English

This might really merit its own topic thread, and my memory is failing, so I'll stick to a short answer. First, conflict RP has probably become less manageable than it once was, thanks to MMO designers arrogantly (or perhaps ignorantly) disregarding the lessons learned in MUDs.

The particular MUD which I enjoyed so much that I played it intensely for many long years, was quite successful with the conflict RP there, I believe. I think the success was largely due to:

1.) a real RP community (new players usually already knew what RP was and came looking for it but also in most cases understood that you ought not spoil other people's fun -- also they commonly knew to distinguish between IC and OOC which helps with anger management, I'd say) -- The fact that your name and desc had to be approved by a GM before you could start playing, may also have served as a filter.

2.) The GM's were very clear that you mustn't ruin the game for others, and while they generally interfered very little, they did in abuse cases.

3.) The game simulated a much more real world than MMOs (incl. Ryzom) do: with player-elected judges, law enforcement types (both played by players), as well as coded consequences to court judgment or notorious acts (like getting caught shoplifting by store NPCs): all the stores would no longer trade with you, your ship would be changed (think: getting your mounts locked up in the stables)...

4.) Guilds were also REAL guilds (not MMO clans merely CALLED guilds), meaning that conflicts didn't need to be invented by roleplayers or other gamers who wanted them: the mage guild and necro guild, for example, were interfering with each other simply by doing what came natural as mages and necros would make life harder for each other as a coded side effect of their daily actions. This drew some fairly clear lines in the sand and wasn't so open for debate and disagreement (or sudden, fickle changes) as here in Ryzom. If you joined a certain guild, you knew right away that you might become a target or be required to PvP (or not as the case might be with conflict neutral guilds) as the guild's roles were clearly defined in the greater scheme of things. Thus players could easily self select for the kind of play they wanted, and guilds were careful who they admitted as new members. The guilds having much code support which married character development to social interaction, also meant that newcomers were educated by elder guldies in RP, the game's lore, guild rules, and such. Meanwhile, the older guldies who might enjoy hunts and guild wars, also worried about their younger guildies or future recruits, and thus would tend to mollify or shorten conflicts greatly. All this, while city law enforcement and courts were doing their part to keep their local law and order (meaning peace in most regions, not so much in others where savage guilds and citizenries prevailed).

So, individual criminals quickly ran into consequences for their actions which made them more careful or less troublesome in the future while guildie-guildie hostilities bore the risk of leading to guild wars which usually also brought allied guilds on the plan, and soon everybody involved would tire of the all-out war and either peace would be negotiated or the combatants would just lay low for a while until tensions cooled off.

Things probably tended to go more orderly (and often more peacefully) also because different guild were tied to different character "classes" whose different strengths and weaknesses created dependencies and a desire for alliances so players/characters were steered more towards building and maintaining alliances (esp. guild alliances) than actually fighting. The cleric and "police" guild made natural allies bc of similar world views and the combination of strength of arms with healing magic but also the fast transport clerics could provide (if I recall correctly). Both guilds wanting to maintain this alliance also meant they were less eagier to weaken the alliance by dragging their allies into possibly unwanted wars. Bringing mages into a conflict meant that reinforcements could pop up in seconds because only mages (and necros) could teleport. All this led to more politics and less killing, just like on Earth. More strategic planning, so to speak, and less actual fighting.

Sometimes all of this worked like a charm, sometimes not so well, depending on active player numbers in the various factions and new code developments (such as might overly weaken the guild which played police force (dumb idea by the responsible devs, obviously)).

Of course, conflicts may have added to the usual unwise players whining about "balance" and thus getting the devs to nerf the game. Good devs need strong backbones. But that's another story.

I suppose this was what I call a "short answer". Hopefully it somewhat answered your question, Zhoi. ;-)

A few bad dealings with any group tends to give that group a bad rep. Bina pretty much nailed it by citing the number of people who do rude things like drag agro and refuse to rez, then justify it by saying, "I'm RP-ing!".

For example, I myself caught flak from a hardcore RP-er because I was wearing my "Blessed by Jena" title while training with a Kami in Void. Apparently, they were so used to RPing a Holy War that even claiming to consider the Kitins a big enough threat to set aside religious differences wasn't enough of a reason to go against their idea of how Homins are supposed to act. That's not an isolated incident either. I've racked up a few DPs simply because I am Karavan and the person standing over my little corpse was a Kami who refused to rez those that did not follow Ma'Duk.

So far, everyone I've run into on Atys has been non-RP, Casual RP, or a tool. If I see hardcore RP-ers that are not condescending, self-righteous jerks then my opinion will change, but as it stands I tend to view hardcore RP-ers with suspicion based on multiple bad experiences with no good (or even neutral) ones to balance the scales.

I beleive that there is a place on Atys for hardcore RP, but I also feel that those who are into that need to respect those that aren't and not ruin the game for the more casual homins. To date, I have not seen that respect.

I got eaten by a Great Yetin yesterday and there were 2 homins nearby.  I called for a res and they said "Kami or Karavan?"  When I said Karavan they said they couldn't res 'an enemy'.

I don't really mind this kind of thing but I think there needs to be some agreement on whether this is acceptable or not.

[names have been removed to protect the innocent]

@Gidget

Uh, what for Atys' sake IS "Hardcore-RP" in your opinion?

"Hardcore-RPers" who don't respect the peace-treaties and advices from the leaders of the homelands of their characters?
"Hardcore-RPers" who act against the IC-reality of Atys?
"Hardcore-RPers" who don't even know that there IS no "Holy War" on Atys (neither in the Lore nor ingame on Atys does anyone tell Karavan-followers to go kill Kami-disciples nor the other way 'round - except for some tribes that are called enemies)
- instead just trifle outpost-struggles between guilds where often (but not even always) Kami-aligned guilds and Karavan-aligned guilds will group together out of mere player-traditions?

Really now...

Some people just do whatever they want.
And then they call it whatever they want.
Why do you fall for that?

All in all you were absolutely right to tell them that we homins should all work together (and have done so successfully dozens of time in the past, so they should really start to learn from that) to stand up to the constant Kitin-threat.

Well done! :)

Oh, have you seen this post addressed to you by the way? :
http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=topic/view/22574/15 3726#153726

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@ Crick

Ah, I see. Now that's an admirably refined scenario. :) Must have been fun! But it seems to me that it would need TONs of carefully selected self-disciplined players to work, huh?

Unfortunately Ryzom has really very few roleplayers :(

It's just like with every other MMORPG. But since the player-community of Ryzom is already small in itself, that will make it even fewer "real" RP-lovers than anywhere else, plus a bunch of nice people who at least give their best at being helpful at RP-events without lolling and ^^-ing too much :p

All in all "RP light" (meaning IC combined with MMORPG-abbrevations plus a sometimes irritating mix-up of terms like "Kara" used for "Karavan-followers" or "Matis" for "Verdant Heights" etc.) is the sort of RP you can find on Atys most often.

Well, that and those others who do not show up at RP-events at all, but are rather very much into outpost-PvP, duels, primeroots-PvP and/or Marauder-versus-nations-PvP, and also into guildplay for levelling up / grinding together - who will justify whatever they do per so-called "RP-reasons" towards others.

They usually don't talk much IC though. And if you try to reason with them IC most of them will very soon reveal their true colors by using OOC only or even Leetspeak. Very few of them are able to keep up roleplay for more than 2 minutes...

"Hardcore" it is not.

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Yes, Crick, you're absolutely right that the design of most MMORPGs makes roleplay tough business :( Like Respawn.

Or the behaviour (or ignorance) of GMs. Respectively EMs = Event-team-managers like in Ryzom who are creators of RP-events and "game-masters" more similar to pen & paper RPGs.

Or "Lore versus Ingame-circumstances." While I have seen how many problems can occur in RP with only a few differences between Lore and Ingame-system in Lotro, this has always been much, much worse in Ryzom.

1. there have been inconsistences in the official roleplaying-backgrounds of Atys from the very beginning.

A typical example: the Kamis (ingame and also in the Lore!) once named Jena as their own Goddess, but later on this was suddenly changed to the mysterious entity called Ma-Duk as the "Great Kami". Only after the server-merge the so-called "Jena-Kamism" was officially accepted in the political roleplay on Atys though, and the promised titles for this kind of belief are still to come (not enough devs I suppose)...

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2. one of the worst events for roleplaying has been the "temple-wars".

During these RP-events Jena-priests announced publicy IC (and on the forums of course) that Jena is going to descend to Atys (!) and therefore temples are to be built in her honor to welcome her. Ma-Duk-priests said that they would build temples of their own because of this, and the false goddess Jena should be stopped because the Karavan are depleting Atys and Jena would surely bring even greater catastrophes, etc.

That happened back in October 2005.

Then three new religion/faction-PvP-zones became accessible (via Karavan- and Kami-teleport) one after another where special materials could be dug out of the ground for building the temples, and the nations' leaders as well as faction-leaders (even an representative for the Trytonists) played by the event-team encouraged all homins to fight each other in these "parts of the Old Lands" to hinder the "other" factions to build their temples.

All servers housed quite large numbers of peaceful neutral groups of homins who wanted to build something nice like temples but not to destroy, especially not to kill other homins without being provoked (like by bandits or tribes who attack you).

Unfortunately the game-system did not allow any peaceful solution (!), and even though fleetingly peace-treaties were successfully made amongst the largest guilds, some gankers would still go hunting diggers/harvesters, so it was a big mess.

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3. shortly afterwards the outposts were introduced - guild-property that would produce special crafting-materials with "better" stats only to be won by guild-PvP.

Without any options to gain them by trading/questing with tribes (even though those alternatives had been announced ever since 2003/2004, in dev-interviews, on the homepage and also in the manuals enclosed with the Ryzom-boxes).

This marked the beginning of faction-based guild-alliances fighting for outposts (per PvP) on Atys.

It just happened this way mostly because these same guilds also (have) banded together for building temples at this same time - where they either protected harvesters of their own faction (which happened extremely rarely though) or - most often - trigger-happily killed harvesters of the opposite faction and also neutrals.

Harvesters couldn't even change into fighting-gear quickly enough to defend themselves because of how the game-system works. So they were simply butchered away helplessly. You can imagine how much "fun" that must have been for the players of said harvesters...

All the PvP also led to poisonous IC-mockery and even OOC-threats, spreading all over Atys and the forums too, making players quit the game who weren't even taking part at the temple-war-event because of the horrible atmosphere :(

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back to 2.

As it turned out at the end of the temple-wars some temples could be built successfully, others could not be completed in the time-period that the Kamis and Karavans had set for the homins to get into the regions with those special materials (with what soever "logic" behind these mysterious "expiration"-dates that totally did not make any sense...).

Jena did not come though.

Well, Jena has not shown up as of yet (10 RL-years later). And none of the ingame-"NPCs" ever talked about this much-awaited descending of Jena ever since again!

But the real damage had still been done - dozens of players had left Ryzom by then never to return.

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4. and then there was the server-merge in September 2012 that did more damage by throwing together the different (!) server-histories based on different IC-events (or at least different outcomes of important RP-events) and also the different roleplaying-"traditions" of said servers, combined with a good part OOC-xenophobia too, leading to IC-illogical conflicts between language-RPer-groups...

One of the biggest problems being that on one server (Leanon) Matis and Fyros (and everone else) have worked together to save Fyros-Emperor Dexton's life while on another server (Aniro) Matis and Fyros have started a severe war that ended with peace-treaties forced through by peaceful neutrals mainly from the other two nations. And on the third server (Arispotle) one Fyros-city has been devastated by a Matis-force (that was perhaps not backed up by their King, but nobody knows for sure) led by a homin among others who is now a Tryker-Taliar - and that incident was never solved until now.

But if I started to talk about all of the IC-problems based on the different histories then there would be no end to it :D

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5. still I'd really like to rant a bit about some other current issue we face because of the Lore against Ingame-RP-events/-flow, because it has to do with the characters of roleplayers who have posted in here.

Lately - well at least after the server-merge, known IC as the "Second Great Swarming and Exodus" the Matis have helped the Zorai with getting rid of Kitin-tunnels (and afterwards also to stop the spreading of Rotoas), and there were other events where these nations were on good terms politically and/or helped out each other.

However the inflexible never-changing basic Lore of old still tells us Zorai: "We must try to free the Matis from the influence of the Karavan and bring them round to the Kami way of living. ... We must remain vigilant!". And: "The Karavan are our enemies. .. The Karavan are nonetheless still considered as a dangerous entity".

What do you think many roleplayers of Zorai-(loyal) characters of today make of this? (Some of them are even REAL roleplayers who actually give their best, as I might add.)

Well: they "naturally" ignore all the help the Matis have provided the Zorai-nation. Instead they do not stop picking IC on Matis-characters, during RP-Assemblies and via forum, constantly suspecting them of planning to destroy the environment at any given opportunity, insulting them even (there goes the Zorai-"wisdom"), and also will use every chance of reminding the Matis-characters IC of certain mistakes their governments or scientists have made centuries ago, like experimenting with Slavenis on Silan or whatever... *sighs*

Okay, okay, I'll stop here before your eyes will rot :D

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TL;DR:
"Hardcore-RP/ers"? Not in the slightest, sorry.

So it seems that "conflict-RP" can be fun under specific circumstances like Crick has described, but I fear similar circumstances can't possibly be created in Ryzom :(

Lore-versus-ingame-RP is a very big problem in Ryzom, especially when mixing with PvP and it's history reaching way back to the "temple wars" of 2005 that started the Kami-Kara-hatred that we experience today - often either misunderstood or falsely disguised as being "proper RP"...

As far as I remember, no lore tells us to hate/allow to die/ or isolate oursleves from other cults/nations (except Marauder ofc :P). Any religious believer should know that if you want to save someone's soul from the Duck you have to interact with a person, or if you want an old lady worshipper to become enlightened that wont happen if you casually walk past them as they are injured and dying.

I personally don't see much of a point in trying to determine which is the "correct" way to interpret the lore. Valid arguments can be made for both groups. While I personally adopt a stance somewhat like what Placio described, a case can also be made for religious fanatics who will fight the enemy no matter what.

Furthermore, perhaps due to the fact this thread is in English, there's been almost no input from former Aniro players. But I can say that they also complain about the same: several former Aniro players quitting the game due to what they perceive as a lack of RP and faction loyalty, unfair play, among other things. And I have personally witnessed the departure of a few players over the past few months over these issues.

So I'm just saying theres two sides to this coin, even though many people (from both sides of the fence) seem to stick only with their woes and beliefs.

And Zhoi, I think your opinions and comments about the way I behave in meetings towards Matis representatives are a bit off topic for this thread, but I'll be happy to discuss my motivations with you if you send me Izam mail. =)

And about your question regarding conflict RP Zhoi, I have a long history of very fun, very interesting conflict RP with some Matis nobles on Arispotle (the main ones being Marelli and Jayce who unfortunaly no longer play the game). RP'ing conflict didn't stop us from being very good friends OOC and even in RL. Because we knew how to differentiate IC and OOC. There was also a very interesting event near the end of Arispotle in which Sygmus organized the kamists, dressed them all in red and led them into a "protest" of some sort, crashing a very fancy Matis party. It ended up in bloodshed, the kamists got kicked out of Yrkanis and the event became known as the "Red Wedding" or some such. ^^

This is not about right or wrong ways to "interpret" the Lore, but about players being driven out of the game by contemptuous words and unsocial behavior claiming so-called "RP-reasons".

This is happening to long-term-players, to returnees, to new players, to RPers and non-RPers (OOCers), who often can't understand where this is coming from, as there is no war on Atys ingame and no hint in the Lore that could explain this sometimes extreme level of verbal hostility.

And now there are also new roleplayers in danger of being driven away with a converse kind of hostility towards "all" RPers - because of those people who abused so-called "RP-reasons" to grief and are thought of being "Hardcore RPers".

Do you really think there is *anything* that can justify this?

And no, it is absolutely NOT okay to make it out as the "fault" of newcomers or of non-RPers to not be able to distinguish OOC from IC.

It's not their fault that they cannot understand that this might be one of the many ways that you can "interpret" the Lore if you bend it far enough.

And you cannot tell those who feel griefed (as they ARE being griefed) and cry out in pain, that they are not being "tolerant" enough towards their griefers, that they are in the wrong of not appreciating spiteful "conflict-RP" that is hurting them and ruining their gaming-fun.

You must not put the blame on the victims.

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Once again I want to point out that even many roleplayers have fallen victims to the griefing ways of these "Kamis must hate Kara"-players.

Thanks for reminding everybody about the "other" side of the coin (mostly from Aniro). But by now we already know how some from the Aniro-community have warned their fellow-roleplayers that the "friendly" roleplay that was common on Leanon and Arispotle would "ruin" all RP on Atys, after the server-merge has been announced and before we even had the chance to talk about it face to face...

Even though there were those TENANTs on Aniro too who managed to get everyone together and make peace again. Not to forget that players have left Ryzom because of the hatred displayed in RP that accompanied PvP on Aniro as well as anywhere else...

You can of course play a "religious fanatic" on Atys anytime. But how does that mean you have to kill anyone because of that? It does not. Even as a religious fanatic you don't have to be hostile to your allies just because they dare being friendly towards heretics. You don't have to spout hatred towards heretics whenever you open your mouth.

And just like Placio said: as a fanatic you have the *best* of all reasons to resurrect heretics, because this will give you the perfect opportunity to try "converting" them afterwards.

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Yes, I dare say that playing a bloodthirsty hateful character other than a Marauder on Atys is *horrible roleplay*.

If you really are a nation-loyal character, you should follow the principles of your race and the guidelines of your leaders. Which means not provoking a war when your leaders are doing their best to keep up peace between the nations.

Instead the lore tells you to try to convince heretics and neutrals to join your faction.

Yes, you will gain faction-points game-wise by killing tribes and NPCs of the "opposing" faction - so this is clearly an OOC-feature.

There is absolutely no RP-reason, neither ingame nor from the Lore, that forbids Kami-loyal guilds to be best buddies with Karavan-loyal guilds and neutral guilds, with Rangers and Trytonists and so on.

No lore, no NPC, no ingame-IC-event tells your guild to go kill guilds of heretics. Still that is what some players (mainly from Aniro) have tried to force on others by bullying and blackmailing them, so their guilds would only form alliances with other guilds from the same faction.

This has driven players out of the game.

And now all "roleplayers" are being blamed for that.

Which includes people I admire and who have done nothing but being friendly and holding the Ryzom-community together.

I won't take this lying down.

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Don't be mistaken, please. It was not only Awakened Rikutatis who was treating Matis-vassals offensively, as you should know very well.

Binarabi and her whole former guild, including former Awakened Astarth, have insulted Matis-loyal homins over and over again very harshly. Initiate (soon-to-become-Awakened I suppose) Ky-Ta-Ro has been pretty hostile as well (while also showing disrespect towards an Awakened of his own nation). Initiate Valandrine from Jen Lai with her whole guild was very impolite towards Matis-vassals before that, and many other Zorai whose players have long left Ryzom.

I am sure that your character has the best of reasons to display distrust, Rikutatis, so there is no need for you to justify this. And your IC-words at the Assembly were very moderate compared to others.

However if you should refer to my character and suggest for her to write an Izam - Zhoi sees of course no reason at all to contact Rikutatis, especially after having declared that she is distancing herself from the current national circles of Zorai because she cannot put up with them anymore.

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Well, I think it is certainly possible to have "pet enemies" (or "favorite enemies") on a personal char-to-char-level in RP for a longer time - but only as long as you are respecting each other OOC. It can only really be "fun" if you get along well "behind the scenes" and can even joke around OOC.

However if you merely play enemies in RP without having any OOC-contact then it isn't fun for long.

Look at the real face of the formerly praised Aniro-"conflict-RP": the nations mainly keep to themselves and ignore each other. National RP-events are mostly attended by only homins of the one nation concerned. Some nations even refuse to accept diplomats like ambassadors.

So the only time they ever meet is when they do PvP or have quick verbal exchanges of blows and insults.

And they dare(d) to call "peaceful" roleplaying "bad RP", when everyone is working together at RP-events and having good times... One might come to believe that these people in reality merely hate it that other players are having fun and want to ruin that at all costs.

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Sorry, but I truly would call it "bad roleplay" for a reason if an Zorai-Awakened who is a well-known political representative of his nation and should display an example of wisdom for Zorai initiates, would band together with other religious fanatics to go on a killing spree at a peaceful wedding where perhaps also Zorai, neutral homins and Kami-loyal Matis could have been invited.

Not sure if your character was even an Awakened and/or political representative in old times though. Still it cannot be "good RP", especially as Zorai and Matis do not have any history of enemity at all, there have never been any wars between these nations, instead their former leaders helped each other; plus the lore is telling the Zorai that they should "try to free the Matis from the influence of the Karavan and bring them round to the Kami way"... Does killing them serve any of these RP-purposes?

Or isn't this so-called "interpretation of the Lore" rather an "I just do what I please and what is fun for myself in RP as long as it's not forbidden"-reasoning in actual fact?

TL;DR
Open your eyes and recognize the bullying/griefing of players (roleplayers and non-RPers alike) for what it is. Look behind all those "but it's good RP if you just bend the Lore to unrecognizability"-justifications and start realizing that the effects of these actions are driving much too many players away.

still rocking the izam mail rik!! awesome :o}
ps thread has too many sentances and working rrr's and yyy's and uuu's for cidghui
funtho

But they are pasty Matis!!!

To my mind, "Hardcore RP" is when you use an overzealous interpretation of lore to try to create conflict where none really exists, and to allow that desire for conflict to trump common decency, or even the commonly accepted interpretation of the lore that includes things like treaties or members of different factions working together. When you think you know better than the devs and the community, maybe you're taking things a bit too far.

By contrast, "Casual RP-ers" may get totally immersed in their character, but they at least stay OOC enough to remember that for every homin on Atys, there is a human at a computer, that Ryzom is a game played by people seeking a pleasant diversion, and act with enough courtesy to not ruin other people's fun.

Of course, that is just my opinion and not neccessarily absolute fact.

And thank you for bringing that to my attention.

+100

Well, according to that description of extremes I'm supposedly sitting between chairs. I do enjoy a bit of conflict, for without any conflict, without contradiction of opinion all what is left - especially in politics - is a bore; it's like your whole life in RP is forever trapped in an endless circle of small talk - which I even loathe in real life, to be honest.

On the other hand I try to take in that other people might be affected in one way or the other. But at least of the politicians in game I expect both the ability to seperate IG and OOC, and to take in a somewhat rougher handling, so to say - as I expect politicians in RL to deal with animosity and conflict, for one should not stay in the kitchen if one can't stand the heat. So I really don't mind if Binarabi verbally attacks Matis as a rule, or if Rikutatis takes a more subtle method to undermine our standing. Salazar will remember, and most likely will pay back debts if he sees fit. ;)

In both cases I don't see the need to deny help to someone who asks for it. That's more a matter of manners and common sense for me than of politics and conflict.