Crossfaction RP in faction specific hubs

Argent Dawn
61

Peaceloving hippie talks on Dracthyr? THE soldier-race thereof? Are we playing the same game? Dracthyr lore shows how their entire existence and history has been shaped by war and conflict. Their personalities are that of hardcore soldiers like Star War’s clone troopers. :dracthyr_a1:

Neutral =/= peace-loving.

Would be better to describe them as pro-war characters in this case, I think. A character can still be a die-hard patriot for their respective faction without wanting to start another worldwide conflict. Since, you know, the last one kind of screwed both factions over. And we also have seen in the Time Rifts what would happen to a future where A/H would just keep on fighting. It’d be an endless war and fighting for the sake of fighting without a goal.

Ironically, this is the kind of stereotyping I was referring to when it comes to viewing the Orcs lol

No, Orcs are not violent, irredeemable monsters who want to do nothing but pillage and raid and cause genocides left and right. They are a diverse people made up of several clans and their traditions, all of which are now unified under Thrall’s Horde. The reason why Warcraft Orcs are so beloved is because WC3 started to actually humanise them and gave them nuance and layers. Compared to other settings, Warcraft is one of the few where Orcs are not treated as what you describe.

Just like how Tauren are not at all only ‘peace-loving Alliance sympathisers’, as we can see with the Grimtotem and the Bloodtotem on Highmountain, just as an example.

Honestly, I believe with decades of having faction wars going on, it’s warped people’s expectations and willingness to explore the nuances of what shapes a character in the world of Azeroth. You can see it in this thread as well. As soon as you mention neutrality people think your character is a ‘hippie peace-lover’ (btw I don’t even know why this is treated as a bad thing lol).

And I’m all for race conflicts. I love Humans vs Orcs, Orcs vs Night Elves, Humans vs Forsaken, … and so on. But I hate how faction conflict generalises the struggles of the playable races. Not every race, not every character shares the same views or struggles and their race is not a monolith. Warcraft, as a setting, has always been about fighting for what’s right. In this case, fighting your oppressors, fighting for a hopeful future, fighting for your family, for home, etc. That’s why we have recurring themes like Suramar’s and Azj-Kahet’s storylines where people rise up to defeat their oppressors who would sell them out for power.

The spirit of adventure and conflict in WoW is about confronting and overcoming challenges, not just on the battlefield, but in understanding the evolving world of Azeroth itself and its characters that inhabit it.

4 Likes
62

Shooting at each other, shouting at the Argents. It’s the…uh…Argent Dawn way.

Some - though definitely not all - was definitely born out of irritation at neutral RPers showing up to moralise at faction conflict RP/events.

4 Likes
63

Fair, but also I feel missing the point of ‘Bad RPers gonna Bad RP’, and the onus on people for Tarring With The Same Brush still exists.

4 Likes
64

If the argents don’t want to get shot at, they should mind their own business.

2 Likes
65

Yeah if only this was reflected in the rp.

66

It’s not a stereotype. It’s true.

Orcs are very happy to subvert or change the definition of Honor when it suits them and their needs. They are an extremely violent and brutal race, even before fel-blood, as shown in bith Chronicles drsenor book and the whole story of WoD where one (1) guy (Garrosh) was able to convince an entire world of orcs, save for few clans, to start murdering and pillaging the rest of draenor and invade another world.

Orcs are, by definition, violent pillagers.

I didn’t say that they are irredeemable, however. Nor did I say that they only genocide things lwft and right. But if Warcraft’s history is anything to go by, they certainly don’t have a lot of qualms about engaging in it either. Burning of teldrassil also had many orcs cheering when the tree went up in flames, as you recall.

*Less than other settings. But it’s still there, all the same.

67

I mean, this does not narrow it down when it comes to so many races in WoW vs their RP portrayals tbqh

1 Like
68

https://imgur.com/a/FyYwu1Z

Spoken like the kind of player who doesn’t interact with the 85% of the Dracthyr rolepayerbase of this server. We are talking about the roleplayers, not Blizzard’s concept for the race. This is a fairly common occurrence, even outside our favorite faction hub that I usually bash.

69

Neutrality being treated as a second-grade, irrelevant or outright stupid position was warranted by blizz themselves all the time since the Legion was over. We don’t see the Conclave of priests raising the alarm of two Old Gods lashing out on Zandalar and Kul Tiras at once, there is no Argent Crusade mentioned after the pre-patch of SL despite the Scourge apparently running wild across Azeroth, and the unreasonable lack of the Earthen Ring at the frontlines against the Primalists or the Cenarion Circle in the Emerald Dream itself was already said about enough. The narrative itself leaves less and less place to the types that try to deal their things for the greater good, away from the factions or even trying to beat some sense into them, so unless that changes in the first place I doubt there would be a real reason to be neutral in the middle of skirmishes and wars.

70

Just took a look at the imgur link and I see… nothing wrong with that? I mean explain to me how much sense it would make for a Dracthyr to be a die-hard Horde/Alliance soldier when their factions were entirely irrelevant to them, let alone didn’t even exist 20.000 years ago? Nothing in Dracthyr lore even suggests they would be die-hard patriots for the Alliance or Horde, just that they found a ‘home’ with them. Some Dracthyr don’t even belong to a weyrn anymore and some are part of the Healing Wings or Ebon Scales which are both 100% neutral.

They fought the Primalists and the legacy of their creator who happened to be Deathwing of all dragons. They don’t much care about the Alliance and Horde conflict. The Dark Talons and Obsidian Warders are simply allied with the respective factions, but I am pretty sure they would not be in favour of a faction war. It’s just like how Pandaren were forced apart to choose either Alliance or Horde and kill their own kin which wasn’t well-received by many at all.

4 Likes
71

One of the biggest issues with neutral role-play, historically, has been the sneering contempt from certain individuals towards anyone who leaned into racial or faction pride.

This often escalated to - quite often - bizarre and hurtful levels of outright bullying and harassment, including drawing weird comparisons between those embracing the faction war and real world ‘fascists’.

Quite a few promising role-players were driven away from the server altogether and now some of the same individuals responsible seek to rewrite history and pretend as if the poor, innocent neutral role-players were the real victims.

As for the actual writing of the game, that doesn’t help - between the Horde being forced to be the ‘bad guy’ at almost every turn even as the Alliance had the likes of Vereesa Windrunner fiercely protected from any consequences despite the torture and murder of civilians supposedly being an utterly unforgivable sin.

10 Likes
72

Unfortunately this isn’t a certified hood classic like “Velen says its ok”.

2 Likes
73

Which has its own merits, sadly. An example is the mainland Pandaren, who saw only calamity upon calamity from both factions together and separately, who lost their friends and families to the sha the war has brought forth or just witnessed the entire Krasarang turning into a warzone with even the temple of the Red Crane becoming a battlefield with no care for its denizens or even the Celestial himself. For such types it’s only fair to ask “do you truly have pride in the entity behind all this, and if yes, what kind of monster are you?”. But indeed, it’s true only to some rather niche events and types.

74

You know exactly well that I was talking about roleplay characters so I dunno why you’d even make that argument.

Like yeah, I agree, now go tell that to the Dracthyr roleplayers that I’m talking about, I’m sure they’ll listen.

Yeah and a character can still be pro-faction without being a warmonger since they can have all those realisations and view pointless wars like that as not exactly beneficial to their faction. It’s not so black and white as you paint it to be, I think you can have characters with such nuance (I certainly tried).

It also doesn’t mean that if you distrust Dracthyr (to follow the example I made) because reasons and think they’re potential spies because you’re a paranoid spy too, it doesn’t mean you’re pro-war.

Sure, nobody expects them to, but after being accepted as allies despite their people having a long history of having “problems” with dragons, it’s a bit of a faux pas for a group of Dracthyrs to be so ignorant in the middle of a human city and go on this ‘you humans and ur silly orc wars…’ spiel as if the humans in question had absolutely no justifiable reasons to go fight.

It’s not like anyone in the setting can say with absolute confidence that won’t go ballistic again and they’ll try to burn another tree or something. Over the course of WoW’s story, history sure likes to repeat itself.

75

https://imgur.com/a/iCmdFrS

It’s ok, they usually provide material for another one.

76

You literally just paraphrased the point I made but gg

77

i was talking about how you’re too quick to slap on the pro-war label, stop being obtuse

78

I still don’t get how this would be in any way considered ‘bad roleplay’, because that is the message you are trying to convey, right? That 85% of the Dracthyr RP player base is just ignorant to the lore, yada yada. And still this could very well be IC ignorance. Dragonkin are known to be prideful beings and some view themselves above the interests of mortals. I seriously don’t get how this would be considered a bad portrayal of Dracthyr RP when this is one of the most legitimate stances they support in lore lol you’re taking what somebody said IC into OOC and make it seem like they have no idea what they’re talking about.

At this point you’re just badmouthing someone’s RP without probably ever having rp’ed with them. Which is just sad.

8 Likes
79

my opinions on the quality of the roleplay in question do not matter, you don’t have to try and dig them out of my mind via telepathy or just assume it since that’s not what I’m discussing. what i wrote about was used as an example to support a kind of stance a pro-faction character could have towards neutral characters.

80

My favourite dracthyr interaction in Stormwind was when a certain bronze drachtyr (growth pot ofc) declared two human soldiers uncivilised and uneducated and lesser for getting into a bar fight and then returned to his work as a humble bartender. Above the interests of mortals indeed, now what were you having good sir? A pint of Thunderbrew coming right up.

4 Likes