Forgotten Kingdoms – The JV (Or JH) Of MUDS (SATIRE…SATIRE…SATIRE)

Based on long, often painful, experience, there are four players on FK that are actually GOOD at roleplaying.
1) Pof Harroghty/any alts
2) Pof Liora/any alts
3) Pof Liric/any alts
4) Some new female Aasimar whose name I don’t know.

EDIT, 8/13/15: This does NOT include “former” characters. Characters that no longer play at all are not “on” FK…they are memories. I thought I would clarify, for the sake of accuracy, that there (of course) HAVE been other good roleplayers…but, generally, it tends to be 3 or 4 at a time. A time being…everyone who plays over a period of several months.

Despite a brilliant background, extensive help files, a remarkably workable quest system, helpful Imms, mostly helpful PLAYERS…

The rest is, from dozens of exposures with dozens of characters, the equivalent of prepping for a real MUD.

The established players, with nothing further to accomplish, simply congregate in a place called “Market Center” (formerly Market Square…the areas of FK are constantly improving, unlike the RP) for hours at a time. Roleplay consists of smiling, giggling, frowning, cheek-pecking, in-breeding, and pointless, useless IC conversation.

I say pointless because all conversations are the same, with a few simple variations.

For example, Pof Lylena is almost exactly like every other character there…BUT, she folds her hands behind her back.

Honestly. That’s all.

THIS is the MUD challenging Armageddon for 2nd place on TMC.

It is an alternate Junior High School hallway, with all of the cliques but not QUITE as much intelligence.

This is a product of HOURS and HOURS of research with DOZENS of characters…many of whom were LOVED by other players. But, unfortunately, with the exceptions noted above (and perhaps a few more…but none that you’ll encounter in Waterdeep) there is a helpless feeling of time-wasting that inevitably sets in.

No matter how detailed the world becomes, no matter how complex and interesting the quests become, no matter how involved the character creation process gets…the roleplay stays the same. The same conversations, by the same people (or clones of them), in the same area, about the same subjects, with the same variations in actual character RP: Lylena’s hand-folding being – sadly – one of the best.

That’s all. Try it. Go on FK, and try to stay in Market Center for an hour, with at least six others, and see a single instance of real, genuine, lengthy, emoted/said/thought/FELT roleplay.

You’ll see plenty of chat that is the same, day after day, over and over, as unchanging as Ly’s hand posture…but if you want a JH clique chat, why don’t you just go in a chatroom with fellow adolescents? Or, as the case probably is, those stuck in adolescence and/or lacking the roleplay ability to do anything except 1) that, and 2) hack n’ slash.

Hack n’ slash is commonly referred to as “Adventuring” there.

Is part of this “sour grapes”, as might be the response?

Sure. It’s frustrating to make a character, give them a personality, find a background and setting and functionality that is PERFECT for them…and then have it ruined, over and over and over, by the inept mediocrity of the vast majority of the other players.

This isn’t just my opinion, either…at least two players (one current good role-player, one good role-player who left because of this reason) mentioned and complained, specifically, about the clique system and their annoyance with it. I imagine, since they avoided the usual Square nonsense themselves in order to roleplay with me, that they also shared my view of the overall RP.

Absolute…truth.

Why do I keep going back? Hope. That small, fragile flower in a field of darkness…and, SOMETIMES, I find another real roleplayer amongst the dreck and endless generations of the same nameless names.

I mean…it’s so CLOSE to being the best MUD ever. If ONLY it had roleplayers.