What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thread*

Role playing in virtual worlds
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Ozwell Wayfarer
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What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thread*

Post by Ozwell Wayfarer »

A little thread I spotted on SLU today, some interesting reading for RP owners looking to do things differently.

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/genera ... eplay.html
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Dot Matrix »

Adeon's post describes where some of the Devokan builders are coming from (same original game environment and starting point):
Adeon Writer wrote:I love the nexus of worlds idea, if only for the lack of dress code. It is the type of environment I mostly consider SL anyway, RP'ing or not.

One reason I was so drawn to the Myst sims is in the RP storyline it's perfectly acceptable to just RP as your real self if you want, with a name change if necessary... Since time period is present day. And if you aren't human... Well the entire plot line involves the multiverse so even furries are fine.

In fact if a random lost guy came in not knowing anything, as long as he didn't say things like "this is an RP" he'd still pretty much be IC. (cyan covered their bases for RP'ers, as even the Myst computer games themselves were in-universe)
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

That thread has a lot of things that bothered me in SL RP. I think the biggest thing is that I don't enjoy medieval fantasy RP, and it's really hard to find active RPs outside of that genre. The ones I found that I really liked closed fast. After that, it's that OOC drama isn't dealt with by administrators, especially when the drama llamas are friends of the staff. All the good roleplayers leave because of the drama, and constant fights break out because admins won't deal with the problems.

I agree with some that para RP is problematic in SL, though I don't mind if people do it sometimes. I tried one RP that had two beautifully designed sims, but their idea of RP was to "find a quiet corner out of the way", even using blank skyboxes, and just stand there are para RP. All I could think was what's the point of spending $600 a month to not actually use your sims? I could see Kitely fitting that type of roleplay better than SL, but I find all para RP extremely boring.

I love character creation and costumes, so I don't want to "be myself". The Myst-style RP doesn't appeal to me at all. I play characters of all sorts, and really enjoy being something completely different from who I am.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Ozwell Wayfarer »

Roswenthe Blackwell wrote:I think the biggest thing is that I don't enjoy medieval fantasy RP, and it's really hard to find active RPs outside of that genre.
I do agree that there is an abundance of medieval RP, its not the only thing out there. Though I must admit, 90% of the ones in SL creep me out a bit. Or its Star Trek. I once wandered into a sim where people just Roleplayed being a straight up regular 2.4 children family, and to cap it off, the sim was pretty full. There was nothing suspect about it (at least I think) but as a giant green tree man, I felt rather out of place. I only stuck around long enough to satisfy my morbid "people actually DO this?" curiosity.

I think one of the biggest drawbacks is lack of tools for good gaming. RP always has to fall back on the social aspect, which however you slice it in terms of para or HUDS usually turns into an ungodly drama-fest for all involved.There is no real way for sombebody to meaningfully develop a character over time other than to tell a story to other people. Which results either in people felling totally aimless and lost, or gives rise to the "flays everyone in the sim alive with his psychic powers and rides off on his flaming unicorn of death" type players. Which leads into another problem, moderation.

You have to have a team of sim police 24/7, making sure everyone is playing fair and making sure "noobs" dont do stupid things.....rapidly draining all fun out of the project of most involved. Also, as a world builder I dont want to be hanging round my finished sims making sure everyone plays nice. I want to be off creating the next new adventure for people to enjoy. I would love to see more MMO style concepts like levelling, quests and game coin be developed and from what some have told me, its more than possible. "The Dream" would be a system that is modular and can be used universally for any style of RP.

Dont want levellling, but like coins? Fine, just have coins. Want to add your own classes and character types? Easy! Want to write your own custom module because something is missing?......well.....good luck but if you have the skills, go for it. :D

Players could have different profiles for different "Worlds", but the over-arching system remains familiar. No need for endless notecards about rules and HUD functions. "We use the "universal system" with module A, B and D activated. Go!"

Then people could entertain themselves and having people in sim with you is a happy bonus. It would give sims more of a purpose, and might even draw in a few gamer types.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

Ozwell Wayfarer wrote:I do agree that there is an abundance of medieval RP, its not the only thing out there. Though I must admit, 90% of the ones in SL creep me out a bit. Or its Star Trek. I once wandered into a sim where people just Roleplayed being a straight up regular 2.4 children family, and to cap it off, the sim was pretty full. There was nothing suspect about it (at least I think) but as a giant green tree man, I felt rather out of place. I only stuck around long enough to satisfy my morbid "people actually DO this?" curiosity.
No, it's not the only thing, but there does seem to be the same RPs over and over again, such as real life and ST, as you mentioned. I've tried both of those, too. A lot of sims have a "buy a parcel and become part of the sim" policy, like most of the steampunk and real life ones, but it tends to make them inactive RP-wise. Everybody just kinda stays on their little parcel except for events. Star Trek was a bit too scripted for me. I did those for awhile. Very few did regular "away" missions. It was mostly the same script over and over.

The rest just end up closing too soon because of SL's exorbitant costs, or they become rife with drama llamas.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Roms Trudeau »

I agree with the posts above and wanted to relate speaking from my own experience. As someone whose always enjoyed the aspect of a Role Play/Combat Hybrid, I think there were only a handful of sims that did it right. On SL, Toxia is probably the longest standing Role play sim currently (Maybe for 5-6 years?) Mainly because DCS2 was created specifically for it and it does have at least 3-4 GM's Active throughout the day. From my prior history of playing on the sim, it was run as professionally as an RP sim could under the current standards. You need those GM's/Admin's to maintain the peace but also to attract new players. Any new players that go to an empty RP sim will be gone just as quick as they've entered. So comparing a seriously staffed vs a semi/none staffed RP sim I believe makes most of the difference. Especially in a combat oriented sim where people may get upset if someone steps over the line or the post actions of someone who can't handle "Defeat"

I believe the biggest problem with most Role Play sims is the lack of an introductory, or giving the player something to hold on to that gives them a "Sense of belonging."
What I mean by this, which I speak for myself on is I don't want to enter a RP sim somewhere 2000 Meters high with nothing but Notecards slapped in my face with Rules upon Rules upon Rules. Then your surrounded by a large number of stores...Which I understand for financial reasons but I've never seen a creative approach otherwise, it's a trend that's probably started in 2007 when RP sims started to become popular.

What do I want in a Roleplay World/Sim?

When I enter a sim for the first time, I don't want notecards slapped in my face about background and rules, trust me I don't care to read them. I want you to show me your world. Be creative, give me a introductory course with voice narrations, maybe explaining the world to me. Instead of "Notecards" have me talk to NPC's that are already in character and act like their part of the world. Give me emotions, give me feelings or I'm not going to create a character I appreciate/enjoy because trust me, my writing will hurt your eyes when I don't care about a role play. I think one of the biggest issues is establishing the failure to establishing a good first impression.

I guess the other problem lies in a single player experience. What if your all alone in a RP sim? You literally will have nothing to do until maybe someone logs on and if that happens, you may or may not RP with them which depends on the person/character.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

I just spent about 20 minutes looking at a few RP sims in SL, mostly because I like to keep up with what's out there. Seriously, two of the sims I visited failed on all of these points. And I only visited three sims. It was kinda bad.

Here's some recommendations I would make to them:

1. Please have posted rules. I'm sure you have them, but if you don't share them with potential players, then how are they supposed to know what you expect? Some rules are pretty much the same everywhere, like administrators having the last say, but many others vary widely from sim to sim.

2. Describe how RP works. This includes:
-whether you use meters (and where to get the meter if you do)
-whether you roleplay in turns. If you do turns just for combat, state this, too.
-whether you are long-paragraph or short-paragraph style
-what you require in terms of avatars
-if you have canon characters, let people know who's taken and who's not. If that's too much work, don't use canon characters.

3. Nobody cares half as much about your worldbuilding as you do. Eight notecards on the history of the universe, and nothing else, doesn't make people want to join. Players are interested in how they will fit in with you, both OOCly and ICly, not on every detail of your history. It's okay to keep history stuff as a reference, maybe on a wiki or something, but don't make that your only information about the sim given to new players. Focus on the above points, as well as what you'd personally like to see in terms of characters, and what you will offer players in terms of events.

4. If your info is on your website, post your website address.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Ozwell Wayfarer »

I think this is one of the toughest things to get right. Balancing letting people know what they can and cant do but also getting them into having fun quickly. I have heard it suggested that only the "Hard Rules" are given to people at the outset, but 1 notecard listing all the things that can get you banned is not a great way to say "Hello, welcome to my sim".

As for history, I like to present that entirely as optional. A bit available at the start but most of it laying round in books and scrolls for people to discover. That also adds a sense of achievement as people might not know the full story or be curious about a certain aspect of the world, then they find a book or a dusty old scroll in a library and all is revealed.

Its very difficult to present game dynamics in this format because its hard to restrict peoples movements. By this I mean, games regularly keep certain areas "off limits" until you achieve certain goals or reach a certain level. In virtual worlds, people start to get a bit indignant if you even turn the flying capabilities off. People dont like being restricted. In my experience, people seem bizarrely compelled to wander/fly round and see EVERYTHING in their first couple of visits, then decide if they want to hang around. But this kills the joy of discovery. Its also this lack of definable parameters that compel sim owners to write down every last little detail and rule.

With regard to shops, I would keep that minimal and targeted. I think a few good suggestions can actually be helpful to new players. Besides, I cant really comment to this as every region I build is a "showroom" of sorts. I would also give space to anyone whos gadgets, avatars or items became popular within the community. I think here the low cost of Opensim takes the pressure off the "hard sell" and probably allows for more tasteful shop arrangements.
Last edited by Ozwell Wayfarer on Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

Ozwell Wayfarer wrote:I think this is one of the toughest things to get right. Balancing letting people know what they can and cant do but also getting them into having fun quickly. I have heard it suggested that only the "Hard Rules" are given to people at the outset, but 1 notecard listing all the things that can get you banned is not a great way to say "Hello, welcome to my sim".
You can easily write rules that are positively stated. "Do not speak OOCly" can be rephrased to "Please speak in character in open chat" (though I'd explain IC/OOC a bit more). I think having a lot of negatively stated rules is a mistake, too, but having no rules at all is a bigger one.

I've been on sims where the admins disagreed with each other on their own posted rules, and enforced their own preferences. I've also visited sims where there were a lot of unstated rules that were still enforced, and the admin went ballistic on me or another visitor when their unstated rules were broken. Stating your rules is a rather easy thing, and it's on the administrator, not the player, when you have major rules broken than aren't posted. I think most good players would much rather know where they stand than have to guess.

But as I said, these sims didn't have any rules posted at all. And I actually asked one sim owner for the rules, and they sent me the history notecard.
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Re: What drove you away from Roleplay? *interesting SLU thre

Post by Roswenthe Blackwell »

It's a good question, one I've pondered myself. I have asked some designers, and I have permissions to bring some sculpts and things over. You never quite know how people will respond, though. A lot of SL designers have this perception of other grids that everything will be stolen, and it's very hard to convince them otherwise. Others just don't want to bother with it, although mentioning that they can be paid with USD to Paypal has helped a lot.

One I've talked to initially okayed me to bring her stuff over, but then when I told her a bit about it, she wanted to do it and earn the money from it herself, and I don't blame her. I would much rather have designers transition and earn out than bring their things over.

Theme is always going to be dependent on the sim owner, but I would love to have some more spaceships. I have one little one that works just fine. I was planning to build myself a tiny space station eventually, not so much for RP as just for fun.
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