I will add in the specific instance of Duskwood I was referring to was after two years of being part of a scene that was dynamic, inclusive, and welcoming to newcomers (I was absolutely an outsider on Day 1 as a transfer and welcomed to the fold on a good night). The downside is we don’t have quite enough of said inclusive folks consistently to keep up that sort of effort. We did for a while in Dragonflight, which is why Duskwood experienced another great cycle of hub RP, but once the welcomers were away for a bit, it quickly became cliquey. Calling out the problem is part one of the solution, but I stop short at suggesting welcomers stay chained to their computers in one zone to offer a more consistent experience. Instead, we need more folks to understand that’s the phenomena that’s going on, step up to the plate, and help distribute the load. We also need to get the word out that WrA-A is not an MG-A competitor but an MG-A alternative with far more real estate, roleplay opportunity, and a more active Hordeside to bounce off with.
I remember having these exact conversations on my old server and the phrase “it’s an RP server, not an RP service” being bandied about. While it sums up the issue in a brutish way, it does get to the heart of WrA-A: We either don’t have the sustained population to keep up such consistent efforts OR we still do, but we need to talk about our obstacles openly and honestly so more folks can recognize what’s needed and meet the moment. Right now, we’re the latter and one of the best things we can do is get in-game RP started, try to network as best you can to get the word out to WrA and elsewhere, and emphasize it’s a group vs. singular effort so no it does not rely on a singular person or group of people who can get burned out.
For a little while now, we’ve had a smaller but proactive sliver of WrA-A disproportionally burdened with the extra weight of keeping up consistent public scenes. They’re not the problem, the problem is we need more of them. It sucks to have to say bluntly that we need more starters than followers and currently the scale is unbalanced because again, I remember this conversation all too well from my previous server. Whether the starters come here from WrA or other servers doesn’t matter, what matters is we create and perpetuate a cycle that becomes self-sustaining instead of being tied to the labor of a few.
Also going to take a moment to plug this, as this is an ongoing effort to enjoy some walk-up RP in Mereldar (cross-faction friendly). It doesn’t need to start with me, this thread can be bumped any time someone kicks off anything. We’ve already brought in folks from different servers who’ve had fun, right now we could use more traction via word-of-mouth. City Trade chat was talking about this the other day (which is awesome, thank you), let’s keep it going:
And let’s get other efforts kicked off elsewhere.