Emote Vs Game mechanic Fighting

So I touched on this in the Emote Rolls thread a little but rather than trying to detail that (very interesting) thread I thought I'd pick it up here.

What do people think (and prefer) with regard to Emote Fighting Vs. Using game mechanics alone?

Personally I tend to lean towards feeling that "real" fighting (i.e. Duelling) is much more authentic.

What I mean is that my feelings about RP are tied up very closely with the playing of my character in general. Whenever I create a character I try to ensure that almost everything I do is for an IC reason. Names, class and profession choices all become part of my character's ever-unfolding "story". Even where I choose to quest or how I choose to level can be closely related to the personality I have chosen for my character.

So if I level a character that I want to be an accomplished fighter, I feel that it's important for him to have some measure of skill in combat against other players. So I will dutifully play a lot of BG and learn how to PvP reasonably well with that character. So I then feel that when I get into an IC conflict that escalates to violence, that should be resolved using the game mechanics, including the skills and PvP gear that I have worked hard both IC and OOC to obtain.

That's not to say I refuse to emote fight and that's also not to say that I don't enjoy an emote fight because it can be very creative and fun. But, in general it feels much more authentic to me to settle something with "real" fighting.

Thoughts?

Well if the fighting was duel like and not emotes then i would have to leave half of my spellbook away, since i would risk revealing Skarain being a Warlock. Also there are many spells she simply can't do like fear, death coil, demonic circle, shadowfury and so forth. I do not see how i could ever win in a Ic realistic way without using skills she does not have Ic'ly, leading to use ooc in ic situation. But i understand your way of thinking. If entire world was warriors the thing would work.

I prefer emoting every time.
I'm not a lazy person, I put effort into most games I play, but I'm not going through countless samey raids and dailies to get that specific gear to get the upper hand. It's because this is a gear based game (and not really skill based, other that "when to press an ability") that I dislike the idea of duels being IC.
As for building up your char through quests? There's only so much you can do with that. Eventually you're just going to end up as "X who fought for Y against Z in the land of N", if the quest givers are to be listened too.
I play for story, and more specifics can happen in emoting. Instead of just bashing each other, you can gradually become weakened in places and suffer the fuller effects of poisons and spells.

Skarain wrote:Well if the fighting was duel like and not emotes then i would have to leave half of my spellbook away, since i would risk revealing Skarain being a Warlock. Also there are many spells she simply can't do like fear, death coil, demonic circle, shadowfury and so forth. I do not see how i could ever win in a Ic realistic way without using skills she does not have Ic'ly, leading to use ooc in ic situation. But i understand your way of thinking. If entire world was warriors the thing would work.

So you limit yourself like that aswell in RP-pvp?

since in my experience only one person has been that crazy on DB...

and i can tell you, doing arena's with a priest that can't even bloody fear, is annoying as fuck but fun as hell

Amaryl wrote:since in my experience only one person has been that crazy on DB...

and i can tell you, doing arena's with a priest that can't even bloody fear, is annoying as fuck but fun as hell

Hah Fort

Amaryl wrote:

Skarain wrote:Well if the fighting was duel like and not emotes then i would have to leave half of my spellbook away, since i would risk revealing Skarain being a Warlock. Also there are many spells she simply can't do like fear, death coil, demonic circle, shadowfury and so forth. I do not see how i could ever win in a Ic realistic way without using skills she does not have Ic'ly, leading to use ooc in ic situation. But i understand your way of thinking. If entire world was warriors the thing would work.

So you limit yourself like that aswell in RP-pvp?

since in my experience only one person has been that crazy on DB...

and i can tell you, doing arena's with a priest that can't even bloody fear, is annoying as fuck but fun as hell

Hehe yes, although i haven't been doing PvP on Skarain for -ages-, since destruction is quite easy to counter (dispel Immolate > *point* > "Trolololol!"). Im really drooling after Pandaland, since they will make so much changes that makes destro reliable in combat and i can customize the talent build to what Skarain could actually do Ic
(at that point, she is learning all the time new things)
And if i would be going with ALL limitations.....fought with only the spells she have now (not counting those stolen from other classes, like old school [Blast Wave] or Pyroblast)....She would be fighting with endless [Incinerate] spamm
Waves of Fire Ftw!

I personally don't find game mechanics to be at all important in the way I choose to RP a character. It's ideal, yes, if one chooses a class and plays the char accordingly -- it just makes it easier, since well, let's face it, if your tag says 'mage' people tend to assume you're a mage, even if you just happened to level the character but would rather ICly play a priest.

But well. Using PvP gear, or class, to define your roleplay, seems daft to me. For example, my warlock, Vale, is not a fel-following demon-summoning person. She's merely someone who uses the Shadow to her own ends. She's not a worshipper or devotee though - she's no shadowpriest. So frankly there's no class to represent the idea I wish to get across in my RP.

WoW, as much as I love it, is very limited in terms of the roleplay opportunities it offers. Therefore, while I think everyone should get a good grasp of lore, I think there are so many opportunities for creative roles for characters, that nothing should be defined by class/gear/level, unless, of course, someone is really going overboard (like race needs to be race, and you can't be a teenage vampire, etc).

Annie wrote:
But well. Using PvP gear, or class, to define your roleplay, seems daft to me. For example, my warlock, Vale, is not a fel-following demon-summoning person. She's merely someone who uses the Shadow to her own ends. She's not a worshipper or devotee though - she's no shadowpriest. So frankly there's no class to represent the idea I wish to get across in my RP.

Agreed...by mechanic logic, all rogues can teleport to behind enemies, regain health by hitting things repeatedly, and vanish in broad daylight to utter invisibility? The game mechanics make little to no sense if applied to the world, unless you want to be little anime Dragonball-Z style fighters and have fully plated men casually leaping tens of feet up and through the air, and thin that's realistic?

To be honest, I and lots of others I know, only play the game now for the RP, the -gameplay- itself is at this point aging, repetitive and pretty dull. So if I see someone in top-of-the-season PVP or PVE gear, no, I don't think "goodness, this character is clearly a skilled warrior ic" I think "Man, that guy must have been booored". PvP and PvE is what I do when RP is quiet; I would never see it as a pre-requisite to having a 'skilled' character IC, any more than I would think my characters who are ICly useless fighters had suddenly become more competant because I'd oocly ground honour or lucked out on some loot rolls.

My only reason to level ever is to get access to a wider selection of gear to wear, which broadens the scope of the plays I can engage in. And in case of my mage because I really needed invisibility to play her well.

I prefer "fighting" with emotes because it allows you to show character traits in combat, and it allows you with more ingenious, more inventive ways to fight.

It however often ends in this:
"I shot you!"
"Nuh-uh I have this breastplace of notgettingshot +1"
"But my bullets have bullets of +3 stillgotshot!"

So I prefer my fights to have some level of arrangement, preferably an OOC "judge" that makes rolls based on the displayed emotes, and helps make an unbiased call on what happens next.

I've had good duels IC, but I do enjoy emoting, as I can add my characters reactions, etc.

Morinth is more of a sneaky stabstab than a full on fighter, so I'd most likely be forced to lose just to stick with my own characters rules. If I'm up against a battletank of a character, she'll be snapped in two, simple as. :3 If I beat him in 1v1 combat, it would just be stupid, all he'd have to do is sit on her. XD

However, I do love using combat animations sometimes. Such as a good old fashioned bar brawl, no armour, fists only!

Morinth wrote:However, I do love using combat animations sometimes. Such as a good old fashioned bar brawl, no armour, fists only!

*Sighs whistfully*

What I wouldn't give for a proper in-game emote creator that allows you to bind animations with a bit of red text... <3

Morinth wrote:I've had good duels IC, but I do enjoy emoting, as I can add my characters reactions, etc.

Morinth is more of a sneaky stabstab than a full on fighter, so I'd most likely be forced to lose just to stick with my own characters rules. If I'm up against a battletank of a character, she'll be snapped in two, simple as. :3 If I beat him in 1v1 combat, it would just be stupid, all he'd have to do is sit on her. XD

However, I do love using combat animations sometimes. Such as a good old fashioned bar brawl, no armour, fists only!

This.
Chars IC can be less powerful than they are OOC, and emote fights allow more sneaky-peaks to use their own style other that "jumpy runny smashy smashy"

Ulfrik wrote:So if I level a character that I want to be an accomplished fighter, I feel that it's important for him to have some measure of skill in combat against other players. So I will dutifully play a lot of BG and learn how to PvP reasonably well with that character. So I then feel that when I get into an IC conflict that escalates to violence, that should be resolved using the game mechanics, including the skills and PvP gear that I have worked hard both IC and OOC to obtain.

Thoughts?

To have your game mechanical stats as a measurements of your characters IC skill, power, reputation, gold or whatever is a form of meta gaming. There are several long posts all over the internet about why that is bad for RP.

That being said, if you like to play the game that way, then that is the way you should play it. Just don't expect RPers to see it that way.