I am not really convinced that there is a need for a centralised community…. the fact that the player base is a little thin at the moment is not a reason in its self. My drow have built up a “town” on Malas, known as L’Cress (The Web). It is rare that non-drow go there and that’s fine; after all why should they since it is likely that unwelcome visitors are asking for trouble. Similarly if we turn up at certain locations it is because we have a reason to be there. RP is not just about interacting for interactings sake; there should be an in game IC reason for doing so. Squeezing everyone into a specific area smacks of something contrived and lacks spontaneity.

It is also rare to find my drow at events. Again unless there is a reason why should they? Now some of you might find this a bit isolated…. but that is what drow are, isolationists, even within their own community. Yet that has not stopped us getting involved in things we want to with other guilds/towns. We have a couple of scenarios running which other guilds have got involved with because they have found out about it and do not like what we are up to. And that is what I feel is most important, find out what is going on and get involved!

Quite the contrary, roleplaying IS interacting for interactions sake. Roleplaying is about more than just attending arranged events, what is spontaneous about having other people arrange an event for you to attend? It's about 'living'; bringing your character to life with every day situations. Little things make it fun and coming up with ways to make the mundane interesting is what it's all about.

Roleplaying a farmer trying to sell some vegetables or sheep. Roleplaying a Hobbit trying to make a living with music. Having one big community and having people play such "lowly" things makes a community fun and realistic and brings the area to life, and is exactly why some of us want a centralized community. If there's one place to go and everybody lives reasonably nearby things like this develop that add to the community and make it enjoyable for longer. What's the point in the Vesper, Yew, Trinsic or Cove Militia if there's nobody playing a civilian to defend? You can't exactly play a farmer from Yew if you're recalling to Trinsic or Vesper to find some interaction and "just logging in for events" is what ruins communities.

No, you don't have to be directly involved either. Why should your Drow be involved? Well, that's the fun, coming up with ways as to why indeed you would be involved! If not, have an alt and participate in another way. RP shouldn't be purely about defending towns, stealing magic artifacts, murder and assassination or lesbian drow cyber sex orgies.

I actually agree. But it's unfortunate that people can't just put their differences aside.

a lot of the roleplay comes from the Cities roleplaying with each other, and most Cities have smaller guilds around them, like Vesper- VTC, Trinsic- And htose elves.. and Yew and Rbl..

I'm pretty sure if you give me ten minutes, a notepad file and a keyboard I can come up with a viable scenario where nearly all of the current Europa RP scene would come to, say, Yew. It isn't hard. If you break down the basics of everyone's concepts then there aren't too many that are that restrictive. Even the town militias have political interests that pull them elsewhere.

The problems here aren't in character, at all. Anyone with any shred of imagination (and I appreciate not everyone's is as vivid as mine, and some people's are even more expansive[!]) can, at a bit of a stretch, get themselves involved in most of the scenarios and stories going on. I mean we all have our opinions on the forum, I'm sure our characters would all have an opinion in-game!

The problem is out of character. There's been hundreds of them named in this thread. Comments like "well my drow have no reason to go to Yew" and "Well Grd have no reason to go to Vesper" or "well the Duchy has no interest in Cove" are totally spurious and born purely from the womb of OOC pigheadedness. What these people really mean are "well, I don't really like Grd" and "Trinsic roleplay's really not my thing" or "tbh, I can't see myself settling with Cove." And I don't think we should really be shy of admitting that.

[WARNING: Naming-and-shaming ahead!]

I'm going to hold my hand up right now and say that, honestly, I find it very difficult to roleplay in the Trinsic Rose. Now before the Rose's owners and patrons jump down my throat, hear me out. I pop in from time to time and I love the deco, I love the feel of the "village", I love that it's busy and I love that a lot of effort goes into staffing it. But the roleplay there bores me to tears and, at times, frankly makes me cringe. I don't want to be surrounded by super-hawt elves in neon, I don't want to be sat on a tavern stool next to someone called "Wrath" branding marties and I don't really want to be bossed around by a teenage Officer of the Guard who orders "lemonade" from the bar. I don't want to centralize with that community. What I want has been gone for three or four years and it's time to accept that.

Now before you go up in arms, think about this for a second. Have you ever sat in the Trinsic Rose and cringed? Have you ever sat in the Swaggers and been offended at some of the lewd sexual innuendo or been bothered by some of the cruder "immaturity"? Have you ever gone to Stonekeep and been annoyed by how overly-offensive some of the language is or how confrontational their attitudes are? Have you ever sat in the Rusty Dagger and walked out because some blue elf said Rel Sanct a hundred and one too many times for your sanity to hold?

Ever been ganked by Thf, B^F or S^A and wished you weren't warred? Ever passed through Yew and been made to feel glad you play in Trinsic? Ever peaced a guild for being all too violent (and frankly, beating you too often?)

There are some of us that would benefit from a merger - but there are a lot of us that know that we're currently seperate for a very, very good reason. Our styles are completely different. I know I lack patience, I know I'm elitist, I know I'm a roleplay-bigot. But I also know I'm not alone, and I know a lot of you wouldn't want to roleplay in the same centralized community as me.

A good idea Udrak, the Europa community needs it. Actually they should have done that ages ago.

I recall agreeing and even selling expensive property just to merge into a single area with everyone else... unfortnately no other GM went along with it and we ended up having to disband because we lost all our members in the process. I was stupid enough to think others would go along with it.

I might still be very bitter about that and a lot of other things I had to endure during my time in UO but I seriously doubt anything has changed here, I see the same people here as I saw before. Same issues, same people, not happening. Their ignorance will be their eventual demise... which I hope will be a painful experience for them as they wouldn't deserve anything less.

Anyhow... good to see at least some people have a little initiative in them, I hope it works out for you Udrak.

Hedlyn im not offended by your words

I'm sorry that those flashy folks make you cringe sometimes. It's something which i myself sometimes have great difficulties to deal with as well and which can sometimes lead to situations for which i need a really awefull lot of patience to just deal with some of those characters. Believe me, it's difficult for me too sometimes to have those around !!! (btw the Staff of the Rose = Gwen Irima and no one else)

Almost always they're not people who are part of the rp community, but people who visit occasionally. I must say tho that some of those flashy dressed folks have later made rp characters and joined with rp guilds. That is why I allow this in the Rose so non roleplayers can have a little taste of what we rp-ers do. No other rp tavern has that sort of mix of visitors and i can understand that it is for the hardcore roleplayers difficult to have the patience to interact with these non-roleplayers/half roleplayers neon gits.

I'd like to point out though that within E-V we never had the use of neon colors except here and there a little bit of ice white for healers or me using sometimes a little bit of ice blue cuz i love that color.

For those who dont know yet: E-V does no longer exist as an active guild, I've decided to merge E-V with DoT a month ago. Probably obvious why i chose to merge with DoT, but for those who didn't know yet: the Elven Quarter has always been part of the Duchy of Trinsic, as a southern part of the duchy and has never been a seperate village.

btw !!! Amen to this:

Do we actually have any LEADERS amongst the community? I know we have Guildmasters, but do we have anyone actually competent enough to coordinate things on a large scale and drive the community forward?

I thought being spontaneous was frowned upon these days?

Is spontaneous things really frowned upon that much? I like the spontaneous happenings best

tbh im glad i am not one of them anymore I've got much more fun being a member of the community and doing things from that angle. Why does it always have to be the gm's only that have to make things happen? Isn't it something that both gm's and players have to do ?

That wasn't the impression I got from limited experiences in Trinsic, but fair enough.

Which is why I used the word LEADER and not Guildmaster But to be fair it's the GM's who typically hold the most influence in a community, so the onus is on them to provide results.