Game Rants 09.13.06: Life on a Roleplaying Server
Posted by Will Scott on 09.13.2006
You know you've always wondered what it's like.
Hey folks, welcome back to another edition of Game Rants (still looking for that new name). Before we get in to anything else, I'd just like to apologize a bit for last week's column - it was too short, too rushed, and all in all not the kind of thing that I'm proud of throwing up as the conclusion to a series. So please bear with me as I attempt to get back on track with what I hope will be a better column.
Rather than attempting to put up a series or pick apart a specific genre of games (two things which are done better by other writers on this site), I'm going to write about specific gaming experiences in the "main rant"of this article, and talk about something else in the "micro-rant" that'll be up at the end. I don't know if it'll be a specific game, a comic book, or some tiny bit of news that I've gleaned throughout the week, but it'll certainly be...something (but not this week - the main rant's more than long enough). But without further ado...I'd like to discuss something near and dear to my heart.
If you're familiar with MMORPGs, you're aware that games are generally divided in to different camps. There's the hardcore players and the raiders. There's the PvPers, the Raiders, and the Pkers. And in the biggest divide, there's the roleplayers...and everyone else.
Life on a Roleplaying Server
What's a roleplayer?
Roleplayers can be found on every MMO on the market, whether or not the game "officially" supports their existence. Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes, for example, have "unofficial" roleplaying servers. Other games, like World of WarCraft, have official roleplaying servers. Regardless of where they exist, roleplayers fall under the same general description - they are players that choose to portray their character (often referred to as an avatar or a ‘toon) as a person that lives within the world of the game. They often devise an elaborate history for their character (which may or may not confirm to the ‘lore' set up in the game) and generally attempt to act in a way that is consistent with the reality of the particular game.
Why roleplay?
Why not? Many roleplayers are people that come from the "tabletop" gaming world, equally (if not more) familiar with games like Dungeons and Dragons or Vampire: The Masquerade. Most of these players choose to roleplay simply because the MMO presents an outgrowth of their hobby. Other roleplayers enjoy roleplaying as an escape mechanism, as it lets them more easily indulge in a fantasy world that is, for whatever reason, more pleasant than their own reality. Smaller than the first two categories are folks that roleplay because they were dragged in to it by friends, people that roleplay as a means of furthering ‘on-line relationships' (the group that gets roleplayers a terrible reputation, if I may add), and people who simply want to extend the concepts of standard single-player RPGs to a larger setting.
What's life like on a roleplaying server?
As World of WarCraft is currently the most popular game in the MMO market, we'll stick with life on its official roleplaying server for the remainder of this article.
A roleplaying server, contrary to popular ideas, plays much the same way as a regular game server - it has the same grind to the top level, the same instanced locations, the same missions, the same requirements. Likewise, there's a variety of communities on it - hardcore roleplayers that walk around the towns, raiders that pay perfunctory (if that) lip service to the idea of roleplaying, people that concentrate on player versus player content (who also may or may not roleplay), and a variety of players that fall somewhere in between.
The main difference? You'll see a good portion of the players acting in character. As the server generally (and in the case of WoW, specifically) says it's a roleplaying server, you'd expect to see this everywhere. On these servers, unfortunately, this is often not true - there's two more camps we haven't discussed. The first of these is affectionately known as the "leet kiddy" to the roleplaying community.
The leet kiddy is a "regular" MMO player that has, for whatever reason, created their character on a roleplaying server. These players follow many of the more annoying stereotypes - especially using "leet speak" on the roleplaying server (apparently a cardinal sin). These folks are pretty much a standard background annoyance - they spend most of their time doing in-game content, occasionally asking for help on quests or otherwise simply chatting "out of character". Easily ignored, they're usually a vital part of the "end-game" content of MMOs - since they don't spend time roleplaying, they're usually a bit more familiar with the dungeons at the end. In moderation, they generally don't bother anyone, and no one really bothers them.
The other camp is the worst - the RP griefer. These folks, for some bizarre reason, roll characters simply to make fun of roleplayers. They're fairly easy to spot - look for names like "lolghey" or "gnomebawlz", and you've found your culprit. These players seem to exist to do nothing more than interrupt Rpers, generally by making fun of them while they play in character or spamming nonsense phrases or emotes. Often, they spend their days Player-Killing in the lower leveled towns, causing a nuisance to the players that are just starting. They rarely reach the endgame stage, instead spending their time annoying folks. Occasionally, they do make it to the end...causing all kinds of issues for the roleplayers that DO make it that far.
As you can see...it's a bit of a different game on those severs, but still just filled with players who want to enjoy the game. Give it a shot, if you think you're up to it - you might be surprised to find out you like it.
Have any good experiences on the a roleplaying server? Any horror stories? A better name for this column? Drop me a line at thepariaheffect@yahoo.com, and let me know!
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