Role playing in Guild Wars

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.