🌕 [N/RP] Lunar Festival 31st January - 2nd February

[Tammariel-argent-dawn]

Very much glad to be part of this. Made a few new friends IC and managed to learn about new cultures as well as to share new information.

To the feedback above, thank you for the lengthy post. I wish I was able to see you during the festival, however I must have missed your interactions entirely for the whole weekend.

To the claims I can only say people reacted as they did IC to most things. I have seen rising tensions between people. People being afraid, paranoid or angry. There have been some who ICly cleaned the anti Horde propaganda leaflets - I did it myself

I know some folks were horrified at the Troll murder and when it was time to leave an escort party was formed to help protect the leaving Horde on their way home. I’d say overall at least the interactions I was present for were quite well done IC wise.

As for the few other claims. Lunar Festival has always been neutral and held in Moonglade both IC, OOC and Lorewise. Sadly Blizzard did not supply us with any new lore regarding the Circle in Moonglade and their stance so we can only speculate that they were on board with the whole thing and happy as clams to have us there.

It is true that this year has been in particular exhausting for cross faction rp due to the whole faction war development but then again I suppose it is up to each person IC and OOC to judge if their presence at such a Festival would be wise, contributing and enjoyable. There is only so much the organizers can do and especially if coordinating cross faction and across several guilds.

Could the security be better? Probably but it depends on who is involved and who many people log in.
Could the rules be better? Again probably but once again it depends on if people follow them or not.

We were repeatedly up until 5AM to deal with ALL possible situations, issues, entertainment and ingame and discord whispers/PMs and honestly, there is only so much people can do over the course of 3 days

In the end it I do hope most people had fun, IC interactions can continue be it good or bad and that we can all enjoy some continued rp sparked by this Festival! That is after all, why we are all here.

[Stallnorth-argent-dawn]

Thank-you for the great experience of going to the Lunar Festival for the very first time in all my years playing World of Warcraft. I had no business to attend it before, but with my friend/s I am thrilled that I went!`

I did miss one or two events but that was because of RL and it couldn’t be helped. I do absolutely look forward to next years Lunar Festival, which will be taking place during Shadowlands.

My absolute thanks to the organizers and those who took part in the events to make this really special to everyone.

[Mindare-argent-dawn (Mindare)]

So heartbroken that I didn’t manage to attend the event this year. I did atleast get to witness the wonderful parade as it rolled into moonglade. Hope everyone had a really great time!

[Eruliesse-argent-dawn]

The constructive feedback is very appreciated, and everyone will no doubt take it on board. However, many of the organizers throughout the weekend were having to deal with IC arguments and fighting. Causing a lot of us having to split around making it only one of us there. So that we could deal with the situation at hand.

However if a fight breaks out WHILE an organizer is trying to find out both sides of the story. There is no way for anything to be sorted. Since no one was willing to hold off.

[Acrona-argent-dawn (Acrona)]

Organising a large event involving so many people – not to mention crossfaction – can be daunting and exhausting. Kudos to Niámh and others for having the courage to do this, and everyone who contributed to the event by helping with the various activities, stalls and more!

I haven’t been doing much roleplay in-game for some time now and it was delightful to see so many familiar characters at the event. I had fun and my friends who attended had too. On Friday we had the chance to set into motion a small plot in the background concerning Acrona whose story I’m returning to. The Lunar Festival provided a good opportunity for the involved characters to meet up at the same place at the same time, and since we didn’t want the gloomy subject to catch attention at the party, we took it outside Nighthaven. That was fun.

Despite some hurdles brought up that might’ve occured during the event, and though I understand some feedback points brought up from the ongoing lore perspective, I know there was only good intent in trying to create something fun for a lot of people to enjoy.

Personally, if I were to organise a Lunar Festival again myself, I’d probably go back to organising faction specific festivals like the ones held in Darnassus years ago. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this year’s festival myself, it just has to do with the difficulty of organising crossfaction events. Last year me and my friend hosted the event in Moonglade on Cenarion druid alts and I tried to avoid calling people with the terms ‘Alliance’ or ‘Horde’ (because from IC perspective, the event wasn’t aimed to cater the two factions in particular), though in some cases it caused attendees to be confused about where to go if they played race X. I guess hosting it on Cenarion alts worked out alright given the neutral location, but truth be told I wasn’t invested in my alt character at all. The hurdles back then were a few attendees who didn’t seem to consider whether their presence or actions would trigger a lot of faction war themed friction or not, and some people telling me that this hurt their immersion and enjoyment of the event. We didn’t have anyone playing security and relied on player courtesy in taking the environment and NPC Cenarion Wardens into account, and in general I wouldn’t like to tell people who’s allowed or not allowed to attend public events - only request they are mindful of the overall tone set for them. I do think that conflict roleplay is great and something to be embraced in the turbulent setting of the game world, and spontaneous conflict roleplay can be both very exciting and compelling, but if I were to host the festival again, I’d simply like to minimize the risks of conflicts causing big distractions at an event meant to be something else in cases where the event involves a great many hours put into planning and cooperation OOC. IC is IC, but at the end of the day we’re all real people who have invested different amounts of time OOC into making something happen. It’s hard to be on same wavelength with everyone’s expectations and what they want out of the roleplay when they get involved.

However, if anyone would like to put in the effort to organise another crossfaction Lunar Festival next year, I’d love to see that too.

My personal feelings on the subject of organising aside, I’d once more like to extend a warm thank-you to everyone who created something of this scope for people to enjoy and be IC impacted by for days to come. Thank you!

Here’s some snaps I happened to take on Saturday:

https://imgur.com/a/pyjzTof

Edit - grammar

[Fizzleplug-argent-dawn]

@Acrona-argent-dawn

I haven’t been doing much roleplay in-game for some time now and it was delightful to see so many familiar characters at the event.

I miss you and Acrona.

[Mythundis-argent-dawn (Mythundis)]

I’ll echo what most of the people above said. I had a fun time, and I think the atmosphere of the Festival was great - the events of the festival, the tension and drama during downtime, and the various people showing up. It was great, and I’m thankful for being able to attend the Festival despite any issues!

@Niámh-argent-dawn

It seems there is a lot of ill feeling here on an OOC standpoint. I note you comment that you attempted to resolve these issues through communication with the organisers. Perhaps you could be transparent as to who you contacted because it was not me and I would have appreciated the conversation.

Hey! Though I’d rather discuss all this on Discord, I was the one mentioned in Urens’ post. After a bout of in-character drama in Moonglade, a troll death knight was slain, and the Hand of Cenarius was kicked out of Moonglade.

For us, there was no problem here. We enjoyed the drama and were willing to roll with the consequences given - but I received a whisper from one of the organizers talking to me about the aggression and that it all “had to stop”.

I asked the person to message me over Discord, and we spoke briefly. Eventually, when I mentioned heading to bed as it was 2 AM, I was told everything was covered; good!

The next day, it all escalated - I was shown pictures that the head organizer was very unhappy with IC drama, and I tried to send them a friend request to try and solve the issues. However, I was messaged by another organizer saying that the head organizer was too busy planning the event, and that they’d help me instead.

When I explained what I wanted to talk to the head organizer for, I received no response until a member of my guild made a post in my guild’s forum thread. Despite posting there consciously to avoid it from derailing the Lunar Festival, we were accused of trying to ruin the event, and, when I gave my side, I received no response.

With that all said, I don’t mean to derail this entire thread into becoming a big argument. You’re free to message me on Discord too, if you’d like - that way, we’ll prevent it from taking up this thread while (hopefully) still solving the issues at hand.

[Urens-argent-dawn]

I will admit that upon waking up I am a little disappointed for your first statement to be about OOC feelings, suggesting they are present on my end. There are no OOC feelings, bar the disheartenment I feel over how things were managed.

Indeed - I am not going to name call on the forums. If you have an OOC organising discord, it is up to individual peoples to come forward and admit and explain things to you themselves, if you do not find Mythundis sufficient.

[Niámh-argent-dawn]

Good morning, Myth, thank you for the response. I am aware of the messages sent to yourself as of this morning. I did not condone them, actually requested you were -not- contacted at this was an IC issue, not anything that should be taken OOC, and I would like to apologize that you received them.

It was expressed during the course of the event among organizers that it was very frustrating to be receiving complaints IC everywhere I moved on Saturday night while I was trying to work. As I took on the responsibility of calling myself ‘host’, I took on the responsibility of dealing with IC complaints, I’m sure everyone can appreciate that not being able to actually move through Moonglade without being pulled towards another one made everything else I was working on ten fold times more difficult. Many of the people who put in a great deal of hard work were very worried that the hard work would be disrupted by a number of individuals, not one set group. My words to them on Sunday were this: “Just keep going. We just push through. Let’s end on a high note.”

At no point did I recommend or plan OOC retaliation, consequences or persecution. I shared what I saw where I saw where I saw it with the other planners for the event and asked their advice on how to address the events of Saturday on an IC basis to ensure I did not personally inflame anything as the host.

I have always done my best to be approachable and contactable. The friend request was accepted and I anticipated hearing from you but did not. You could have still messaged me despite whatever is else you were told, I may have been slow coming back because I was very busy, but I would have come back. As the person who put her name on the event, it was my responsibility above all else to deal with grievances but I can’t if they are made after the fact. I can’t stop an escalation if I am not allowed to by -all- parties involved, my associates included.

I am happy to continue a private conversation, but given that the feedback post with this grievances was made publicly by your associate, it seems appropriate to address them publicly, admit to faults, admit to stress, but also be allowed to make my points to. As I said previously; I appreciate transparency.

[Alastrias-argent-dawn]

Had an absolute blast, despite social RP not being my forte and the first time I have ever attended. Truly loved the immersive display of Kaldorei culture and lunar themed events and will definitely be attending the next year. Big thanks to all those involved in making such a successful weekend.

Only criticism was the events running over one another with sign ups. (Understandbly you had a mountain of work to do, so it would be expected) I just found myself having to leave one event early to sign up for another and even being too late for signing of another as I was still caught in the previous.

[Mythundis-argent-dawn (Mythundis)]

@Niámh-argent-dawn

I did not condone them, actually requested you were -not- contacted at this was an IC issue, not anything that should be taken OOC, and I would like to apologize that you received them.

I’m glad you apologize, but I’m not sure if that’s the only thing that should be apologized for. From what I have seen, there was a lot of ruckus in the organizer Discord, and part of it was created by yourself. You requested things were not taken OOC, but I think they had already been taken OOC at that point - you called the IC drama “disheartening” from an OOC point of view, and our characters’ behaviour was attributed to a rumour that we are part of the PCU(?).

@Niámh-argent-dawn

At no point did I recommend or plan OOC retaliation, consequences or persecution. I shared what I saw where I saw where I saw it with the other planners for the event and asked their advice on how to address the events of Saturday on an IC basis to ensure I did not personally inflame anything as the host.

That’s alright. We don’t believe we were kicked out of Moonglade because of OOC fueled motivations. To reiterate, the main issue for us is that the IC behaviour of our characters was taken OOC - my character spitting on one of the Handmaidens does not mean I dislike the player behind the Handmaiden, but it strongly felt like it was taken that way.

@Niámh-argent-dawn

Many of the people who put in a great deal of hard work were very worried that the hard work would be disrupted by a number of individuals, not one set group.

That’s understandable, I think. This was one of your first public events, and it was definitely of grand scale; every year, the Lunar Festival is an event many people look forward to and have done so for years. It’s valid to try and ensure people enjoy it as much as possible, but I think there was an attempt at too much control during the event.

Though I can’t speak for others, it felt like the drama in our case was quickly attempted to be stomped out; status posts were “easily” fixed, for example, all to protect the enjoyment of the Horde audience. In reality, there was probably no need for this: we know people enjoyed the terror treant OOC, the two ambushes in the woods, the death knight slaying, and the stand-off in Felwood because after every one of those events we received praise from those involved, either through whispers or through Discord pings.

There’s also the obvious concern that the IC drama may derail the entirety of the event - but again, I don’t think it was logical to be worried about that in our case. We were very careful to do our thing late and after the events, when we knew the event would not be disrupted and/or derailed. We posted a rumour on our guild thread so it would be away from the Lunar Festival, and so on.

@Niámh-argent-dawn

I have always done my best to be approachable and contactable. The friend request was accepted and I anticipated hearing from you but did not. You could have still messaged me despite whatever is else you were told, I may have been slow coming back because I was very busy, but I would have come back.

I don’t think that’s very fair to expect - I was told by one of the other organizers (the one I was speaking to before, that is) that you were busy planning, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to rudely message you because, again, we never meant to interrupt anything.

[Aerandul-argent-dawn (Aerandul)]

To clarify, some of the above is why I didn’t end up hanging around on my Priestess. There wasn’t a scenario where she wouldn’t get involved in defending anyone trying to mess with the Horde, but at the end of the day I didn’t want to disrupt the event.

That’s not to say think anyone was wrong to act as they did - you follow through your Characters motives if you want to - it just isn’t something I’d do (at least, not without trying to find someway to co-ordinate it well ahead of time with the organisers). Having run and helped run public “fun”/“peaceful” events in the past, it’s very difficult to accommodate larger scale off-the-cuff drama with something you’ve spent weeks planning down to the fine details.

Edit: Though I see Myth has clarified some of the timings being intentionally set up to minimise any disruption, which I think is admirable.

[Saleysea-argent-dawn (Saleysea)]

@Mythundis-argent-dawn

I don’t think that’s very fair to expect - I was told by one of the other organizers (the one I was speaking to before, that is) that you were busy planning, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to rudely message you because, again, we never meant to interrupt anything.

Seems to me like you missed an opportunity to nip any escalation in the bud, there and then. There isn’t really any harm in sending one ping and wait and see if it elicits a response.

Just seems a little cheap to deflect blame by saying you were expecting the other side to initiate a conversation if you’re the one who wanted to bring up an issue.

[Niámh-argent-dawn]

Regarding the rumour that seems to be circling that we equated the Hand with PCU, what was actually said was “So, the people starting all the fights this evening; PCU alts.” And when I was asked who the PCU alts were, or if I was referring to the Hand, I replied “I don’t know, only heard about PCU through the grape vine. The Hand were the ones who killed a troll and spitting on my guildies.” Two seperate groups. Two seperate incidents. Two seperate observations. People wanted to know what was going on and I answered them. Spit at my guildies all you want IC. I hope they have the stones IC to spit back.

And yes, I posted “Cannot believe the shenanigans tonight. I know IC is IC but still… very disheartening.” Which it was. As a whole. Because as I stated, there were a flurry of constant complaints IC that took up all of my time the moment the Moonball ended. I’m sure you would be disheartened too if you were being pulled too and fro to and not able to pleasantly socialise for a moment in what you thought would be your down time. More fool me, I suppose, for thinking I would have a moment’s opportunity to socialize during a high tension atmosphere. Either I attempt to icly meet the guests requests for intervention or I step back and let the conflict unfurl in spite of petitions to help. Whichever way you look at it, I think it’s clear I am not going to make everyone happy. I hoped for the best. Perhaps I am naiive.

Regarding the status post; while it was a post made on your guild’s thread, it was a post associated with and with IC consequences for the larger matter of the event. I think it’s fair people ICly in the location should be allowed to respond to such posts ICly, otherwise they seem a moot point.

It is not a case of ensuring the Horde’s enjoyment. It is a case of ensuring everyone’s enjoyment. I know you can only base your opinions on what you experienced, but it does not tell the larger tale of all the work the Glaivewings did assisting throughout the weekend attempting to quash many other squabbles that were not involving your people at all. This is not a red Vs blue thing.

As for not contacting me; there’s nothing wrong with making a polite enquiry, I have already made it clear I would have listened, especially if you were already having issues with the other person you tried to talk things through with. I was not given a chance, by that person, or by you, to speak with my own voice. I would have appreciated the courtesy from them and from you.

[Daleshar-argent-dawn]

What matters most is loads of people had a great time, and I look forwards to seeing some familiar faces on my travels around Azeroth!

[Riraelsun-argent-dawn (Riraelsun)]

Was very fun indeed and a great experience. Enjoyed every second and had a lot of good pictures of everyone last night :3

[Perroy-argent-dawn (Perroy)]

@Niámh-argent-dawn

Regarding the rumour that seems to be circling that we equated the Hand with PCU, what was actually said was “So, the people starting all the fights this evening; PCU alts.” And when I was asked who the PCU alts were, or if I was referring to the Hand, I replied “I don’t know, only heard about PCU through the grape vine.

Perhaps it would be cool for whoever started that off to wind their PCU bad routine in and keep our community’s name out of their mouth instead. It’s so boring to constantly have random actions attributed to us by people we have so little contact with that the PCU may as well be an alien concept to them

At this juncture you would struggle to find a community that doesn’t have at least one or two players with PCU alts in it - because the PCU represents around three raid groups of players online at prime-time and is a significant if not massive chunk of the RP community. If you’re interested in PCU events / PCU guilds you can see what we have going on in our thread

It’s honestly a mad one I think to say “aughh anyone who dares roleplay [a night elf] being violent towards the [faction that destroyed a huge chunk of their race] is attempting to ruin my event / is the evil PCU!!”

@Niámh-argent-dawn

And yes, I posted “Cannot believe the shenanigans tonight. I know IC is IC but still… very disheartening.” Which it was. As a whole. Because as I stated, there were a flurry of constant complaints IC that took up all of my time the moment the Moonball ended. I’m sure you would be disheartened too if you were being pulled too and fro to and not able to pleasantly socialise for a moment in what you thought would be your down time.

If you wanted your event to be some carefully micro-managed affair where people have to roleplay the same character personality to make things easier top organise OOC, you should post that in the OP to avoid attendees you don’t want attending and accidentally ruining the intended atmosphere passively by RPing their characters

@Saleysea-argent-dawn

Seems to me like you missed an opportunity to nip any escalation in the bud, there and then.

Seems to me like there should have been no OOC escalation at all to nip in the bud. Why should Mythundis contact someone OOC to beg their permission to roleplay his concept? Do night elves use discord IC now? Come on

@Aerandul-argent-dawn

Having run and helped run public “fun”/“peaceful” events in the past, it’s very difficult to accommodate larger scale off-the-cuff drama with something you’ve spent weeks planning down to the fine details.

It is a Promethean struggle …

@Urens-argent-dawn

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.

Yes, I don’t understand the idea of characters who are ostensibly direct subordiantes to crazy dark eyes / no armistice Tyrande being incredibly peaceful and arresting (?) people for being against the Horde. It seems more driven by a desire to play a social avatar than to authentically roll with the punches of the current lore as it stands (but I don’t claim to be a wise master / elder of the night elf lore wowpedia page so correct me if you want if I’m wrong)

With that said I didn’t attend / don’t know what happened / am not commenting on specific characters but only the content of this thread because I was invoked by speaking the words of power:

Hope the event went great and was a joy to run, despite my post public events are always nice !

[Càe-argent-dawn]

What little time I had to be there, I thoroughly enjoyed. Especially the talent competition, I thought that was a lot of fun. As for the complains that have arisen later. It can be easy to look back and see that mistakes have been made. Though many seems to forget that it can be very hard to manage an event with so many people. There is no chance to make absolutely everyone happy at the same time. Micro managing it is not possible. So it’s a shame that people want to plaster such small details on the forum when they would likely have made many of the same mistakes themselves if they ever tried to run an event with hundreds of attending players.

I believe it’s quite certain that the absolute majority of people that were there, had a blast, and perhaps made a lot of new friends. I know I did!

Edit: For example, it was stated that people that were affiliated with Sylvanas and the burning of Teldrassil should not be allowed to enter. How are one supposed to solve this? Either you would have to approve guests beforehand. Or you would need 10-15 people at the entrance, reading through everyone’s TRP to find out where their allegiance lie. And then you run into the problem that because of Cross RP you cannot even read the TRP of all opposing faction players. So having this as a complaint is just … looking for something to complain about. At least that is my personal opinion. Anything I say shall only reflect upon myself.

[Saleysea-argent-dawn (Saleysea)]

@Perroy-argent-dawn

Seems to me like there should have been no OOC escalation at all to nip in the bud. Why should Mythundis contact someone OOC to beg their permission to roleplay his concept? Do night elves use discord IC now? Come on

You completely glossed over my point. Mythundis made it pretty clear in his own post that he wanted to open up dialog with Niamh and yet didn’t do so, even when we had the opportunity.

It comes across as pretty weird/self victimizing to then lay the blame on the organizer for not initiating the conversation they sought, without at least taking on some accountability themselves.

It shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place, no - but Mythundis did seem to eventually wish to resolve it through OOC channels just the same.

[Arborist-argent-dawn]

@Saleysea-argent-dawn

It shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place, no - but Mythundis did seem to eventually wish to resolve it through OOC channels just the same.

Yes, he would like to keep IC as IC and not have his guild be badmouthed in an isolated channel (for simply RPing their chars no less). The only reason anyone reached out in the first place.