Since when do closed threads automatically open after 40 days? Also yes, OP is right.
They don’t, I can only assume that means a mod personally decided to bring this thread back. Which would be dangerously based indeed.
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People mistake correlation with causation. This case isn’t an exception. Players notice an increase of OOC players as Role-Players decline, and want to blame someone. The rise of OOCers is the most common phenomenon as RP declines, therefore some people will believe that OOCers are responsible for the decline of role-play. Much like certain doctors believed the Black Plague was found in the air, because it was a common disease.
Now, back on topic: OOC players are fine. It’s true that there are griefers who happen to be OOC players, but so there are also griefers who happen to be role-players: how many times have we seen one RP group trying to sabotage one another? Yet there are surprisingly few attempts to take action against this inner toxicity, and yet we know first hand it causes entire guilds to disband. Perhaps other problems should warrant our attention?
Frankly I believe the OP is wrong and this take on OOCers, when taken to the extreme, will damage the server. How? Well, first of all, it puts in the spotlight a non-issue: OOCers aren’t going to destroy RP.
Second, it’s part of a mentality that ignores real issues such as the lowering population of players in all of Warcraft, combined with the decreasing interest in RP. But there is more to it. Argent Dawn always had a trend of being somewhat elitist and suspicious of changes. During Cataclysm, there were several posts that filled the threads from certain players who said that never, ever, they would want other role-players from Moonglade, SWC, ER and DB to pollute Argent Dawn with their role-play, and often suggested these migrants should leave the server before they change it [for the worst]. And while it’s true their arrival has changed the server, without them we would have never had a lot of amazing events, such as the RP-PvP campaigns, who became popular after the DB players make their presence heard on the server.
In a similar way, I’m sure many OOCers are responsible for a lot of cool things, such as teaching many RPers how to PvP, help them raid, mantain a flourishing server economy, and they play a part in making the server feel alive.
This mentality according to which something different means catastrophic consequences has to change. It’s not just inaccurate, it actually rewards self-segregation and toxicity, as it praises what is worse in people, and tries to make a weapon out of it.
And for what? This is my third point: that even if OOCers were a problem (they are not), it’s impossible to take any any action against them as a group, because a) by staying on AD they do not violate any rule and b) it’s impossible to differentiate OOCers from RPers; what happens when a role-player stops role-playing? do players suddenly have to meet a quota of RP to stay on the server? and how would it even be possible to enforce such rules?
The impossibility of this issue speaks length about how much this is a problem of a mentality that takes its pleasure in saying that others aren’t welcome and should be thrown off.
It’s time for people to choose to be better than this.
If you are above trust level 3, you transcend mortals’ rules.
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had intended to leave this thread, but I have some points here.
On other realms, the rise of OOCers have caused people to leave the realm. The lack of RPers have simply not only made them more visible, but also empowered them in a way I think.
Look to my earlier point on DB - ABoC damn near single-handedly killed RP on the realm simply because we could do nothing about them.
As a cool dwarf earlier said, some guilds offered to grief them back to give RPers space, sure. But that only worked for a short time before it became too much a hassle. And eventually, ABoC got friends and continued. Rp events griefed>People look to less griefe pastures>Entire guilds move because the other solution is to let the guild die from inactivity. DB is a prime example of OOCers more or less killing a realm that was in its prime.
And before you say “RPPvP isn’t an RP realm”, Yes it is. It’s stated in the “RP” part.
And they get called out, eventually rediculed and stop. Since OotRB came to AD we’ve experienced little to not griefing. So I’d say the method used against griefers here is effective.
Judging by threads since I came to the server I have to say, it’s quite the opposite.
Some other servers disagree.
I won’t deny a decreasing interest in RP is an issue, alas it’s an issue we can do little about. OOCers however should fundamentally pick OOC realms to play on as this is an RP realm. It’s not rocket science.
If one sees only how players move around in the world, sure. Than I understand how you percieve the server as more alive. In cities however, standing at doors, mailboxes, AH or on big mounts atop RPers hardly makes it feel more “alive”. At best, it feels as though the world is filled with statues.
Do I even have to say anything here? Yes, they are very easily differentiated by the fact that one roleplays, the other just plays.
See, they tend to respect RPers. And this is only personal experience so maybe I’m lucky but when people have stopped RPing they’ve 1: moved to another realm 2: Taking a break which is completely fine or 3: Quit the game.
All three of which, to me are perfectly reasonable.
Truth is, we can’t. We do hold Blizzard to their standards set by their ToS though. Unfortunatley, they appear to hardly be following them.
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I have always been thinking that when it comes to RP realms, this isn’t the case.
Consider that in previous servers, what killed role-playing was, in a sentence, the better opportunities that AD offered.
This, I think, is more-or-less what happened: the RP servers never had many numbers to begin with, and between wotlk and cataclysm people started to leave the game for good, making the overall population suffer an heavy blow. For small communities, I cannot stress enough how much this meant. There were chats in the dungeon finder wondering how many people were left on this or that small server. If a role-player quit the game (and quite a few did), everyone felt kind of sad, and many voiced their hopes that old faces would come back. No one mentioned OOCers, for they had nothing to do behind it; people would just grow and stop RPing, quit playing WoW or maybe change videogame.
When server transfer was introduced, it changed forever how small RP communities would have to survive in this new environment. Namely, they faced competition from a new big realm, Argent Dawn. Argent Dawn offered what other realms could not offer: a lot of players. And this means: niche concepts that would have been impossible to run in smaller servers, a lot of casual RP at any time of the day, and even fresh recruits for those guild that were running with 7-10 regular people since months. And they had no one to recruit in their previous server. Imagine the difference.
So the transfers begin. OOCers play no part in this. It’s all on the RPers themselves. AD was catering more players, while other servers were losing opportunities.
By the end of Cataclysm, millions of players stopped playing the game. And this includes role-players. At the same time, a lot of people would leave these small servers for AD, eventually inspiring their friends to follow them. No one spoke of OOCers. Everyone was speaking about AD: those who remained tried to appeal to either the feeling of a united community (which AD didn’t have), the importance of server lore, or the usual meme “AD has quantity, but we have quality”. This one was thrown around a lot (as if quantity doesn’t increase the chance to find quality). I’m sure about it: when it comes to RP servers, such as ER and SWC, the killer was Argent Dawn, and the possibility to transfer there. AD was a competitor that outmatched the other servers in all regards.
This is just arguing semantics. The point is not that DB isn’t an RP realm, but that it was designed to work differently from realms such as Argent Dawn, Earthen Ring, Sha’tar, Moonglade and Steamwheedle.
It’s irrelevant how we wish to call that, what matters is that we acknowledge this factual difference. Defias Brotherhood, as an RP-PvP realm, had different guidelines from those realms that were just RP realms. Namely it was designed with different mechanics which had an huge impact on the gaming experience, and this must matter when you compare it to realms who didn’t have such mechanics. Of course, I’m speaking of the open-world PvP system. The server was meant to host world PvP and RP at the same time, and encourage world PvP in such a way that rewarded griefing RP. Therefore, it attracted griefers. This difference sets DB apart from realms such as Argent Dawn, and makes it a bad example to use.
On Argent Dawn, there isn’t such a mechanic, and you can easily unflag for PvP, or simply report the griefer, and he will go away.
Because, as I keep saying, this isn’t a realm that encourages such a situation, unlike DB. With this very comment, you yourself are saying that, on Argent Dawn, griefing isn’t a problem. But you think players are magically responsible for it, rather than the mechanics of the server. See this for further clarification:
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Can confirm that OOCers sabotaged RP on defias-brotherhood by bulk and numbers as RPers were a minority and trolling turned into sport.
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Apparently the thread was unlocked automatically and not by moderators. Re-locking this now though.