Definitely, they do.
It does sort of show the sort of histrionic virtual signalling that is being applied to even consumption of media, though, that’s really starting to muddy the waters of how we all talk to each other as fans of those medias.
After all, if enjoying a villain in a video game is indicative of your actual moral position… then it stands to reason, that unfortunately some people would take it to that extreme and end up ruining the fun for everyone.
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Yeah I did - it gave me a laugh.
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Eh, yeah, I suppose it wasn’t the best thing ever; I personally enjoyed the outlook of loyalists more over rebels when I noticed how Blizzard portrayed loyalism: “If someone can bring an end to all conflict, it’s Sylvanas.”
Hence why I think that the rebels would’ve had to be very stealthy with their stuff and not be full on rebel rebel and also remember that there’s an alliance out to get them too. 
Also what? When? I want to hear more of this.
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A large contingent on AD aren’t able to do that though, because their character = them, and their characters’ loss = their personal loss.
Another large issue that has affected the community is the rise (in my view) of so called second life rp - whereby people are effectively playing an extension or reflection of themselves in game. Don’t get me wrong, this has always been an issue in roleplay, but I think it’s become more prevalent over the years; this in part is how OOC fights get started over IC, and has featured in large community campaigns as mentioned previously.
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That sounds really boring.
Winning all the time is boring.
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This has always been here, I think you’re just noticing it more. People tend to either vicariously live through roleplay or get too attached to their characters (especially after having them for so long). You can easily sympathise with the latter, I think people are happy for their characters to suffer but on their own terms. I was very much that way with my Rogue before I ended up shelving him, which in hindsight i’m very glad I did.
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Yes, when someone’s character successes = their own successes, how do you get these RPers to face the possibility of the character failing, or losing, or screwing up.
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Which is why communication is so important in terms of building a narrative with things such as rebel and loyalist/kor’kron and rebel. Anything that is inherently going to shake people up to that degree should at least have a “yo we cool to do this? What do you think? What do you want out of this?” thrown in, even if it’s around the actual DM’s to keep the vast majority in the dark and under the belief it was all “spontaneous.”
But even then, it appears like this didn’t even work here. From what I understand.
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It could very well be personal bias, and I do admit it has always existed; it just seems like it’s more obvious now. Though that could be because I’ve been exposed to more Alliance/Stormwind recently.
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This is why our sisterhood prioritizes communication between players involved before even saying yes or no to a PK contract.
Like imagine having to put no effort into your surprise attack and all of the sudden there’s plot armor you weren’t informed about in a form of OOC. 
And you’re expected to all die IC or something because you’re the big bad or something.
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It’s not really unique to Argent Dawn, I think that roleplay - as a hobby - is very easily to get invested into to this degree. My brief foray into private realm roleplay during Mists of Pandaria confirmed this through my eyes, it’s funny actually, Argent Dawn is a paradise in comparison to some of the dumb drama I saw.
Roleplayers tend to have no imagination in this regard consequences has largely become a buzzword for a character death. Put a character into some form of indentured repentance, have them do something to regain their place.
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The issue I have with this accusation is that it’s rather hard to prove. How can you objectively know that these people self-insert and use their characters as a vehicle for their own OOC opinions?
Refusing to accept defeat can come from more than one route. Perhaps it’s because you don’t want to potentially lose a character that you have invested so much time in, perhaps it’s because you view your character as being someone who wouldn’t lose in that situation.
Similarly, can you blame someone for not wanting to play characters that behave in a way that they don’t approve of on an OOC level? If you find torture or genocide to be grotesque as a person, is there anything wrong with not wanting to include that in your roleplay?
I guess my final question is this: How can you prove that someone is a Second Life roleplayer and that their character is nothing more than an avatar for their out-of-character opinions? It’s a common accusation that is slung around at a lot of people, but can it really proven just because a person’s characters only IC fight for the same leaders that they OOC like, or things like that?
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Yeah, I always imagined people would’ve learned to RP by now, after fifteen years of WoW RP.
Competitive RP has always been problematic. It is why I am vehemently against any player characters having any form of IC, OOC or IC legal power. It always ends with pixel bloodshed and a fractured community.
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I don’t have many experiences with Horde roleplay out of a few circumstances, but this feels really weird for me that it happened.
I’ve been generally vocal about not liking Sylvanas OOC at all, but the story has, quite early mind you, and even now when Shadowlands has been revealed/the war campaign ending, laid out that Sylvanas was a very popular leader up until the very point she yeeted out(and even afterwards seem to have loyalists to her cause)
SO I don’t really understand the rebellion rp that tried to kickstart it early. Even if they liked the story or not, it was a fact that any rebellios voices were hushed whispers/small and the general populace thought Sylvanas did good. And that could have been fun to rp I think? To be the underdogs slowly building up a resistance instead of going “we are heroes, we win”
It all comes down to communication really, if you just communicate normally about the fact you don’t want your character to die and how to resolve this conflict in a way that provides a satisfying conclusion/story-beat to your current roleplay, there’s literally no issue.
Sadly, not everyone wants to communicate about having a satisfying roleplay experience and some people just want their characters(Read:themselves) to always win and never face any hardship, because this(RP) is their outlet from life.
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Defeat can be fun, and interesting, and a new path for your character. It just depends on how it is executed. Consent is always needed.
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Are people enjoying Sylvanas as a villain, though? I never got the impression that Sylvanas fans thought she was the bad guy - from what I’ve seen, most Horde fans/ Sylvanas fans/ loyalists think she was right to burn Teldrassil, and that it was morally justifiable. I don’t think that’s quite the same thing as finding the Joker fun to watch or Darth Vader compelling as a character. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’ve just fallen for forum memery, but from what I’ve read, many Horde fans support rather than just sympathise with Sylvanas. Even if that’s the case, I’m not saying it’s right to extrapolate “national socialist” from Horde fan - just making an observation.
As to the topic thread - It sounds like people are lamenting the death of a dream, rather than the loss of a reality. BfA is terrible for a lot of reasons but I don’t think it can be blamed for transforming the personalities and moral characters of its playerbase. If the situation became as toxic as its currently being described, then that probably means the golden age of the Horde community was considerably more fraught with tension, conflict, and bad feelings than people like to remember.
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But does the absence of communication act as a confirmation of self-insertion? I agree, some people do want their characters to just win because they self-insert and this is an outlet for them, but how does a lack of communication confirm that?
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Honestly an outright defeat isn’t always an actual defeat. Look at the Battle of Jutland, if you look at damage done then Germany came out on top (thanks to the dumb admirality attempted a second trafalgar), but strategically Britain pretty much dominated the seas afterwards.
Defeat isn’t always a defeat, you can always take something else away from it.
I don’t tend to put my characters in a position where they can ‘lose’ or be beaten by another PC, because in my experience there are people who become unbearably smug about their victory as though they’d just trounced me at the Olympics.
I’m a glutton for punishment in RP-PVE stories though. 
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