Ranting about RP in an MMO

I've harped on this before, but I guess it's time to harp on it again; I really hate bad role-players. And not just any type of bad role-playing but the type that actually makes fan fiction look good. The type of people that think they are role-playing just because they like to describe every insipid, pointless action and call it an art form. This isn't role-play people, this is boring exposition and like it or not, role-playing isn't about boring exposition.

I use to be big into role-playing a long time ago, but I came to the realization that role-playing is practically a dead medium in the MMO industry because of the simple fact that no one can actually accept that they are not a unique little snowflake, and the potential that their character could lose to anyone else is a cardinal sin. Not to mention, it disgusts me immensely people expect me to take someone at face value for a level 1 character is suppose to be the next savior of the universe, or a god-like being when they wouldn't even have hope 1 in hell of defeating my character. God moding your character doesn't make you a role-player.

The ones that really annoy me are the RPers that don't even take the 5 minutes to read up on the lore basics and actually try to fit their character into the universe they are RPing in. In fact, many of the so called RP characters are blatant rip-offs of other, well established characters from other mediums that can't even fit in the universe that is being offered. And instead of actually fitting in, they stick out like a sore thumb on a yeti in the middle of a green park.

It's things like that that really drive me nuts. And that's not even getting into the fact that when people sit down and just write their paragraph worth of exposition to describe taking a sip from a goddamn drinking glass, they can't even be bothered to use the proper tense for the sentence and that really irks me to no end. Example: Would take another small bite and speaks after she swallows. What? Did you take the bite or didn't you? Use proper tense and grammar damn it. And why do you need to tell me you are speaking, when if you are using proper punctuation, it should be bloody obvious? You are not the Shakespeare of the gaming world people so stop trying to write like you're a literary genius in the making. And quit trying to write everything with pointless exposition that doesn't mean a goddamn thing. This is what separates professional authors from fan fiction writers.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love to RP, and I love to try and RP in MMOs, but the fact some of you don't even try really kills that immersion half of you bitch about but don't even bother sticking to yourself. And don't sit there and try to describe every inch of your action just to say you stifle a yawn; that is not good role-playing. In other words, quit trying so hard to sound impressive when you are making yourself look like a tool.

Maybe it's the lack of tools in the medium (but then again, in UO the RP was top notch and the number of physical emotes we had was two) compared the tripe we see in the modern MMO. In the end, it's just getting bad and a complete turn off seeing so much immersion breaking and bad RP being used.