PCU-anti-PCU conflict and why it kills normal RP on Argent Dawn

Argent Dawn
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You know OP, in an ideal world, we would indeed all rp with each other spontaneously whenever we meet in the open world. Sadly we do not live in an ideal world. I know people in both the PCU and the anti-PCU camp, and I have rp’ed and spoken with members of both groups ( Though granted it has been a while since I’ve rp’ed with PCU guilds since most of them aren’t in Stormwind, whereas I am these days.)

Therefor I know that indeed, the PCU aren’t all drones connected to the Perroy Collective, however…

I have to agree with Taxania here. While some anti-PCU’ers can indeed be very cringe, it is not as simple as “Oh everyone who dislikes us is bad.” I have seen enough to know that neither side is completely blameless, despite attempts to paint it that way. Some of the anti-PCU crowd in fact -do- have very legitimate reasons as to why they don’t like them. And it is apparent that for some reason they feel that trying to talk stuff over isn’t going to help. For some reason they feel that approacing a PCU-officer is not going to resolve anything. Why that is, well, I can only speculate, but there it is.

Ofcourse I dont approve of going out of your way to tell people to drink acid, that is just a mental thing to do, or otherwise harassing, that stuff should just go. But this divide didn’t happen overnight, and not just because one side suddenly got up out of bed, rubbed their hands together and thought to themselves “Okay, just who are we going to hate today?”

Personally if I see a PCU’er out in the field I will just give them the benefit of the doubt and rp with them, see how it goes. Like it should be, but sadly isn’t.

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You explain the issue pretty well. I think that we also need to think of steps to resolve it - because I feel like there is something to be done that could bring the RP community in sort of a feeling of togetherness. Surely yeah live and let live can work but do you think that something else could be done?

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It’s been tried to little effect.

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This idea of a sit-down, a discussion or a resolution confuses me. With whom? The PCU don’t care about, and often don’t even know who’s in, the insane anti-pcu brigade until said brigade actively start harassing members. We’ve just kept growing and RPing and having fun, whilst these relatively few completely toxic people screeching at, and harassing, our members and non-PCU RPers who merely RP with members of the PCU. These people live in a bubbled fantasy world and have absolutely no self-reflection or common decency. How exactly can one have a ‘dialogue’ with people who A) you don’t know about, B) you don’t care about, C) actively wish death on you or consider you monstrously evil by virtue of three letters. Conclusion: RP with who you want, and if you get them screaming in your whispers for daring to RP with someone they don’t like, ignore them and move on. Life it to short to listen to people who let out their brains for no rent.

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Seen a lot of replies from various people like:“Just ignore them if they’re sreeching at you if you play with “#name” guild/community.”
But it gets tedious after a while. I’ve been in situations where whole RP encounters that I have personally set up for people to enjoy and interact fell apart because “Oh no, this X group is bad” and then them just bailing out in a middle of IC interaction. It’s just drains all your will to RP, when you have to constantly dance between two burning fires.

Yes, it always existed on AD. But not the degree of last 2 or so years. While I can definitely see why some people opt to: “Ignoring and moving on” but it results in creating various community bubbles and kills open world RP. Which is not healthy for any RP community in any open world game.

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The RP population in this realm is dwindling. As we all know, this split does not help anyone at all. It indeed would be great if we all got along well.

I see many of the PCU people in this thread acting very… arrogant. Sitting on your high horses all like “It’s not us. We do nothing wrong. It’s all you.”

It’s important for you to know WHY many people dislike the PCU. The idea of it is great! A group of guilds having events together and fighting each other and things like that. And it works, too. So what’s the problem?

I used to hate the PCU. I didn’t know much about them, but all my encounters with them were negative. I used to be in a guild that the PCU disliked. We were not taken seriously. We were provoked IC, which had very obvious OOC motivations. So when we fought back, we got god emoted against. Facing against mortal danger, the PCU members and officers acted all smugly like it’s nothing. “/e dodges easily and laughs” type memes.

This led me to dislike them, and then eventually to hate them. Near every encounter I had was negative in similar ways. Years pass and I began playing on other characters. I unknowingly joined a PCU guild, the League of Modimus. The people there were very good! Fun lads all around. I had a lot of fun in the guild. Then I interacted with other PCU guilds and it all was good fun too. I slowly began to not hate the PCU. Eventually I grew to like them. I’ve now been part of many PCU and non-PCU guilds, and having been participated in campaigns from both.

Many anti-PCU people do take things too far, like ignoring PCU players who do want to RP, or even worse. But not many people do that. That’s just a very small amount of people. Most people just dislike the PCU because of the common arrogant smug attitude in it. You can see it in this thread as well, like I’ve previously mentioned.

I’ve seen many people who criticize the PCU get dismissed as “lol you’re probably just an ERPer. There’s no reason to oppose the PCU unless you’re an ERPer so you’re an ERPer.”
Which is obviously not the case.

I’ve met many good people in the PCU. I’ve been in a few good PCU guilds, too. It’s just the smug arrogance that really grinds my gears.

You need to understand that it goes both ways. Both non-PCU and PCU have good and bad people. If you were less condescending to your adversaries then you would be hated less.

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this self proclaimed RP elite is the real reason why RP is becoming more and more bothersome. during my time in the PCU, I felt 10 times more included, felt like I had 10 times more impact and had 10 times more character development in a single day than RPing with randomers in any RP hot spot in the last 5 years.
Then again, it takes one to know one.

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I find it almost ironic, that a vast majority of anti-pcu guilds* are, in fact, no better than an average Stormwind social guild, who only discuss how bad PCU is, how to romance more, cling to bygone ideals of “oh my god the old days were so good” and consider themselves to be pinnacles of lore and RP all-together, while deliberately guiding their own lore/RP based on outdated WoWWiki.

Some suggest that people could sit down and talk out their differences, but tbqh - you simply can’t come to a reasonable conclusion with people, who have their heads stuck up in their own rears. (not to say that there are unreasonable people on both sides)

*I won’t namedrop guilds, so consider it vagueposting at its finest.

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89

Something I’ve just remembered that maybe makes it feel like more of a problem than it is, is that certain individuals plaster “Ignores PCU/No PCU” in ALL of their characters OOCs. It’s a bit excessive, and sometimes instead of it being four or five people, it’s actually just one or two that are adamant on broadcasting their sentiments from their alts.

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R.I.P Klargus, gone but NOT forgotten!

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Yeah, maybe if people didn’t base their stance solely on incidents that occurred years ago (a time when 75% of the PCU guilds or the PCU itself didn’t even exist), treat it as gospel and seek out anyone else with a similarly dim grudge then such hatred would diminish.

Instead there are tumblr blogs and anti-PCU discord communities commemorating these transgressions and feed into each others’ confirmation bias.

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A general gesture at a lack of communication leading to misunderstandings and attitudes getting ingrained to a point where reconciliation would take a collective effort that nobody is ever going to bother with.

You don’t, because it’s impossible and the people you’d want to reach won’t listen.

I’ve seen thing spiral out of control, I’ve heard the lines from either side, I don’t believe that this can be fixed. Not until whoever is fuelling the worst antagonism loses interest at least.

Agreed up to a point. As long as this “rivalry” keeps up, sometimes laughable, sometimes disturbing, there’s a cost associated with everything you do. Try ignoring the rain, you still get soaked.

It’s fundamentally unhealthy and damaging, but it persists and I wish it’d just stop but it won’t and what little could’ve been adressed in chats won’t be by now.

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I disagree.
PCU guilds aren’t all as interlinked as eachother, and that would just group everything together in the ecosystem.
And with a lot of the guilds, their threads existed before they even joined the PCU, iirc that’s the case for my guild too.

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Given there’s been a hate blog aimed at the PCU going for… 4 years now, I doubt that will happen any time soon. A shame but it is what it is.

There’s no rivalry, nor feud. It’s a one-sided rent-free hate bubble one one hand, and the PCU on the other, who genuinely do not care about these people outside of them harassing members and carry on RPing regardless. There’s no ‘two-sides’ to this.

Also, why care about what they think? The only questions that matter for you, as an RPer, are: 1) Am I having fun, 2) Are the people I’m RPing with having fun. If the answer to both those questions is yes, then carry on and damn anyone that decries you. That’s not a cost, that’s a gain, because you then know who it is that doesn’t really care about RPing and cares more about some nonsensical one-sided OOC grudge and controlling people.

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One big cry for help as far as I’m concerned.

People take their grudges, memery and attitude OOC making the game less a creative relaxation and more of a constant anxiety for a lot of people.

I certainly don’t want anything to do with anyone telling me “we don’t RP with those people” and that’s been my stance since I started RPing in WoW. Making my own decisions, I certainly know a few I want to avoid, though.

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That’s definitely an issue. PCU have bads. Non-PCU have bads. Both sides have goods and bads. Just gotta ignore the bads, really. Jsyk, I despise some people on both sides 'cause some people just suck. It’s how life is.

Good to hear you found a place though!

Edit: The conflict is tiring but people need to admit their imperfections on both sides.

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Of course, not everyone writes this way, but I have repeatedly come across a dozen guilds in Stormwind that purposefully ignore the PCU, and these are active, large guilds, although they do not speak out loud about it. It does not look so noticeably , like “ignore PCU” in TRP but it is very noticeable when you are the person who plays with everyone and some of the players tell you that they ignore you or part of your story, because you play with those and those

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Truly damaging to the tons and tons of RP pcu does in stormwind constantly in copious amounts :pensive:

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I agree, it hurts primarily neutral players who try to play somewhere other than Stormwind and in SW in the same time

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Yep. Ultimately it’s something that has almost 0 impact on the PCU and just catches random people in the crossfire instead, on top of being completely unnecessary.

Shame to see, really.