Guild Wars 2

Hi community, with all the megaserver stuff the letters “RP” have been flying around and i want to ask

how is that about Role Play?

For what i know is to get into the character mind and act like him? I dont understand
what is the big deal about that , i think is just to decide on 3 options ? (Charm , Ferocity and Dignity) ??? but now with the warddrobe is lost? or i am lost ? lol

Thanks for your answers!

Not exactly. It’s more like entering a major city and just chillin’.
Something more in the terms of using the game to chat and /dance in contrast to the hardcore gamers which do tournaments with teamspeak on.
It’s the most casual play you can do.

You can add the “I’m a wizard” touch to it, but that’s just optional.

Oh, there could be very long essays written on this. But let me try the super short version.

RP isn’t provided by the game, though the Charm etc option might be something you go for based on your intended character.

RP is writing a story in collaboration with other players. Preferably you keep it consistent with the world (don’t write a Jedi in Tyria, write a Mesmer). Imagine writing a novel — don’t you want to know something about the characters, their motivations, who their families are, how they’ll respond to various situations?

In RP you can pick a few key points or write a detailed month by month history of your character as you prefer. Then you write them and have them react to how others are acting based on their personality. You can have elaborate plots that take months or years to resolve, or just have an evening of chatting.

My main RP guy in GW2 is a nobleman who found out when he was 8 that he was adopted, and decided he didn’t have to play by noble rules. He essentially ran off to join the circus, though it’s more complex than that, and picked up all sorts of interesting skills (he’s a Thief, in game mechanics). He’s a womanizer, egotistical, theatrical, extraordinarily nimblefingered … whereas RL I am a 48 year old monogamous woman who gets winded going up 2 flights of stairs and I am a defense attorney with deep respect for the law.

RP lets us explore other personalities and social interactions. It adds a dimension and longevity to the game beyond just getting the dailies in for a few more pixels. The reason so many are upset about the megaserver’s impact on RP is that when you could guarantee you’d always play with the same set of people, you could “stake out” a server to gather on and know you would find the usual suspects in the taverns or forts around the world. Over the time since launch many groups have created story arcs akin to braided novels, with individual stories weaving together into a communal consensus reality as to the politics and story of the world. Now with the megaserver, it’s very hard even for those guilded together to get into the same “instance” let alone those that socialize together on a regular basis without using a game mechanic connection. I know a sylvari guild that hosted weekly gatherings at the bar in the Grove, for anyone to walk in on and join. Things like that can’t happen if the servers won’t put those wanting RP together.

In short it’s more than just 3 options, it’s as many complexities of character as you wish to imbue, from pattern of speech to physical mannerisms to phobias to level of “goodness.” And it only works when you do it with other people, though certainly you can let your chosen persona guide which story or dialogue options you select (my Thief used the “kiss” line in the Dead End post-Scarlet, and to my mind he was asking Jory for one, not teasing about the one in the instance).

I think you’re definitely missing the main part of what people mean when they refer to RP / roleplaying, Conaywea, especially in the context of complaints about the recent update. The loss of the Charm, Felocity, and Dignity stats are a tiny part of that, but were never really important, since there was no way for other players to see them or anything they actually did.

You might think of in-game roleplaying as improvised acting (improv.) It’s not something everyone will enjoy, but it’s fun for some, and it emphasizes player-created stories over game mechanics.

RP’rs are unhappy with the megaserver update because it sometimes makes it harder for them to end up in the same zones as each other. For example, Tarnished Coast was the unofficial roleplaying server, so if you logged in on TC, you had better odds of running into people who’d be putting on a show, or who would be receptive to your in-character dramatics. You can still party / guild with other roleplayers to get together, but the megaserver update, for as much good as it does in other areas, hurts spontaneity in this case.

Beyond roleplayers, this update made it harder to build up a server community more generally. Unless you’re in WvW, it’s not really possible to build up any recognizable sense of server community from just seeing the same people around a lot, because you’re mixed in with a much broader range of players. (Is this bad? Sure. Are the other improvements from megaservers worth it? Maybe! That’s another debate.)

As for the wardrobe, roleplayers put a high premium on character customization, and are some of the only people who want regular, non-combat options to dress their characters in. Roleplayers will often carry around multiple sets of clothes which they can mix-and-match and re-dye to create new costumes. While the April update might have simplified transmutation for some people, it was a trainwreck for a lot of the people who actually used town clothes, but can no longer mix them or dye them, or swap into them with a single hotkey.

Edit: Well-said, Donari. +1

oooh wow a huge iceberg here! well Thnks for ur answers guys! now everything makes sense!

This Community is awesome!

The best short explanation I can give.

Non-RP people: you play the character.
RP people: you are the character.

Personally, I find RP very enthralling. It puts you in a deeper level with the game and your characters, and for me, it makes it that much more fun.

The most succinct answer is what Seabreeze said but pretty much everything said above is true. When people ask me why I have multiple characters of the same profession, I point out that each of them is unique in both personality and build (down to what weapons, traits and skills they prefer).

I did not have a chance to test my RP luck since the megaserver rollout but I personally find people who mock RP-ers slightly less annoying than RP-ers that completely ignore chunks of the setting the game presents. “Tweaking” the fact you’re the only Commander of the Pact is one thing, saying you’re the lovechild of Rytlock and Eir who became a cyborg Asura that went back in time to lord over the humans of ancient Elona is not.

Seabreeze.8437:

The best short explanation I can give.

Non-RP people: you play the character.
RP people: you are the character.

Personally, I find RP very enthralling. It puts you in a deeper level with the game and your characters, and for me, it makes it that much more fun.

I totally agree with the above definition. Which is why ultimately only the player can limit his/her RPing-not the game by itself. PnP people roleplay without these nice graphic environments we have all the time-though I admit the town clothes thing would be inconvenient if you got used to it, on the same token you could roleplay your character in any sort of wardrobe without any graphical representation of the fact (in fact, graphical representations of our characters of even the most diverse kind are a bit of a barrier, since our imagination can’t be contained by sprites.)

I would never create a character I don’t intend to roleplay/live through. I spent some time just coming up with each of their 8 names-even the silliest named one.

Although I’ve said this before, it seems even more relevant now: I chose Piken Square as my home server because although I don’t RP myself, the RP by other players on the server made the world of Tyria that much more immersive. Since the Megaserver went live, that immersion has largely gone as I’m no longer placed on the same instance as the RPers, even in Divinity’s Reach. Instead, I’m now surrounded by bunny-hopping trolls, 12-year-olds who think the height of maturity is to send suggestive whispers to my female chars, which I would probably find discomforting rather than pathetic if I was actually female and morons who think casual racism and homophobia is that more more acceptable and easier to get away with because they’re hiding behind a keyboard.

Such a waste. I miss my old PS community.