Guild Wars 2

From an earlier message:

Please are saying the Mega server system will spoil “role playing”:

I’m afraid I don’t understand. Could someone explain for those of us who’re uninitiated into something that sounds interesting? Don’t we all role play? What does it mean to “RP” exactly? Does it mean that everyone goes to Piken to…do what?

Does it mean you try and have storylines separate from the Living Story, or do you assign roles, dress like peasants etc? But what do you do? Do you still gather resources like platinum nodes etc?

Roleplaying is essentially a way of creating and sustaining the illusion of your own player-created content and fiction using storytelling techniques and game-play mechanics. That the developers of this game continuously fail to support the RP community is sad to see.

We needed an RP server. We weren’t given one, so we carved a little corner on a couple of PvE servers.

-Quoted from Priest.4597

Short answer: Some people go a little deeper into the notion of the “character”, going as far as to have conversations about their character’s lives and backgrounds.

It’s echoed in a lot of books for tabletop play: the White Wolf books, Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, et. al.

Non RP – You play a character
RP – You are your character
Actual game-play, questing, gathering, crafting et al, remains the same.

How exactly would the megaserver tech spoil RP?

Roleplay or RP for short is simply a person living through his character to the best of his/her ability. If for instance you play a Norn warrior you may base your speech and mannerisms in the game around being a drunken braggart.

Therefore in a conversation with other players you might mention that the nearby pub waters down their drinks to the point of being worthless and hence is why you avoid it. This conversation would make little sense to anyone outside the RP conversation and if interfered upon would (possibly) ruin the experience for the RPers.

First of all, these people are freaking out prematurely. We’ll get an answer for that problem in the next two blog posts. But patience was never a strength of the forum mob …

Role playing in this context means: playing your character in as many ways as possible as if he/she really was a living person in this game world.

Rouven.7409:

How exactly would the megaserver tech spoil RP?

They think that trolls would come over and spoil, their experience; despite the fact that nothing is stopping them from doing it now. You can guest on any server and do the exact same thing

You know a good way to solve the RP problem is to just have role playing as one of the sorting mechanisms for mega servers, players identify themselves as role players as an option and they will be sorted to a server with like minded folks?

So when you guys go to a RP server, you talk to each other? As in, talk to random people? I’m just trying to understand. If I want to RP do I log in and stand around waiting for someone to come by to talk to? And do we talk to NPCs too? (probably not, but I don’t want to assume)…

Vitus Dance.4509:

Non RP – You play a character
RP – You are your character

Great words!

The thing is, RP is usually such a small part of ANY population that they would be on a desolate server otherwise.

My suggestion is give them their own chat channel.

bhagwad.4281:

So when you guys go to a RP server, you talk to each other? As in, talk to random people? I’m just trying to understand. If I want to RP do I log in and stand around waiting for someone to come by to talk to? And do we talk to NPCs too? (probably not, but I don’t want to assume)…

No it’s more among the lines of, that if you run in town instead of walk and not wear town clothes in the process you are basically a taboo on that server.

Chase.8415:

Rouven.7409:

How exactly would the megaserver tech spoil RP?

They think that trolls would come over and spoil, their experience; despite the fact that nothing is stopping them from doing it now. You can guest on any server and do the exact same thing

I see.
From what I read the sorting rather is different than before – so now instead of getting into an overflow with all “strangers” preference will be given to server/guilds/friend list/language? That sounds to me as if chances are greater to meet like-minded people, not less.

The only thing I could imagine from how it is said is that you won’t be able as often to do solo explorations without meeting another player.

bhagwad.4281:

So when you guys go to a RP server, you talk to each other? As in, talk to random people? I’m just trying to understand. If I want to RP do I log in and stand around waiting for someone to come by to talk to? And do we talk to NPCs too? (probably not, but I don’t want to assume)…

We talk to each other like you’d talk to your friends in real life except in the setting of Tyria. You can wait for someone to approach you or you approach them. Sometimes we have discussions or duels with each other, sometimes we go out on adventure. Roleplaying gives us layers the game can’t provide such as backstory for your character and how they feel at certain points, what they do when they come across bad/good things and so on. It’s like acting.

Shouldn’t the roleplayers who tend to be on same homeworld and in guilds together have a better experience due to this change just like anyone else? You are more likely to be put on the same map as your fellow roleplayers.

Roleplaying can be a very active process, where you create and write down a backstory for your character, and then roleplay that role perfectly with other people. As if you were acting. You can spend entire evenings just being that role, saying what that character would say, doing what they would do.

But it’s also a passive attitude. I don’t have to actively roleplay every night to feel like an RPer, and to feel that an RP server is my homeworld. I have a backstory in my head for each of my characters, they all have a personality, they all have their own motivations and react to the world in certain ways. When I log in, I accompany my character on an adventure. Everything I come across, whether it’s an event or another person or an NPC, I encounter as my character, trying to feel how they would feel. To me, this is immersion.

The opposite of this is pure PVE / PVP, where your character is just a “tool” to get things done, it’s exchangeable. In another MMO I play, the majority of people usually don’t even read quest texts, and they race change their characters a lot. They have no connection to their characters, they don’t immerse into the world.

Role Playing is basically doing nothing,pretend that you are for example “batman” and like that u playing as batman entire day,speaking batman lines as such so dont be surprised if u sometimes here in game “to the batmoblile” and other player take it seriously.Yeah im not joking…people do actually doing this.

To put it simply and in terms we can all probably understand:

Roleplay is like a TV show drama. It’s like, say, Game of Thrones, where everyone plays a character and has their own stories, backgrounds, motivations, connections, personalities, goals, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Roleplay does not take place in PVE or PVP settings like dungeons, world bosses, WvW, etc. That’s not what it is about.

In contrast, non-roleplay is like sports. There are goals there too, yes, but they are more material and competition-related and they do not require you to create a character with a defined personality to play the game. They have more to do with team effort and progress.

Roleplaying is telling a story together, non-roleplaying is playing a game together.

Chase.8415:

Rouven.7409:

How exactly would the megaserver tech spoil RP?

They think that trolls would come over and spoil, their experience; despite the fact that nothing is stopping them from doing it now. You can guest on any server and do the exact same thing

Requires a lot more effort on the part of the troll to be a troll in that case. It’d be more prevalent if a small RP group is tossed into a sea of thousands of players who don’t like it, and then who troll the smaller group because they’re there and it’s an easy opportunity (which is generally how trolling works).

Otherwise, in response to the OP: RPing is kinda like improv, just with established characters (they generally have backstories) where everyone shares the stage equally, and act/play out their stories with their in-game character.

Esya.3427:

Shouldn’t the roleplayers who tend to be on same homeworld and in guilds together have a better experience due to this change just like anyone else? You are more likely to be put on the same map as your fellow roleplayers.

The system wouldn’t know if someone is a role player, unless it will come with some way for RPers to flag themselves as such. Maybe that’s exactly what will happen. We’ll see tomorrow.

Aquila.5142:

Roleplaying is telling a story together, non-roleplaying is playing a game together.

This is a really good way to put it. I’m totally going to steal that!

It double posts, woops.

This sounds interesting. Going to Piken to see if I notice anything different. Are there any codes or behaviors to adhere to?

You’re not only your character when RPing, but you don’t do things your character wouldn’t do.

So while I might go out and kill a moa in queensdale as i’m walking by just because. As an RPer your character would have no reason to do that, so you don’t do that. So there would be no champ farming (That would be metagaming), no killing random mobs, and maybe even no world boss farming. I’m not sure exactly what’s taboo in the GW2 RP community as I am not a part of it.

Naqaj.6219:

Esya.3427:

Shouldn’t the roleplayers who tend to be on same homeworld and in guilds together have a better experience due to this change just like anyone else? You are more likely to be put on the same map as your fellow roleplayers.

The system wouldn’t know if someone is a role player, unless it will come with some way for RPers to flag themselves as such. Maybe that’s exactly what will happen. We’ll see tomorrow.

What I understand is the worry that they end up by themselves or with a small party on a map with other non-rp people. I think this is exactly what ArenaNet is trying to counter by creating the megaservers. The chances of you being on the same map as the people from your homeworld, guild and party increase due to this change. They don’t decrease. Atleast, if the megaservers in practice are as good as they sound in theory.

Never was my thing, I think it may be fun but I was never a too nerdy escapist to role play. Also, I think those are an extreme minority (a couple of percents). Still would be nice if they had at least one server in every region.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You’re not only your character when RPing, but you don’t do things your character wouldn’t do.

So while I might go out and kill a moa in queensdale as i’m walking by just because. As an RPer your character would have no reason to do that, so you don’t do that. So there would be no champ farming (That would be metagaming), no killing random mobs, and maybe even no world boss farming. I’m not sure exactly what’s taboo in the GW2 RP community as I am not a part of it.

To be fair though, I don’t think anyone would jump on you if you did it a few times IC if the mob is in the way. And then there’s OOC time where you can farm/do whatever PvE insane things you feel like doing. there isn’t a strict rule to always be IC (there are people who do, but I find those people to be rarer than most).

Chase.8415:

Rouven.7409:

How exactly would the megaserver tech spoil RP?

They think that trolls would come over and spoil, their experience; despite the fact that nothing is stopping them from doing it now. You can guest on any server and do the exact same thing

They are far less, and majority of the people on TC and PS are people who don’t mind RP and are used to it, they actually enjoy seeing us around even if they don’t RP. People who guest to troll, never seen them.

Now it’s more likely we will bump into people who aren’t on our server and are more prone to find RP ridiculous and fun to disrupt, just because they stumbled upon us without guesting.

bhagwad.4281:

This sounds interesting. Going to Piken to see if I notice anything different. Are there any codes or behaviors to adhere to?

well, imagine that you are your character.

for example, if you are taking your human warrior into piken home server, say, divinity’s reach, how would he react?

remember, you are a tyrian human warrior now, not the boy / girl / man / woman in front of a computer playing guild wars 2.

that is role play.

Don’t role-play a villain. The in-game ‘report’ feature does not distinguish role-playing from griefing, apparently. And many players are more than happy to hit that report button if you say anything against them or their favorite characters.

Tyragon.2496:

Chase.8415:

Rouven.7409:

How exactly would the megaserver tech spoil RP?

They think that trolls would come over and spoil, their experience; despite the fact that nothing is stopping them from doing it now. You can guest on any server and do the exact same thing

They are far less, and majority of the people on TC and PS are people who don’t mind RP and are used to it, they actually enjoy seeing us around even if they don’t RP. People who guest to troll, never seen them.

Now it’s more likely we will bump into people who aren’t on our server and are more prone to find RP ridiculous and fun to disrupt, just because they stumbled upon us without guesting.

I am on TC and find it bloody annoying in either map chat or local chat. Especially the more adult RP’ers. It is annoying and sometimes down right disgusting. Just give them their own channel in chat and be done with it. This way other players, don’t have to read it or be exposed to it.

It would be easy enough to set a flag in the character screen for RP/non-RP and then have a chat channel devoted to that.

Naqaj.6219:

Esya.3427:

Shouldn’t the roleplayers who tend to be on same homeworld and in guilds together have a better experience due to this change just like anyone else? You are more likely to be put on the same map as your fellow roleplayers.

The system wouldn’t know if someone is a role player, unless it will come with some way for RPers to flag themselves as such. Maybe that’s exactly what will happen. We’ll see tomorrow.

Maybe, but again – most are likely in a guild and have other “RP” friends in their list, plus most gathered on the unofficial RP server of the region, no? So preference is already given on these accounts.

I don’t think it is necessary to create more labels.

Even though I don’t actively roleplay I’ve always created my characters on RP servers (missed that here though) for the extra flavour here and there and simply because I personally never met unfriendly role players.
I’d say embrace the opportunity to expose RP to new blood, that can only benefit and grow the community, don’t lock it out completely.

I know what I’ll be doing, finding a new RP guild that doesn’t quite mesh with my style of RP (by some extreme RP purists, things I do might be metagaming when they are not) or try to rebuild my dead RP /PvE guild that might actually benefit from this.

“House of Ishida [Ishi] is now recruiting for Medium/Heavy RP and he;ping out new or needy players that don’t get help on any content.”

Yeah I’ll be saying that all day from now on or I’ll just leave the game for 2-4 months again.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Never was my thing, I think it may be fun but I was never a too nerdy escapist to role play. Also, I think those are an extreme minority (a couple of percents). Still would be nice if they had at least one server in every region.

I’ve played a few D&D games, it isnt bad but I would think a computer game would be weird. You’re limited by the lore, mechanics, and sometimes bad writing. In D&D you get a lot of the basic lore so you have a lot of stuff you can base your character off of, and you’re not kept from some things that they decide to tell you later like anet might (atleast when you’re making your character.) Also you have a human running the game in D&D which allows it to be more adaptable than a computer game.

Dusty Moon.4382:

The thing is, RP is usually such a small part of ANY population that they would be on a desolate server otherwise.

My suggestion is give them their own chat channel.

Not on TC or Piken we arent. RPers are at least half, if not the majority.

Karril Daltaya.4980:

Dusty Moon.4382:

The thing is, RP is usually such a small part of ANY population that they would be on a desolate server otherwise.

My suggestion is give them their own chat channel.

Not on TC or Piken we arent. RPers are at least half, if not the majority.

Not on TC, sorry. I can tell you there are more people NOT RP’ing on TC than there are RP’ers. That is a fact. RP’ers would like to make TC an ‘unofficial RP’ server but there are so many WvW guilds on TC now due to the awesomeness of the WvW play and the Tournament, it would be hard to do that.

My suggestion stands – have a local chat channel just for RP, so no one else can read it other than RP’ers. I would appreciate and I am sure the RPer’s would too.

People pretend to be their character. for instance:

Billyboi says: Hello fair maiden, dos thoust need assistance?
Maidenftwqt says: Yes, my fair knight, fetch me some ale and apples
Billyboi says: Yes madam * salutes *

Billyboi would then press his walk key and walk to the bar and buy maidenftwqt some apples and beer…

Dusty Moon.4382:

Karril Daltaya.4980:

Dusty Moon.4382:

The thing is, RP is usually such a small part of ANY population that they would be on a desolate server otherwise.

My suggestion is give them their own chat channel.

Not on TC or Piken we arent. RPers are at least half, if not the majority.

Not on TC, sorry. I can tell you there are more people NOT RP’ing on TC than there are RP’ers. That is a fact. RP’ers would like to make TC an ‘unofficial RP’ server but there are so many WvW guilds on TC now due to the awesomeness of the WvW play and the Tournament, it would be hard to do that.

My suggestion stands – have a local chat channel just for RP, so no one else can read it other than RP’ers. I would appreciate and I am sure the RPer’s would too.

Here is a neat little secret, you may not know: A lot of the rpers are also WvWers. In fact, I am in 4 wvw guilds CERN/PHS/KAZO/ZZZZ

I also rp. I am not a minority.

The concern I suppose, from RPers, is that certain servers are unofficially designated as “role-playing” servers, meaning that more often than not the people you run into will be actually playing as their character. Maybe a grumpy Charr who hates humans, or a Sylvari that is new to the world and has many questions. They actually pretend to be their characters.

Putting players from other servers into a map could potentially water down the RPers to the point that they can no longer RP without someone in map chat yelling that they are losers, lame, etc. Or in general being idiots and ruining the immersion.

Immersion is a big deal for them.

In the end, though, it’s a good thing for the masses. I’m sure the RPers have learned how to ignore non-RPers in other games.

Well i have learned something new today, I was also pretty clueless this sort of stuff went on. Each to their own I suppose, not my cup of tea though.

I rather enjoyed pnp rpg in the past (and on private persistent NWN servers for that matter), though I never understood how you could do it properly in MMORPG, but well, to each their own and I can see your current concerns. But what puzzles me: Are those two “unofficial RP servers” really that different from the others? In my experience, rp communities are really miniscule in MMORPG, have you really turned the atmosphere rp friendly on those servers? Cause I cannot see how the new map distribution affects you – you probably were among a huge majority of non rp players before, so what changes are you expecting now?

bhagwad.4281:

This sounds interesting. Going to Piken to see if I notice anything different. Are there any codes or behaviors to adhere to?

You should check this RP event coming up, if you’re in an EU server, on the 27th
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/events/Tyria-s-Wyld-Hunt-A-call-to-all-Tyrians/first#post3844973

You’ll get a good idea of what RP is, and the power it has.
That’ll just be one episode of an ongoing series that will change Tyria

Esya.3427:

Shouldn’t the roleplayers who tend to be on same homeworld and in guilds together have a better experience due to this change just like anyone else? You are more likely to be put on the same map as your fellow roleplayers.

This “more likely” thing doesn’t really make sense to me. In the current system, unless the map is full and you’re sent off to an overflow, you’re 100% guaranteed to be put into the same map as the other people in your server, guildies, friends and so on because you’re on your server’s map, there’s only one. That’s every time. The only problem was when overflows were created, now every map is kinda an overflow it’s just that they try to sort people into those maps using criteria other than purely first come, first served.

How this will make you “more likely” for RPers to be put in the same map as each other I don’t know, unless there’s an RP flag that you can set and Anet can use when doing their magical sorting.

Most of the time that I run into it it seems to be one character using the sleep emote and the other using sit near the first character’s waist. I won’t elaborate any further.

Roleplaying is not cybering…
And I agree, cybering should be kept out of the public chats, at the very least.

I used to roleplay around 20+ years ago and it was good fun, tabletop roleplaying then and it was great fun, even if every other kid in school thought we were the biggest group of geeks ever…

Anyway, if you nominated a gm (gamesmaster) who has a good knowledge of Tyria, you could have pretty much, ‘endless’ ropeplaying adventures, all the monsters, npcs are there for you. You don’t after wait for Anet to write the story for you, make your own up based on Tyria, all the combat mechanics are there for you.

Better than the lead figures, a blackboard and charc we had in my day!

I’m on Piken Square. Personally, I don’t think it’ll affect RPers much. If you feel someone is trolling your RP time, you can place them on block. If it gets to the point where they are still harassing you after you’ve politely asked them to stop and they keep violating you ignoring them, you can always submit a ticket if harassment persists.

To be honest, most people who RP tend to Roleplay in places where there is no PvE content (such as The Busted Flagon), so we’re worrying about very little in my opinion. Most people who play GW2 are respectful of other people, I’ve found. You’ll always get unruly people in any game, but the way GW2 is, it just seems to be a friendlier game than other online games I’ve played, and unruly people, particularly in Piken Square, are a very tiny minority, and them trolling will only alienate themselves further anyway.

:)