ZOS and roleplaying

RDMyers65b14_ESO · December 2014

The RP that I've been doing the most lately isn't Tavern, but RPing in group PVE. I like the action it provides and although no one in the group seemed to understand how to follow orders, it was great RP. We took the anchor out more than once because instead of the 5 people strike team, we seemed to have the entire 18 people group.

I had hoped before the game came out that we were going to be able to group with like minded people which would have meant RPers together, PVPers togethers, PVE together....ect. It didn't happen.

MornaBaine · December 2014

GatheredMyst wrote: »

There's a trend that I see, though, in your posts, so I thought to ask about it. You keep on mentioning that "other people" are the key. "You can't play dungeons and dragons by yourself. It requires other people interacting together." This, to me, and I may be reading it wrong, comes across as... there are walls in the way of interaction between other people.

I, personally, haven't seen it. So... what walls are there? Because being able to sit in a bench or shake hands with another PC doesn't effect ones ability to facilitate or foster something between two or more folks, right? What other roadblocks are there, if any? That might help get to the crux of the issue.

Hmmmm...good question and I'll try to answer it. Partially to illiustrate, here's my questions for the next "ask us anything" on the Livestream:
1. Are you now forbidden from asking/answering any questions from me?

2. Are there going to be any improvements or changes to vampires at all? If so, what and when?
3. Are there any further plans for introducing player housing? If so, is there even a vague ETA?
4. Will there EVER be a barber shop and/or any other form of character customization options?
5. Since there are no plans to make existing furniture "sittable" will you make more emotes of sitting in chairs in various different positions? Please?
6. Will you be introducing vanity pets within the game, possibly as quest rewards or through a pet vendor?
7. When will we have Senche Tiger mounts and/or any other type of mounts?
8. Will there ever be purchasable cultural clothing for the disguise/costume slot that we can purchase in game?

Many of them are small immersion enhancing things. For instance, not having everyone sitting in the exact same position when roleplay DOES consist of "sitting and gabbing" would be really nice and would contribute to immersion. It would look more natural and not so weird, as it does in a room full of people all sitting exactly in the same pose. These are LITTLE things that aren't hard to do, that are nowhere NEAR the scale of the stuff they are regularly adding to the game.

A barber shop/other character customization....also NOT hard to add but pays huge dividends in player satisfaction and not just for roleplayers like myself.

A variety of vanity pets, again, not hard to implement and lots of people really like them, not just roleplayers. In character, Morna has no less than three cats. It would be really nice if she could actually be SEEN with one of them.

An empty instanced house that you could take a group to would be a HUGE boon for roleplayers. And it would be EASY for them to do. You have no idea how tiring it gets trying to roleplay where your characters are talking and otherwise interacting only to be endlessly griefed by non-roleplayers who get their yuks by being utter arsehats to you. Yet unlike almost every other MMO out there, ZOS makes it completely impossible to escape from these people by having instanced areas that a group can enter and that only the group is in. Again, a fairly easy thing to do, but they just don't.

While these things do not present "walls" to roleplaying it certainly makes roleplaying far less enjoyable. And THAT is why I get the feeling that ZOS is not friendly towards the roelplaying community and/or simply does not understand what we want, what facilitates roleplaying for us.

Do we HAVE to have these things in order TO roleplay? Of course not. But they are simple things to put in and they mean the world to roleplayers and add to player retention with minimal cost/time investment from ZOS.

SteveCampsOut · December 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

Personally, as a very small thing, I would like my character to be able to target and interact with her wife by means of contact kiss or a genuine embrace.

As someone who works with 3D Content and figures and posing in Software I have to tell you that interactive poses are some of the hardest ones to create. There's all sorts of collision detection involved that can really still bog a computer down to a standstill. A Kiss, easy, an embrace, not so much....

diabeticDemon18 · December 2014

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Personally, as a very small thing, I would like my character to be able to target and interact with her wife by means of contact kiss or a genuine embrace.

As someone who works with 3D Content and figures and posing in Software I have to tell you that interactive poses are some of the hardest ones to create. There's all sorts of collision detection involved that can really still bog a computer down to a standstill. A Kiss, easy, an embrace, not so much....

But... But... But... fable did it :,(

MornaBaine · December 2014

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Personally, as a very small thing, I would like my character to be able to target and interact with her wife by means of contact kiss or a genuine embrace.

As someone who works with 3D Content and figures and posing in Software I have to tell you that interactive poses are some of the hardest ones to create. There's all sorts of collision detection involved that can really still bog a computer down to a standstill. A Kiss, easy, an embrace, not so much....

Age of Conan had both a "high embrace" (arms around the neck) and a "low embrace (arms around the waist). Sure you had to line up just right and sometimes there was clipping but it was pretty adorable just the same. It was almost a matter of, "It's the thought that counts."

Woolenthreads · December 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'm not sure I buy any of this argument.

For starters, who said that RP can only happen if other players are around? I had plenty of great RP moments in the single-player series. Better, indeed, than any attempted RP with a bunch of people who think that pseudo-Shakespearean talk constitutes "roleplaying".

More importantly though, the game designers can't really add much that's specifically for RPers. The game is already there for you. You simply have to stay in character, which is not something that game design can help you with.

Hmmm... I sort of agree that what they can add they would benefit RP enormously has benefits for regular gamers too. Specifically, if they worked on the grouping tool and Guilds to improve the sorts of functionality that allows people to stick together rather than dropping into different phases.

Gilvoth · December 2014

diabeticDemon18 wrote: »

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Personally, as a very small thing, I would like my character to be able to target and interact with her wife by means of contact kiss or a genuine embrace.

As someone who works with 3D Content and figures and posing in Software I have to tell you that interactive poses are some of the hardest ones to create. There's all sorts of collision detection involved that can really still bog a computer down to a standstill. A Kiss, easy, an embrace, not so much....

But... But... But... fable did it :,(

so did "perfect world international" mmo,
you can hold your lover in your arms embracing your lover and even kiss them while holding / embracing them

it's not that hard to make happen in an mmo.

SteveCampsOut · December 2014

MornaBaine wrote: »

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Personally, as a very small thing, I would like my character to be able to target and interact with her wife by means of contact kiss or a genuine embrace.

As someone who works with 3D Content and figures and posing in Software I have to tell you that interactive poses are some of the hardest ones to create. There's all sorts of collision detection involved that can really still bog a computer down to a standstill. A Kiss, easy, an embrace, not so much....

Age of Conan had both a "high embrace" (arms around the neck) and a "low embrace (arms around the waist). Sure you had to line up just right and sometimes there was clipping but it was pretty adorable just the same. It was almost a matter of, "It's the thought that counts."

I never said it was impossible to do, but any poses that have multiple collision points to deal with, like an embrace, are either going to have clipping issues or they're going to bog down CPU's with collision detection issues. I spent 12 years working with Bryce, Poser, DAZ Studio, Carrara and 3D Studio Max animating 3d Figures and objects. If you don't mind clipping all over the place, sure, piece of cake, but if you want immersion and realistic collisions you are going to sacrifice CPU power that will lag your systems to a stand still in some instances. Morna, you keep repeating that "it's not hard" about a lot of the things you want done. All I can tell you that if you want it done right, some of it is hard. I'm not against you on this, I just want to point out the reality of the situation from my experience.

Here's my YouTube channel in case your interested in some of the animations I did back in the late 90's early 2000's.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLostinspaceguy/videos

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

diabeticDemon18 wrote: »

But... But... But... fable did it :,(

so did "perfect world international" mmo,
you can hold your lover in your arms embracing your lover and even kiss them while holding / embracing them
it's not that hard to make happen in an mmo.

I played Perfect World, Perfect World International and a couple other incarnations of that F2P genre. They weren't using 3D anywhere near as intensive as ESO is using.

Tashira_Ronin · December 2014

Small thing can my character please not stand up, stop drinking or break any other continuous emote whilst I check a guild roster or get something from my inventory ...it break immersion everytime! like many I get whispered In The middle of RP. Specially if it is a long one 3-6 hours.
I can fulfill the guildies request and keep my RP up, but not with the visual break where as soon as I do so, other than type in chat, my emote breaks completely.

Mandragora · December 2014

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Paul Sage was a member of the original Ultima Online design team. He is more than a bit familiar with what roleplaying is.

What Paul is not terribly good at is [snip]. In over 25 years in this business I have never encountered a designer with more integrity or a more comprehensive grasp of this medium.

What he doesn't have, and what no creative director has, is absolute authority to realize every priority on his wish list.

Thanks for info - I didnt know he was doing Ultima Online. Now I wish even more he would make good decisions - I mean you cannot please everyone, but you can please players that would became fans=players that would fit the chosen style of the game, the customers they try to appeal to.

(I think making one zone main quest with a lot of side quests was a mistake - you have less choices generally with only 1 alliance, then they made mage/fighter guild universal-so even less variability. I think if they would focus on wider alternative paths through a zone - like joinable factions/guilds and doing quests for them, it would be better. But still it can change if they could add a few nonfighting minizones around the existing already)

What OP is talking about is some kind of theatre play. I was never fan of that because Im introvert.

But I think it is way more important to have tools that would provide deeper immersion into the chosen character like skill/class based quests, guilds etc - that is what I miss most in ESO. And also customization. And Im glad that is what Paul Sage tries to implement.
Upon that you can build your roleplay - in a group or alone

MornaBaine · December 2014

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

MornaBaine wrote: »

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Personally, as a very small thing, I would like my character to be able to target and interact with her wife by means of contact kiss or a genuine embrace.

As someone who works with 3D Content and figures and posing in Software I have to tell you that interactive poses are some of the hardest ones to create. There's all sorts of collision detection involved that can really still bog a computer down to a standstill. A Kiss, easy, an embrace, not so much....

Age of Conan had both a "high embrace" (arms around the neck) and a "low embrace (arms around the waist). Sure you had to line up just right and sometimes there was clipping but it was pretty adorable just the same. It was almost a matter of, "It's the thought that counts."

I never said it was impossible to do, but any poses that have multiple collision points to deal with, like an embrace, are either going to have clipping issues or they're going to bog down CPU's with collision detection issues. I spent 12 years working with Bryce, Poser, DAZ Studio, Carrara and 3D Studio Max animating 3d Figures and objects. If you don't mind clipping all over the place, sure, piece of cake, but if you want immersion and realistic collisions you are going to sacrifice CPU power that will lag your systems to a stand still in some instances. Morna, you keep repeating that "it's not hard" about a lot of the things you want done. All I can tell you that if you want it done right, some of it is hard. I'm not against you on this, I just want to point out the reality of the situation from my experience.

Here's my YouTube channel in case your interested in some of the animations I did back in the late 90's early 2000's.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLostinspaceguy/videos

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

diabeticDemon18 wrote: »

But... But... But... fable did it :,(

so did "perfect world international" mmo,
you can hold your lover in your arms embracing your lover and even kiss them while holding / embracing them
it's not that hard to make happen in an mmo.

I played Perfect World, Perfect World International and a couple other incarnations of that F2P genre. They weren't using 3D anywhere near as intensive as ESO is using.

Hmmm..perhaps I should use "possible" rather than "easy" even though it seems as if it should be since much older games were able to do it. Also Age of Conan had far more intense collision than this game, if that makes any difference. Characters could definitely not walk through each other.

And thanks for the link, I am definitely curious to see your work.