News

This time on RoleCraft, Jim Moreno wants to hear from you roleplayers out there.

Jonathan Steinhauer continues his application of the writings of Clausewitz to gaming, this time examining what happens when you have to turn and run.

In this installment of RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at an interesting idea from WoW RP Realms: Full Immersion Roleplaying (FIRP).

Jonathan Steinhauer continues his study of Clausewitz and examines the art of the kill.

Just in case you may not be aware, RoleCraft isn't the only place where you can find roleplaying related info on the interwebs. Of course you know that, and I'm only joking. During the course of my day, I am given and locating sites which are directly related to or merely referencing some aspect of roleplaying, and I consider it part of my duty to help keep you, my fellow roleplayers, informed as much as possible.

Since we are dealing with computer-generated cyber worlds that are more than likely not our own creations, there are certainly roadblocks and speed bumps in these games that challenge roleplayers to improvise and adapt. These game mechanics come with the nature of the beast, and many are very necessary to the operation of the games, and are often so obvious as to threaten to pull a roleplayer out of character. While they may not be pleasant to experience during roleplay, their effect in-game can be at least lessened through the lens of imaginative roleplaying.

Ultima Online developer Calvin Crowner has published an in-house Q&A. Also included in some general "why don't you keep us informed" talk is news of Kingdom Reborn and Stygian Abyss:

As far as Kingdom Reborn is concerned - We have a couple of fixes going in this publish: walking as a ghost across the bridge in the Wind dungeon, and a legacy toggle issue with pink tiles around cave entrances. I'm not a fan of the color pink, sorry about the delay on this. There are a few others, but know we're still working on more goodies. Also, we're still investigating most of the topics discussed here on the boards. To this end, in the near future we'd like to do some server load/stress testing. We're discussing between 20-25 players chasing a few devs and GMs around. Please be prepared to share frame rates, machine and OS specs.

Also know all new content will be updated for both Kingdom Reborn and the Legacy clients for the Epic Event.

Sighs. So much for the light publish.

Begins to walk away...

"WHAT ABOUT Stygian Abyss?! ..." He pauses slightly, without turning, a mild chuckle pressing the corners of the room, "We announced the expansion over a year ago, and you should be hearing more news about it soon." He continues a slow shuffle into a dark room, most likely to be eaten by a grue.

Enjoy the rest at the link above.

As game worlds become more and more advanced, they also grow larger and larger. The by-product of this improvement is the long distances that must be traveled between locations. For some reason, with this increase in world size, there is not a corresponding improvement in traveling systems. Indeed, there seems to be almost a perverse joy in sending players on quests that involve running back and forth between two distant points with no other objective but carrying a bickering message between a pair of NPCs.

Jim Moreno tackles the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: "Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!"

Sean Bulger's periodic community column today looks at the concept of Open PvP (player vs. player) and what it does to games and their communities.

A while back we talked about conflict between players and what sort of a role that it can play in a game and for communities. During this, it was noted that player competition can be implemented in numerous different ways. This week, I would like to revisit this discussion and talk about one of those particular methods: the open PvP world.

Open PvP is one of the more controversial topics in MMO circles and plenty of people have fairly strong opinions one way or the other on the subject. That said, I would like to explore both the positive impacts and negative ones on the player community. Open PvP has the potential to help bond a community fairly tightly, but it also has the potential to truly tear it apart as well.

Read more after the leap.