or more sides, but rarely deal with societies or believable societies. there are some, but its not close as well known as the common fantasy settings.

furthermore, freelancer the game is a rather small and cramped universe. the space is very very limited, there are no real barriers at the borders of each faction. the npcs are mostly a joke or an annoyance and have no value when it comes to roleplay. there are no VIP NPCs like the singleplayer campain that puts us into the world of freelancer with believable missions and characters, we just see the usual default npc, that spawns and despawns - but doesn t at all affect the enviroment.

whats left is some sort of dogfight game - and for what it provides us, i still have to say that the discovery community makes a great efford in roleplaying it, and succeeds pretty well.

we do have good factions ( allthough i m not part of any ) - there are claims of territory, there is diplomacy, there are very FEW ( yes, i really think so ) pvp whores for a server of such a big active population.

in other games, people seek power ( wow, everquest, etc ) in freelancer disc, there s no gain to be highest level, as it can be achieved within a minute with a bit of cash transfer. also the equipment is balanced enough so there is no need to brag about flying a huge battleship. there are enough people that fly a fighter and are happy with it. - try to find that in other online games. - compared to that, the discovery server is a bright example of non power gamers.

all in all, i have seen less roleplay in games that came with easier settings. there is allways room to improve roleplay, and yes, sometimes its hard to roleplay, cause ppl just ooc chat ( and then - at least i feel strange when i started to talk in role, - happened in tau-31 once, where ppl told me to basicly shut up with my gaian propaganda, cause it disturbed their ooc chatting - )

anyway, the general picture of the server is quite positive.

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