Zam's Article on the RPC

[Kylin]

Front page exposure for us, woohoo! Be sure to check it out when you get the chance.

 

http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=23012

 

Edit: The responses to the actual Zam thread are kinda...depressing.

[Tadir]

Good article. Not the response in the comments I was hoping to see, but if they want to stay away from our server, that's up to them.

[Kylin]

The problem with the responses is this: If Zam's users don't give a semi-decent response to the article, there's a high chance the admins won't bother posting future stories about us after launch.

[Seraphine Felstar]

Yeah, the comments are rather... sad. It sucks to get stereotyped. The article itself was very nicely written and I think represented us all excellently. Thank you Castiel for the huge effort to get the word out there and all the hard work you're doing to earn roleplayers a bit of respect from the Final Fantasy community! Much appreciated!

 

Is it alright if we post our own responses if they're polite and civil?

[Kylin]

Please do post responses. At the very least, we can start a civil discussion. With Gamescon underway, our article is going to be swept away under the new FF14 info as is. Really bad timing for the article for us I think >.>

[Kashemia]

It's a pretty nice article, and I think you did a good job of representing the community, Castiel.

 

The comments doesn't surprise me. It seems VERY common for non-roleplayers to have close to zero understanding of what roleplayers actually are/what they do. I've heard the idea that roleplayers are all bad players/don't care about the game/all cyber/all are geeks/etc. way more than I can count. I do hope it doesn't scare Zam away from working with us again.

[Kylin]

Thanks guys, was hoping I did a good job with the interview ^^;. Maybe I'll see about posting the full interview transcript up. There were a lot of questions but the actual article had to be shortened no doubt just so people could read it.

 

For those who don't understand what a big deal this is, I'll try to put it into perspective. There are 3 major general FFXIV sites: Zam, Core, and Eorzepedia. Each one generates enormous traffic of thousands of players.

 

Statistically, Zam provides the RPC with over 20% of our redirect traffic. This is a huge statistic. In comparison, Eorzepedia is responsible for about 10% of our redirected traffic. Shockingly, Core is only responsible for about 2% of our traffic despite its massive numbers and the insane amount of times I've posted the RPC link there. So yeah...Zam's support is a really big deal for us.

[Tyriont]

The term "vocal minority" springs to mind. Those commenting aren't the people we're wanting to attract anyway and the crew running Zam have been in the game long enough to realize that way more people read articles than comment on them. If a bunch of people who don't take the time to look into what we're about instead of going "Hurr RP lol" and slapping their dicks against each other don't like us then that's no real loss to us.

 

However, in looking over the comments I don't see anything to worry about. I really haven't seen anything truly mean-spirited in the whole 8 replies thus far. As far as responses go, I'd advise caution. As I said, I really don't think that there's much negativity at all, just a little light prodding...and hell, we poke fun at ourselves in worse ways than I've seen in what's there. If we get a bunch of RPC members posting essentially the same information (and I think Brin did a good job in his post, with little that needs expanding on) it just makes us look like we're all butt-hurt over some fairly innocuous comments.

 

The interview was good for what we're needing at this point. Frankly, I think the lack of the truly vitirolic comments is a very positive change given some of the responses I've seen to RP posts on the Zam boards in the past. At the end of the day, there's really not much to comment on in relation to the article. I think most who would read it who would be interested in it won't post. They'll read it, go "oh, cool" and move on, possibly making a mental note to watch for an announcement when we do settle on a server.

 

Pageviews are the true measure of an article's success, which we don't have access to.

[Mycroft]

Yeah, I am sad to say that the Core isn't that RP friendly.. I've made sure to post a link to the RPC in every thread asking about RP unless someone had beaten me to it.

 

Nevertheless good article, and great work Castiel.

Your enthusiasm about this really shines through.

[Kashemia]

I agree that the comments haven't been that bad at this point, so I don't think we have much to worry about either.

[Smiling River]

I don't think we should go on the defensive, but just saying the same thing we are here such as "good read" etc. will give the comments section in general a more positive vibe.

 

The comments so far just confirm what we all knew, people are ignorant of what RP is. It's painful to see it every time we are publicly mentioned, but there it is.

 

Btw, Castiel hopefully traffic from Eorzeapedia will pick up once our podcast there gets going.

[Trizzip]

It's my opinion that the biggest cause of the gaming community's dislike towards roleplayers is purely the fact that they are not informed on what we are about. From what I know, history has proven time and time again that ignorance leads to fear, anger, and hatred. It's kind of ironic because you would think those gamers would relate with how we feel, as there are many adults who don't even game and constantly grief other adults who do game.

 

If any of these folks were to lend an ear to our words and actually know the truth about roleplayers, I feel confident that there wouldn't be as much animosity towards us. Informing the community is probably the best thing we could do (coming from a respectful position of course).

[Aveline]

I posted over on that thread and already the rate-down trolls have descended. That's always nice.

[Seraphine Felstar]

It's the age old problem of some people aren't willing to listen no matter what you say. Honestly though, that's not the kind of person I think most of us would want to hang out with anyway. We're all fairly open minded and respectful of other peoples opinions so it would just cause problems to have someone who doesn't care to hear others out around. Lets let those who are going to flame us say whatever uneducated thing they want and respond in a mature manner so we'll end up ahead of the game.

 

I'll just be happy if word gets to even a few roleplayers who are interested in what we're doing here and gains us some respect within the community.

 

Again, I just gotta say a big huzzah to Castiel and a pat on the back to all the members here! A few years ago we never would have gotten this type of publicity. I think for the first time we have a real shot of being heard.

[Kima wolf]

wow nice article indeed. and the comments after did not seem that bad to me, it actually looked like some people even came away from the discussion so far with a more open mind and understanding that not all Roleplayers try to force their game on others or sit around in taverns all night /erp for hours on end. Unfortunately many people have had bad first impressions with Role players and thus ruins it or makes it harder. Hell even as a RPer i've run into others who whine and complain about ANYTHING needlessly, just to start drama, or try to tell you if your "RP" is right or wrong. And we all know there are RPers out there who are very much like that so i can imagine what non-rpers deal with.

 

Roleplaying will always have a certain stigma attached to it which has been with it since the DnD days in the late 70s, that won't change, but what can change is at least convincing people we're not "the anti-christ" or anything and out to ruin/take over their gameplay with ours, and from reading the thread so far, it is nice to see no "angry" RPers get in their and just go off on everyone, you've all kept calm and cool heads plus you have posted intelligently, which will go a long way.

[Trizzip]

Yar, I'm overall happy with the end result. For the most part, it looks like we already brought a good bit of realization to their eyes.

[Asyria]

I'm certainly happy.

 

I MUCH prefer to see "I'm not going to roll on their server because I don't enjoy their presence" than seeing "I'm going to roll on their server just to grief and troll them" as was the case in WoW even though there were official dedicated RP servers there.

 

From my experience roleplaying in Champions Online, I think we should be fine, especially since we have taken steps that the CORP didn't back then, in showing our nice smiling face to the rest of the community.

[Gavin]

Hmm, I think role playing is dangerous. I heard about people being kidnapped and forced to create a back story. Scary stuff!

 

All nonsense aside, I have never role played. But in ANY game I played, whenever I saw open role playing it just enhanced the experience for me. Especially when it was well done. It's because I enjoyed those observing those little moments why I decided to try and give role playing a chance this time around.

 

 

And as a side note: I'll take the WORST RP over an average conversation on the WOW trade channel any day.

 

 

SO if the worst that will happen is people who hate role players decide to role a different server, that just sounds like a win/win situation.

[Seraphine Felstar]

The first time I saw people roleplay in FFXI was when I was about level 10 running through the Ronfaure. There was a hume girl and guy sitting by the river talking about how his backstory. I remember thinking it was a bit like watching a movie and I actually sat down some distance from them and read the entire thing

 

Note: Sometimes WoW trade chat makes me lose my faith in humanity

 

I'd say that was a definite step in the right direction for the RPC and overall I'm happy with the results.

[Tyriont]

People who are always IC don't give us a bad name either. Those who do are the public ERPers.

When you think about it, NPC's are always IC. Just look at Baderon and his pirate talk. Even the non-RPers think its cool that he talks like a pirate. Why would that be different if it was someone's character talking like that? No reason at all.

 

They do when they're the ones who insist on going "I've not heard of this 'weapon skill' of which you speak" or insist on writing macros which throw "Altana deliver us!" in party chat every time they hit cure (both examples I've personally witnessed). It's those types that people mostly complain about - and the problem is, since most of us are respectful of those who don't wish to be involved in RP and don't force it upon them, that type of player is the one they have most experience with - leading them to assume we're all like that.

 

I think we can all agree that especially once you hit endgame in an MMO, RP can get in the way of accomplishing certain events. I think back to the CoP static I was a part of in FFXI, which contained several current RPC members. We were in character for the most part, but we certainly dropped out to discuss strategy and focus on the fights, especially once we approached the end of the storyline. There are people out there who refuse to do even that much and a number of the commenters (several of which seem to have revised their opinion, so kudos there) seem to have the belief that all RPers do that. Again, it's because that tends to be the type they've had most exposure to.

 

Fortunately things like this interview, the incorporation of the RPC podcast into a setting with a larger audience and various other initiatives undertaken by RPC members give us a golden opportunity to change that viewpoint.

[Asyria]

Oh I agree then.

Though macros on spells are kinda cool, they get old very fast.

[Kashemia]

I think one thing that is important for roleplayers to realize is, that there's a difference between playing in an official rp server and an unofficial rp server. In games where there is designated rp servers, you can expect people to rp, or at least expect them to expect you to be, so going "I don't know what this swordskill you talk about is" in /say on an official rp server is ok in my book.

 

On an unofficial rp server however, we can't expect that people are there to rp. We have to realize that we're just a small part of the server, and that you might have to tone down your IC time a bit. I think it's extremely important to be flexible and not just stand on your right to rp in every situation. As Tyriont wrote, there will be cases where roleplaying can slow you down, or get in the way of prgress, and while it can be fine in a guildrun where you might focus on a story, if you group with non-roleplayers, it's just as unpolite to force the roleplay on them, as it is to disrupt roleplay events.

 

I'm not saying anyone here does that, it's just to discuss some general ideas of behaviour in the community, that might help people get along better ^^

[Asyria]

That's exactly what I said in the Zam Article thread over there on Zam. ^^

 

Maybe some of them were annoyed by RPer on a -RP Server- in WoW, but they can only blame themselves for rolling there if they're annoyed by it. Things like that are what cause problems between RPers and non-RPers. Idiots roll on a RP server and get annoyed that people RP.

 

That's why I prefer not having dedicated RP servers. The RP community is much stronger because it needs to be, and we all have to be more mindful of each other. I think it makes for a more pleasant gaming experience all over.

[Kashemia]

Yeah, I agree with you on that, Asyria. Roleplayers are more used to being the minority, so I think we can handle unofficial rp servers ^^

[Tadir]

I'm sure we'll be fine. I wish they would give us the ability to make chat channels though. It'd be nice to have a global rp channel.