RP Servers for RP Players!

[Freyar]

Roleplaying communities tend to become insular over time. I always hope (with each new MMO) that Roleplaying communities are able to be a bit more public and get the immersion factors they want out of the game. It's disappointing to see people target RP servers specifically for disruption, but as Emperor Palpatine will say in the far future, "It is inevitable."

 

Inherently the community guidelines already have RP server guidelines in place. Naming conventions actually are supposed to EXTEND to standard servers. References to official character names, titles of various types and "leet speek" names are supposedly prohibited. It is up to Bioware to enforce that and I hope that once the game hits retail that they bring in a heavy fist to enforce it.

[ThorOdinsson]

AHHHHH, did some of you get offended by the truth?

 

I can see some Air-headed GM didn't like the posts ...same GM that supports you like minded Airheads in trying to drive your freedom fries down our necks.... I'll repost so you know...Daning...this ONE's FOR YOU!!!

 

 

From an early , attempted suppression of my FREE-DOM!!! ......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOW!

 

 

 

 

 

There is no excuse for you ....

 

He didn't ask for 'banning' he asked for some enforcement, period!

 

I ACTUALLY made an effort and read the 'Naming Policy' and I can clearly see that , although few, there are unacceptable names on Bioware's list.

 

I should atleast expect NOT to see 'Thesausage' , 'GeorgeTakei', 'Purplehead' ...etc.

 

...and yet the problem is we can see even the kind of names they said they would police.

 

You have to get off your bleeding heart , 'Don't you DARE TREAD ON ME!, I can do WHATEVER I WANT!!!", routine and stop trying to stuff your freedom down our throats!

 

 

Your not free.

 

" You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 17"

 

 

No way Poindexter! ....Not you , not me!

 

We live under a set of rules, in and out of game. And thank goodness for that! Without some sort of 'positive' reinforcement of the rules , such as making some people rename ( NOT BOOT OUT) their characters; the game, like life would become 'unsafe'.

Then,people like you would march into someone else's house and say, " I'm free to do what I want so I'm gonna take all your stuff! Who's gonna STOP ME?!?WHOA YA! FREE-DOM!!!!" ..... as it is you march unto our servers and exploit your freedom, while trying to suppress our's. All the while exclaiming your only exercising your freedom of expression.

 

How typically tyrannical.

 

Now before you get back on your digital soap box and belch out a few more lines of your 'FREEDOM!' rhetoric , I'll even remind you that your not free to say what you want .....unfortunately for 'neo-daisy pusher's' such as yourself , there is consequences to saying the wrong thing as well.

 

Your freedom is extended to you at a price. We pay the same price and should be allowed the same protection from your mouth and ideal's as you expect from our's ....

 

Good day to you!

 

 

PS: I have never seen an RPer go onto a NON-RP server and start 'jaw-jacking' the global chat about having an RP name on a none RP server.....I however see a ton of would-be-worm-meal constantly berating the RPers with their NON-RP banter and comments about how much RP 'sucks'.

 

 

That is no coincidence either!

Edited December 18, 2011 by ThorOdinsson

[pluzoid]

Here are my Tips for immersion vs barrens chat general.

 

If you like the banter in general chat IGNORE THIS POST.

If general chat is getting you down then try these out.

 

Chat box.

I find my eyes flickering over chat and watching the conversations, this helps by making it smaller its lets interuptive. plus the next one.

 

Text Size.

Depending on resolution can make your text really big or small, try ajusting the size so its less in your face but readable when you look at it.

 

General chat options (right click general tab on chat window).

 

1. Changing general chats colour - made mine slightly paler blue but slightly darker so it blends with the scenery more but can still read it from a glace.

 

2. Unticking /Ticking General chat.

Best tool there is! takes a few seconds to untick, and a few seconds to retick.

When you not looking for a group, untick, no more trash talk to watch in general.

When your looking for a group, tick, then you can see what ppl are talking about :S

 

 

Any or all of these options has improved the immersion of this game by 110%

What you try is upto you, but it can help a great deal.

[BuddyLight]

I find the best way to encourage RP, so at least you don't notice the non-RPers so much, is to just get IC, find a place like the Fleet Station cantina, and start playing. People-eventually-will filter in when they see that someone is actually trying.

[Yfelsung]

Step 1: Engage in debate on the nature of an RP server with anti-RPer

 

Step 2: Combine polite wording with acidic tone (hard to do with text, but possible)

 

Step 3: Anger anti-RPer into the point of insulting you directly. They have now violated the ToS.

 

Step 4: Report them.

 

Step 5: Profit.

 

I've spent years perfecting this in both real life and gaming, it's useful in the game world and in the work place as well.

[ThorOdinsson]

Very helpful post. I like yours better than my own. Your the first of us to be constructive.

I just get sick of all this , " I CAN DO WHAT I WANT" , ka ka! It's become a SICK MMO fad, that non-Rper's flood the RP servers and then make a HUGE stink about how much RP sucks....soon as we ask for those people to be rep-remanded , then those people start spouting off about how they can do whatever they want.

 

I have noticed that the entire UI is WAY to big. Smaller chat window would be great for sure....but ultimately is doesn't solve the "Flaming Moron" problem. It's one thing if some #%$ wants to light himself on fire and call it entertainment ....it's another when he says he gets to light you ....And that's what happening here.

 

These people are fighting for their 'right to harass you'. These same people would try to tell you , you have no right to stop them either. It's that silly and that transparent.

 

By Law, I have MORE of a right to be free of your abusive nature. Telling me I have to avoid going in public because I don't like to see people getting assaulted or robbed daily isn't going to make it go away. Like you I have a cause too .... Justice.

 

It is 'just' that we ask for some decency. It is 'just' that I can expect to see NO abusive or OFFENSIVE names or people in a game open to the public.

 

You can't walk into a public pool naked and try to snog-off in the shallow end .....you get arrested.

 

Because none of these losers have been stopped , the pool is FULL of naked perverts who have banded together in an effort to take over the public pool and change to rules so they can keep being Perverts....

 

 

Not very cool.

Edited December 18, 2011 by ThorOdinsson

[curzen]

you should be able to report a bunch of those names due to violating the current naming policies if you want to. beyond that I don't care one way or the other as far as special RP enforcement goes.

[Masenken]

I RP with reckless abandon on a Non-RP server... I don't see the problem here

[Latorn]

In case no one has posted this yet, this is the naming policy:

 

Naming Policy

 

When creating a character or guild name for Star Wars: The Old Republic, it is encouraged that you select a name that reflects the theme of the game. The guidelines listed below outline the types of names that you can NOT use, and apply to both player or character names, as well as guild names.

 

1. You may not use any names that violate the General Rules. This includes the use of names that are hateful, defamatory, racist, ethnically offensive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature.

 

2. You may not use names that are harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of EA, BioWare or LucasArts, e.g. EASUX, Timsretarded, and Biowaresux.

 

3. You may not use names of any EA, BioWare, or LucasArts employee or service related to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

 

4. You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products, e.g. Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper.

 

5. You may not use names from popular culture or media, e.g. Lady Gaga or George Lucas.

 

6. You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant, e.g. Jesus, Winston Churchill.

 

7. You may not use proper names of areas within Star Wars for character names. Guild names, however, MAY use the proper names of specific areas to help promote role-playing and realm pride, e.g. Defenders of Tython or Protectors of Hutta.

 

8. You may not use proper names of non-player characters within Star Wars: The Old Republic, e.g. Darth Malgus, Satele Shan, Yoda, Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

 

9. You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them, e.g. General Supertrooper, Captain Tim, Darth Timmy, Knight Wakey.

 

10. You may not use names that refer to drugs or that are drug related.

 

11. You may not use names that contain an inappropriate phrase, sentence or any fragment of a sentence or Leet speak, e.g. uberhaxer, xxspeederxx, lolface, rofl, Noobwhacker, TimmyF**k, kock, fuk.

 

12. You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules, e.g. Hamsolo, Yooda, DorthVader.

 

13. You may not use gibberish names when creating character, e.g. ajsdu, rifndsw, qweszs.

 

If you violate any part of the above Naming Policy you will either be assigned a new name, or given the option of changing the name. In addition to this, your account could incur a penalty up to and including account closure.

 

Does this mean we should report names that don't comply with the policy? Particularly on RP and RP-PvP servers?

 

It's not a gamebreaker for me by any means, but I don't see why people who clearly don't RP, or have a lack of respect for RP, join RP servers. Enforcement of naming policies would be an advantageous deterrent in stopping people like "XdrkXninjaX" (An actual player I saw on an RP-PvP server in Coruscant >.<) from joining RP servers.

[Suvlaco]

I'm one who likes to have a little RP now and then, and I've got a toon rolled on the RP server for this, but even on non-RP servers it really bothers me when I seen a character with a ridiculous name.

 

Do people think they're amusing everyone with gibberish names, or rip offs of canon names? Is it REALLY that hard to come up with a name for your toon?

 

Running through Dromund Kaas, all immersed and enjoying the game, and then seeing "DarthMauler" or "BobaFetta" is just stupid.

[Latorn]

I'm one who likes to have a little RP now and then, and I've got a toon rolled on the RP server for this, but even on non-RP servers it really bothers me when I seen a character with a ridiculous name.

 

Do people think they're amusing everyone with gibberish names, or rip offs of canon names? Is it REALLY that hard to come up with a name for your toon?

 

Running through Dromund Kaas, all immersed and enjoying the game, and then seeing "DarthMauler" or "BobaFetta" is just stupid.

 

I'm pretty sure you can just report them, or at least according to the 12th rule of Bioware's naming policy.

[Soulskar]

Stupid names and RP aside, already the general chat on an RP-PVP server (mostly on Republic side) has already degraded to WoW trade chat. And we're only in pre-launch! Just saw bunch of anal <item link>s. Now, don't tell me that these a-holes shouldn't be silenced somehow without rest of the community having to go out of their way to avoid them. If you for whatever reason defend or justify this behavior in any way, you know you're one of these morons yourself.

 

First I thought about reporting, but saw 10 in a row. So now my choices are (1). Close general chat and pretend these idiots don't exist. (2). Report them which means I'll be spending most of my time doing that instead of playing...they're like moles - whack one and next one is up. (3). Move to a different server and hope it's better there. I chose 3 for now, but pretty sure this may be same everywhere and I will have to revert to 1 or just quit the game.

 

Maybe a new server type is needed: JA-PVP so all the jackazz trolls can hang together and the rest of us won't bother them. They can lulz and l2p and anal <each other> all day long.

 

At the end of the day, as frustrating as it is, and regardless of how much I want it to change, I realize nothing can/will be actively enforced.

[cdstephen]

Join an RP guild and turn off general chat?

[MrFunkyMunky]

There are two kinds of gamers in the world: The ones who want to go into a game and have their fun and do whatever they like, with no regard for their fellow players, And the ones who want to immerse themselves in the richly created world that you have provided for us.

 

For this reason, there are two categories of servers available: non-Role Playing, and Role Playing. Those of us who want to immerse ourselves in your world prefer to play on Role Playing (RP) servers, in an attempt to avoid the random people who do not respect other people's gaming experience.

 

I take offense to the pretentious attitude of "if you aren't an RPer you don't care about other players." You've managed to mischaracterize both RPers (as pretentious snobs) and non-RPers (as obnoxious jerks who don't care about other players). As someone has already posted, RPers are a very slim minority, and this attitude does nothing to help your overall point of wanting legitimately-enforced RP servers.

[JediGreymere]

Asking Bioware to police RP servers for names and out of character behavior is inneffective and headache for them. They already created servers specifically to attract a playerbase open to roleplaying. Your post would be better directed at trying to organize that self same playerbase into taking actions that discourage innapropriate character names and behavior, Guilds not inviting you, groups not adding you for instances, constantly being added to everyones ignore list because your character is named "Ipwnedyomama" can be an effective deterant. Even if that player only plays PvP he will eventually be outpaced by a more organized playerbase leveling and gearing up through instances and guild activities. In the short term your going to see alot of the PvPers with little/no interest in RP especially with queues being the way they are on standard PvP servers, but given time the in game community will sort things out.

[Ki_Draken_Magus]

Never really understood the attitude of "game breaking immersion" by people with wierd names. I've know lots of people (IRL) with real names. When I was in the Navy I came across a guy named "Mercury Constellation Starcruiser"!

 

Wierd names IRL = wierd names in-game as well.

 

For me I used those names as in indication to give those people a wide berth, and a 1 way ticket to my ignore list.

[Yaevinn]

Never really understood the attitude of "game breaking immersion" by people with wierd names. I've know lots of people (IRL) with real names. When I was in the Navy I came across a guy named "Mercury Constellation Starcruiser"!

 

Wierd names IRL = wierd names in-game as well.

 

For me I used those names as in indication to give those people a wide berth, and a 1 way ticket to my ignore list.

 

Hardly the same thing, some people just have dumb parents. Those names are far too common in the game. I've seen a few dumb -finnish- names on Lord Calypho already, but I haven't really seen any form of RP on the server yet either. Not really sure what to think of the RP servers in the game, will have to wait till level cap before I start digging deeper.

[Psienesis]

I agree with that guy. After years of RPing, I've learned to just turn off player names and enjoy the game. Live and let live. I am not currently RPing in SWTOR (maybe in the future), but I would prefer to just ignore any trolls and let them get bored and go away.

 

Now, if you're playing on a PvP server... just kick their butts and send them crying back to their non-RP servers.

 

I don't think Bioware needs to set aside GMs to answer complaints about non-RP names... especially when you can turn them off AND when character creation is pretty darn customizable. It's not like some games where everyone looks pretty much the same and you NEED to show player names.

 

*point* I know you!

 

And it was Lionna. Always Lionna. Until Lionna merged with.... whatever it merged with, I dunno, I stopped playing L2 years ago.

 

More on-topic and to the OP:

 

Here's the thing... RPers are, in the end, really no different from any other kind of player. We also want to level, get gear, go new places, see new things, fight big bads, and all that stuff. We might also want to fight other players. Some RPers are really *quite* good at it. There is absolutely nothing that automatically separates an RP-aficionado from a PvP-junkie... excepting that the RPer might have some sort of personal storyline as to why his/her character is taking part in that PvP battle.

 

For myself, I've been RPing in MMOs since EQ1 in 1999, and have been doing table-top RP games since... 1983, I think. Maybe earlier. I've seen it all, and there's really absolutely no sense or value in getting your space-suit in a twist because someone named "Boingo McFluffypantz" just ran past you on the street. Now, if someone had run by with a name that is patently offensive, using racial slurs or RL political jabs or whatever... then, sure, report them, it's against the Bioware TOS. After you report them? Go about your business and play the game. You've done your part. Someone being a jerk in General chat? Ignore them.

 

Me, I'm real quick with the ignore function. Blindingly quick. On the RP server I play on in EQ2 (the most populated of all their servers, incidentally, almost never dropping below "Heavy"), I may have the most people of anyone on the server on my ignore list. Most people claim to have a dozen, at most, mostly spammers and such that somehow get by the auto-ban that they tend to trigger... I've got ten times that. If people want to troll General chat, I can take all of two seconds out of my oh-so-busy schedule of bulls-eyeing womprats to ignore them, and then it is like they have utterly ceased to exist.

 

If people running about with silly names (though, really, a canonical name is "Salacious Crumb"... it doesn't get much sillier) somehow shatters your RP... well... I don't know what to tell you. Grow thicker skin, I guess, or get better or, really, just ignore them. The server doesn't exist as your private playground, it's a shared environment for people of all stripes. The RP tag on it lets newcomers recognise that, if they are looking for RP, they are likely to find it here.

 

Also, given that a lot of these character classes could be people operating under assumed names or nicknames earned through their lives... well, perhaps a name like "Thunderpants" isn't so out-of-character? Troopers named "Fiver", "Heavy", "Big Momma" or whatever have plenty of similar names from the canon regarding the Clone Wars to draw from. Smugglers operate under a variety of aliases. Maybe one is known by the moniker of "Elusive Finebooty"? RL pirates have had worse names.

 

Different era, to be sure, but one thing I've noticed about Star Wars is that, regardless of which era it is, it's still space ships and laser swords. The Old Republic isn't fundamentally different from the New Republic.

 

Overall, I think you might have a more enjoyable time of the game if you stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing and focused more on enjoying yourself. Worry about the things you can change, and forget about the things you can't.

[ughuurgh]

Nevermind, not relevant anymore. Edited September 4, 2012 by ughuurgh

[Lagan]

To be honest I do get pretty annoyed with idiotic names, but outside of reporting them I don't think there's much that can be done. I'm just thankful that you can leave General chat and turn off name tags - makes life a lot easier.

 

The one thing I've never quite understood is why someone who had absolutely no intention of respecting RP rules (let alone doing RP) would join a RP server. It's like me joining a PvP server and then complaining about being attacked when out questing. i.e. totally missing the point of the specific type of server.

 

1. If you're on a PvP server, then respect the rules of that server type.

2. If you're on a RP server, then respect the rules of that server type.

 

Seems pretty simple really...