Yeah, that’s fair. I hope it will work out.
That’s the main! I sometimes post on Xav, but I’ve used Mogi as a forum main for so long that I wouldn’t want to change.
We’re definitely in agreement here. One of my favourite things to do on AD, and please bully me for this, is to refresh the “Gallery” section and see what the “random art piece” at the top of the page is. This is the only reliable way to see art and characters from the past, and can lead to rabbit holes of AD history that had been otherwise completely lost.
Unfortunately, that’s the sad bit; it’s the only way. I enjoy the thought of AA as its namesake, a genuine archive of history, but there are very few ways of exploring that history. We have a system for scrolling through every single name on the site, but you can understand how that can be difficult to navigate. Leaving the badly-aged design topic, the main issue for me is the fact the site in its current state can only really display the top 1% of profiles, with the remaining 99% lost to history. It’s because of this you mention The Blades; by using it so much, we are very visible, whilst other profiles are drowned out.
My issue with the site is less about wanting profile prettiness, and more wanting its actual use - that of an Archive - to be emphasised and improved upon. Anyway, I definitely suggest spending a few minutes refreshing the Gallery section and see where it takes you. Too many amazing profiles are buried in 2012.
Oh cool didn’t mean to derail or stuff but yeah I really like the slew of artwork you’ve got for Xav, and what you described there just made me instantly think of that character (despite me being totally unaware you are one and the same) so it does it justice.
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I find myself basically never using the AA. It’s too laggy and full of content that is basically irrelevant to me
It was once one of the big points in favour of AD as a server. I assume the majority of the team that runs it doesn’t play this game much if at all so it’s no surprise it isn’t updated so often
It’s more active than it was, at least. There was a time in the mid-2010s where the front page was seldom if ever updated, leaving month old newspapers there for eternity. Nowadays it at least tries to keep an active front page, even if the vast majority of the articles it displays are only relevant to the niche group that ask for it to be up there. I feel some more open communication between the server and the page’s admins would be beneficial.
AA is definitely a huge selling point for the realm that is being let down by overly precious staff. There seems to be enough people that have issues and wants for such a thing that AA talk might be worth a seperate thread? Not sure…
Either way. Revamping or even… replacing… the AA would, I am convinced, get some significant interest.
If RPers like anything it is talking about our characters.
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It’s fair to consider the domino effect that certain attitudes can have, but I think you would have to consider the flipside to that coin also. What is the domino effect of this heightened animosity towards non-roleplayers on the server? What is the domino effect of this sort of aggressive argumentation against not just those non-roleplayers but their “enablers”? I can practically see the domino bricks lined up, ready to topple.
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I’d be first and top reply if you make that thread, definitely. A lot of my friends/guildmates have a lot of suggested improvements/alternatives as well.
Leaving aside the AA topic (I stand by what I’ve already said and disagree with the negative sentiment toward the staff):
I think this is probably one of the best, positive shifts on the server in terms of OOC trends.
I was pretty horrendous for trying to push lore purism a few years ago, and in the time since, I’ve just had to wonder: what did it ever accomplish? That kind of hostile behaviour directed toward creative license wasn’t productive, and if anything I can only imagine that it drove people away.
Blizzard have never bothered with world-building, so ultimately it becomes largely our own responsibility to add flavour to parts of the world that have been left neglected and - frankly - bland.
We’ve seen it in guild threads too. From my time on the server / forums, there’s always been an issue with people offering unsolicited feedback on advertisements that comes across more as an attempt to tear something done, rather than offer feedback in any kind of good faith.
Positive reinforcement fosters a positive atmosphere. I know it probably reads as 
platitudes, but I do think it’s important to encourage each other when we’re trying to do something – all it’s going to do it create more roleplay and, if we’re not interested in what’s offered, we can choose not to engage rather than smear it.
Of course, there are very obvious exceptions – but we should already know those.
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Last word on the topic, I definitely agree that bad faith towards the staff themselves is unwarranted when they are, at the end of the day, providing a free service. I disagree with the direction they’ve taken this service (or, lack of direction), but I’ll always respect their work and effort. I feel the solution is open communication as opposed to lambasting, to hear their motivations/justifications.
Which is such a massive shame. The Warcraft universe is massive enough to invite novels/short stories/comics set within Azeroth, without it being focused upon the fact the world is ending.
It’s ironic that it’s the RPers growing disdain towards this world’s setting/narrative that led to them finding some more joy in it, by letting ourselves pad out settings/concepts that Blizzard never cared for.
I think chiding people on their names is a pretty lame thing to do especially when we all know about the people who somehow hoard hundreds of acceptable, good names for the purpose of trying to flog them ten years down the line on multiple trial accounts. :L
I’m not saying “Swagmastersixtynine” is okay but when somebody has very clearly had to go a little out of the box to make it, or includes all sorts of weird accents just to get a name that’s not taken… let it go. It’s not a hill worth dying on.
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Agreed, 100%.
Most of the characters I’ve designed in the last couple of years have featured headcanon and extrapolation from paper-thin lore. One of my druids, Areo, involves me having taken several liberties with the lore attached to Ashamane, and how it might ultimately apply to the Ashen druids who bear her name. A glance on Wowpedia shows us about a paragraph of text on the Ashen, which isn’t particularly helpful.
Trying to shame people for working with that they have, and attempting to fill the gaps in a way that doesn’t contradict any established lore, is very low energy.
I don’t know whether I exactly agree with there being a domino effect, but I am kinda curious as to how non-AD roleplayers consider our “anti-OOC” rhetoric. Are they put off by it?
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I saw what you did Blizzard…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWBlDC2-ss
Sometimes it can be annoying not getting the name you ideally want (especially if you verify it’s not in use on an ‘active’ character) but it is not difficult to find a lore-appropriate name for a character if you try, even with the name hoarding that goes on. There’s dozens of name generators out there on the internet to give you ideas that you can tweak and modify.
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Pretty sure they don’t care tbh.
To be fair, I couldn’t get the name I wanted for my death knight so I just went with her surname. I imagine surnames are largely free game, “Southmoore” certainly was.
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The first result produces some of the most ridiculous sounding, poorly generated names for every race.
Just for example I decided to randomise a bunch of Elven names to see how bad it’d be.
They are for the most part random strings of letters such as Suraraeyth or Gaerith or my favourite? Melemelorn.
Sure they can be tweaked but these name generators are almost as bad as Blizzard’s.
I think the idea of RPing in zones where players usually don’t, such as Trade District and current hub (Boralis, for example) is a good idea, with the goal of normalising RP, not antagonising players not engaged in it. It may, how ever, lead to a rise of griefing for the role players engaging in the zone. This might not be a bad thing though, leading onto the next point.
I’ve worked for a long while with various IT support, and if it is one thing that is brought up regularly, it’s statistics.
“This is our current amount of cases, these are open, these are closed, these are within SLA, these aren’t, this amount was unsatisfactory” and so on. No one with decision power is going to look at the individual cases, but an increase of cases (tickets) and a drop in satisfaction could (should, in a healthy organisation) have an effect and may lead to larger changes that favour the RP community, rather than just punishing individuals here and there.
Even though OP stated that it is rare that the tickets can be dealt with, it doesn’t have to be the point. It’s just making sure it is on record and in their system, which is one of the few ways the player base actually can affect the problem right now, and making sure what ever system they use mark it as an increase and out of norm compared to other servers. Naturally, the tickets should be valid complaints, and it might just be a small dent in a large problem, but it’s a shame not to use the tools at hand.
It is a shame there is segregation between the types of players on Argent Dawn, and that RP has been confined away from certain zones for a really long time. A friend of mine has lamented the disappearance of “casual crossover” between the types of players that, to him, existed during vanilla. Current situation places RP as a fringe group, even on it’s own realm, and with most players not reading the forums it may seem very inaccessible and strange. It really shouldn’t, it should be everyday here, even if not everyone engages in it.
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Pretty much. The average WoW player’s experience of RPers will be through memes about how they’re below even the most lowlife WoW player, using the game to fulfil strange and degenerate fantasies.
I doubt machinima is important in the slightest anymore, but my pre-AD notion of RPers came entirely from WoW videos like Oxhorn movies, where RPers are presented as weirdos who speak in Ye Olde Anglish. It was because of this I made a level 1 human to troll RPers in Goldshire in 2010. I thought the Goldshirers were nice to me, so I transferred my main, and the rest is history. Guess it is true we all start in Goldshire.
See you just change that into Melonmelorn and you’re sorted! Perfect character name.
With the removal of character cap per server, people will have more characters on AD than before too. I agree it’s annoying, and sometimes you need to go through a number of ideas before you find one that is available and works for you, but I truly do not believe the people who say they can’t find a good name for their character anymore.