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[Seriphyn]

Okay. Today, I was invited to try some RP in Garry's Mod called "City 11". I was completely new to this, so was a total beginner. Someone has created scripts and basically has spawned a "mod" that works within the game, for the purposes of an RP environment

The story so far, that had started, as that the inhabitants of City 11 were temporarily moved out to this camp (Cs_Compound, modified in fact) and that we were stuck here until a toxin cloud and/or portal storm had cleared. Some played as Civil protection, and overseered over us. I had my character, Seth Miller, a shoe-in of myself, explore and get to know folk.

We were soon ordered to construct a walkway from the CP part of the compound to our quarters, which we got started on. The three of us who were doing so (others were slacking) were called up by the CP overseer and we were all bollocked for using the wrong material. Instead, we decided that we had to smash up the medical building for its wood, to finish the walkway. I decided to go and negotiate with the doctor in charge if we could move the equipment in the ward to elsewhere in the warehouse. Reluctantly, she let us.

While we were doing so, the eventmaster had a scream occur outside the front gates. I ran to investigate, and saw a sonichound thingy hopping about. In a panic, I ran to the nearest cop and asked him to come shoot it. He followed me, I pointed it out, and he wasn't impressed, deciding to dismiss the creature. At any rate, work continued as me and another individual moved equipment to a new room in the warehouse.

Soon enough, however, a rebel caused some trouble, and one of the cops started firing in the open street. In a panic, all of us unarmed civilians ran into the warehouse, avoiding the windows and hugging the walls. Eventually, one of those scaners were deployed, and we were all ordered to come outside and line up against the wall (Even the female announcer was scripted from the HL2 game itself). Many of us panicked, and we were torn between deciding to actually comply, run, or stay inside. Some of us complied, and a woman decided to RP a small panic, busting out pills and heading into shakes.

I stayed with her, another guy as well, which I ordered to head out and comply, to avoid him getting into trouble. We figured we would hide, until a cop came, shining his flashlight, and catching us. We were promptly taken outside, and had our IDs investigated. After which, we were ordered inside. I had my character go to bed, and subsequently quit for the night.

Anyway, I have to say, being able to physically control and SEE your character makes a HUGE difference to the level of immersion. I was completely drawn in, felt like I was really there, playing as an actor in a role. The physical restrictions were moot, as people would RP leaning on doors, facial/hand gestures regardless. If this was anything to go by, then Incarna might be pretty enjoyable.

Though I doubt we'd have the scripted, tabletop D&D style events going on, of course.

[Desiderya]

The visual image helps. You don't have to describe, for example, clothing and appearance.
Right up until that point where you want your character to appear wearing something that is not part of the game mechanics, aka, physical boundaries.
EVE has retought me the immense value of channel RP.
First, it's something you can do while doing something else (Which is why Incarna won't kill it.).
Second, you can play out anything you want and are not limited by any boundary.
Third, you have to describe everything you do. This sounds odd, but believe me, people get lazy.

And most important:
All the perks of having a visualization of your avatar and it's interactions with the enviroment and other players will be tiny compared to the load of new boundaries you'll see, too. For example. Now you have an Avatar and can walk around the station. But you can't run, and you can't jump.
Any serious interaction will be done by two Avatars standing more or less blank faced next to each other, since they have to rely on emotes for anything nonetheless.
And think about it, even if the avatars allow visual emotes on cue - will you, part thanks to your camera perspective, really be able to see that that other character has winked?
Oh, and you can talk without using your mouth, too. All thanks to visualisation.


Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to it, but I think you are expecting too much if you compare it to the freedom of Gmod on a private server with admins.

[Ken]

RP in Garry's mod.  I've now heard of everything.  Also, flinging people around with the physics gun and making a flying vehicle with a hundred balloons = hours of entertainment.

[Casiella]

Is there anyone who actually thinks that Incarna will not benefit RP? Is that a thing?

[Mizhara]

Is there anyone who actually thinks that Incarna will not benefit RP? Is that a thing?

Me. I am with Desi here on why.

There's no real benefits to Incarna. Avatar driven RP will always be utterly immersion-breaking for me as the characters just can't emote anywhere near what an ./emote can do. I hate doing something slightly complex or really simple like brushing hair back behind my ear before lighting a smoke in text and just watch my avatar stand there and stare stupidly at a spot right above and to the left of the other guy's ear.

Pure immersion breaking.

[Seriphyn]

Perhaps, since we're used to channel RP, the bar has been raised exceptionally high? I wonder if CCP is aware of this freedom provided, and is seeking to make Incarna as unrestrictive as possible, not wanting to have people "step down".

But how about things such as walking up to someone in a bar, talking, then going for a walk in station, and eventually up to your captain's quarters, then resuming your conversation while watching your Armageddon? All while being able to visualize and see the environment (environment more than anything) would make a huge difference?

Personally at least, I find being able to see things in-game better than seeing a few paragraphs of text. In terms of "restrictions", actually, in bar RP, a lot of people just sit down and talk anyway, without doing much else so...

[Benjamin Shepherd]

Everytime something new happens, people say it won't be the same. From text-based games to pixels, then to 3D, and so on. Incarna won't let you /jump as you /highkickpirate while /smokecig and /scream. It's impossible in a technical sense, but the point of Incarna is that there is this new benefit to seeing what you would do in normal circumstances.

I also used to play for a few years on GMOD RP servers, and I can say that they are some of the best and detailed around.

[Casiella]

Miz, so you feel like adding the ability to see full-body avatars will take away from RP? I mean, you can still /emote and whatnot, but instead of a static portrait, you'll have at least some of the visualizations you don't have now.

I suppose I'm just incredulous about the view that "more is less" in this regard.

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

I mean, you can still /emote and whatnot, but instead of a static portrait, you'll have at least some of the visualizations you don't have now.

I share the concerns expressed in Desireya's comment. The problem is that the actions of the avatar might be contradicting with your meaning. When you say "Nice to meet you", it usually makes little sense to be staring at the wall with no expression.

To solve this issue, it'd be cool to have a list, where you could define keywords and match them with some avatar actions. Like the word "nice" would make your avatar smile, "Caldari" would make the avatar frown and saying "know" would produce hand waving. In addition to the static list, there could be a separate "chat window" or clickable panel for quick gesture commands, like /grin , /slapforehead , /touchear , /highfive .

[lallara zhuul]

One thing that comes to mind with the avatar based interface.

The thing is, ummmm, you start to use your imagination less.

Please let me elaborate.

'I have heard of the situation at Oris station, but I did not know that it was that severe.', said Lallara, while going through her files.

First of all, you filled in the blanks.
You gave Lallara a voice, in your head, just like people can hear the Professor when Amann Karris writes stuff on these boards.
You gave her a body, arms, eyes, ears, clothes, a table or a computer, a room that she is in, you gave the whole situation an ambiance that fitted the message and the one delivering it.

Then you were already getting ready to react with your character.
How your character would react to this imaginary situation, could she get involved, how does it affect her worldview, but most of all, you imagined your character present in the situation.

How can you compete with that?

[Casiella]

No one is prohibiting you from continuing to use chat channels, just as the existence of films does not keep you from reading books.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

There will be no way to act out what you're thinking in a game that has limits on code. Until, of course, virtual reality becomes popular in 30 years. This argument is really just unnecessary in my opinion; for people to be upset that a few seconds of staring at a wall while typing is puzzling. To add to that, I don't understand disliking the WASD format because you won't be able to move to your chair while speaking seamlessly; Incarna is not for RP, it's for adding an additional gameplay element and focusing on expanding EVE's subscription base.

RP is never perfect for anyone in any MMO, because the MMOs were not intended to be created just for RPers. I think EVE does a good job at acknowledging what exists, though.

[Mizhara]

Miz, so you feel like adding the ability to see full-body avatars will take away from RP? I mean, you can still /emote and whatnot, but instead of a static portrait, you'll have at least some of the visualizations you don't have now.

I suppose I'm just incredulous about the view that "more is less" in this regard.

I can /emote but when I /emote there's a massive difference between what I say the character does and what it actually does.

* Mizhara sits down, lighting a cigarette before looking you in the eyes through a streamer of smoke.

Character sits down in a static pose, staring straight ahead dumbly.

See the jarring between the two? That's immersion-breaking to me. If I only have the text from the other guy, I can vividly imagine it, and see it with far more clarity and immersion than any avatar in any game can provide. I can -smell- the smoke from the cigarette and see the eyes narrow slightly as the smoke passes across them.

So yes... I think Avatars will detract from RP in Eve as people will break off into separate camps on the matter and RP becomes fractioned.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

I started my roleplay experience in EVE and its text only environment and felt the same way as some have suggested here, that literal behavior from avatars will create an immersion breaking experience that limits our imagination.  To a degree I still think it's true, but having rp'ed in other virtual environments like wow and second life, I think it has potential for good and bad. The good being a pragmatic blend of text interaction emoting in a nice visually pleasing environment, and the bad where people only respond to the literal and visual.

Im looking forward to it anyway. I have a couple projects depending on incarna, so just bring it and see what happens.

[Benjamin Shepherd]

I don't want to be moderated, but:

It's a fucking game.


RP is secondary to CCP, and this argument will not change the programming mechanics of what constitutes Incarna. It's silly to me, because it's similar to the argument that we had when "talking pictures" came out versus silent films, or black and white to color.