Exactly. I had to sound flippant but "get over it" comes to mind. I've been an MMO roleplayer on just about every unofficial RP server out there. Lord Adraas is actually my first "official" one but it's more like an Unofficial RP server in the sense an broad-based community selected and is backing it. I've seen great RP on unofficial RP servers and in no small part that's because we start out "over it." There's no special title or support for what we do. So we learn to get along with the nonroleplayers that aren't a problem, the majority, and many of them eventually become roleplayers too. The ones that do set out to cause harm get reported under the general provisions that protect all players. But just having a dumb name isn't a sin. Behaving stupidly, if they're not being insulting or offensive, isn't a sin either. Many people just don't know better. I can't count the number of times characters with whacky names ended up with name changes because roleplayers didn't immediately leap all over them but suspended disbelief enough to work with them. The players would be embarrassed. The ones that seek out roleplayers to provoke hostile behavior or disrupt roleplaying are violating general rules and should be /reported. Document what they do with logs or screenshots. Make sure you've got 'em. Then let fly. Eventually, if Bioware is smart and handles RP servers half as well as Turbine handed unofficial ones like Landroval in LoTRO, they'll assign GMs that are roleplayers to our server. So the existing rules will be interpreted even more favorably in our favor and very often some of those characters wandering around and roleplaying at events will be the player-characters of the GMs. Some nimrod shows up and starts trouble? He vanishes to a point very, very, far away or finds himself locked out of the server all together. But it remains to be seen how smart Bioware is about these things.

No worries, I wasn't really addressing that to you but some of the other comments I've seen around. You'll like Lord Adraas if you do head there. You'll find that many other RP guilds are there besides the ones that intentionally showed up too. It's a pretty amazing scene. I can't speak to any other server because I'm not on them though.

Given I'm stuck at work...not too much. But I'm active in the RP forums here and at swtor-rp.com. When new roleplayers need advice I offer it (along with the metric ton of unasked for advice I tend to offer). In game I haven't done much real RP yet. I'm still getting a feel for the setting and the community. Takes me a while to find an interesting RP angle to work sometimes. Given I'm switching alts every two days probably doesn't help but it's to Bioware's credit that I'm more interested in their storytelling than my own. For now at least.

This. There's no law saying you have to roleplay with everyone that claims to be a roleplayer. Roleplay is about having fun in the end. If someone making outlandish claims is messing with your good time just edit him out of your story. A good roleplayer has an internal editor called the brain. Things that don't work get sidelined. Things that work get serious attention. Some of those things are people. That doesn't mean to be rude or to complain about folks whose roleplaying you don't like. But you're not getting paid for this gig. If something isn't working for you just don't do it.

There's no the RP server. But there are a ton of folks organized into an umbrella community already that are in Lord Adraas. Everything I've seen there makes it look pretty amazing. I'm not going to put down other servers. Starting some ego war about which RP server is better is silly. All RP servers are better than all non RP servers. That's the kind of silliness I can get behind!

I'm just going to be duplicating but might as well: 1) RP flag. 2) Appearance Tab. 3) Biography Space. I can live with or without text bubbles and player generated content engines can probably wait a while (there's so much content here already). Still PGC is always top of my list for long run developments in any MMO that wants to cater to creative roleplayers.

Whining about them ain't my job. I'm here to whine about RP stuff we need!

And Huttball?

I think many serious roleplayers are most definitely simulationists! We may not need every technical detail turned into some ornate and byzantine gameplay, like military simulationist rivet-counters, but we want things to look and feel as they should. And one of those elements, as a previous poster noted, is that actions have consequences. If PvP was more "realistic" it would mean 95% PvPers would tone it the hell down. We're talking permadeath, wounding and recovery times, realistic law enforcement or battlefield conditions as a context, etc. I've seen it in MUSHes and it does make people think before pew pewing and look at intrigue and diplomacy as realistic options rather than just jumping for guns and shooting every red dot on the scope. But PvP really comes down to pew pewing with little risk other than to one's ego. Roleplay is just a fun garnish, flavor text to make fights more interesting, on the side for those who indulge. And frankly permadeath and serious consquences wouldn't be fun for anyone in the long run. I've seen in those very same MUSHes populations of roleplayers decimated by Hatfield and McCoy feuds that not only drove off the players of slain characters but angered those who had important storylines and unfinished business tied up with them. You know how some fans of TV shows get pissed off when a writer kills off a favorite character? That happens too. But in this case they can gang up and "kill" the writer. So we're left with a choice of cartoon violence that's really just another kind of sporting event in disguise and asserting that's a meaningful option that somehow deepens roleplay or just avoiding it entirely and getting on with traditional consentual/cooperative roleplaying styles. I'd say that both approaches have merits but ultimately PvP does attract more hostile personalities and anti-RP nonroleplayers. So I go traditional.

I know this kind of thing is annoying. It is to me too. That's why I got on board early with a strong roleplaying community (swtor-rp.com) and followed the herd on their superserver project. Getting the right kind of people around you, roleplayers, is kinda key to having an environment you enjoy being in. But developers never, ever, do a good job policing RP servers whether they've strict policies or not. The most bitter MMO roleplayers I've encountered are WoW vets because they blame everyone but themselves for not having a good time. The GMs are lame, nonroleplayers suck, etc, etc, etc. The happiest roleplayers I know are from unofficial RP servers that communities have come together to create themselves. Because they aren't dependent on the kindness of strangers for success they figure out how to make RP work themselves. Because they know they're going to have nonroleplayers among them they learn how to tolerate and even cooperate with them. Because that's where new roleplayers come from. And when griefing idiots show up they learn the very basic secret of happiness, /ignore. Failing that, /report. And just get on with their lives rather than fuming about it and dwelling on it and feeling neglected or persecuted. They focus on the RP and just let the rest slip right on by.

That is a fundamental bit of useability that many other MMOs have. It does make a huge difference and I suspect with not a huge amount of development effort.

Propecius: There's no way to avoid being complained about! I get complained about! "That OddjobXL's such a know-it-all..." The very simplest explanation for how to get by (and avoid derailing this thread) is simply to talk like a character in /say. If you want to talk as a player to another player, not as your character but as yourself, send a /tell <character name> and say hi! Telling someone they've got a cool character or nice name or whatever isn't at all weird or creepy. Just don't always expect a response. Some people are private. It's not them or you being rude it's just life. Keep on being nice though. Most of us appreciate it. Don't avoid General chat. You'll need it for mechanical reasons (finding people for heroic instances) and also sometimes get useful tips as people chat. Just don't get into arguments there, don't be critical, and if people are being insufferably annoying for any reason...just turn it off for a while. You can always turn it back on later. For more I'd suggest checking out http://www.swtor-rp.com. There are tons of articles and a very friendly forum full of currently bored people waiting in queues who'll love to help a new potential roleplayer out.

General chat is OOC in every MMO I've played. Say/spatial and several player created channels are IC though. I haven't run into any griefers or anti-RP folks yet on Lord Adraas but there will eventually be at least a few. I've seen folks with dumb names. That's really as bad as I've seen so far. Of course that was prelaunch.

I suppose I don't understand why they wouldn't have just closed servers that were showing FULL at peak hours during prelaunch? They could always reopen them again after as needed.

There's quite a few things I'd like to see added but that can wait for another day and another thread. For now? /sign Kudos, guys, this is a damn fun game.