Talk:Online text-based role-playing game

This article really, really stinks. It goes from a somewhat fanboyish, but largely npov, discussion of the OTBRPG community and its strangenesses and charms to an obviously crufty discussion of "how you can do x" and "if you do y people will not like it," garbage punctuation/capitalisation/spelling (regardless of the warning in the supposed "rules" of the online community as to RPG players having "good spelling, punctuation, and grammar"), and sprinkled emoticons ("^_^"). This needs a major npov revisation... and a major shortening. I'm wondering how canonical these "type 1, type 2, type 3" fighting systems are, and how universal the rules are. jglc | t | c 19:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I know that my decision to replace the combat rules with a simple blurb will be very unpopular, but here's my justification:

For one thing, there was no verification of any of the information in the combat section, and no citation of any sources. For another, it was written extremely poorly - paragraphs went on entirely too long, poor sentence structure flourished, and the entire section was very crufty. I googled for rpg + "text-based" + "type 1", and found no information about the alleged combat systems.

If you're going to reinsert this section into Wikipedia, please try to edit for terseness and keep the relative importance of the subject in mind. I realise that there are certain people to whom this is very important, but many others have no idea what it is. If, instead of writing an article for your friends and like-minded persons, you could write an introductory article explaining your hobby to those outside of its support community, it would be much more useful. Always keep in mind, please, that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, though one with much more storage space than a paper encyclopaedia, and any contributors should write in a manner befitting such a publication. Thanks :) jglc | t | c 19:45, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Additional problem. I will post this in its parallel description. This article and the play-by-post gaming stuff are describe... hmm... the same thing? It may be good to see if we can either combine them, or decide on one to lead the way. Personally, I think most text-based RPGs now call themselves play-by-chat, or play-by-post, etc. - Kimmetje

Yes, I think that play-by-post and play-by-chat are becoming the more widely used terms (As I posted on the PBP article, I had never even come across the term OTBRPG before seeing it here on Wikipedia). At least in the text game circles that I run around in. Oh, another thing that I'd like to note about that person Googling the Type fighting systems. Usually they are known simply as T1 or T2 and are somewhat popular terminology for those in chat based RPGs. You'll find T2 fighting more often in "chat pace" RPGs (though many use the T1 style as well), whereas T1 is more common in play-by-post/forum based RPGs and is usually an unspoken rule. It's just common courtesy to wait for other players to post their responses in a role play thread before replying with another one of your own.

T1 (Type 1) Turn-based fighting style. Players post their characters actions and reactions one at a time, sometimes following a strict posting order.

T2 (Type 2) Speed-based fighting style. Players post their characters actions and reactions as fast as possible (so the fastest typer is usually the winner).

Dear God

This article has been raped by fanboys since it's original conception, I'd like to extend heartfelt thanks for the removal of the role play fighting section. My associate and I have recently decided to do a complete overhaul of all our OTBRPG related content, including this article. You can expect a marked improvement within a few weeks. As to the issue of PBP, I noticed that myself. The facts seem to be that both terms have small communities of followers. PBP seems to be a slightly more common term, but in general it seems that the community at large has no real name for what we do. Also, while it may have little bearing, this article is older than the PBP article.

My suggestion would be to make the PBP article (which is used more for advertising than for information it seems) redirect to this article. I may however be biased, being this articles creator. I'll leave it to a more experienced individual to deal with that.

In the mean time, I will work on improving this article. Thank you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Linkskywalker (talk • contribs) 23:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just an update - I have not forgotten about this article, and I apologise for the delay, I *am* working on it and keeping it stored localy rather than uploading it until I have it completely finnished. Unfuntunatly, I have a few obligations that take precedence. I apologise for the delay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linkskywalker (talk • contribs) 14:08, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I'm looking forward to seeing your revisions/additions. I'm watching the page, so, if anything further goes awry, I can take care of it. jglc | t | c 09:42, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OTBRPG Version 2.0

Alright, I've cut the article down to 2 paragraphs that give (I feel) a good summary of what an Online Text Based Role Playing Game is. However, I make no assertations of being good at writing encyclopedia style articles. I'd love it if the more experienced members of wikipedia could help me improve this article either through tips or editing the article directly. I for one am not comfortable with the way the article ended, it seems chopped off to me. I might add a paragraph about how to enter the OTBRPG community smoothly, or somthing of the like. If you can think of any information you would find helpful as an outsider learning of OTBRPGs for the first time, I would be much appreciative. Generaly it's hard to write about the community as a whole, since nothing has ever been formalized or even standardised. |User: Linkskywalker | Date/Time: Thursday September 8th 2005, 14:42|

Advertising

The external links look more like advertisments than links to informative material. Indeed, some of them don't even link to actual OTBRPGS, but rather to MUD type games.

Agreed. Words like "excellent" and "immersive" are inappropriate. I would support removing this page as spam. Elonka 12:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article has had troubles with people spamming the External links, but the whole article isn't spam. If you see an inappropriate external link please feel free to modify/remove it. —gorgan_almighty 13:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sources...

I am unaware of any *existing* sources for this topic, aside from forums.

That is, in fact, why I started documenting this type of game.

I have recently added cited references that back up the claims in this article (see diff). I propose removing the {{unreferenced}} notice now. —gorgan_almighty 14:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

External links

Will people please ensure that they are kept in alphabetical order. I have gone through and put them back in order several times, but people keep adding new links out of order. In future if you see the links out of order please but them back in order yourself. Thanks. —gorgan_almighty 11:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Potential merge

There seems to be a lot of overlap between this article, and List of Text-Based MMORPGs. Should they perhaps be combined? Elonka 12:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Appose. Huge lists like that are discouraged on Wikipedia as they're not very encyclopedic. This article already has a list of relevant links and it's hard enough keeping the ad spam out of that. List of Text-Based MMORPGs should either be done as a Category instead of an article or it should be deleted completely as non-encyclopedic ad spam. Either way it shouldn't be allowed to pollute this article. —gorgan_almighty 12:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but i think before doing that, a topic should be clarified: the definition on this article for OTBRPG doesnt fit well with most of the games listed on List of Text-Based MMORPGs, as those follow closer the descripition found in Turn-Based MMORPG.

In fact I think the browser-based should be divided into graphical and textual, and the latter categorized into MUD-like games or turn-based games - though this is just an idea from someone that is a bit confused with so much contradicting information...

Waldir 02:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Were you agreeing with me (gorgan_almighty) or Elonka? —gorgan_almighty 11:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agreed with you (gorgan). I'd refuse Elonka's sugesttion precisely because of that unclarified issue i mentioned above (the descriptions dont fit each other), which i ask again to be furtherly discussed. Your suggestion (gorgan) is fair enough (the category one, of course), and is the is still useful to people who are looking for an extensive list of this genre of MMORPGs. I obviously disagree that the article should simply be deleted, but converted to a category is a good idea. By the way, probably there would be a need of sub-categories, so the thematic division could still be made, as it is in the article at the moment. Waldir 00:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is considerable confusion about the term "online text-based roleplaying game". When most people see the term, they think about a MUD or other multiplayer game, but this article seems to be primarily about turn-based games. I propose that the article be at least moved to a more appropriate title, such as "Online turn-based text roleplaying games". Elonka 03:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then, why not merge it with Turn-Based MMORPG? (But here its said that OTBRPG is another term for post by post RPG, and i dont think turn -based mmorpgs are post by post... that is more like a forum, right?

Don't go overboard removing External links

The spam notice that someone put at the top of the page doesn't mean that all external links are spam. Some anonymous editor recently removed the links that I added to other sources of NPOV information about OTBRPGs. I added them in an attempt to cite references to the information documented in the article, thus solving the {{unreferenced}} problem. They were not spam. Please be less hasty when removing external links in future. —gorgan_almighty 14:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You all suck!

Text RPing is the best form of RP, and nothing in the world beats it, and there is absolutely nothing bad about it, so all of you fuck off!