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I agree 100% with @Moirean. Fun comes Before accuracy for me. English is not my first language, so I can't stay super accurate at -all- times because of language limitations. I do my best and I try to have fun. That's why I play to begin with. It's an escape from a dull rl, it lets me hang out with cool people and it's -fun-. Blatant ooc stuff is horrible to see on ing channels, yes, especially when it comes from people who should know better, but if I see a newbie doing it, I try to correct and move on. It doesn't break immersion for me, because I can easily get back into it again.
People are not asking specifically for realism. People are not asking specifically for accuracy. No, as far as I understand, the main point here is immersion. For people chiefly interested in roleplay, the first two can add layers to the latter, but are in and of themselves fairly irrelevant. A world may lack in realism, it may not depict culture, geography, or the laws of physics very accurately, but it may still be immersive. Now, immersion comes from the general theme, the ambience of the world itself, the way people act and interact in it.
For example, in the 'Lords of the Rings' movie, some of the most epic moments included a dark, brooding, powerful music when the ring wraiths were part of the scene. Imagine if that music instead had been replaced with music with completely different connotations; take a techo remix of Elvis, for example. Imagine Frodo dining on pizza and milkshakes when visiting the elves. Imaging him calling out 'YOU SO MAD BRAH LOL, do you even lift?' to Boromir. This would break immersion because the atmosphere of the movie is completely different from these things.
Immersion is not about quality roleplay, or roleplay standards, or using proper speech or grammar. Immersion is about weaving a cohesive story; immersion is about having a setting that is consistent and evokes certain feelings and fulfill certain expectations. When these expectations are not lived up to, when these feelings are compromised, the game loses immersion. I used to play a mud based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and I felt immersed when I did so. This game offered little-to-no roleplaying opportunities (at least compared to Aetolia), but it followed a theme, and did so without compromise; there was no pizza, there were no pool tables, and there were no hipster memes. The world itself offered immersion, even though it was not a RP mud.
When I feel that Aetolia is a world of its own, grim, dark, full of magic, and opportunity, I feel like it is immersive. That I can enjoy the world, not just the text scrolling past my screen. Personally, much of the immersion I experience comes from interaction with other people and interaction with the environment. I no longer feel like Aetolia is particularly immersive. This comes mostly from what I consider the flippant attiude towards the game world itself by a vast majority of the playerbase. In Bloodloch in particular, there seems to be an attitude of having to beat the game, rather than to create a complex and enriching roleplaying experience.
I am personally a big fan of the vampire genre. I am particularly fond of the way that the World of Darkness setting portrays vampires. The games are about internal conflict, about a dwindling sense of humanity and an inner Beast that howls for blood and petty vengeance. It is a game about politics, and scheming, and plots; the undead wield terrible power against each other and against mortal society in order to climb the hierarchal ladder. No mud can completely emulate the freedom afforded in tabletop settings, but I do feel entitled to criticise the way that the Dominion was implemented. I recently left Ve'kahi and is no longer a member of the organization, but I was wholly unimpressed by the way it was managed, particularly after the expectations that were built up with Abhorash's return. In this, I think the game's administration has failed.
I play tabletop roleplaying games in an online format these days, a chat where players can create their own rooms ('A sleazy bar' or 'At the extravagant gala'), or join permanent rooms already in place. It is immersive because the playerbase keep within the framework set by the game and mostly follow its theme. Players can create their own events, and other players will attend; the purpose is not to gain experience, or artifacts, or credits, but to portray your character within that specific setting. I seriously doubt that Aetolia could do anything in that vein, but I do think it would be possible to have a look at what sort of theme we are trying to portray and be a bit more true to it.
Essentially, people that primarily enjoy immersion are a minority in Aetolia. Most of us have other motives for playing the game, or hold other values higher (freedom when crafting does not necessarily promote immersion). Anyway. I am not saying that Aetolia as a whole has failed to live up to some sort of standard; I am saying that I have found other games with other standards, and I happen to enjoy them more.
TL;DR: @Ambivalence, I hope you find what you're looking for elsewhere.
It's true, the PvP mechanics are fun and original. They're also largely obsolete thanks to the advent of the free action MMO. There is the benefit of a small, close-knit, like-minded community, but these day's that's portable, and doesn't really require sticking around if that's all you're interested in. Customization is also a thing, ranging from character description and clothing, to craft goods and the world itself. On the other hand, I find that it takes more energy than it's worth for it's own sake, rather than as a contribution to greater whole; a whole defined by a shared theme.
So, simply put, however varied the ideas of appropriate and enjoyable RP are, my expectation was an environment where roleplay comes first. In the past, that was largely my experience, and though, again, there is no exclusive "RP IRE" as Moirean said, it's my opinion that RP is the only really meaningful, long-lived strength of an IRE over an NCSoft or a Blizzard.
Other games... as best I can recall, I've played Achaea, Imperian, Lusternia, Avalon, Unwritten Legends, Shadows of Isildur, Harshlands, and Threshhold.
I really wish we had a RP/Event docent system here, as has been mentioned multiple times by a range of people in the past. I think it would create a ton of activity, help demonstrate quality RP to lots of people, and encourage the more creative side of the game, while also helping admin workload. I know in other games it's been abused and gone badly, but - well, this thread is a good example of it. In Aetolia, we tend to take RP more seriously, and I think you'd see people performing the roles with integrity.
That said, I'd have to agree that all those things are very appealing aspects of Aetolia/IREs.
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
HEY THIS IS A SAND CHAIR AND THIS EMOTE IS THREE PARAGRAPHS LONG SO YOU'D BETTER GET USED TO SEEING THIS TL/DR SHIT EVERY TIME I ENTER THE ROOM BROS
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
Aetolia isn't medieval Europe or Lotr but it does have its own constraints and there is validity in being disgruntled when it becomes incohesive and 'well there's already inconsistencies so why not really just go to town' becomes the approach.
Maybe I'm missing the pot shots in saying "This is not the style I enjoy, here is what I enjoy and what immersion means to me."
My side rant about the word yo. Years ago, I dropped my main character and looked for a new role to play. I made a Syssin novice and started getting into it. Shortly into it I said Yo over gnt. I was severely scolded and threatened pk when I wouldn't agree to stop saying it. I quit and played imperian until I created Jensen here. Now I still regularly say yo and if you don't like it, too bad
Immersion is out there. Alexina has great points, but I think @aishia nailed it on the head most recently here. It's all a bunch of microcosms and you just have to know what you like and know how to not get pulled in -or- pushed out. Let's face it - we don't have the playerbase to be nitpicky thematically.
I see @areka's point, but I mean. Are you really willing to change anything? You want people to not do things that bother you or break your immersion. What if I told you that the leader of a guild of Templar Knights that constantly markets about her wenches and how strong her hammer is breaks my immersion, because that's not what -I- see in my head when I imagine that? (Or a guild of Knights, for that matter, that mostly doesn't actually go fight bad guys. But that's me being me and I admittedly have a hard time considering bashing mobs that reset in 10 minutes as real people.)
I think everyone should reread Aishia's post.
The not going out and fighting? Yeah, it's a bummer, and I certainly don't help with it. I don't enjoy PK, and I feel like it doesn't do anything but feed egos at the current time. But if that's something that would help the image of the guild? Being more present at least in leylines is something I can do. That's a concession I can make.
To add, I guess things like 'yo' and 'bro' and just blatant, thinly veiled OOC chat don't break my immersion so much as make me think you don't take the game as seriously as I do (which, again, is completely your prerogative) and so I (whether it's right or wrong) sort of lump you into this category of people that in my mind look at Aetolia as a themed chatroom. No bigs, that just means I'm not running around trying to find you for RP.
The interjection yo was first used in Middle English, specifically in the 15th to 16th century.[3] In addition to yo, it was also sometimes written io.[4] It was (and is still to this day) used often to get the attention of another person. The Middle English term originated as a variant of ya/ye ("yea, yes"), which is derived from Old English ġēa ("yea, yes"), which is derived from Proto-Germanic *ja ("thus, so, yes"). Thus, "yo" is etymological twins with "ya", "yeah" and "yea".
Wikipedia
I'm yoing all day
Citing Wikipedia for the etymology of certain words is not going to win you the argument. In fact, it is only going cause resentment amongst the people who were not agreeing with you in the first place. Instead of having an open discussion about immersion and allowing people to freely share their opinions, you seem to have taken it upon yourself to start building armies of strawmen. Yo. Chillax. Etcetera.
There were some other points that were brought up.
So. In any mud/rpgs/movie/book/setting out there, there will be different levels of seriousness. Some moments are more tense, some are more comedic. And I certainly have embraced the fact that my opinion is just that: an opinion. It still find it jarring to hear in the game about how Mary played Abhorash, or how Jane was Chakrasul, or that someone just got told something reeeeally cool or awesome by Dhar on Skype. I find jarring to go to the tavern for a pizza and shaken milk. I find 'brah', and 'yo', and 'you mad', and plenty of other phrases jarring. It feels a bit unfair to be told to pare down my deepest standards of roleplay and immersion, particularly as this thread was specifically created after a player gave away almost two thousand credits because they felt that Aetolia lacked in immersion.
I would not have invested 15,562 hours (feel free to deduct time spent idling from that) into this game if I did not enjoy it. Aetolia is a great game in so many ways. The reason I decided to post in this thread was because I empathized with a lot of the points brought up in the original post. I am not trying push some secret agenda that other peoples' way of playing the game is inferior in any way. I just feel that the game as a whole lacks in its overall theme, and that we as a playerbase plays some part in that.
There is a mud I used to play years and years ago. It was always rp-enforced (meaning you could not go OOC at all), but the main focus was always on player versus player combat. Recently, they added a 'RP points' mechanic; in order to gain certain positions of leadership, certain quest classes or quest races, or other specific bonuses, you needed a set amount of RP points. Basically, the Sect of Blades, but points were awarded for good, consistent roleplay, and deducted when going OOC. From what I've been told, it worked great. My point here is that I'd love to see people rewarded for good, consistent roleplay. I am not talking about leadership positions or Order titles, but real, tangible things that will encourage people to actually think about their role in the setting of the game, and hopefully even give them reasons to portray that role in a slightly more believable manner.
That's all.
P.S
I'd love to hear some of the administration's opinions or viewpoints on all of this, or any of the Celani/Divine volunteers, if you're willing to share.