Alliance RP - Thoughts and Discussion

Wyrmrest Accord
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I don’t think walk up is going to recover in SW without actual effort. I’ve honestly been trying to suss out what to do about that for awhile and I’ve had a note on my desk for over 2 weeks now that has a list of things I want to try. Most of it boils down to finding one night every couple of weeks to try to get the Alliance RP community to come out and join a casual event.

My biggest issue is getting enough people to commit to showing up that people don’t walk up, see no one’s there and then leave. Right now I can’t backfill with my guildies because several of them are having real life issues, so…

Ideas range from maybe an open RP night at a tavern, a craft RP night, a military muster, an IC round table to discuss IC events, an alt night where people just get together and hang, or some kind of event like fishing off the SW docks.

We could also have a secret spot for criminal activity, a spot for mages to study, a med clinic, etc. The thing about WrA SW is that literally nowhere is being used by any guilds as their base right now. So everywhere is available for an event. IF is just as empty and has the forge and taverns.

As far as other things that I don’t have an answer to right now - a lot of RP events are never making it onto the forums or out to other guilds. A lot of events are only being hosted on MG with an anchor and never rotate back to hosting on WrA.

I’ve thought we could tag an Alliance group into the Duskfall campaign. We could all go visit Quilen and Cloud Teahouse. Or Story Circle. But that doesn’t bring RP back to SW (that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do these things - we absolutely should!)

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but I’ve seriously thought about having an RP Discord that was less chatty, easier to join, and focused on RP scheduling and events for Alliance, Horde and Neutral events - but also with IC channels for people for people to do RP follow up, one-shot stories, or post their character backgrounds and histories. It wouldn’t have a meme channel or a food channel, or anything like that - just the RP community doing RP things.

And then having a related forum post that cross-posts the happenings from the Discord to the forums so people can actually see things that are going on. So if an event hits the Discord, we would post it onto the forum thread. I originally thought hosting it out of Duskwood might be nice, but I think the Duskwood crowd are spread across a few different, private Discords. So it’s hard to follow their specific storylines and such.

And like I said, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Anyway, any thoughts, discussions, etc. are welcome.

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If I may, as a Vanilla era Alliance player…do we have to revitalize Stormwind?

Personally speaking, the city was dealt a mortal wound with Cata and the loss of the Park. Yes all our stuff is there (the portal network, trading post) but the city just lacks any kind of personality.

I know no other Capital compares as a centralized hub and Stormwind is where new folks get dropped, but I cant be the only one who really doesn’t want to be in Stormwind, can I?

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My warband contains two Dwarves, a Highmountain Tauren, and a Night Elf. All of them have found homes in Ironforge and the snowy peaks and valleys of Dun Morogh. I have always enjoyed Stormwind but haven’t been back to that city since hitting Dornogal.

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It doesn’t have to be SW. It could be anywhere in a lower level zone that players can easily reach, and that has enough space that different groups can engage. Or it could rotate around.

The benefit to SW is that when new players come in, they head there first to see who’s around and sometimes they ask questions about RP. If they see RP happening, they might not immediately run to MG.

But somewhere else could work if we have regularly scheduled events that are promoted so people can find them.

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sets a chair down and pours himself a tankard of coffee.

Well, since you put it that way. It might be better for newer players to see WrA Stormwind - Elwynn Gate area lively with traffic.

Hmmm.

stares off pondering.

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Having RP’d in so many other places other than Stormwind, I get it. The architecture feels so dated compared to newer spots and having RP’d there since Vanilla on older RP servers, it’s hard for me to feel connected to current content and SW RP feeling captivating and fresh. That said, it’s very much an accessible hub all levels for Alliance players and is the canonical capital city of the Alliance. Between that and the direct comparison to MG-A’s Stormwind… it often feels like a boulder uphill to choose anything but, and it’s been uphill enough in my short time on WrA to get folks to congregate in Stormwind.

WrA Stormwind Local Businesses, Guild Embassies, Events, & More
But regularly scheduled events are definitely a place to start. Back in February on the Wyrmrest Community Project Discord, I attempted to push a WrA Stormwind Local Businesses, Guild Embassies, Events, & More initiative in attempt to encourage events in SW and create a resource with a central map where folks could see goings-on. I also made a Carrd with said map, though it’s still very much in the beginning stages with placeholder text: https://wrastormwindhub.carrd.co/

While there was some early interest in the project, it was late in the DF expansion and wasn’t the best time to push such an initiative. Since I also run a large guild and admin a community server, my WoW obligations are already a little full so the need for equally active collaborators on the project is definitely a must to get it going again.

Speaking of, here’s a potential event that maybe could help kick it off…

WrA Alliance Guild Faire
(Partly copypasted from a related thread.)

The Alliance Guild Faire is coming back but in a bigger iteration than it was last time. It’ll be allowing non-RPer guilds attend like our Hordeside counterpart, adding monthly themes, and perhaps adding friendly competitions (such as individual/guild group transmog contests) for guilds to pass a “trophy” around each month. Cross-faction guilds that are based in Horde but recruit Alliance members will be welcome as well, provided they use Alliance toons at the event because it will very likely be hosted in Stormwind. That’s about as much as I can say on the revival project so far, but collaborative projects like that that puts WrA-A roleplay in the forefront and presents it as an alternative to MG-A is more of a niche that people are looking for than we think. It could be worth the push.

There’s already a dedicated WrA-A Guild Faire Discord that was used previously and was recently revamped. That said, it ended up in my lap incidentally and I’ve been looking to build up a team to hand it off due to aforementioned full plate. I originally joined the guild faire planning team to help out and due to inactivity and understandable RL issues of other members… well, I’m still here. I’d love more collaborators and recently invited such folks to come help. Planning is in progress and more folks are definitely welcome: https://discord.gg/TvvCwYbQ

Perhaps we can focus on kicking off a big Alliance Guild Faire bash this October as a way to get the spirit of this thread rolling?

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If we’re going for cities players can use that had a lot of open space? Ultimately, that leaves us with Kul’tiras as the ‘best’ choice because it is a leveling zone meaning anyone can go there, its a HUGE city meaning multiple RP events can be going on and not interfere or interact with each other, and there’s plenty of QoL features that are easily accessible no matter your level. The only downside is the War Event when the Horde might just show up and decide to start shelling the city even though the War has been over for years now … meaning you have to time your events to avoid this situation and that can be problematic.

Gilneas is certainly great, but there’s no Portal to get there, and unless you do the unlock quest, and I have no idea at what level that unlocks for players, then it remains a hostile zone. There’s also no vendors, no banks, no nothing, making it a very empty but still useful area for folks who have unlocked the area.

Ironforge is definitely a winner but its a relatively small area compared to other cities and the available space for groups to use without bleeding into each other is rather limited. That said, it is also easily accessible and has many great props for smaller groups to use. Also its gorram Ironforge. No self-respecting adventurer can honestly claim that title without the traditional bar crawl’n’brawl in the City of the Dwarves.

Bel’ameth is also up there and is graphically gorgeous, but it is also open to the Horde and that can have … complications. Especially if Twerplord the Unwanted shows up and starts being a PitA with toys, emotes and /shout to disrupt your event because any attention is good attention to this kind of player. Going back to the positive side, its huge and has plenty of attractive set-pieces to use, multiple outposts with the various aspects of Kaldorei society/military to interact with, and the fact it is open to the Horde means with the Translation Potions, you can have open cross-faction RP in a major capital uncluttered with quest-vendors, so you don’t have XxIllidudexX running through your event chasing down fifteen buzzard backsides for a new set of pants …

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Lurker so take it with a grain of salt.

I feel like this is a lot of trying to have your cake and eat it too.

The problem statement is that there aren’t enough people to commit to show up to RP events, and the current pool of folks that could typically have OOC (Real life specifically) complications.

You need somewhere accessible. Personally, if you told me to spend 2-3 hours leveling to get to a place for 30 minutes of RP, I’d probably just go somewhere else and get my RP without the added obstacle.

In my opinion, this is an OOC issue. Let’s just be completely blunt:

  • WrA is a Pacific Timezone Server. Meaning it gets none of the benefit as its primary competitor (Moon Guard) does of a staggered approach of timezones across the country. If you’re hosting an event at 9 PM server time, it’s already midnight for a large population unlike the transverse to where if it’s 9 PM server time on Moon Guard, it’s 6 PM for pacific folks.
  • The approach of what RP is. This isn’t a jab to anyone here, but just because I’ve seen it here. Personally, I do not care about your events. They’re nice to have, but as a married late twenties person with a corporate career and other real-life obligations, it’s not appealing for me to have to try to block out my calendar to schedule my RP. I want to hop on during my downtime and be able to get my fix, not have to jump through hoops and block out an indefinite time for a minimal engagement period.

I really need to hammer the second point home. By being event-centric, your pulling people out of the game. You’re using Discord, emails, forums, websites, etc. You are pulling people out of the vector you’re asking them to use (To RP) by doing this. Think of yourself running Facebook; will it be beneficial to send your users to Discord for an engagement survey?

I’d personally encourage rethinking how RP is being approached and candidly recognizing WrA’s disadvantage. Event-based RP is fine and dandy as a complement to an already strong mechanism (such as walk-up, etc.). Alone, however, you’re essentially closing yourself off.

The last thoughts that I’ll probably be controversial in saying here. Part of the reason before I left WoW (due to time constraints) I started moving over to Moon Guard was the accessibility. I’m on the East Coast, so that’s already one strike against WrA, and there’s nothing that can be done by anyone spare Blizzard there. But it was that there was further accessibility. I didn’t need to jump through hoops to join a discord, go on a guild’s hosted website, try OOCly talking to an Officer or Guild Master to sell my character as a good fit, or coordinate events. I wasn’t having to log on at 11 PM my time to hope people were starting to log in. I could log in, spend 2-5 minutes flying around, and find RP. Was the quality everything I hopped for? No, but I could at least find the RP I was seeking without any serious investment on my side.

It’s not doom and gloom, but I wanted to at least call out that WrA is at a disadvantage, and that unfortunately, you have to try even harder to make this work. I think it can, but it requires a rethinking of how things are done here.

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I was under the impression that Duskwood is the new rp spot

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It’s an RP spot but it waxes and wanes depending on when folks are doing current content or if a major title comes out and pulls folks from WoW (like Baldur’s Gate 3).

It’s also a great setting on Duskwood remains my OG favorite zone from as far back as Vanilla. Unfortunately, it has less amenities than most cities and not all Alliance characters have a reason to regularly hang out in a haunted woods. I have a few Duskwood regulars there but my guild mains tend to congregate elsewhere.

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We should do a contest where people compete to see who is best at being Enekie’s friend.

I did not read the thread. I am sorry.

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@Enekie

I want you and I to just sit down in Stormwind, eat smelly cheese, drink mineral water, and then have you tell me about all the women at your job who you hate and why you are underappreciated while I sit quietly and listen.

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If we could organize people in Stormwind I’d be down to come out and RP. Would love to see a revitalization of SW.

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I’d be all for this, to the point of rolling a new char / backstory to take part in it. (Dwarf, ofc)

It does however once again remind me that Blizz never added a Gilnean architecture area to SW, because that would have been ideal and amazing.

So glad that instead, we got a memorial to Varian everyone used for 10 seconds until we moved on because no one would actually purposely hang out there otherwise.

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And it takes up so much space.

Varian already decided to erect a huge statue of himself outside the Keep during the same era we had an entire zone remarking about how the fact the Stormwind economy was collapsing in on itself like a dying star, but no let’s also include a gigantic memorial area for a dude instead of…ya know…using the graveyard the city already has.

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I don’t want to hijack the thread here but I’ll just say quick:

  • Off the throne room to the right is a small park. It could have been a very nice memorial area for Varian and fitting, as he was the King.
  • There is the statue as you said, outside the keep. Why not just plant a memorial tomb there?
  • This is what the memorial area looked like during Cata:
    https://i.imgur.com/0HexFhb.jpeg

They could have just as easily rebuilt it, to look Gilnean. Ppl should not forget that Worgen came out in Cata. It would have been a completely believable thing for the Worgen (who released in Cata) to be provided space in SW to create a home.

Tempted to start a thread about redesigning the entirety of this game, but again - this would’ve been an easy win.

AND in relation to this thread, it would have been an updated area with updated visuals that people would probably be happy to gather in.

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I agree with a lot of what Maladonir said above. They’re all really good points and I think they’re hard to refute. Certainly worth considering when evaluating any attempts to return to glory. I also relate because I also have a real life situation that makes it very difficult to reserve time for RP.

For me, I’m desperate for WRA and am certainly willing to work on and participate in scheduled events or even just existing in the world, waiting. Short of free transfers, MG getting totally locked down, or some kind of huge shift in the WoW community, we’re probably never going to get a 100% organic RP environment again.

Short of systematically placing individuals in various spots and selling ourselves as ‘the place to be’ to newcomers and returning folks alike, I think events are a good direction. If we can drum up interest, then people get invested in their WRA characters and want to keep returning.

I also think a Discord is a good idea. I’m not a fan of them myself, but the newer generations of really seem to value them. It would be a good ‘selling point’, I think.

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The only thing that can revitalize Stormwind RP is a sudden influx of unbelievably attractive elves.

But for some reason, the guards won’t let me in.

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Are us Void Elves not attractive enough?

waves her hair tentacles

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This is how the elves fractured into multiple different societies

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