Curse

Melmoth · May 18, 2005, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Dear ArenaNet.

First of all, we would all like to thank you for bringing us this wonderful game, Guild Wars. All of us enjoy this game immensely, and applaud your effort and dedication to this project. Thank you.

One thing which is vital to the solidification of an online community is roleplaying, or RP for short. Through role-playing, players can immerse themselves to a greater degree in this world that you have created, and hence, will increase the enjoyment that they will get out of the game. Put shortly, roleplaying is key to those who wish to truly suspend their disbelief about this fantasy world.

While roleplay-enforced servers are present in other online games, we realize that roleplaying is not for everyone - certainly, it is something which requires time and effort. Also, some people dislike roleplaying for various reasons.

It is for these reasons that we propose the establishment of role-playing districts in addition to international districts and local districts. As mentioned before, these districts will allow roleplayers to do what they love to do best, without interfering with others' enjoyment of the game. Should you establish these districts, all will be happier - the roleplayers will enjoy the benefits of a channel free of out-of-character chat, and the normal players will continue to go about on their daily business, with more fellow out-of-character players to discuss and trade with.

We realize that you have already made a statement concerning ingame-roleplaying in your article, Fansite Friday 35. However, there are a few problems with having instancing as the only roleplaying within the game. These problems include:

1) You only start with a maximum of 2 people in your party, and the largest number of people in any given party is 8. This isn't a solution in a large guild where you want to see all of your friends and fellow guild members at the same time. A 100 person strong GW guild does not have anywhere private to meet, until they get many players together to take on the Hall of Heroes or buy a guild hall sigil. That is a very long way away, and might well be utterly unobtainable for smaller guilds who are casual gamers rather than hardcore PvP'ers.

2) The more important thing in an RP perspective - there is no chance to meet other people for RP opportunities. Privacy as given in instances may contribute to roleplaying because of the similarity to Pen & Paper roleplaying games. However, Isolation will not. There has to be a place where people can go to meet like-minded roleplayers who are not in their guild/party - this is an essential part of forming RP stories. At the moment, with most chat channels being cluttered with trade and out-of-character interaction, roleplayers are hard-pressed to find a safe haven.

We are aware of the fact that GW does not primarily focus on RP but on fast-paced and action-oriented gameplay. Because of that, the "prototypical" GW player (and we respect that ArenaNet has to focus further game-development on the needs of the masses first - just to keep it financed with it´s no-fee concept) might not be the typical roleplayer as found in other (MM)ORPGS. Nevertheless, with little technical (and/or) financial effort you could be winning over a group of consumers you might not have been primarily aiming at. RP could be a further factor of long-term motivation besides the storyline and the PvP-features. We believe that catering to an RP population contributes vastly to the longevity of a game in today's crowded market. Give an RP'er a safe haven with an easy way to make lots of friends and meet like-minded people, and they will not move on to another game.

We don't expect a fully equipped RP-environment, nor major intervention concerning gameplay in general. For hardcore roleplayers, GW may not be the right game at all. But establishing one RP-district per outpost would give the ones who aim for RP interaction a "home" inside the GW world.

No matter what the decision is, thank you for reading this proposal. Enclosed below is a list of signatures of those who share our ideas.

__________________________

Due to the lack of an official "Guild Wars" board on guildwars.com we decided to start our "virtual collection of signatures" inside the "Guild Wars Guru Forum". guildwarsguru.com occupies the status of an "Official Guild Wars Fansite" and is know to be visited by ArenaNet developers.

Rules:

If you want to sign the petition, please use the following form as default:

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: John Doe
Country: USA
Ingame-Character: Brother Mhenlo

Please do not use this thread for discussion or comments! There are several others where you can do so. This thread is only for collecting "virtual signatures". Thank you.

If you want to link to that petition, you can also use the following URLs:

http://www.roleplay.net.tc and http://roleplay.net.tc

Bgnome · May 18, 2005, 05:28 PM // 17:28

moved to sanitarium

Melmoth · May 18, 2005, 06:07 PM // 18:07

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Mathias Wölfelschneider
Country: Germany
Ingame-Character: Neoven Sireth

Defafnyr · May 18, 2005, 06:17 PM // 18:17

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Danyka E.
Country: USA
Ingame-Character: Danyx DeFafnyr

Loki Gladius · May 18, 2005, 06:23 PM // 18:23

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Stuart H.
Country: England
Ingame-Character: Loki Gladius

Shiryou Kattami · May 18, 2005, 07:24 PM // 19:24

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: K Worton
Country: UK
Ingame-Character: Shiryou Kattami

CTW311 · May 18, 2005, 08:17 PM // 20:17

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: C. Weigel
Country: Germany
Ingame-Character: Dack Halon

Blackthorne · May 18, 2005, 08:26 PM // 20:26

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Jonathan Wilkins
Country: Sweden
Ingame-Character: Feored Starkarm

ManadartheHealer · May 18, 2005, 09:12 PM // 21:12

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Ryan W.
Country: USA
Ingame-Character: Manadar the Healer

Strife · May 18, 2005, 09:43 PM // 21:43

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Josh P.
Country: U.S.A.
In-Game Character: Ray Strife / Davon Strife

ace2038 · May 18, 2005, 09:49 PM // 21:49

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: D Gomez
Country: U.S.A.
In-Game Character: Erinn Hearth

The Human Torch · May 18, 2005, 10:18 PM // 22:18

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Chance Raymond
Country: USA
Ingame-Character: The Human Torch

ArcticFlame · May 18, 2005, 11:48 PM // 23:48

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Felix C.
Country: Canada
Ingame-Character: Arctic Inferno, Kuroda Miharu

Inaia Rynemu · May 19, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Sibi Sutty
Country: Canada
Ingame-Character: Inaia Rynemu

Mimu · May 19, 2005, 12:20 AM // 00:20

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: J Matthews
Country: England
Ingame-Character: Nerwen Elensar

Anno Domini · May 19, 2005, 01:54 AM // 01:54

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Alejandro D.
Country: Hong Kong
Ingame-Character: Dveena Lazaar

Slade xTekno · May 19, 2005, 02:06 AM // 02:06

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Josh Shin
Country: United States of America
Ingame-Character: Slade Carter

Ramus · May 19, 2005, 03:45 AM // 03:45

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Jay W.
Country: USA
Ingame-Character: Ramus Iniroth

Raven Agorath · May 19, 2005, 05:29 AM // 05:29

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Mark Tresidder
Country: UK
Ingame-Character: Raven Agorath

Zetor · May 19, 2005, 06:14 AM // 06:14

I support the petition for role-playing districts in "Guild Wars".

Name: Balázs K.
Country: Hungary
Ingame-Character: Flavius Zovir

[online petitions generally don't work, but it's a token gesture at least...]