An Open Letter to Statesmen. (Roleplaying Server)

Dear Statesmen,

I enjoy your game and it's environment because I love comic books, superheroes and roleplaying. As a roleplayer
I intrinsicly understand the interactive nature of an immersive environment and consider it fun when fellow players generate their own original and enjoyable content by merely engaging
in character dialogue and the crafting of consensual stories in the world that you have provided us.

As a roleplayer I have never played an online MMORPG, mostly because I'm not into Tolkein-esque western fantasy and find the contraints of the Lucas universe far too limiting to the development of characters that I would enjoy portraying.

All that changed when City of Heroes was announced, finally! A roleplaying game where I can be teamed with a Norse god, an android, a mutant witch, a cat-woman, a guy in power-armor, and a renegade space alien and it all fits into the same environment and story with little to no conceptual creative dissonance (that group described above by the way, is one incarnation of The Avengers).

This has always been the charm of comics - that the universe is free and open to almost any character conception, allowing for a mixing pot of creative ideas and relationships to flourish.

As a roleplayer I try to entertain those people I meet in the game by portraying my character. The most fun part of the game for me is exploring other people's characters and ideas and creating interesting dialogue and story that adds independent depth to your content and increases my enjoyment of the game.

As a roleplayer I play COH because I want to write my own comic book story with my character, not just watch it unfold, not just see the impressive visual display, but to tell a consensual story with other players.

Unfortunately, I dont meet enough actual roleplayers in this game. As you've yourself, the majority of your subscribers do not read these forums. And while I may one day make the leap to 'Virtue' the 'unoffical RP server' I can only wonder how many other great Roleplayers I'm missing because they are clustered in tiny cabals across a myriad of servers, hoping that when they log on that another roleplayer is on that they know. Or worse, how many people will drop COH as the flavor of the month, because they aren't being engaged in way that stimulates them to be creative?

If there is a large enough percieved audience to add a roleplaying forum, large enough of an RP-audience to make an appearance at Origins convention, then I believe there is a large enough percieved audience to add a "Preferred Roleplaying" server.
I'm not asking for anything as ridiculous as 'enforcement of roleplaying' with the accompanying braying and mewling of the litigious and disgruntled whiners of the RP community, that would make the 'you nerfed me" whiners of the powergaming community look tame by comparison.

What I am asking for is a simple three words "Preferred Roleplaying Server" listed for one of the servers at the start-up menu. I believe it would increase a very loyal segment of your customers enjoyment of the game to meet people who have a similar playing style and as most of your customers do not subscribe to these forums, how else would they ever know?

I will note that World of Warcraft plans to impliment this feature into their community, because they recognize the need for having a place right-up-front where roleplayers can go to meet other people who enjoy their style of play.

And I find this sad, because as I've said, I'm a comic book fan, elves and dwarves leave me cold and bored, give me Iron Man and Magneto over Aragorn and Legolas, give me the drama of Spider-Man over Gandalf anyday, give me a way to help you build a strong community of creative people, please give me a 'preferred roleplaying server.'

Is three words on the log-in screen so much to ask (or even simpler re-naming a server "Roleplaying"), when I hear constantly on these forums nothing but "more content, you nerfed me, my AT sucks, etc". You could wait nine more months for the next content update, and those three words at login would make me happier than ANYTHING you could ever put into the game.

Best Regards, and congratulations on an excellent game and an impressive success, from one comic book fan to another.

Excellently written, i would also like to see an official roleplaying server, hell just making virtue the official one would be enough.

However if a new server opened up with a Roleplay Preferred tag next to it i would reroll there in a heartbeat.

ive sadly seen people get ridiculed for asking about RPing on other servers (even on virtue)

i think a RP server is a good idea.

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ive sadly seen people get ridiculed for asking about RPing on other servers (even on virtue)

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Unfortunately without strict enforcement you'll eventually end up with that even on official roleplay servers. Look at DAoC.

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Unfortunately without strict enforcement you'll eventually end up with that even on official roleplay servers. Look at DAoC.

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I will happily bind /ignore $target to a key to shut out those that come to make fun of roleplaying, if it means I can actually log into the server and have a reasonable chance of finding ANY roleplayers in significant numbers.

'Strict' Enforcement of any style of play is draconian, limiting, and counter-intuitive to roleplaying in particular. I just am looking for a place to FIND the other RP players, as I've said "/ignore" is your friend, use it, love it, move on to having fun.

Unmanageable ideas like "their should be ENFORCED roleplaying" are the reason we don't have a roleplayer server
right now, I assure you.
"Preferred Roleplaying Server" is a much more workable solution. Yes, their will still be powergamers, RP-Haters, etc on that server, who cares? You have a tool to /ignore them, blatant 'griefing' is an offense against the Terms of Service on any server anyway, you have the means to handle beligerent players already.

What you don't have right now (if you don't read the forums) is a place for the significant population of roleplaying players of this game to meet each other in-game.

Preferred Role Playing Server.

Good Idea. Doesn't enforce anything, it just gives a heads up to the new mmoRPg player that there is server that has rpg'ers on it.