I never actually understood the wood issue with the Horde, since by the time it became a major issue, the Blood Elves were an established part of the Horde and they were magically re-growing Quel’thalas.
I think it was more Garrosh just felt stung his dad got his rear kicked by the Night Elves and wanted to start stuff.
Personally I think this all started back when the Alliance first met the “Dark” Horde (Racist!)
and didn’t immidiately see the Orcish Horde as a vastly superior race of Demonic Conquorers and surrender their kingdoms and freedom to them…
We just wanted Food, Slaves, and Kingdoms to Conquor…but nooo
Kieth, man…I know you got history on this server but when you go slightly in character like that I get worried. Mostly because the real world is dark and full of terrors and I live deep in “enemy” territory when it comes to that kind of rhetoric.
I feel like I’m at work.
Heh, just kidding. That’s how my random evil play through as Blackhand went in GOA 2ofCK3. Purge the Humans!!!
But Im fine with Alliance and Horde descolating the war and trying to work things out.
I would love to see a Kalimdor at peace with The Night Elves working to fix their tree and woodlands and agreeing to trade or lease some of the land to the Horde for Forrestry.
It’s such a shame how things played out after WotLK.
Garrosh could have been written SO much better. That entire arc was just a dumpster fire that ruined so many characters.
To say nothing of Nazgrim and my beloved Kor’Kron.
I’ve been meaning to get back to this thread for days, but work has been a cluster and I know my response is going to be long. So here goes:
I like this idea, but I think this is the first I’ve heard of it. Was this posted out to the forums? Also, the one local business I knew the Alliance had running with scheduled RP has (I believe) stopped 
I had an odd idea for a rogue character who is also somehow a bookworm and who would run a SW bookstore, but this was a week or two before the expac dropped. I’m just getting back into RP, so I might revisit that. If I do, I’ll cross-post actual event nights with activities.
This is also the first I’ve really noticed that there’s a separate Discord for the Guild Faire and I probably wouldn’t join it to be honest - seems like a lot of effort for just a 1-day a month event on only one faction. Is there a forum post for the October faire? An advanced forum search doesn’t bring up a recent post for an Alliance faire. I didn’t scroll every post in the search, but the latest one I remembered seeing was from March.
An Alliance faire is something we should probably be doing every month, though. Do we have a date for the October one?
I like all of these cities. I’ll have to roll a lowbie and see which ones I can get to. I know I can reach Kul’tiras and IF. Will have to see how difficult the other 2 are, and what Bel’ameth has to offer. Ultimately, a city needs to have ease of access and something to do. It doesn’t have to be SW, but for now I want to start off giving as many people a chance to RP there as possible.
Dornogal is a little spread out. We’d need to pick a spot to go IC and then promote it. I’ll look around tonight when I get home.
Once upon a time, that wasn’t a problem. I’m EST and never had issues finding WrA RPers who were EST or Central until the exodus to MG. And it’s still ok on Hordeside.
I usually try to split the difference, regardless, and make events on weekends or starting at 9 PM EST/6 PM server so as many people who want to can join. Event runners have done that for years.
This is true for you and a lot of people. I don’t expect every RPer to attend open events or even want to. We’re all busy. There are almost no people RPing here who have tons of free time. I do actually have friends who ask for scheduling, though. They’d rather try to pin down a time that people will be around than log in and hope for the best.
This may also be true for you, but it’s not true for many RPers. A lot of us use Discord while we’re not available to RP in-game. I’m at work right now and not logged into WoW, but I can get to Discord during lunch or free time. Some people have a second monitor. Some people don’t have an active sub but would like to keep RPing. No one is asking people to use Discord instead of RPing in-game. We’re looking at that as an in addition to type option. Discord can be used to make connections, advertise, share ideas, etc.
I will say that most Discords I’m in are absolutely overloaded with channels. The first thing I do when I go into one is mute anything not having to do with why I’m there. That helps.
You’re not wrong. If people show up to a tavern RP for entertainment instead of bringing the entertainment with them, it’s like watching paint dry. For things like tavern RP, I usually suggest moving your IC guild plot discussion to the event and do things like try to hide your mcguffin under the table while you try to decide what to do with it, or open a map on the table and discuss your guild’s upcoming battle. Otherwise, your characters are sitting there with a mug of ale and tabbed out. That should never be the point of an RP.
It was. But lately when I look, I don’t see anyone gathering. And there’s no single Discord to check and find out when people might be around. Not sure where the guilds are, other than mine. Maybe they’re all still leveling or having a case of real life.
Duskwood also has its own vibe. A lot of the RPers there are RPing together, so a zone plot happens when they’re around, and wraps up without notice to fringe RPers who might be participating. The organized crowd is more PST, but others show up earlier and seem kind of lost if Thomas or one of the more well known RPers isn’t around. There’s a lot of pressure for some of the RPers there to be present, and when they’re not, the RP dies.
Agreed. I don’t expect an exodus from MG-A. The most we’ve gotten is a few MG people logging onto and leveling their WrA alts because they could put them in their MG guilds now.
I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but WCP is…not really focused entirely on RP - it’s a community - and really that’s what it’s supposed to be. It also has channels for gameplay, lfg, spoilers, food, pets, memes, etc. People congregate there to make friends and chat.
There’s a lot of activity on WCP, but for me (and at least a few others I’ve talked to), the RP simply gets lost there. I ask my guild to join WCP, but most of them don’t or they have it completely muted. I only post in the general chat there if I have something specific to say. It’s nothing I try to keep up with daily. It’s a great community, but when I said it’d be nice to have an RP Discord, it wouldn’t mirror WCP.
Also, a new forum post needs to desperately be made and RP events posted on WCP need to be cross-posted to the forums and advertised on trade chat.
I’ll think about what a dedicated RP Discord might look like and see if it might be worthwhile or beneficial. The bottom line here is that I don’t want to do the same thing WCP is doing, duplicate their efforts or piss people off. None of that is conducive to rebuilding Alliance RP.
Not at the time when it was originally made. It was a concept I bandied about but didn’t bring to full fruition due to other projects and RL things that came up at the time (one of which being the last active member of the Alliance Guild Faire team, so that took precedence).
March was the last Alliance Guild Faire before it went on hiatus, so that’s why it was the last post you see on the forums. The October date is being finalized with the new team.
There are many Discords for monthly market or faire events and this one is patterned off that template. It’s not necessary to join it to take part in the faire but it’s very useful from an organization point with the team and networking with GMs and Officers to keep people in the loop.
There is a possibility since it’s already built that it also could turn into a more Alliance-focused Discord, but there would need to be a dedicated team of moderators and admins to guide and cultivate that type of project.
This is a little before my time on WrA and the WCP, but the WCP was originally intended to revitalize Alliance RP and broadened its scope from there. The exact reasoning or timing of the change are not events I’m wholly familiar with, but re-centering it on its roots is definitely something to consider. Currently, it has the largest and most consistent RP event calendar on WrA and has 19 other Discord servers following its #event-board channel, and it has an active and experienced mod team, so the structure is potentially there.
I’d also love to get more of an RP focus on the WCP. While it’s been good to create opportunities for networking and community building among WrA folks who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to bump into each other, the OOC socializing and bonding aspect of it should be a perk and not a focus. I’m also absolutely game to add a more Alliance-RP focused aspect to it and built test a section a little while ago related to the Stormwind Local Businesses project. That section can come out of storage, more forum posts can be made in conjunction with events, and we can see where it goes.
As for a separate Discord, if anything is built with a solid structure and good philosophy, I’ll support it. I’ll note though that there was an attempt to make an Alliance RP-focused Discord in recent years (Unity of the Alliance, it was called) but it seems to have folded. This isn’t to dissuade from trying but I think it’s important to not repeat mistakes of the past. It also may be that having yet another large server Discord outside WrA-D and WCP is not something Alliance folks wished to jump in on.
Overall I’m game to help in any way I can, whether it be via the Alliance Guild Faire, the WCP, or other ventures. I also don’t shy from critique or suggestions to make the WCP the best incarnation it can. Ultimately it’s for the server and that’s what feedback is for.
The idea of reviving Alliance RP here on WrA is a lovely thought, but these discussions have been had so many times before. Not to be discouraging or negative, but I’ve been around long enough to see the same types of suggestions come about over and over before eventually fizzling out or becoming something else that doesn’t achieve the initial goal.
It’s important to recognize the biggest reason that WrA Alliance is in the state it’s in: Alliance server population. I’ve seen people blaming Blizzard for this in the past, referring to all the controversies and game/story decisions that were made over the years. But this isn’t Blizzard’s fault. It’s ours. The community’s. Otherwise, MG-A wouldn’t be packed so full that it’s bursting at the seams. It was the community that started the narrative of MG for Alliance, WrA for Horde. It was players (RPers or not) who made MG Goldshire a popular tourist destination that continues to draw attention and warm bodies to the server for better or worse. It was what the two servers stood for and what distinguished them from one another along with the changing sentiment and shifting prevailing attitudes of the RP community that drove people from WrA-A to MG-A. Likewise, it was player drama and server community issues that depleted MG-H and bolstered the idea of WrA-H being the destination for Horde.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to a time when WrA was known as the server that demanded more lore adherence and player character limitations. At one time, the whole RP community was more aligned with this way of playing. WrA was also known to reject server canon and large server-wide projects the likes of which flourish on MG. MG was known as the more laissez faire environment for lore adherence and what liberties player characters could take. Though it had it’s share of server projects and server canon, they were all opt-in and didn’t dictate any one player’s RP if that player chose not to interact with them. Over time, the RP community as a whole began to shift to an attitude of resentment toward Blizzard’s lore and story. It began to embrace the idea of RPing whatever and however one pleases. This is where many began to find MG more attractive as the server that was slightly ahead in this regard. Then came the narrative shift of MG for Alliance and WrA for Horde that the community began to parrot from the rooftops. Then drama on Horde-side MG sent people packing for WrA Horde in various waves over the years and shrank the MG-H community down to something resembling what WrA-A is now. Also, don’t forget to account for natural attrition as many older RPers grew up and moved on from the game, making way for newer, younger participants with different perspectives and open ears to the narratives being pushed. And so with time and all these variables working simultaneously as it passed, we wound up where we are now.
I’ve seen talk about making new Discords centered around Alliance RP. As has been pointed out, WCP was exactly that when it first came into being. At its onset, the environment was very different from what it would become. Over time, more people wanted to join to, if nothing else, show support for the struggling Alliance community and offer something to it in the form of encouragement and neutral events/RP. This started the snowball effect of change that turned WCP into what it is today, a place that in many ways feels like what the MG and WrA forums used to feel like. If another Discord were to be created for Alliance RP revival, how would its creators, administrators, and moderators prevent it from going down the exact same path? And why are Discords the solution for everything nowadays? Why lock community discussion and planning behind invite links when they can be had right here just like this in a place far more visible to the public and potential new RPers who need to come here first to get the Discord link anyway?
I’ve seen talk of guild fairs. We’ve had many guild fairs. You know what 99% of them were? A handful of guilds – and I mean just a handful, from 2 to 6 tops – standing around having brief IC conversations with server, forum, and Discord regulars who were there on alts. I’m not sure I ever met a truly new person to the server, game, or RP community there even once. The fairs eventually went on hiatus because almost no one was showing up to them anymore.
The idea of organizing special nights in Stormwind or other cities is another suggestion that often comes up. The problem with these things is, as a few others earlier in the discussion have pointed out, it’s just more scheduled RP. Many people are looking for walk-up they can do any time to fit their erratic schedules and busy lives. Not to mention that these organized nights are still mostly the same server regulars either on their mains or alts. This extends to the Duskwood scene as well. Our active RP population on this server is so small that if you find you don’t fit in with the established community or develop any friction at all with the players behind it, you’re left with zero options. On a server like MG, if I don’t fit in with one group, that’s okay. I can go play with another, because there are so many to choose from. You might say that there is a difference in quality, and I wouldn’t completely disagree with you. But for something like WrA-A to be revitalized, we need more people and more options for those who don’t gel with the established crowd here.
And truthfully, at the end of the day, I’m not entirely convinced that a larger community is what most WrA-A holdouts truly want. I’ve seen it stated many times by quite a few of the most recognizable names here that they’d never want WrA to get big like MG. They like the “cozy” and “comfortable” environment here. They say it makes them less anxious. I’m sure they also enjoy standing out and being recognizable as a function of there being a much smaller sea of faces to get lost in. I’ve even come to learn that as a result of various past efforts to attract more new blood to the WrA scene, some regulars even grew to resent the disruption that came along with it.
So I mean, we can keep having this discussion every few months. We can keep repeating the same ideas and going in circles along the same path. Maybe those of you with the energy to keep plugging away at it will eventually come up with something different – something that hasn’t been tried before that will succeed where past efforts have not. But until something happens to drastically increase the pool of RPers here on WrA-A, I no longer believe it’ll really happen. And for such an influx to occur, I feel like it would take some kind of tremendous, historic event or circumstance the likes of which we cannot possibly predict. And even if that were to happen against all odds, I’m not convinced most of the people here now would truly want it to anyway.
But what are the lore implications of haunted Tirisfal wood, were the orcs like man these Tirisfal charcoal briquettes are nice but all my BBQ tastes like the tortured souls of lordaeronian peasants
what? Read this like 5 times trying to figure out where this came from.
Given how muted Forsaken feelings are, they probably relish (pun intended) the sorrow because it’s something.
As for a separate Discord, if anything is built with a solid structure and good philosophy, I’ll support it. I’ll note though that there was an attempt to make an Alliance RP-focused Discord in recent years (Unity of the Alliance, it was called), but it seems to have folded. I re-joined it about a week ago and it was down from the original ~40 or so members to 5, three of which were bots. To my understanding, it also was meant to be somewhat of an “anti-woke” counterpart to the WCP and its founders seemed fairly inactive, so this likely stymied its longevity as well. This isn’t to dissuade from trying but I think picking this apart as a case study would be useful to not repeat mistakes of the past. It also may be that having yet another large server Discord outside WrA-D and WCP is not something Alliance folks wished to jump in on.
I’m sorry, what on earth are you talking about?
I’m not going to cut/paste this time, but I will respond to talking points:
We have had this discussion quite a few times and we’ll probably continue to have this discussion into the future unless the rest of the server chooses to move en masse to MG. I was around when the mass exodus happened. I’ve explored the idea of moving myself and my guild several times, but in the end I found I didn’t want to go. I have MG alts on both factions, but I’ve been RPing here on WrA since 2 weeks after the server opened and all my memories are here, my history, my friends….
Walk up isn’t really my cuppa (I like plots!), so a honking full SW isn’t what I’m looking for. I don’t want us to mirror MG. What I’m looking for is:
I’m not worried about server canon - WrA actually does have several instances of that with the trials, the Meadhall events, the events run by the Sunreavers, the story circle, ongoing taverns, etc. As long as we aren’t forcing anyone to play the way we want, we’re good. All the people who screamed about that kind of thing are no longer playing. Maybe they all went to MG, heh. A lot of the events are still on WrA, though.
I remember when WCP was formed. It was a good idea. It’s still a good idea. But the focus has shifted from being just RP to being a hang out spot. And if I’m honest, I’m disappointed in how hard it is for new players to join. Look at the number of times I’ve bumped its forum thread, the time between bumps and the number of new people who’ve been trying to use the Discord link, but couldn’t. At the very least, it needs a new thread. For every person who asks on the thread why the link at the top doesn’t work, there’s probably another who tried it, found it didn’t work and didn’t bother to say anything at all. And then went to MG.
For usage, the high point of the WCP for me is its calendar. It’s a great calendar and great for setting up events. But the Discord is a community now. That’s not a bad thing; it’s just a thing.
As far as scheduled RP versus walk up, I don’t want us to be MG. We already had that phase in LK where we were the server that all the other RP servers fled to. But I do feel like some RP could be cultivated for different types of events if they’re held regularly. And existing guilds could put to good use the taverns, the docks, the forge, the brawler’s guild, etc. The last events we had were fun. My guild walked around two different SW markets. The leatherwork shop had a decent amount of activity.
I believe Dornogal is phased. I tried a search and it’s showing more TRPs than people. If people want to RP there, I would suggest the area near the flight point.
When people are around Duskwood, it’s pretty not bad. But not everyone goes there. Yet. Maybe we should focus there with more than just who’s there now. I don’t know.
Another few things:
My guild always gets comments from people when they see us RPing in SW or out in the world. Sometimes in SW, we get people following along. I think the interest is there.
Alliance guild faires on WrA probably need refacing. Maybe it shouldn’t be standing around the Cathedral District with guild banners. Claresta did say they were working on things.
Trade chat is clipping along tonight on both factions, so the rumors of our demise has been greatly exaggerated. We just need to jump on getting people back into RP before they lose interest in leveling and move on to another game.
I’m still thinking on things. I don’t think saying “we’ve already done this” or “this didn’t work” is productive. So I’m not going to do that. Let’s see what happens.
Eff it, let’s do it.
I’ve been taking a break from WoW to enjoy Fallout and figure out how to shuffle around my C Drive to be able to download the new expansion. Hearing that the rp ‘dies’ when me or a select few are not around definitely does add a lot of pressure that makes me want to extend my break a little longer. I love the server, I love this community with all my heart! I want it to thrive with or without me, but I can’t sustain it on my own.
I’m going to have trouble laying out exactly what’s in my head but I’m going to give it a try. It feels like attempts to revive Alliance rp, while genuine, have the problem of it being a kind of “side project” in something that’s already a hobby within a hobby. It’s not a huge deal if this never gets off the ground because we already play on the Horde and rp on Horde and quite possibly already rp on MG Alliance.
I really hope I’m making sense and not coming across as though it’s a hopeless thing or that I’m disparaging the effort. I’m not trying to do that. But it’s more “How can we say we want to bring Alliance rp back to it’s former glory if 95% of the time we rp on WRA it’s on the Horde” We cheer on the effort, but continue the cycle that requires us to talk about it in the first place. On the other hand it’s kind of a balance because you don’t want to create a situation where we spread too thin and Horde rp suffers and the server rp just dries up. I dunno the solution but I know it’s probably not something we can just do from here or a discord. It has to happen in game.
This is the key to it right here.
If you open 20 cafe’s all serving the same thing in a 1 block radius, the ones that will fail are the ones that have no unique presence to them, the places with nothing separating them.
MG has become The RP server. Some of that is our own doing from how “lore compliant” and strict we were back in the day. People wanted some lore freedom and they found it over there. Some of it is the “MG is for Alliance, WRA is for Horde” refrain. There are a million reasons, a very high percentage is our own doing.
I don’t believe we can’t change that. I don’t believe for one second we can’t pull some people back and some new people in.
I do believe we will never again compete with MG when it comes to quantity and numbers. That ship has sailed, imo. Some of it is just simply how old this game is.
Warcraft is in the midst of a revival with twenty different versions you can play right now. It would be a great time to brainstorm this and try to figure out what we can offer differently than MG; not better or worse, just different. I’m over the “server rivalry” thing. MG has great reasons to go there.
Let’s find some great building blocks for WRA and start there.
As much as Thomas Bates deserves a ton of credit for reviving Duskwood RP, the stress of this is entirely unfair to them. One person should not be carrying an entire RP scene or zone. That’s asking too much.
If people want Duskwood RP, than they should sit down and hammer out a plan to sustain it.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not interested in bringing Alliance RP back to its “Former glory”. Chiefly because, we will fail. The numbers aren’t there. The vibe isn’t there. That’s OKAY.
Let’s forge a new path and come up with a new reason people should make WRA their home.
The biggest problem we face as a server, especially as Alliance, is that a lot of Alliance RPers want the RP but don’t want to put in the effort for the RP. That’s why poor Thomas and others feel a pressure to show up/perform.
It’s also a big reason why I just play on RP servers for the “flavor” and don’t really participate actively any longer (hell, I don’t even have a TRPG-like addon). It got to be too much. Playing pretend is all well and good, but when total strangers are demanding you perform at a moment’s notice it stops becoming a recreational activity and becomes a second job in a lot of respects.
This is just the playerbase as a whole haha.
I dont blame anyone for not wanting to put in effort tho. It can be very unrewarding and soul sucking. Then you throw in the game feeling like its actively working against you at times…
Its an uphill battle.
To be honest, I figured you were taking a break because of the pressure. And I agree with others, it shouldn’t all be on you - or any one person tbh - to lead and grow an RP hub. But I’m really glad to see you. Really glad you’re here.
I think one key here is that a lot of the Horde RPers also have Alliance RP characters. But I don’t think we’re going to bring Alliance RP back to what it was pre-BFA. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put forth an effort for the people who chose to stay here or who drop in and look for RP.
Let’s actually focus on this part. Let’s retain Duskwood for walk up because it already has buzz and there’s no reason to reinvent anything, and then work on random, rotating events that people can drop into, in other areas.
I poked around with a new Discord last night. It’s about half way there. It’s going to be for both Alliance and Horde RP because an ounce of prevention and all that. I’m keeping it concise. Hopefully I’ll have it up and open this weekend.
The only person truly capable of fostering a perfect RP environment is me.
And I refuse to.