No, it's a perfectly good question and as we are looking for new pastures, quite timely.

Personally I have played Entropia, Wow and Eve. Entropia has some RPers, but not many, but it would be possible to RP if you can get past the financial side of the game. WoW I found was impossible to RP, even on a RP dedicated server. I tried two or three times, met one RPer and gave up. Eve...I never saw RP, although I had one person I communicated with in character only. In fairness I used WoW to stay in touch with my Guildmates who moved to WoW from Entropia, and Eve because I like the graphics and sometimes just liked shooting things down with my beautiful ships. So RP was not really my main focus, although I would have jumped at the chance if it happened!

Esme

Well, I have played Jumpgate, a space ship sim that's quite some time around now. To the time I played on the european server there was quite some roleplaying around especially in the Quantar faction (Yes, my forum and often game name has its origins there). Though that server doesn't exist anymore. How it's today on the world server I can't say. As I took a look a good year ago there was some basic RP going on.
Another game I played was Neocron. The game has flair and would be a good base for RP and I heard on the now nonexistent french server, as 'external' server run by AD, was some RP going on, but quite a number of the current playerbase lsound like RP haters. The game is only slowly developed and has quite some problems.
In Face of Mankind Beta there was some basic RP going on even its fast paced 1st person combat, maybe because of the 'order and wait' production part not unlike seed and a 'we are the faction'-feel. Though I never managed to play gold version and big parts of the game got redesigned. During Beta the small Dev team, mainly the boss and maincoder duplex, was nice to talk with and really looked like he 'nows his code'.
The time before Seed I spent in Dark & Light. Well, a nice dragon ride simulator with a impressive landscape and view, if a game has technical problems it's this one. The good side are the events by AD. Players are the usual MMORPG mixup, only there this group here would clearly have the advantage of numbers because the playerbase seems to be smaller than Arash's ignore list in SoR. It has some potential but quite some work has to be done. Given the current development speed it's worth a look in a year or so, though maybe it's a typical 'asia grind' by then because biggest supporter and taking over more and more design work is a chinese company.

The games I decided not to play are for one WoW. Tested it but and well, disliked the look and feel, and basicly only looking forward to a lot of grind, even this time behind some quest cover, doesn't helped either. Testing Eve I had mixed feelings. I liked the setting, I really enjoyed playing games from Elite over Wing Commander and X-Wing series to Jumpgate after all, but I never got used to that 'being the ship' feeling. Because of that there always was that feel of distance and I never managed to 'get into the game'. It's just me, can't even really enjoy a driving game without cockpit view.

I used to play Neverwinter Night's Narfell, a little fanmade persistent world. For some reason almost everyone there was a devout roleplayer or at least IC speaker.

They used an interesting way to encourage roleplaying: There was a level cap that you couldn't bypass through killing, unless you had an RP token. These tokens were given through recommendation from other players (and maybe something else too).

The GMs were also relatively active, running events for the people, and tossing around RP XP to people whose RP they liked (got it at least once).

It's still going on, I suppose, but I quit when it started requiring the addons.

I quest, I would also say what I have played as I started this all.

Ultima Online.
- I think this is still one of the best MMORPG's. Graphics is little old, but game play is great. It also have pretty good roleplaying possibilities and roleplaying communties. I was part of one roleplaying community about year.
- I did quit because wanted see other games and did not anymore finded it fun after 3 years of playing.

EverQuest
- I playd this game very short time, about month.  It did have roleplaying communities and so on.. but..
- Did quit because did not like it. It was too much leveling to my taste.

EverQuest II
- Played this short time too, about 3 month. Very modern game with good graphics and atmosphere. Only place where npc's really have voice too.
- Quit this because the character development was in rails. Very linear and no real choises.

Horizons
- Played this about year and it was nice game, but game is laggy and not so good quality. It does have good support for communities and roleplaing. I was in roleplaying community there.
- Quit, because got bored.

City of Heroes & City of Villains
- I play this game still sometimes, have played it about 2 years. It has support for roleplaying, but it's hard to roleplay there, because game is very action based.

EVE
- Can't say much , I was in beta testing and did not like the game. So never tryed it more..

Saga of Ryzom
- Have played this game about half year. It's very nice game. Very action based fighting, so hard to roleplay. It does have a lot of emotes. Very few roleplaying commuties, but there is some.
- Did quit it because many events where PvP related and I'm not PvP player.

Dungeons & Dragons online
- Played this game about 2 month. It's very nice game, but it have very little to do with D&D. Did like traps in dungeons. Has very little roleplaying support, but there are a lot of roleplayers.
- Did quit it because it's too much for powerplayers than roleplayers. (uber item collecting game)

Seed
- Played this game about 2 month. It's very nice game, but a lot of bug and lag. Very good GM support and a lot of roleplayers.
- Quit it because, game quality below what I wanted and notting to do. (Game ended it self week later).

ROSE online
- Played this the trial, 7 day. It's very nice game for kids. I mean young kids. Basicly just leveling game, but funny looking and very cute. Did not see any roleplayers.

Anarchy Online
- Played this very short time, about 5 days. Graphics was too old to my tase, so I did quit. Of cause it was free at the time and still is.

Never Winter Nights
- Played this about 6 months. I liked the game, but now it seem too old. Still very nice different kind of game, as players can create they own game modules. Had my own NWN server.

Basicly I have tested many games, but also only very short times. Now I'm waiting the NWN2. It could be very nice game for roleplayers.

Last edited by Victoria (2006-10-06 05:46:11)

My search for something special and different was what made me join Seed in the first place and ATITD is the only MMO I've played that is still running. (No, I haven't played a lot of them)

In my opinion ATITD is THE crafting game and there is certainly no less grinding in this game when compared to others. It's just of a different kind. There are some tests (quests) which seemed to be quite varying in nature, but most of them requiring a lot of effort to complete.

I didn't see a lot of real roleplaying when I played, but the game is refreshingly free of all those l337 kids. It certainly caters to a more mature customer base.
Additionally there are a few (rp) events being held, but they were either few and far between, or I didn't play enough to notice them. I do, however, recall a 'trader from a distant land. A trader selling items not obtainable in the game world, but would only trade with male characters. It caused quite a stir.

It's interesting to follow this thread and see if someone mentions a really promising game that would be well-suited for us. And it's also interesting reading about all your experiences with MMOGS.

It seems to me that there is no game that has been mentioned, that would be suitable for us as a group at present, and that our choice of SoR in general wasn't so bad, considering that there are no alternatives.

Of those mentioned, I myself believe that the right, ambitious NWN2 persistent online world might be the best roleplaying environment. That is still half a year or so away (it takes a while for players to create such a world, and the game needs to get out first too), but I'll be buying and testing NWN2 at least.

Looking at other games that are up and coming, Age of Conan might be interesting, as well as several others. What we need though, is a new game where the developers place some emphasis on RP, where the players are a bit older/more mature, or/and where there is a good environment for RP'ing. Let's keep our eyes open and continue to post our impressions here.