Reviving Horde Hub Rp - Ideas and Suggestions

Argent Dawn
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Heyhey Dawners,
I wanted to throw out a thread in a regards to improving the health of horde and cross-faction rp currently available to players, newer ones and veterans alike.

We all know that as far as visibility and accessability of rp is concerned, the alliance side has active hubs, both bigger and smaller alike, stormwind, duskwood and redridge to name a few.
On Horde side due to player numbers but also a different approach to rp overall, hubs have been bleeding and turned into ghost towns instead.

While Orgrimmar even over a year ago never peaked in activity as high as stormwind did, it was still largely more populated for example, so much so that the tavern saw rp, fights were had behind it, people chilled around the pond and on some days it was so full that groups spread out further into the valley or migrated to rp in the tauren or troll sections of the city.
At best, even on prime peaktime like a friday evening/night things look different now.

The last few times I mapscanned unless there was either a campaign ongoing from our own guild or one of the pcu affiliated guilds which are welcome sight, there was -nothing-.
No zone, no city
 not even neutral hubs like dalaran, booty bay or ratchet
 not a single soul to be found.

So what changed and how can we change it? What are some of the things people are missing or found disheartening that made them quit?

Without wanting to jump to to many conclusions, I know WoW overall bled players quite heavily which factors into it, but I am pretty sure there are still a good few people out there.
Seeing so little to no activity when you’re debating about rping however is likely a major factor which causes a loop in itself.
People dont see activity, won’t try kickstarting it cause it looks to empty or boring and go elsehwere. Then the next person after will do the same and it creates a cycle of nothing happening at all and the few people that remain are either extremely dedicated, or don’t really care about the bigger picture.
Less people also make the less desirables stand out more, because there’s no crowd for them to blend in and noone to keep anything in check.

I know things won’t magically change overnight but I really -really- want to try getting at least a little something going again.
So please post your ideas, suggestions, what made you leave in the first place, anything.

Thank you in advance and sorry if this comes off as a rant, I am merely saddened to see how bad things seem in terms of exposure and the ability for people to find any walk-up rp at all.

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People were enjoying RP in Orgrimmar with its own quirks, until a certain jade witch came along with its child RP and started to - no often literally - infest the city with its presence. I do not know if it has changed or not, but I can all-so understand people, who simply do not want to get back into it.

As for Silvermoon, that was pretty much the second active hub, is empty due to being heavily guild-focused and active players leaving the scene due to recent company’s misconduct allegations/boredom of the current lore/community issues.

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The jade witch has been effectively driven from Orgrimmar, and those who associated with said witch, while occasionally still trying to sneak into RP places, are also quite silent.

They aren’t the only contributing factor however, certain nerubian and san’layn RPers also added to it but yeah, the recent jade witch did make a LOT of people feel uncomfortable.

Alas VoH is mostly a ghost town in terms of RP, occasional drips of folk come in but soon enough it returns to silence.

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Ah, some positive. Their occasional presence on the forum made me think they still play.

I surely hope not

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Oh they still try sadly, I’ve seen some of them in game in the past month ish, created a new guild at that and still partake in child RP


Though in (somewhat?) good(ish) news, Keti themselves have said they’d cut ties with the rest of those involved, I certainly hope they stick to it.

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Orgrimmar is a difficult subject to find a solution for. There isn’t really one particular reason why people left and the place gets little to no RP, it’s more of a combination of problems piling on over time.
SL’s release took a lot of players from RP so they could play the expansion. But when it and it’s lore turned out to stink, then Blizzard got themselves into 17 lawsuits, that playerbase took a long time to come back - some still haven’t. In their absence there was no real community to perform quality control on the RP. So you had things like Scourge RPers walking the streets, then the Vulpera Kit RPers being provocative in broad daylight, and OOCers taking up more space than RPers. Those left, I assume, went to play Alliance instead, and it just got worse and worse.

Now, those undesirables are gone, but so is everyone else, for a few reasons:

  • There are no people in Orgrimmar, so nobody goes to Orgrimmar, so there are no people in Orgrimmar, so nobody goes to Orgrimmar, repeat.
  • Stormwind, as a setting, is just better for casual/random RP, having multiple taverns, a religious centre, a park, multiple shops and houses, etc. Whereas Orgrimmar has the Wyvern’s Tail and a bunch of tents and unbuilt houses littering the streets.
  • The Horde, as a playerbase, stick to their guilds, so unless there is a reason for guilds to go to Orgrimmar, which there isn’t, they won’t go, and they’ll just stick to their established cliques in whatever corner of the world they’ve set themselves up in.

Honestly, I’m not all too sure.
People could obviously hold guild faires, or markets, or military meetings, or dark magic/shamanistic type events like what Dalaran does, but there’s no guarantee that people are going to show up to those.
And even then there’s always still the chance that a San’layn and her army of super ghouls with mega death blades, or a ‘friendly family’ lead by a 12 year old Vulpera and her 30 year old Orc boyfriend will see the increased traffic in the city and come in to ruin it for people once again. Maybe that’s me being a doomer, but that sort of stuff was still around before SL even came out.
Obviously I’d be open to it though. Hell, I’d be happy to help plan and run them if it came to it, I just don’t have faith in it before the inevitable player spike from Dragonflight comes.

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I heard most of the troublemakers made themselves sparse which is good.
You’ll always find a few odd ones in the bunch I reckon, but hopefully the worst is dealt with.

Have had to deal with it myself in a personal level which led me to take a pretty hefty break from wow a while back cause things got downright rotten and I’d rather not get into details.

That said, I hope that small steps can be taken to rekindle some flames here and there if people are still interested/would be willing to give it another go.
Its just nicer to have a bit more diversity and while I enjoy alliance for rp a fair bit its also nice to have the option to hop on and find mature, likeminded people to chat to on horde side for your chars to socialize with whenever you feel like it.

Nothing’s perfect but some lessons can probably be learned
 if anything, the mental wellbeing of people within the community is something to take better care of. Cause a bunch of us got majorly burned out looking in hindsight at how much damage some people caused.

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Saw them in Shatt yesterday. They play.

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Pain.
(In ten characters)

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I really like and support the idea of Cross Roads being a new Horde hub. It’s close to the Horde capital, Orgrimmar as well as Thunderbluff. Furthermore The Barrens has fun IC journey and potential for all sorts of events in the wilderness.
As for cross-faction, Ratchet is a stones throw away and there’s an easy boat to Booty Bay.
To add on this; to the south is Thousand Needles and the goblin barge.

As for enemies, Quillboar are a classic Horde foe. Centaur, Harpies etc. Yet there are Night Elves in Ashenvale to the north.

Its an obvious choice to me.

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On top of that, there’s a small Earthen Ring camp in the Southern Barrens. And a druidic group could set up around Wailing Caverns to study how things are since the Cataclysm.

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I’d happily support that. Its a little more central and lets people from from all over pass by, exactly what the name implies.
Travelers from overseas that arrived in ratchet, but literally anyone going to or coming from any direction.

Also a great note there. I am sure people can find some vistas around the town itself to use as hotspots for their own rp. Watchtowers for guard/patrol rp, the caverns for druids or shamans and a good few more.

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I’d like to offer some unsolicited advice.

Wishing for an active hub is nice, but there are a few problems with the Horde as a playerbase.

First of all, there’s the faction ratio. That’s the obvious obstacle, but not the end of the world. The real problem is that the Horde is so diverse, you could say it kind of limits the creative potential in a sense. You want to cater to all but at the same time you don’t want to leave any out - OR you want to cater to some, but they turn out to be so few, you’re quick to be discouraged.

This sort of limits any notion of religious and civilian RP already. The problem with religious RP is that every race has a different faith, whereas in civilian RP you will find yourself fighting with neutral hubs over who gets the five or six hordeside merchants (plus the literally one barkeep, let’s be honest) that exist in total.

So what kind of RP character archetypes does that leave us with?

  • The lone wolf warrior who’s looking for a warband to join but doesn’t like authority and the mercenary who’s looking for work but will turn down every job offer you throw at them sorryicouldn’tresist
  • Warbands
  • The rare sight of a non-warband guild
  • Death knights, apparently
  • I might be a little out of touch since the 2021 scandals for the record

What you could try to do is appeal to a good majority of these parties by thinking up regular competitions that may as a byproduct encourage activity in casual/regular RP, such as

  • Organized brawls (with or without betting)
  • Drag Racing (sorry i mean street racing, as in: the Drag) with wolves, kodos, or trikes (I can’t guarantee you’d find participants but at the same time this might be big)
  • Minor call-to-arms events (i.e. harpies have attacked a wagon in Durotar or there’s a scorpid infestation in the zeppelin towers; there are goblin locations in azshara that could double as science labs with accidents and big monsters, or one could have gotten loose to attack the gates)
  • Axe-throwing contest

Alternately, if you feel like pursuing a religious angle or something, let’s call it, novel, that might draw in some activity - we just got material in that could be worked with - these are just ideas, mind you:

  • A tauren teaching others about arcane magic in the Valley of Wisdom
  • An orc preaching for either the Holy Light or Forgotten Shadow
  • A rogue in the Cleft of Shadows teaching a bunch of tauren the ropes (this one might bring you two people and a dog but I could be underestimating people)

Alternately you could try to start up a civilian RP venture in hopes to encourage some casual RP

  • Caretaker of beasts
  • Barkeep (these have always been too short-lived in my experience, so I wouldn’t recommend it)
  • Chef (we miss you Pumbo)

But personally I would support looking to the Crossroads. It’s easier to get settled RPing there than Orgrimmar. It’s even elf/undead friendly if you ask me, and adventures and competitions are easier to promote there.

I’d personally love to see Thunder Bluff become an active hub one day but that’s never going to happen

Just a few ideas you might consider or ignore as you please. The most important takeaway I’d like to give you is to not wait for somebody else to start anything. Be the flint and tinder and keep rekindling the flame regularly. Just ask yourself how you’d enjoy contributing first. Determining one RP evening to announce for weekly village hours on the regular is something I would strongly recommend if viable - and find and use key discords to promote them in.

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The lack of a hub and casual rp is the reason I don’t really rp as much anymore and barely touched my horde chars for a while to be honest.
I am interested to but it’s even harder to think up a new char and take them out for a spin to see if you vibe with the concept if there’s noone to introduce yourself to.

I am absolutely on board with giving crossroads a try and would love to make the area surrounding it and the town itself somewhat lively to give people incuding myself that chance again.

Also that’s a great post and i agree with pretty much everything you’ve said.
I am sure once some people settle in you can easily introduce characters or small groups to roleplay certain elements of the town itself.
Merchants, Profession or Combat trainers, People that hold little contests and games to make a quick coin, storytellers, herbalists going out to gather reagents nearby, small warbands going on patrol for combat rp, trading caravans to peddle goods back and forth between crossroads and the nearby major cities, all sorts.

Having people play characters that provide roleplay opportunities for others to rally around helps a bunch and would be good for interaction, encouraging people to join rather than doing the smug standing in a corner trope.

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Also to randomly throw in a suggestion so mundane only Orras would do it:

  • Blind storyteller - come up with tales to narrate interactively, i.e. trade them for descriptions of sights on Azeroth (or Draenor/Outland) and be interjection-friendly; this could be a USP for Horde village hours
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The Crossroads is cool and I like it, but you see someone propose an idea like this every so often like “I’d love to make the Crossroads/Ratchet into an active hub” and people agree with it, and then it either never gets going or it’s active for like
 a week, and then dies either from a loss of interest, a lack of places to go/things to do, etc.

I’d be ecstatic to be proven wrong, of course, but if you’re trying to replace a capital city with 3 tents and an inn in a level 10 Cata zone then you’ll likely run into issues.

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I would actually say the main obstacle for at least my suggestion for The Cross Roads as a hub is player initiative to act on making a place a “hub.”

this as I type out my next post. I shall move on swiftly.

While I will disagree STRONGLY with

The Barrens is not only diverse and expansive by itself, it is the center of Kalimdor so other regions & RP is easily accessible - especially with the boat to Booty Bay thus connecting Southern Eastern Kingdoms.

Not at all. I can point to a lot of guilds that have their core themes but also interact and delve into an abundance of things. The world is diverse and the lore is plentiful (albeit inconsistent at times) our imagination is the limit.

Across Forsaken, Elves and the other Horde - perhaps. But that isn’t all that limiting.
In fact no - its not limiting at all because I’ve witnessed a cross-fac druid event, a cross-fac Shaman event and a cross-fac Mage event
All of which were well recieved.

Furthermore, lets take shaman for example:
Shaman can delve into traditional lore/themes for both their race and their class. Tauren & Orc shamanism is culturally different but they can still interact in an interesting and fruitful way IC and OOC.

Belf Paladins and Forsaken Shadowpriests aaaugh they HATE eachother. Perhaps, but the Forsaken Religion is The Forgotten Shadows and actually they believe in balance even if they are very biased towards the shadow that preserves them. I’ve had plenty of RP where I haven’t resorted to angry zeal. The character’s own tolerances are the only limit here - and that’s still interesting to explore even if they aren’t suited for a diversely populated area. Forsaken priests at the Cross Roads tend to be rare exceptions.

Apologies if I have being going on and on but that’s how I can accurately convey my thoughts in mortal words.

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Should have been clearer, my bad. I meant that the Crossroads’ size and the fact that it only has one building means that if you want to do anything besides just chat and maybe trade, you have to leave and go somewhere else.
The Barrens are great for inspiring RP events but the Crossroads themselves are lacking imo. What separates it from somewhere like Booty Bay is that the latter is full of places to go and do things without having to venture out into Stranglethorn.

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Ah, yeah. I can agree with you there. Despite being The Horde’s canonical Trade Hub, it’s in game representation is only small when it comes to actual town/village logistics.
Hence why I think Ratchet being so close is an important factor.
Not to forget that there is always Razor Hill. Sure it’s a bit of a long RP walk but at least its another major settlement. Same goes for Hunter’s Hill although not as major perhaps - its main difficulty being the giant lava filled chasm in the middle of the Barrens.

Or you could accept the fact there’s an imaginary bridge. :slight_smile:

RPers can be super creative even when lacking tools/material. It’s important that we learn from eachother and cultivate our RP spaces. It is just my humble and very strong opinion that The Cross Roads is just the easiest place outside of Orgrimmar to start.

My only other suggestion due to 1) its size & facilities and 2) its geographic location:
Thunderbluff.

Yet perhaps the themes would indeed be a bit more limited - and it strains the ease of cross-fac in Ratchet/BootyBay

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That is kind of what I mean though. You’re forced to either wrap religion into neutral organizations that happen to share similar faiths that boil down to the same goal (i.e. preserving the balance of nature or preserving the balance of the world through the elements) or narrow it down so hard that you’re an industrialist orc iron star engineer with a proud ancestry of blacksmiths listening to a priest tell you all about the goodness that is An’she and Mu’sha and how important it is to give back to the Earthmother.

It’s great, but it’s also kind of not massively-minority-faction friendly in that context. In the whole shaman/druid as a pro-nature vehicle context, however, it absolutely works, yeah. And part of the beauty is that those different faiths can interact either as complements to each other or as contrasts that spark either a common goal or two opposing ones.

That said, it’s a great vehicle for adventure, but integrating it into an RP hub in a way that promotes casual RP for warriors, rogues, mages, hunters, death knights, demon hunters and warlocks (and we haven’t even taken classless and/or profession-oriented characters into consideration yet) is one big puzzle you have to enjoy if you want to make it work. It’d be cool to see people tackle something like that to serve a Horde RP hub someday.

But I may be biased because my first ever Horde character was a tauren