[ Important? ] Building a better AD

Argent Dawn
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Hey gamers,

Every few weeks or even days we have a thread complaining about various server issues - ie. ERP, OOCers and so on - and they’re pretty much cyclical with the same arguments, the same villains and so on

That has gotten me thinking (with my very limited IQ) about what we can actually do beyond talking about it - which I think is also a good thing, as an aside - to get this stuff looked into and I’m also interested in your thoughts / ideas

I would say in my opinion the two problems I’ve mentioned above (OOC/ERP) are the main ones and for the purposes of this thread to not be another cycle I will put the rhetoric aside and say that the main areas of those problems that should get attention are:

  • Public cyber / overtly sexualised RP profiles (ie. Goldshire, graphic descriptions)

  • Widespread griefing / OOC dialogue in spatial channels like /say, /yell etc

While I think in reality I’d rather have a realm with neither for this thread I’m interested in more grounded “in the now” thinking

So what can we do?

I think the key to this is to become loud and annoying. As crazy as that may seem, that is absolutely how changes are made on this game - it’s easier to plod along and ignore quiet minor complaints in the interests of saving time / money but when something is popping off it is usually dealt with in the name of pragmatism

I think we the good people of Argent Dawn are more the capable of being loud and annoying - though I think that should be organised in some way so it isn’t cringe but based instead

At this time our recourse for both is in-game reports - but that isn’t always effective:

That explains why so few griefers are actioned but that isn’t super helpful to us

I also think as an aside there could be a lot done to better market the RP experience. ATM most people without insight into RP think that grim stuff at Goldshire encompasses the whole experience and that is in part why people come here to grief, streamer raid and so on - like if you search youtube for WoW RP 99% of the top posts are set in the Lion’s Pride and involve at least several draenei

We need to people to realise that actually we’re more about fighting over Strahnbrad for 15 years in a row, not cybering. The former is at least a tiny bit cooler

Anyway yeah let’s put our massive foreheads together and help build a better AD. What do you guys think can be done / what are your suggestions?

Sorry for the dumb title / dragon RP-core post but I freestyled this after drinking two energy drinks. Please avoid beefing with each other for this one thread because I think less griefing / public cyber is in the interests of pretty much everyone

RP screenshots shilling twitter
https://twitter.com/ArgentAlbum

RP community discords

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What energy drinks were they?

Some kind of media publicity could help us to make the issue more noticeable. No idea how could we possibly get that, though. But I do agree that we probably need to be noticed in order for the OOC/ERP issues to get cleared up. If only we had an AD MVP…

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They were “Boost” and tasted a bit weird today

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i like this post on the AD forums. thank you for this post gamer Perroy

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“I can’t do my job because it was like an hour ago and stuff.”

:clown_face:

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One first step should be for us to revise what’s pinned in the forums as a sticky thread. I don’t think the map is up to date at all, the RP newcomer guide is nice too, the arcane magic guide is a bit out-of-place.

Should definitely have a copy of the old RP rules / RP server rules pinned, along with a link to Argent Archives. AA is the most unique thing this community has and we should be proud of it.

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Classic Pezza, snorting lines of energy drink off the table through a small straw.

Is there some sort of official complaint filing system that we can go through to complain about the abhorrently poor standard of customer service that we receive when trying to ticket a GM?

I feel like with enough traction this could cause Blizzard to notice through sheer number of official complaints alone.

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I think one thing I’ve seen plenty of people do lately is a productive thing. We do from time to time get people who post about their interest in playing on AD/questions, and more and more, people are in a very good and productive way, trying to get these folks interested in roleplay!

Or if the person flat out says they have no interest otherwise, I’ve also seen quite a few people explain the current situation as reasonably as possible.

It’s far from perfect, but it’s a good start, so I say keep up with that! Greet new people, try to get them into roleplay, and if they arent interested, try to recommend more suitable reams.

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Can trust level 3 people stick threads or would we need a blue for that?

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Need a blue (because I can’t)

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It would be extremely cool if this was stickied because I think it’s important that we talk about these problems as a community without the PCU/anti-PCU/whatever/whateverelse battles distracting us

I like to think that on the issues I listed above - as moderate as they are - we can all agree

edit: someone in AD/D mentioned that some MMOs have a function that vanishes ignored players from your view and I’ve seen that passed around

Thoughts on that? Sounds pretty great to me as a generic fix to some of this stuff

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need blues that actually rp so they can empathise with the struggle yo

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Yeah, I’ve been wanting this since I heard of it.

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Blizz aren’t gonna do anything unless it’s got the potential to make them look bad and/or lose them money.

To do that, you’re looking at getting attention from “news” places - whether they’re blizz/wow focused (eg. blizzwatch), general gaming (eg. polygon, kotaku) or more mainstream normie news places. It’s unlikely they’d care about roleplay griefing, but the cybering/sexual stuff would get attention - and has in the past. Nothing short of a PR/marketing problem is gonna make them change their approach. Mainstream news is a bit occupado right now, but “Activision Blizzard fails to address groomers” isn’t a good look at all, so the gaming news would probably pick it up.

Ideally the increased scrutiny on that would dovetail into increased scrutiny on griefers too, but no guarantees.

As for making the server look better, probably a twofold approach. First would be to try to cut down on the RP drama in general rather than dragging it out for 1000 posts of back-and-forth sniping and the like. People everywhere just being more chill and knowing when to walk away from others who won’t be swayed. Not intended to be directed at anyone - and I’m totally guilty of not doing this.

Second would be to try to bump up more focus on exposing RP stories through other mediums - reddit, youtube, twitter, etc. You see the occasional screenshots crop up but they never seem very “organised”. If public RP events were advertised - before and/or after the fact - as the “mainstream” of RP rather than rando youtubers doing their ‘lol RPers are ERPers!’ videos then it might go some way to changing perception.

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I said in the OP I want to be realistic, Elenthas

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If I recall correctly - Perroy did an interview with a German Kotaku (i think it was, at least), discussing ERP and the Goldshire reporting raids. If something could be done on a larger scale, perhaps more people could take notice?

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Being able to ignore people, not just what their messages say but their whole character, would enhance experiences greatly.

In most games, a simple ‘mute’ of the player can only do so much. Their presence can still cause disruption. Mammoth/Yak blocking is not just something that roleplayers have experienced. In fact, there was an image of someone who, on patch day, hopped onto a mammoth mount, went to the major quest NPC, and parked himself there, going afk.

If one wishes to ignore a person, we should be allowed to fully ignore them. Their messages, their character, we no longer wish to see anything of them or about them.

The whole “PvP” stuff can be a discussion of itself to prevent ‘going invisable’

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A lot of things were done over and over again, but I really think that we should keep trying. I have to admit that since last year if not more some things have changed, for the better, and it is no secret that thanks for it should go to Perroy and his team.

Other than that I have a small idea as to how make our server more rp friendly. Maybe we should organize a normal event in Trade District and Valley of Strenght? Rp there for a few days, even with Oocers around. Yeah we might regret it at some point but maybe we will infect some of them with willingness to RP. Its a shame some areas are impossible to rp at. Given how cool they are

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Well we shouldn’t expect blizz to do anything then :pensive:

Cutting commentary aside, it all starts with people/guilds. If they start showing a low tolerance for :poop: stirring then, ideally, it’ll lead people to not be :poop: stirrers. Won’t fix it all on its own, not by half, but small things add up and all that.

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I think this would be great, griefers are going to grief anyway and it might show people that RP is vastly different from what they see in Goldshire or what some streamers and their audience considers RP.

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