Though I am not an avid RPer it boggles MY mind when anyone playing an MMORPG complains about RP. You have to wonder if the person realized that making a character in a mmoPRg may bring them in to contact with RP.

@ Angel

I see what you did there, but MMORPGs really arent RPGs, certainly not in the tabletop sense, and not even really in the single player sense. The important component of RPGs is not the playing, or the game, you PLAY other GAMES as well. It's the Role, and that just isn't really established well within these games.

What role does orc warrior 1 have that's really so different than orc warrior 2? They both start out in the same place, literally, they both do the same quests, they both get the same opportunities for gear. How does the game support a different identity between one character and another without explicitly dedicating the server to people who are going to seek out their character's identity on their own?

It's incumbent on the community to provide RP on the server. If the server isn't dedicated to RP, I say you shouldn't expect it to be enforced. If it is, i think you should.

As I said to my wife after I read what I posted to her (paraphrased, of course):

It is true that the MMORPG is merely an extension of a video game variation of an RPG, meaning the V-RPG embodies the mechanical expression of a table top RPG and not the actual role play aspect thus it could be considered "just a game". however, the V-RPG is an extension of the table top RPG so one should expect that a good number of people are going to engage that space, as a single player or as a member of a group of players, as they would a traditional table top RPG space.

I know plenty of people who were part of a table top RPG group that has since broken apart for various reasons placing distances between them that reconvene in MMORPGs so they may be able to play together again. I also know of one person, though younger, who uses the MMORPG space to RP solo. I also think a good number of people do that more often than they realize.

I think it is silly for people to view others who RP as some kind of digital variation of a LARP invasion. Unlike the "real world" there are no laws governing public space to potentually prevent even a possibility of a congregation of disruptive individuals that can be leveled against such occurrences.

I understand the convention of an RP server but I think that convention is over embraced by the non-RP communities. RP servers are a signal to those who RP telling them that there may be a higher concentration of RPers on that server. They are not a place that RPers are supposed to go by mandate to prevent inconvinence of expirence for players on other servers that are not designated RP. I have never read an EULA that states there should be no RP on non RP servers. Thus, I say do not be suprised if you run into RP on any server of any game that actually uses seperate servers because it is going to happen. Some people see RPG in MMORPG and do think of the genra in terms of RP as a core element or pricipal of the artifacts within that genra.

This may be out there but, expecting RPers to cease and desist or congregate on only one designated server is not all that unlike a European American saying that people of Native American decent should "act more European" (what ever that could mean) or stay on the designated reservations where they can be natives away from the rest of the country. Fact is, no matter how distant you get from the iteration of RP and table top RP the space that carries even the smallest element of RP, as declared by the space itself as does the term MMORPG, is a space RPers really have a right to exist in unhindered and openly.

Is the Native American analogy over stating the property? yeah, probably. Is it inaccurate? I don't think so.

Keep in mind these statements are coming from a person who thinks RP in CoX and CO is really frakin stupid. Would I make an effort to prevent RP in these VWs? No, I support it though I would never engage in it.

The fact remains: RPers are going to RP where ever they please. end of line...