By roleplayers, for roleplayers

You probably don't recognize my name, and I don't blame you for it. I write for the Norwegian incarnation of Gamereactor, and although I've been around for a few years now I've never stopped by here on the international Gamereactor site. Which is a bit of a shame considering I currently live in England, so you'd think I'd make my way here more often.

The reason I'm writing here now is to tell you about something extraordinairy. This might be a tremendous exaggeration, depending on whether or not you're interested in roleplaying.

To clarify, when I say roleplaying, I'm not referring to the vidoegame genre called roleplaying games, wherein the player controls a character, increases in level, goes on quests and murders goblins. I'm talking about roleplaying a character in a virtual enviroment. Almost like spontaneous, online theatre.

I'm a big fan of MMO's because if you play them the right way they offer the highest level of immersion I've experienced in games. Being able to interact with people instead of computer intelligences adds another level to the illusion that you're not just playing a game. Roleplaying in online games isn't about running around acting high and mighty and speaking in ye olde English, it's about imagining for a few hours every time you play that you're the character in that world, and not just someone playing a game.

The psychology behind roleplaying talks mostly about escapism, and how substituting your life for an imagined or virtual one for a little while can help you cope with the stresses of the real world.

Whatever the reasons for why we roleplay, it's a lot of fun. The problem is finding good roleplay. Almost everyone who's been doing it for a while will tell you that trying to roleplay with someone who isn't in that mindset can lead to some pretty heavy verbal abuse, or in the case of some open-pvp games, death.

That's why a kind, energetic soul has started a community site devoted to roleplay. Currently it covers only a limited number of games: Darkfall, Mortal Online, Xsyon and Mount & Blade: Warband. The plan is to expand on this list as the website becomes more entrenched in the community, and more people who do roleplay in other games become engaged with the site.

If you are interested in roleplaying, or you play one of the abovementioned games and want to try out roleplaying in them, or if you roleplaying already and you want your game to be represented on this website, click the link below and become part of the expanding roleplaying community.

http://www.mmorp.org/