quote: Original post by deClavier
if role-playing is equivalent with "a role to play"
does that imply a function that is consistent with some social system?

See, that''s why I strongly dislike the use of the word "role-play" It is far too ambiguous. People so far have constantly either misrepresented it as "cooperating with other people", or "playing a role in society", when really, it covers something much broader than that. You can "role-play" an antisocial bastard, and still be excellent. To me, the most fun episodes come when not everyone agrees, and start solidly disagreeing and arguing in-character.

Yep, some part of roleplaying can definately be carving yourself a niche in the imaginary society, and becoming respected there. This is actually one of the most involved ways of roleplaying, because it implies you''ll be spending a long time to get "settled" into the role, and even longer playing it. The advantage is that you can start from a pretty blank character, a cardboard cutout so to speak, and gradually refine the personality, behaviour and quirks during play. Most MMORPGs try to go for this model, but tend to fall down over two things:
1. There really isn''t very much reward for getting into your role, in game-system terms.
2. The game will be swarming with cardboard cutout newbies ''messing up'' the consistency that the few die-hard long term players want to achieve. Don''t get me wrong, those newbies aren''t doing anything wrong, and they are most likely having some fun too, but those die-hards will be whining all the way to sunday about the lack of ''roleplaying'' (cfr this thread), i.e. complaining about how the newbies aren''t really bothering to flesh out the details of their character beyond "right now I''m playing a heavily armoured power-fighter" before they start playing. They probably won''t get a chance to detail further during play because the annoyed die-hards will be laying into them heavily for "not roleplaying".

IMPORTANT NOTE: when I use the words ''role-playing'', I mean it as the confused term for the various things that can be understood by it. I.e. the definition of what it actually is will vary from player to player.

I still say that in order to have any kind of constructive discussion on this, we''ll have to define the behaviour that we want our players to exhibit in pretty exhaustive detail. The thread itself is evidence enough that the term ''role-playing'' doesn''t nearly go far enough.

Here''s a few possible better-described behaviours that could be lacking in MMORPGS:

1. Player cooperation. Are MMORPGs set up so that the "lone gamer" can do perfectly fine without cooperating with others? Is it perhaps even worse than that, do you benefit more from generally opposing the other players instead of helping?

2. Acting. Do players in MMORPGs act as if they ''are'' the character that is walking around in the game world? Do they flesh out the personality details of their characters? Is it worth the bother? Do other players generally appreciate players that act, or do they find them annoying ("Man, stop talking to me in old english, I don''t understand what you are saying!")? Even more controversial: how much of your player-base is actually capable of passable acting?

"1. Player cooperation. Are MMORPGs set up so that the "lone gamer" can do perfectly fine without cooperating with others? Is it perhaps even worse than that, do you benefit more from generally opposing the other players instead of helping?"

Actually, I find it''s quite the opposite unless you''re willing
to spend waaaay too many hours hacking at low-level monsters
to gain any experience.

Why can''t anyone go solo? I mean, you pay $10+ a month to play
the damned thing. You should be able to play it by yourself or
in a group. Besides, you can''t exactly go ''thieving'' with a
group of characters. It defeats the purpose of stealth.

Another thing these games lack is the ability to plan anything.
You should be able to have someone distract an NPC so another
person can go into their house and steal something. Fame points
would be cool, too. NPCs should talk about certain PCs like
they were gods or monsters. Maybe offer a hefty price for their
head because of past doings or business reasons?

-Hyatus
"da da da"

quote: Original post by Kylotan
Yes it does. A word is a label, and there is no 'right' meaning, whether it's the original meaning or not. It's like going around trying to claim that "gay doesn't mean homosexual, it means happy, that's what it always used to mean and that's how some people use it still". Language evolves and you can't argue with consensus.

Language evolves, yes, but it's important to recognize that a set of "right" meanings does indeed exist for any particular word, so that a new incompatible meaning does not suddenly become valid simply because lots of people use it.

That a lot of teens say things like "literally bouncing off the walls" doesn't mean that the use of the word "literally" is correct in this context. That a lot of people use the word "unnatural" to refer to homosexual behavior doesn't mean that their use of the word "unnatural" is correct. Just because Alanis Morissette and her many fans use the word "ironic" a certain way doesn't lend validity to their use of the word. Of course, there are cases where the etymological fallacy does apply, as it would if I were arguing that "gay" does not mean "homosexual", which it does.

The point is that a word being used in a new context by a lot of people does not automatically suggest that its use is correct in the new context. So the use of "role-playing" in MMORPG is not necessarily correct just because a lot of people use it. Personally, I'd rather go with the expert's (Gygax's) definition of the term.

[edited by - chronos on October 30, 2002 5:07:01 AM]

A simpler solution...

Definition: "Roleplaying"
1) The act of a player taking on a role of a resident of a fictional setting, such that other players would perceive the character as a typical persona befitting the environment as moderated by the designers.
2) The avoidance of contemporary slang, discussion of current-day topics or issues, retributive "character-versus-character" combat, or any other actions considered illogical from a game-world-character''s point of view.
3) The assumption of a player that his/her game-character is similar to an actor in a play, such that said player should adhere to a determined behavior for the character.

By the above definition, characters doing things like running around naked, using contemporary profanity or racial slurs, killing each other for pointless reasons, and so on, would be in violation of the term "roleplaying". Likewise, those players that improve the game-world environment by trying to ''act'' or ''roleplay'' would not stand out, but rather ''fit in'' with the setting.

Some ideas:
- A simple client-side word-replacement dictionary. If a player types "plz can u help me? k thx", the client-application does a per-word dictionary search, and replaces the text with "Please, can you help me? Alright, thank-you". This could also be an enforced feature on the client-side, thus players would never be exposed to "chat speech". It has its limitations, but it''s one of the things I would certainly develop for any online RPG in my portfolio.
- Concentrate more on world events that make players feel like there is something bigger out there than their individual characters. Political movements, oppression, taxes, etc, particularly in democratic societies where players would have to band together to vote a particular politician out of office.
- Increase the NPCC ratio dramatically (i.e. in favor of NPCs); again, this affects how well players will be able to interact with others. If players have more exposure to NPCs that treat them like part of the landscape (or likewise ignore them if they act like 21st century teenagers), they might view the game differently.
- Spend more time developing NPC AI, to make characters believable. If all your NPCs say is "Hail!", "Would you like to look at my wares?", and "Thanks for stopping bye!", and stand still, then you''ve already partially lost. Give them individual daily schedules. Close shop between 6pm and 8am. Make them haggle with players. Leaders lead by doing; why shouldn''t NPCs lead the roleplay a little, since they''re basically the only resource admins can control.

Some thoughts, hope I don''t start too serious a debate



MatrixCubed
http://MatrixCubed.cjb.net