Patch 8.1 and Cross-Faction Roleplay

Community General Discussion
1

This is a repost from the US forums as requested by Tammya. You can find the original here: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/patch-8-1-and-cross-faction-roleplay/45663

" Last night I learned that Patch 8.1 blocked some addon functionality that roleplayers were using to facilitate cross-faction RP events, which has ruined a lot of fantastic roleplay potential in Battle for Azeroth. :frowning:

I’m the developer of Cross RP, an addon that translates your chat across factions, strictly meant for roleplaying. It has numerous conditions in which it intentionally doesn’t operate to preserve the Warcraft experience for normal players.

  • It disables itself in Battlegrounds and arenas.
  • It disables itself on non-RP realms.
  • It intentionally doesn’t automatically “connect,” meaning that you will never see cross-faction chat without your consent.
  • You need to be in the same community with people you are roleplaying with, meaning that this is meant for groups of friends, or at the very least, like-minded people.

Sounds like a pain in the butt to use, right? Well it kind of is, but it’s way better than what people were struggling with before, such as Battlenet whispers or connecting raid groups through two relay bots. It’s all made possible through the new communities API that Battle for Azeroth added, which is essentially a godsend to roleplayers who like to do cross-faction stuff.

Unfortunately, with Patch 8.1, all addons are now blocked from reading or processing any data from community chat channels, breaking Cross RP (and our sweet hopes and dreams). The way Cross RP worked was simple: it just relayed your chat text (/say, /emote etc) over a community channel so your friends on the other faction could translate. I’m not aware of any other popular addons that use the community channels like this to transfer “data,” so this change does feel a bit targeted at Cross RP. :frowning:

During development, I was VERY careful in regard to not abusing the community channels. As a result, my protocol is super optimized, and each active user only sends around 5-8 bytes per second on average in a very crowded (100+ players), roleplaying event.

On top of this, this isn’t a super popular addon – it probably has well under 5000 active users (with a much smaller fraction actually using it per night) and only impacts roleplayers, so I’m kind of wondering why this change was made.

I want to believe that Blizzard is supportive for cross-faction stories and people roleplaying them out, especially during this expansion, and my guess is that this is an unfortunate side effect from a change simply intended to discourage addons as a whole from abusing the community channels (while my addon is well behaved, others’ might not be) – like maybe they don’t want the possibility of people making malicious software that can scan through your guild chat history for private information.

That being said, there’s no other way currently to have this sort of mass-scale cross-faction RP fun.

Here’s a picture of the Tournament of Ages 2018, a massive cross-faction roleplaying event that heavily used Cross RP: https://imgur (dot) com/ZRKplYG

And here’s the finale from “Drums of War,” another massive, fantastic cross-faction event (the first to test my addon on a huge scale) that took place on Argent Dawn EU during the pre-patch, a prime example of the warcraft potential that cross-faction RP has: https://reddit (dot) com/r/wow/comments/95l87e/the_final_staredown_drums_of_war_campaign_finale/

Here’s also an old forum post if you want to read more of my opinions on the matter (especially why cross-faction chat is important for roleplaying): https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20767577230

To Blizzard: With Battle for Azeroth, for the first time since the launch of WoW, players have been able to do cross-faction roleplay on a large scale via an addon, but that functionality is now blocked. Some of the roleplay community feels a bit discouraged by this change, especially because they feel like they don’t have a say on the matter (due to being only a small fraction of WoW’s millions of players). We’d love to hear your opinions, why the change was made, as well as any possible solutions (like, addon channels added to the Communities API would be terrific) to bring back this cross-faction RP dream. :smiley:

Also, if you’re wondering why we can’t just “make a Battlenet group and roleplay in it,” it’s because it’s too primitive. Firstly, there aren’t character names in Battlenet groups. Secondly, Cross RP also boasted the powerful feature of transferring roleplay profiles (such as how your character looked, what their actual name is, etc.). Thirdly, if you have a hundred players in one spot, you’re not going to be able to read anything in the endless chat scroll.

I feel like there’s been a lot of negativity on the forums lately, so I’d like to apologize if this post seems like yet another complaint. As a roleplayer, and I think I speak for a lot of us with this note, I want to say that World of Warcraft has been an incredible lore-rich environment to play in, and it’s kept me very entertained for the past few years in spite of any “content droughts” or “class problems.” :smile:

Thanks for reading and feel free to discuss anything."

63 Likes
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Cross RP is one of the best features to have come out of communities;

It’s basically slammed open the door for roleplay of the variety that had before been very faction-restricted; Cenarion Circle, Earthen Ring, any number of neutral faction you name it, Argent Dawn has had a cross-faction community pop up around this new ability.

Even in non-neutral contexts it’s made roleplay a lot more enjoyable, because it’s enabled us to have all those war-banter situations that play out between the lore characters - but it’s actually us interacting with other players we know and like!

7 Likes
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Hands down, Cross RP was incredibly beneficial to roleplaying.

“But it’s WAR!”

Yes, and in war talking to your enemies is important. I can name a laundry list of many historical moments in real life where two sides conversed in some way. From the top brass to the footmen.

Making agreements, treaties or even just hurling insults are all a part of war.

Gameplay and lore beg to differ, actually. Yes Common is the “human” language but it’s been noted as being, well, Common. While not utterly universal (As seen in some cases) we’ve seen everyone from lore characters to random grunts conversing across to the other side without issue. That and we have dozens of neutral factions and orders that could not exist if there was some magical force keeping the two sides separate.

“The addon is against the ToS!”

Technically so are pandaren, void/blood elves and demon hunters. They can all talk across to the “enemy” without issue. Not to mention the addon depended on bnet group chats to function, it effectively utilised them then just made a visual change on speech bubbles and emote text, pulling what was said from the chat group (As the OP indicated).

If Blizzard wants to gut x-fac communication they’ll have to remove bnet groups, pandaren, elves and demon hunters from the game. They’re all in breach of their own rule of ‘no x-fac talk allowed’.

“Just use the group chats normally!” or “Just have panda/elf/dh translate!”

Not feasible for large scale events (Btag group chat scrolls rapidly with more than 20 people, and you see btag names instead of character names). And translators in the past end up spending more time doing that than RPing themselves.

Cross RP suddenly brought a wealth of new possibilities to RP servers, Booty Bay and other areas suddenly became far more populated because of it’s ease of use and lightweight nature. As well as having safeguards against potential trolls due to the requirement of btag groups.

I will be sorely disappointed if the addon remains unusable. It was the one joy I had this expansion.

10 Likes
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I really wish Blizz would just remove the whole language barrier.
As mentioned before, the “rules” are already being broken by pandas/elves ect, so why just not go all the way? :smile:

7 Likes
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This mod truely gave the rp community a chance to come together cross-faction for some meaningful and great roleplay and events. Before hand, often players would ignore each other due to language barrier of the game, but now they could actually read each other profiles from other great roleplaying mods and have an deeply immessive rp experience, that truely was a delight.

This mod is critical for the roleplayers within this game and has become a corner stone for roleplay community like Total RP 3 and other addon tools for roleplaying.

Cross RP is insanely beneficial to roleplaying community and its ability to truely connect and have a great time cross faction. Many arears like Booty Bay and Ratchet has become social hubs for roleplaying now, while this mod was working, and has brought the possiblity for Battle of Azeroth to truely take place amongst the roleplaying community too.

5 Likes
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CrossRP has been the reason recent RP-PvP campaigns (Drums of War) have been so immersive and a delight to RP in. Several communities filled up for ppl to use the addon, so it’s heartbreaking to see Blizzard breaking it all up. I hope everything will be resolved and/or Blizzard will just give their own support.

Honestly, so puzzling that Blizzard is trying to destroy whatever community there is left, if not aggravating. Why are you doing this to us?

4 Likes
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blizzards anti-fun police got you.

4 Likes
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This is a real and true shame, to have this addon trashed by Blizzard. In the recent times, since it came out, this addon had made such an impact on the entire RP community. Not only could you speak in /s and /y, you could also read enemy emotes (which granted is not so useful in RP PvP, but is IMMENSELY useful in RP PvE). Recent event went from maybe a 100 people at best ( with a LOAD of issues in communication, since lets be honest, its really hard to RP when you have to hang on Discord and arrange stuff with enemy leaders ) to well over a 1000 in the Drums of War campaign. These days, normal events are 250+ BECASUE of Cross RP.

This addon was created specifically for RP servers, and it proved it self to be a star. This is a sad day for the entire RP community, across the game, not just AD. As far as we can read, Moonglade is in an uproar about it as well, as are other RP servers. Hopefully, Blizzard sees their mistake and fixes it. Or not. In which case, they may lose a large amount of players very soon.

So much for the Game of the Year winner company.

4 Likes
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As some have said, EU side has absolutely revitalised Booty Bay and Ratchet from this add-on. These previously very barren areas have had so much interesting RP added just from the ability to communicate between factions. Not only that, but personally not wanting to RP Alliance side has meant I am actually able to RP with those who are on Alliance side without feeling like I’m losing out on RP potential by being a Horde main. Not only is it amazing for war RP, but neutral RP too. We’re all losing out from the functionality of this add-on being thwarted with the new update. I know many who have re-subbed just for the fact they can now RP between factions
 except, now they can’t. Or, they can, but it’s very, very difficult to.

It’s a darn shame.

4 Likes
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It’s really disheartening to see this happen, I am also hoping that it was merely overlooked and that something can be resolved to bring something so great back to our roleplay community.

Having used it quite a few times myself since it was introduced, more so recently through the Ogrepowered campaign and Parley even, I can honestly say it provided for a more fun and interactive experience. It opened up a whole other world of creativity for us that wasn’t blocked through some incoherent words or emotes. It allowed us to build a more enriching and immersive environment.

I had planned to use it for a campaign of my own, but if things remain as they are I’m afraid for the bigger events that pit both factions against one another. It’ll be like putting a brick wall there blocking all forms of communication even if it was just minor insults in the midst of battle or perhaps coming together to fight against something greater.

I can only hope that blizzard gives us at least this for the roleplaying community.

4 Likes
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Indeed, cross RP added so much depth and fun into RP scene. It opened up new RP possibilities that were previously extremely hard or impossible to execute without the proper cross faction communication.

I hope Blizzard considers re-enabling this addon as it was one thing that came in BfA that genuinely had an enormous positive impact on the RP community.

3 Likes
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This helped safely create an amazing amount of rp between so many people. Why stop this Blizzard? It was hurting no one and helped create so much fun between so many people! Please see reason, we just want to be able to talk to each other!

5 Likes
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I completely agree. Not just Blood Elves and Void Elves, or Horde and Alliance Pandaren either, Blood Elf and Night Elf demon hunters can talk to each other as well. Also Horde mages with arcane linguist skill can learn Thalassian and talk to Void Elves that way too.

That whole language barrier thing is an outdated decision and makes absolutely zero sense lorewise.

4 Likes
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Someone made a crosspost to Reddit if the developers post. I strongly urge people to upboat it or whatever it is kids do these days. Let’s be real, they read Reddit more than the EU forums.

1 Like
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They got round a known restriction and Blizzard fix it so they can no longer do it. Their lucky Blizzard never banned their main accounts for exploiting the addon message channel.

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There was no exploit.

The add-on took what you were saying into a relay channel in battle net group chats, then on the other side it would read what was said and replace the contents of the say and emote channels with that text. You even had to be in the same bnet group with people and be connected to it’s relay channel for the add-on to work.

The add-on was not exploiting anything. Especially since pandaren, void elves and demon hunters can bypass the language barrier already. The add-on was just automating the use of btag group chats with more easily read visuals.

3 Likes
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Cross-RP was the most awesome add-on for the RP community since TRP, and I dearly wish we get it back.

1 Like
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this probably will happen in the next expansion, “after the war” i presume :slight_smile:

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“Why would you want to talk to the other Faction, you’re at WAR” Says the company based in a country whose independence was won after a war when both factions spoke the same language. A Country that went on to have their own Civil War where both factions spoke the same language, a country that was a Colony of a Country that also had fought their own Civil War where both factions spoke the same language, a country founded on the principles of Democracy, where the nation who founded that concept also had waged enthusiastic war on another nation-state that spoke the same language


I think some people have a vast misunderstanding as to why Wars are fought and how they work, as even the most cursory glance at the history books and their own lore, would show Blizzard how this makes no sense at all.

I mean it isn’t like they have not just made their entire franchise make no sense. If everyone in Quel’thalas inexplicably speaks only Thalassian and Orcish (Despite no one having encountered an Orc at the time) then I guess they could not have taught Humans Magic. Which means no Human Mages, no Medivh, No Dark Portal, and no World of Warcraft.

You’d have thought they would throw a bone to the segment of the playerbase that continues to stay subbed even during content drought


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We can only hope :crossed_fingers: :smile: