@ Exodus (first post)
The plague of any RP game is that people still need to play it mechanically. In other words, regardless of my role affiliation, I am going to want to wear the best gear, both in PvP and PvE, and simple economics dictate I will get that gear by any means necessary -- bribery, disregard of RP, force, alliances.
I believe the game succeeds in selecting an interesting player base. Players that are a bit more coherent than the average. Players that are a bit more patient, calm, focused. You know what the tutorial and the subsequent gameplay don't select for? Roleplayers.
You're not supposed to know the lore in order to finish the tutorial, or to do anything on mainland. You're free to go most everywhere regardless of allegiance (even marauders if they're careful with fame). The "role" is often chosen because of mechanics, not because of player preference. If New Horizons wasn't a way to make money, how many would even align with nations? If certain pacts were not fame-restricted, how many would even choose kami or kara?
So there's your conundrum: you have a large playerbase that doesn't care about RP too much, and even if it would, often it couldn't due to needing partners. You can't enforce strict RP or non-RP, because that drives players out of the game from either side; other games simply set up two separate servers, but WG can't afford it. To add, as Virg notes, there are a lot of blurry lines if you don't go fully separatist / extremist.
Player consensus is not bound to happen anything soon. Words will not fix this, a good portion of the people don't even read forums. GM intervention could fix this, Event restrictions could somewhat fix this, a CoC that forbids you to break role would fix this (if enforced). Either you have someone with authority push in a direction or another, or we're just throwing words in the wind here.
The plague of any RP game is that people still need to play it mechanically. In other words, regardless of my role affiliation, I am going to want to wear the best gear, both in PvP and PvE, and simple economics dictate I will get that gear by any means necessary -- bribery, disregard of RP, force, alliances.
I believe the game succeeds in selecting an interesting player base. Players that are a bit more coherent than the average. Players that are a bit more patient, calm, focused. You know what the tutorial and the subsequent gameplay don't select for? Roleplayers.
You're not supposed to know the lore in order to finish the tutorial, or to do anything on mainland. You're free to go most everywhere regardless of allegiance (even marauders if they're careful with fame). The "role" is often chosen because of mechanics, not because of player preference. If New Horizons wasn't a way to make money, how many would even align with nations? If certain pacts were not fame-restricted, how many would even choose kami or kara?
So there's your conundrum: you have a large playerbase that doesn't care about RP too much, and even if it would, often it couldn't due to needing partners. You can't enforce strict RP or non-RP, because that drives players out of the game from either side; other games simply set up two separate servers, but WG can't afford it. To add, as Virg notes, there are a lot of blurry lines if you don't go fully separatist / extremist.
Player consensus is not bound to happen anything soon. Words will not fix this, a good portion of the people don't even read forums. GM intervention could fix this, Event restrictions could somewhat fix this, a CoC that forbids you to break role would fix this (if enforced). Either you have someone with authority push in a direction or another, or we're just throwing words in the wind here.
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