Betrayal at the Senate

One evening, Senator Dios, a female Fyros, summoned us, Fyros and friends of the Empire for a meeting at the Agora in Pyr. She had very glum news to give us about what was going on at the Senate. One of the Emperor's consultants, Senator Xylos, had been acting in a very suspicious manner. He would often propose shady projects of questionable morality that would only serve his own interest, yet, none of the other Senators would dare to oppose him.

After investigating and interroating the other senators as to why they didn't vote against the proposals, Senator Dios had discovered that the Senators were either bribed or threathened into supporting Senator Xylos' schemes, otherwise something bad could happen to themselves or their families. We were all shocked to learn that our Senate was this corrupt, yet this wasn't even the worst she had to reveal to us.

Healer Forever !

This might sound strange or geeky as hell, but it is the absolute truth : roleplaying helped me figure out my path in life. Since I've started roleplaying, most of my characters have been healers. Kate-Lynn Drake is a surgeon, Sherkalyn's first master skill in Ryzom was healing magic, my Tempest of Seth in Age of Conan had healing skills and in Dungeons and Dragons, most of my characters would be priests, druids or favoured souls. In Live Action events, if I don't have a form of healing skill, I'll feel utterly useless.

It took me a while to realize it. After obtaining my college diploma in Languages, I had been in a slump. I didn't know which university to go to and didn't want to spend thousands of dollars just to figure out that I was at the wrong place. So I took a sabbatical from school and worked my ass off to save money for my tuition until I would finally decide what to do with my life.

Bloody Lunatic ! (Short Story)

This is a short story I wrote in my Creative Writing class a couple years ago. It's based on the background of one of my former roleplay characters on the Bitefight.fr forums. I spoke about that character in an earlier forum post. My teacher gave me quite the high grade on that text and I'm pretty proud about it, I must admit. Now I'm sharing it with you. Enjoy !

Kitin Events Part II : Kitins of the Depths

As I said it the previous post (an eternity ago, I must admit), we expected that the fact of slaughtering many Kirosta patrols in the Prime Roots and, even worse, killing Klaarch, a major Kitin General, wouldn't make the Kitins very happy. And they did retaliate, very strongly.

Kitin Events Part I : Kizarak and Kitin Patrols

Since Winchgate has aquired Ryzom, it seems that events have happened more frequently than ever since I first started playing. And by events, I mean the devs or the CSRs taking control of NPCs and creatures, to make them act in a way that wouldn’t be seen during normal, regular gameplay. I will try to trace and summarize the events that have occured on Atys since it rose from its ashes to live again.

It started with a letter from the brand new event team : Animation4. They announced a very ambitious project, which was to bring roleplay back to Atys, in order to make the four civilisations grow in importance, in order to make Atys feel even more alive and immersive. Roleplay would then be as much of a part of the environment as the yubos peeing on your shoes or the ever changing weather cycle. And then, the devs got busy, and brought us our first invasion event since ages.

My First LARP Event.

It is my childhood friends that made me discover Live Action Role Play, also known as LARP. For the longest time, they insisted that I should come to an event called “Terres Impériales” and that I would most probably like it because I already enjoyed roleplaying on forums.

I remember my first event really well. I was playing a forest elf ranger and my foam-headed arrows really weren't the best out there. I could barely shoot them five meters away. In other words, I was pretty useless in a fight. The other elves and myself had to prepare a forestine ceremony to thank the ancient forest spirits. We had to prepare beautiful gifts for them. I remember that the NPC priest that was leading us back then was particularly arrogant. But it was fun.

Because Real Life Sucks…

Often, people who look down on gamers like us will say stupid things such as : “Get a life !” or “Why don’t you live in the Real World ?” What they don’t realize is that most geeks do have a real life, some have a career, a wife/husband and children on top of that. They’re not necessarly no-life losers, unlike what the mass media want you to believe. Roleplaying is just the bit of evasion they need to relax and remain sane enough to not go on a rampage at work or at home.

If people roleplay, it’s to get away from the stress or boredom of so called “Real Life”. Some people do work stricly for money, at a job they don't necessarly like. Often, the sheer amount of stupidity they have to deal with during a single work day would be enough to drive one completely nuts. Then the temptation of going berserk on a bitchy customer/boss/colleague increases by the minute. It's during these time that roleplaying becomes a bless. Escaping the harsh reality of daily grind just for a few hours is what allows them to get just enough relief to be able to retain the little bit of sanity they still have.

Believe me or not, roleplaying has therapeuthic effect. Because you can spend a few hours/days out of your usual self, letting off your steam on some eeeevil giant bugs, for example, you won't feel the urge to hit people across the head with a two-handed axe when they act rude or just plain stupid as much as you would if you had no way to escape it when work is over.

Doing it online is good enough, but doing it live feels even better; as you grab a foam sword and rush towards the "enemy" to make him regret being alive. Of course, you're not meant to hurt him for real, but using up energy in a pretend battle is just as thrilling and satisfying, I can assure you. In fact, if you really need to hurt people, then it's no longer a game and you might be one of those sickos who give roleplaying a bad name.