I never really thought AA was useful enough to become popular, to be honest. Word of mouth and the forums seem more effective for organising things, and event postings seem like the vast majority of the posted content, since personal stories and character profiles aren’t really… Enthralling entertainment.
In my experience, what really earns Alliance roleplay (and Stormwind roleplay especially) its bad rap these days is the phenomenal amount of attention-seeking going on. You need only look at the ridiculous titles, accolades and interaction-irrelevant detail invested in by the vast majority of player characters using TRP, the perpetual attempt of most characters to exhibit as many positive traits and qualities as possible, the decade-old habit of standing motionless alt-tabbed for hours waiting for someone to come to you rather than invest in a scene yourself, the ridiculous ability and skill of any character in emote fighting, and many more examples.
Your example of your character being a captain and submitting logically to a player roleplaying a major struck particularly true with me. My characters walk the line between rank enough to command others and sufficient obscurity to authentically command those few beneath him, and I see that world from two sides: the players absolutely gobsmacked by my character’s logical deference to them due to their rank, and the players absolutely hell-bent on pushing him and the rest of his unit beyond realistic levels of interference.
For example, it’s a very tired and weary complaint, but roleplaying as a military unit in Stormwind around other people is essentially impossible these days. Players will go out of their way to harass you beyond realistic levels, and then showcase their extraordinary skills and intellect when you attempt to contest that harassment. As a military guild leader, I’m sick and tired of your bog-standard female roleplayer with a low-brimmed hat and flintlock pistols wandering up to /ruffle my guild members’ hair to prove how daring and funny they are - and then wander off without the chance of a response.
I’m simply too tired and too busy in real life to sustain the patience necessary to glean some kind of enjoyment from these interactions. It truly seems like the vast majority of roleplayers I meet on a daily basis are simply there to seek attention from those around them, whether that be by creating such wildly unrealistic characters lacking flaws that they might as well be God himself, or by creating so much trouble and magically dancing out of it that you really question whether it’s worth interacting with anybody at all. It’s such a dice roll with so many people, and the attention seekers seem to form such a persistent and loud majority that I just lose the interest in roleplaying with anyone outside my guild.
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@albrecht: perhaps those who are still around who have some experience of running these larger events could be asked what it was that worked, and in so doing inspire people who may be interested but are intimidated by the thought of screwing up or accidentally creating the drama that causes it to fall apart.
I would reply to specific parts of your post Matheson, but I think you generally hit the nail on the head. I feel like casual roleplay is becoming more and more difficult, and that as AD has become larger, community standards have become much slacker. I don’t think that bubble RP is a good thing, but I absolutely do think that standards are essential for people to actually enjoy the time they invest into this game. That’s the question to be answered, and detailed posts like this really help, so thanks for that.
The problem is that I (think) I know what works, I think there are a decent amount of people around who do as well, but part of the problem is gathering and motivating them towards action. I feel we’ve all gotten older, too, with less time and motivation for this kind of thing with all of the hassle and heartache that comes with it, especially with how large and disparate AD has become.
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I doubt I am the best person to speak on this subject, considering I haven’t played much at all this expansion and have therefore in some way contributed to the issues mentioned in this thread (notably dedication). What I have noticed while I have been RPing, however, and in my experience from past expansions, is that it seems to me like people are increasingly willing to attribute any and all issues they have IC to either OOC involvement or OOC motivations.
Rather than focusing on what’s happening in the moment and RPing it out, people are quick to jump to conclusions such as metagaming, powergaming or just generally ill intentions OOC (not without reason, mind; this behaviour is somewhat justified looking at past incidents). A situation like this arose in the recent Ports in the Storm campaign. Despite being a very short encounter that lasted only a few minutes, one of the persons involved felt it necessary to immediately express their disappointment on the forums.
I can fully understand this mindset – I am guilty of acting similarly in the past, albeit not on the forums – but it is still something that seems to have gotten increasingly common as the years pass. I agree that a proper framework is currently lacking on the Alliance side (players having established roles is a necessary part of creating a living, breathing world in my opinion, even if it might invite powerhungry players), but I don’t believe that’s all that’s needed. A general sense of not jumping to conclusions or always wondering “is this meta?” might be more valuable in the long run.
Then again, I don’t imagine the people this would actually need to be directed towards will read this, so it’s probably pointless to write.
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As someone who has roleplayed on multiple platforms over the course of about a decade, WoW RP’s weird fascination with yelling about ‘keeping it IC’ still confuses me. Setting your ‘immersion’ aside, we ARE all just playing a game and having some fun, and more people should rightly accept that plotting scenes or interactions out beforehand can sometimes save you from a world of discomfort and misunderstanding. The keywords here are sometimes and can.
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I keep coming back to this thread with an effort to contribute with a large, detailed post, but to be honest, every time I write a paragraph, I realise I’m just parroting the OP of the thread, or Matheson’s post. It’s really, really all already been said.
The lack of any institution/network, and the resistance to a forming of one, no matter how high quality and unintrusive it might be, and the resulting free for all of snowflake and private army RP that litters the streets is really difficult to overcome. I really miss the wotlk-cata days but I really don’t see any method to returning to that kind of environment.
I don’t think our City Watch could have survived in Stormwind as it is today, like you said, which is really a shame, because it makes me think about all the ideas people have had since then which went nowhere due to how things are at the moment.
I’d like to have a paragraph of solutions here, but I’m not sure there is one, to be totally honest. People’s attitudes are not something that can be changed quickly, or easily, and I don’t think any one method would suffice.
I will say this though: Two is enough for a patrol, Lionwatch! Stop being so lazy and do your beats ![:wink:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=6" ":wink:")
That office of yours is too cozy for servants of the Crown, get walkin’! And… Engage with people more on your travels through the districts. That was something we did in the Watch a lot, just joking around with locals as we came through, putting on a show of just… Fun RP as we went by, sometimes, even if people didn’t engage with us. It really helps, and I’d love to see more of it.
But really, I think that advice would go down well with almost everyone. Engaging more with people you pass rather than sticking to your assigned guild walking group really helps foster community. It’s sorely lacking now.
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The problem with bubble-rp, as I see it (not just for the obvious reasons toward the player excluded) is that when somebody tries to penetrate that bubble, the players within that community find it jarring. They’ve been happily roleplaying in what is essentially a safe space with a consensus of RPers who sit in the same guild, share similar motives and offer a comfortable familiarity. Somebody coming in from the outside is almost seen as an “attack”, ostensibly disrupting the flow of roleplay and the relatively harmonious experience of the bubble.
I’ve seen a lot of people misinterpret an innocent walk-up as some kind of deviant trolling because of this.
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I think people need to be more lenient towards players that “appear where they shouldn’t”. It’s not up for you to decide when or where they cannot appear, it can be for a plethora of reasons.
Or simply perhaps, (I am prone to do this when I am bored) they saw you on the TRP tracker on the map and decided to stop by to clue in on some of the RP. Now I understand that there are limits to how people will receive these random appearances, but it gives that elemental of random narrative for both players.
You make new friends that way and may very well become partners in a massive story/plot together. I ask you to direct your inquiry as to where these player might exist to “Of Hammers and Hollows”, they make sure people know from the moment they join the guild; that they can’t expect spoon fed Roleplay. Instead they are encouraged to make their own, go out and about with their characters to meet new people and learn about these adventures or campaigns they are on. To which, numerous times, they have then returned to the guild and mentioned, that then makes for amazing interactions and development.
It is all done through these IC interactions that we get the most out of it, there is this whole conversation about IC and OOC needed to be separated, which I agree with.
But as Albrecht wrote:
“Dalrick and the High Court of Chancery were generally recognised as representing the judicial institution, and while I didn’t always get along with him either IC or OOC, some truly excellent and memorable RP was created because that institution existed”
Acknowledging that the entertainment you come here for can be done by people you may not necessarily agree with, opens up that much needed connection we need going forward. We need to burst this bubble/clique RP and and be more inclusive.
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go to bed.
I dunno. My very first RP interaction on AD, or ever really, was with the Shield of Light in Plaugelands of all places. I was questing and they were Rping, we came across each other but they didn’t treat me like I was OOC. They treated me like I was a character. I’d only stopped by them out of the general “wth is this” curiosity and it led to RP and an Rper.
That I think is one of the things wrong with Alliance RP and RP generally though I see it less on Horde. A general dismissive, a desire to isolate oneself from everything but what your given guild is doing. Be more open, interaction, in the present. It’s hard but worth it, the world starts to feel alive, the immersion kicks back in. I know not everybody will agree with that sentiment but this is a “thoughts” thread so sod it. People just shout TROLL and then act like they are the best thing since sliced cheese. It’s a terrible attitude and that changing would help a great deal imho.
I don’t RP in Stormwind much, so I may be a bit off, but when I do I don’t notice pillar guilds. Guilds that I immediately know who they are, what they’re doing, what they’re about etc. Yes I know pillar is a naughty word but it has a positive notion to it, they form a core, a set, a standard. An example to others both old and new. Note they don’t -dictate- they -set an example-. They’re out, about, constant, present -felt-. City Watch walks past, damn better watch it or they’ll sass you. Current guard guild comes along… I dunno. They’re not felt. Just another group in shiny suits. If your guild decides to take on a responsibility IC be -felt-. And that’s not to pick on one guild, honestly I’ve only had one or two interaction with the current guards and that was on a drunk character and they were pretty cool with it, but yeah.
Granted none of that can really return nowadays, as has been said, but something to it would go a long way to ‘fixing’ it.
(most of this has probably already been said in some form, but hell with it. It’s 3am which is hyper awake posting time)
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I definitely agree with what you’re saying here. I walk around Stormwind and guilds are just sort of existing, I don’t know what their agenda is. Guilds don’t feel like they have an agenda or want to make an impression, in Stormwind at least.
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Certainly an interesting topic to talk about. I also feel that RP has become much more clique-centric and somehow more influenced by OOC than it used to be. It might be that I wasn’t as deeply involved in the scene back then but it certainly seems to me that there is a lot more OOC drama now.
Also nice to see The Royal Court mentioned after such a long time. I’m very aware of the disagreements they had with other guilds/people, but I was fortunate enough to avoid it all - for I was only a mere butler, and I loved every second of it.
Shoutout to the Court members.
I hope you enjoyed the tea.
It’s because the realm has devolved into Habbo Hotel. Remember (if you ever played Habbo) that you’d sit in a room with your clique, brimming up to the gills with ‘furni?’
I can’t help but feel like that’s happening in Alliance roleplay. It’s actually getting harder to be recruited these days too, IMO. As in if you’re an apprehrensive / shy person wanting to get into RP then previously you’d just wait for a recruiter to walk up, pitch their concept, and tag along if its to your fancy, but I don’t even see that happening as much anymore.
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There’s also just far less people than there used to be.
So there’s automatically far less quality people, too.
I find myself still enjoying a great deal of intriguing RP, even in Stormwind. However most of the time it stems from characters and events that all originated in “the good old days”, it’s very rare for me to encounter someone or something new that holds the same level of quality and interest. It could be part bias, but it’s incredibly difficult to find unique characters nowadays; people seem to gravitate towards similar (and often pretty dumb) concepts adhering to Blizzard’s own “rule of cool before rule of logic” principle. My favorite type of RP these days stems from deconstructing these bland concepts IC and then leading into a pretty interesting discussion with the other part.
This is a very good point, and imo a key solution to making Alliance RP less isolated. People need to stop viewing the TRP tracker merely as metagaming and instead appreciate it as a useful tool to create more ‘random’ RP interactions out in the world. For example, the Brigands guild used to do this a lot in order to locate unsuspecting people travelling by road and stage some form of robbery (with varying degrees of success) which was often well-received by the travellers as a welcome surprise to spice up an otherwise uneventful bit of travel RP.
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Considering how packed Stormwind was last night, with you sat besides a sizeable group on your horse, I’m wondering how much more populated it should be.
The thing with lore ‘compliance’, as Albrecht called it in the OP, is that unlike Horde-side roleplay one kind of expects elaborate sets of rules from a human kingdom filled with quite a few in-lore bureaucrats, while Horde with its general direction of being more primitive and simplistic in its nature (if those are the right adjectives to describe it) don’t need City Guard lawbooks or the like, mostly going by common sense.
Many other examples can be noticed, but if I were to make a conclusion based on this it’s that Alliance side should open up more to small bits of headcanon and fanon to fill in the gaps of lore. However, we should stay cautious and wary, otherwise we will soon be not far from some bizarre things from Moonguard. With the vastness of Blizzard’s Azeroth and lack of world building on their part, it is our duty to fill in the blank spaces, but do so while respecting other people’s roleplay too. Similarly, I agree that everyone in RP should be given a chance in general.
Just some pretty peanut butter-level thoughts of mine, as Albrecht would no doubt call them.
Well, if you looked further, you probably saw that it was only the cathedral square and the park area that was “packed”.
It’s the same in Lakeshire for example, usually there were about 30 people or so RPing there, whereas it’s about 10-15 or so at any given time now. It just makes RP a bit more limited. I do not think constructing instutions will help much with stopping a certain decline of availability.
This, and back at the RP PvP campaign of last year in Alterac some people repeated tried to violate female characters or otherwise simply behaved like douchebags towards female characters. I left because it became very annoying.
That should just end tbh.