As has already been said, it would be cool to see rolepoints being something other then just a punnishment.

I also think that the various mobiles should be controlled more often. Just imagine how cool it would be to have Meleris give advice over the celest channel, or have Neran and Serarn carrying on a conversation over yells that the players could participate in.

I went and read the thread, to find the poster quite amusing...

And, in case you've any fears, Estarra, she's not talking about you. Honestly, she's right - you can provide a woman with the necessary tools to build, but don't expect the next David. And that's really all you can do. You can downplay OOC - punish it, whatever. But that doesn't guarantee people will remain IC, and that people will RP. Lusternia is fortunate enough to have a small enough playerbase that, for the most part, we nearly police ourselves.

That said, Lusternia goes far and above most MUDs - I've not played Imperian nor Aetolia, although I can imagine I'm safe in the making this judgement of the latter - in maintaining RP, giving the opportunities, and enforcing it. People seem very obsessed with a large playerbase, and thus start degrading themselves and loosening their rules and regulations on OOC behaviour, to take in more sub-standard players.

Lusternia is beyond the ideal definition of RPE (Role-Play Encouraged). Lusternia enforces it. Either the admins do, or the players. No one here wants it.

Your examples, including the one of the crafter making gold, is, as KaVir pointed out, just as much of as framework as hackslash - it's just one method. But then, really, you've got two methods. One can be a warrior, or a craftsmen. Then you add in influencing, and you've opened a third framework. Honestly, that's all you can do. Global quests that influence how other people RP does not necessarily mean someone will Roleplay - Political systems don't mean people will role-play.

Them simply labeling bashing as non-RP is, as you pointed out, silly - bashing for phat lewt is just as viable a method of RP as any other. But it's a framework, and doesn't ENCOURAGE roleplay - often times people become so obsessed for things like Titan or Demigod or Dragon or Aspect or whatever the hell Aetolia and Imperian have, they lose sight of the purpouse of these sorts of games.

At any rate, I guess my point is this: You, as a producer, can only give us the tools. It's up to us, as the artists, to make the masterpiece. And you can't do a damn thing about it, if we so choose to make a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa, or if we intend to smear brown paint on the floor patterns reminiscent of fecal matter and call it art. All you can do is try to remove the people whom do the latter, and encourage the former. Indeed, gold, experience, positions, special emotes, whatever, are all viable methods of encouragement - but they can also be corrupters, and just as easily, if not moreso, drive away the RP.

I guess the only real type of MUD that's RPE is where those that do not RP are told RP or leave - and if they choose neither, they are removed.

EDIT: I guess that's not Roleplay Encouraged - that's Roleplay Enforced.

As a , I'm very proud of your low post-count there.

Manchal actually gave advice over the Aquamancers channel during the Dreamweaving event. That was pretty cool.

Sadly. They're just jealous IRE has people like Shakti and Eris/Estarra working for 'em. S'all.

Actually, this is the game the topic starter was talking about... Akraasiel used to play here and post on these forums, he even has the same avatar there as he had here...

It's not, Shamarah. I maintain steady contact with Seth. I know what it's about, a few others here might. Although, Seth don't like people talking about it, so I guess Imma keep it quiet. If curiousity kills the cat, Estarra can ask Seth - or me. I never was one on keeping my mouth shut.

I disagree. Just like it was said on the forum from the link, being able to roleplay something is a reward by itself because it's fun. Rewarding it by points will only cause players who stay unnoticed frustrated.
Removing rolepoints for ooc behaviour, on the other hand, is needed. It's a tool which actually makes Lusternia environment roleplay encouraged (it can be argued what exactly is roleplaing, for me even staying IC is roleplaying, just less... 'intensive'). If you, for example, make an ooc shout, some of your rolepoints are removed and it has consequences - that -is- roleplay encouragement.

Roleplaying games need as much input from players as from the gamemaster/narrator. In case of Lusternia, gamemaster function is split into two things - framework (game code) and gods. Framework does it's job well in my opinion (political system, city and guilds structures, trades and so on) and it's in hands of players what they do with it, with occasional help from gods/admins.


Yes.
Especially on channels, where more players can see it. Or shouts.

Well, seeing as I still DO play here, just avoid posting much these days, Imma set what I said out straight, in case there was any confusion. My point wasnt directly pointed at Lusty, in fact, Lusty and Imperian are the two best IRE games in my opinion. It was pointed at a genre, that of roleplay encouraged games in general.

But that being said, I did use IRE games for the examples because they are the most successful in the genre. My concept was this, you can enforce roleplay, but unless tangible benefits exist for roleplaying it isnt encouraging it. Now Lusternia is unique in IRE games in that there are many things which cause roles to have tangible effects on gameplay, the village/power system, the half-formed, amongst other details, Lusternia is perhaps the best IRE game RPE wise (maybe tied with Imperian).

However, theres a lot that could be done. There are ways that could be found to give roleplayers tangible effects in game. Im gonna shoot over some quick examples here.

1) Character is a Lucidian geomancer, doing research on the nature of crystal formation, and their application to magic. Perhaps, if the role is well followed toss in one or two special abilities into their elementalism skillset, unique to them, and work out roleplaying the discovery of such.

2) Character is a Loboshigaru Serenguard, with heavy connections to the tosha monastery. He studies the teachings of the Tosha, and that is his role, playing out a semi-disciple of the group, professing their values and holding to their ethics as well as roleplaying out studying with the monks. Perhaps the Masters of the Monastery could open up to said character, unload a little history here and there, nothing really fast paced, with slow effects on the character.

These kind of things do a lot to break the rubber stamp character mould. Because, as it is, most characters of the same guild are just copies of one another. Is there a possibility that some characters picked up some skills and others didnt, or perhaps alternate variations? Its all workable. The problem here is that it would require either a lot of coding or a larger population of divines to keep an eye on this kind of thing.

It doesnt even have to be related to skills or abilities, perhaps other factors? It's all possible, the problem is in determining whether or not its practical, because, especially in this case, time/profit ratios have to be carefully considered. But perhaps Im just speaking out my ass. Well, I hope what I mean makes a little more sense.


Sarah

Lusternia does not enforce roleplay nor does it tangibly reward it.

What it enforces is staying IC, but staying IC and Roleplaying are two very different things.

Consider the twelve year old. The twelve year old creates a Nihilists, plays his GBA during the skills instruction and merely learns the abilities necessary to kill things. He then goes out and massacres finks. When he's done, he gives them to a gnome for some cash. He then buys health potions and mana potions to make killing easier. He quickly learns that Magnagora CT is not a chat channel for counter strike, so he ignores it. He just learns to kill things, buys some credits, gets good at it. Proceeds to live on Astral. Attains physical might, begins PKing. Let's say he gets his hands on a good system, learns some tricks. Maybe he's fourteen by this point. In fact, he's so good at powergaming that he gets a Guild Champion spot. He never once goes OOC in a public forum, but is a member of an OOC clan where they discuss counterstrike and converses OOC'ly about Guildwars in tells.

His character has no motivations save for his own. He kills things for fun, that's part of the game. He's a Magnagoran, but one of his counterstrike buddies plays a Celestine and they often bash together on Astral for no good reason during wartime.

Does the Administration care? Does Estarra descend on a poofy cloud and demand that he Roleplay? Is what he's doing before she intervenes really roleplay? If IRE is "Roleplay Enforced" then surely Estarra should be forcing actual role play. Being yourself and killing finks is by no means Arr Pee.

Armageddon is Role Play Enforced. Powergaming there doesn't work. You can't just be twelve, play yourself, nab a gnarly mage and start killing things, you will fail. Not only is RP necessary to succeed in Armageddon (it is thusly encouraged by the system), it really is enforced, the administration demands that you have a character, in fact you submit a full proposal before you can even play.

Now I'm not suggesting that Lusternia should do this. Rapture and IRE are set up to powergame. There is no logical reason why kicking finks makes you better at summoning demons, or why running an errand for Brennan should make you better at swinging a sword. When taking on the "Role" of a Mage, very few magely activities such as study, research, practice, or concious thought are required to gain power. In fact, you don't even have to kill finks. Just buy credits!

Consider the player who actually roleplays a Mage. Because they spend more time writing and studying than killing finks, the system comparitively diadvantages them as a mage next to one who lives on Astral or buys credits with out of character cash.

Yes, bashing can be RP, but it often isn't. Sure, characters can like to kill, but then the whole system is based on rewarding characters following a specific RP. Yes there's influence, but anyone who's played significant amounts knows that influence still isn't a viable method as an alternative to bashing and also that there's still no good reason why convincing Faelings to give you their money makes you better at summoning jellyfish.

Once again, the bashers and the peekayers are advantaged compared to people who spend more time "roleplaying" actual interaction between characters, much less between characters and mobs.

Don't post a reply telling me that Bashing can be RP too, influencing, pk and questing can be RP too. I know they can be, I'm just saying there's no tangible reward in game for playing a developped interesting character, staying within those motivations, and taking the time to really create a story.

Yes its satisfying, yes its worth it, but Lusternia doesn't tangibly encourage it. What do they reward? Bashing, with or without RP justification.

Does IRE enforce RP? No, they enforce not going blatantly out of character, and it has to be blatant.

Does IRE encourage RP? No, IRE encourages powergaming. And from what I hear, Raezon agrees with me. Depending on who you believe.

Give artifacts for excellent rp! Now all the fighters are going to try harder for rp... such a weird thought..

But what is the reward for bashing and buying credits? Bigger stats and more skills - things which you don't really need to roleplay, you need them to fight.
If roleplaying is your thing, you'd more likely prefer to establish yourself as a character, make friends, connections, get involved in politics and discussions, that sort of things. And you don't need high level or credits for that.
My guess would be that most people here want both in moderate doses - and Lusternia seems like it's suited for this.

Right, RP is certainly possible in Lusternia, but the system itself doesn't facilitate, encourage, or demand RP.

Well, I think Lusternia does encourage RP, but of course we may disagree on what is meant by "encourage" or even "RP".

In any event, how possibly could one "tangibly reward" RP in terms of a mage sitting at a desk studying? Code a system to STUDY DESK and if you do that 300 times, you get some sort of RP points?

One thing I prefer to stay away from is subjectively 'rating' a player's RP. Not everyone is a great actor, most of us RP variations of ourselves, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. To me, good RP from a personal perspective is getting immersed within the game and character.

I don't like the idea of RP points changing from what we have. It becomes too selective and people are bound to get missed which will just cause conflict between players and admin, I assure you.

I agree with Gwyl though. Everything we need is there and if it weren't for the fact that every single player in the game is basically encouraged to put their hand in some part of the conflict, we would be able to epand our roles even further.

Take the Moondancers for example. I am biased, I know, but I have to say that this guild has an amazing history and an even more amazing future waiting for us that the players have built. We've gone from 'laaa la la Fae are purdy', at the start of the game, to semi-fanatical priests and priestesses who are still strangely nice. But, if we didn't have to run and protect (and die doing so most of the time) the Fae every 10 minutes I believe our roles would be even more deeply developed.

Then again, on the flip side of that - I'm always playing both sides of the damn coin - the conflict does indeed shape our roles. So who am I to say that it is wholy negative? I doubt we would be as fanatical as we are if certain events, such as raiding the Guild Tower and the Tainted Fae incident, had never happened.

I guess what we need is an overall game environment that is a little more balanced. At the moment it is skewed in favour of the hack and slash types. That's all good for what they want and for their roles, but the rest of us often have to join them on their playing field to get anything done.

It is. It seems enforced RP involves said subjective rating. Divine just basically watching everyone all the time - which gets lame. Fast. For everyone involved.

Also, completely impossible to do.

Ah, I was hunting on Astral, so you ninja'd me. I think people get too caught up in this idea that as THEIR RP is better than someone else's, they should have an advantage. Lots of us, as you say, myself included, prefer immersion to detachment.

No, but if said mage were consistantly tinkering with his subject of study, roleplaying out such, tampering with existing spells in hopes of learning something about them, discussing with a group of like minded individuals, offering papers regarding their research, the whole nine yards, then it becomes a matter of a divine noticing it. But then again, that isnt coding it either. If you wanted to hard code roleplay into the learning process, that would take a revamping of the whole learning process, and would ultimately prove less profitable, because if players can grow by roleplaying the growth process, then what reason do they have to pay. It'd be a bad idea to hard code it, both from the perspective of how much effort it would take and the financial issues it would cause.

What would be the tangible reward? Isn't that just a divine noticing and responding to it? Or are you talking about awarding some sort of RP points to that player? The thing that trips me up is what exactly are 'tangible benefits'.

I agree that rolepoint type systems are a bad idea.

What I'm saying is that rather than roleplay being encouraged directly though such a system, its encouraged because you need it to get anywhere.

It doesn't even have to be enforced, but as Ak has been saying there should be reqards for bothering to RP something out.

Lusternia lacks day to day RP.

Know that feeling in an event where you feel like you're part of something? That's immersion. I think Lusternia would be better off if everyone took a second to ask themselves why they don't have that feeling 100% of the time.

I think its because roleplaying is optional and the majority of the playerbase doesn't even try.

But seriously, if anyone has ideas for increasing that immersion I think we'd all be better off. What Ak has been saying about research and skills and things seems like a good start to me at least.