h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On my travels through the Edited Guide I found this Entry: A379451
As you can see it is not really about online role-playing at all but about a specific game.

I think that a new Entry about this topic should be written, but I'm sure I myself don't know everything there is to know about this topic.

Would any of you be interested to help writing a collaborative Entry?

All it would take is discussing online role-playing here in this thread.

What kind of online role-playing did you do? How did it work?

I have probably done more face-to-face role-playing gaming than online. I find that in games dominated by children (which is most of them) the level of role-playing is really low; most are themselves just dressed up, occasionally in drag, but themselves.
I'll recommend "The cybergypsies" by Indra Sinha as a good source, for though it is fiction it does represent some truth about a largely departed, text-based form of online role-playing.
I guess you want to talk to folk who play WoW, or Second-Life.

I played a lot of MMOs myself, so I know about some of the role-playing going on there. I've done it occassionally. I remember large and small in-game parties for instance.

Text-based role-playing is not at all departed. A search on google showed that there are many, many rp forums. Some very new it seems. Some of them very serious.

I have no idea about Second Life unfortunately, but I wonder how many other simulations like that are out there and you jsut never hear about them.

I like on-line role play games but I have a strict anti-PK policy and wont play any game that it's a feature you have to use

You might want to mention The Guild. This was a hit TV comedy show in the USA not long ago, a comedy based on the various members' RL exploits from an online MMORPG guild.

Gotta be relevant to what you want here.

Haven't actually seen it myself but it was released on X-box and broadcast through that originally I think - ran out of budget and was funded by the fans from then on.

A game I play has teamed up with them to use their characters as generals and troops and stuff for your army

Anthea, what is PK?

I think there's a difference between palying an MMO and role-playing in an MMO. Although every player identifies with their characters to a certain extent there are some who take it much more serious.

I'm afraid I've never heard of that series. I'll try to find something about it online.

PK - player killing
where other people will basically stand around and snipe the newbies

Ah, yes, I also don't like that.

When I played WoW (for 2 months) I played on a server where this was possible, or probably possible in some areas. It really got on my nerves, but I didn't particularly like WoW anyhow.

I have never played a single online game, but I have lived in a house with 4 WoW players. I am told that practically no RP goes on anywhere in the game. Even on what are advertised as 'dedicated RP servers', role-playing is said to be pretty much limited to pretending to 'get drunk' and running amok, and a bit of propositioning partners for the *other* kind of 'role-playing'.
In general, WoW seems to be much more about a detailed understanding of the stats and mechanics of the game. I heard a lot of conversations about things like 'cool-down times' of powers before you could use them again, and 'drop rates' of valuable items and equipment. The acronym 'DPS' ('damage per second') cropped up a lot, even to becoming a replacement term for players in a party whose role was to dole out heavy damage to enemies.
Oh, and FWIW, my friends used the term "ganking" to refer to the practice of ambushing a weaker player for little or no reason.

Also, I am about to embark on a somewhat experimental attempt at playing dice-and-pencils Dungeons & Dragons over the internet, using a Google Docs spreadsheet as a grid for combat encounters, and a VOIP programme - probably Ventrilo - for vocal interaction. If you think it's relevant, I can keep you posted on that.

Most war games I've seen advertised and demonstrated
are so fast and furious I can't anticipate anything in
a real whirled timely way. It's like random chaos with
a built-in computer generated 'you lose' function.

Some of the earlier first person shooter games seem to be
so inaccurate and arbitrary that it would make more sense
to buy a real gun and do it for real if only to see where
the bullets actually went and adjust accordingly rather than
struggle to interpret all the unknown variables.

Even Angry Birds was inconsistent in its telemetry - and left
me wondering why the birds would attack the pigs in a way
that simply destroyed their own stolen eggs. It makes no sense,
strategically or emotionally. The only result is destruction.

And that's enuff from an old fart with failing eyesight, eh.

Carry on.


~jwf~

'Even on what are advertised as 'dedicated RP servers', role-playing is said to be pretty much limited to...'

Yes, that's true. As far as I understood (and can remember) an RP server simply means you can't kill everyone in every place (like what Anthea mentioned).

Playing D&D on a google spreadsheet sounds difficult, but then I've only ever played it once. I'm more the Warhammer type.


'Some of the earlier first person shooter games seem to be
so inaccurate and arbitrary ...'

Not only the early ones. There are still plenty of shooter games with no relation to real life although they pretend to be 'real'.

>I have never played a single online game, but I have lived in a house with 4 WoW players. I am told that practically no RP goes on anywhere in the game. Even on what are advertised as 'dedicated RP servers', role-playing is said to be pretty much limited to pretending to 'get drunk' and running amok, and a bit of propositioning partners for the *other* kind of 'role-playing'.
In general, WoW seems to be much more about a detailed understanding of the stats and mechanics of the game. I heard a lot of conversations about things like 'cool-down times' of powers before you could use them again, and 'drop rates' of valuable items and equipment. The acronym 'DPS' ('damage per second') cropped up a lot, even to becoming a replacement term for players in a party whose role was to dole out heavy damage to enemies.
Oh, and FWIW, my friends used the term "ganking" to refer to the practice of ambushing a weaker player for little or no reason.
M

Yeah, this is pretty much spot on. hard core players like to max their characters damage and other abilities. mostly it comes down to how often/long you play and how much maths/research you can be bothered to do.

Yes, that's true. That's why I loved Anarchy Online, it had much more maths than WoW, which seems to be rather easy. For putting on new gear in Anarchy online you could spend a week planning and calculating. It's fun!

But unfortunately that has nothing to do with my initial question.

It's all stats not roleplay.

"Playing D&D on a google spreadsheet sounds difficult, but then I've only ever played it once."

I don't think it will. All you need is a way of marking a square - a couple of initials will do - for the position of each player/enemy, and then the squares can be coloured to indicate status effects. The mechanics and notes required to run it can all be done offline. As DM, I will physically write down the HP totals of each 'mob' (another WoW term I picked up) to keep track. As for dice, there are plenty of websites with suitable random-number generators. I will probably suggest this one: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm

It must be me and not cyberspace that is at fault.
But...
I tried that dice link and every combo came up as a 4.
What are the odds of that?

So on my second attempt it was all sixes.

If I have some unconscious connection to the whirled of bits
and bytes and cybersites then I swear I don't understand why
I have yet to win a big Lottery.

But when I do you're all in for a share!

~jwf~

I would like to see an Entry on online gaming, most of the Entries I see here concentrait on the game and not what I consider the important points.

How do you start?
Do you buy a game at a software store?
Download it online?
Are the downloads safe (no malware)?

What does it cost?
Is there a one-time fee?
Monthly billing?
An hourly, or by the minute fee?

How often must you play?
If RL keeps you off for a week or two will you return to ruin?
Can you play multiple characters, or restart if things go bad?

Do you get so far and then find an expensive requirement to continue or advance?

I have played live games several years ago, but have avoided the on-line variety because of the above reasons.

Just my

F S

Well, I wrote this: A13492640
So we actually do have at least one Entry about online gaming, but not about all genres.

There also is an Entry about free MMOs somewhere but it is quite outdated.