Behind the Mask: Making concessions for roleplayers

There's been almost universally positive feedback for Champions Online since the Free For All expansion launched. Although there has been some criticism of the C-Store prices increasing (bad!), the vast majority of changes in F2P have been positive. In many ways, it's been sort of a new genesis for the game, and I feel as if it's overcome a lot of the negative press present at its launch.

But not everything about F2P has been positive, and while I put a small amount of blame on the devs (especially since I brought up the issue with Poz in an interview), much of the trouble was really inevitable.

The problem in question is RP griefing. Champions has a large, robust roleplaying community.The center of roleplaying in CO is Club Caprice, and Caprice is currently under siege by unruly heroes lifting and throwing chairs around, spamming powers that destroy nearby tables or chairs, and being disruptive using the in-game chat. As one friend said, "Everyone who has thrown a chair in here has been under level 20, in a F2P Archetype, and wearing a lame costume."

As roleplayers, what can we do? Again, there are things the devs can do, and I'll talk about those a little later. A huge burden of any RP community, though, is to make do and solve problems on its own.

Get connected

Now more than ever, roleplayers need to get involved with the global RP community. As I've mentioned before, Champions Online Roleplayers (or CORP) is a community specifically for roleplayers. CORP has a large number of members you can connect with and ask questions about everything from RP etiquette to lore. It allows you to hook up with whatever kind of roleplayers best fit your style. It's not representative of the entire RP community, but the more people who join, the more useful a resource it becomes.

CORP also has a global channel (named CORP) used for OOC chatter and meetings. Although global channels and networking can't replace pick-up RP, they help a lot for building a network of friends to RP with.

Migrating to new hangouts

There are a lot of places for roleplayers to go for pick-up RP meetings. Club Caprice is always going to be a sort of central hub for pick-up RP, but that doesn't mean we can't diversify. There's a wide number of places available to use as RP zones, each with its own advantages and drawbacks.

Sherrera's Bar is probably the most suitable location for an alternate place to avoid griefers. Although I haven't spent much time there, it's been an alternate RP hangout for a very long time. It's very out of the way, so I've included a map. It's not too far away from the ordinance vendor, in the Chinatown area of Westside.

Due to its proximity to Westside (and thus, to low-level leveling grounds), Sherrera's might not be the best choice for an alternate hotspot, but it's good to know.

Right across the street from Sherrera's is Carl's Gym. Just look around from the front door and you'll see the big CARL'S sign. It's also a fairly common RP hotspot, especially among the RPvP crowd. People generally use the gym's sparring ring as a good place for IC duels.

Like Sherrera's, Carl's in Westside, and griefers visit even more often (since there's a mission leading into Carl's Gym, although in a different instance), so while it isn't a bad spot, it's probably also not the best option.

Other good places to try are the crafting stores around Millennium City. They're themed for characters of a particular background, and in particular the ones on the eastern side of the city are less populated. They're not frequently used right now (people use them from time to time), but they offer another option. The western stores, like the Ordinance store, probably aren't as good as the eastern ones, though.

The blimp in Millennium City, the UNTIL building, and the Champions HQ building offer other indoor areas for people to get away from the huge swarm of free players.

Aside from areas available to everyone, the SS Bayou Queen and Redsnake's Gym serve similar roles to Club Caprice and Carl's Gym, but in Vibora Bay. Since only level 34 heroes (or above) can start the Vibora Bay Crisis, low-level players are just excluded by default. In addition, Vibora is a really nice-looking zone, and the Bayou Queen is a little more high-class than Club Caprice.

For the more heroic types looking for allies, the UNITY headquarters, restricted to level 40 heroes, might be a good choice as well. Both UNITY and the Vibora hotspots help by restricting low-level heroes, but it's a double-edged sword, since it also excludes lower-level RP characters (and many roleplayers have many low-level alts).

People have already started using the Caprice VIP Lounge as an RP zone, but it is very exclusive, allowing only lifetime members and 400-day veterans. This is far from ideal.

Changing the methods

A long time ago, I wrote a little crash course in roleplaying. Most of the stuff there is still appropriate, but in particular, screening people by bio is probably more important now that the average player age is a lot lower. It's also important to jump on people (meaning politely chatting them up) who have "RP/Walk-up/Tell-Friendly" in their bio, assuming the rest of the bio seems interesting to you. It's also a really good reason to put some effort into yours. It doesn't have to be more than a paragraph or two, but it does have to be interesting and look nice.

It's so essential that your bio be well-written, since it's how people can tell whether or not you're a jerk or a griefer.

You may also want to take already established RP out of the club and into the city proper or into private instances, just to avoid griefers.

The developer options

Admittedly, the devs have a little responsibility to the players. There are quite a number of player suggestions for dev fixes, and while no dev solutions will be perfect, a few little things could really help.

• Add in a Gold-only area of Caprice, with a separate Cryptic Point surcharge for Silver members to gain access. This could be another club altogether; players suggested using Club Incubus, another unused "club" in MC. Alternatively, the devs could just add a C-Store purchase for everyone; roleplayers would gladly purchase access to any sort of RP-exclusive zone.
• Add a C-Store purchase for early travel to Vibora Bay. High-level characters could use the Bayou Queen without a purchase, while people looking for lower-level access could pay a small premium. In addition, it'd facilitate teaming in Vibora (especially since much of VB's content is instanced missions) as well as allow people who would not participate in the Vibora Bay Crisis in-character to skip it. Some small concessions would have to be made (alterations to the intro movie for people who did not play the crisis), but I think it would be worth it.
• Restrict access to Caprice to unsilenced Silver members (blocking ones who have the initial 20-hour mute). This is the weakest, simplest solution to the problem, but I think it's a good solution in addition to the other solutions.
• Increase the ease of reporting disruptive players. I think this is absolutely mandatory. There needs to be a quick right-click "report player" option on the player portrait. It should also have quick reporting dropdowns to report players for harassment, so reporting should ideally take only a minute or two instead of over five minutes like it currently does. I'd also like to see harsher enforcement of RP violations in RP zones, including restricting access to established RP areas such as Caprice (and obviously not publicly useful zones like UNTIL or the vendors).

Of the solutions above, I think all of them should be implemented. I like gating RP with real money more than levels or subscription status; adding a small fee is a small price to pay to be free of griefing, and easier reporting helps discourage griefers from paying a few dollars just to grief (since they can quickly get banned and lose that privilege).

No solution will be perfect, but it's only through community effort that roleplayers will continue to thrive in Champions Online as they have since launch. The F2P launch has added a large number of players, many of whom are attracted to the idea of roleplaying. Even though there are a ton of griefers, it's really the nature of the beast and most roleplayers don't want separate shards for themselves. Most of the RPers I've talked to have been very positive about gaming with F2P players, even in the wake of griefers.

Now that my account is more or less fixed (it still has some issues, but at least I can log in my characters now), I am really happy to be back in the RP scene. I'm really interested in seeing it thrive -- while it is fun to play through CO's content, RP is what gives the game lasting appeal to me.

When he's not touring the streets of Millennium City or rolling mooks in Vibora Bay, Patrick Mackey goes Behind the Mask to bring you the nitty-gritty of the superhero world every Thursday. Whether it's expert analysis of Champions Online's game mechanics or his chronicled hatred of roleplaying vampires, Patrick holds nothing back.