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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Quite a way of saying that ERP kills RP, but I agree
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The “digging our own grave” bit I understand as an issue of resources, and Blizzard possibly not being willing to put in the resources needed to solve the problem. As such, closing down the RP tag is easier and cheaper. Money money. One can hope that’s not what they actually want, though.
On a more positive note, this is a nice thread! I definitely believe in a more positive advertisement of the RP hobby to try and improve things. Moving into more OOC-dominated areas is also a nice idea, though I do think smaller areas like Trade District is fine to keep as is. People will always need to zoom back and forth to banks and AH, and that is fine.
You called?
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Likely just rebranding the RP servers “PvE”, as offering everybody a free transfer -costs money-. 
Shutting down servers and scattering an entire community will not be received well - by anyone.
Anyway, it simply means that this is a good thread and that have to step up our game a little bit more to create a clean and good server.
Closing down the RP tag would eventually lead towards loss of money for Blizzard. There are plenty of players who have RP as their main reason for playing WoW and removing that would make them re-evaluate whether they want to stay subbed (or whether they want to invest more into all the private RP servers that would start popping up).
On top of that, it wouldn’t solve Goldshire problem since ERPers don’t really rely on RP tag itself or enforcement of RP rules. Situation there would stay the same. If the problem lies in ERP potentially hurting Blizzard, policing it is the only way to remove it.
And that’s not even mentioning bad rep they would get by this move. Even people who don’t contribute toward RP scene tend to have positive view on it. The whole “AD feels so alive” view shown by Taliesin and others is not result of PvE and PvP community here, but of RPers. If Blizzard announced they are removing RP servers, there would be a backlash from them too, especially after finding out the reasons were Goldshire ERP and griefing of RP.
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Oh definitely. I don’t agree with them, I just suspect that might sadly be how they see things, based on that GM comment alone. But we don’t know if he is even right, or just assuming things about Blizzard’s stance.
Allonia answered that part for me.
And speaking of RP server rules, has Blizzard given RP servers any “official” rules that are still easily found and accessible for anyone? Because now it seems these rules are more community preserved (and created?) thing aside from references to official ToS and policies given here and there.
Even if Blizz had official rules for the servers, I think they should update those rules in addition to starting to enforce them again.
Whilst removing the RP tag legitimises blizzard washing their hands of having to step in for “griefing” etc. I wonder would it matter to the players?
I mean it’s not like we roll on AD with the fact blizzard enforce anything close to an RP policy in mind, so would it actually make it any different from how it is treated now (essentially as a PvE server with a dedicated community keeping RP alive, knowing the onus for that is on them, because blizzard rarely defend their premise to do this).
Like, they could wash their hands of guarding RP, but players just kinda do it anyway because well why not? The only difference would be people don’t ticket any Rp disruption (unless it comes under CoC griefing rules) hoping for a reply, but like, it’s not like that that’s extremely common at the moment is it?
Just sounds like a way to rid their minds of the guilt rather than do anything else.
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One big issue could be addition of sharding in old world, which would kill large scale RP.
I totally forgot the sharding thing, yes they’d likely bring that in in the event of a change which would bring the guillotine down.
Why would they bring that back though?
I believe sharding was removed specifially at the request of roleplayers, though I might be mistaken. If Argent Dawn was ultimately turned into a PvE servers after the RP tag was removed, they’d very likely go back on that as it wouldn’t matter to them anymore, regardless of whether the server still harbours roleplayers or not
If RP servers were turned into normal ones, there’s no reason to assume they wouldn’t go all the way through. Sharding is something Blizzard clearly likes and RP is the only reason why it isn’t a thing here.
Ah, like that, yes.
I will quit if it returns, and never buy or play a Blizzard game again.
I wouldn’t really blame you to be quite honest Obilot
This would definitely end up being a more popular option for a lot of roleplayers if Blizzard really did decide to bring down the hammer and abolish the ‘RP’ tag for servers, though I’d like to hope that they’ll keep it if only because they’re already aware of this reality if the tag was removed (or at least I hope they’re aware of that - it’s not exactly that difficult to imagine)
I see no further indication that they want to do this, though. It won’t solve anything.
Indeed, but it absolves them of responsibility in having to solve the issues present. It’s like someone who is a manager being tasked with a problem, so they subsequently seek that their job is renamed by HR to something more generic, so the next time someone complains to them with a “management issue” they can simply go “I’m not a manager, this is not my problem to solve.”