A New Era of Roleplaying is Enforced!

[Morreion]

I'm happy to say that there is a new era of roleplay in MMOs!

GW2 has ushered in this new dynamic. Players are required to roleplay, and those who flagrantly abuse their in-character verbal requirements are being given 72 hour temporary bans. Roleplay is actually being enforced!

OK, I'll take my tongue out of my cheek now. What am I talking about? GW2 expects players not to violate the terms of service by making offensive names or cursing in public chat. Not everyone is happy about this enforcement of behavior. Apparently acting as if you're civilized is a difficult thing to roleplay for some players.

Examples:

What's with the barrage of people reporting names? None of these users would be banned if people didn't report them.

My character that I was playing had the word Diarrhea in it. I put it there because I wanted a randomly strange and obscure name. I don't see how that could offen (sic) anyone.

There are more than a few people who've said they're zealously reporting offensive names and inappropriate public chat. Think of it as 'roleplayer's revenge.' Some players are applauding this effort, comparing how bad things are in WoW where expectations of mature public behavior are very lax.

OK, all levity aside...considering that you have to make a fierce argument for people to act like adults in MMOs now, I guess this makes game-supported roleplay a true thing of the past. Ahh well.

I thought it was fun to bring up, in a strange sort of way.

[Loendal]

I don't see where you feel this kills game-supported roleplay. Don't the actions of ArenaNet make the environment more Roleplayer friendly? They're shutting out the stupider side of the internet and all it's anonymity, giving you, the mature player, a better environment to do your thing.

I'm all for policing the public channels. However, from what I can remember from my roleplay-heavier days most roleplay takes place behind closed doors inside guild chat and such and isn't out there in the public sector. Unless you were Popo and roleplayed on public chat during RvR raids (Much to the complaint of a few of said RvRers )

It would seem to me this policy from Arenanet reopens those closed doors, doesn't it?

[Morreion]

I was making a somewhat ironic point comparing players being required to act reasonably towards each other in MMOs to how there used to be an expectation of reasonable behavior on roleplaying servers

If you look in those threads, a fair amount of people who received 72-hour bans for offensive names or cursing in public chat were indicating that their free speech expectations were being trampled by 'name nazis' and such. It seems like asking people to behave in a civilized manner today is akin to asking people to behave on RP servers back in the day. And there are people arguing that they shouldn't have to behave at all. Hence, the RP argument has devolved to the point of where there is an actual argument being made that players shouldn't have to behave at all towards each other.

There was a decent amount of public RP I remember back in the DAoC days- scheduled events like story times, fairs, gatherings that were done in /say. Of course that was back when RP servers had more RP. Now it tends to be very segregated in guilds and such, making it look like there's very little of it left (and perhaps that is the case, one wouldn't see it to know).

[Loendal]

Ah yes... I'd forgotten about the "Free Speech" arguments. I'm no legal scholar or civil rights expert, but people seem to think they have some kind of civil right when in an online game.. That is privately owned... That is allowed to make whatever rules they wish to govern... That is a closed media service... That has a responsibility to cash-holding owners... That has a Terms of Service which usually indicates certain discriminatory or inflammatory actions are bannable offenses which nobody ever reads... I'm pretty sure even subscription games are not really free and open public forums that Free Speech applies to.

If they want to make a bannable policy that says all characters must wear green, they have every right in the world to ban you for wearing yellow; it's their server, it's their bandwidth, it's their connectivity, you are only renting it and you agreed not to do that sort of thing when you clicked that box marked "I accept the Rules and Regulations". I'd like to see a game come out that has a hidden policy in it's TOS as a case-in-point study just to show exactly how many people DO NOT read that wall of text.

[Morreion]

As a matter of fact, someone started a thread called 'I read the terms of service' ;D It's so rare for people to read them that it is a notable event!

[Regolyth]

I was going to say it, but Loendal beat me to it. There is no second amendment inside video games (in this case, GW2). Sure, you can walk down the street and say what you want; freedom of speech and all. However, ArenaNet owns GW2. Therefore you must abide by their rules. Like Loendal said, if they say you can only wear green shirts, you have to wear a green shirt. Sure, you're paying your money to play the game, but you're playing their game. Therefore you abide by their rules, or suffer their consequences.

Sept 4, 2012 8:22:08 GMT -5 Morreion said:

Hence, the RP argument has devolved to the point of where there is an actual argument being made that players shouldn't have to behave at all towards each other.

It's sad the world has came to that; that people feel that they can act any way they want to another human being... and it's okay. Behind every digital avatar still plays another human. Although some people would probably still be that way to others, even outside the game. We need more Darwinism to weed out the idiots IMO.

[Morreion]

Agreed- I got a kick out of the people saying they were reporting lots of names and crappy behavior because it was irritating the fools who are used to annoying everyone.