are u ilyadris by chance
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Man u got baited. Also why is earthshock never banned? I want to feel like my class has some big damage spells too.
cuz we’d need 5 shaman players casting it to have it banned and we don’t have 5 shaman players . . . .
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Yes, you can use text to provide additional context and detail to the mechanical abstraction and visual representation provided by the game. I encourage people to do that. That’s what the meat of roleplaying comes from.
Just because all characters of the same race and gender share the same walking animation however, that doesn’t mean that’s the only way of walking. It’s a graphical representation that your character is walking, that you can add additional context to with text, if you like. Your character probably doesn’t have exactly that sort of hair or exactly that outfit, it’s just an abstract representation that you have chosen because it’s what best fits your character out of the options available.
Similarly, auto-attacking is a limited set of repetitive animations that occurs every couple of seconds. This does not mean that your character is limited to performing exactly that action every time, it’s an abstract graphical representation of the fact that your character is attacking another character. By engaging in auto-attacking, you visually and mechanically communicate that your character is engaging in conflict with another, and if you feel the need to, you can add text to provide additional context, to define exactly how your character is attacking, if you feel that the action requires that level of definition.
Quite frequently though, the addition of detail isn’t required. I doubt you emote that your character is walking every time your character moves and I doubt that you emote your character coming to a halt every time your character stops walking. Sometimes, that abstract visual representation is enough on its own. In the case of unrestricted RP-PvP, the abstract mechanical representation of combat is usually adequate representation for the combat that is taking place IC, without much need for additional text-based context.
It doesn’t. But nor does it devaluate the RP experience people like me- Exijin, TB, Cas and others got from those duels.
to devalue it as “Lmao it’s not rp am i right” is honestly just air. In my case (as I can’t talk for the others), Tidrick’s and my characters duel especially was a rly thrilling RP experience because the two know eachother and are always having a friendly competition about “who’s stronger” or “better”. So I felt very vested and into the duel, as I would to any sort of RP that is very intensive in the terms of character progression or expression. And I can without a doubt, 100% say that both Tidrick and I enjoyed that form of RP over staring at eachother and emoting and reading those emotes.
But hey I guess that’s not rp because…Reasons?
Two can play at this game.
I guess your character doesn’t read out emotes in orange text at the side of their vision- Or, for that matter, hallucinate all the things said in the emotes. After all, the extent to what emotes can go is literally just that- They can express what’s happening, and your imagination does the rest. None of the emotes actually ever realize physically. So by your line of argument, I guess our character’s just hallucinate every emote?
Pvp is the opposite. It gives you that visual element, and a more concrete mean of affecting the outcome than any of the other mediums do. You are essentially playing out your character’s competence- Or lack of it. But it doesn’t take the RP element out of it- It is still very much there, in the form of the attacks you make and plays you do to outwit or fight out your opponent- Win or lose.
Fire and swords do damage, yeah- But until you’re dead/lose the duel, you can keep going. So up until that point the damage is represented by your hitpoints, and you can decide whether it means your armor breaking or the trauma physically harming your character.
Weird, it’s almost like it works the exact same way emotes do: The player decides themselves what kind of damage they receive, and how things affect their character.
You claim that dueling is not Roleplaying. That is your statement. Here:
I disagree. I think that all of the systems (rolls, emotes, dueling, bench pressing IRL) are mechanics to conduct RP combat- And as such, also part of the RP (or the facilitator of it).
No it isn’t lol. I’m asking what does that point have to do with your argument. I’m not dismissing it. I’m -asking- why does it weigh in on the argument- Because I don’t understand how does that particular line I quoted have anything to do with the discussion?
You’re the one being incoherent here. Not me.
Well obviously there is in the sense that if you want to use dueling to represent your character, then you should probably gear up. Or if you don’t, you shouldn’t probably either:
a) do duels
b) complain about duels
You’re not obliged to do anything. I’m not holding anybody at gunpoint and telling them to gear up- That’s their choice.
Just as it is my choice to gear up. And if I happen to run into a situation where I want to use that over emoting, I can do that- They can’t.
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Can we also just take a moment to appreciate /duel tournaments? They are great and all. Since emote tournaments (even when RNG based) usually takes an extreme amount of time due to people being slow at emoting, etc etc etc. While a /duel tournament makes it fast phased and more exciting to watch.
Also you forgot text bubbles appearing over peoples head if they /say
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I’d much rather watch people /duel rather than wait 5 mins as both characters awkwardly stare at each other waiting for a response.
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I am not sure if I follow. You are only allowed to complain about duels if you want to use them? Doesn’t it make sense that someone complaining about them would want to not use them?
I think that’s fair.
Mainly, what I was thinking, was that the kind of choices and decisions one makes as a PvP’er are likely substantially different to the kind of choices and decisions one would make as a character - that, if you were writing a short story of your character’s battle, it would be unlikely to play out like PvP. For this reason I consider PvP distinct from RP. The psychology of a character approaching a battle is likely to be very removed from the psychology of a PvP’er.
And, unlike walking, which only requires a generic, not specific description - action/ combat is generally considered dramatic enough to spend time describing/ detailing - at least in most kinds of fiction, and, in my experience, in the medium of roleplay - DM’d stories.
I think I said, way, way up there, that unrestricted PvP is good at capturing the chaos , pace, and violence of a battle. I also said I find emote battles boring. So I understand the point of view, completely. But, for me - it’s hard to reconcile my experience of RP-PVP with any kind of coherent narrative, any kind of authentic representation of my character’s actions, as they would occur in “reality”.
I don’t think we’re disagreeing, here, ultimately.
Of course you’re allowed to complain about them- But if you don’t want to use them, then the answer is already for you- Just don’t use them. There’s nothing to discuss.
Well that’s the thing. WoW isn’t some tabletop where you let your imagination do most of the thinking- Not that I am criticizing it. WoW is a Live Action Online Roleplaying game.
Now think on that definition. You’re actually playing out live the actions of your character’s- While seeing the visual elements of it. Not all, of course, but a great proportion of it.
Is it ever perfect? No. But it is a visual element. And evidently since millions of people play this game people like that part about it- Else we’d all just imagine/read stuff. One doesn’t disvalue the other.
But that doesn’t make much sense. I used to do a lot of IC /duel and the like, but over time I have grown to favour pure emotes more and more (for a number of reasons - I have started putting more detail into my characters’ approach to combat, for example). With this perspective in mind, I might want to explain why I have reached this conclusion.
Did you perhaps loose all the time when /dueling?
I began to separate RP and PvP more. I don’t mind PvP in and of itself even if I think there are far better games for it. I did push to duelist once and rival a couple times. But I think my mindset just changed to - ‘is this really what my characters are like?’
How do you represent carefully feinting and baiting out your opponent in a /duel? How do you represent a defensive approach focused primarily on parrying and counterattacking? How do you represent X, Y, Z…
I feel the tradeoff is just too significant.
Well fortunately you and I already know each others points (as you said), so I’m not sure why you’re addressing this to me.
You’re free to post obviously, I just don’t think you’ll get a lot of utility from it.
I am not digging up the argument with you again, I am just explaining why it is a topic I’d want to address in general despite having an unfavourable opinion of it.
Suspension of disbelief is a useful tool. If you can’t suspend your disbelief, I’d say that either your character isn’t suited to the typical environment of an RP-PvP campaign, or you just lack the mindset that allows you to enjoy an RP-PvP campaign, with all of their flaws.
TBH i was just meming anyways with my comment.
If it is an extremely important fight for my character i would probably prefer it to be in an /emote to stick as true to my character as possible
Got it in one!
I went on a campaign with my Alliance shammy and I enjoyed the unrestricted RP there - messy but fun. As a general rule I’m not a fan though, you’re right, and I don’t have many characters that suit it. I think my approach last time was to pick particular moments that impressed me with the visuals, or moments that mirrored my internal vision of a fantasy battle, and sorta keep them as a highlight reel of things that actually happened, threaded together with pure imagination.
Here’s some food for thought.
Has it ever crossed people’s minds that the “glory days” you guys speak of occurred before the mass migration from the other roleplaying realms which were… you guessed it… killed off by people doing the very things people complain about now.
I wonder why that is. :^)
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It doesn’t fit my personal definition of RP, no for the reasons I’ve given above. I’ve never devalued your experiences, and I’m not sure how my opinion could devalue your experience - you enjoyed the experience less because I have a different definition of roleplay? My disagreement shouldn’t be taken personally. I feel like you have devalued emotes as a viable method of conflict resolution and RP, while decrying my apparent devaluation of duelling. It might just be a consequence of having different opinions/ preferences.
Well, no, that’s not my line of argument - I’d argue that the substance of the emotes, not the text, but the content and meaning, is the closest thing to a “true” representation of a character - without getting into semiotics and the limitations of language and yadda yadda. I mean, the game itself isn’t physical, so yeah, nothing written or played could ever be realised physically - I assume you mean there’s no visual representation? But, whether through text or gameplay, what’s written and done is gonna be translated into an imaginary equivalent - and text is much more versatile at capturing one’s character than preset animations. Not that I think you’re arguing otherwise.
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