Lol what are you on about mate?
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The PCU is basically dead now why tf people still going on about it? Lol lmao
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Sometimes, y’know…
I -wish- we had been all of that. That the PCU was somesort of supranational entity that existed solely to feed off of and destroy the super niché that is WoW RP (Argent Dawn - EU specifically).
I wish we truly were this sort of conglomerate of evil personas, villains and dastardly individuals, beacuse I have seen nothing of it and I have been in the community for multiple years.
It would be so much more fun if it -was- true, that we did all of this whatever else is being said. I wish that when all of the people who unsubbed from WoW globally during both Legion, BfA, SL and now DF, all cited “The PCU” as their reason to quit. That would be immensely funny if they did that.
Unfortunately, the (sad?) reality is; The PCU is nothing more than a social community that formed to ease the sake of RP across factions, and continues to exist to do the same. We are not the archvillain of all RP, the death of RP for either place, project or whathaveyou. If we had been the evil, enemy of all RP (Remember, only Argent Dawn-EU specifically) then I doubt you’d be meeting any of this criticisms, and instead find your power plugged out randomly.
Now, that is NOT to say that if a sudden power outage hits you, that is the PCU’s fault. Just as little as the death of Orgrimmar/Horde/Duskwood/Dalaran whatever RP you may want to blame the PCU for. Nor is the Bronze Age Collapse our fault. Or the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Or the Covid-19 Pandemic. Or any other societal fault, event or happening that you may find it easy to pin to the PCU.
We want to RP. The RP we are attributed to doesnt exist, and there is no effort to push an agenda that isn’t in the game, or that isn’t represented in the game currently. We are very open to collaborations, friendly or unfriendly meetings and skirmishes or alliances to foster and strengthen the weird internet hobby that we all share, Roleplaying as [Insert Race established in World of Warcraft Here], and contiuing to see this weird hobby flourish until the servers are being shut down by Blizzard. (Again, not the PCU.)
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Small correction that was me sorry.
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Errr… source…?
Prove it, otherwise we just have to assume that the PCU caused all of that by default.
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Checks the calendar Oh is it time for another of these threads already?
I am not touching the latest topic, as there is no point in trying to have a conversation with anyone with entrenched opinions like these.
To the topic of Horde RP though, I am a faction enjoyer. Not just faction conflict as some people think that’s all there is to factions, but their lore, aesthetics, vibe, races, kingdoms, tribes, cartels, individual characters that embody them to a degree etc. At this time people who don’t want to do any sort of conflict seem to be an absolute majority, be it faction RP-PVP or simply taking on some gnolls. So you shouldn’t have any problem finding RPers like that, but as a faction enjoyer and a pvper, I am rooting for the guys having a blast duking it out in the world. I would buy their merch if they had it, they sound absolutely amazing.
But to the point of mixed events etc, that’s just necessity to get people to come and rp, the organiser can always restrict the attendance as they wish to a faction, race, class, friends only etc. Would it look absolutely amazing if there were just hundreds of orcs hanging out? Yes it would. But there are not enough of them and their friends who want to RP with them may not want to create a throwaway orc alt to tag along.
To the point of a hub, it wouldn’t hurt anything. However what I like about Horde is the guild RP and traveling around the world, forging strong bonds, going out on adventures, tackling epic challanges only the realest of grunts, bruisers, headhunters, magisters etc can take on. And I personally think more Horde rpers also prefer meeting around the fire or taking a shelter in some cave out there in the world after a great adventure, rather than stading in a park and having small talk with strangers.
If anything I myself would like to see more narrowly focused guilds, like Darkspear trolls or Bilgewater goblins only etc, so they could have storylines focusing on their own thing and then get the greater Horde experience by interacting with other guilds etc. And for guilds that are recruiting to do a little more for players to be able to find them or even know they exist.
Lastly for Horde RP, there are still a ton of fun and stories to be had with quillboar, centuar, venture company, scarlets, gurubashi etc. I know those who had been rping all of SL and DF are burnt out as that’s what they have been doing for years now as blizz doesn’t add anything new for Horde right now, but those who had been away for a while or want to try Horde RP for the first time, I guarantee you will have insane amount of fun with these Horde classics.
Lastly lastly, putting on all the effort on 1 person is really not fair and if you think it’s that easy, why don’t you show them how it’s done. I would love to be proven wrong, but for any initiative to be done successfully, you need more people or insane amount of AD street cred so people would flock to be part of your thing.
TLDR: Horde is great, could be doing better, but couldn’t we all? Zug zug
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Alright, I admit it.
The PCU did do all of that. It was us, we did it all along.
Nyeheheh…!
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you’re also the reason the Superbloom keeps trolling me, ain’t ya?
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Nah thats me, enjoy your capes and rings, nerd.
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Perhaps. Maybe. We do like to do a bit of trolling.
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I hate to aim the blame at something abstract and out of player reach enough that there isn’t a whole lot we as a community can do to change it, but I genuinely feel the biggest hurdle to Horde RP has been the state of the lore. Let’s not forget the Alliance got two new cities this patch, and whilst we can certainly feign ‘well mechanically horde can go there rn so they’re really neutral’, let’s not pretend they’re anything other than Alliance Capitals. Cool additions that the Alliance certainly should’ve got, but the contrast with any recent Horde attention both in RP spaces as well as lore isn’t hard to see.
After BfA the whole horde is at an identity crisis. It’s, twice now, been made clear Blizzard wanted to portray it (or at least its warchief, that we can only extend our disbelief so much to disassociate with the rest of the faction) as indefensibly evil. In the latter half of BfA as well as SL (though not dragonflight because the horde’s been entirely absent) very haphazard damage control was made with characters like Baine and Calia to reverse that narrative, only for Baine to appear completely ineffectual and for Calia to be slapped into the Forsaken hierarchy with next to no narrative justification, and more recently for her to sue for peace and apparently have the authority to undo the main military efforts of that faction for the past decade in Gilneas.
This is in many ways made worse by the Alliance’s recent over-tolerance in lore, especially in Dragonflight, where a clear stance has been taken on inclusivity (often at the expense of any coherent lore identity) toward Void Elves, Manaari and most recently Dark Rangers (who only a few months prior said in the Forsaken heritage that they belonged to that faction, and wouldn’t return home. A decision reversed or otherwise forgotten by writers with the release of Bel’ameth).
When their faction has clearly been depicted as having been in the wrong in its past conflicts with the alliance, and their faction was initially established as a rag-tag group of factions unified out of necessity against an “imperious” alliance - which is so blatantly no longer the case due to the aforementioned - many Horde characters are therefore left asking “what was the point in me fighting for this faction.” Something drastically worsened by Dragonflight’s stance that the Horde don’t even have a reason to fight, except (as of the most recent major content) in service of Night Elves. Something Blizzard never fully explained why any Fourth War (or any faction conflict) veteran would logically do, beyond a vague ‘if the world tree - situated in a different realm ran by the night elf favoured wildgods - burns, so will all of azeroth’.
The Horde perspective has been crucially neglected for some time now, and the lack of people roleplaying Horde-specific (not neutral aligned) characters is a direct consequence of that. Especially when so many horde guilds were military focused and there is no clear cause for them to be fighting anymore beyond neutral threats.
This is a vicious cycle only made worse by growing Alliance activity and Horde inactivity.
Why should I waste my time hiding from ERP in Silvermoon in search of what Blood Elf RP remains, when Stormwind is oversaturated with “High Elves”?
Why should I go through the effort of TRP scanning Tirisfal Glades, which is currently split across 4 different potential questline phases, in the hopes of finding other Dark Rangers to RP with when I could just as easily go to Bel’ameth as a Night Elf Dark Ranger that’s canonically tolerated or a “High Elf Dark Ranger” elsewhere using the Void Elf customisations and coming up with a hodgepodge turncoat explanation?
The draw of access to active RP for many people outweighs the narrative value of playing a Horde-style character in an inactive Horde setting, when more and more ways of achieving a similar experience are opening up on the Alliance with seemingly every new content patch.
I’m sorry to come off as complaining and hope it doesn’t seem like it’s just for the sake of it.
I know this isn’t the constructive response intended from this thread and I hope someone more creative than I can find viable alternatives, but a big part of me honestly feels powerless to create or pursue an enjoyable, narratively coherent Horde RP experience at the moment until Blizzard gives us the space as well as explanation for one.
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pcu killed and ate my dog true story
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The PCU has also made sure that no one gets the Invicible mount from ICC.
And we’ve removed the server stability, so that its running on less than half a potato, which is why you are getting lag-spiked out of the game during the Hearthstone 10 year anniversary event…!
We have also successfully raised, and lowered the price on our whim, on Elixir of Tongues. All for our glorious plan!
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100%
It is what it is.
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i am truly fearing for yalls sanity, obsessing like this about RP communities, describing us like we’re actual mustache twirling super villains or… evil cultists? seriously?
please touch grass, take a wiff of fresh air and find inner peace
its just RP
so RP
Jokes on you, got that back in Legion.
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I wasn’t a fan of PCU due to IC/OOC bleedover and the forum scuffles.
So I just… ignored it, honestly? Big woo.
Played with the Ratters one time IC in Stormwind on my Worgen when I was bored, still a lot of fun RP.
Genuinely, the “Oh, we’re not going to do SoO 2.0, honest! Whoops we did SoO 2.0 only worse, teehee!” is the main lasting damage for Horde RP. Tail end of BFA/SL was The Worst, and we just need time/whatever to recover from that (on a wider scale, guild RP still gud)
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problem with trying to pin the state of things on the PCU is forgetting there were two sides to that argument. if pcu splintered horde rp the people with the hardline “ignores all pcu” stance splintered it further still. pcu had a lot of guilds. with a lot of members. trying to say maybe 2-3 problematic members out of that many were a contributing factor is a bit of a grasp. any pcu member i knew, still know, were and are good sorts and good rpers. its a stale argument that serves no purpose than trying to pick open old wounds.
kaytline, facts and so many others hit it right on the head. the issue wasnt (for the most part, we are not talking about that caravan again…) guilds, its the writing. its the lore. hordes in its sorry state because blizzard wrote it that way. its neither here nor there while alliance on the other hand remains in a more appealing position to rpers at large. we cant fault people for being fed up with the state of their faction that they just give up and quit or try and keep the things like rp-pvp going. until blizz puts the hordes writing back into a definitive and cohesive state you cant fault anyone for trying to claim their enjoyment how they can within and without
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This is the big issue for Horde right now. Blizzard just gave the Alliance a really juicy patch full of lore and all of their writing has kept the Alliance in the loop as to what’s going on with them.
We know that:
- The Gnomes/Mechagnomes are rebuilding their civilization in Mechagon and clearing out Gnomeregan.
- The Night Elves are healing their lands with Amirdrassil at the heart of all of their efforts.
- The Humans are reconsolidating land in Stromgarde and rebuilding the kingdom of Arathi while dealing with the problems wracking their homelands.
- The Worgen/Gilneans have reclaimed Gilneas and are now rebuilding their home.
- The Dwarves/Dark Irons don’t have much right now but we know their Explorers League is very active, they’re still following Magni and they’ll get a lot of lore in the War Within.
- The Draenei/Lightforged don’t have much going on but they can be presumed to be rebuilding/occasionally skirmishing against Legion remnants but will have heritage quests to fill that soon.
- The Void Elves are due to have their leader Alleria fight the overwhelming threat of the void in War Within and the High Elves will get some juicy lore in Midnight.
Meanwhile in the Horde:
- The Orcs/Maghar are doing nothing, we just know the clans are celebrating Kosh’arg each year and encouraging unity.
- The Forsaken are trying to rebuild but it’s heavily constrained as Lordaeron/Brill are still in their ‘rebuilding’ phase.
- The Blood Elves are pretty much defined by Reliquary operations and continue to defend their borders, nothing as exciting as what the Void Elves are building up to.
- The Trolls/Zandalari are doing absolutely nothing, may do something in heritage quests but Blizzard have been very lukewarm about how much lore the quests will give.
- The Goblins were left in limbo with Gazlowe becoming the Bilgewater Trade Prince at the end of BfA. No lore since and the Gazlowe novel will be about him personally.
- The Vulpera are doing nothing.
- The Tauren/Highmountains are doing nothing.
- The Nightborne are defined by the Blood Elves actions and Thalyssra marrying Lorthemar.
Overall, each Alliance has drive that’s well seated in lore right now with plenty of new locations/reclaimed places/rebuilding to do that can give any Alliance RPer some sweet goals. In comparison the Horde are just gathering dust, pretty much shelved by the writers so there’s not really much to RP when your entire faction is doing absolutely nothing and just sitting on their laurels while Thrall wanders around looking for the Human king. Overall? A very bad hand has been dealt to a faction that was shattered by the previous lore they got being incredibly divisive. It’s sad to see but the Horde will need a lot of effort from a lot of people to be able to drive a new hub or something as really currently the faction has no purpose or direction while Blizzard are focused on writing regrowth narratives for the Alliance and we’re the ones that must make our own stories.
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