… the Great Roleplaying Community Unification Theory

One complaint one often hears when talking with roleplayers on the Starsider server of Star Wars Galaxies is that the roleplayer community is divided. Often, this is blamed for everything that irks people. According to this stance, everything would be fine if the roleplayers were just united.

I don’t really understand this theory, to be honest. Even if we just take a look at the cousin of MMOG roleplaying, pen and paper roleplaying, it does not work that way. Playstyles are different from group to group, from the “Me kick in the door, slay monster, grab loot” hack and slash fests to “Woe is me, I am immortal yet doomed to drink the blood of mortals” goth meetings. Anyone trying to tell those people that they would have more fun if they were one big group playing together would, in all likelyhood, get asked what he or she was smoking. Now take a look at other hobbies, and the “Unite and we all are better for it” theory fails again. Combine hunting and bird watching? “ohh… look, a specked treesi… BOOOM!” Football and Basketball? Reading and athletics?

But, wait, wait – it’s roleplaying in Star Wars Galaxies, so it’s all the same, so united we stand, dividied we fall and all that!

Yeah, right. This is a game, not a labor union. Anyone who plays the game – heck, anyone who reads the forums – knows that playstyles in Star Wars Galaxies vary as much as the players vary.

We have people with various background knowledge, from “I saw spaceballs once” to “This is not true, George, you meant something else, since in graphic novel 2 from 1981, which you clearly authorised or it would not have been published, there’s a panel on page 3 that shows a TIE Variant in the left corner, therefore…” experts.

We have players with various playstyles, from “I am IC when I am roleplaying, ooc if I do PvE” to “I am always IC. In fact, I am so IC, I don’t play the game!”. We have emote fighters and duellers, we have roleplayers who pvp, RPvPers, and people who hate PvP. We have people who think Star Wars is about the Force and lightsabers and the dark side, others who think Star Wars is just space, people who consider anything but gritty criminal Roleplay boring, and those who just want to play heroes facing evil stormtrooper NPCs.

We have roleplayers who want epic plots, others who want comedy, people who would feel at home in telenovelas, and those who want to feel the bleak drama of life’s suffering hit their characters over and over again until Hiob looks like the luckiest guy on earth in comparision.

Now, why would anyone try to unite all those? Leaving masochism aside, there’s one reason, and it does get back to the labor union thing: United, we would be stronger – when dealing with Devs and non-roleplayers, that is, and asking for more stuff we can use in game.

However, try to unite us in game, and you are not just asking for trouble, you are dragging trouble there, kicking and screaming, and then forcefeed it until it grows exponentially to the point its mass will cause it to collapse in itself, forming a black hole of trouble that sucks up any fun you may have in game.

Just the “Jedi are the best, you are just jealous cause you ain’t a jedi” players and the “Jedi are what ruined the game, they should be extinct” players will guarantee that you’ll see epic conflicts daily – but not in game, and not in character, but on the forums. Add emote fighters vs. duellers, “I follow game reality” vs. “Canon dictates that this should not happen”, “Let me play my character” vs. “You should play this right!”, and the whole united roleplaying community starts to make Somalia look like a peaceful place to take a vacation in – that is if the nice men at the asylum think your medication is working, and let you leave.

In short, roleplayers in Star Wars Galaxies should be separated into smaller, more homogenous communities for their own good. We simply can’t live and let live if we’re playing in the same place.

So, why do people ask to unite the roleplaying community? There are a few possible explanations.

Bigger is better!

Those are people who honestly believe that the bigger the community, the better it is. I don’t really get that – it usually runs counter to “quality before quantity”, and all I experienced was that the bigger the crowd, the bigger the trouble between people, but at least those people mean well. Maybe they dream of big epic battles and plots, who somehow would not turn into petty feuds over whether or not that last move/power/emote was canon/legal/fair or not, started by two people, and rapidly pulling in their entire PAs and allies. I usually get nightmares right after "Epic" is mentioned.

Look at ME!

Those are the players who simply want an audience. Those attention-seeking players are usually convinced that whatever they are doing is the epitome of good roleplaying, and that everyone should see it, and be at awe of such roleplaying. The more people who watch (watch, mind you, don’t take part and mess it up! That’s why we are whispering, so it will fill your spatial chatbox, but you can’t, without evl metagaming, react to it! Just sit back and watch!), the better, so the roleplayers should unite into one big audience!

A variant of that player is the one who can’t stand to miss out on roleplay. Whatever it is – dark side drama, GCW, criminal plots, comedy, soap opera – they need to be involved, and it’s easier to have that if all roleplayers are united, best if concentrated at one point in game. Those people also often play the “jedi/sith/master smuggler/ISB agent/rebel operative/master cook/master dancer/master spy/crimelord all-in-one” characters.

I found the one true way to have fun in roleplaying!

The Messiah. Those people believe that whatever is most fun for them is most fun for everyone – be it PvP, PvE, canon, force roleplay, or dramatic torture. Uniting the roleplayers means converting them too, for those, so naturally they want as many people doing stuff their way as possible – best we can say for them is that they too mean well, misguided as they are.

One player to rule them all!

Those are the power-hungry players. They want to unite the roleplaying community under their guidance, leadership, etc. The more people following their rules the happier they are. Sometimes this is just out of a fear to lose control, and getting forced to bend their own rules, sometimes it is a sincere wish to build a roleplaying community that provides the perfect way to roleplay just like they want, but often, it is a pure conscious or subconscious craving for power. If the roleplaying community is unified, then such leaders gain a lot more leverage. From powerplays using the unity as leverage – “do you want to rip us apart? Destroy what we worked for? No? Then don’t do this, or I’ll have to leave!” – to simple “play with me, by my rules, or you won’t get any roleplay at all” blackmail.

Those people want to unite roleplayers so they themselves have more power, and removing alternatives is a key to this.

I don’t want to do anything!

The lazy ones. They do not want to do anything to get roleplay, preferring to let roleplay fall in their laps. If all roleplayers are united, then the odds of them getting that without making contacts and being active increase – especially if concentrated at one hub- and so they are generally for any unification. After all, the more people, the bigger the chance someone will roleplay with them – or so they think.

I want those people gone!

Those people have issues with other players, and can’t stand them. They are not happy having fun themselves, they want the other players gone. Uniting all roleplayers they see as a way to remove those “Non-roleplayers” through peer pressure or mobbing. One can easily spot those sad if sick people by listening to them bitching about others in ooc chat channels, and generally trying to slander other roleplayers.

Faced with all those, I honestly prefer the roleplaying community as it is: divided into niches, where many playstyles can flourish. For me, personally, I simply want to have fun in game. And I do not subscribe to the Great Roleplaying Community Unification Theory.

...Mos Eisley

Starsider's Mos Eisley – the bad, the ugly and the good

If one mentions Mos Eisley to a group of roleplayers in Star Wars Galaxies, one can be sure to hear a lot of interesting and at times new curse words.

„Spam Central“ and „Mos Lagly“ are usually the first. Understandable, since Mos Eisley is one of the busiest spots on the server, and attracts a lot of credit spammers – to the Starport, to be precise.

AFKtainers are next, especially if one is speaking to a veteran, who remembers Mos Eisley’s past (but often hasn’t been there in months). They are often covered by complaints about spam.

After that, one usually gets the complaints about „noobs“, „teenage sith lords“, „afk dancers“, „Non-roleplayers“ „duellers“ „pvpers“ „griefers“, delivered with varying eloquency, but always with such heartfelt passion that one can almost feel the spittle from the foaming mouth hit one’s face.

The general consensus often is that no one but the aforementioned groups – spammers, griefers, noobs, pvpers and other „undesirable people“ will go to Mos Eisley while the more sophisticated and mature roleplayer will head to (insert your choice of player city), where only excellent people gather whose presence is a privilege for anyone else.

The reality is, of course, as far from those rants as it usually is from any prejudices.


The bad


Is Mos Eisley laggy? Of course it is. Any location with so many people is laggy, if your machine can’t handle it. However, once one is past the starport, one may lag a bit entering the cantina, but in all other areas, the town is usually no more laggy than any other location on the server.

Is it spammy? Again, it is – at the Starport. Real spammy, to the point that some may even crash, according to what one hears. Mostly due to credit farmers. Does it justify the loud and fervent complaints and declarations that one cannot set foot in it?

Not really. Most complainers seem to not know that we can filter out any chat from someone who shows the afk tag. In other „communities“ than the roleplaying one, we’d call someone who loudly whines about something he or she could have solved for a big part by simply checking the game options or asking a question a „noob“. But we’re among roleplayers, who consider themselves above such base creatures as pvpers or webcomic creators, so we will simply point them at those options in the game, and hope they won’t drill out a page long explanation why it was impossible, even unthinkable for them to check such, and why their whining was still entirely ok, and even mandated by their duty to the greater cause of bashing Mos Eisley.

Now, even with afk turned off we are left with half a dozen spammers at the starport – credit farmers, and the occasional player merchant. Now, I don’t have afk spam filtered off, and I still manage to addignore all spammers in about a minute, less than what I usually spend checking my mails when logging on, so I’d say, it’s not as bad a problem as people say.
For those who cannot bear this, there’s a spam-free shuttleport, and travelling from there to either of the two cantinas will be spam free as well.


The ugly (roleplayer)


With lag and spam mostly dealt with, that leaves us to the true source of why many of the roleplayers’ creme de la creme hate Mos Eisley: It’s full of people playing the game differently than they do.

People not familiar with roleplayers might think that means non-roleplayers, but they are wrong. The worst enemy of the elite roleplayer is not the non-roleplayer, but the roleplayer who is not as elite as themselves – the sub-roleplayer.

Picture the elite roleplayer in Mos Eisley: He or she braves the spam (1 minute of /addignore, every day! I could use this time to write another page for my bio!), braves the lag (I lagged 5 seconds entering the cantina, 5 seconds of my immersion being broken and 5 seconds of me being kept from roleplay against my will!), and then suddenly is face to face with people who are as ignorant as not to know that the god of roleplaying just entered.

It is hell on earth! There are non-roleplayers asking for a buff! In spatial!!! Why, that’s so out of character, it hurts my immersion. In between discussing the latest movie in guildchat, joking about SOE in group chat and dissing other players in the ooc chat channel, it hits me right where it hurts, and prevents me from spending 100% of my attention on roleplay! I cannot overlook it, I cannot ignore it, I have to get angry about it!
Of course, there is actually very little of ooc chat in spatial in Mos Eisley, and a lot of it is coming in ((brackets )), therefore from other roleplayers sharing their in jokes with everyone else, but that doesn’t change anything! ANY ooc chat in spatial is bad, bad and bad!

After the poor victim has not addignored the non-roleplayers – after all, how could you get angry about someone’s ooc chat and vent in guildchat if you addignored the character – and got almost killed by the sight of two duelling characters – imagine, people fighting in a hive of scum and villainy! Don’t they know that only Han Solo and Obi-Wan are allowed to fight here? - there comes the real killer: Non-elite roleplayers!

Why, imagine the torture an elite roleplayer goes through, faced with non-elites. They talk about the force in spatial! They mention sith! They have no idea at all that only force sensitive roleplayers using one’s own house rules, and whose bio has been approved by the council of best jedi roleplayers ever have the right to even know about sith and the force! And yet they toss out names like “Dark Side“ and „Sith“ as if they were privy to what those stand for! Blasphemy, mockery of all things jedi! And they have fun! The nerve!

After recovering from this, a new shock awaits. The dreaded clichee! Oh my god, there are escaped twi’lek slave dancers among us. Don’t those people know that there are already too many such characters, and only those who roleplay it right are allowed to play one? Our quota is full, can’t those noobs read our bios, in our player city, and understand that they should play something else? Something more original than an escaped twi’lek slave dancer? The nerve!

But even turning away – again, not /addignoring the offending piece of sub-roleplayer - and venting in guildchat there is no respite. Now come the exotics! How can anyone sane play a character that is a hybrid of two species? Or a race that’s not in the rules? Or coming from a forbidden planet, such as Dathomir, who should not even be in game? Gasp! There is a Sith Lord over there, blasphemy! Only esteemed elite roleplayers such as my mutant bothan-wookiee friend who roleplayed being force sensitive for 3 years before even hearing of the force while on a trip to Dagoba are allowed to claim the title of Sith Lord! And those people have fun! The nerve! Don’t they know that they are not allowed to play special characters?

Now a nervous wreck, the elite roleplayer staggers to the bar, and meets the last menace to the spirit of true roleplaying: The cantina rat. Imagine the horror, there are actually players whose character hang out in bars, dance, drink, and chat, and flirt! Where is the drama? Where is the darkness? Where is the big emotional impact that everyone knows is roleplaying? They are actually hanging out in character! Sharing jokes! Don’t they know that such should only be done out of character, preferabily on forums in threads people ask questions in? Or in ooc channels? This is worse than non-roleplaying, this is... this is... words fail the elite roleplayer at this point. Having fun without big dramatic plots and trauma is not allowed in roleplaying!

Such hurt to the core, and deeply traumatised, the elite roleplayer flees the scene, clearing spam and lag in record time, whining about the sub-roleplayers in Mos Eisley, who are without a doubt cybering right now as well, and doesn’t calm down until long after it has reached home base again, where only true roleplaying is allowed. And after much bitching about noobs, players who call it an elitist and anyone else currently not online, settles down to having fun itself. Those noobs and other sub-roleplayers in Mos Eisley won’t be graced with the presence of the elite roleplayer, that will show them!

Not that anyone there will miss it.


The good


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While Mos Eisley may be ugly for some roleplayers, it offers a lot for other roleplayers.

First, It is a location with a lot of presence in the movies. It has a lot of background, a clear theme everyone knows, scum and villainy, and it offers a lot of various buildings usable for roleplay, from the two cantinas, to street cafes, slum houses, middle-class buildings and mansions. Many are extensively decorated inside as well.

Second, it is a meeting spot, People go there, new players always end up there. Different people, with different playstyles, so odds are, one will find someone with a similar playstyle there.

Third, Mos Eisley is tolerant. No one will be able to city ban you there, even though you carry a weapon openly in a dangerous town. With the possible exception of elite roleplayers, no one will start a shitstorm about you roleplaying a jedi that wears a robe.

Is it for everyone? No. The theme is Scum and Villainy, so people wanting to roleplay members of the nabooian court won’t feel at home there. Nothing wrong with that. There are a number of great places where people have fun, and no one expects people to head to Eisley if they have fun elsewhere. No one would expect people to rant about Mos Eisley in a thread about Theed, duels and emote fighting, or the weather in Greenland either, but some can't help themselves.

However, Mos Eisley is it for some people. We have fun there, the occasional non-roleplayer and ooc chat included. While we might not want to jump into the battle between the sith lord and the jedi master, we don’t freak out that people have fun in ways that others do not.

Is it perfect? Surely not. But it does not deserve the scorn and hate it often gets.