Admitting that you play on a roleplaying server in an MMORPG often seems to carry the same stigma as confessing that you make designer purses out of kitten fur or dance around in women's lingerie in courthouse lobbies. This is true even among my fellow game journalists -- my colleagues might play games for 10 hours a day and speak of Ezio Auditore with the same reverence that other writers speak of Shakespeare, but should I mention how my guild once prohibited anything aside from in-character conversations in guild chat, eyes invariably shift and heads lower in embarrassment.
I suppose they're playing the role they want to play...
Developers increasingly ignore little touches that enhance the gameplay experience for roleplayers.
It's a shame, because such an attitude ignores the benefits that roleplaying elements in an MMOPRG extend to all players -- roleplayers or not -- and lately I've started to wonder if this negative perception infects the developers themselves. For all of the advances in storytelling, combat, and dynamic events we've seen over the last couple of years, developers increasingly ignore little touches that enhance the gameplay experience for roleplayers in the apparent belief that nothing matters so much as combat and progression. Everything else, developers seem to say, is mere fluff. That's true to some extent, but if you focus on combat and progression to the exclusion of making your world an immersive place to live in beyond the immediate storyline, you take away meaningful reasons for all players to stick around once the raids, the instances, and the PvP combat are done.All the World's a Stage
For the sake of this column, let's ignore the roleplaying elements that all but the most dedicated players avoid -- things like character biographies and in-character chat rules. These are almost always player-made and player-enforced creations anyway. I'm more interested in the immersive environmental features that make taking such things seriously easier -- features that non-roleplaying players could participate in or enjoy without consciously thinking that they're roleplaying. At their simplest, these roleplaying elements include weather, fishing, transitions between night and day, and cosmetic clothing; at their most complex, they include player and guild housing, player-created music, interactive furniture and "fun" items, player-built cities, and occasionally even player-made missions as in Star Trek Online. More than just "fluff," such elements highlight the appeal MMORPGs have over other video game genres.
See? Even training dummies can be fun.
I first realized the power that roleplaying elements have on the experience of an MMORPG when I returned to World of Warcraft after an absence of a year in 2008. I'd previously been a member of a high-profile raiding guild on the regular PvE server Alleria (which I covered in last month's column), and I had no intention of sliding back into the endless cycle of raiding and reputation grinding. No, I'd paid my raiding dues, so I wanted to do something completely different. I've never been a big fan of the communities on PvP servers, so I decided to go the complete opposite direction and transfer to Moon Guard, which was -- and still is -- WoW's largest RP server.
Be On Your Guard
Roleplaying servers provide some of the best experiences because players create content when there is no content.
It was everything I'd hoped for, and I've been there ever since. True, Moon Guard gets a bad rap because everybody else in WoW uses the inn in the human starting zone as a digital brothel (which I've discussed in greater depth before), but beyond Goldshire, Moon Guard had what was once the warmest, friendliest community and vibrant world you could find on any server. Visit mid-level zones that people on other servers avoided, and you might find a guild having an in-character meeting around a campfire. Long before transmogrification appeared in Cataclysm, Moon Guardians ran outdated raids for cosmetic gear just for the sake of roleplay or wearing the gear when hanging around the auction house or bank. Moon Guard taught me that roleplaying servers provide some of the best experiences because players create content when there is no content, and it worked because Blizzard supplied a sufficiently interactive world to make that content possible.Run out of content, and your server starts looking like this.
The trappings of that interactive world include items like portable Brewfest kegs that allow players to grab a swig of beer after downing a boss in a raid, or squires mounted on ponies that ride behind you and run errands. You can sit on the benches of Stormwind Cathedral to listen to a player's sermon, or you could sit down at a table in a tavern and discuss life with a friend. Someone could play a magical flute that forces other players to dance, and still another could use a trinket that transforms them into a member of the other faction. Best of all, World of Warcraft allows players to dress in everything from lumberjack outfits to wedding tuxedos and dresses, and use "weapon" props like brooms and steins -- and they usually provide suitable environments for such costumes out in the world. I believe these little touches -- these bits of "fluff" -- are among the main reasons for WoW's enduring appeal. Obviously players put these items to their best use on roleplaying servers, but they've also always enriched the world of normal and PvP servers. Blizzard always gives you the toys, in other words; it's up to you to decide if you want to play with them.
You're Gonna Miss Me
Without a fair helping of that fluff, little else goes on besides avatars standing in circles and chatting.
Playing in such a pure roleplaying environment makes you realize how meaningful such trappings can be when they're absent. Since Moon Guard, I've found myself gravitating towards roleplaying servers in other MMORPGs in the hopes of finding similar experiences, but more and more, I've been disappointed by what I usually find. (I admit I avoided TERA's RP server despite the rich promises of its political system. The thought of roleplaying in a game that prides itself on a race that looks like half-naked little girls was just too awkward for comfort.) Even Rift, for all its games of follow-the-leader with WoW, only recently got around to adding fishing. I've found that the roleplaying community usually endures in every game I've played, but without a fair helping of that fluff, little else goes on besides avatars standing in circles and chatting. That's bad enough on an RP server, but take that fluff out of a normal player's experience, and an MMORPG all too often become a repetitive and unfulfilling slashfest that burns out players far too soon -- sometimes even before the level cap.Look! I'm sitting! Now why can't I do that in a cantina?
On my Jedi's ship, for instance, there's what looks like a Holochess board that just begs for a one-on-one version of the game we first saw in the 1977 film.
Speaking of, I was particularly disappointed with the lack of fluff in Star Wars: The Old Republic. SWTOR puts up a good show with its cutscenes and class stories, and it was enough to keep me happy for a month or so after release, but I soon realized that there's very little to do in the world itself apart from fighting. Day never changes to night, for one thing, and cosmetic gear isn't as user-friendly as it should be. To date, SWTOR doesn't even allow players to sit on the chairs and barstools that crowd its many cantinas, which I'm sure must raise eyebrows even on the most anti-RP servers. It's a shame, because the Star Wars universe is rich with immersive activities other than combat. On my Jedi's ship, for instance, there's what looks like a Holochess board that just begs for a one-on-one version of the game we first saw in the 1977 film. If SWTOR had something like that, I'd probably play every day. The recent legacy additions helped somewhat, but the impact was minimal and a little too late to make much of a difference.One Ring To Rule Them All
For me, no other popular MMORPG attains this immersive roleplaying ideal quite like Lord of the Rings Online. LOTRO is starting to look its age after five years, but it's still one of the few games I genuinely look forward to logging into for the simple pleasures of riding around and interacting with the landscape and players when I have nothing better to do. Some people find the combat a little boring and others like to express their dissatisfaction with the UI or the design of the cash shop, but few other games perform so well at making the surrounding world a living, interactive place. Thus players continue to return, if only for a visit. Witness one of the seasonal festivals, for instance, and you'll love how the community comes together for races and other competitions. Take up farming, and you might enjoy the way the profession actually requires going out to the fields and planting and harvesting. The world itself rivals that of many of its competitors: you've never seen what MMORPGs are capable of until you've ridden through a rainstorm in the Shire and seen the sun break through the clouds above the Brandywine.
And then there's this.
But nothing sets LOTRO apart from its competition quite like its implementation of player music. Almost immediately after completing the instanced starting zones, players can learn how to play one of nine instruments depending on their class, ranging from the ever-popular lute to more advanced instruments such as bagpipes, clarinets, and even the lowly cowbell. Even better, you can play the instrument directly, or you can pre-program your instrument with original music or your favorite pop hits. Coordinate your efforts with other players, and you could create a symphony orchestra if you wanted to. The results are sometimes stunning. In the past week alone, I've heard everything from the main theme of Amelie to Metallica's Enter Sandman, and I myself gave an impromptu concert of galliards by John Dowland for tips in the Bree auction house.
I've often heard people say that LOTRO would be "the perfect MMORPG" if Turbine would just update the combat and PvP.
Such fun additions ensure that even a massive "normal" server like Brandywine often looks like a roleplaying server to outside eyes. They're also a great excuse for getting back into LOTRO even if you're finished with (or simply bored with) the core questing and combat experience -- a fact many of the most recent games ignore. Every year on the Landroval server, for instance, players climb to the peak of Weathertop (you know -- where the big, bad Nazgul stabbed Frodo) for several hours' worth of song and merriment that yield more memories than following quests or stabbing orcs. And that's but one of around two dozen major player events I've visited. Even the player housing has some appeal, although the empty and foreclosed neighborhoods demonstrate the limitations of the concept aside from displaying reputation trophies. But it's still nice to have the the option -- I've often heard people say that LOTRO would be "the perfect MMORPG" if Turbine would just update the combat and PvP options and add some randomness to the encounters.That's why I have mixed feelings about Guild Wars 2's staying power. I still believe ArenaNet's latest project is one of the most exciting MMORPGs to come along in a while, but the comparative lack of fluff and "fun" RP items make me wonder if Tyria won't grow somewhat boring after the first two months or so. (I'm also disappointed that we can't drown in GW2, but that's probably beside the point.) Guild Wars 2 won't even have a server dedicated to RP at launch, and during the first weekend beta event, it looked like it was going to leave out RP staples like a "/say" channel and chat bubbles. Thankfully, ArenaNet once again proved its commitment to responding to player concerns by implementing the latter two options in a beta update, so it's possible we'll see some other improvements before launch.
It's The Little Things
Obviously, I've barely scratched the surface of this subject here, and topics such as Star Wars: Galaxies' player cities warrant far more attention. But based on the enduring appeal of games like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online, I believe that MMO developers need to look at roleplaying elements as features that enhance immersion and thus enjoyment for everyone, and not just for people who have their Sith Warrior's history mapped out down to their date of birth. Such features should always come second to fun combat and perhaps an excellent storyline, of course, but they're essential for all players during those down times when we just want to laugh or do something other than grind or kill. Otherwise, MMORPGs might as well just be huge deathmatch arenas. And if we're going to devolve into that, I'd much rather play a shooter.