I'd never like the think of myself as an inept roleplayer, but at the end of the day, concepts fail, and roleplay becomes tacky and cursory. Characters are abandoned with a listless, defeated sigh.

I come at you with an honest dilemma Amia, I do not intend to be inflammatory or in any way air foul laundry and speak poorly of anybody.

I've very recently stumbled onto some free time in my life, and have returned to Amia after a long hiatus with an auspicious intention of reviving a character. Amia you disappoint me. Once upon a time, when I was fresh on the Amian scene I had such a great, marvelous even, time roleplaying the beautiful Elandrus La'Lija, Divine Champion of Sune with her own chaste, aggressive, slightly-militant interpretation of the Dogma. But, alas her story had to end. Amia had so much to offer, I flirted with many concepts. Zzareth Za, the aristocratically inclined, thrice-scorned, bitter and charming Sorceress with a mysterious bond to The Plane of Negative Energy was fun to act, and I collected a fair sum of dreamcoins too. But Amia, you disappoint me. As I return, I can not find these joys. Most roleplay degrades into a tacky scene of hugglefluff, or a tense (the wrong kind of tense) clash of egos that results in an anti-climatic pissing contest, then everyone goes their separate ways. Worse yet is the party I shared today had a plot so enthralling that it pertained exclusively to running through the same desert that inexplicably generates Minotaurs every few minutes with deep meaningful exchanges consisting of "Who's loot?" "What eloquent bosoms" "I kick ass!" between characters that are the same quintessential hackneyed concepts over and over. Worse yet, are the conversations that are merely a collections of shrugs! It's a pretty cheap experience. I've had a lot of trouble building relationships that foster plots for my characters. I am so sadly forced to laze around the common roads hoping for at least some meager, fleeting interaction. This standing around doing nothing kills the character concept for me. Their epic story ends kicking rocks on a lonely road, and I retire them, defeated.

Help me out Amia, I love you!

Is it my own damn fault?
Is this it? Or am I just in a funk?
Do you ever feel like this?
What keeps you logging in everyday?
How do you build and maintain character relationships to advance your characters personal journey/plot?
How do you keep the Amian experience enjoyable?

I find that playing with people I generally enjoy RPing with helps keep me out of those funks. If I find a group that my style doesn't mesh well with, I move on.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

I think that complaining about such a small cross-section of the playerbase isn't really well reasoned, or fair, in light of the fact that we have some few hundred players per week on the server. I know for a fact that there are quite a few interesting things going on and I'm going to say if you didn't appreciate the grind, then maybe you should have left said party and looked for another.

When I returned to Amia after a six month break it took me months to rebuild the kind of relationships my characters had prior to when I left. This occured everytime I returned. In fact every time I returned after any sort of hiatus I felt that I needed to at least to rebuild a character or relevel a character, or even create new characters, to get a feel for the server and re-establish myself as a player.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

I'm working my self out of the habit of party chatting the loot. I do it still, but I avoid it. I only do the party chat loot when everyone decided to give a fake name starting with the letter A.

Its very easy to get into the habit of talking OOC in party, just to streamline play. I find that the best way to get out of this habit is to not think of every hunt as a grind fest for levels, or hunting. Think of it as going off for an adventure. Every time you go kill monsters you go searching for adventure, loot and mystery. Its not about the levels, the xp or the items. Its about the adventure, how you get there. If your party members want to go in again, act as you probably would, question them, and probably come to the conclusion they are full of bloodlust, or plain old batty insane.

I also find that doing one hunting area more then once ruins this. Try and go somewhere new everytime. Running the same area over and over will break the immersion for you. Its an adventure, you went in that mountain, you killed those giants with your allies, slaughtered the king and queen. Why would you go back in? You wouldn't, there is no reason. So you go off elsewhere in search of mighty sword swingin' adventure.

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I keels u with my axe!

"Do ye know where the Holy-Flamin' Frost-brand Gronk-slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' woundin' an' returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-out-yer-bum is?"

It's like I keep saying, Amia's a roleplaying server at heart, but it's open to everyone. There are servers who value roleplay to the point that people who can't roleplay so well find themselves shunned, but that's not Amia. As a result we have a good mix of players, from those who want light-hearted roleplay to those who want deep and involved roleplay, romantic roleplay, competitive nemesis type roleplay and of course people who're just happy hunting.

I know it can be easy to get disheartened, but I'd try not to judge the server on a few encounters as with such a spread of players it's easy to find what you don't want and quit before you find what you do want.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Like what is said above. It takes awhile to gather those forces again. I personally don't expect much depth from adventuring but I don't mind taking a really long time to go through an area either because there is a lot of roleplay. It also comes in waves on what people are doing.

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"Thou that smelled it thine own self dealt it." - Zorak

Okay coming from someone who thought the exact same thing and who actually made a similar post about this awhile back..

You are always gonna have a small portion of players who care more about xp than anything. You just have to find some players who play more at your mindset. Trust me they are there.

I actually believe that RPers are stronger than ever in nwn. Simply because its not a current game anymore, so most people who play come back for just that, Rp.

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Jorn Wesson
Tuarr
Zok

Bench press - 845x2.. oh wait wrong forum

Forgive my bout of MELODRAM PATHETICISM. This was a detail of my feelings leaving and returning. Thank you for your inputs, all of these things I know, I just really needed to hear again. Hah. I put so much into my character concepts, sometimes I feel cheated or robbed when I am disappointed with my interactions, and it's a biting feeling sometimes.

But, I know no other creative outlet quite like Amia. (I have yet to play tabletop D&D but I have a great longing to) Sure I could write myself a story, wherein my characters have all their glory because it is synthetic, but I also like being immersed into a continuum of vastly different wills and ambitions squabbling in an active setting.

Anyways, I am still curious to know what part of the Amian Experience keeps you logging in?

One word. Habit.

... But admittedly, I enjoy roleplaying with some people to great extent. You included, but I can never do it again because I'll disappoint you with my sub-par performance! :(

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Sion of Nimlith
Shadow Disciple

There really are some neat people around.

I have other, possibly unusual, and more important motivations but I don't want to talk about them in case it makes me look like a jerk.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

This is when you declare that the loot is not, in fact ABC, but ZYX. And your name is Zzzyzzyx.

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What keeps me here is simple: The friggin' RP :3

I swear, at least nine times out of ten I have a great experience on the server. Maybe it's when I log in (prime time for US, EST time)? I dunno, but very rarely do I get frustrated.

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

If you're dissatisfied with rp you find, make your own.

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This. Do what I do and listen carefully to the world around you. It reveals things..many things.

I like some of the RP you hate Sorry 'bout it!

I've found that on any server, if you role play constantly - even by yourself - it makes the experience much better. Stay in the game the entire time you're playing, and don't play solely for the interaction; play for the story.

That's what I do, at least.

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"I will never refuse a challenge from an equal. I will give honor to worthy enemies, and contempt to the rest."

I've just started playing Amia recently and I have to say I <3 the RP here. I'm probably not up to par with everyone else i've met, but that's not from lack of trying heh. Grinding... it's just a way to help evolve ones character, to help flesh out their abilities and experiences a little better.

If one decided they would play a town bum, it'd be pretty boring imo. I don't think people do that in P&P.

Then again, pretty much every party my character has joined up with has been full of girls, so there's no reason for my guy to complain either hehehe.

Roleplay is a two way street, it's an interaction unlike other creative mediums. I could make my own roleplay with a boulder, but where is the stimulation in that?



Roleplaying by yourself? I'm not sure if I understand that. Yes, I do make my presence felt in a crowd be it the emotive fiddling with a trinket or injury, or trying to initiate small talk. I try not to be the type that skulks around doing nothing, silent in voice and action, under the tree.



It's not that I hate it, who doesn't like a rockin' set of eloquent bosoms? It's just that when roleplay like this makes up the sum of your entire experience, it becomes cheap.





If you're who I think you are, it wasn't your performance that disappointed me. It was the nature of our situation that disappointed me because I expected so much more from a certain person than three emotes and the encounter itself, mostly because it was set up.


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I'm cooking up a concept right now...

Who did you play Zammy? A Caraigh cultist at one point I believe... Zamtrack is familiar, but I can't recall from where.

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feel the blood gushing from your anusfeel the blood gushing from your anus

That's what she said.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Zzareth Za paled around with the cultists a little, even was contracted to help supply them with undead thralls, but she was no cultist herself. In fact she found the worship of Orcus to be a "filthy affair." But she was driven by her intense hatred of the proletariat/peasant class, and found it in her interest to oppress, murder, abuse the common folk of Ceyren's Mill. Also she had a little scheme for establishing a trade house in Caraigh after when she thought the two factions would destroy eachother. Haha, so maybe you saw me around.



I almost exploded.

Of course I saw you around, now I'm only waiting to see you around again!

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feel the blood gushing from your anusfeel the blood gushing from your anus

I'm not going to quote this and that but I -did- read the whole post. Yes, the rp -is- out there and a shout out to some of the best rp'er's of any server I've ever played on. Intricate, complex, plays on their backgrounds and of course random lol random is always entertaining so long as it doesn't become "slapstick" and even that is fine to a degree.

I've took a -forced- break since my system crashed. I've been back about 2 weeks and I've already noticed some intricate rp going on. I've ran into a couple of random characters and simply just said hi with my toon and that started an hour long rp and others five minutes or so but still just as much quality. I'm just glad that the players here will take time and rp with a complete stranger, since quite a few are new and have no idea who I am lol...could be a plus.

Anyways the reason I keep coming back is the playerbase and wow you really have to give a shoutout to the Admin and DM team too, this server simply rocks, with the new updates, storylines and DM's that take the time to help you out and deal with any problems you might have. No brown nosing intended lol but yeah it's the -whole- picture thats keeps me coming back not the just one or two people. Nice job Amian community you continue to impress.

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Calypso (Lady Calypso, Caly)
Stormy Dawn (Ar'ellin'ah)
Kisuri'ou Yoru (Ryuko)

Favored Quote:
"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man." -Shakespeare

Hmmmmm. Then until you stalk my character around the islands like Darby did, you have no idea what my makes up the sum of my entire experience! And so you should wait to post another topic until you do!

Don't judge people based on what you see on a bad day of interactions. You're hurting yourself more than anyone.

I reckon' the purpose of this thread was to reinspire me(and maybe others?) to reimmerse myself in the community, and that has been fulfilled.

Then consider it locked happily!

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