Roleplaying quality of life changes and alts

[Nilands]

I understand the good intent behind this post but I would really not want this game to be like WoW where suddenly people have more role-play characters at 80/90 than the amount of brain, personal time and energy required to develop them on a meaningful level.

A huge thing about online RP is that you have to use your imagination to fill in a lot of the gaps. You do not need an alt character for a story NPC or event NPC, imo.

I used to role-play on WoW and up until around Cataclysm, most people had a dedicated character whose story they worked on and developed at length. Then came the age of a million alts and people couldn't decide which one they wanted to use, where people became more fickle and characters became more like coats to try on occasionally instead of something we put any time into developing. I know that doesn't apply to everyone, ofc but I also don't want a shit tonne more IMVU alts running around everywhere. It's jarring enough as it is, lol.

It also made trying to recruit for an RP guild a nightmare.

There's a few consequences to this that aren't immediately apparent, such as character death, no one is going to permit their character to die for even the greatest of narrative reasons if they are going to have to spend 1-2 months now leveling gearing and unlocking blue quests with another character for roleplay. Additionally, NPCs are just extremely useful, especially when made recurring, sometimes even becoming full characters. You'll find that if you simply roleplay enough there is a need for alts and npcs. They will become developed eventually, and recruiting is handled trough quality of roleplay interactions. It would also flourish world rp by increasing the amount of useable areas.

[Shibi]

...better tools are needed.

The other side of the scales is outside of roleplay - it's reputational. It's not optimal to make it too easy for people to roll a new character and be 90 with all glams, mounts, minions straight off, as that removal eases the chances to stalk/harass someone, then delete the character - or whatever.

If there's a cost to an alt be it financial or putting in the time (and I have a few alts gathered over the years), then bad behaviour is controlled a little.

...such as character death...

Character renames come to mind there.

It's the same argument as the openworld PvP thread. Not enough people do in-depth RP compared to change the game away from it's PvE core.

[Nilands]

The other side of the scales is outside of roleplay - it's reputational. It's not optimal to make it too easy for people to roll a new character and be 90 with all glams, mounts, minions straight off, as that removal eases the chances to stalk/harass someone, then delete the character - or whatever.

If there's a cost to an alt be it financial or putting in the time (and I have a few alts gathered over the years), then bad behaviour is controlled a little.

I feel like this is a red-herring non-problem that doesn't actually exist

[Shibi]

I feel like this is a red-herring non-problem that doesn't actually exist

Housing bots, FC sales, and all those associated scams. Do you trust a level 1 selling a FC, or a level 90 with top teir gear and a bevy of mounts?

Read the stalking thread... the humpa-hump roleplay that goes bad so the obsessed makes a new 90 and tries to trick her ex - there is enough discussion of it on the forums.

[Nilands]

Housing bots, FC sales, and all those associated scams. Do you trust a level 1 selling a FC, or a level 90 with top teir gear and a bevy of mounts?

Read the stalking thread... the humpa-hump roleplay that goes bad so the obsessed makes a new 90 and tries to trick her ex - there is enough discussion of it on the forums.

Sounds like a moderation issue to me, and not one the RP should suffer for tangentially. Even if it is 'that bad'.

[Shibi]

Sounds like a moderation issue to me, and not one the RP should suffer for tangentially. Even if it is 'that bad'.

It is, the problems in housing scamming are huge.

I know you didn't think of the rest of the players, or the rest of the game, but your proposal, so you can have level 90 throwaways without any consequence at all, impacts on that.

Limited help is good, like housing tenancies and also being able to friend and mail to yourself. But I think for the safety of the players, it's better that earned reputation remains.

[Nilands]

It is, the problems in housing scamming are huge.

I know you didn't think of the rest of the players, or the rest of the game, but your proposal, so you can have level 90 throwaways without any consequence at all, impacts on that.

Limited help is good, like housing tenancies and also being able to friend and mail to yourself. But I think for the safety of the players, it's better that earned reputation remains.

Trial characters with certain things disabled such as retainers or housing stuff disabled wouldn't affect it. There is a way for rp to improve without dooming anyone else. Doomposting in rp threads about made up problems doesn't really help.

[LianaThorne]

I feel like all this is irrelevant as Square isn't going to gut their profits for roleplay or give people access to current content for free, especially so soon after launch. They make way too much off story skips and job skips (speaking as someone who has multiple alts and paid for multiple skips of both types) to consider not having them as paid options only. They also make way too much off Mogstation glamour to consider account wide options further than mounts. Glamour sells more than mounts, duh!

I'm pretty sure this has even come up before in threads of people saying the game isn't actually "alt-friendly" because of the mentality of: "You can do everything on one character, why would you need more?" I could honestly go on a bit of a rant about the differences of mentality in play here but again, irrelevant.

In a nutshell: Want more characters? Pay up or be happy with what you have.