Breaking into SWTOR's roleplay community

[Morreion]

Hyperspace Beacon: Breaking into SWTOR's roleplay community (Massively)

In Star Wars: The Old Republic you will find that a lot of roleplayers hang out at the bars. This is frequently called cantina RP. It's an easy meeting place for RPers, and it allows for many different types of interactions. My character is a Sith, so I don't hang out there a lot. But that doesn't mean that I don't watch from afar. At which cantina should you start? There are three primary cantinas and two secondary cantinas on roleplay servers...

[Kelryck]

I haven't been lazing about in cantinas so far, I've been too busy trying to learn the game and level up some

If you find out, let us know!

[sinaedh]

On Jung Ma, there is a lot of action in the Slippery Slopes on Nar Shaddaa simply because it is a safe zone for both Republic and Imperial players. I've been involved in some good roleplay there (Vraxan was hired by a jedi to accumulate enough gear to outfit an infiltrator into a Mandalorian sect) and sat through a lot that I would classify as "soap opera" (which I used to sit through in the Red Dragon Inn on AOL until the bad guys showed up and starting insulting people). I don't really enjoy the soap operas, but apparently there are some who do.

Good nights seem to be Saturday (there used to be a regular 'tender' from Jen'jidai for their social nights then) and Sunday. Esoteric Order has a randomly rotating cantina night which is usually on Wednesday. Last week was on Dromund Kaas in Kaas City, but that of course excludes Republic players.

Anyway, I enjoy cantina roleplay usually... unless the "oh, I'm a Jedi but I'm bad and now I'm crying alligator tears" soap opera crew is overwhelming.

[Morreion]

;D The 'soap opera' stuff is what I call 'Goldshire RP'. Back in WoW in 2005 on the RP server I played on it seemed that there was a regular crew that hung out in Goldshire- a small hamlet in a level 10-ish area near the human city of Stormwind- and there were several people RPing there night and day. It was mostly everyday stuff, long sort of pointless conversations, inconsequential banter, almost like NPC conversations on steroids. It sort of struck me as some kind of variation of RP, so any sort of pedestrian non-serious RP became 'Goldshire RP' to me. That's sort of a pejorative term, but the more I think about it, it's really just a style.

[talsyra]

What exactly is Soap Opera Role play? Do you have any examples? I'm trying to create a backstory for my character and it has turned into a novella of 33 pages and counting and I'm only about 2/3rds of the way through it.

[Morreion]

Whoa! You're ahead of anything I ever did!

The 'soap opera' reference was more about a sub-type of RP you see here and there where people seem to go on and on with no real plot...nothing wrong with it really, but after a while you do wonder what's the point...it may be a bit snobbish to see it that way

There's no 'right' way to RP, there's all sorts of approaches. As a matter of fact, since there's many approaches, there are some differences that people have due to there being no 'official' standard. I'm hoping Sinaedh will jump in here and help out!

There are some good basic guides out there, a search of 'roleplaying 101' will bring up all sorts of things-

massively.joystiq.com/tag/rp-101/

[sinaedh]

I don't mind sitting and mindlessly chatting. Heck, even a Sith Lord's life can't be exciting ALL the time.

In my view, the soap opera thing is... man meets woman (usually in the cantina, but it could be anywhere). Man woos woman (or vice versa). Man and woman make plans to get married, have a family, etc. One cheats on the other. Much lamenting ensues. They make up. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

Now don't get me wrong, I've been involved in some of this sort of thing. But when you can predict who is going to be in the cantina, and what their lament is going to be... well, it gets a bit boring I think.

Similarly, when AOL canned the Red Dragon Inn and it went to a different location, it became much like this... who is flirting with who, who is cheating on who, etc... and I have a hard time going to a place that should be special for me... a place that is the offspring of where I learned to love online roleplay now repels me.

But it is true, that there is no general rulebook for roleplay, and the fact this is happening shows that there are many who enjoy it. As long as the golden rules (no god-moding and no IC/OOC crossing) are generally obeyed, it's all good.