Does anyone actually still “roleplay”?

December 27th, 2007 by Mike

Filed under: MMORPG Related, Opinion

In a genre of gaming where the first word is ‘roleplaying”, its a bit humorous that almost no one actually roleplays. Seriously when’s the last time you saw a character act like there supposed to. For instance in LOTR lore we know that elves and dwarfs are not very fond of each other in, however in the actual game dwarfs and elves regularly quest together and are even in the same guilds. Once in a while you can find a elf, dwarf or hobbit in character, but after a joke or two the player would go right back to normal breaking out of character.

The obvious answer here is that most people don’t actually want to roleplay. Sure being a elf hunter with a mean bow shot is one thing, but who wants to go around talking like a Legolas or not joining a quest group because theres a dwarf in it. Hell its hard enough finding full groups for raids and quest without discriminating dwafts. Also think about what you type when your chatting. If your seeking a group for a quest you probably type somethink like “LFG – quest name”. If I had to write a long winded sentence in the style of LOTR, I’d never get anywhere.

With that said, I do enjoy running into people that actively roleplay. It brings the game more to life and it’s actually fun to be around them. While I don’t actively roleplay myself, if I run into someone that is, I try to get into it also. It’s quite fun once in a while, you should try it.

(img: http://www.tehw00t.net)

Last 5 posts by Mike

4 Responses to “ Does anyone actually still “roleplay”? ”

  1. Tholal
    December 27th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    A lot of people do. Or at least want to. But unfortunately, most MMO games don’t give you many tools to work with in regards to roleplaying.

    But if anyone is an avid roleplayer and looking for a guild, I recommend http://www.shadowclan.org

  2. JIm
    December 28th, 2007 at 2:47 am

    I agree, the tools provided are insufficient. I think a game like NWN, where you can have small persistent worlds run by essentially DMs, has the tools to create good RP worlds, but the quality is obviously going to vary tremendously from good RP environment to mini-tyrant.

    For a MMORPG you need enough of a population that it makes sense to have racial alliances and dislikes and easily be able to incorporate that into RP, among other things. Of course then you run into the drawbacks of high online population areas and servers.

    It will be interesting to see what upcoming game really crosses those boundaries, because RP can be fun.

  3. Lowell
    March 29th, 2008 at 1:10 am

    Well, I used to play WoW (World of Warcraft) Although it charges 15 dollars a month, the roleplay is pretty active for many people, at least on the server I was on (Shadow Council). But I mean, there are some extremely heavy roleplayers there, you have to be good at it for people to acually want to do it with you.

  4. brandon
    July 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    i think now the only way u will see someone not join a party because someone is in it will b a pvp game where the dude pwned him or wen they r in rival guilds and even then i dont think they will matter wen it is between doin a quest or mission right away or waiting a possible ten minutes its sad but true granted i wasnt around wen the true roleplayin was goin on

Leave a Reply

« »