Effort post incoming.
Let’s be honest, a large contribution to current ‘us versus them’ politicking is particular groups or people who engage in the dramatics and in-fighting just as viciously as the people they claim have caused it all. It’s very easy to lay blame at the feet of one half, but from my own experiences it isn’t quite so easy.
None of this is new, however. On Sha’tar, there were loud groups or individuals that decided they’d cracked the code of ‘good RP’ and thus made it their mission to expose. Old sites like Warcraft Sues or Roleplayer’s Lament existed almost as soon as RP servers did; these people would, again, often believe they were doing their realm a big favour by showcasing the bad bits, while really they too added to the unpleasant atmospheres that creep up as soon as the creatives within realise they’re under scrutiny.
In a way, I think the death of that sort of public shaming has been a benefit! Tittering at TRPs is really more a private indulgance than the equivalent of placing the RPer in the stocks. Perhaps that makes it more insidious, but anyone who says they don’t take part in a bit of teeheeing is lying to us or themselves.
A lot of finger pointing happened to the PCU. This is really not something we can deny. It STILL happens. I see it on Facebook, on Reddit. I’ve even seen it on SomethingAwful. Some people really desperately need the WoW RP community at wide to know about us!
What then happens is the people who often drag up the PCU as the example villain won’t really acknowledge how their insistence on doing that is playing into the feeling of the realm being cut in two. Imagine being a PCU guild and realising your community is being brought up and mud-dragged on SA, of all places? It doesn’t make you want to reach out and bridge the gap!
To shill; I joined PCU, and dragged my guild with me, middle last year. I did this after hearing a lot of hearsay and rumour about the PCU and guilds that associated. I, at times, believed a lot of this rumour. You’ll find many in the PCU did as well. They’ll fully admit that they had judgements based on nothing at all.
It was bad or tedious experiences with the other groups that put themselves as the betters that made me reconsider, and ask to join a campaign that snowballed into joining further campaigns and finally being approached IC and OOC to join proper. They could have told me to go forth and multiply quite easily, but they didn’t.
Truth be told, it struck me that the PCU mostly don’t actually enjoy the idea of having whole guilds or groups of people on an internal ‘ignore’. As a group of nice nerds who just want to roleplay in WoW, why would they be pleased at the idea of limiting who they can play with? They wouldn’t.
Sometimes you have to approach and roleplay with people and let their actions speak for themselves. There’s a lot of ‘I heard this about so-and-so, I have no proof or personal examples but my friend said…’ Nip that in the bud. Less of that sort of thing and we’ll start to see improvement.
