Role playing in Guild Wars

This topic has been brought up from time and time again. This time this will be a serious discussion with fingers crossed that no flame bait will be posted.

Firstly, If you are not sure what role playing is, please use the almighty power of Google to find the definition.

Role playing is a major interest and hobby for a great deal of people world wide. Many online sites, games, and communities are built around role playing, many made in the form of text based games called MUDs (multi-user dungeons), found on forums, or even in major MMORPGs (an example being WoW with it's RP servers).

For long time players and role players, there has always been a struggle to petition Anet for Role playing Districts to appease the minority of players who want to get something more out of the game.

Now there is a great deal of people who attack, flame, and otherwise look down upon the role playing community. For some reason people want to forbid people from being creative and punish them for having a different mindset about the Tyrian universe. It is these people that Anet fear will attack them. This is the major factor stopping Anet from implementing this petition.

This being said, why is it that the people of Guild Wars want to shun the role players? What exactly is wrong with pretending to be a character in a game? And finally, why is it that people flame role players? Will they ever stop?

Discuss.

I guess because most people find it weird and 'nerdy' when a roleplayer acts like his character is 'real', with its own personality and background.

Role playing is just weird..in a game anyway

It is this general motion that is, in my opinion, keeping Anet from implementing this. There has to be a better reason that role players are wierd and that they're nerdy

If we strategise for a Strategy game,
and we shoot people in a First-Person Shooter game.
can we Role Play in a Role Playing game?

there are many reasons namely among which is the dungeons and dragons look it gives to the players and basically...easy flame-bait. i personally think you should be allowed to do whatever you want until you start disrupting my gameplay and my overall gaming experience. as for a-net adding RP only districts the likely-hood is slim to none. reasons being if they were that easilly swayed by now we'de have 2 completely different sections of the game as is with their own skill balances. as you said its going for a minority of the gaming community and it would take a majority for something like that to be implemented. the best thing you can probably do is form and a guild and alternately an alliance of rp'ers which you have the rp conversations and what have you in guild/alliance/party chat. in all chat 9 times outta 10 youll find people just saying....wtf....a few may join in but rarely. i doubt it will ever stop because of the sheer fact that everyone has an opinion and a vast majority of said people like to make it heard.

Role Playing in doesn't work Guild Wars because the lore and backstory are shallow and too contradictory. Also, there's no individual character development, as you are always grouped.

Nothing stopping you from RPing, but I don't think it's possible in Guild Wars, specifically, without looking like an idiot.

(And yes, I do RP in other games, including WoW.)

Perhaps if they had some sort of roleplaying event it would make the roleplayers out there less aggrieved.

Thank you for posting the simplified version of my post and reinforcing it.

Very true but only to those who are strict role players. The ones that like to base their characters and settings loosely on the Tyrian world are the ones that prevail in the community.

...which leads me to another point.

Role Playing in MMORPGs is so easy to grief. It's worse in Guild Wars, due to the lack of monthly fee and therefore, more immature kids.

Example:

"Tengu War Rememberence in Shing Jea Monastery July 4th! Led by the Scribe! (RP ONLY)"

On July 4th...

The Scribe: Greetings, citizens of Cantha.

RPgriefer1: LOL RP
RPgriefer2: HAY GAILE GIMME GOLD
RPgriefer3: WTS ECTO 6.1k
RPgriefer4: SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE
RPgriefer5: MY BOOBS ARE SWEATY
RPgriefer6: Screenshots or it didn't happen, RPgriefer5.
RPgriefer5: *flash*
RPgriefer6: OMG SEXY DANCE DANCE!!!

There aren't enough GMs to moderate such an event...

(On that note, I laugh at how poorly written lore-wise the Scribe is written...)

When I think of role players an image of "Comic Book Guy" with
Spock ears. But anyway....

I think it's just the opposite.... role players trying to force themselves
on the rest of us. Since, obviously, you can role play any time and
any where with other role players, and need no offical sanction to
do so.

You can also role play without even making your presence know
to the rest of the players just fine if you chose to. ( yeah, my wife
RPs sometimes, so I know. ) But much like the "lovers" that chose
to sit in the middle of a public area hugging each other, and then
whine that people are disrespecting their "private" space, when
they could have taken it to an instanced area, you insist on making
a public spectical of yourselves.

RPgriefer1:
RPgriefer2:
RPgriefer3:
RPgriefer4:
RPgriefer5:
RPgriefer6:
RPgriefer5:
RPgriefer6:

I have to agree with you. RP events wouldn't work out at all. However, this sparks the idea of Guild Run (aka player run) RP events.

I have no doubt that the griefing would still happen. It is just a matter of reading the right lines of text and not responding to the attention crazed infidels.

If you constantly have to ignore people, it's kinda hard to RP, unless you are psychotic.

Those do happen. I think it's psychotic, trying to act out lore when there is clearly none available, but it's there.

OOooo! Look, a freshly opened can of worms!
I hear what you're saying, and you have my sympathies. There are so many social and psychological implications to the Roleplaying issue...it's like trying to separate a dried ball of spaghetti.
The biggest hurdle is certainly definition. Even when I was playing old school RPG's, I encountered people who thought the "role" in "roleplaying" referred to dice. There were many times when I'ld be playing with friends that I'ld get asked to tone it down. What can I say, I've got a theater background and like pretending, and believe me...paper and dice RPG's are REALLY dull without any thespian elements. (the in game graphics and game engine are a bit slow...).
'Course now you've got people who don't want to play an RPG. They want to play a video game. Pretty flashing lights, big explosions, sexy characters in skimpy outfits...all that. Hey, it's fun stuff, I must admit. To be honest, I would imagine that most of the people playing GW could care less about role playing.
Why?
That's where the social and psychological conundrum come in. For some people, their character is an extension of their own personality. They have abilities they would'nt have in real life and are more uninhibited. Other's use the game to explore character traits they wish they had or can't publicly express, and of course there are those who simply play the game for it's own sake. For them it really is just an evolved version of Space Invaders and they have little connection to their character.
The reasons that people have for playing RPG's are vast. Tomes have been written on the subject.
Again the particular problem plaguing you has been around since Gary Gygax penned the original D&D. Some people want to RP a lot. Some a little, and now those who never wanted to RP at all can get in on the game just to rend apart pixelated foes. (magnificently rendered, pixelated foes, at that)
I have my doubts that ANet will do anything to help the roleplaying community. It would seem they have little impetus to, at least until White Wolf get it's World of Darkness MMORPG together to provide some compition in that regard. Till then, it would seem that the answer is to do what serious RPers have always done...Find like like-minded individuals and form groups to play. I know there are RP only guilds, perhaps even alliances. When you hit a town, use the emptiest district to cut down on hecklers. Set up events for your guild. LAN parties and such, where you actually do garb and set up an atmosphere. Make the visual aspects of the game an extension of the RP aspects. Hell, dig out that old D100 as a lucky touchstone. Have party contests for most unintelligible character accent....As always, have fun
In this life or the next! ...Excelsior!

"I put on my robe and wizard hat…"

I'm an RP-er, and so are my guildies. We keep it to our Guild Hall, or our instances.
RP-only districts would make me very happy, but I don't see them happening - besides, style differs so much between individuals, it would likely end up with strict rp-ers arguing with those who just want a bit of fun, and lore argument blowing up, or some such.
So I keep it to the places where I'm not going to get mocked or insulted, and leave it at that.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, as an avid RP-er, I find places to RP and people to RP with. Lore and community considered (or lack thereof) Guild Wars isn't at all ideal for it. I wish it were, but it's not, and that's just the state of things.

Enough said.

I sooo wish GW had gazebo. There just NEEDS to be a gazebo that eats people in the game..

That is if you have any lore in your charactors background as well as to being a part of the RP Assn.It is all about using your imagination and creativety in this game.You would see more of it if Anet puts the RPA as a specialty site.

Thats very true

I think Districts dedicated to role-players is a fine idea.

I'd love to hang out somewhere and hear something besides the general chat that goes on in other districts.

There might be financial reasons this doesn't happen (I don't know how Districts work, or how much space they take); or it might simply be that the developers of Guild Wars don't see it as a role-playing game (which would be a damn shame, since that is half of the MMORPG name).

As for excuses that "nothing in Guild Wars is deep enough to inspire role-playing..." that's total BS.

First off, some role-playing games simply give you a playground to build your own history. Not all RPGs have detailed history and player construction. That said, with Guild Wars it's pretty easy to come up with some basic backstories: I was born to such-and-such, but "X" happened, and now I'm adventuring on my own to clear my family name.

I named my Necro in Factions "Akira the Accursed" on a whim, but then developed a kind of backstory: he was infected by the plague, but didn't die, although it scarred him horribly. He then (coincidentally) went on a quest to find the cause of the plague and eliminate it.

(I know these are cheesy examples, but they are just starting points).

Of course, if you really want to Role-play now: Start a Guild, make alliances with other RPG guilds, and meet in Guild Halls to Role-play undisturbed! Actually, I'd be interested in joining such a guild...

As a D&D player I have wanted to try Role Playing in game a few times, that is until I actually saw it. For some reason as I watched this group of people in int. I couldn't stop laughing. There wasn't anything funny about it.

It actually makes me wonder what my friends and I looked like role playing D&D...

I don't have a problem with the RP community, people can do what they want to do, at least RP'ers usually spell out their words.

We encountered an entire guild that had synced entry into an AB.
We had 11 out of 12 ppl in our alliance in the same AB battle.

They were putting out stuff like, "I shall use thy smiting prowess on thou sinister servant of necromancy" in all chat.

And the warriors were talking about where they were from...like Anstrador and made up names like that, and their lineage, and what they had named their weapons.

They were being completely serious.

Well, as two warriors were typing this gallantry into the all chat, charging our 12 man mob XD, the Obsidian spike team elegantly Dragon Stomped their monks, and sync Ob Flame spiked them. Having dispatched the rest of the mob, several members (and my ex-guild leader) proceeded to Rank their corpses.

At this, the RP broke down and the entire guild was really offended, telling us how out of character our fight was.
I have nothing against RP's themselves, but...I mean....for the most part it's mocked, and so it's generally discouraged, and inthis instance, it didn't help their group.

i suppose an RP in alliance battles or FA or something would be quite interesting if both sides could fully agree to chill for a minute while every does their shpeel. it would also help if there was a way to tie text into skills via macros (yes exactly like WoW) in which time using a skill automatically says something for you instead of you having to type it and then click or vice versa and worry about your getting your face melted off.

example: casting rebirth or resurrection on an ally would trigger the macro "Become reborn anew" or something weird like that. i hvae macros tied into my self exploding aoe attacks on WoW to make my character yell TALIBAN ATTACK!!.....but i digress.

ide think in pvp the only realy feasible way to integrate RP into it would be an organized scrimmage or GvG where your choosing your opponents.

That's a good example of where SOME of the RP-hate comes in; "You're out of character, bad form, old chap, bad form." Screw you, don't tell me how to play the game, it's a damned deathmatch, so on and so forth.

One nice thing that City of Heroes did is give each character a fair amount of space to write character background, which anyone can look at by clicking on that character; a lot of people use it for silly backgrounds, and a lot use it for listing stats or maybe advertisments, but for the RP-minded it's a good way to personalise your character without forcing it on people. I'm pretty sure there's a suggestion thread along these lines floating around here somewhere. Good way to identify like-minded people.

Really, I fail to understand the OP's problem; Guild Wars is instanced. When you're out in an exploration or mission zone, it's just you and your buddies, and you can RP all you want. If you're in a city, use Team chat. Or go to the guild hall/guild chat. Et cetera. You run into a little bit of trouble where it becomes a somewhat closed system, but this can be alleviated via a community website or something.

Or, hell; using the City example, one of the servers is an "unofficial" RP server. Some of the players there set up their own RP-wiki where people post character info and whatnot. Get together and do that for Guild Wars. Set up some RP guilds and alliances and go to town.

Anet's primary concern is the GAME, and it always has been. There's very little chance of seeing the more ephemeral aspects of the environment being enhanced. Otherwise they'd get decent voice actors and script writers for the cutscenes, at the very least. -.-

I would sign this but i just dont see them at all any more, at least not in euro any way, are they hiding somewhere .

And yes i agree that a districts full of hardcore rp'ers/ less serious ones/trade spammers/normal ppl/spamers/idoits etc is a bit chaotic, its fine where it is in guild halls i suppose.

I respect RPers...I really do...I would never RP myself...but if they want to play the game that way...more power to them.

But do they really need their own district? No

Would it solve the problem they seek to solve with it? No

It would be a magnet for griefers just like Events are. Anet watches the events and witnesses the idiocy that goes on there...and they watch the meetings Gaile has...and all they see is idiocy. That's the reason they will not setup a zone specifically to allow RPing...because they know it will only magnify the idiocy.

What happens if they do create an RP district...you go there and so do a bunch of griefers...the minute you start RPing the griefers kick in and harass you...you ignore them...what's different between that and a regular district?

They don't create RP districts because you can fix griefing problems by simply going out into your own instance...that perfectly silences the griefers. Or how about your guild hall...surely you and your guild (who is made up of other rpers probably) have a guild hall...which is another private instance.

You have options but you want them to dedicate resources game wide to something that will only happen in limited areas. To them it's simply not worth it. Use the private instances you have available to you.

Personally I think it's sad people like to pretend to be someone they aren't for fun. (Exception for the bedroom ) It was sorta fun was I was 5 but I don't get it otherwise. Is it because they're real life sucks that bad that they feel the need to be someone else?

This is just my honest view on the subject and why I personally have looked down on RP'ing. Not to be taken as flame.

What is the kick out of being someone you aren't? Enlighten me.

Think of it as acting... acting for fun ^^

change perhaps... everyone kinda likes to go off and do their own thing in their own mind from time to time. Video games are essentially built off of RP when you look at it. your playing as someone or something your not because of enhanced abilities/looks/etc etc and most of all....just for fun. no harm in pretrending to be a character that you made to look like yourself or represent yourself. i personally dont do it but when i argue with someone on vent i will start calling out skills in randomness....that can be considered a mild form of RP

nm....guess I should have paid attention to the entire post...good point assassin of ni

disucss away...

Also quoting the OP..

"Now there is a great deal of people who attack, flame, and otherwise look down upon the role playing community. For some reason people want to forbid people from being creative and punish them for having a different mindset about the Tyrian universe. It is these people that Anet fear will attack them. This is the major factor stopping Anet from implementing this petition.

This being said, why is it that the people of Guild Wars want to shun the role players? What exactly is wrong with pretending to be a character in a game? And finally, why is it that people flame role players? Will they ever stop?

Discuss. "

in fact the point of this thread was to discuss why people RP and whats wrong with people who RP.

can we say gg?

I don't think role playing districts would work, they would just be full of immature players taking the p**s out of the role players.

Plus there's different levels of RP, sure I gave my ele a back story. She's currently working towards the skill hunter titles so that after GWEN she can retire from the adventuring life and become a skill trainer for the ascalon army :P my chars do have a bit of a personality of their own I guess. But I'm not the type that goes around talking in "ye old English" and gets carried away with the lore, and to be honest it kinda annoys me just as much as the immature players that spam "DANCE NAKED LOLZ!". So if there was a RP district I think there would be conflict not just with griefers but among the RP's as well.

Best to join a guild for this sort of stuff, and use guild halls/ instances.

Why waste time doing these things for the minority when the majority is more concerned about actual game issues such as trade spam, bots, farming, area difficulty, skill balance, etcetc?

This is probably getting a little off topic, sorry for that.

Your comments just show how ignorant you are of RPGers.

My wife rpgs often when she's playing the game. She also helps
maintain our home, works a full time job to help support our
family and our government, and does most of the work involved
in taking care of our four children.

When she has time to "Get away" and role play, it's no different
then when she reads a series of novels like Lord of the Rings,
The Dragon Rider series by Anne McCaffrey (she's read
The White Dragon at least ten times (she loves Ruth)), or The
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

It's not exactly the same thing, but it's very similar.

Maybe if you spent a little time getting to know what people are
about before you criticize them, you'd have some credibility.

My chara do have short background stories, nothing fancy, just a few lines to integrate them into the game's lore, but I don't RP as them.

Its tougher to do in GW because this game actually has a storyline. You can't RP as a white mantle or as the bad guy while playing the game. About the closest you can do to being a unique character is be a member of the Kurzicks or the Luxons.

And @Snow Bunny, great story about the RPing guys in AB. I was ROFL at the words lineage and Anstrador (just because its such a nice, typical crappy D&D style name). Every sterotypical RP city ends up sounding like a verb... or like Trogdor.

I have nothing against RP, I my self do a bit a of Light RP

For some reason, I always get into a mind set, nothing real serious, but just simple and fun, and often, people will join in. It also helps my game play

I tell people to be more patient, more calm, what my character is.

When I'm Halmyr, I'm almost always leading, restraining more impatient people.

Its nothing real obvious, but definatly lighten the mood around me.

I think RP in a game is much safer, healthier, than doing it in real life.