Hello there! Just me popping in for a quick how'd-you-do and whatnot. One thing that has evoked great consternations, as well as equally grand feelings of ball-bouncingly spiffing excitement, is the prospect of roleplay in this unfathomably remarkable world that is Tamriel. Of course, I enjoy imagining every player planting themselves for protracted scenes of endless, seemlessly immersive roleplay; similarly, I know this will not be quite the case.

I have seen quite a frightening amount of people - people who, from what I see, give off the ostensible air of a exceptional writer, story teller, or roleplayer - decide to not get the game on a matter of convuluted, inane principle. By Jove! Roleplay is an area that will be magnified and bettered in this beautiful setting. Where the lore and gameplay given in this expansion fails, we can have players creating an engaging environment where things happen, stories progress, and entire worlds open up for exploration. The prospect is breath-taking.

I've digressed, however, I'm quite afraid. I simply wish to ask and see how many people here do intend to roleplay. After all, roleplay would be the main prospect that would draw me into the game, as neither PvP nor PvE interest me in any thought-provoking manner.

Have you ever played a mmorpg?

RP yep... Its what i will be around for...

Am RP'ing for 5 years in Lotro now... and its still fun... given i also like the PvE part of Lotro

But ye man, i hope they will make a RP designated Server with some Naming policy, makes for a good mature Community...

I understand what you are trying to say. Anyway the problem about MMOs is that many people are just playing them - not role playing. That's why multiplayer where you can get only people you know in the same game is better for roleplaying.

Without roleplaying the game is just repetitive grinding for no real reason. I will certainly roleplay, and will never help, or even acknowledge the existence of, those that don't.

Having Pen and Papered in my teenage days (and just returned to doing it again) I definetly love RPing. The thing is the last MMORPG where I was able to truely RP without having to listen to people telling either that "RP is for teh n00bz" or that "the storyline tells otherwise" or that I "can't be friend with that guy because his in the other faction and can't be dislike that other guys because we're in the same faction" was Neocron. Which most probably no one knows at all.

The only other game I've played offering me enough freedom to RP was SWG, but I didn't like the combat mechanics of that oneand RPing for me is both nice in setting pvssyring but also the ability to have fun butchering my foes.

Any of the WoW-ish games turn RPing into work, as you have to make up excuses for anything that steps away from the global storyline, and thus it simply is no fun at all. Global Storylines or the new "innovative" Class Storylines simply are a stupid idea. MMORPGs should take a step back to the roots, based on the principles of pen and paper RPG's the game delivers the world and setting and some background. But the story should be a result of what players do and not the other way around, where faction systems and storylines dictate what the player is doing. With such an approach it's no wonder, that players expect the devs to keep teeling them what to do and object to people making up their own stories that might even contradict the global storyline.

Anyone remember the multiplayer mode of neverwinter nights? That was a near perfect adoption of pen and paper principles to video games: The game master could create complete dungeons and stories. And while the hero group explored it he could trigger events, spawn mobs and the like. Expand on that idea and put it into your MMO and you get [censored]loads of quests/questlines/stories delivered for free by the players themselves. As a bonus you have unbeatable long term motivation because no quest will be like the other. Players will go through the world knowing, that the adventures he lived through are truely unique.

Well enoug of my MMO Utopia. TES:O sadly won't deliver that, which is a shame, because TES delivers a perfect setting and anyone familiar with the creation kit and Skyrim's interns knows that a soild foundation to create such a system as I prospected is existing.

Much better.

Yeah, I'll roleplay Imacat, the brave khajiit warrior who always goes for the monsters that drop the bestest loot.
We should probably start a guild too, call it [1337haxxors] or something.


Roleplaying in an MMO is hard, dude. So many things to break your immersion, even on roleplaying servers.
But we'll see If it's any better in TESO.

Only servers I play on will be RP Servers if available. Every server is a mixed bag but my personal experience has been better on RP Servers.

RP'ing isn't just saying "Hail adventurer" to everyone you meet.

Create a backstory for your char, decide what sort of person they are and play out the quests accordingly.

I'm quite put off by the sheer amount of ghastly pessimism. I've been spoken to in the most condescending, patronising manner, and it's awful; this isn't what I would have expected from fans of TES. The worrying amount of "dude lololololol its fhsifuj mmo dhhahahahaha! lol nubbins" or other, barely more articulate variants display a sheer lack of any experience with MMO roleplay, and I would be quick to ignore the idiocy that is so evidently flaunted as if it were a proud item, were it not for the obvious fact that these are the people who will be playing. So quick you all are to jump to the laughably erroneous assumption that roleplay cannot, and should not, occur in an MMO, that you do not stop to take note of one piece of first hand, perhaps we could call it primary, evidense in this very thread. Or perhaps I might look upon my own experience in MMOs, such as LotR Online, World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars, and take note of the startling amount of roleplay.

And there truly is a massive amount in MMOs. In World of Warcraft, servers that are dedicated to roleplay tend to be filled with roleplayers. The world is rife with IC affairs, and the hurrying, busy, probing lives of those who live within it. To claim that an MMO cannot support roleplay is not only ludicrous and infantile, displaying a terrible immaturity and refusal to accept any change, alterations, or adaptations, but it is also highly fallacious, and will surely be an idea that will earn severe castigation. The idea that OOCers, lollers, and griefers could ever spoil RP is filled with mordant mirth, and no seriousness can ever truly be attributed to it.

Well my experience slightly differs. I am well aware that there exists RP in every MMO. But my experience is that not only OOC players but even RPers tend to spoil my RP in games that rely on tight and static factions along with a global storyline and such. When there's need to meet up in an Inn, Bar, Cantina to do RP there's something wrong already. Sadly that is my experience even on RP servers, it mostly is closed group stuff, hard to get in if you're not RPing "correctly"/by their rules.

Playing out quests according to my avatar's character is another thing mentioned here that most games do not even allow for. Only choice you have is do the quest or don't do it along with some dialog choices that leave me hanging with the choice of either being a heavensent good-doer or an insane chaotic demon in human form if you choose to do the quest.

In contrast to that my experience in games that offer very little/no quests at all and abandoned the concept of global story lines being played by every player you even get those OOC hardcoe PvPers to RP, because such games allow for the deeds of every player to form the story of the server.

If there is a RP server, maybe. If there are choices and consequences, definetly.

I don't like RPing in WoW clones - it's such an effort, the game forces you to not RP. 3rd person doesn't help either :/

Two years of Roleplay under my belt from Warcraft, depending on this game I might add another few years onto that, or just a month, it's all depending of what's in the final version of the game and if they fix their problems. I have no doubt in my mind that I'll pick this up at -some- point, but whether that is on release or two years later is dependent on how it works out.

Remember that Virus/plague/Illness/whatever it was, that ravaged WOW a while back? I don't know the specifics since I do not and never have played it, but an Article I read talked about how the players reacted, abandoning hubs all together. infecting each other, forming enclaves and all sorts of things you'd expect people to do in a Pandemic XD I wonder how this would play out in TESO

I RP on RuneScape, another MMORPG, so I think I'll be able to do the same thing on TESO.

If I were to role-play I'd do so as an old wizened prophet who proclaims about the coming Warp in the West, Jagar Tharn's betrayal, the rise of the Numidium, the scourge of Dagoth Ur, the Oblivion Crisis and Alduin's return and everyone else will roll their eyes and call me crazy! But I'm not crazy! I've seen it in my mind's eye!!!

Just kidding, I'm not going to be playing this piece of crap!

I think that when the game is out we should here on forums forge a group of real roleplayers to join on the same server in the name of roleplaying.

This is something I would be ball-bouncingly drawn to. If we could set up a thriving, bubbling community from the word go, things would be marvellous.

i will try but i suspect i will be an outcast for awhile, untill i find some other RPers at least.

@omega, i plan on starting a plague the second i find an exploitable glitch and enough people (maybe this will be before the RPing though ), i wanna see how people react too

Floor Below, we would be negligent to abandon that portion of the flock. They too must be shown the mysteries of spear-biting, Tam! RUGH!, and service to the Elk Imperator.