Alliance RP/Horde RP Progress and Things to Work On

Wyrmrest Accord
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Ok, let’s get a look: I made the first post about Alliance RP 21 days ago (and the Horde one 3 days ago since it’s less pressing). Have we made progress in the past 21 days?

So far:

  • Discussed an Alliance RP hub.
  • “Dull” RP events were discussed and the suggestions of new types of events, new locales and bringing guild’s IC business to tavern were brought up.
  • A poetry event was held in Duskwood.
  • Mereldar RP has been happening steadily.
  • A new RP Discord was started and is building.
  • A new server-wide RP event will be starting on 10/18.
  • WCP main post has been edited with the Discord link.
  • An Arathi RP hub has been advertised.
  • Marches-esque RP with guilds sharing plots, being centralized in zones, etc. has been discussed.
  • We know we don’t want to mirror MG and what they do. And whether they have or don’t have canon or ERP should not matter to what happens on WrA.

Things still pending/need work:

  • Alliance guild faire (and/or possibly a neutral guild faire)
  • Activity in Stormwind?
  • The exodus to MG was discussed and commentary has ranged from: “We’re the same people on both servers” to negative commentary that is a turn off to new, returning and transferring players - as well as people still here.
  • There’s still the perception of WrA is dead, and that walk up doesn’t exist. Comments of “hopeless” and similar descriptives keep being repeated even though there’s an active thread discussing Mereldar, and Duskwood and Orgrimmar RP were regular during the last expac.
  • Retaining new and returning players could still be improved on.
  • Possibly repost Shay and Reinore’s list of guilds and resources on the Forums since the original is going on 4 years old now and some guilds have fallen apart or moved. Also, guild recruitment ads are being posted to Discords but not cross posted to the list.
  • There are not enough DMs. Existing DMs should ask for help if they’re burning out.
  • There are groups/players actively turning RPers away as well as cliques and the perception of cliques.
  • Guild inter-cooperation needs to be worked on.
  • We are still finding reasons to say no instead of reasons to say yes. There’s a lot of negativity that needs to be worked on.
  • Several people have mentioned that event info is not getting to players.
  • Horde RP is concentrated in Org in one spot and people hate the “Stuck in Org” feeling.
  • Recruiting for niche guilds is difficult.

Honestly? I feel like there’s been more progress in the past few weeks than we’ve had for awhile. We need to build on the momentum and keep it going. My next suggestions are:

  • We need to look at X (Twitter), Reddit and other forums where WoW RPers are and reach out with advertising.
  • Maybe we need to think about niche groups instead of niche guilds. Instead of trying to form an Earthen guild, hold Earthen events or include Earthen in Dwarven events (ofc that means WrA needs to actually host some Dwarven events). Or form a niche group within a guild, so if your guild is a little of everything, talk among your players and see if there’s a race, a class, or w/e that they may have always wanted to RP. Then roll alts and have a Worgen night, or a Druid RP, etc. You might keep it to once a month or once a quarter, depending on interest.
  • RP walk your group around Dornogal. People need to see RP happening and right now, that’s where the most players are congregating.
  • Update your TRPs with information about the RP hub location(s) you’re using, your guild recruitment, etc.

Any other active suggestions for continued progress - especially on the pending list?

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There is that big hot tub in Dornogal, I am shocked it hasn’t become an RP Hot Spot.

Also the Horde Embassy we made. I saw a small group of RP’ers there the other day and thought I should try to bring the Grunts/Korkron RP’ers there.

I am on 4 different discord channels now but only 1 of them seems to be useful to me for getting information for events while another is just useful for PVP coordination.

I don’t use X-Twitter.

I renew my opinion that the best way to fix Alliance and Horde RP on WRA is for everyone on the Alliance side to Re-roll/Transfer to Horde side as Orcs or Maghar. It will massively improve Horde RP and remove negative Alliance RP…cause there won’t be any Alliance. A Win-Win.

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Don’t ask me how we’d actually do it, but a situation where you could have RP personals seeking one-on-one or small-scale RP, I feel, would have real benefits. I think a lot of people are embarrassed or less than confident about their own RP abilities and would be more enthusiastic about participating in bigger scale RP if they had a chance to hone their skills and find someone who could validate their character.

RP is writing and writing is oftentimes a very vulnerable act of expression that a lot of people are probably reluctant to express for fear of what might happen.

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Whatever you do do not advertise on twitter.

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Everything else is probably going to get discussed there and back again, so I’m going to focus on this one point specifically, as a career DM of nearly 25 years now. I’ve done tabletop, have done NeverWinter Nights, WoW, GW, GW2, WildStar, FFXIV… blah, blah, the list goes on.

This is a problem across the entire spectrum. Dungeon masters already are often forced to play judge, jury, and executioner, and often don’t get very much appreciation for the content generation they do. You have to really, REALLY love writing and be willing to make a lot of compromises in order to be a career dungeon master. You have to schedule, you have to keep your players on the same page, and you have to be willing to accept that some sessions, you’re going to have to raincheck 'cause no one showed up. Finding a willing ‘forever’ dungeon master is pretty much like finding a unicorn in the wild.

Despite this, I have gotten a rather shockingly broad range of reactions over the years.

Worst-case, in dying communities, I am met with suspicion and wariness, because everyone is trying to grab for whatever scraps are left. Everyone is a competitor or someone who can steal your guild out from under you. I am treated like a threat, and that’s my cue to immediately GTFO.

Here’s generally what I want / look for when I’m aiming to put down some roots:

  • Artistic freedom. I realize that guild leadership typically wants to have some basic oversight, but I don’t want to be micro-managed or have a dice system imposed on me. Dungeon mastering is an art, and there’s little joy in it under chains.
  • A welcoming community. I don’t expect a red carpet treatment here- it takes time and effort to build trust with players. I just want the chance to prove I’m not going to pull a George RR Martin on everyone.
  • No expectation to help run the community. Yeah, I’m going to be generating a lot of content, but I don’t need to be promoted to an officer, and I’m not going to be doing recruitment or administration. Writing storylines is what I’m interested in!
  • An active community. This seems like such a no-brainer, but unfortunately I’ve joined groups many times who purported to be active via Discord adverts, only to find out no one is ever in-game actually doing stuff. I can’t write for what isn’t there.
  • Time. It generally takes me a month or two of interactions to get a good understanding for what my audience likes or dislikes, before I can really start to put rubber to the road. Once I spin up, the stories write themselves.
  • A bare whiff of enthusiasm. I generally take the time first-thing to talk to a community’s leadership and outline what I want to do in the future as a DM. While I try to be as up-front as possible with my intentions, if I don’t detect any sign of passion or enthusiasm from leadership, it’s not a good sign for the future.

That’s my take for what I look for in any community anywhere, be it a guild or a server. Obviously, being as how I’m on WrA, I found what I needed here, and shot the moon on finding a guild I could work with. (Y’all are awesome!)

The key takeaway, anyhow, is that burnout is something that’s up to dungeon masters themselves to manage. Dungeon masters can easily find themselves getting sucked into stuff that is pointedly not running storylines, and that’s what is more likely to lead to burnout.

Dungeon masters love to DM, and you’re not going to easily burnout doing what you love!

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honestly i like this. I’ve never liked racial-only guilds, because I feel they limit RP too much and homogenous cultures are often extremely boring and low-conflict. I like the mild conflict that arises from different cultural values in RP; what a dwarf sees as important isn’t what a worgen sees as important isn’t what a draenei sees as important, and that’s way more interesting to me than everyone agreeing. I’m a demon hunter RP’er and I do not mind when people comment on my character being a demon hunter IC. If you’re a draenei or night elf RP’er, have a reaction to my character being openly Illidari! Please!

I will talk to Atos and Pros about doing pop-up theater RP in Dornogal sometime. It might be fun. Our RP is super low-investment for spectators, too, and even non-RP’ers sometimes love to come watch us.

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I love little bits of negative interaction, scaling all the way up to Causing Formal Problems™ but by heck it’s a hard thing to pull off properly. To be assured that it’ll be received reasonably, that the instigator won’t be mobbed and incinerated for it, and so on. More often than not it’s easier and safer to just keep those aspects of your character to more closed scenes, unfortunately. At least, that’s been my experience.

I was attending a public event on my void elf a few weeks ago and some night elves, while leaving, gave a warning shot and some mild threats. It was fantastic and I cannot for the life of me recall who did it, but I hope they’re living their best life.

Actually, hmu up sometime I’d love to make mean comments at your Illidari. I have a Mag’har who thinks they suck and is willing to put it eloquently.

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The only thing I can build off of is that this is… Yeah.

This is what needs to happen, and remember, no matter how hard you want it for someone, not everyone will care as much. If someone won’t be a DM, don’t force them to be. Yran has by far the most stellar advice.

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Yeah, that’s definitely understood. I personally have certain things in my TRP that are off-limits due to my experiences with them-- notably, I don’t really get into combat/crime RP with strangers. But when it comes to a guild, I am considering it an environment where we can better discuss our limits and ideas. Guild RP should be different than walk-up, yanno?

I’ll get in touch sometime c: I’ve been busy spamming keystones trying to get KSM for the first time, so RP has taken a bit of a back seat, but I’m down for Kai to get snarked at by an orc.

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I stated something similiar in the Alliance thread, but really the most important and mandatory step is to be active and consistent with providing Roleplay for people. For example, WCP has been going through and having active nights in Mereldar mostly every day for the last week, providing a tavern setting host for people who want to get out in meet in the expansion content.

Having tags/pings that let people know when World RP is occuring, and being consistent and active when it comes to promoting that World RP, is the best step to having a community mindset of promoting activity. I really don’t think something like Stormwind even needs to happen, and I personally am focusing on promoting Rp in neutral spots like the expansion zones, goblin towns, and other areas. As long as you have people who are daily showing up, advertising, and promoting these sources of roleplay, you’ll show that the community is indeed lively and able to grow.

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This right here is the absolute key. To make anything successful, it’s like McDonalds. You MUST have consistency of output over a long period of time. Eventually, it’ll get to the point of being able to self-sustain once it passes the point of “critical mass.”

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Talked to the guild. We’re probably not doing it this week due to our need to rehearse for the upcoming Dance of the Dead, but we’re gonna have pop-up performances here and there, usually on Wednesday nights. I might even do poetry readings and storytime in Dornogal occasionally (when I’m bored, when I have nothing else to do, etc) just to have a sort of presence around town. It can be really low-investment for shy RP’ers, too, because all you do is have to listen. I know sometimes when I’m low on spoons, I love RP that’s just “stand in this circle and /dance” because it’s social without being draining. I just like seeing the world being alive. So Dragon Poetry It Shall Be.

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Whoop, genuinely thought I posted in this thread instead of its Alliance counterpart. Copypasta:

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Hallow’s End is gonna be bumpin’.

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Get ready for Goblin Court™

Coming fall/winter 2024.

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Is it called that because Goblins are the judges, juries, prosecutors or all three?

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Advertising: I posted an ad about the Hallow’s End server event yesterday on r/WoWRolePlay and got 1100 views. That’s a decent number of views, even compared to the forums.

There are 12k members in r/WoWRolePlay (although I’m sure not all of them would be active).

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Yes. More details soon. haha

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Will you have a cool jazz rift opening title theme?

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Dropping this in here because I have a few minutes. Here’s what the WrA calendar looks like for the rest of the month. This is for the next 14 days, only events hosted on WrA and not including walk up in Duskwood and Mereldar or the Duskfall campaign (or anything I’ve missed).

10/18
Haunting of Hallows End Server event (runs until Day of the Dead)
Masked Market - Caverns of Time - 6 PM ST

10/19
Succulent Tart Costume event - SFK - 6 PM ST

10/20
Quilen & Cloud Teahouse - 4 PM ST
Scary Cakes - SMC - 5 PM ST
Mulgore Story Circle - 6:30 PM ST

10/21
Mulgore Market - 6 PM ST

10/22
Stromgarde RP - 6 PM ST

10/23
Potluck - Booty Bay - 5 PM ST

10/25
Mereldar Market - Mereldar Square - 6 PM ST

10/26
Forgotten Shadows - Ruins of Lordaeron - 6 PM ST
Redwing Tavern - Jade Forest - 4 PM ST

10/27
Quilen & Cloud Teahouse - 4 PM ST
Fancy Cakes - SMC - 5 PM ST
Mulgore Story Circle - 6:30 PM ST

10/29
Hot Springs - Isle of Dorn - 5 PM ST
Songbird - SMC (then hiatus until 3/25) - 6:30 ST

**Edited to add Mereldar Market

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