Josh Strife Hayes is a man focused on MMORPGs. He covers developments in the market, design trends, histories, and so on. Today, he's talking about a revealed preference of customers of MMORPGs, and I am not the least bit surprised by what he finds.
It is not surprising to see players ejecting everything that gets between them and the game. They're there to contend against an opposing force over an objective, not to deal with irrelevant bullshit.
If what passes for role-play--and yes, "passes", because what most people think role-playing is is completely wrong--gets in the game of playing the game, that gets ejected with all the deliberation of tossing a spent wrapper into the trash. If dealing with people gets in the way of playing the game, that gets yeeted with a Falcon Punch.
Across all RPG media, the revealed preference is for players to play competent characters that contribute to group success. Those are measurable metrics, which turns into a body of knowledge--professional acumen--over time, meaning that not only should players feel no shame about this but neither should characters engaging in such high-risk mercenary work.
Take the two characters Josh presents. The thief is a good protagonist for a story. If you take him as a RPG party member, you're retarded and you ought to expect him to get pasted before it's over because he's incompetent and prone to causing you problems that you don't need for no good reason. Healer is a far more reliable party member, isn't going to cause unnecessary trouble of any kind, knows their role and focuses upon it properly. Healer gets one mercenary contract after the next, assuming he survives the present one, due to developing a reputation for professionalism and dependable conduct. Wacky Thief gets used as a Polish Mine Detector and left to die once he serves his purpose.
This is, again, because most people--including Josh--fail to admit what RPGs, all RPGs, are: wargame derivatives. You are there to contend over an objective; if it gets in the way of winning, it gets yeeted like launching a brick off an aircraft carrier. RPGs are far more like Fantasy Football than anyone wants to admit.
The only useful thing to do to solve the problem is to make Muh Story and Muh Lore directly and immediately relevant to gameplay by having palpable mechanical effects. However, if you do this I guarantee that the MMORPG that does this will be shat all over not only by the Usual Suspects but also by more moderate voices; gamers will again reveal their preferences, this time crystal clear for all to see, by the makeups of the winning teams in whatever top-tier content the game offers.
Go ahead, prove me wrong gaming industry. I'll be waiting, with the popcorn machine ready, for the nuclear trashfire you'll set off. You can't lose what was never there. The "role-playing" Josh talks about was never there, was never a thing, so you'd be chasing a phantom.
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