Roleplay

               == Styles of Roleplay ==
People generally classify roleplaying on a scale from light to heavy. The degree of roleplay depends greatly upon the desire and actions of the players, with some groups taking heavy roleplay to an extreme while most roleplayers are somewhere closer to the middle of the scale.

*Light: Many players engage in some form of light roleplay, in which they act as their character should (e.g. a Shadowknight threatening a Paladin) but without major constraints on out-of-character (OOC) discussion. 
*Medium: These players may choose to roleplay only at certain times and under very specific circumstances. For example, they might attend RP events in the community, but belong to a guild that does not roleplay when they group to raid or complete quests.
*Heavy: These players eschew all out-of-character speech and action, although some OOC speech may be permitted so long as it is indicated as such.  

=== Out-of-Character Speech (OOC) ===
Out-of-character speech is any discussion that makes references to events outside of the game, such as conversations about real world ("real life") news or personal events.

Though there are many ways to indicate out-of-character speech it is common for roleplayers to use a a variation of single or double parenthesis or brackets to offset out-of-character (OOC) speech. In chat an OOC statement will be seen as "((What time are you logging off?))" or a similar variation.

=== In-Character Speech (IC) ===
Most roleplayers base their style of speaking on the language used in the world of Norrath. For new players, interacting with or reading the text dialogue of [[NPC]] charaters is helpful in developing a "voice" for their characters. 

"Shakespearean" dialogue is occasionally used, but is generally considered cliche' and unnecessary, so it is not recommended. In addition, those who roleplay do not use text speak or abbreviations like LOL or OMG while in character; such speech is considered modern slang that exists outside of the world of EQ2. 

=== Emotes in Roleplay ===
While the game offers a lot of pre-made [[Emotes|emotes]] like the slash command /hail to greet people, most of the roleplay community uses /emote followed by the written description of their character's actions. For example typing  /emote laughs  will change the color of text next to your character's name to indicate what you are doing (<Your Character> laughs) in a roleplay situation. Some roleplayers will also do this for talking, while others will use this and a mix of the slash command /say to speak locally. Some of the pre-made slash commands for emotes work well because they have an animation to go with them (like /hug) but sticking to the animation-only emotes will severely limit the range of actions your character can take.