I don't know if this will turn into a rant or not, but here it is:

I'm pretty new to Istaria, though I'm not new to roleplaying. I found MMO's back in 99, and wouldn't you know it, the first one I found was a true roleplaying game. You had to be 100% in character all the time, one server, no global chats, no choice. Given my experience with PnP RPG's and various large world single player RPGs such as daggerfall, this gave me an impression of the fantastic potential of MMO's as RPGs (roleplaying games, stress on the rp).

So when I played the big MMO at the time, EQ, I was thoroughly disappointed, however I realized, seeing their numbers compared to my game's numbers, that MMO's would be going the way of hotbar and linear quest sans the RP. That has led me on a 13 year quest to replace the experience I had in that first game. You see, even while playing that game I was seeking to replace it, because I saw the potential for bigger worlds everywhere, I wanted MOAR people to interact with. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed there to the end, although the end did come after I had joined the military and could no longer play.

Now I have been looking for a game that's not like the rest, mechanically, and that supports the spirit of RP. I found the former here, and I was sure I would find the latter, and to some extent I have. However, in my limited experience so far on Order I have noticed that there is not much public roleplay. And what I mean by this is that the players do not assume their character's persona and walk around the world as such, speaking to others and interacting as characters.

What I have seen is a lot of emoting but not necessarily related to actual roleplaying. I have seen the wall of text style 'rp' in the roleplaying channel. But mostly what I have seen is people with bad names either speaking plainly OOC in public channels or masking it with ().

To be honest, while I'm looking for roleplay, I'm not going to involve myself in the 'roleplay' channel because I don't believe in it. My character is halfway across the world on a different island, you cannot see my actions in there, even if I get behind the IC explanation of global channels. (Is there an official one?)

I am looking for interaction based roleplay, where I don't know who I'm going to talk to from day to day or hour to hour. I have no choice but to react to what someone else is doing or saying.

Let me put it this way. I don't want to change anyone. I don't want to say you can't have the roleplay channel. It's not my place, and if that's your style then by all means. What I would like to see is a little more enforcement of the public channels, keeping them IC, by players (because you know GM's don't have time for that).

And if you see Vastian or Maculif running around the world, greet them in character, because that's likely the only place you'll catch me roleplaying