brightclaw22 said:
I've been looking to get back into Role-Playing im quite casual about it and im not usually super heavy on rules so what would be a good game/mmo to start on? Keep in mind im only 15 so I can't spend a huge ammount of money. I am saving up for tabletop games that range from D&D to Warhammer:40k (tau).
i have roleplayed (or still rp on the following games)
warhammer online
Lord of the rings online
RuneScape
Supremacy 1914
I tried Guild Wars but no real community
Any help would be nice ranging from games, servers, community attitudes, etc.
Well, role-playing gets mixed results in most MMOs. I'd generally look towards games that specifically have RP servers, and also high player bases. Posting on the server/shard board for an RP server to see if there are any RP groups/communes/guilds willing to take a new member coming in just for that is also a good place to start.
To be honest, the big place to go for this right now is probably World Of Warcraft, it has multiple RP servers, and most of the RP takes place in low level zones like Elwynn Forest, with people sitting around for hours and hours doing nothing but talking ICly. WoW just went free to play up until level 20, so you could scout that easily, and chance are if your just going for the RP and don't care about the gameplay that much, you could get a full RP community experience because you'd never have to be above level 20 to leave the zones where it happens.
WoW is big enough where it has infamously spawned specialist RP communities as well, while it's no longer the case, WoW was infamous for having a dedicated EROTIC/Adult "roleplay" community on the moonguard server that was almost omnipresent in the goldshire area of Elwynn forest... with "events" that ranged from normal, to eyebleedingly horrible.
Star Trek Online and Fallen Earth are both games that are now FTP that have role-playing communities involved. It seems like I hear a lot of people looking to find RPers in zone chat in STO (I've been tinkering with it). Fallen Earth which I just looked into again (FTP on Steam) HAD a community like that, but I didn't play long the first time I messed with it. Of the two "Fallen Earth" is probably the "cheaper" free game to play (F2P meaning pay for everything, or "trial to sell you a subscription" in WoW's case) is Fallen Earth. Right now you can spend like $5 to buy anything from the store and get a package that will pimp out a character for you in FE (remove cash limits, give you global chat access, etc...). Star Trek Online has improved since it's early days (as odd as that is to say) but the new guys that own Cryptic (Perfect World) seem to be a bunch of cash sucking vampires. They are infesting the game with korean-style lockboxs that appear constnatly in loot and require keys that cost real money via the cash shop to open. This is to say nothing of a recent bit of "new content" that pretty much requires people to drop $6.25 to buy a small craft to play a mission in the storyline sequence. There are a few ways to get a small craft otherwise from what I've heard, but many are not all that accessible especially to new players doing the event right then, and the whole KDF faction doesn't have any options other than purchuses. The only real saving grace to where STO is going is that you can exchange refined dilithium for CPS (the points you buy with real money) to buy things from the cash shop. A free play character can do 8k dilithium a day, and with two characters on an account you can slowly, very slowly, get stuff from the cash shop by playing... but really it's going in directions that I think will kill the game. F2P is generally supposed to be "donation supported" more or less, but STO is going the route of "bottomless korean cash pit".
At any rate this rambling is getting out of hand, but still I'd look towards WoW, Fallen Earth, and STO in roughly that order to try and make some RP contacts if that's what you want, and trying them won't cost you s dime to begin with. If you wind up finding a good community in one of them, you can figure out what it would cost you to be happy there and decide if it's worth it, if not, no loss.
I'd avoid The Old Republic for RP right now, not only would it cost you $50 for the basic game box (and you say money is tight) but I have seen little if any RP at all, never mind people looking for it.
One thing I will mention is that I do not currently RP online, I used to (did a bit in WoW years ago), but mostly just play the games, and make note of where other people are doing it. I might go through that phase again, but to me I personally think RP is best kept to paper and pencil games, or paper and pencil based forum RPG games, and MMOs tend to be best when kept to the gameplay. Opinions vary, but that's how I think. I play online on some RPG sites (Palladium games mostly) and largely focus on blowing stuff up and grabbing loot in RPGs.
Oh and one final note, Champions Online has a decent RP community. I don't play much anymore (but I do drop in from time to time) as a lifetime subscriber, I can't comment on their FTP gimmick since it doesn't effect me when I drop in, but I imagine the end result for non life members is similar to STO because it's being run by the same guys. The only thing about the RP community on Champions Online is that it's almost exclusively based around very specific kinds of RP that would seem a bit odd given the very campy four-color super hero vibe of the game. That is to say you've basically got people who like to hang out in the nightclub RPing fallen angels, demons, vampires, werewolfs, and other various emo - goth types and go off about how dark and angst ridden they are for hours on end. Almost like a White Wolf "World Of Darkness" community hiding in a superhero game. I don't hang with them, but they are actually easy to find (club is right off the town square in Millenium city). You can find someone to RP with there easily, but keep the general theme in mind, it should be obvious when you see it. You might also want to make it obvious your a 15 year old, that won't shock anyone, but it will probably prevent some awkward situations, to say there are some pervs involved with be an understatement, but they don't generally chase kids. You might think hiding that fact at your age and going for it would be a good thing, but your liable to PO someone in there if you go looking for a connection and someone finds out. I mention this last because while free, I really can't tell you with much authority what kind of gameplay experience it offers to free players, since I didn't pay much attention to what the cut offs would be if I wasn't lifetime (which should sort of demonstrate how infrequently I've visited since they went FTP).
