Pet Peeve: Roleplay servers are EVERYWHERE

[-Wolfdog-]

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while now. I am tired of seeing nothing but roleplay servers!! This morning, when I went to play multiplayer, all 8 games available were for roleplaying! UGH.

I would totally create my own game, but my poor computer is prone to randomly crashing and simply cannot handle hosting a game, not to mention I wouldn't be on long enough to offer a decent hosting experience anyway. I have always loved the realism and gameplay side of Wolfquest, so I take very little interest in roleplays, especially when most will follow the same formula.

What can be done about this? I've waited for well over an hour and games that focus strictly on the game are pretty seldom. Ever since Slough creek was released, Amethyst and Lost River servers have been restricted to RPing only. I just find it so incredibly frustrating how I am "kicked out" of the multiplayer lobby if I am not a roleplayer. And this isn't even the first time I have seen the lobby filled with roleplays...

I'm sorry if I come off as whiny, but really, we need some more variation in these games..

[Loach]

What can be done about this?

Outside of looking for like-minded people to regularly plan games with (like making a discord server and advertising it in the official WQ one) there really isn't much that can be done about it. There is no rule where they're not allowed to host those games. So long as they follow MP rules, they're allowed. RP games like these have always been around on WQ, and in a way they're sort of here to stay. It's simply something that one has to become accustomed to seeing.

[DaniBeez]

Since your machine won't let you host games (too bad!) you may have to network and find other like-minded players as Loach suggested. I'm sure not every multiplayer person wants to RP. Perhaps they will read your thread here and comment.

When I used to play MP, I liked to hunt with other players more than make up a character.

[DinoDogDude209]

I do remember this situation being a very common occurrence back in the 2.7 days, so I find it unsurprising (albeit unfortunate) that it continues to happen now. I guess it just shows that the phrase "the more things change, the more they stay the same" is true in some ways. While WolfQuest as a game has changed massively since the 2.7 days, it seems like the fanbase is still quite similar to what it was back then. That's reflected by the types of servers you see in the multiplayer lobby.

I think it's a shame that it's hard to find a non-roleplay multiplayer server, but I feel like that's just an inevitability for a game like WolfQuest. It seems like a sizable portion of the fanbase consists of avid roleplayers, which is fine, after all the WolfQuest roleplay community has helped to keep the game alive over the years. However, I also think it's important to be inclusive to different types of players who want to play this game, because not everyone is interested in the same things. Personally roleplay is something that I no longer enjoy and haven't enjoyed in several years (I just don't find it fun anymore, and I can't get invested in it the way I used to). When I do play WQ it's either in singleplayer or messing around in multiplayer. For players who don't enjoy roleplay, I can understand why a lack of non-roleplay servers can potentially prevent them from enjoying the game.

I don't play WQ very often anymore (I'm mostly waiting for the saga to come out before I dive back into it) but if you would like to play together sometime, I would certainly be willing to host multiplayer if I have the time to do so. It's just a matter of finding a good time that works for everybody involved.

[Loach]

It can be a bit tiring to have to go through roleplay ones to find generic games, but it's not like role players are ones 'to blame' for it. By calling it an "issue" and a "problem", it's kind of implying that it is their fault there are less generic non-roleplay games, or that something needs to be fixed so that there is "less" roleplay games and more generic ones, when it's neither of those things at all - it's not on anyone that there are more public roleplay games than non-roleplay ones. It's just a reflection that it's more common to find them.

IDK, I just think viewing it as a "problem" is putting an unfair burden or impression of responsibility on role players for there being less "normal" games, when it's really not their responsibility to balance the ratio of types of games you will find in the lobby (it isn't anyone's). Finding those that play the way you like to play and then planning games with them has always been a thing with this game. Even if it were the other way around and roleplay were the rarer game type, it'd still apply.

[DinoDogDude209]

It can be a bit tiring to have to go through roleplay ones to find generic games, but it's not like role players are ones 'to blame' for it. By calling it an "issue" and a "problem", it's kind of implying that it is their fault there are less generic non-roleplay games, or that something needs to be fixed so that there is "less" roleplay games and more generic ones, when it's neither of those things at all - it's not on anyone that there are more public roleplay games than non-roleplay ones. It's just a reflection that it's more common to find them.

IDK, I just think viewing it as a "problem" is putting an unfair burden or impression of responsibility on role players for there being less "normal" games, when it's really not their responsibility to balance the ratio of types of games you will find in the lobby (it isn't anyone's). Finding those that play the way you like to play and then planning games with them has always been a thing with this game. Even if it were the other way around and roleplay were the rarer game type, it'd still apply.

I think you might have misunderstood what I meant in my original post, so I'd like to clarify what I was trying to say.

First, some context. I have a lot of respect for the people who enjoy roleplaying in WolfQuest. I used to be one of them. That was back in the 2.7 days, long before the Anniversary Edition was released. I know that roleplayers have always been a part of the game's community, and without them, I doubt that the game would be where it is now. I do not enjoy roleplaying anymore, probably because I'm older now and my interests and hobbies have changed over time.

Now that I have given some context, I want to explain what I meant in my previous post. I wasn't blaming the lack of "normal" servers on the roleplayers. It's not their fault that roleplay servers have remained popular while other server types have generally become less popular. And I fully agree with you, nobody is responsible for balancing the ratio of game-types you find in the multiplayer lobby. Individual people decide what types of servers to open on the game, and they are entitled to choose what type of server they want to host. In a way, that's what makes video games fun, the fact that you get to choose your own adventure.

When I referred to the lack of non-roleplay servers in multiplayer as "an issue", or as "a problem", I meant that it isn't an ideal situation for the players who don't enjoy roleplay. It's not an issue with the game itself. It's just an unfortunate set of circumstances for the players who do not play the game for roleplay purposes. Obviously the lack of "normal" servers is not detrimental to everyone who plays the game, it's just not ideal for people who don't do roleplay. It might make the game less enjoyable for those people, especially if they can't host their own servers because of an unstable internet connection.

That's why I referred to it as "an issue" and "a problem", although in hindsight I probably should have chosen a better set of words to describe it. It's just an unfortunate situation that people find themselves in, and not really a "problem" or an "issue". The words "problem" and "issue" imply that something has gone wrong, which is not what I was trying to say.

I guess my point is, people play WolfQuest for different reasons. I can see why roleplayers enjoy the game. I also understand why the high prevalence of roleplay servers can be inconvenient for the people who don't like to roleplay. I can see both sides, and I'm not blaming anyone or saying that these circumstances are anyone's fault.

[Loach]

No, I don't really think I misunderstood. I didn't comment on how you personally felt or anything, I commented on your wording specifically, because that is what I had a problem with. Anyone could read it and get a bad and unwelcoming impression from the word choice used, and so that's what I pointed out. It has nothing to do with whether you personally think or feel that way, and everything to do with how you came across. That sort of stuff does matter more than you'd think.

You didn't say something more neutral like "I'm not a fan of how many games are roleplays either since I don't like those anymore, so it's unfortunate normal games are harder to find", you specifically said things like "I remember this being an issue back in the 2.7 days" and that it's 'unfortunately still a problem now'. Such phrasing sounds unwelcoming, unfriendly, and mean. That's pretty much all my comment was trying to elaborate on: how the word choice in your post implied a very specific tone, and how it as a whole comes across.

Basically all I was trying to do was just point out that it sounded very bad because it really does come across like that, fam.

[-Wolfdog-]

No, I don't really think I misunderstood. I didn't comment on how you personally felt or anything, I commented on your wording specifically, because that is what I had a problem with. Anyone could read it and get a bad and unwelcoming impression from the word choice used, and so that's what I pointed out. It has nothing to do with whether you personally think or feel that way, and everything to do with how you came across. That sort of stuff does matter more than you'd think.

You didn't say something more neutral like "I'm not a fan of how many games are roleplays either since I don't like those anymore, so it's unfortunate normal games are harder to find", you specifically said things like "I remember this being an issue back in the 2.7 days" and that it's 'unfortunately still a problem now'. Such phrasing sounds unwelcoming, unfriendly, and mean. That's pretty much all my comment was trying to elaborate on: how the word choice in your post implied a very specific tone, and how it as a whole comes across.

Basically all I was trying to do was just point out that it sounded very bad because it really does come across like that, fam.

Word choice aside, it is still problematic regardless if it is anyones fault. I would suggest for role play and non-role play servers to be clearly separated, and maybe it would at least make non-role play servers more visible or even encourage players to create more non-role play servers once they realize which ones are lacking? I don’t really have any social media. I did try to join a user’s non RP server on the WQ website but that sort of fizzled out.. and the site’s lack of activity does not help. Fortunately, now that summer is here, more games are being hosted than ever before, including non-role play ones so I don’t encounter this problem as often anymore. But to me, there is no denying it can be an inconvenience for players who are not interested in role playing. Maybe it’s more of an organization issue (rather than a personal one against the community) because role play and non role play servers are pretty jumbled up right now.

[Loach]

No, it's not. How people choose to play the game is not 'problematic'. I'm not disagreeing that something could be done to better filter the game types (like perhaps settings to hide certain game tags), but what I'm absolutely against is calling it stuff like problematic when that's simply incorrect and is not true.

It's just a natural result from the type of people that play the game. If anything what's needed is some more QOL, not some hard separation. After all, you can't force people to play the game a certain way, you can only seek out players that enjoy the game the same way you do (as has always been the networking method for games, not just WolfQuest; role players have this down to an absolute science).

So it just seems weird to me to be calling lots of role player games a problem when that's not what it is. It's just an imbalance of types because the types of people that play are imbalanced, and you can't really force people to play how they don't want to play (nor can you really force certain types of games to simply appear if there aren't a lot of people playing that type of game you're looking for).

It's also just feels kind of wrong to judge the lobby by public games alone. There's plenty of private games, but how many of those are roleplay games vs non roleplay ones we do not know. The balance could be the same there (RP > non RP), be the total opposite (RP < non RP), or completely even (RP = non RP).

So imo what's better is more filtration options to not see games you do not care for, on top of the networking that's always been suggested for finding games you like from the start. Networking and gathering people that enjoy the types of games you like in a space that's easy to communicate (like Discord, there's a whole channel in the Official WolfQuest server for sharing discords to find like minded people, and role players use it to great effect, but that's not what it's exclusively for) and plan out games in the best way you can for when there's nothing of interest going on in the actual game's public lobby.

[DinoDogDude209]

No, I don't really think I misunderstood. I didn't comment on how you personally felt or anything, I commented on your wording specifically, because that is what I had a problem with. Anyone could read it and get a bad and unwelcoming impression from the word choice used, and so that's what I pointed out. It has nothing to do with whether you personally think or feel that way, and everything to do with how you came across. That sort of stuff does matter more than you'd think.

You didn't say something more neutral like "I'm not a fan of how many games are roleplays either since I don't like those anymore, so it's unfortunate normal games are harder to find", you specifically said things like "I remember this being an issue back in the 2.7 days" and that it's 'unfortunately still a problem now'. Such phrasing sounds unwelcoming, unfriendly, and mean. That's pretty much all my comment was trying to elaborate on: how the word choice in your post implied a very specific tone, and how it as a whole comes across.

Basically all I was trying to do was just point out that it sounded very bad because it really does come across like that, fam.

I agree that it's not fair to label this as a "problem", so I went back and edited my first post in this thread to better clarify my own personal feelings about this. I promise you, I didn't intend to give off a cold or unwelcoming impression with my original word choice. In hindsight I can see where I went wrong with how I originally phrased it, and I'm grateful that you pointed that out. It's definitely hard to decipher the tone of what someone is saying through text alone, so I edited my post to (hopefully) make it clearer what I was originally trying to say.

[DaniBeez]

Wolfdog and Dino, thanks for voicing your experiences. As a participant in this thread, I would suggest making a formal suggestion in the game suggestion thread for the ability to tag servers with key words (like 'RolePlay' or 'RP') that prospective players can filter by! That seems like a productive way forward.

[rowantobias]

Wolfdog and Dino, thanks for voicing your experiences. As a participant in this thread, I would suggest making a formal suggestion in the game suggestion thread for the ability to tag servers with key words (like 'RolePlay' or 'RP') that prospective players can filter by! That seems like a productive way forward.

tags do exist for this actually! though the ability to filter, i'm not so sure.

[DinoDogDude209]

Wolfdog and Dino, thanks for voicing your experiences. As a participant in this thread, I would suggest making a formal suggestion in the game suggestion thread for the ability to tag servers with key words (like 'RolePlay' or 'RP') that prospective players can filter by! That seems like a productive way forward.

Thanks for the idea, I think a filtering system for different types of servers would be very helpful for players that are looking for a specific type of server.

[DaniBeez]

Not sure I can take or deserve credit for the filtering idea Dino, but I am glad the concept was put into the ideas thread! Your collective observations about player game types are valid. Whether codifying it into the game is simple or not, I don't know enough to say!