While I enjoyed the various stalls and events offered at the festival - across the whole of the weekend - I cannot help but reach the festival’s end feeling heavily disappointed with the way that the organisers have responded to IC conflict. Though I am grateful for the entertainment offered, as well as those selling wares and enchantments, I feel that there is much room for improvement, and that things should have been handled differently across the event’s duration considering the lore that we have in place from, not only the last three patches, but also the last several expansions.
Most considerably off-putting to me was the way in which the organisers decided to manage a cross-faction, neutral event. Considering that the kaldorei have just suffered a genocide resulting in the deaths of the majority of their peoples - and also considering that their faction leader, Tyrande Whisperwind, has refused peace and searches for the Banshee Queen, swearing the Horde must pay - it was highly inappropriate from the beginning to praise the Horde as ‘the real heroes’ within the opening ceremony.
If the organisers wish to create an event where there is as little conflict as possible, then I believe it was counter-productive to place salt in the wounds of many characters, hailing the Horde as heroes. To add insult to injury, there was no control over what Horde were and were not entering the event, leading to prominent Horde RP figureheads, who participated in the Drums of War campaign at the start of BFA that detailed the loss of Teldrassil, to be welcomed unconditionally into Moonglade and praised. Not only this, but Horde were all allowed to enter Moonglade fully armed and armoured - many even wearing Horde insignias. It is not difficult to imagine how this would fuel IC tensions rather than defuse them, leading the organisers to set themselves up for a kind of failure if Alliance characters are to behave according to their IC personalities.
This becomes particularly cumbersome and irritating when the organisers on both sides are eager to chastise any members of the Alliance for responding to Horde members with hostility - despite the fact that Horde members were stoking fires in turn, if not also instigating some arguments. While the organisers were alarmed and distressed by the rise of IC conflict on one side - the Alliance - on the other side, there was little if any control at all over the words and actions of Horde members, with goblins making fun of the deaths of Teldrassil to Horde death knights kicking kaldorei in their backs. This creates an incredibly toxic atmosphere where the Alliance RPers are held to a double-standard, and to make matters worse, they are then also told IC that if they do not abide by the ‘rules’ in place, they will be removed for ‘instigating’ trouble - although in truth, they have not instigated the trouble at all. I recall moments where the Horde organiser themself implicated that they would harm Alliance members rather than defusing any situations where conflict was arising. Ultimately, I felt often that I was forced to act out of character at threat of being unable to enjoy the festival - for little more than misunderstandings of who was starting what, where, and when - as well as ignorance as to why tensions were stoked (re: the opening ceremony). This led for me, at least, to lose confidence in the hosts of this year’s Lunar Festival, if not feeling entirely unwelcome at all.
Furthermore, I was surprised to find that there was an expectation by the organisers that there would be complete peace, considering the atmosphere of the patches prior - events that only happened a year to several months ago, and ended only several weeks ago. While I do not think that it is wrong to want a peaceful event - I do not think that this was the way in which to go about it. In my opinion, there was a lack of regard and thought on how the Horde would be perceived by many, and indeed, a lack of an attempt to monitor the Horde themselves within the festival (see: above).
Furthermore, when conflict did erupt fully and fights occurred, I was disappointed to hear that the organisers took this as an OOC insult to themselves and their efforts - for the conflict was stirred solely as a response to IC events and interactions. This was also clear while the organisers were dealing with these conflicts IC - their responses became terse, short and sarcastic. Ultimately, it led to the creation of an us versus them atmosphere - which no guests of an event should feel towards their organisers. While those involved in the conflict, as confirmed OOC before the conflict took place, were happy and pleased with its results - the organisers still took issue, even going so far as to unfortunately rumour-monger about the guild(s) involved in an OOC discord, while also lumping both guilds together. Again, an us versus them attitude. Particularly saddening was that members who were in one of these guilds OOC were taken to be IC members within roleplay due to little else than the guild tag below their character names.
It did not feel like there was any genuine attempt to discuss the issues at hand that the organisers had with some of the attendees - with the organisers going so far as to stop responding to those trying to reach out to them to resolve the OOC conflict and turmoil, resulting only to complaining that the conflict was happening in the first place.
I feel further that this was aggravated by a general lack of understanding of the authority in play within Moonglade itself - and the way in which the Sisterhood would respond to such conflicts. It is important to keep in mind that only the Cenarion Circle has authority within Moonglade - hence why it is able to be a neutral area, with its own guard NPCs; Cenarion Wardens / Guards. As such, to watch a character involved in a strictly IC conflict be arrested ‘on the authority of the Sisterhood’ for killing a member of the Horde was extremely disheartening, especially as Tyrande, the leader of the Sisterhood, has commanded her Army to continue to fight said Horde and the Banshee Queen.
Conclusively, I feel that if the organisers truly wanted a peaceful event with no conflict whatsoever, they should have barred weaponry and heavy armour, been more sensitive and aware of the relevancy of current lore in the emotions of characters, responded equally to Horde trouble-making as they did Alliance trouble-making, and they perhaps should have formed a dedicated group of Cenarion Warden NPCS for the purposes of the event alone. This would have led to a far neater, cleaner, and graceful result - without any OOC resentments. It is a shame that the organisers instead chose to further decline any attempts to resolve these misunderstandings - culminating tonight in a large group of people, alongside an organiser, attempting to ‘persecute’ a guild for supposed ‘treason’.