It occurred to me over the weekend how clueless the MMORPG community can be sometimes. If it's any comfort, I include myself among them, and I'm as clueless as the next guy. Why? Because we often are not very conscientious about the choices we make in games. Even a homeless old man will be careful about choosing where he sets down for the night in the crowded streets of any major city. But we MMORPG players don't seem to be mindful about where we park our precious characters among the many servers open to us in any single MMORPG game.

Diary of an MMORPG Junkie
Those who know me by now know how much I enjoy MMORPGs. I actively play DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) on a regular basis and recently decided to start fresh after a long break. You might encounter an Hibernian bard named Ekym on the Percival server (if you do, please say hello when you see me online!). Now, there are a total of 18 servers to play on in DAoC. When you create a character on any one of them, you cannot switch servers with this character. He will live there, and there alone. Out of those 18 servers, 2 are PvP (Player vs. Player), and 3 are RP (Role-Playing) dedicated servers. The rest are regular, no-frills servers where anything goes as far as chatting is concerned.

I chose the Percival server because it's a RP server. Why? Because I like to role-play of course. Funny thing is, I don't get a chance to role-play very much... Most people inhabiting the RP servers seem stricken when they realize you're role-playing. " You guys role-play here?? " is a common exclamation when they realize what you are doing. My reply to them is typically : " Well, didn't you choose to play on a RP server? ". Strange that I even have to mention that, isn't it? Most people I ever talked to about that even had no idea they were on a RP server.

So then my question is this : what's the point of creating a role-playing friendly environment for those few that like to actually role-play if no one does it or even cares about it? Most people to whom you will ask about the reasons behind their choice of servers will tell you that they just liked its name. That's the most popular reason. Somehow they don't even notice it's a RP server. Funny, but they do notice when it's a PvP server though. Why don't they care when it's a RP one?

Role-Playing What now?
What's more troubling is that out of these 18 servers, the RP dedicated servers are constantly among the most populated ones. The exception, for some reason, is the Nimue server which is often among the least populated since its inception. Maybe it's name isn't "cool" enough? Guinevere has been there since the game went live, and has always been one of the most popular servers. It rarely goes below 2000 people at peak times. Percival is the latest RP server and it's almost as popular as Guinevere, even if it was brought up after Nimue. Strange isn't it?

Anyone that has spent any significant amount of time in any of DAoC's RP servers will tell you that there's hardly any role-playing going on, even on the main chat channel where you speak outwardly for everyone around you to hear. In private chat it's even worse. It's not uncommon to hear a fellow guild mate complain about his new graphics card's problems on the guild chat. Group chat is often littered with people complaining about the snow storm they just had yesterday, or how their car broke down on the way from work... Need I go on?

Now, is this yet another sign of the RPG genre's trendiness? Or is this rather a sign that people just don't care? Each server's focus is clearly identified when you log on to the game, and since most people notice when a server is a PvP focused one (because they mostly avoid it at all costs), how can they "unknowingly" come running to the RP server if they never had any intentions to role-play?

Am I really numb, or am I just role-playing?
It gets to a point where you have no choice but to stop role-playing yourself. It gets embarrassing to do so since mostly everyone will just look at you in a funny way when you go on and on asking them what a "television" is, or how they must have eaten a bad mushroom when saying it's snowing since it never snows in Hibernia. They don't get the point, so why should I bother? I don't anymore, but I still play on the RP servers in the off chance that I come across someone who will play along with me. But I hardly even try anymore. When I first started to play it was a different story, I was trying really hard to impose my role-playing. I just got fed up, numbed down, and decided to drop it.

It's a bit sad really. I'm only ranting because I would like to really role-play in my MMORPGs but can't. I still enjoy the game very much, mind you. I just question our clueless nature as a community. Why don't I just move on to a regular server where not-role-playing is considered "normal", and be done with it? Well, I won't. I'm that clueless. I keep playing on RP servers because I think they have the nicest people, even though I'm sure there are people as nice on other servers. Or maybe I like to preach and think that maybe the community is just shy about role playing, and hope that one day it will all change.

It's a zoo out there...
Role-Playing is a concept. Apparently it's a very popular concept, one that a lot of people find appealing but are afraid to really get into. So then what do people expect out of playing on a RP server? Do they hope to walk around as if in a zoo and watch as two cool role players exchange words using medieval language before picking a fight? If only we could all get into it and stop being amazed, maybe then making RP servers would have a purpose. Right now there is none, which makes you wonder why the developers even bother to give in to the demanding masses of fans that absolutely want RP dedicated servers. If there really were so many, we'd be role-playing by now...