Hey, I've got a sociological project due and I'm writing up a case study on the culture of RPG gamers. Hoping some of you could help - see I need some info about what makes you guys tick. I saw someone posted a thread about music you listen to, and that's great, But I want to know more. What makes you a RPG gamer? What do RPG gamers have in common? What kind of TV do you guys watch? What are some rituals that you do that you think is unique to RPG gamers? Stuff like that.
The emphasis in role playing games is on increasing the abilities of the characters (stats such as strength, magical power, sword skill and the like) and collecting items (better armor, healing potions, etc) that allow the completion of the quest. Most role playing games are set in fairly open environments that allow the payer to choose from many possible paths, and often include side quests not necessary to the competion of the main goal.
I consider myself to be heavily into rpg's although my interest is dwindling. The main reasons I like to play them are the story, character advancement(becoming a bad ass), and in general the length. Its like spending 60+ hours to watch a movie or read a book. Lately i've been racking up 100+ hours on them. RPG's provide a constant steady stream of goals to reach. I guess thats the main thing. When you play MMORPG's there isnt ONE overall story so its all about becoming stronger which is just a constant stream of smaller challenges. Get stronger so you can do quest X which leads to quest Y which leads to trying to put together a team to do quest Z all so you can go back and pound the living crap out of and be immune to some panzy monster that scared the crap out of you back in the day.
I dont have a PC to play mmo's now but thats what made me pay $ every month, the first thing that popped into my head each day was "sweet, what am i gonna accomplish today".
Other games get repetitive and have the same goals. Sports games are all about scoring points, racing games are all about finishing first. You either do or you dont in those games. In an RPG even if you fail on quest X you still may have met so and so or found some cool item or just kicked the crap out of a bunch of monsters up until you died. Every day is something new. Thats more of MMO's though. In console rpg's the challenges are pretty set but still there are usually alot.
I'm a semi-casual RPG'r but I enjoy them mainly because of the storyline and interesting characters. If you can't get into either of those chances are your probabily not going to like it.
Uhh...what do you mean with "rituals"? :D I want to know that before saying anything to it.
The escape from the real world, that is. It's nice to travel around an other world and live in somebody else's form sometimes, for me, the life hasn't been too glorious for past five years.
The four important things that a game needs: Humor, drama, a little angst and maybe some romance. There you have it.
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