EDIT: Thanks to Dante I have received a lot of inquiries in regards to what is roleplay, and people generally interested in roleplay. This is excellent! I am so excited. So to answer inquiries and hopefully get this kick started. I have made a lengthy post on what is RP and how to define your character.

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The general forum seemed to be a more appropriate place for this topic rather than any of the RP sub forums.

I'm trying to figure out how many people are still around that are still interested in Roleplaying. Ive advertised a bit in [c.
I'd like to attempt to get a bit of consistent lore / rules set up, if anyone is interested in this please respond or PM me here or in game.

I'd like to actually get a list of people together who are interested in RP so people know who to contact in game if they would like a bit of RP action.

Forum name / IGN - RP Character name (If different from IGN)

Cherie - Cherie/Crim(Pet Cu Sidhe)

I've removed the list for now, but you can still contact me in game for RP.

Please post below any and all discussion regarding RP and restarting the RP etc. Also, please give me your IGN so I can add them to the list. I'd like to get a count of apx how many people we have interested in RP again.
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Defining Role Playing

Dante had already touched on this in another thread, however, I had a great number of inquires about what is role play? How does one Role Play? So let us define role play.

Role Playing is taking on the personality of a character and only speaking and acting in a manner that said character would speak and act.

For example, I may be a nice person in real life, but my Character, Dr. Evil sticky hands, is a Necromantic thief. He doesn't care about you, your well being and he will use whatever tactic to get ahead. He will cheat, He will lie, He will steal.

What you must realize is this is just a character, like in a movie. I am not this character, Just like an actor is not this character in real life. Please do not hold actions against a player when they are out of character (OOC).

 
Terms:
 
RP: Role Play - Role Playing is taking on the personality of a character and only speaking and acting in a manner that said character would speak and act.

God Character – God characters are characters who are overpowered. Generally characters who are basically perfect in every way, and have no downfalls. They cannot be harmed, they dodge every hit or attack, always. They have godly combat abilities. Characters like this are frowned upon, unless they are actually A GOD. Having no way to counter such characters make role play much less fun or enjoyable.

IC: In character – This means a person is currently in character, playing the role of that character

OOC: Out of character – This means the person is currently not playing the role of a character, and may talk about things not related to the character or game. May engage in normal chit-chat.

When a roleplay session is currently active but someone needs to say something OOC, like “BRB”, OOC is generally denoted by double parenthesis, (( )), for example ((BRB)).

Emote/Action – This is a term indicating an action that a character may be preforming but cannot physically preform said action in game.
An emote or an action is generally denoted by asterisks, **, for example *Laughs nervously* or *stubs toe and then hops around hold foot*.

UO has a build in mechanic in the chat system for just this if you do not want to physically type out your asterisks ,**. If you type colon space, : , then your action UO will convert it into an emote with asterisks. For example “: dances” will translate into *dances* and will appear a different color from your normal speech.

Other Chat mechanics include Whisper and Yell (Copied from wiki, cause im lazy.)

Whisper - Use a semi-colon ";" followed by a space (e.g., ; Psst, wanna buy a chicken?). Whispered text can only be "heard" by characters immediately adjacent to you.

Yell - Use an exclamation point "!" followed by a space (e.g., ! HELP!). Yelled text can be "heard" by any character up to a screen and a half away.

 

 
Introduction to Roleplay

Things to consider when making a role playing character.
 
Do I want to make a separate character for role playing purposes?

• You may want to consider making a separate character for Role playing purposes if you dont want to associate your main toon's action with your role playing character's actions. For example, if you are a nice person, but your role playing character isn't a nice person, and you dont want people to mistake the two.

• For consistency purposes it is a good idea to think of a personality for your character before hand. (or you maybe be called on it by other players) Things to consider are: Name, Nickname/Aliases, Age, Specialties, Appearance, and background. If you are confused, please view some of the character sheets on the RP introduction forum. http://uoevolution.com/forum/index.php?board=43.0
• You dont have to post a character introduction. You can keep all this information to yourself, and let other players discover as they role play with you. If this is the case, you may at least consider posting your character's appearance unless you feel like describing it to each new person you RP with.
• Personality: You want to consider how your character may act around other people. If they are shy or outgoing, silly or serious. Do they hate men, hate women? Do they hate Humans, Elves, Orcs, or gargoyles. Are they scare of spiders? (Even people who 'are scared of nothing' still have fears & phobias).
• Are they Good, Evil, Neutral? You can even go as far as describing them in the DnD fashion. Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, True  Neutral,  Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good,  Chaotic Neutral,  ChaoticEvil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29
• Please do not make a god character. Every character should have some kind of draw back because no one is perfect.
   
  • Example: Your character may be an almighty paladin, and as such he refuses to hit or attack female characters, even if he is being attacked.
  • Example: Your Character is the fiercest of swordsman but he has an unhealthy fear of snakes and spiders.
  • Example: Your character is an amazing fencer, but has tunnel vision when fighting and as such is vulnerable to attacks from behind.

• It might be amusing (if we can find a mechanic for it) that if this kind of speech occurs in a public place a character can be jailed or fined.

I have a RP char but i dont want it linked to me :-(

I understand, For now I've removed the list. Im not sure the best way to get RP started without peoples character names, other than events, and thats a little too formal than what I'd like to start out with.

I'm definitely in. I think this could be a great asset to the shard. There's different things that can be done to identify RP'ers. a guild with the moniker [RP] just to identify people, or a piece of clothing that is a certain colour for some idea's. 


Maybe a meeting once a month where we talk out of character to sort of see how people are liking it, what do they want to see more of, less of.


I think the like or dislike of races should be upto the individual role playing, they could develop a back story where they find gargoyles pompous and so they don't like them, or orcs being brutish and dumb. Or they may not care, or they could hate everyone equally or only care about the gold in someone's pocket


There are lots of in game systems that greatly expand the RP experience, someone wrong you? put a reward on the bounty board. be a trader, be a beggar, be a wandering knight, the options really are wide open.

 I definitely agree. As for the identifying RP, I made a suggestion for an RP TAG http://uoevolution.com/forum/index.php?topic=6917.0 I dont know anything about programing but since Kane is very busy, I was thinking about muddling around and seeing if I could figure out how to make it, on my own test server. I feel like it should be very simple (I could be wrong)

I dont really like the idea of a guild for the RP tag. The reason being is that leaves out a lot of elements for role playing guilds and camaraderie. On top of that, some people MAY be playing with their main toon. I, for example, will be playing Cherie as a character. I don't plan on being inside RP at all times, but I have no problem engaging in it when anyone wants too.

I also think that liking or disliking should be up to individual role play. That being said though, I really think we need some lore or a driving story behind it all. That kind of thing, even if it isn't in the forefront, acts like the glue and the driving force to keep role play together. People can choose to do whatever they like, but the lore and/or back story is there as a reference and grounding point.

Kind of like.... Whats going on in the world? Are there major factions running certain portions of the world? are they good or are they evil? are the neutral. Has there been some kind of cataclysm? Is there war, or is there peace? are there giant evil monsters that need to be taken down, that are controlling things from afar?

I also, very passive aggressively, talk about new maps/player run towns. I think its pretty essential for there to be a RP town. Strictly RP. A place that people can go to look for RP. The more I think about it, the more i think that it is necessary and crucial to the success of role playing. Just... A PLACE, for people to gather.

I'm gonna make a character that is exclusively RP, just to help keep it seperate, and when I RP I don't have to worry about outside influence of people seeking my main toon, I can just RP and have fun with that character, then switch back.


Do we have a town, that we are looking at for RP?


I can look later, and maybe come up with some suggestions.

The history of Sosaria is posted on our wiki, also read the roleplay section, lots of good info there. 

Roleplaying:
http://uoevolution.com/wiki/index.php/Roleplaying

Glad you are all bringing some rp back, let me know how I can help!

History of Sosaria:
http://uoevolution.com/wiki/index.php/History_of_Sosaria

I'm gonna make a character that is exclusively RP, just to help keep it seperate, and when I RP I don't have to worry about outside influence of people seeking my main toon, I can just RP and have fun with that character, then switch back.


Do we have a town, that we are looking at for RP?


I can look later, and maybe come up with some suggestions.

I'm aware of the history of sosoria. Before I go and read through all of that, is it only the history of Sosoria, or is it specific to the shard? I'm look for shard specific lore. I have no intention or desire of Role Playing Ultima lore specifically. Evo isn't OSI.

Also, Do those RP guilds even still exsist? Elves, Orcs, Pirates, Gargoyles?


You can make your own lore, np

Isn't the EVO lore the sosaria lore, if you go back and watch interviews with Richard Garriott, he says basically the crystal was once whole (the original server where they found they couldn't handle the number of players.) it was broken into shards (all the servers they implemented) and he basically wanted them to be the same (part of the original crystal) but have their own function and existance along side the others.


Evo is no different, the lore for Evo after the shattering could be something like in a great war long ago the tinker guilds and the tamers and the mages were called on to create great items and creatures to help us push, we stood no chance without their help, many many months of hard fought battles, lives lost, but eventually the tinkers and mages made items to help soldiers operate better on the field (Bank Crystal, teleport crystal, stat crystals, etc) and the tamers bred great beasts. (Evo dragons, Phoenix, etc etc)

Isn't the EVO lore the sosaria lore

Isn't the EVO lore the sosaria lore, if you go back and watch interviews with Richard Garriott, he says basically the crystal was once whole (the original server where they found they couldn't handle the number of players.) it was broken into shards (all the servers they implemented) and he basically wanted them to be the same (part of the original crystal) but have their own function and existance along side the others.

Evo is no different, the lore for Evo after the shattering could be something like in a great war long ago the tinker guilds and the tamers and the mages were called on to create great items and creatures to help us push, we stood no chance without their help, many many months of hard fought battles, lives lost, but eventually the tinkers and mages made items to help soldiers operate better on the field (Bank Crystal, teleport crystal, stat crystals, etc) and the tamers bred great beasts. (Evo dragons, Phoenix, etc etc)

Took me forever to stop calling various servers shards when games besides ultima online came out.

OK Here is a rough Generic Intro to lore of EVO, I just wrote up. Its not anything evo specific at this moment. I'm trying to decide on how to transition into that.

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Story as told by an old sage.

 There are many stories, legends, in our tongue. But perhaps the least told of these stories is the history of our world. Yes, I know, 'Ive heard these stories a million times' you say. You've heard of Mondain. You know of his treachery. You know of the Avatar, the shining paragon of the eight virtues. The one who save Sosoria countless times. The one who stopped evil, who single highhandedly stopped a war. You've heard these legends since you were a child. Are they history, or are they long tales, told to inspire nations? To inspire peace?

 
Let me tell you of this story a portion you may not have heard. Did you know when the Avatar defeated Mondain, not only did he smash the Gem of Immortality, but in the process the World Gem was also shattered? Whats that? You have never heard of this world gem? It was an amazing feat. The physical embodiment of the metaphysical. The World, Life, and everything that existed in our reality, a gem bound with great magics. What Mondain sought to do with such a gem is anyone's guess, but I can assure you it could not have been pleasant.

 
The destruction of this gem, might I add, was purely by accident. You see, the avatar was actually a clumsy awkward fellow. Not at all as knightly and radiant as the stories claim. But really, that is neither here nor there in this tale.

 
When the World Gem was shattered, it could have been remarkably catastrophic. Any number of things could have happened. Perhaps it could have lead to the destruction of everything, the world and the universe it sat in. Much worse the spell Zog received from that Xorinite wisp, so many thousands of years ago. Silly man. Upon the shattering of the gem, there was a much more unexpected result. The world BURST APART. (The old sage laughed at your startled reaction) Alright, maybe that isn't what happened per se, however, The world did become many worlds. The Universe became a multiverse. All existing within their own realities separately from one another. Each world, or shard, as they are sometimes referred to by those who know they exist, started as a copy of Sosoria. Some shards fared better than others. Some shards of the world gem were so badly damaged within the shattering that they could not support life at all. Other shards were so drastically altered  from magical feedback of the destruction that they did not resemble Sosoria at all. It is not known if they original reality survived, or if it just became one of the many. The shock of the split was felt by those realities that were more drastically altered, some didn't realize it at all, and to this day may not even know.

 
As time passed, these realities grew vastly different from one another. Some souls have managed to make the journey from one reality to another. Every tales told has been different from our own understanding of reality. Some histories are the same, other are vastly different. The Good, The Evil, The War, and Peace. 

 
But none, exactly, as our own.
 

I'm trying to be careful to not overlook any shard lore in form of custom quests, etc. Please point me in any direction you see fit. Like I said I would rather not trample on any stories as I am new to the shard. I am currently looking into Demented tinker, mistas, Venca, and Kas. (Thanks Tiea for the suggestions). At this moment I am trying to avoid any race lore. While I know at the moment there is little/no RP going on. I'd like to avoid screwing with anyone's visions on how they would like to play their racial character.

Did you guys know that Ultima is really a Sci-fi game disguised as a fantasy game? xD The place Mondain retreated to was a space station. And the Avatar had to take a shuttle to the space station to defeat mondain and Minax. (Please reference Ultima 1 & Ultima 2)



That being said, screw the lore I'm RPing Star Trek. :D

Yes I did, check the box art for ultima 2. If you rp Star Trek I'm rping a Klingon.

So I was talking about it to someone, and they had this hilarious idea of a cyberpunk street samurai (Shadow run style), who was in cryostasis in the space station over sosoria. Gets thawed out, sent to the surface, only to find out that the planet is back in the dark ages. (Because obv, The society Zog was a part of was a technologically advanced society. Either that, or Sosoria is really apart of the star trek world, and Star fleet has had a space station over the planet to observe, yet not cross the prime directive. )

Anyways, we actually RPed it a bit. It was pretty humorous. Fella gave my poor elf some stim patches. (Dunno if it was nitro, cram or bliss in those things, but needless to say, its not something she had ever experienced before.) Hahahahah. But that Street Samurai sure enjoyed real alcohol rather than Synthohol.

Ok, Back to trying to figure out this lore for me.

Also, Do those RP guilds even still exsist? Elves, Orcs, Pirates, Gargoyles?

I'd be interested in RP pvp!  Maybe get guilds to war each other.  No killing BB or events.  Etc etc !


Yes the concept was to use alt chars, that were not powerful and use a simple rule set to pvp evenly.  Kind of like the naked fistfights that we run.  Simple gear, pvp, and a lot of fun storming a fort.  It was going to be set up like an event - make sure you read my role play section for the complete concept

Well as I have stated before, I am not interested in PvP RP, however that doesn't mean that it can't happen. I'm just of the opinion that PvP in UO is terrible. The problem with Guild wars is that it requires 2 active guilds. We don't have two active guilds of RPers at the moment. There are people in game though Who RP PKs and what not. I ran into one the other day, luckily it was in tram, and they weren't red, but they were def a role player.

I set up and recruited players to head up each rp guild.  there was a lot of excitement when I had a group/orc clan from another shard want to bring 30 players here.  I set up a guild town for them in Yew Felucca.  I was disappointed when their clan leader did not approve their chapter to move shards...so after this disappointment I wanted to try and do this concept ourselves, but ultimately I did not find any solid RP leaders/players that understood the concept

 When the world split, ours seemed minimally effected. Those who realized it were ridiculed and called lunatics. The Avatar was hailed as a hero. Well, I suppose he was. Or at least he became one. No one really knows from whence he came to where he went. But I do have my theories. 

 
The avatar supposedly flew through the air as a god in a chariot of metal and fire. He defeated Mondain, He defeated Minax, He defeated Exodus, He became the Shining paragon of the eight virtues (The sage glances at her notes. ) Yada, Yada, yada.  Ends a war single handedly against the gargoyles by giving back codex... (The sage mumbles to herself) Well that was his fault to begin with. (The sage closes her book). Well its tales like that that make me doubt the validity of those claims. 

 
Right, so... Magic. This, I think, was effected the most. It became stronger, or so I was told. Magic, effected everything so strongly that it made things possible that would not ever before have been possible. Or so I like to to think.

 
While our neighbors on the Tokuno islands were always there, they opened their borders to the outside because their legends suddenly become reality. They need more assistance than they were able to shore. They became relatively friendly to those from outside of their culture. There are still many martial artists, however, that are xenophobic and do not like those that are not their people.  It is my theory that this is also how Illshenar came into existence. Those creatures are legends not from this place, they are not from our world. They are not from anywhere on our world. The elves, who were also always innately apart of our world started to show them selves. There were two types of elves that actually existed in our world. There were the under surface elves, and the surface elves. While one stuck mainly to caves and caverns away from the light, the other attempted to seek places the closest they could to the light, the tops of trees. Both inexplicably tied to the health of this world. The elves, they had their own, moralities. They are neither good nor evil. Most remain neutral as long as their world is not poisoned.  It does not mean that there are not those who seek 'higher' ways, not matter if it good or evil. 

 
When the existence of those new wonders were distracting many in britania, the orcs saw their chance to try to rise. They were always treated as monsters. At one point they tried civil integration into human society, however this did not work. It lead to a great uprising. Mind you friend, this was a very long time ago. This uprising lasted for a very long time. The orcs were much more adept at wars of attrition. They blocked supplies, they blocked transport. The humans needed to be more creative. They created several things that didn't ever exists before. These things changed the war against the orcs to their side. 

 
Great mages, Tinkers and miners, imbuers and jewelers worked together tirelessly to create a wonder that could open a portal to set location. It was similar to the moongates that existed in the world, however it used a crystal and an alchemagicaly infused metal as a focus, rather than the moon. Unfortunately the size and stability of this portal was tied directly to the size of the crystal. Larger crystals were very unstable. This only seemingly allowed those who possessed it to access storage and bank vaults. Some called it a 'Bank Crystal'. They could not ever perfect the technology to a larger extent. However, it was also used as a form of face to face communication, it was not ever effective for travel. It was a very many number of years before the next device was successfully created. Because of orc barricades many human cities were cut off access to their moongates. Thanks to this same technology and the incorporation of moonstones and rune stone, the humans were able to achieve portable devices similar to moongates. However these devices had the disadvantage of not being able to see the location one would teleport into. So the end location of these transportation devices were initially into 'safe' locations and hid your arrival by spells of invisibility. Yes, I'm sure you are wondering why they didn't just continue the use of rune stones, and marking locations. Many people did and still do use rune stones to travel the world, however the transportation crystals allowed this movement by those who were not adept in the arcane. Citizens and denizens of towns who had these devices could travel from location to location without extensive knowledge of what we call magery. They could also avoid the whimsy of sosoria's twin moons by thinking of the reciprocating location they wanted to travel. 

 
These were not the only things that lead to the end of this war. There was also other amazing contributions. Mages, Blacksmiths & imbuers created weapons that became stronger as you used them. You could seemingly will your weapon to do what you wanted. It was an amazing feat. 

 
While there were a great number of beasts in the world some tamers felt they could not keep up with these magical weapons. They turned to breeding and training their creatures. Each generation of beast became stronger than the last. Tamers paired with alchemists made Salves, Ointments and tonics to make their beasts stronger. But this was not enough for some. There were some who were obsessed with making their creatures stronger. They started to develop monsters from parts of other monsters. They called themselves bioengineers. This was frowned upon and a good number of them went crazy, this drove a great many of them into hiding and setting up secret labs. The same thing happened with many of those who used Mondain, Minax, & Exodus' technology to make gollems. 

 
This effectively ended the war. The orcs attempted to survive in the woods surrounding these human cities, particularly yew. It was a hard life. They were attacked on sight, and hunted for sport. The citizens of yew feared another uprising was at hand, so they petitioned Lord British to take arms against the clan. So he did. Yew soldiers came and burned the outpost to the ground. The orcs scattered in many directions and over the years became 8 unique clans. There was another uprising, however not as grievous as the last. To this day tensions are high between orcs and the other races. Many orcs will attack on sight, but there are a few that do not. Perhaps there is still hope.