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Storyboard: Why am I still here?
Sometimes, the biggest problem you face isn't whether or not you can find dramatic roleplaying but whether or not your character has a reason to keep subjecting herself to it. I ran into the problem recently in Final Fantasy XIV. As a player, I enjoyed what was going on with one of the many organizations my character belongs to. The problem is that she wasn't enjoying it, and she didn't have any reason to keep subjecting herself to it. She didn't like most of these people, she didn't need money or resources from them, and she wasn't really deriving any benefit from it any longer. Obviously, I wanted her to stick around. But every so often you find yourself in situations where your character isn't happy and wants to leave... and has both reason and opportunity to do so. Two weeks ago I talked about getting someone out of your life; now it's time to talk about keeping a character in the mix.
Storyboard: Pacing and numbers in roleplaying
I attend a lot of roleplaying events. This is not a surprise to anyone, I'm sure. What also probably isn't a surprise is how many of them turn out to be slow, meandering, and generally not all that great. It's like wading through any bunch of player-generated content; you've got a lot of people who have a great idea in their heads to the point that they'll ignore signs about how badly that idea will shake out in reality. A lot of it comes down to two major issues: pacing and numbers. In some ways, this is an extension of the problem of people not playing to the medium, but it's also a problem of pacing and overall event flow. If you're not thinking about how you're pacing an event, you haven't fully thought things out, and if you aren't thinking about what that means for the people attending, you're going to wind up with a lot of bored people complaining via whispers.
Storyboard: Now I only want you gone
Roleplaying friendships are like any other sort of friendship. The person you started roleplaying with at the launch of the game may not be someone you want to keep roleplaying with through the whole of your time with the game. The question isn't whether or not this will happen; it's when it will happen and what you're going to do when you realize that you don't want to play with this person any longer. What sounds like the simplest thing in the world becomes much harder due to the simple fact that none of us likes telling someone else, "I don't want to interact with you any longer." That means you've got to read the signs and derive a lesson -- and also learn the way that your signals are going to be read, even if you don't mean it that way. So what signs do you get, what signs do you send, and what do you do?
Storyboard: Using the fourth wall for good
I don't remember much of the poetry course I took in college whilst pursuing my (ultimately useless) English degree, but I do remember my professor quite vividly. The first day of the class he stood up in front of the room and wrote a line from renowned poet Theodor Geisel: "It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how." In his case, he was leading into a discussion of the rules of rhyming schemes and such, but he also admitted that the lesson is applicable to a lot of other things. Case in point: using the fourth wall in roleplaying. MMOs lean on the fourth wall all the time, some more or less than others. But roleplaying generally steers clear of it because leaning on it too heavily can really screw with the overall roleplaying atmosphere. So let's talk a little bit about what the fourth wall is and how you can use it with care to enhance roleplaying rather than damage it.
Flameseeker Chronicles: How Guild Wars 2 can step up its roleplaying game
I'm a roleplayer at heart. My characters have backstories and relationships and hobbies and favorite foods. They have careers beyond "Necromancer" or "Guardian." They have homes and responsibilities. All of them have their own little places as supporting characters in the much larger story of Tyria. Sadly, I've never found Guild Wars 2 to be the most welcoming MMO for RP, mostly because none of the above can really be expressed well through gameplay. There's a lot of emphasis on epic stories and your character influencing the world and being a hero, but because GW2 is such a combat-focused game, it's hard not to feel as though my characters are too busy being epic to have lives outside of tireless badassery. That confuses me because so much of what ArenaNet wants to do ostensibly revolves around making the game world seem more alive, and I can't think of a better way to accomplish that than by giving players the tools to help create that feeling for ourselves.
Storyboard: Breaking game mechanics for the sake of roleplay
Sometimes your max-level character in World of Warcraft is supposed to still be a student. Sometimes your Trooper in Star Wars: The Old Republic is an expert at hand-to-hand combat with a techblade that you can't wield. Sometimes your Final Fantasy XIV is a gunsmith in a world where guns clearly exist but aren't available to players. Sometimes you've found something that the game itself is directly at odds with in your roleplaying. I'm not talking about lore; I'm talking about the game mechanics. And while I've brushed up against this before, I've never actually talked about how to deal with situations that the game mechanics explicitly forbid. You are X, and the game tells you that you cannot be X. So what do you do? I can assume you can get over the point of saying that you're something that's slightly at odds with the game mechanics, but how do you explain the fact that your character should be something that the game won't allow?
Storyboard: You are what you pretend to be
It's the day after Halloween, and that means we all take off our costumes. Or to be more accurate, we all take off the costumes that other people get to see. We're still wearing costumes just the same, except we call them our normal personalities and hope that no one notices. None of this is shocking. We all know that we present ourselves differently to different people. You don't act the same way around your boss that you do around your closest friends, you don't treat strangers like your mother, and so forth. It's part of the human condition: We put on different faces depending on whom we're dealing with at any given moment. Do your characters do the same? They should. Even if they aren't technically human, most alternative options in games still have more or less human thought patterns. So let's talk a little more about putting on a brave face for the outside world and what it says about your character as a whole.
Updates on US Connected Realms
By now, several US realms have been successfully connected with Blizzard's new Connected Realms feature. In case you've been out of the loop, Blizzard released an update in regards to the new feature, which seamlessly connects two realms so that they'll behave as one. That means players on realms that are connected can join the same guilds, use one Auction House, and run raids and dungeons with each other -- a pretty big bonus for realms that have been suffering from lower populations. The list of successfully connected realms is as follows: Auchindoun and Laughing Skull Black Dragonflight and Skullcrusher Aegwynn and Gurubashi Balnazzar and Warsong Burning Blade and Onyxia Chromaggus and Garithos Dalvengyr and Dark Iron Dethecus and Detheroc Dunemaul, Maiev, Boulderfist and Bloodscalp Hakkar and Aegwynn Rivendare and Firetree It's a sizeable list -- but if your realm wasn't on the list, not to worry. Blizzard is revving up for more realm connections, and soon. Two new batches of realm connections are on the way, and the first batch of connections will be taking place on Monday, October 28.
Storyboard: This is your next character
Coming up with a new character concept is hard. Not as tough as it could be, obviously, but it's still challenging. For some people, the hardest part of roleplaying is figuring out whom to play, and once you figure that part out, the rest is just down to the execution. But coming up with a character concept requires hard work, careful consideration, and quite possibly a few blood sacrifices. Or it requires someone who wants to do a Halloween column that's more about dressing up than the usual plague of ghosts and demonic pumpkins. In today's Storyboard, I'm going to just give you your next character and make it as easy as slipping on a costume. I'm even giving you choices. I'm even making it more of a system than an outright list, so you can use it from here to eternity. It's everything you could want except for more familiarity with the game's lore.
Next wave of Connected Realms announced
Following Monday's successful connections, the next wave of realms to be added to the Connected Realms feature have just been announced. While Community Manager Nethaera had the names of the realms available for players, as of yet there still isn't a fixed date for the realm connections to take place. However, given the faster turnaround that we've been experiencing, players may see these connections happen sooner than one would think. Nethaera As a part of our ongoing Connected Realms implementation, we will be connecting additional realms as listed below. We don't have a specific date yet on when these connections will occur, but we'll provide another update once we do. Please be aware that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other. Next Realm Connections: Dethecus and Detheroc Auchindoun and Laughing Skull Hakkar and Aegwynn Rivendare and Firetree Dunemaul and Bloodscalp/ Maiev/Boulderfist We're currently evaluating further realm connections and will provide updates as they're available. For more information on Connected Realms, please read the preview blog post here. source It looks like the Maiev/Bloodscalp/Boulderfist triad can expect another addition to their happy little family with Dunemaul. In addition, Hakkar will join Aegwynn, which was connected to Gurubashi last week. If you're a player on one of the realms slated for connection, you might want to keep an eye on the official thread for future updates.
What do you do when you're away from WoW?
Right now, thanks to an ongoing saga of computer failure, I'm currently on an enforced hiatus from World of Warcraft. Readers, this is not how I want things to be! I've barely touched patch 5.4, I'm missing Hallow's End and all its glorious experience boosts for my alts, and BlizzCon is just a couple of weeks away. The timing for mass electronic failure just could not have been worse. Over the years that I've played WoW, my personal interest in the game has waxed and waned. I think this is probably pretty normal. We all go through phases where we want to play more than at other times. Maybe a person's interest is tied to the release of new content, or maybe it's tied to guild events, or maybe something else entirely. So it's not as if now is the first time I've been away from WoW for a while. What's unusual is that normally I'm away because I want to be, not because I've been forced to by circumstances beyond my control. So, because I'm stuck not playing WoW when I wish I could be playing WoW, I'm immersing myself in the game in other ways. These include things like researching transmog gear, meticulously planning out new alts (including names, backstories, and leveling routes), wistfully reading my friends' accounts of guild raiding progress, and some text-based RP with friends. Thanks to these efforts, I'm managing just fine. I just hope my new monitor gets here quickly. Have you ever been forced into an undesired WoW break thanks to forces beyond your control? What did you do, if anything, to keep yourself engaged with the game? Or did you take it as a sign and go dark for a while? Tell us all about it!
Latest round of Connected Realms coming Monday
The latest sizable batch of realms slated for the Connected Realms feature will be going under maintenance on Monday, October 21 from 5:00 a.m. PDT until approximately 11:00 a.m. PDT, according to the official thread on the feature. Community Manager Bashiok also added that once these realms return from maintenance, the realm connections should be complete. The realms scheduled for this round of connection are as follows. Balnazzar and Warsong Gurubashi and Aegwynn Dalvengyr and Dark Iron Garithos and Chromaggus Onyxia and Burning Blade Maiev and Bloodscalp/Boulderfist If you happen to be calling any of these realms home, be prepared for a brief bout of maintenance come Monday. However, Tuesday's regular maintenance should simply be a set of rolling restarts for everyone, so realms that are in the process of being connected should be hit with double downtime. This seems to be a pretty quick turnaround -- will we be seeing more realm connection announcements next week? For more information and updates on the process, keep an eye on the official forum thread.
Storyboard: What are you scared of?
I've made it pretty far into October without a single article that could be seen as remotely Halloween-themed, so I think I'm doing pretty well right here. But that's changing right now because it's time to talk about another topic that I thought I'd covered long before: fear. Unfortunately, fear is also difficult to address in a logical fashion. Fear itself isn't logical. From a logical standpoint, there is nothing serious that a spider can do to me. I'm thousands of times larger (no fat jokes please) and have access to a variety of tools; it just has eight legs and poison that's generally harmless to me. That doesn't mean I'm not scared of them, despite the fact that logic dictates that I should be more scared of seeing a bear in the woods. So I'm not going to talk about that. What I will talk about is giving your characters fears that feel real, making sure that you're afraid of things that work, and portraying those fears in a consistent way. After all, even if fear isn't logical, it certainly is understandable with a bit of effort.
New wave of Connected Realms announced
After the connection of the Skullcrusher and Black Dragonflight realms earlier this week, Blizzard has announced the next set of realms to be connected -- and this time, there's quite a list of them. Twelve realms total are slated to be connected, although a specific date for the connection has yet to be announced. However, Community Manager Bashiok provided the full list, noting that these are all US realms -- no EU realms have been slated for connection at this time. Bashiok As a part of our ongoing Connected Realms implementation, we will be connecting additional pairs of realms as listed below. We don't have a specific date yet on when these connections will occur, but we'll provide another update once we do. Please be aware that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other. Next Realm Connection Pairs: Balnazzar and Warsong Gurubashi and Aegwynn Dalvengyr and Dark Iron Garithos and Chromaggus Onyxia and Burning Blade Maiev and Bloodscalp/Boulderfist We're currently evaluating further realm connections and will provide updates as they're available. For more information on Connected Realms, please read the preview blog post here. source Note that the Maiev realm will be connected with the Bloodscalp/Boulderfist connection that was the first to be made in this process. Although an exact date for the connection has not been set, given the connection that took place during this week's maintenance, we can hope that these connections will also take place during regularly scheduled downtime. Players on these realms should continue to check back with the official thread on the forums for more updates as they become available.
Trion answers questions about RIFT's server merges
Next week's RIFT server merge is far from the first time that the game has compressed its servers, but it's still producing no shortage of anxiety and apprehension. The game's community managers took to the forums to answer some of the more pressing questions, starting with the (unwelcome) news that the merged EU servers will wind up without a server flagged for roleplaying. Name changes will be necessary; surnames are possible for the future, but they will not be in place for the merges. Players with more than the maximum number of characters after the merge will only have access to the first 12; players will need to delete existing characters to see the characters in overflow, but they will not be lost. Guild banks do not need to be emptied. Players are also reminded that characters can be transferred before the merger. The one bright point is the fact that the EU servers will have an auction house supporting French, English, and German clients at the same time, allowing all players in the region to interact successfully on the merged worlds.
Black Dragonflight, Skullcrusher realms to be connected tomorrow
Black Dragonflight and Skullcrusher, the two latest realms to be announced as slated for the Connected Realms feature will be connected tomorrow, October 15, during standard maintenance. The two realms were next in line after the success of the Bloodscalp and Boulderfist realm connection. Given that the realm connection will take place during regular server maintenance, one would hope that this means that the wrinkles have been ironed out of implementation -- but just in case, Blizzard will be providing updates on any potential delays. The rollout for Connected Realms has been considerably slower than most players were expecting. However, it's nice to see that Blizzard is taking its time with this one, making sure that everything is functioning correctly and all potential issues have been addressed. Of course the question on everyone's minds now is which realms will be slated for connection next, and when will it occur? Are you hoping for the connected realm feature on your server?
Storyboard: Signing up for the team
Major organizations in a game's lore are kind of a big deal to the characters living in those games. They represent something important, after all, either in terms of intent or power. So why doesn't your character sign up with the organization of his choice and start working for it instead of just alongside it? What do you mean that there's no mechanical way to fully model that? Come on. Sure, that's a bit of a problem, but if there's one thing you've taken away from my columns other than the word "verisimilitude," it's that no problem is insurmountable. Fortunately, signing on with your in-game organization of choice isn't all that problematic, even if there isn't an actual dotted line to sign for membership. So let's talk about signing up with your local recruitment office for fame, fortune, and the occasional bit of character motivation that you can't massage in any other way.
Black Dragonflight, Skullcrusher realms to be connected
After the successful integration of the Bloodscalp and Boulderfist realms, Blizzard is continuing with the slow rollout of connected realms. Although no date has been finalized, CM Nethaera has announced that Black Dragonflight and Skullcrusher will be the next two realms to be connected. Nethaera As a part of our ongoing Connected Realms implementation, we will be working toward connecting our next pair of realms, Black Dragonflight and Skullcrusher – we'll provide another update once we've finalized the date. We will also update this thread with any additional information that becomes available. Please be aware that as a part of the process, realm times may change to align better with each other. We are currently evaluating additional realm connections and plan to provide a more complete schedule at a future point in time. For more information on Connected Realms, please read the preview blog post here. source CM Bashiok stepped in later in the thread to clarify some details on the connected realms process. While many are eager to see this new feature give a boost to realms with lower than optimal populations, the process is far more complicated than you'd think. Blizzard is taking its time with each connection in order to evaluate possible issues with the process -- and the choice of realms was specifically to help identify potential issues. In other words, at this point in the process it's not so much a matter of how much a realm would benefit from a connection, as it is how much that connection will help clarify any potential issues with the process itself. Check out the full forum thread for more information and updates on the process as it continues.
Storyboard: Keeping your roleplaying fresh
The big problem with marriage is the same problem you have with always going to your favorite restaurant. Sure, you like the menu, and maybe it's even extensive enough that you could eat there every day for a month without having the same thing twice. But eventually it's just not going to be fresh. You've had everything on the menu, and from here on out it's just the same burgers until the end of time. And so you wind up leaving the restaurant and eating at a fast food place, and then you wind up in divorce court. You are not married to your roleplaying characters. But you're still in a situation where you're inside of this character's head at all times, and eventually you don't even need to guess what happens next. So just like a marriage, you need to keep things fresh even when you know your character inside and out. Which is trickier than it might sound, but still eminently doable. And it might even be that as long as I'm making the marriage analogy, some of the same advice applies.
Storyboard: Sharing the spotlight
We roleplayers tend to be a little... self-centered. Kind of the nature of the game, seeing as how you're creating a persona and then trying to flesh out an entire life story for that persona. It's natural that you'd want to be on the center stage a little more often. The problem here is obvious. Heck, you can see it in day-to-day life. If only one person thinks, "I'm the star," everything flows fine. If everyone thinks that, you're surrounded by a screaming cacophony of people who all think that their individual problems are more important than anyone else's problems. You have a band full of lead guitarists and no one on drums, a full team of pitchers without anyone at second base. You need to learn how to step away from the spotlight. To let someone else be important for a bit. To give up the spotlight and be the supporting cast for a while. So how and why do you do that? I'm glad you let me assume that you asked.
