[Meta] Worth the effort?

No, strictly OOC metagaming.

Ohh, alright

what a king

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Youā€™re right, and sometimes people, new roleplayers or not, canā€™t take well-meaning criticism or advice.

That doesnā€™t change my point of thereā€™s an unnecessary amount of witch hunts and humiliation towards people who donā€™t fit a cliqueā€™s warped definition of ā€œGoOd rPā€.

The irony is, the new roleplayers and those who may not be as experienced are probably providing more enjoyable roleplay because theyā€™re not dossing their game time on the meme roof all day whilst insulting other players because they got a small bit of lore wrong or made a spelling mistake.

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Definitely the better approach rather than chastise / exclude others.
Iā€™ve never personally been really invested in the campaign against ERP, as many seem to be. Although I can obviously see the negatives from having a server filled with ERP, as compared to simply having a great time with quality storytelling.

Perhaps the massive focus on the whole ERP issue will result in an increase of it. Such as more people hearing about the ā€œone-who-shall-not-be-namedā€ guild.

Having guilds state in rules that they remove all ERPā€™ers is a great way to attempt to keep guilds clean, but I do wonder if all the ā€œpressā€ ERP and the ERP-guilds get on the forum can work counterintuitively to the main objective of reducing it.

From a largely external point of view Iā€™d say AD has gotten worse in terms of ā€˜cliquesā€™, but itā€™s hard to gauge whether itā€™s better or worse overall. In my head I split people into 2 or 3 ā€˜generationsā€™ of roleplayers, that I tend to separate into Vanilla > Wrath, Cata > WoD, and Legion >. People from category 1 tend to view their RP as a ā€˜golden ageā€™, but when they talk about it people from categories 2 and 3 tend to think theyā€™re talking about category 2, which is where (in my opinion solely) there was a decline largely caused by the sudden increase in OOC hostility, so they donā€™t understand the nostalgia.

Things have improved, though I still find myself largely put off from ever getting back into things because of the OOC nonsense, but as Iā€™ve said countless times elsewhere thatā€™s my own hangup and not necessarily indicative of the server at large. I was initially concerned when the whole PCU thing sprang up but Iā€™m long over that now (having the long-held belief that creating lots of RP > all), sadly however thereā€™s plenty more things that bug me about how people on AD behave. Maybe generation 4 will be betterā€¦

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its increased regardless and it is leaking out of its main hub, we are just trying to take a stand that we do not tolerate it and maybe itā€™ll dry out like the attention leech it is.

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Nah

In Cataclysm very few people had any problems with ERP to the point that threads complaining about it would be brigaded with such extreme pride + it was fairly common to see people say ā€œitā€™s just character development =Pā€ in response to almost anything. It was common to see guilds choosing officers based on who would be willing to hang out in the garrison for longer - and Iā€™m not talking about small fringe guilds but guilds that were the big thing at the time

Now you would be hard-pressed to find even a single good guild that allows ERP

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There exists for sure objectively bad RP though. Thereā€™s a fine line between being too harsh when criticizing it and being too passive and letting it spread.

Except with ERP. Thatā€™s already ToS.

I donā€™t think there is ā€œobjectivelyā€ bad roleplay. My definition might vary from yours, but neither of us would be wrong.

But that aside, I donā€™t think itā€™s anyoneā€™s duty to police to roleplay of others if theyā€™re not inside our guilds or communities ā€“ if they are, then itā€™s up to the discretion of the GM and officers.

This goes without saying though, yes.

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nah there are these guys called the lionheart they kind of suck

Yeah, true

I see.

I must admit, Iā€™ve not RPā€™ed for long on AD, so I know very little of what used to be. Mostly prefered tabletop RPGs.

But you mean to say ERP used to be more common? Or simply that itā€™s less in the open nowadays.

O-oh. Oh wow. This isā€¦ Was. Quite the read to catch back up on. Two hours of reading. Well, to start with, IĀ“d like to thank everyone here that have posted so-far on the thread, as many views have been brought up, and opinions raised. It is as many of you have claimed, relying on rumours and heresy alone should not condemn a community.

I believe my first reply here will be to answer NimonisĀ“ concern about my intent. The opening thread is intentionally vague, you are correct on that. But no, it was not to start a conflict or another drama thread. I wanted a discussion to take place. The fact that itĀ“s civil, with minimal finger-pointing is all the better. Though at the time of my reply, the thread has gotten derailed at least three times? Which I find honestly curious.

But, in any regard. IĀ“m somewhat surprised to see the blatant dislike, borderline hatred towards ERPĀ“ers. That, and peopleĀ“s view on the health of the server seems to largely depend on if they are part of the PCU or not.

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ERP is broadly disliked among roleplayers ā€“ or at least those that do like it will rarely admit as much. The reasons include it being against the gameā€™s rules, and - more importantly - it is very difficult to verify another playerā€™s age, so the chance of engaging in sexual content with a minor is very high. This is especially likely given hormones/etc of younger/teen players.

That is leaving aside the players who intentionally approach underage players for ERP, who do exist ā€“ and have been called out on the forums in the past.

I donā€™t think anyone really hates ERP or ERPers as a concept, outside of possibly thinking itā€™s weird, when itā€™s done outside of WoW between consenting adults.

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I actually havenā€™t, and I have been here for a long time. I am not sure why people so often get into arguments and the likes. I am not debunking or denying your post, Lillyane, but I have never experienced anything like this. I am not sure what causes it.

The attitude of ā€˜erp is weirdā€™, ā€˜people shouldnā€™t erp in a 13+ gameā€™, etc is by no stretch a new sentiment. In ye olden times on my old server in-particular, ā€˜The Shaā€™tarā€™, the only time ERP drama was ever a thing is if it was a scandal on par with horse-gate. ERP was relatively a private subject and people who were known to ERP but werenā€™t overly vocal or blatant about it were generally left alone.

Iā€™ve never really been in a community like this where we have an active mob ready to set anyone on fire for it, but maybe thatā€™s a good thing. :man_shrugging:

I think itā€™s also a sign of the times. A major current issue in dealing with those who ERP is the staggering number of hubs and guilds cropping up for the sole purpose of cyber smut. You have people advertising their adult website profiles in their popularly used add-ons and linking nsfw images in their in-game profiles, along with listing far from vanilla desires that I can safely assume the majority of players, let alone children would find either triggering or simply not wish to be exposed to.

There are times when I think the anti-ERP crowd might sometimes use it as an excuse to rally or bully, simply because nobody comes to the defense of someone thatā€™s a known ERPā€™er, or someone like Lnore who sells their memberā€™s ā€˜servicesā€™, so it makes them very easy targets. (Letā€™s be honest, they make themselves easy targets)

I think the rise in hated/fear/etc towards ERP is a sign of just how popularized it is currently on Argent Dawn (and to be honest, it has been for a long time) but thereā€™s now a stronger sense of a united community when we set people who cause these issues on fire.

tl;dr: as the demand and blatant popularity of erp rises, so too does the response /actions taken against it

Even if one is to put all the moral issues and social implications aside, itā€™s against the ToS. Youā€™d want people to follow the rules or else the whole system breaks down. There is a reason those rules exists.

Not defending ERP but at the risk of making myself very unpopular, I think the majority of cool kids donā€™t really care about the ToS while theyā€™re enjoying the game.

Like, my go to thoughts when Iā€™m enjoying a game or chatting to people isnā€™t ā€œwow Iā€™m having so much fun engaging with and upholding the ToS, hahahaā€.

And, without trying to sound too critical of Blizzard (for obvious reasons on these forums), the current moderation practices in regards to the ToS arenā€™t, in my opinion, overly sufficient or efficient. (even putting the current crisis aside)

Moral and social arguments against the type of described behavior are more practical as we all relate to them on a personal level.

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Which is why you have the natural response of people becoming ā€œvigilantesā€ of sorts. The social aspecs of MMOs makes the community reactions pretty predictable overall.

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