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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: RP Tracker

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

We are delighted to introduce the RP Tracker.  From this point forward, the first All The Galaxy’s A Stage article of each month will be focused on highlighting something exceptional that we here at Ask A Jedi have observed related to RP.

To kick things off it’s my pleasure to raise your attention to Segellion’s Guide to Roleplaying over at swtor-rp.com.  RP guides are always going to be frought with controversy.  Some players will tell you that they do not care for being told how to RP.  Others, such as myself, will tell you that a guide related to RP that offers suggestions in a respectful and objective way can be of benefit to the community and, in particular, players new to the genre.

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: To Guild Or Not To Guild…

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

To guild or not to guild… that is the question.

If you’re a frequent visitor of the official SW:TOR website you’ve likely visited Guild HQ at some point.  Not only is BioWare to be commended for their attention to such a detail pre-launch, but the manner in which they’ve prepared for pre-launch guilds really has impressed me.

When Guild HQ was announced I was also pleased to see RP guilds being taken seriously.  Not only is there a big button for RP Guilds but the last time I looked there were 9,454 RP guilds registered!  Given a total of 54,338 guilds that equates to 17.4% of all registered guilds at the time of writing focused on RP.  Assuming a minimum of 5 players per guild that means at least 10,000 RPers will be in the game.  I suspect that only the truly hardcore are visiting the official forums right now so the total number of RPers in SWTOR post launch should (in my gross estimation) be in the hundreds of thousands!  Not bad for one of the more fringe playstyles, eh?

So, why do players join RP guilds?  Likely reasons might have something to do with mutual interests, a common vision for story and how we interpret Star Wars lore.  Yet I know from experience that not every Role-Player will join a RP guild.  There are many great RPers that frequent various RP forums and thousands are already enjoying some Play by Play action ahead of launch.  With 361,957 posts (at the time of writing) in the official SW:TOR Roleplay and Play by Post forum there’s clear evidence that not all RP activity is related to RP guilds.

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Posted by Sa Chi | 13 Comments

All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Your Mind Tricks Don’t Work On Me

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

Like millions of other fans I have many wonderful memories of the Star Wars movies. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” stands out as one of my favourites.  When I first watched that iconic scene I remember marveling at the idea.

Yet when I bring this idea together with RP I can’t help but think that we end up with one of the more interesting challenges for RP within an MMO.  I could go about my business but this column wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t discuss the more tricky questions.  With that in mind I will move along.

OK, I’m done now.

What are your views on powers like Mind Trick within RP?  Is your Force sensitive character going to ever attempt to use it (or other mind manipulating variants) on other player characters (PCs)?  Would your PC ever submit to such a power?  Do you find such skills too over powered and prefer to navigate around them?  Perhaps you might rationalize this with the game’s context that you are an elite member of the galaxy and your willpower and training is strong enough?  After all, a quick scan of examples of the power’s use on Wookieepedia does support this approach.

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Posted by Sa Chi | 9 Comments

All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Developing Character (Backgrounds)

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

Are you the kind of Role-Player that likes to start with a blank sheet and develop your character as you go?  Do you like to develop a detailed background for your character before you start?  Maybe you approach character development somewhere in between these two approaches?  Or perhaps you are new to Role-Playing and are wondering what in the galaxy character backgrounds are all about?

The Blank Slate

On one hand, starting with a blank sheet is certainly easier.  You decide your character is X class, from Y planet, of Z species, name them, maybe add a few more details and off you go.  You’re like a painter sat in front of a white canvas, free to create whatever whim inspires your imagination.

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Posted by Sa Chi | 18 Comments

All The Galaxy's A Stage: Enforced RP Rulesets?

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Join in the discussion and share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

I know last time, I promised to discuss some of the challenges of real time RP in an MMO in the next column, but I caught a post by BioWare Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid in the Dev Tracker and could not resist.  He wrote something that I never expected to see even being discussed:

We’ll have PvP servers, and we may have ‘soft’ RP servers (ie, labelled as such, but with no enforcement)… however, enforcing an RP ruleset is a big decision and one that’s higher up the chain than me.

We’ve been getting wind of soft RP servers for a while now.  Given that folks such as Daniel Erickson are self-noted avid Role-Players themselves, there’s no doubt that the RP community of SW:TOR really has some important allies in high places.  Contemplating official RP servers is definitely a practical approach by BioWare – after all, they have to know that if they don’t give us RP servers the community will only go and select a single server to overwhelm as our unofficial home anyway, right?  But to read that the idea of an RP ruleset driven server is even on the lips of BioWare staff made me do a double-take.

That said, I do agree with Mr. Reid that this is far from a trivial matter.  Whilst I’m not going to get into enforcement of in-character elements of RP (that’s never going to fly), the idea of a ruleset on RP is still fraught with complications.  And yet, I will confess that the idea does fill me with a dreamy look of a young schoolgirl overwhelmed by her first crush.  The idea of a server where there are consequences for OOC (out-of-character) griefers disturbing the RP scene really is tantalizing.  And yet, I know I am definitely reading more into this than is realistically happening behind the scenes.  Perhaps this really is a heavy dose of wishful thinking?

Regardless of what Mr. Reid may have meant by all this, we would like to hear your perspective on this post and experiences around RP in MMORPGs.  What do you think?

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