The Mog Log: Know your roleplay

The Final Fantasy XIV Roleplaying Coaliton is now officially open to the public. If you want my opinion, you should head over there and register, but as one of the charter members I may be just a wee bit biased. Scratch that -- I'm a lot biased, because I tend to think that roleplaying is one of the most important parts of MMOs as a whole.

Unfortunately, it's an important part that all too often gets mired in a lack of understanding, and so it falls on me to abuse my saopbox and elaborate. Because there's a picture of roleplayers in the minds of the non-roleplaying public, one that involves speaking in a parody of the early Dragon Warrior games at best and questionable romantic practices at worst. There's even a sense that most game companies assume roleplayers will just make the best out of the situation no matter what the game is like, making anything added just for roleplaying a pointless addition.

These assumptions are incorrect. And considering how much Square-Enix has already done in favor of roleplaying in Final Fantasy XI, I have high hopes for Final Fantasy XIV. We need roleplayers, and even if you don't consider them a big deal, odds are good you've felt the influence from them.

A ninja by any other name...
My usual favorite chestnut to bring out in these articles -- which I will do so again -- is the first column Matt Cavotta wrote back in the day for Magic: the Gathering, discussing why flavor is important even if you tend to not think of yourself as a big fan. And he's right, and there's a blessedly good reason why we don't run around as blank collections of polygons in MMOs. Fundamentally, you want to identify with your character.

So what are the odds you sat on the character creator and thought about the name you were about to pick?

Virtually no one likes seeing names like "Fightmonster" or "Ihealtanks" or various names referring to parts of human anatomy. (Yes, "Spleenbeast," that includes you.) The people who wind up picking these names do so not out of the sense that they've gotten a good name, but a simple lack of any better ideas. I'd be surprised if less than three-quarters of the populace tried to pick a name that was at least tangentially appropriate to the setting, something more elaborate than "Frank" but still resonant.

Welcome to being a roleplayer. When you get at the core, roleplaying isn't about anything more than wanting to feel connected with the game world through a character. Trying to name your character in such a way that they seem to fit is no small part of that. World of Warcraft players will often say they don't like roleplaying but started on an RP server because the names are better -- which is a roleplaying concern. Funny how these things work out.

It goes further than that. Have you worked at arranging the furniture in your Mog House? Spent time looking at which hairstyles seemed the coolest? Taken part in a holiday event for a neat-looking reward? Numerically speaking, none of those things matter, but they matter to us as human beings. We like things that make sense, that have verisimilitude, that are aesthetically pleasing.

What we aren't
The funny thing is that by this point, everyone knows roleplayers don't actually stand around in fluffy white shirts (degree of fluffiness depending on setting) and talking in faked Middle English. Or at least, it ought to be a known quantity, since it's hardly the first time anyone has written about what roleplaying actually means. But there are other assumptions about roleplayers, some of them kind of insidious.

For the record? We don't get pissy at you if you're not roleplaying.

We don't ignore how you're supposed to play the game. Most of us spend just as much time as you do learning how to play. (Considering some non-roleplayers I've worked with over the years, several of us spend more.)

We aren't all roleplaying half-angel, half-demon fanboy explosions.

We don't expect everyone to play the same way we do.

Those of us who do fall under those stereotypes are in the same category as the PvP maniac who constantly talks about ganking people and hates getting into a fair fight, or the HNMLS where everyone bots and won't speak to you unless you have your full set of Relic Armor +1. They're the members among us that we don't generally like either. But the stereotypes persist, because all it takes is one bad experience with a nimrod to typecast a group.

Most of the time, roleplayers are the quiet and polite members of the party who want to form consensus, avoid conflict, and get things done. Roleplaying in an MMO generally requires a very flexible personality, so we don't try to start conflicts. And we're mostly devoted to keeping the game world as immersive and interesting as possible, because let's face it, playing an MMO for enough time takes the magic out. There are so many known quantities and so much information to absorb that you stop really looking at the scenery around you.

Taking a step in -- putting yourself in the shoes of your character -- gives some of that wonder back, that sense of exploration and novelty. That's something everyone benefits from, even if you're generally not fond of roleplaying. I'd like to think, on a whole, that the dedicated roleplayers of a server help boost the environment as an aggregate.

Bread, butter, and respective sides
Okay, so we all prefer roleplayers to be around. We can agree that they're good, or at the very least they're not harmful to the game. And if you aren't a roleplayer, I hope you can at least agree that we're not exactly disruptive -- or at least not intentionally so. But what does all of this have to do with why you're a roleplayer if you're in the game?

Final Fantasy XI is stuffed near to bursting with effort for roleplayers.

There are cutscenes, lovingly worked and featuring your character right in the forefront. There are titles. There are numerous pieces of armor whose only real purpose is appearance. There are weddings, bars, restaurants, houses. Areas that are completely tranquil and exist just to admire the scenery.

When you think about it, the real wonder is why there wasn't a stronger community for roleplaying in the game in the first place. (Answer: largely a result of poor community support at launch along with a lack of the option to choose what server you would be on in the early days. Square has learned a lot from their early mistakes, it seems. Let's hope that holds true for good.)

You may or may not think that roleplaying is as important as I do. But I think there's good reason to be aware of and support the effort for roleplaying in Final Fantasy XIV. Besides, how can you not like organizations forming for a game none of us have even played yet?

Next week's column, I can already confirm, will be a question-and-answer piece. Any questions you have, send along to Eliot at Massively dot com. I don't promise I'll answer all of them, but I do promise that I won't say mean things about anyone who asks them.