BenS1337 wrote: »

It's basically what kids do.
They role play certain subjects they like - Dinosaurs, power rangers ect.
- It's basically pretending to be something else, (Playing a game)

This is just about the most ignorant statement I have ever read on this subject.

Role Play is what YOU ARE MEANT TO DO in these games. It is why they are called RPGs. This genre previously was entirely derived from pen on paper rpgs through later single player computer RPGs through MUDS and finally the first gen mmorpgs. The reason the genre was so successful was because it's players were passionate and enjoyed diving into the sculpted worlds these games offered. It was about immersion. Immersion IS role play. It is a very simple concept.

Todays mmo community is now flooded by players who share no background to the origins of the genre. They do not RP and because developers have pulled every gamer, their sister and their dog into the genre we have have console kiddies mashing buttons for their blinky light reward who have no concept of what immersion is.

Sitting around a pub making up stories that did not even occur in game using custom emotes for talking instead of actually speaking in game is NOT RP. That is cosplay. Role play within an mmo is supposed to simply be about making a character that lives within that world that ACTS like they live within that world. It is really quite simple. Playing the game is role playing. You simply have to act like the content you are doing is real and react accordingly to what your character would do in that world.

Instead we get players with the attention spans of gnats do little more than use a chat channel for real life commentary and meta-game strategy in order to burn through the "grind" of the game ... then later call it, "all so very much fun!".

It comes down to a very simple concept:

If you do not role play in a rpg game (of ANY kind) you are the misanthrope. You do not belong. You are the one ruining the concept of the genre. The sad truth is that has already happened for the most part. Mmos over the last 15 years have done little more than simplify the genre by taking out role playing elements because these "annoy" the cross over players dragged in to pad the wallets of the developers. If you do not RP you should not be playing these games. How one plays a single player game does not matter. It is a personal experience. In mmos the concept of role play must be built into the game but in later years was taken out for ease of access for non-RP players and their wallets.

The mmorpg genre has been made into an enterprise devoid of soul and detached from it's origins. It sought out players that have absolutely no interest in the fundamental concepts of the RPG. ESO sparked this controversy all over again because it is not enough like it's predecessors nor enough like today's mmos who's players it is also trying to attract.

The simple truth is that the mmo genre continues down the path of self-destruction the further it falls further away from pen and paper RPG influence. Pnp game play will always be the most imaginative and mature gaming this planet will ever see. It only gets better through experience and time. The older you are the better the game gets. It is one of the few games that holds the interest of it's fans through their entire lives. People of all ages play them. Few over 50 play video games but immersive games like D&D, Pathfinder and even into miniature game play like Warhammer attract players of all ages. It is a game culture where everyone who participates shares similar social experiences all due to the immersive properties of those games.

Mmorpgs of the past did exactly the same thing. The community was inclusive, not exclusive. Todays mmos try to seperate it's players into categories and try desperately to keep them apart. They try to cater to too many players in order to attract more wallets. This is socially destructive, conceptually divergent at the cost of immersion and role play which was the PRIMARY CONCEPT OF RPGS!!!

So to say what this poster quoted here said is just about the most ignorant thing one could possibly jump on these boards to say. It is like walking into a comic convention and saying telling stories through pictures is childish. In one aspect he is right, role playing is not about pretending to be something not offered in the game. It is about playing a character as if everything that character does in the game is real. Perhaps this is the sad truth behind RP misconception ... even many role players in mmos have no clue what role playing is.

Playing an rpg doesn't mean you are RPing. Like others have mentioned already, RPing is, for the most part, "acting"as your character and speaking in chat as if you are actually him or her. I enjoy seeing RPers around even though I usually don't partake in it. It adds atmosphere to the game and make it feel more like a living, breathing world. Plus you never know what you might run into. I came across a large group of adventurers the other day who had gotten together to gamble on horse races.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

That was kind of long, but your definition of roleplay and cosplay are incorrect.

Cosplay is dressing up as a fictional character. Costume-play. Roleplay is acting out a role. Remaining in character is what you thought roleplaying was.

Then you misunderstand my meaning. That is exactly the point I was trying to make about cosplay. It is dressing up and making up the scene. This is what these players are doing within the mmo. The mmo setting is the scene ... which is being ignored. This is the concept of cosplay. You are thinking too literal. The players are using toons within a game that are also wearing costumes in order to play out scenarios not offered by the game itself (and I only refer to those who do this ... because how would it make sense otherwise?) which is entirely cosplay.

When a developer spends millions of dollars to create a game with story and content and that content is ignored entirely and replaced by player created concept it is not rpg role play. It is role play and it is cosplay ... but not rpg role play. Role playing game (RPG) means exactly what it implies: you role play with the game presented to you. No argument can counter this and it should have been clear what I meant. Arguing points that fall outside of this definition is meaningless as I said RP is created through immersion. They are one and the same. Pretending to do something completely outside of the game world is detractive ... not immersive. It is not role playing the game. No DM in a Forgotten Realms campaign would allow a player to suddenly start pretending their character is Spiderman. No official Warhammer game would allow someone to use Pokeman toys for an army. You play the game you are playing or there is no point.

Again, this only applies to that specific act. Many RP within the world offered but many of those end such dedication whilst leveling, playing dungeons and often in pvp. This is not the failure of the role player for the most part. It is the failure of the game (which I mentioned). Mmo development has not been driven by RPG concepts. The genre went a different direction because the medium it was developed in was in fact a poor one. It was a genre dependent upon imagination for visuals and video games

Hopefully the great meaning of what my response can be discussed from this point forward instead of nitpicking. The point is why is role playing so hard to do in mmos? Why did development continue to make it harder? Why are mmos little more than complex action arcade games? Why would most of todays mmo players have absolutely no patience and capacity to play the mmorpgs from the late 90's? What changed?

One does not need to have ever played a pnp rpg in order to play an mmo that translates what one can do in a pnp rpg game. They would simply be amazed at all the things they could do and become immersed into an amazing world and would learn the lore simply by playing. Most mmos do not offer this. You seem to think I point a finger and judge when in fact I simply point to reveal. If someone takes offense then it is up to them to look within and ask, "Why do I feel this way? Why do I do what I do?".