Ah right, that was it.
Still daft though. I also vaguely recall invisible steam tanks/reinforcements being pulled out of nowhere, but that might have been something else?
People these days know nothing of true organiser faction bias tbh.
I remember the magic beer campaign, I had just moved to the server but I didn’t go, just read the aftermath on the forums.
Then the organiser posted about it some months later on the RP forums and the non-ADers were all like, “why are you posting this here?”
It was basically an extra mission, the Horde were winning by quite a margin. And then, a week before the campaign was due to end a new mission was added which conveniently had enough points if you win it for the Alliance to win.
what the heck, that’s so annoying and poo
I hate when that happens. Was Alliance basically out of the campaign at that point and threatened to mass leave or what? Such a confusing addition.
It might not even be a communication issue honestly.
Discord makes it more easier than ever before to communicate with one another- Hell, we got the xfaction potion and RID still to make it even quicker if we so wish.
We have better tools than ever before compared to, say, 4 years ago.
And still, the problem is arguably worse than before, according to everyone (?).
As for the Borderlands campaign, Horde basically was winning (despite losing most/all the open battles against infantry units due to numbers), because:
A horde guild managed to use the landmine campaign mechanic to basically trap more than 70% of the Alliance to a location that severely bottlenecked their ability to gain resources.
On top of this, Hand of Agony was in the area AND had selected ARTILLERY as specialization- So HOA had the entire Alliance to basically bombard for massive gains.
This OBV. upset the Alliance and Waywatcher quickly nerfed the artillery to not completely cheese the campaign in favor for the Horde- And later on, the magic beer fiasco.
I can only speak in retrospect since then, but that campaign kind of Biased me for many years to think that the Alliance organizers couldn’t be trusted to be unbiased- Which resulted to my many years of being a pain in the bum for the blue side with my antics, culminating of course in Red August (Which was also, unsurprisingly, heavily biased to the blue faction with the rules), which was the turning point for the red side in terms of campaigns.
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iirc teh campaign was split up into different areas, each run by a different organiser. They were all Alliance mains, the org we got was very blatantly Alliance bias, it wasn’t even funny.
I feel it’s all in the attitude. Compared to ten years ago or so, people have become far more interested in ‘winning’, people have grown more petty and so on. It’s at the point where as mentioned earlier people are making secret side discords to avoid “metagaming”. The server basically no longer trusts itself, we have a never ending cycle of the exact same thing happening in every campaign. X cheats, so Y cheats, X complains about Y, yadda yadda. Just look at this thread, we can’t even talk about how to improve the situation without accusations and slander being flung back and forth.
The other issue is cliques: They existed before but now it seems every guild is it’s own clique. And it’s easier than ever to bubble yourself up in your own Discord and push out people not ‘in the group’. You COULD do the same with Skype back in the day but it was a lot harder due to a difficulty in being a group chat moderater with limited tools, and the need to add people as friends THEN add them to the group chat.
The end result is every guild has it’s own Discord outside of the game, meaning less overall interaction with people outside said guild since they have no need to even login to chat or RP, leading to a lack of developed understanding for the necessity of co-operation in RP. They’re not forced to work with the server except for huge events like this, where their own ‘Our guild is all that matters’ mentality starts causing friction.
I apologise if I’m generalising but having been on AD for 10ish years, that’s the general feel of progression I have noticed. I definately noted a distinct drop in ‘co-operation’ and sportsmanship in RP even outside of RPPvP after Discord got popular.
Some ten years later, one of the sociology students in this server will be writing their masters thesis, titled:
The duality of man: Case Argent Dawn
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As if healers aren’t punished enough by melee characters that bee-line their way towards them regardless of their position on the battlefield, by entire guilds that coordinate flanking maneuvers dedicated to taking out healers and other such things. Should anyone come rushing to the healer’s aid or try to act as a living shield, who cares when they can just attack the healer through the tank anyway? The healer’s the more valuable target, after all.
If you add on a restriction of ‘can’t cast channeled or casting time spells while you’re under attack in melee,’ or ‘melee interrupts can be used,’ I can assure you that the outnumbered side would never be able to get any real heals off at all, because there’s rarely a point where a healer isn’t being attacked in melee, regardless of position. Yes, fights would end faster, but always in favor of the side with larger numbers.
If you want shorter, more engaging fights, I’d argue that that’s what unrestricted is there for. Restricted healers provide the service that enables people to yell daft insults at each other or type three-post-long emotes at each other in the middle of a battlefield. If you’re not into that, or the length of the restricted fights, you have absolutely no reason to not be playing in unrestricted instead.
Alternatively, try playing a healer for restricted RP-PvP instead and realize that it’s generally rather thankless and impossible to roleplay, as you try to babysit over forty players while grumpy people on the opposite faction focus fire on you or bee-line straight towards you, regardless of front lines, positioning or any of that nonsense, in an effort to prevent your babysitting.
Restricted is a heavily flawed system and its only merit is that it allows players to roleplay at each other without having to worry about gameplay, usually thanks to the efforts of unrestricted healing. If you’re going to start restricting healing, you’re getting rid of the one merit that makes restricted worthwhile, and I’d argue that we’re all better off just switching to unrestricted, if that’s the road you want to take.
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This is true - emotes are also open to abuse. However, I think you’re mistaking a flaw in execution with a flaw in design. In emotes, you can acknowledge more than one attacker, and a good RP’er will. You might choose not to - but that’s the fault of the roleplayer, not the system. However, it’s not physically possible within the game engine/ dueling system to have a 1v2, or 1v3, or 1v4 duel. The flaw is inherent to the design, not to the execution.
I’m not objecting to it as a gameplay mechanic, or even as a mechanic for resolving RP fights. 1v1 with player consent is perfectly fine.
Yes, that’s your choice - the player’s choice - but not the character’s choice. It’s got nothing to do with the character as written, or roleplay. Should a homeless RP’er have to destroy all their OOC gear and transfer away all their money? No. Nor should a knight need to spend hours grinding to acquire the latest patch worth’s of raid gear. Is it ok if they do? Yes. Is it ok for people’s preferred method of conflict resolution to be through duels? Yes. Is duelling roleplay? No. It’s not. It’s a mechanic.
You’re making an awful lot of assumptions there about my attitude and my antics. I assume you’re making them about me because you’re replying to me. I don’t play any warriors or mages myself, and I definitely don’t play any warlords. The character I play has lost every fight they’ve ever been in. In fact, that’s my preferred method of emote battle resolution - losing. Or running away. I think they’re boring.
Isn’t there a paradox there, in that you claim to try to be as accommodating as possible while getting annoyed at people that want to be accommodated? Surely as an accommodating person you’ll have no problem accommodating people who want to resolve duels through emote fights?
I’ve attended many server campaigns over the years, all having had various rules for the Rp-PvP. On paper these rules have always looked like they should work, in reality they have always ended up in drama, often with various meltdowns on the forums and later, discords.
I always feel for the organisers of these large campaigns, how the heck can you run a smooth event when you are trying to herd cats?
Same as the act of writing is not roleplay, it’s a mechanic.
But in the end, the result for both is roleplay.
duel them all
Not disagreeing. That’s a flaw of the system, just like the randomness is for rolls, or the lack of control/sustainable outcome with free emotes.
Agreed.
I’m unsure what’s your point here.
It’s got obviously everything to do with how the character written, or is roleplayed- You as a person are the puppeteer of your characters. You RP the way you want, with the tools you want to use, regardless of the system you like.
…No? They can just put all the gear they treat as OOC to their bags, as most people do?
Agreed.
Of course it is.
It’s no different mechanic than using free emotes, rolls or IRL push-ups or whatever you prefer. It’s the mechanic that allows combat to happen- And comes as standard with the game.
Are you going to with that sweeping statement just devalue the many tournament RP duel events we’ve had over the years, to give an example? Were they not “RP”?
Or are you going to make the ridiculous statement that the combat didn’t actually exist and people just went there to see who’d win and who’d lose lol?
Duels aren’t RP BTW…bros…
I honestly don’t understand how hard a time people have accepting that it’s a form of RP as any other- Just not something you may like. And that’s fine. You don’t need to like it.
I didn’t assume you- I was commenting on the general issue I see with a lot of people who’re opposed to duels. Also it’s a non-argument because I can make whatever assumptions I want (as can you), and then it’s mine (or your) duty to try and convince me why I’m wrong about that.
Ok that’s great to hear but what does this has got to do with your argument?
No, it’s the exact opposite of a paradox.
I know for a fact that expecting others to change/accommodate you at the best MIGHT work (and that’s a big MIGHT), and at the worst it’ll just not work at all, which it often doesn’t, in random RP.
My solution to any problems I have these days is asking myself “What can I do differently to make this experience better for myself/others?”
Well that’s simple. You accommodate to as many systems as you can- Dueling being one of them.
I don’t. During the past few months I’ve had only one occasion where I used duel to resolve IC conflict (One of the bar nights in Zuldazar)- While majority of the conflicts were solved through emotes.
I operate on the same principle as most who prefer duels: If I engage into combat with others, I play by their rules. If somebody attacks me, they play by mine.
Now an awful lot of people assume that that instantly means I drop the duel flag on them- I don’t. If they seem like a reasonable & OK person to interact with, I’m more than happy to use emotes- Though I detest rolls to the last, so it’s very hard to persuade me to use those. That’s a flaw I’m willing to accept.
The duel is really only reserved for those people that go out their way to be as inflammatory and conflict seeking as possible, without being very tactful about it- Or for the people who request it.
I play a shadow priest so I’m basically going to default lose against most geared rogues/warriors/death knights/monks by default.
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There was an ending scenario but the Alliance organizer decided to just portal the troops out, robbing them of their victory lel
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I’m assuming you mean one after the other, which itself assumes that the people wanting to fight your character are happy forming an orderly queue.
I disagree. Writing - language - is used to convey your character’s speech, actions, behaviour and choices. To depict a person. In what way is that not roleplay? You’re inhabiting a role, and portraying that person. In LARP, are facial expressions a mechanic, and not roleplay? Is somebody’s voice a mechanic?
There’s a clear distinction between the depiction of a character - roleplay - and a mechanic, which instead stands in for or represents something else, but exists outside the character’s world - such as duels and dice-rolls. Unless you’re suggesting your character is wearing ilvl 420+ gear in character? Unless you’re suggesting your character performs exactly the same movement on a precise cooldown every 6 seconds?
You can’t.
I have yet to attend an RPPvP campaign that hasn’t had some drama related to the rules.
“He’s using gear past the agreed limit!”
“He burst me!”
“He stunned me!”
“He disarmed me!”
“He ran through our frontline!”
The rules could only work in an ideal world where nobody cheats to try and win. Unfortunately that does not happen. And as I mentioned, fights simply don’t move unless one side cheats just enough without getting noticed but still kills enough people to force their lines to give ground.
I fully respect the need for healers, I have indeed tried it and it is irritating that everyone else gets to RP while I have to furiously spam buttons. But the problem remains the same: Unless people die the fight does not progress.
This isn’t about me wanting expllicitly fast battles, it’s about people eventually going “Okay I’ve been in this melee for two hours now, I’m probably tired and badly wounded IC so I’m going to start backing off” which straight up doesn’t happen. End result: Fights get stale after two hours of ‘nothing’ happening of note, it’s just a slog where because of the nature of things you’re incentivised to really only make quick emotes and short responses because your five second timer is coming up. Because very few people respond to emotes you have to resort to the PvP mechanics to force the other person to respond to your character’s presence.
I think the ultimate issue is the state of PvP these days is very high damage, very low HP/defences. People in normal PvP go from 100-0 in the blink of an eye, and in restricted people’s HP still plummets way faster than it would have done in, say, Wrath, where overall damage was less burst orientated and easier to handle making healers less of a make-or-break aspect of a battle.
As people’s HP got lower they’d react accordingly, emoting wounds and having sufficient time to shuffle out of harm’s way. But people aren’t able to or allowed to hover at low HP anymore. If you’re at low HP you’re either going to die in the next two seconds or get healed to full. There’s no time for a player to go “Oh snap my HP is low” and RP that out accordingly. You’re either at 100% or 0% and people RP that out accordingly.
Ultimately however, I am content to agree to disagree. But I think we can both agree that the root cause is the shift in PvP damage over the years. It’s gotten far higher and this makes healers near mandatory or an entire army goes splat. Nevermind the numbers issue.
Regarding gear and character power:
Fwiw this is one of the reasons I miss the old PvP gear vendors. It wasn’t hard for RPers to farm BGs or Arenas and get a specific set of gear that everyone else would have. BfA’s gearing however is driven by RNG slot machines. You can’t easily get everyone on the same level, short of enforcing a rule to only use PvP gear from the vendors in Ashran or something. Which only opens us up to griefing like the old days.
In an ideal world people would use this just to ensure they weren’t obliterated in one hit and to be able to contribute to a fight, then emoting and RPing their actual character prowess accordingly. But naturally, this does not happen. People using their gear to steamroll in RPPvP regardless of how strong they are IC, or people who who RP a powerful character but have no interest in grinding through the BfA slot machine to get good gear. At least with arena gear back in the day there was a specific goal to obtain, now it’s completely luck based.
Would it be unsustainable for RP PvP to just go unrestricted? Has it been attempted for the full length of a campaign?
Yeah, several times.
Legacy of the Saurok.
All Soggoth events.
Spine of Kalimdor
The Zephyr
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I.e. Sylvanas did it
Nobody is “stupidly OP in restricted” because restricted is designed so nobody dies. If you have 1-2 healers per 10 players and nobody breaks the rules, you can’t kill anyone
SO says the SHADOW of Hazzikostas…
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Why does dueling being a mechanic devalue the tournaments?
I mean, I’m just assuming, when your character is watching the tournament duel, your character doesn’t see a giant flag descend from the heavens, the dueler doesn’t see a floating countdown above them, that the characters aren’t performing identical actions every six seconds as dictated by a cooldown, that the damage inflicted upon them is evident in some way other than a floating HP bar - that, in other words, the RP bit, the story bit, is something super-imposed over the mechanic, and that the mechanic isn’t the story. This is fair and reasonable, right? Or does the mage’s fire not burn them? Do the swords not cut?
I suppose, in conclusion, I would say I’m not making that statement, and am unsure why you think I’m making that statement.
Your position’s completely incoherent. One moment you’re saying that you think it’s my “duty” to convince you that your assumptions are wrong, then when I try to do exactly that you dismiss it as “irrelevant to my argument”. You’re objecting for objection’s sake.
Excellent! Then there’s no problem with people not wanting to gear, then.
I mean, I don’t like the attitude that somebody should be obliged to sink hours and hours into a game in order to oblige somebody else’s RP. Emotes don’t cost anybody anything. That’s why they should be the default and standard.