English

LOL. "hardcore" primarily means 'dedicated and faithful' or even 'purist'. A hardcore gamer is someone who plays a lot, plays intensely, for whom gaming is a big part of his or her life, and who generally knows a lot about games. By the above use of the word, however, a hardcore gamer would be one who kills people or avatars nonstop, completely forgetting that there exist countless games which have no killing in them: board games, card games, and - on computers - SIM games, to name some examples. MMORPGs are by nature more like those SIM games: a world is being simulated in which (as in any world) many things are possible. Hatred and killing are only two of them, and - quite frankly - not all people want them. I sometimes can't help but wonder about those who want nothing else. ;-p

The normal meaning of "hardcore" seems to me to be much better matched by Gidget's definition of "casual":

As I mentioned before, RP has two letters: R = role, meaning you play in character as much as possible; and P = play, meaning you keep it fun for yourself AND the other players. Otherwise you may soon find yourself playing all by yourself (as happened to an AD&D GM I recall who played so much against rather than for his players that we all soon abandoned the campaign).

The combination of R and P means, you enrich the atmosphere of the simulated world for yourself AND everybody else through your roleplay as much as possible, rather than spoiling the game for yourself and others through such things as excessively speaking or acting out of character (spoiling the mood) or intentionally or carelessly borking other player's play. Since players are part of the OOC world, the latter (dragging OOC issues such as player dissatisfaction created by yours truly into the game) also injects too much OOC stuff into the game experience, so it is not only for the sake of "P" that one should be considerate of other players in one's RP, but also for the sake of "R" since you make it easier for others to participate in and contribute to the "R" if their game participation isn't torpedoed by you.

You do this by carefully designing the character you will play, and by letting the character grow from experience as needed. While challenges can be the spice of life for those who seek adventure in an RPG (remember: not everyone does), life brings all sorts of challenges which aren't conflict with other people, and even conflict amongst people doesn't have to always be rude or lethal (in fact, most people in the real world try to avoid both).

In this regard, I find Nuzanshi's voice of reason refreshing in this discussion. I only have two caveats with his/her post:

(1) In this day and age, where the term roleplay has been both watered down and distorted a lot, I would no longer define RP as "cooperative story telling" since there now exist comparatively large initiatives of cooperative story writing which label themselves (or are mislabeled by others?) as roleplay. Nowaday's, to better distinguish from those, I would define it as "cooperative story living". In RP, unlike cooperative story writing (or "telling") there is usually no product (a tale which can be published), and the story - if one develops - develops organically through the spontaneous play of players, much as history in real life.

(2) For this reason, I also find the idea of planning an RP romp as a pre-scripted "story with start, climax and end" as both impractical and abstruse, much as if in real life I would have to arrange with other people something like: "from 4 to 6 PM we will be alive, the rest of the day we will be dead". The same applies to GM-run "events" which I therefore see as a symptom that RP is lying on its deathbed. Additionally, in an MMO, prior arrangements are also often impractical (unlike in a pen and paper game), since you rarely know in advance whom you are going to meet as you log on. However, occasionally breaking out into OOC communication to exchange intentions and such with other players where RP could get into a direction a participant would find objectionable is a good idea if players don't manage to negotiate this IC or if OOC considerations happen to be unavoidable.

Quite frankly, RP starts as nothing more than simply speaking in character (avoiding references to "game", "stats", etc. as much as possible), then acting increasingly in character as well. A good roleplayer does this convincingly but also knows where to draw a line, namely when he/she or other players are negatively impacted, since - at the end of the day - we are humans putting up with life on Earth and making time for a bit of R&R as homins on Atys. A good number of us, especially older ones I suspect, already have more than enough conflict and hardhip in RL on Earth than to want more of it in life on Atys. Some players may find relaxing play boring. Some may hunger for interpersonal conflict and tactical duels and battle against other human minds and their hand-eye-coordination with keyboard and mouse. To each his own. All is good, as long as one doesn't ram one's preference down other people's throat. There is also nothing to be gained by pooh-poohing one another's preferences. And one thought to mull over: as long as we have homin avatars who can wield weapons and cast spells and traverse a beautiful fantasy world, don't we all imagine that sword or this spell to be real, at least for a moment, at least deep down somewhere in our minds? And don't we all have more fun with the game during those moments? This is the essence of roleplay. How could any of us here consider this evil and not wish for more of our play time to be like this?

Thus I don't see this either/or duality proposed by many, this idea that you can only either be a roleplayer or a gamer. RP is simply the immersive part of one's playing the game. The more, the better. And it doesn't come with special license to spoil other people's fun. Neither does a holier than thou anti-RP attitude based on experiences with bad roleplayers who forgot the "play" in roleplay.

Sorry for the long post. Just digesting what I read and giving feedback. ;-)

P.S.: I think Gidget's idea is great:

Now, the only question: is there a way for this already? In my case, I created a new guild for Crick two weeks ago, primarily so he could have a badge like that float above his head.

Crick - I can see where you're coming from, and would probably have chosen different words if I were able to think of ones that I felt fit better. In fact, I do have a few words that I think fit those that I called "hardcore" here better, but we're not allowed to use those words on these forums ;)

The trouble with being a monoglot stuck with a non-expressive language...

Hehe. :-)

Well, "fanatical roleplayers" or "griefer roleplayers" might capture the spirit best and not insinuate that all RP by definition is the same (namely irresponsibly aggressive in Ryzom or - something I also see a lot in today's MMOs - unnecessarily dramatic).

English can be very expressive and playful, btw. Recommened readings: books by Jack Vance. ;-)

@ Crick: I agree in part with your objections, so let me be more precise about my post.

about caveat (1): Sorry, I was unaware of the term 'cooperative story telling' as already being a fixed label in parts of the roleplay community / creative writing community. Will 'consensual story telling' do it for you?

about caveat (2): No no no, I have no intention to propose clumsy 'pre-scripted roleplay' in online roleplaying. Sorry if my proposal was mistakable in that point.
From what I experienced and whitnessed over years both on Leanon(german) server and on Atys server I came to the following conclusions:
(a) 'Conflict roleplay' should be somehow consensual. Otherwise 'conflict roleplayers' cannibalize their roleplay community.
(b) Whenever a 'conflict roleplay' gets started, the involved roleplayers should agree about a rough idea of how to play a 'conflict ending scenario'. This could be done by short ooc talk at the beginning. I believe experienced roleplayers will be able to roleplay towards one or more constructive ending scenarios without much ooc talk in advance.

(I witnessed some 'neverending roleplay conflicts' in Ryzom forum right after server merge and it was frightening to follow those endless fights over verbal dominance. To me it seemed as a definit lack of will for constructive endings in those 'conflicts' - 'conflicts' that ceased to be roleplay.)


'... life brings all sorts of challenges which aren't conflict with other people, and even conflict amongst people doesn't have to always be rude or lethal ...' - thanks a lot, fully agree.
Roleplay challenge can be much more than merely 'conflict roleplay' :)

Gidget, your point made me step back and have a closer look over your postings and others in this thread.

And after having read a lot (not all) postings here, this bio cpu inside Nuzanshi's player head came up with some kind of theory about two different roleplay concepts underlying this roleplay discussion thread. Those different concepts may be the reason for many (not all) misunderstandings and mutual frustration here.
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Just a 2 dappers theory, it might be helpful to categorize your roleplay positions:
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Roleplay concept 'storytelling roleplayer':
These players regard roleplay as part of their gaming fun in Ryzom - part of it, not all. They appreciate cooperative or consensual roleplay. The same time, many seem to feel obliged to contribute to the gaming fun of their fellow players too.
The lore and Ryzom world are seen as a set of guidelines and tools which each roleplayer may use for his/her toon, but doesn't need to. The world setting and background lore represent a kind of starting scene for further roleplay character development. For example: Yes, marauders are hostile according to the lore - now what would happen to a friendly marauder? What would be the reason behind a friendly marauder's behaviour? Are the words of the religious powers rules or just guidelines? Do kami and karavan players strictly need to stay separate? On which occasions can kami and karavan homins cooperate?
The challenge of individual homin storyplay seems to be important here. Cooperative/consensual roleplay is done when and where it seems appropriate while the gaming fun of fellow players is equal important.


Roleplay concept 'immersion roleplayer':
Those players want to live in Ryzom's game world and feel themselves obliged to contribute to the immersion of all players and to the immersion of the roleplay community. For those players the world of Atys and the lore represent a stage with fixed requisites. Roleplaying is probably seen as 're-enacting' or 'further-enacting' the world setting and the rules of the lore. The challenge of becoming part of the global roleplay setting is important. Thus, those roleplayers feel obliged to respect the demands of immersion roleplay and to show loyalty to their faction rules. They are dedicated to help other players to enjoy the rich immersive game world as well.
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Conclusion: There is no 'right' or 'wrong' in roleplay, only different roleplay concepts. So far my theory.
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Conflicts between individual storytelling versus immersion roleplay are likely. Or between gameplay fun versus loyal faction roleplay.
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Solution?
Hmmm ... respect? tolerance?

Respect and tolerance of the 'storytelling roleplayers' for the dedication to immersive roleplay of fellow roleplayers.
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Respect and tolerance of the 'immersion roleplayers' for the dedication to social gameplay / social gaming fun of 'storytelling roleplayers'.


Maybe negotiations about every day roleplay details are imaginable, as for example: Cross-factiong (level) training will be accepted as private issue of each homin while outpost fights are matter of faction loyalty. Resurrecting homins is private homin issue while supernode fights are matter of faction loyalty. Just examples.


☼ Happy Easter :) ☼