Jythri
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Joined: 15 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 12:36 pm |
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INTRODUCTION
This essay is going to be about things you shouldn't say and do. I'm going to define roleplaying. Then, I'm going to use subjective metrics to show you how to evaluate which MMOs are conducive to what role-players call role-playing.
Why? Because the "holy grail" of roleplaying is a complex quest. It requires more than a few features. It doesn't just happen because 'there was nothing else to do'. Though, both of those aspects factor in to making a conducive environment for roleplaying. There's been an "x-factor" to this whole pursuit. Something that's been hard to conceptualize as to why RP does-or-does-not happen in a particular game.
Recently, I've stumbled onto a line of reasoning that I believe explains this RP x-factor, at least in my own head. This is all subjective, lightly deductive logic, so if you don't like that kind of essay, move along. For all of you who like the dark, scary places of hypothesis, then read ahead!
THE BASIC THEORY
So, here's my first no-no. I'll define roleplaying.
| Quote: | | Roleplaying: The art of playing a character in a fictional setting, in which the player attempts to act and react as the character would, given the background, nature, and mood of character. Roleplaying involves becoming immersed in the setting of the world, and then reacting in an appropriate in-character manner to the environment. |
In general, no one will disagree with this very broad definition. Where the contention comes into the definition of "roleplaying" is in degree to which you must be immersed and in the specific things you do to roleplay. For the "degree" discussion, I've written another inflammatory article on it here: Davyn's Roleplay Scale. Actions, though, may require a bit more discussion...
My observation is that "roleplaying actions" fall pretty cleanly into one of three categories:
- Roles created by the developers: If you login to a game, and create a gnome wizard character, you are roleplaying. Unless, of course, you are a gnome wizard in real life. The very act of creating a character in any MMO forces you to RP, even just a little bit. That's why we still call those games (very broadly) RPGs. Beyond that, though, developers create gameplay that take this further--different races, opposing factions, quirks, audible voices, emotes...all sorts of little things that funnel players into certain roles through their in-game choices.
- Character Encounters: Most roleplaying done by roleplayers is comprised of short, simple in-character interactions--how they say hello, a brief in-character chat in a public channel, maybe even they you interact when grouped together on a quest or raid. Most roleplayers coast at this level. They maintain a vague idea of their character, and engage in frequent lightly in-character relationships with a small group of friends or their guild.
- Epic story-based roleplay: Occasionally, some group of players will create a story or saga, or a community broad enough that they do something a large portion of the community notices or participates. This type of roleplay can be as limited as a "gathering night in a tavern" and as grand as a multi-month deeply developed story involving hundreds of people. It might be a mostly non-participatory alliance of guilds, or a heavily collaborated construction of a city and accompanying government.
The first type of roleplay--the kind created by developers--doesn't involve a lot of creativity by players. Players are more or less forced into "immersion" based on choices the developers make on the players' behalf. Night elves can't speak to orcs.
The second type of roleplay requires some player creativity, but not a lot of effort. It's easy and convenient, and enjoyable to most people because of the light commitment.
The third type, the more epic-story roleplay, requires not only creativity, but deeply inspired creativity. It requires a significant effort from players to develop and maintain.
The question I've asked for years, as I've produced (and attempted to re-produce) these types of epic events across various MMOs is what makes type 2 (casual) and type 3 (epic) "roleplay actions" more likely? Roleplayers love to argue that "there just aren't enough RP tools". Developers like to say that "not many players get into that type of thing". My experience, though, is that when those more epic events take off, a LOT of people DO get involved. Also, my experience is that those events can happen without a lot of "RP feature" support.
So, what's the point? What's the magic formula? How can you tell whether or not a particular game is conducive to roleplaying?
BANDWIDTH for CREATIVITY
Roleplaying, as voiced by roleplayers, is an act of creativity they perform as well as consume from other roleplayers in the community around them. Creativity in any form is an intensely personal expression of art, requiring both effort and risk in order to expose the creation to an audience. A fast way to quench any creative endeavor is to limit the possibilities or tools of expression.
From my vantage, there are two ways developers commonly squelch creativity in MMOs:
- Lack of tools: If you only have black and white ink and a white canvas, you're not going to be able to paint a vibrant springtime landscape. You can still do Escher or Ansel Adams, but the multi-color wildflowers just won't have the same impact. Part of the bandwidth for creative roleplay, then, originates from tools provided by the developers that empower creativity. The more tools, the more creativity. The more creativity, the more possibility for personalization and storytelling.
- Too many decisions made on your behalf: In an era where WoW developers are running around with the "7 million people can't be wrong!" stamp, many folks argue WoW as the paragon of development.
WoW's great because it's the first MMO that even comes close to sating our appetite for single-player and group content, right? In the World According to Warcraft, we don't need fancy things like nostril flare and player housing! We get to kill murlocs, 15-at-a-time until we finally earn the Whacking Stick of the Eagle. What a reward! And we line up, all of us, for the treadmill of fun. Our next few months of time have been planned out for us...talents, skills, mount, raids, epics. That's a busy dance card for even the non-casual gamers! There's lots to do. So much so that it's hard to find times for things that are less-directly rewarded in the game.
Not only have the developers taken from me the burden of deciding what to do with my time, they've also eliminated difficult diplomacy! If I'm Horde, I better be all Horde! Forget talking to those nasty alliance gnomes! They're my enemies, right? We're in a vicious, violent war...um...right? There's no reason I should be able to talk!
If you haven't yet picked up on the sarcasm...it's there. Creativity can be taken away from the players just as quickly through making too many decisions for them, not only in character creation, but in possible game activities. As well, it's just a simple fact of life--if the quest content is fun to do, people will do that far before they'll make up their own fictional stories with each other. Path of least resistance.
Now, if you are sane and reasonable at all, at this point in my article you're rolling your eyes and asking the obvious question: "Are you suggesting that the developers provide less content in order to encourage roleplaying??"
My answer: No, are YOU crazy?!
Then, you think:
"Are you suggesting that we simply pile on tons of miscellaneous player-content options to encourage roleplay?"
My answer: Well, not quite that either.
GETTING TO THE POINT: THEORY of ROLEPLAY BANDWIDTH
See, my theory is this -- you can't determine the possibilities of roleplaying in a game simply by looking at it's "roleplaying" features. Nor can you say that roleplaying happens because "the game was so boring players made up their own stuff". The potential for roleplaying comes from the delta between the two. The number of roleplaying features represents the top. The number of features that attract players attention (especially where devs make content choices for the players) represent the bottom. If you want to find the games that have the highest "roleplay bandwidth" (aka - potential for player creativity), measure the distance between those two points, and you'll have a good indicator.
In fact, I've gone through an exercise and have done just that! Take a look at this graph:
This chart shows several of the top MMOs from the last five years, and then compares them on a feature-by-feature level. I listed a lot of "features" of MMOS -- from "soloable quest content" to "highly variable crafting". Then, I subjectively weighted each feature between 1 and 3, based on my belief about how much a particular feature affects player creativity in a MMO. Furthermore, each feature I labeled as "player" or "dev", based on whether I thought the feature facilitated player creativity or dev creativity (again, the type of dev creativity that constricts or limits player creative decisions).
For those of you interested in the Excel file, here you go: rp_possibility.xls
The blue bars on the chart shows how many dev features are in the game. Note that WoW is at the top. Since it's there, I used it as a baseline of comparison for other games. The white bar I computed as the difference between the WoW benchmark and the dev feature set of any other MMO. The red bar are the more player-creativity features.
The RP Bandwidth, then, can be gauged by adding the Red bar and White bar together. It's adding all the features that support player creativity to the implied "gap" of time and choice the developers leave for players to fill in. At the heart, it represents how much the game will motivate creative players to create.
Yes, it's all subjective. And no, I haven't attempted to catalog and rate every feature of a MMO for a more "complete" picture.
But, I think in general, comparing MMOs by the same criteria here at least begins to explain a phenomena I've tried to articulate for several years.
CONCLUSION
So, what do you really take away from all this? Is it too subjective to be useful? I don't think so. I think there are at least two valuable lessons here:
- If you are a player: And especially if you are a roleplayer looking for something more substantial in the creative roleplaying department: this method of evaluation gives you a good way to compare up-and-coming MMOs on their potential. It says nothing about whether the game is "good" or not--WoW is a great game with very little creative roleplay within the community. But, this measurement does give you some clue about whether or not the game is conducive to player-driven content within the game world.
- if you are a developer: And happen to be one of those developers who would like to empower player creativity: here is a good starting place for evaluating whether or not your MMO provides for creativity, or whether or not your MMO detracts from creativity. This chart won't show you how much money you will make, or how successful your game will be. At best, it might indicate how happy the roleplaying community (a minority of players) will be with what you have presented.
A last note. I've been a MMO player for over a decade now, from MUDs to WoW. When I look back at all the experiences I've had with game communities--spanning from raiding end-game bosses to creating massive player cities--those moments that stick most with me are those that come from creativity. Sure, it's an accomplishment to finish a long quest, or to max out a character level, or to complete a set of rare armor. But it's the creative moments we really remember. Whether the world allows it or not, the things folks will remember ten years from now are those moments that are funny, sad, majestic -- but even more, those moments shared with other players.
If you still don't believe me, I'll leave you with two final questions---
What is the name of the King of Stormwind?
Who is Leeroy Jenkins? |
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