Loving to hate RP descriptions
by Alex Ziebart 
Apr 19th 2008 at 1:00PM
One of the things I sort of miss from my City of Heroes days is the ability to add a description to my character for everyone to see, and having the ability to read their origin stories, too. RP mods such as FlagRSP(now out-of-date) and ImmersionRP work to fill this void, but it isn't quite the same.Though most players have horrible, awful descriptions detailing nothing but their vampire fangs and heaving bosoms(even the men), they still supply entertainment when I have nothing better to do but stand around Stormwind using guild chat as glorified IRC. The addons that allow you to do this are nice, but they just aren't used by many people, even within the RP community. That's understandable, they don't really 'do' a lot. I don't see something like this ever being implemented in WoW's lifetime, but it would be nice to see, simply for the entertainment factor.
Am I alone in this? Is it so wrong to want to read these things when I have nothing better to do, no matter how horrible most of them are? Does that Night Elf over there really have eight black feathered wings? Does she really?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Seraya Apr 19th 2008 1:15PM
Would be nice to have a text box on the character sheet just for that purpose, maybe keeping notes, listing accomplishments, or you know... back stories.
rakkarage Apr 21st 2008 8:14AM
in everquest each character had a text field that could be inspected by others... i miss this feature from wow
Moshnerd Apr 19th 2008 1:23PM
I definately know how you feel, Alex. Being somewhat of a casual, creative writer, I've tried RP servers quite a few times; the idea of being immersed into Azeroth on another level just seemed to really intrigue me. I grew up on WC, WCII, and WCIII so the storylines and lore of WoW are, for me, just as fun as pwning noobs and getting epix.
However, I haven't been able to hit anything more than level 8 on an RP server yet. I get so frustrated seeing all these characters who are "Archimonde's long-lost daughter," or "the illegitimate child of Tyrande and C'thun who is sort of a paladin, but not really, 'cause he's evil." While I am by no means an RP elitist (if anything, I'm an RP novice, as my experience is pretty limited), but since when was it a bad thing to have a "normal" character? Or a character whose personally is subtle?
David Bowers Apr 19th 2008 1:53PM
I've been writing a lot about this kind of problem in All the World's a Stage recently:
http://www.wowinsider.com/category/all-the-worlds-a-stage/
On the one hand, of course, it's fine to look at other people's roleplaying efforts and laugh (or sigh) at their mistakes, but on the other hand it's really not fair to expect too much of them. Just like novelists and screenwriters don't start out good at their craft from the first day they put pen to paper, so roleplayers need a lot of time to grow in this creative ability. More experienced roleplayers can do a lot of harm if we are too critical of the newcomers without being willing to lend them that extra hand they need.
Roleplaying also takes a certain amount of common sense and maturity in life to do well, as well as a relatively serious attitude towards the art and craft of roleplaying. Even if one wants to make other roleplayers laugh, one has to approach it with wisdom -- trying to listen, and be aware of what other roleplayers would think is funny, rather than just importing humor from one's favorite sitcom or real life inside jokes.
Roleplaying is actually a new medium of creativity in the world -- just like any other, one must go through a learning curve to reach a certain depth of understanding before one can really succeed at it.
Gryphon Hall Apr 19th 2008 1:30PM
Yeah... like an extra tab on the character when you inspect them. Sorta like a resume. I still wish one can inspect another players reputation with various factions also.
Ravenswing Apr 19th 2008 1:41PM
WoW is unusual in modern games in not having a 'background' box for people to write utter rubbish in.
Oh, and there is a perfectly up to date version of flagRSP2 on Curse.com.
Paisley Apr 19th 2008 1:52PM
I do it all the time (I use MRP and am on Moon Guard, Horde side). It's especially interesting to be sitting in an instance, waiting on someone who had to run afk, only to realize that your tank is a catboy.
Oh lordy.
Addie Apr 19th 2008 1:57PM
Yes, FlagRSP2 works perfectly. And most of the other RP addons use the old xtensiontoolwhatsit channel for cross addon compatibility. If you let FlagRSP2 save descriptions you can browse them all whether the player is in-game or not.
Wired Apr 19th 2008 2:00PM
Another thing that needs to come over from CoH (aside from the awesome costumes and swanky powers) are the Guild Alliances, where Guilds can align with one another (with an Alliance Name), and auto-create a chat room for said alliance.
I know of a couple of guilds that when they need to PUG a 25-man, they hit up their friends in the same couple of guilds. This way, their PUGs are of a higher quality (in general). Also, the LFG tool could hav an option to limit LFGs to just the Alliance, to help in this as well.
Lots of mods could add on to an alliance chat, as well as enhance it. Now I know some may be saying, "just make a new chat room for the alliance", but if it was built into the game, then you could have easy access to the other guilds via chat when joining a new guild, or adding a guild to the alliance.
tcgiant Apr 19th 2008 2:24PM
FlagRSP is actually still being updated. The author moved it to WoWAce.
Tridus Apr 19th 2008 7:11PM
Blizzard's support for RP is laughably pathetic at best, this is one of many examples of the problem.
Its sad, realy.
Skarlette Apr 19th 2008 7:57PM
On the other hand, horrible RP descriptions can be hilarious, as seen at:
http://rottenapples.talisancreations.com/
Pike Apr 20th 2008 9:21AM
Ya know, for all the "bad" RP descriptions out there, there are also a lot of really good ones. So I wouldn't say "most players have horrible, awful descriptions"... =/ Heck I think I've only ever seen one vampire one.
I dunno, maybe the RP servers I play on just don't get very "creative". But I always hear about these horrible awful RP descriptions and I rarely see them... the worst I've seen are ones where people can't spell. =P
Sean Riley Apr 20th 2008 7:02PM
You should totally do a breakfast topic devoted to the best/worst RP descriptions you've ever seen. I've seen truly terrible ones, some inspired ones, and one that I've yet to decide if it's brilliant or dreadful -- It was like dada poetry crossed with bad Hemingway crossed with... something else, I have no idea. It was incredibly bad and unbelievably distinctive. I wanted to study it and learn how to write that way well.
Sean Riley Apr 20th 2008 11:21PM
Random observation: This is the first post at WoWInsider tagged 'heaving-bosoms'.
That makes it special!
Zan Apr 21st 2008 9:51PM
I use MyRoleplay which seems to work just fine, though it would be nice to have the ability to enter a character description or whatever built right into the darn game.
I'm proud to play an "average looking" non-emo non-dramatic average joe character when I'm hanging out on RP servers.