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.
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