Roleplaying & The Gaiscioch Family - Please Read

There's been a lot of discussion about where we stand on this subject. YES, in Dark Age of Camelot we were a Roleplay Based Guild. YES, some of our events have Roleplay elements in them. The Telara Saga I've laced with roleplay quite a bit.

HOWEVER. We are NOT a roleplay guild. We encourage players who like to roleplay to continue to roleplay. We help roleplayers who want to roleplay find other roleplayers. BUT we do not FORCE roleplay on others.

Remember: Play how you want, When you want, for as long as you want

I understand the naming issue is a big thing for some of you. But lets not go on a witch hunt and exile members because of their names. That falls under Blades Out Not In. If we start attacking one another it will cause a divide in the family. Lines will be drawn, sides will be taken, and like a blade it will cut our family in 2. We do not want this.

WE are not Gaiscioch from DAOC. That age died in a ball of flames from Roleplayers taking things way too seriously and ended up executing the very thing they loved. I was more Mediator in DAOC than player. DAOC was work for me. I will not let that happen again. IF you do not like the where we stand I ask that you excuse yourself from the family. We are a Casual Gaming Community, we are much more calm, relaxed, and fun based now.

I ask you today please stop with the name appealing rants on guild chat. It's making people feel cut off and isolated from the family and is not helping our image, our stance, or our reputation one bit. If you have a "Issue" with someones name then appeal it in quiet and be done with it. Don't go forming up a witch hunt which ends up running a knife through the family. WE STAND UNITED. You joined us because of who we are and what we do. DONT compromise what you fell in love with in the first place. We run this way for a reason. I have seen success and I have seen failure. And Failure rides on the wings of division. If we divide we will fall.

Foghladha




» Edited on: 2011-03-17 13:32:58

Agree, I am in compliance.

Aye to this.

Well said Ben!

Hear, Hear! Let us fight the defiant, not each other. Very good words Fog.

UNITED is how we can treat the city guards like the trash mobs they are!

I haven't been in game for more than a week, and I will be away for possibly another week, so I haven't been seeing the guild chat, obviously. I'm a roleplayer, but I'm also a "live and let live" type of person. Does it bother me that other people don't care about ruining my immersion with non-roleplay names? Yes. Am I going to throw a fit about it? No. Worst case scenerio is that I turn off friendly names and then I won't be able to recognize anyone since character customization in this game is horrible. Is that a loss for me? Yes. Fog, I know you are trying to make things better, here, but sometimes I think you tend to demonize roleplayers a little because of what they did to you in DAoC. Trust me, I have been mistreated by "roleplayers" a lot in my gaming history as well. Then I realized that it was not the fact that they were roleplayers that made them evil and nasty, it was that they were evil and nasty people and hid behind the roleplaying mask. Sadly, this happens a lot as well. In any case, I am a roleplayer, I will roleplay, and I will do my best to stay with Gaiscioch, simply because I value mature and honest people over roleplay. Can't we all get along?

To me, role playing means acting in game like your character would act if the game world were real. It means things like going around closing rifts even if they are a little low for you so you won't get any good XP or loot from them, simply because they offend you as a Guardian and threaten your fellow Guardians and the citizens you protect. It means helping people with quests and fights when they ask, even if you won't get much if any material reward, and could be off doing your own thing and raking in the loot an XP. Battle for Badlands and the Telara Saga do not just have role play elements infused in them. They are the very essence of role playing, at least as I see role playing. In the two years I participated in Gaiscioch events in WAR as an outsider, and the short time I've seen Gaiscioch form the inside since joining for Rift, I've yet to run into any guild member who does NOT play as described above. By the very nature of the style of guild you've put together, Fog, a casual, family-style, friendly guild, it is hard to image someone who does not play as described above staying around for long. So while we aren't a role playing guild de jure, you've managed to build a pretty damned impressive de facto role playing guild, at least according to what I consider to be real role playing. I don't consider the kind of people that gave you grief on DAoC to be real role players. They are just jerks who have adopted the appearance of role playing. I agree that we should not call ourselves a role play guild. The jerks have tainted the term.

» Edited on: 2011-03-18 12:18:28

I agree completely with your definition of roleplaying, Galrois, but I think generalizing is always bad. And yes, aside from the fact that nobody speaks in character, Gaiscioch's actions are roleplaying. Those who get their panties in a bunch and insist that it's not are just rationalizing their own definition of roleplaying. I've dealt with this a lot in the past -- game mechanics do not agree with their chosen definition of how things should be, so they cry and stomp their feet and use the argument that "it's not roleplaying". There is no way to reason with these people, and there is no way to prove them wrong. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. When I come back I am going to try harder to make the in character channel more lively. I miss having people around me who are also in character.

Sometimes I like to roleplay and sometimes I don't. *shrug* I have seen some names that annoy me, but none too bad in our Family. I agree that we shouldn't isolate anyone. I have not had a problem with either sides of this coin so I can't really say much more.

Here Here... I agree 100% percent. While I am not a roleplayer 100% of the time. (I roleplay more when on Beardsley, not so much when on my mage Morwin) I am always considerate and understanding of those who are roleplaying and sometimes being around them just makes me switch into roleplay mode and I let the inner Dwarf in me shine through. The one thing I would love to see less of in guild chat is the line after line of bitching about "Roleplayers" and "roleplay server rules". This tends to happen late at night/ early mornings when certain "Leaders" are not online. That sort of talk just needs to end, if you don't agree with the rules set forth on a RP server fine... keep it to yourself, there is no need to rant on and on about it in guild chat and cause those that are roleplayers to feel offended or ostracized because of how they play or how they feel concerning player names. In the end this is one large family and like any family we may not all get along all the time... but that happens in every family and we move on. This is by far the best guild (Family) that I have ever been a part of. I have disappeared for months on end and have always been welcomed back warmly and with open arms. We are all apart of something very special here and no matter what you believe, roleplayer or non-roleplayer, you are all members of my family and I will treat you as such.

I am completely in agreement here. This guild is so much more than a roleplaying niche guild. I like roleplaying but I despise the elitist attitude that some members of the roleplaying community are taking when it comes to naming violations. I have much the same attitude as Arieltalia. Live and let live, everyone is here to play a game. If they want to truly roleplay they would turn off all global channels and also turn off all names. Then there is no outside influence. Keep guild chat as guild chat, good friends and family. I would also highly recommend if someone is into roleplaying that they actually do turn off global channels and especially name plates. You cannot tell friend from foe with the latter and are forced to introduce yourself in character.

For the longest time, I did play without nameplates on. But then I got into PvP and realized that BIG RED NAMES really do help, especially with these aging eyes and reflexes of mine. :P But when everyone looks the same, it's even hard to tell who your friends are. For example, in UO, I could pick out my friend Scarecrow because he always wore olive green pants, green vest, and a yellow shirt, and he had tousled grey hair and a grey beard. In this game, it's better than WoW, but still, everyone looks pretty much alike. We all have the same armor type, and dye is expensive (though the guild marketplace has that covered :) ). Just another reason we *really* need an alternate appearance system.

I'm surprised to hear that there has been a lot of negative talk of roleplayers in guild chat. I agree that it makes people uncomfortable when there is constant ridicule of their playstyle in guild. I make no distinction between someone who roleplays from someone who participates in PvP all the time or someone who likes to craft all the time. The joy of a MMO is the variety available for you to do. But without excusing anybody's behavior, I do want to point out that some of us are jokesters in nature and may say alot of things with tongue in cheek. *coughCindercough* I'm not making excuses for what has happened, but I also don't want everyone to be afraid to speak freely in guild chat either. We have a large number of people in our family and it will take understanding from everyone to get along. I ask only that if something or someone has offended you, speak to them privately and give them a chance to explain themselves or apologize. I know I've put my foot in my mouth alot and if I offended anyone, I'd like to apologize for it. And yes, I want to personalize my character's appearance like they do in LotRO lol. I'm sure they will get it to it sooner or later though.