English

So these people you speak of exo, their roleplay states and relies upon factions not teaming up? The lore dictates nothing of that sort. I think the main issue here is that some people have taken it upon themselves to make up their own roleplay. Making up your own roleplay is of course good. However this becomes an issue when their own roleplay starts trying to dictate what others should do.

Hoping others abide by the lore is somewhat understandable (and yet if someone doesn't want to roleplay nothing more you can do). Wanting others to abide by roleplay which the player has actually created is never going to happen unless you can be an ambassador of that roleplay.

@ 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.

No :/ I do not think I "make" anyone do anything they don't want to do, how can you say that.

I can't accept that just because I do, for example, Pei in mixed team, that I am causing those Kara RPers not to get Pei. My aim is to get a full Kara team, but the reality is that there are hardly ever enough people online willing or able to kill him in a full Kara team. What I want and what I can have are separate. Like I said in previous post - I am merely taking advantage of the fact that I can get 0.11 Pei points as opposed to 0.

I did not want to say this but even in your previous post I get the impression you feel like its our, non RPers, fault that your circle of RPers is small.

Mjollren has very aptly provided a few reasons as to why your circle is so small.

Lastly, you saying that I am not part of the faction just goes to show you are being close-minded despite, as you say your aim was to "know how the old players of Arispotle think about it". The difference between me and an extreme RPer as I have mentioned previously is I respect their gameplay but you have just shown to me again what I experienced with French RP Karas, that if you don't play how they play, you are not in the faction... why is it so difficult for you to respect my game play? Like I said, there is no right nor wrong way to play.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you are all talking about PvP roleplay, which is one type. The other type is PvE roleplay, which is rare among English speakers as far as I can tell. There is a distinction, and it isn't all pvp. I'd like to see more of both. It's very sad to hear from a French player "oh Asylum, I didn't think you guys rp'd". I do and I'm not the only one.

I have an appropriate evolving back-story for my kami Matis character along with back-stories for alts (like my traitorous cousin Mireille who shall suffer when I get my hands on her for what she's done). If you're going to RPvP, maybe you should start with a back story for your character and see what comes out of it. Play your character and not yourself. See what happens.

This is a completely different discussion than who sides with who in OP wars or at SNs. There isn't 100% rp buy in for that, so complaining about it is pointless. In every faction, there will be "I want it for me" people, which is appropriate, and sometimes the getting it for you requires compromise. Conflict without nuance is not roleplay; come up with a reasonable justification and go do it.

For me, I can justify jumping for Pei with people of all kinds, sometimes people who kill me and who I kill in appropriate context. It's not personal and I don't "hate" anybody (well, except Placio maybe, since he's forever grinning at me evilly, so it's deserved ;) ). I've learned all sorts of things about the characters on this server that have nothing to do with various government politics, which is only another rp sub-type anyway. I've made friends with some very weird people and so been able to expand my ability to rp on this world.

Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction. Your are all part of a faction/guild, how many of you influence the new recruits? it will become Arispotle because you are the ambassadors of your way of role play or no role-play.

Yes, we all play here but at least bear in mind, your actions also impact all the communities and MY CONCERN once again, (people seem to either ignore it or just don't reply to the point) is that your role play makes the end game (getting the best armor etc etc ) easier and it will corrupt all the role play communities in doing the same, as in no faction role-play.

I dont want you to change just accept this part of reality too, as I am accepting yours. Because trust me, it is easier to do no role-play than do role-play. (it was never a personal attack)

And without faction role play, you end up farming resources - it is boring, empty, and the only role play it delivers is being verbally aggressive to one another or teasing your so called "enemies" "Guild X is doing this and you are not".

Anyways,

I'm starting to see the big picture now and understand the limitations and I really don't like what I see, I do hope the french Kami guilds will still do role play as the Karavan ones already extinguished.

P.S. if tomorrow the power swings from Kami to Karavan, I'm willing to bed all my money that all kami guilds that do role-play will die, because as I stated and others did:

RP is not neccessarily about winning, is about being your character, all of it, not just bits and pieces.

Exodus out

Let me get this clear. This what what I understand so far:

1. You believe non-RPers influence players not to RP.
2. Therefore non-RPers are the reason why the RP circle is smaller.
3. The way non-RPers play is wrong.

I say:

1. You didn't read/want to admit that Mjollren made some very valid reasons.
2. Simply leaving the game (like French Kara did) because they could not impose their "rules" upon the rest of us, is in my opinion a pathetic excuse. Karavan are not doing great atm for a very long time, I am more motivated than ever to do something about that to empower us further. You say inaction is the cause of destruction but you can thank your fellow RPers who left the game since you self-destructed imo.
3. There is no right or wrong way to play. Just like in real life, there are liberals and extremists, you tolerate, you come to a consensus and you accept others in your faction will be different. Again and again I say, the French Kara did not CARE to know us or understand, they basically attempted to bully us into playing their way. Is bullying the right way to go about brining people over to RP you think?? I don't think so.

Anyways, I am glad you did open this topic actually, and believe me I understand your concern. But I feel you are blaming the wrong people instead of looking to the devs (like Mjo suggested and stated because first contact for new players is not former Ari guilds) and look to yourself to find out what's wrong and do something about it.

I did not ignore your concern Exodus, but I challenged the logic of your assertion, as have several other people in this debate.

Let me see if I get this straight.

1. You think that there is "end game" content. I don't, and I don't think you can call "end game" unless you have mastered all skills and know every square meter of Atys. I know of few of the former and none of the latter.

2. You think that if I have some of the "best armor" that it somehow makes the armor you are striving to get worth less. I challenged that assumption in my first answer to you and you have not addressed it. Ryzom is a positive-sum game. There are infinite raw materials to be had. The only way to keep people from having stuff is to get it and destroy it.

3. I infer that you think that the only "true" form of faction role-play is one in which each faction is wildly intolerant of the other faction. Not only do I not believe this, but others have given examples of what I see as true faction role-play in ways that are not wildly intolerant.

Will the Arispotle Syndrome put an end to extremist faction role-play? Possibly, but only if people leave or don't want to play it. Will it put an end to all faction role-play? I doubt it very much.

With respect --
Mac'Od Bittty

(by the way, I think we're rehashing arguments made in Daomei's thread...)
What you describe is roleplay versus powerplay (or even normal playing, for crying out loud).

Some people like playing personas, some people like playing themselves. One choice requires you to willingfully look away from mechanics and posibilities in order to build your persona; the other choice forbids you nothing in terms of gameplay (and in fact, powerplay means actively searching every nook & cranny for a way to get ahead).

There is no question that powerplay kills roleplaying. It always will in mass games, because it's a lower common denominator, people first play a game because they're interested in the actual game (objects, mechanics, artwork etc).

It's not about how people see things, it's about how people prefer things. These two player categories don't really mesh, and as such they'll always come to a clash. There's little way to bring together Fluffy Bunnies (whose motto is almost literally "We do not provide an alternative world to live in") and Seve Noir (or whoever said "We treat all communication channels as roleplay").

Bring a game master into this and force everyone to RP under threat of expulsion (actively filtering, hey, it works). Or make a very compelling case that events can bring together role and mechanics, by actually organizing events that tie things together, and hope this catches on. The event where Matis-aligned players were allowed to help the Fyros nation was however a very weird experience for some of the people involved.

As it stands, your proposition is just a dreamy wish that a coherent player base will materialize out of thin air with no external intervention. Zero chance to happen.