View Single Post
Old 04-27-2004, 08:54 AM   #11
Slanted
New Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 29
Slanted is on a distinguished road
I have played pretty much every MMORG available to date and I can honestly say that RP has not worked in any of them despite the creator's best intents.

There are a few problems. First off, even a single server on most MMORGs has thousands of people playing. This is a lot more than almost any MUD, especially those that enforce RP. This makes it nigh impossible to enforce RP in any way, even on RP required servers (And I joined the RP required servers in EQ, DAoC, and Horizons to no avail).

Second, as mentioned earlier, a lot of RP is taken away when you can see what is going on. A lot of RP in text based muds is achieved when people emote things outside of the normal mechanics of the game. Since you can't see their avatar, you can assume they have done whatever it is they described. with a MMORG, however, it is harder to imagine. Sure, most have emote systems that allow you to similiarly describe events outside of game mechanics, but you can actually see their avatar just sitting there looking around. It takes away from suspension of beleif.

Third, the demographic of these games includes a LOT more people than an RP intensive mud. In order to be successful as a MMORG with so much development time, they need to be as inclusive as possible to as many different groups of people as you can suck in. Since dedicated RPers are so few when compared to the general population of game players, you will invariably have a low percentage of people willing to RP. And there is nothing more discouraging as an RPer than trying to RP with someone who is not willing to do so.

In conclusion, No, MMORGs are not condusive to good roleplay experiences. They do shine in other areas though, such as tactical combat and in some, sheer graphical aesthetic pleasure. I doubt you will ever see a MMORG that gets RP right... the labor involved in policing it would run them out of business quicker than the thousands upon thousands of subscriptions they would lose as a result of doing so.
Slanted is offline   Reply With Quote