Quote Originally Posted by LianaThorne View Post
I wouldn't call it "horrendous" per say, but I would say it is heavily money driven (outside of Crystal apparently). And people in my DC at least know that RP venues make money so there are several venues that have opened simply for the purpose of making money through 18+ content. Personally I know someone who is planning to open one in the near future simply for that purpose. I'm not sure if any other DCs experience this (particularly EU/JP) but that's the situation that I'm aware of from Aether.
I have only done a handful of rp in this game and most of it was with fc members, people I know very well. However I do know people who rp a lot and while they have some interesting stories about creeps, my impression is they're the exception not the norm. It seems for the most part the rpers they interact with are just lore junkies using the game as a creative outlet. I did a lot of rp in WoW and again while I have some interesting stories, for the most part people just wanted to create stories. The majority of my bad rp experiences have been due to people who were just bad at rp, not those who wanted to erp. EU servers in both cases. I have no clue how different or similar rp is in NA in both games.

And I'm disinclined to blindly believe that NA is just full of degenerates because many of those who criticise rp in the forums put rp and erp in the same basket. Similar to how many casual players put vocal elitist raiders and raiders who mind their own business in the same basket. Many players cannot and even refuse to see the difference.

At this point I am getting curious enough that I may make a NA alt to have a look for myself. I don't think it's as bad as many say it is, but like I said before I have no experience rping in a NA community. Maybe it is very different.