There’s no real reason why rp servers are social.
Its mostly just people actually doing non blizz RP (The real roleplayers).
This is reasonable and my own position (even tho I do RP when out and about).
it’s not about demands (and acting like the inability to make demands makes the argument moot is absolutely ludicrous), it’s about consideration which I understand is a bit of an old-fashioned idea in today’s age, but it is what it is.
let’s say i play on a server for PvP, clearly labelled PVP. It’s intended as a PvP server one might say. Although the server doesn’t force you to PvP, the existence of the label clearly indicates it is meant to have a PvP purpose there which is tapped into or at least encouraged/allowed to flourish. Let’s say I have absolutely no intention to PvP (this is fine), but I decide i’m going to invite tons of my mates to have no interest in PvPing either.
Other people would be rightfully annoyed because we’re not actually contributing towards the listed server purpose, in fact, we could be impeding it by where we decide to step into pvp, we’re just there “for the lolz” or whatever and decidedly reduce the competitive environment or similar.
This is kind of why RPers get annoyed, it’s not about people having to RP (as said i’m happy so long as people support and play by the rules of the server which is to respect RP and give it right of way) but a lot of these people do not respect the rules because “there’s no outright obligation to do so, it doesn’t say so” and when you get enough people like this, it actually becomes difficult for the people who do want to RP to actually do that, because all these other people clog up the areas they’d use, or troll them, or likewise.
It’s worth noting AD is the last “functional” RP server There were more but the Rp communities on them massively declined due to growing OOC player numbers where it became extremely difficult for RPers to roleplay in several hubs and escape harassment on a server listed as being for RP. It is unsurprising they are quite defensive towards people encouraging others to just “come and roll on AD kek” when a lot of these posts mention absolutely nothing about respecting the server label or the activity of players there and it’s treated as some kind of sideshow for other players to amuse themselves with.
As an earlier poster said, these players who want a “social atmosphere” could easily get that on any other server if only they bothered to be a bit proactive and encourage/contribute towards it themselves. But most are too lazy to do that, so they go to a server with it ready-built for them, that just so happens to be an RP server, but they don’t care about that nor care to respect it.
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This is me too. Been AD since the beginning and I love coming across people RPing and making the world come alive. I dont actively RP (cant type fast enough!) but will always respect other peoples RP and try to interact in character if I can.
I really dont understand people who only want their own little RP bubble to interact with and ban all others. Any place you go you will have friends, strangers, etc wandering about…you wont form lasting friendships with everybody. why cant an RP realm be like that?
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Not a bad post overall, but the above is a myth.
The sole reason most RP servers other than AD are not big anymore is that players over time concentrate around centers of their preferred activities. This happened to everything else in the game: PVE, PVP, etc.
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Degree of interpretation depending on what we mean on functional, which is why i used it.
Can you get RP on the others? yes. You can get RP on ANY server in game.
But how reliable? How diverse? How numerous? Only AD offers these things in plentiful enough supply that you can literally see them occuring just by being in the game, which is kinda what you’d expect on RP servers. On the others you tend to have to hunt down or preorganise the RP because it isn’t happening organically.
That’s what I mean by functional, RP is a typical enough occurance on AD that it’s functional to come into the server intending to RP knowing nothing, no one, and you’ll bump into it and be able to join in. On the other servers the chances of this happening without organisation are very very very low, which means it’s function as a server for those interested in the idea of roleplaying fails, but the server should service people interested in trying, starting and doing RP, not just those already into it.
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I totally agree with this. I would never seek to impede or interfere with anyone’s RP in a negative way, and those who do so are being disrespectful to people and the spirit in which RP servers are intended.
I would argue though that the ‘neutral’ participants such as myself who do not actively RP but do not impede it are beneficial for a couple of reasons:
Firstly, without the non-RPing players, the server population would be hugely diminished, which would IMO be a bad thing as it reduces the pool for communities. Most RP’ers that I know also like to do other OOC things, and having a large community available fir this is a boon.
Secondly, having players just milling about doing their thing in my opinion actually adds to the environment for roleplayers to a certain extent, especially in hubs. It makes the world seem more occupied. (This does not include leaping about on massive mounts)
I can totally see why some of the more hardcore RP’ers get a bit miffed about those they see as being less entitled to be on an RP server being there, but I honestly think if all of the RP neutral people like myself were to disappear overnight then AD would be greatly diminished.
I don’t disagree with you that AD is more functional or whatever (I’d just say ‘bigger’) in terms of RP than other RP servers.
I am just saying this happened not because of the OOCers.
Well i don’t share the view of every other RPers, i’ll admit i’m what they’d call “liberal” in that I don’t mind people who don’t RP so long as they don’t bother Rpers or get in their way/contribute towards diminishing the RP atmosphere. The phrase I use is “right of way”. If I don’t have to be where I am to do what I do, and this conflicts with what an RPer is trying to achieve, I give them right of way and move. It’s a very small thing which means a lot to RPers, but most people can’t even entertain that idea and will reort “you have no right to tell me I can’t afk on my mammoth right on your campfire, who do you think you are? I want to afk right here and that’s your problem!” which creates the antagonism.
If more OOC players on the server had the mindset of supporting RP (and reporting those who actively target it negatively) most ADers wouldn’t be so aggressive. Fact is a lot of OOC players simply don’t care, and they don’t care that them taking one second to move makes a huge difference to your story, because they see it as a confrontation that can also be resolved with a winner and loser and they don’t want to “lose” so they refuse to move for you. It’s really sad.
But as said I don’t think you can expect people MUST RP. Firstly, impossible to police, you’d need to set up arbitrary requirements like “minimal amounts” and also “what is classed as RP” which just leads to elitism etc. It’s unreasonable. It’s also not fair to those who behave and do respect the server.
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They certainly contributed. It wasn’t just a case of those servers randomly going “let’s go to AD becuz”. If the server was functioning, they’d have no reason to move due to the costs. Yet lots of them did. That suggests something changed and many anecdotal reports from players of these servers all say the same thing.
Now they could all be lying, but it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest every single one of these accounts is lying than to consider maybe there was something to it.
I mean I used to play on Defias Brotherhood back in the day in classic and TBC. It was brilliant and there was no reason for me to feel like moving, RP was plentiful. Over time it became harder and harder, some people started to leave because of this, and this effect trickled over years.
It didn’t happen instantly, it was a gradual effect, but once some people start leaving because of finding it difficult or being unable to deal with OOC griefing, it sets the tone for others to follow them. It just depends on thresholds of players. I stuck around for a long time, but in the end I was like “this basically isn’t an RP server for me anymore” so I moved.
Here we are in total agreement.
Indeed, it would be impossible to enforce and very difficult to determine what the appropriate thresholds would be.
If I wanted to play devils advocate I could say to any RP’er that I am in fact RP’ing a very shy adventurer who does not like talking to other people but instead just goes about their daily adventuring business on their own 
No. The centralization would have happened with zero OOCers. It did for other types of content.
It’s not terribly important, but you are wrong here.
No, they are absolutely correct. A lot of people left The Sha’tar, myself included, because of the influx of OOC’ers. I know people keep trying to deny it, but that is what happened.
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Well this is it isn’t it? It comes down to a value judgement of what “RP really is”.
If I wanted to be REALLY Devil’s Advocate I could roleplay i’m a madman who believes an external giant being is controlling his body as if in some grand game of chess with overarching cosmic plots and parts (ie, justifying me treating OOC view of the game as IC). Now I could genuinely be RPing that, which means that if we say that’s unacceptable (because it’s basically trolling) are we saying roleplaying characters who are completely delusional is now wrong? You have to “do it properly” to count? Doesn’t that stagnate RP (which is bad)?
And so on. So I gave up on that ages ago and now just keep to the view so long as you’re helping that RP label stay relevant and helping kick off those whom come to ruin it, you’re good and I have no problem with you and won’t chase you off the server or make you feel unwelcome.
Why would it have happened?
By this logic towns shouldn’t exist then because eventually “all would converge on capitols because the services there exceed those of a town” and yet people don’t do that, they’re content to remain in a town so long as it services their requirements efficiently enough. Yet when things like public services get cut, then they move. Sometimes even then, they don’t, but what is left behind is very precarious in terms of what it offers and employment.
You’re peddling nonsense. People only move if they feel a reason to move. If people always centralised on where the action is and access to more over wow’s life cycle you’d have everyone and their mum being on draenor by this point, yet they;re not. Because if their server is “good enough”, they don’t move.
i think you’re grossly underestimating how many RPers there used to be in WoW, there were a LOT and there was no need to congregate on one server to get reliable RP back in those days because there was plenty everywhere. When some moved to AD following the change of situation, some just left wow altogether (or left for other reasons) which means the RP playerbase went down.
I’m not saying it’s the only reason why the other servers stopped being reliable for RP, but it is probably the most significant one. As said, all those anecdotes don’t mean absolutely nothing. Especially when your defence is “well people would just centralise though anyway” without offering any proof of why they would do that.
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Even as a non RP’er I’ve had almost this exact same thought 
If I were more into RP’ing I would probably try and consider some of the less egregious OOC antagonists as deranged or mad from an IC perspective. Given the sheer amount of horrific eldritch adversaries that Azeroth has had in it’s past it’s quite reasonable that there would be a fair few unhinged adventurers around!
If you’re not gonna at least be interested in RPing in the future, don’t join.
Hell, I only RP casually, and not really all too often as of recent, but that’s enough.
Don’t just come here because you think AD is a zoo or whatever.
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I’m so glad someone said this. Always grind my gears when someone says “It’s an mmo you have to be social, it’s in the name!”. No… no it’s not. Nowhere in mmorpg does it say social.
A social environment can be a lovely bonus effect of course! But I think we ourselves are in charge of making it so. So many players wait around for the social aspect to come to them when in reality you often have to create the opportunity yourself. You won’t always get results, or the results you want, but it will happen eventually.
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You know,i might be wrong on this, but i was sure i read years ago that rp servers are more heavily moderated and reports are taken very seriously with more weight per report and far stricter rules to preserve the RP nature of the servers.
If you guys don’t have boost spams then surely every realm should start getting this treatment because its a plague on most servers.
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Because it’s natural for people who share a common activity to gravitate to each other and form centers. The only number of any interest here is how many people are interested in RP at all. The proportion of such people was not terribly high and its absolute value has been dwindling because the number of players in the game overall was reducing (reduced 4x or so). That’s it.
As I said, this happened for all other activities in the game. Step out of your bubble. The world isn’t about RP. There’s also PVE, PVP, etc, you are not unique. The formation of centers for activities is a completely natural thing.
But as I said, it’s not terribly important. If you think it all happened because of people who attacked the poor RPers, fine, we disagree, let’s move on.
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I don’t think Avilou and I are on the same Argent Dawn EU server because mine sure is full of boosters. So much so that I, almost daily, make new filters in badboy. We’re not at all excluded from booster spam. In fact it’s a daily topic in the very lively tradechat, between the american politics and thunderfury spam of course.