Curse

Shiryou Kattami · May 14, 2005, 10:48 AM // 10:48

The major, major, major problem with instancing as your sole RP fix is this:

1) You only start with a maximum of 2 people in your party and finally ending up with 8. This is a git in a large guild where you really want to be chilling out with *everyone* at the same time. In WoW I was a member of PIE and we were 100 strong before we split up owing to differences. A 100 strong GW guild hasn't really got anywhere private to meet up UNTIL they get a bunch of players together to take on the Hall of Heroes or buy a guild hall sigil. That's a damn 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 - no chance to bump into other people for RP opportunities. This was great in NWN - everyone on an RP NWN server WAS an RP'er. You started talking, they started responding whether you had been real life mates for 10 years, mates in game for 2 years, or whether it was their first time logging on. Okay, NWN came with DM enforcement. But you know what I mean.

There NEEDS to be a place where people can go to meet like minded RP people who are not in their guild/party. It's an essential part of forming RP stories. At the moment, with the chat channel being cluttered as it is with trade, 'omg i'm a girl stripper loolololol'...not exactly good for RP.

This might sound a bit self-important but I honestly feel that catering to an RP population contributes vastly to the longevity of a game in today's fickle market. NWN is a prime example. Persistent Worlds in NWN are still going strong what, 2-4 years after the games was released? 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. That's the way I work, anyway...

Melmoth · May 14, 2005, 11:15 AM // 11:15

Nothing to add. Good post, Shiryou (espacially the longifety aspect of NwN is something ArenaNET must agree with). I think we could include this into the petition. What do you think?

Last points on our to-do list:

- Description of our will to moderate the districts on our own
- Support from gwguru-mods

This is what we got at the moment:

Quote:

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 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 don´t expect a fully equipped RP-environment and no major intervention concerning the general gameplay. 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 a "home" inside the GW-world.

Of course we read your statement concerning ingame-roleplaying in Fansite Friday 35.

The major problem with instancing as your sole RP fix is this:

1) You only start with a maximum of 2 people in your party and finally ending up with 8. This is a git in a large guild where you really want to see all of your friends and members at the same time. A 100 person strong GW guild hasn't really got anywhere private to meet up 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. Isolation won´t. There needs to be a place where people can go to meet like minded RP people who are not in their guild/party. It's an essential part of forming RP stories. At the moment, with the chat channel being cluttered as it is with trade and out-of-character interaction, it is not exactly good for RP.

This might sound self-important but we honestly feel that catering to an RP population contributes vastly to the longevity of a game in today's fickle 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.

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.

Anno Domini · May 14, 2005, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Excellent! I like it!

Defafnyr · May 14, 2005, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Agreed. It's excellent. Now, where do we post this and collect signatures?

Shiryou Kattami · May 14, 2005, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Indeedy

Strife · May 14, 2005, 07:31 PM // 19:31

I'm an avid role-player... I've played most of the MMORPG's out there, including a few MUDs and pen-and-paper RPGs before EQ arrived.

Unfortunately, I'm not much of a guild person. While I love to roleplay, I rarely involve myself in any organization, even if it's tagged for roleplaying purposes. I've been in many guilds before, but I stopped after a while and never really got back into it. That being said, the only way I can find roleplayers is via forums.

If you're into roleplaying, I'd suggest going to the RPing forum and make it known, either with an actual role-playing thread or jsut a small introduction. That way, people like me that would rather not join a guild can see who's interested in roleplaying in game and add you to our friend's list. Otherwise, I'm just stuck running through towns with mobs of people sitting around dancing naked. Not my idea of fun.

On a side note, why does no one use the roleplaying forums? I was going to start a thread in there, but seeing as the interest in that area seems non-existant at the moment, I didn't bother. Does anyone plan on actually roleplaying there?

Anno Domini · May 15, 2005, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Strife, we kinda dropped the idea of the RP guild, and opted for a petition to have an RP district.
The RP forum seems more focused on storytelling than in-game roleplay and that's not exactly what I want. I want to interact with RPers in-game.

Anyway, if what you want is meeting RPers stick with this thread 'cos we might present the above petition to the developers. Crossing fingers.

Melmoth · May 15, 2005, 12:36 PM // 12:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Defafnyr

Agreed. It's excellent. Now, where do we post this and collect signatures?

Again, I think it would be best to use a "sticky" thread in this board (as the board is supposed to be read/visited by ArenaNet, afaik?). Any Mods out there? *shouts*

Strife · May 15, 2005, 02:10 PM // 14:10

As this is a free game, I don't think the Devs are going to feel very obligated to listen to a minority. However, I will gladly sign any petition that calls for a roleplaying disctrict.

However, take into consideration that even if there is a designated 'RP district', we're going to be dealing with floods of griefers. At the moment, the only way I keep track of roleplayers is just adding them to my friends list. While I like the idea of a district for us in theory, I'm not entirely sure how well it would work live.

That, and the fact that the chat system is horrible.

Melmoth · May 15, 2005, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

As this is a free game, I don't think the Devs are going to feel very obligated to listen to a minority.

Not sure about that. The whole financing-system of GW depends (to a certain percentage) on the player´s willingness to buy the regular AddOns. I, as a member of the mentioned minority, am not sure if I will buy any GW-AddOn if the atmosphere in the outposts stays as it is at the moment. The crucial aspect will be the cost/effort-quotient for creating and operating further districts. As none of us really knows the technical details, we can only guess and hope.

Strife · May 15, 2005, 07:57 PM // 19:57

Don't get me wrong, I want this to happen, and would be the first to sign if I had the opportunity. However, I'm a little reluctant to allow myself to become too optimistic. With many MMORPG's in the past, not too much has been done to cater to the actual roleplayers (there has been some good things done for them, I will admit).

I want role-playing districts. I want more things implemented that makes this game feel a little more immersive. I want the chat system to be trashed, torn apart, and re-built from scratch. However, at the moment, we just need to find a common ground that we can work with until something is done from the developers, such as designating a district until one is made specifically for us.

Defafnyr · May 15, 2005, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Well right now, I'm using International district for RP. I'm open. however, to any other district to use right now, in the meantime, until/if anything is implemented. Just take a vote and I'm there.

Chat system though, can't RP anywhere we go with all the d00dz spam making our chat window scoll faster than we can read the few RP lines within it. Totally need to trash the current chat system and start over.

ArcticFlame · May 15, 2005, 08:36 PM // 20:36

I agree with the comments about the chat system, but what advantage will spammers get from bringing themselves to the proposed RP district? His attempts to sell things will be undoubtedly unsuccessful, and he will bring his business elsewhere. No one has reason to spam an RP district - they can get far better results for themselves if they spam other districts.

Strife · May 15, 2005, 08:43 PM // 20:43

They don't come to spam, they come just to annoy. In that respect, we can just /ignore them.

At the moment, I think the general agreement is that district 5 is for roleplayers. I've gone there a few times before, but it was quiet. Fact of the matter is, it's just hard to roleplay when the entire city can hear the conversation you're trying to have with a friend.

We could designate district 5 for roleplayers, but the real roleplaying won't really take place until you leave the district and enter an instance.

Defafnyr · May 15, 2005, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Alright, someone has created a petition. Let's post it on it's own thread and get signatures. Someone else pleast take care of the petition thread.

I'm going to start a thread polling RP district for votes on that.

Defafnyr · May 15, 2005, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Vote set up HERE

Kara · May 15, 2005, 11:19 PM // 23:19

I would love to see an RP district. If you think about it, just HAVING one (which would preferably be international in nature) would better our experience. It doesn't matter if it's moderated or not. The fact that we'd all know exactly where to go for roleplay would be better than what we have now.

At the guild-hall.net forums, we decided on District 3 as our unofficial district, because there's not always a district 5, and because the international districts are really crowded and full of multi-language spam.

An International RP district designated by ANet would REALLY help roleplayers out.

ArcticFlame · May 15, 2005, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

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 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 don't expect a fully equipped RP-environment, nor major intervention concerning the general gameplay. 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 a "home" inside the GW-world.

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 channel s being cluttered as it is with trade and out-of-character interaction, roleplayers are hard-pressed to find a safe haven.

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.

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.

A few grammar fixes, and a few changes to make the proposal slightly more 'professional' in language. Please improve/edit/build upon this letter! The better the letter, the more seriously we will be taken.

Kara · May 16, 2005, 12:09 AM // 00:09

Oh, that letter is excellent! Please do send that!

Defafnyr · May 16, 2005, 12:45 AM // 00:45

I like as is. Start it's own thread, spam the other boards for them to add signatures so they know it's here for them to sign if they'd like, and we can start signing it.