[ Important? ] Building a better AD

Argent Dawn
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So actually quite recently, I had a chat with a GM about these two exact same issues. Griefing in RP, and ERP. The guy (Klastiom, great GM) had some incredibly good insight into exactly what is happening WRT the server, and what is currently being done.

For griefing:
The GM team, right now, cannot log onto WoW very often to check logs or see what is happening in game. Roughly, and this is a ballpark figure, 80% of the GM team is Ireland based, and the others are based in France. With the corona situation, they struggle to access their computers and get in game to see griefing, which is usually what they do as and when a report comes up to take a look themselves. This is no excuse for the times before corona when this wasn’t done, but I know that when I’ve reported RP griefing to the GM’s, they’ve taken pretty good and appropriate action. This is just a bad time for some pretty obvious reasons.

Now, for the ERP situation:
"Blizzard are currently in consultation and solicitation with their legal department and management, and are evaluating the situation in it’s entirety and in the works of re-defining a more robust policy." (Taken word for word from Klastiom. I don’t know if I’m allowed to post this here, but, well, it’s here now.)

They have admitted that this is a situation they have openly tried to dodge, as it is so complex - “Until now we have been trying to see how it unfolds/unfolded, but you are right, it is reaching an unfortunate level where we may just have to clarify a few things.” (quote by quote) With the current COVID-19 situation, all of their US and EU offices are closed, which is slowing things down a lot. Any explicit sexual content falls currently on the inappropriate category.

As Klastiom has also said, "World of Warcraft is a PG-13 game, yet some of the things that happen in certain RP games are not PG friendly. In fact, if we want to be bluntly honest, some of the things people do can even have legal consequences, something that players are not aware of or have even cared about. We normally do not act over it when it happens in private channels, but if someone is making inappropriate comments in public channels, we have to take action. The same if someone sends an inappropriate whisper and it is reported by the receiver." (Again, quote by quote)

He also said this:
"RP is a very small segment of the WoW player base, and often the issues that brings to the table, particularly at this level, risk being more costly and troublesome than what the RP community as a whole represents. Because of that, in a way, the more stuff like this that comes up, the more, in a way, the RP community might just be digging their own grave. Particularly in Europe where legislation has been evolving to protect individuals from ‘certain online aspects’." (QBQ)

As an afternote, some point in the future, he has said that ‘there will be a somewhat public discussion on the forums about these matters’.

I’ll let you guys read through this as you will. It’s something I posted in a Guild chat when it came up, but I think it’s good to put here for everyone else to read now this thread has come up, as well. I’ll stress that everything quoted in the relevant quotes came from a GM’s mouth, and isn’t my own opinion.

I remember back in the day a long time ago, you could report someone’s username for being against RP realm standards. I wish Blizzard would take RP a little bit more seriously, and RPers, like they did back then.

And hey, if a GM wants to take down my post if I’m not allowed to make this on a chat I had with Klastiom, do it. I’m not entirely certain of what I can and can’t share from that, and I’m not a big fan of sharing stuff if I’m not allowed to.

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185

They have answered this yesterday. The RP-rules still applies (names, for example) and you can still report them.

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It’s more likely you’ll get the guy fired if any bit of that discussion was hyperbole or based on misinformation from his end

Id at least omit the GM’s name from the post

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This is why GMs don’t help roleplayers!

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Somehow this does not surprise me to hear.

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Who would want to be an MvP with the amount of abuse they get .
Anyways there are 4 MvPs that have chars on AD but they cant sticky posts and have very little say in matters .
To become an MvP you have to be helpful all over the forums and be polite there is no such thing as server only MvPs.
Going by your post history you dont yet match whats needed.

@OP you have my vote and i hope they take notice .

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It’s quite ironic given that all the RP community wants is for Blizzard to enforce rules they themselves created.

If OOCers weren’t constantly griefing RPers, there would be no backlash against them and if ERPers weren’t allowed to run rampant, most people wouldn’t complain about it since it would be hidden in corners of the world where they wouldn’t be noticed.

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192

I find this comment a little bit annoying tbh. “The more this comes up the more the RP community might just be digging their own grave.” Two possibilities here:

  1. ERPers are being considered “part of the RP community” which is false in pretty much the eyes of everyone. The RP community on AD doesn’t consider themselves such and they certainly don’t consider themselves to be RPing in “good faith”, pretty much only reserved as a weak justification for what they’re doing “…but it’s RP isn’t it?” suffice to say if this is the possibility, I feel it’s unfair to “settle the graves” of all those non-ERP RPers because of the actions of the ERPing group.

  2. They’re referencing the fact that the RP community continually kicking up a stink creates such a demand on their time and resources that it would be easier for them to just turn off the switch. This absolutely cannot be seen as a legitimate response to the problem. It is a lazy response to a problem that could be resolved over time if blizzard employed a bit of manpower towards policing it. I know it’s a tricky thing to police, but actually appearing to do so will act as a deterrent in-itself, especially if you hand out bans for anyone caught with their trousers down.

In all, i’ll remain to see where it goes, but it seems a lot like “It’s a bit too much trouble honestly” is the response here, although this may change depending upon those legal consultations. I don’t understand what the grave comment implies, because only a naive individual thinks that if you close down RP servers those who currently use them to ERP won’t just do it on other servers, because they absolutely will. This behaviour has NOTHING to do with the RP tag.

Suffice to say in the meantime we can still take up a lot of the great advice in this thread regarding “cleaning up”, putting forward the positive RP and trying to start reusing “no go” areas.

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193

Very cursed.

Ignore potential grooming, or else…

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I mean, hasn’t people said that Bobby Kotick was involved with Epstein in some capacity? Atleast named in his notes/book.

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I remember a video from an RP event (think it was the one at Undercity during late Legion?) making a round on Reddit, with people thinking it looked cool.

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It’s probably both tbh. ERPers are most likely seen as part of the community and the noise the RP community constantly raises about it makes it a PR timebomb that could ruin their reputation at any time. It only takes one person with a large mainstream voice to notice it.

Or the fact that it would cost any money at all to pacify a community that it’s easier for them to cut off.

It’s probably not about getting rid of the ERPers so much as it is about sweeping them under the rug so to speak. The non-roleplayers are more likely to just mock and troll them without making a stink about it.

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As said though, they must be half-empty upstairs if they think “closing down” AD will stop people ERPing in Goldshire, they will simply move to another server, or maybe even several, making it harder to track down which is significant if there is anything illegal going on.

At current the problem is largely funneled into a few servers, which makes the problem infinitely easier to target if only you can come up with a strategy to actually tackle the problem itself, and not just kick it down the priority list.

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Appreciate the more solution driven thread!

Also I like the suggestion of creating more ways to promote “proper” RP on the server, whether it was more server wide events in public places or making RP easier to approach and accessible for all people, not just new but deffo go more easy on new people. There will always be drama on this server and there will always be people who break the rules just because they can, but better focus on what we can currently affect.

Also one thing I used to do in Swtor (which doesn’t even have RP servers anymore), anytime we had someone trolling in open world RP hub, just create some fun way to include them until they get bored. I was lucky to be on my spicehead character one day drinking with his buddies… a troll shows up, my char asks the others if he is hallucinating. The troll played along for a while and ran off soon after. RP proceeded normally after.

Also keep suggesting that Blizz would add new methods for roleplayers to roleplay on the RP realms. It’s understandable to be frustrated when Blizz takes little to no action on what bothers us, but they will probably listen to constructive suggestions much more than angry posts (like PvE and PvP community didn’t give them enough of that already). If they don’t listen, we’re fighting for a lost cause.

Screenshots are common sense and the community has been using them to expose ToS breakers before… wasn’t it just last summer there was an incident involving a guild operating in Duskwood where someone doxxed another person -> screenshots and publicity of case -> consequences? Unsure if recordings would go too far unless people really had decency to start recording only during griefing and stop it after it’s over.

^

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The goal would most likely just be to stop people talking about it. Without the RP community Goldshire becomes a place for people to troll ERPers ingame as opposed to having the ERP issue constantly brought up in the public forums.

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That’s probably true, if betraying a shocking stance. All it would take is one person to start hammering on those servers though, and the cycle repeats, closing more and more servers? Beyond a point it just becomes counter-productive. They may as well at least present like they want to deal with it, even if it’s unrealistic.

But I agree with your reasoning here about what the likely response would be, I just can’t fathom how they’d think it’s a smart idea. Maybe because they think by the time any fuss is kicked up WoW would be abandoned as a project? Who knows.

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It can be that ERP is such a widespread problem that, if they start banning people, half of the community will disappear. I am not entirely sure what is being said, really. That it is too much trouble to moderate the realm, and therefore it is easier to shut it down? GMs usually don’t have the complete picture.

But, yes, it does explain why certain guilds aren’t getting nuked at the moment.

Why were those shut down? I have never played that game, so I don’t know.

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and nothing of value was lost

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Low activity. RP servers disappeared when Bioware merged together several servers. All RP servers were merged into PvE ones.

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The US server still has some amount of RP(atleast that you can see in public) The EU one is pretty much non-existant outside of small guild-pockets contained entierly to Strongholds/Guild houses.

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