Non-Role Player Perspectives on Role Play

Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 1:24 AM EDT by Ishtar (Atlantic)


As I walked the lands of Sosaria, I felt it would be an enjoyable way to know more of the folks that play Ultima Online and ask them as non-role players what they thought of the role players on Atlantic. I got intriguing responses to this question in my travels that took me to many great hubs of the Atlantic community.

I began my quest in Britain and I came across some interesting characters, one in particular named A Mongbat had this to say,"I find nothing wrong with their activities, there is one in Moonglow." he continued to explain that in some cases non-role players are not always well received by the role play community, but overall had no complaints.

The other person I spoke with that stood out, ran a guild named Xtortion and went by the name Shiva Da'lale. His answer was very interesting as he told me this, "I think the RP community became irrelevant when they removed the Seer program. When the Seer program was active there were genuine rewards to being involved with RP."

Ahh the Seer program, I do have fond memories of that. With a somber "sigh" I decided to travel the realm a bit more and see what others had to say. I picked up my leather bound book and trusty quill, then ventured out into the world again.

Upon this leg of my journey I met a charming fellow named MageScagweed who was a member of the Syndicate (LLTS) recruiting guild. He explained to me he has yet to see any role players as of yet other than a grateful one and another who gave him a million gold. I was a bit surprised by his answer, but still plodded onward as he said very little else.



As I made my way through the City of Luna, I ran into Xtreme Gamer and could not help but chuckle at his thoughts on my question, "I think they are all a bunch of fruit loops."

I then had to know why he had come to this conclusion and asked him to enlighten me, to this he explained that he felt most guilds that Role play are in a "controlled environment", at least the ones he has encountered so far. At this point he seemed to get lost in his exercises in the art of poisoning and I felt it was time to move on. My mood became more somber with all my encounters thus far, as this says little for the state of Role play on Atlantic.

The night drew closer and I decided to take one last chance on a young man who called himself Dumbledore. This is what he had to say, "I think it is cool that they like to do that.", I thought this was definitely more positive and asked him to continue, well my smile quickly became a frown as he made this statement, "when it interferes with game play it is quite annoying."

Trying to put my best foot forward, I asked him why, here is his explanation, "I've had a role player come up to me and do this *salute* stuff, and I said hi in capital letters. Well, he said to me, how dare you not salute.", at this point, I could sense his disdain and understood why he had drawn this conclusion. His final thoughts on the matter were, "keep it in your guild and in a certain area and do not interrupt other people with it." On that note I thanked him for his time and headed home for the night.

This last quest for knowledge was enlightening to say the least as I have been a role player on Atlantic for many years. These random and on the spot interviews gave me an interesting perspective as to how people see what the role play community does. I hope those who read this that do role play consider some of the viewpoints here and take them unto their hearts. Let us not forget that there are many types of players here on Atlantic. Not all enjoy the same things, but we all play and all like to have fun, we should all keep that in mind when we interact with others...

-Ishtar-


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interesting read,

but role-playing varies from shard to shard, so communities have more active scene, others seem to have none at all.