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Watch your back and get used to this face kiddo, you’ll be seeing a lot of it.
I mean nobody likes seeing the 50ft Dracthyr, agreed and yep, it is immersion-breaking… but at the same time the only thing you can really do is just ignore it.
I will also add however that WoW does have quite a lot of outlandish things within the lore, it’s not a super serious universe all the time.
I wasn’t able to post this, when this was still the active topic, but everyone who says amercian RP is a valid option is suffering from a case of extreme “being wrong-ness”.
They take almost nothing serious and most are just “lol le epic meme rp” characters with the depth of a puddle.
I’d be incorrect calling it as bad as Goldshire, for sure.
But absolutely not what I’d expect in a freaking Memorial Garden, y’know? And I live in the UK, we’ve got some pretty dumpster tier behaviour going around :V
Lion’s Rest is like the South Hampton commons fr
And yet players outdo the outlandishness on the regular
Can Brits please stop assuming the rest of us are aware of your social geography 
I’m not British I learned this fact entirely against my will and now I will drag you all into my suffering
oh my god we’re the Americans of Europe, where we assume everyone knows the stereotypes of all fifty-one States - or however many cities, in our case.
Oh god.
I find it endearing but in a goofy way. Like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds kind of bittersweet.”
It is how I must come across when I speak to my IRL friends about roleplay.
I’m British, I’m even from the Southwest and I am not aware of Southampton Common’s particular social geography.
I assume it is a spot for dogging or something based on context.
I used to live near Southampton, looks like I missed a trick.
“You use WoW to play knock-off DnD? That’s cute.”
Aye, but they also go the other way and ignore that WoW is a fantasy game entirely, which is just as outlandish, just in a different way.
You can keep playing this kot kettle back-and-forth all you like, I’m certainly not interested. Feel free however to write a couple of more long-winded posts which ultimately amount to, as you put it, a cauldron of nothingness particularly when the same bulletpoints are being repeated over and over.
I honestly don’t know what you want me or the others to say besides what was already preached. I am truly sorry that I do not have the capabilities to be the saviour of RP as I do not know how to, or care enough to form a decade long plan tasked with solving this issue. Everyone here can reach the sentiment: we don’t know how to fix so we do what we can to limit our exposure to it by using methods that yeah, by the looks of it seem to be universally agreed upon. The only difference seems to come from the fact that some would prefer to tip-toe around the issue while others are more blunt about it, and apparently that constitutes a want for bullying and harassment.
If I really wanted to summarise this thread I’d say that gatekeeping in this or other form is only going to keep increasing in popularity as the standards continue to plummet down and the overall quality of stories and characters is on the low, so more and more people will want to create their little havens with the stories and characters they want, because we have no alternative. I think it’s way too late to come up with any alternative, really.
In fact, these havens will soon be literal as roleplayers will be given a great gatekeeping tool: housing.
And both can receive unsolicited advice regarding the subject matter of their RP.
On top of them sending players there for the valentines daily quests, and having on multiple previous occassions lampshaded the foul state of that place.
Awesome that they are openly just fully aware of it and still , . ,. . , … . .
Isn’t that a bit ironic, considering the long post you’ve just made?
I think praising bullying as a strategy that worked kind of implies a want for it? Mine ain’t really an outlandish take.
Not sure why you claim it’s not present in this thread when it is right there.
I am not that pessimistic. I recall a time in which Silvermoon/Stormwind were attacked by warlocks with infernals, werewolves (book of the new moon), dreadlords in disguise, black dragons (in disguise) and whatnot on the regular. Sure, it’s different shades of bad compared to bartender man’ari, but let us not pretend the past was a golden age of roleplay either?
I actually believe the older version of Jeyce could be more mature and create better stories than your 14 y/o version during WOTLK. Not saying your stories were bad mind you, I have no idea, but I also think that discussing 5 hours about druid talking in animal form isn’t peak role-play either, and if your friend was willing to ditch their role-playing to undergo this kind of chat, maybe the past was not that stellar great roleplay-filled haven anyway: you look at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
A matter of perspective perhaps. To a lot of people, it might be a win: see, if I keep at a distance different groups, I can keep them at a distance not just for breaking the lore, but for being toxic.
In fact, maybe some people in here were also vibe-checking others to see how they’d handle friendly disagreement, or being asked to be constructive before an issue. Imagine checking if others are friendly before RPing together. That could be part of a neat solution. Wild, huh?
It’s gonna be buried as the topic is active but here are three solutions:
Make guides and tutorials.
Some weeks ago we complained about Man’ari RP and Desolaari went out of their way to create a Man’ari guide. Now every time I have the chance to see a Man’ari (often a beginner) I send them this way and they learn from it.
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/guide-manari-eredar-role-play/558633
Create a guild.
I’m relatively new all around on AD (Tail-end of BfA) and one thing I remember when I started back in Classic was guilds and roleplayers who were helping me and others. If you let some concepts of guilds to individuals with no passion about their theme, they’ll be the ones ‘teaching’ the next generation of roleplayers and not you.
Teach beginners
The way I see it you’ve got two sorts of cringe RP:
Mixing them up is a mistake I see too often. If you offer a beginner a more in-depth roleplay and offer them to lightly tutor them they will follow your steps. Chronic roleplayers are only out for themselves and are only a more passive example to follow that you can easily replace.
Three steps not requiring to be a savior. Just doing your part.
(I picked you, but in truth it’s more an answer to those who share the same sentiment of hopelessness).
I might be misunderstanding your post completely, so apologies for that, but it got me reminiscing a wee bit. I’ve been around AD since, I want to say, late WOTLK.
I might be completely wrong with my perception of things, as I don’t actively partake in “random” or “public” roleplay anymore, or at least not as much as I used to back in ye olde times, but I feel like there’s not necessarily more ‘bad’ in the locations mentioned in this thread (Stormwind, Duskwood). Rather, there’s perhaps less ‘good’. Granted, the overt ERP advertisements in SW Docks is new phenomenon, but I remember Stormwind being a ‘weird’ place back in WOTLK as well. Anybody remember ‘not DK IC’ characters and the absolute variance in quality? Or the awful crypts of both the Cathedral and the Slaughtered Lamb (at least they’ve invested in a door ever since, heh!!)?
But back then, and in the following years, up until I guess BFA, the amount of ‘fine enough’ guilds and individuals made up for it - Stormwind used to be a glorious crucible of roleplay, sometimes bad, sometimes good, most of the times both at the same time in the different corners of the hub. Now, every time I go to Stormwind to see how it’s changed, it more or less just feels stale. The resurgence of Stromgarde and Gilneas as new hubs has been a blursing in disguise as it has fragmented the ‘quality’ of roleplay further. (This is not necessarily a complaint, 'cos I like the fact we have multiple hubs to choose from, with somewhat distinct aesthetics.)
Besides, everything’s not worse! I remember when SMC’s Bazaar (and the whole city by some association) was up there with Goldshire in its notoriety! And look at SMC now, much improved, yes? Yes?!
What I am trying to say, I guess, is that we have the ‘power’ to introduce change by being the change we want to see, heh, as cliche as it is. Am I going to be the first to do that, then? Probably not…