Implement the Title Dropbar in SoD: PvP titles should not be forcefully added to your name

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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For SoD, I believe Blizzard should implement the “Character Title” dropbar that was added to WoW shortly after vanilla. If you’ve earned a title, it should be a reward, not a punishment. The title is a part of one’s name, and one’s name should be one’s own jurisdiction.

I have a character on a roleplay server, and I am a regular roleplayer; though I do gameplay stuff like raiding as well. One day I decide “I should get my Battle For Ashenvale reputation up!”

Huge mistake. This tuesday rolls around and now my character’s name has forcibly been changed to “Corporal [name]” and there is NO way to truly turn this off. This clashes super hard with her roleplay identity.

I did a lot of research on this issue and learned a few things. I’ve tried the console command to hide the titles but it’s only on my end, which doesn’t change how my character is presented to others. I researched Dishonorable Kills and (painstakingly) tried those, but it turns out “Private” doesn’t go away regardless of your rank score.

Interestingly though, I have also learned that there are people out there who are already aware of this state of affairs and have posted in the forums before that they avoid any PvP specifically to avoid this issue. Likewise, when discussing this issue with friends, I’ve had one thank me for warning them just before they started their own PvP journey, as they too do not wish to be stuck with a title on their name. So there are people who do not feel free to engage in PvP content purely because this Character Title dropbar does not exist.

I opened a ticket and two different Game Masters told me that while there is no way to turn off titles in Classic and there are no plans to change this at the moment, I should take the matter here to try to get the community to demonstrate a lot of support for it and make it clear that it would be in the best interest for the game and everyone as a whole to implement such a change.

So here I am.

It’s a tiny, easy little change that won’t eat up too much dev power, it won’t harm how people play the game (and will in fact grant more people freedom to engage with PvP), and it would restore sovereignty to the players in how we portray our own characters.

Care to show some support?

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Idk, as a PVP centric player, your title is my way of checking logs.

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Normally I’d agree but higher ranked players in Classic have higher honor values, which I tend to pounce on. Only if the titles always show for enemy players.

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I agree with this. You can view honor without a title displayed. I’m sure it’s nice for PvP and PvP players but we have entire PvE and RP servers for a reason. It would be really nice to have the option to turn the titles off. Even just on RP servers if that is something the Devs could feasibly do. I have personally avoided any and all PvP for exactly this reason. I just do not want the titles, but I may end up having to if I ever want to raid seriously as some BiS are locked behind the rep. :confused:

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Agree with OP. Either enable title toggle or allow all PvP titles (including Private) to drop off after PvP activity drops

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I support this as well. There’s really no reason it can’t be implemented.

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Add another to the agree category. It’s one thing that has me pvping less than I could be doing. (That and wsg blows, tremendously.)

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Just delete your toon and reroll one with the same name.

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I agree. At the very least we should get a checkbox to display the PvP title or not. They can just put it in Interface like “show cloak” or “show helm”.

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Certainly an option I’ve contemplated, but is that really the healthiest way for the game to resolve things like this as a whole? Permanently marring people’s characters over things they weren’t warned about and making them have to delete their main that they’ve raided with every 3 days for 2 months? That’s a potential solution for me as an individual, albeit a ridiculous one. But what about the health of the game as a whole?

At the very least, you should have some option to lose the title altogether, even if that option is just not engaging in PvP for a while. The PvP community has no reason to care if I have the Private title or not, especially if I never engage with it again.

Edit: Oh, weird. It changed my character here but not in the original post. I am the OP and this is how I’ll be looking moving forward.

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I figured there was already a way. Good thing I don’t mind the titles or I would be miffed.

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The title is a reward. Only a pve zugger would call a pvp title a punishment lmao

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I’m certainly feeling punished. A reward is not something forced upon you that you don’t want and must now have identify you against your will with no way of escaping it. That’s describing a punishment.

What if I said that by engaging in dialogue with me on the forum like this, Delvin has now earned the “Roleplayer” title and must always display it at all times with no option to ever turn it off or switch it out for the remainder of Delvin’s existence? Would you feel rewarded?

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You would really cry about being “forced” to be called a high warlord? There is no higher honor, you squashed as many filthy alliance scum as possible.

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Certainly many would call it a high honor, but not everyone. Some would wear it as a mark of shame. People just feel differently about things. Ultimately it should be up to the title holder to determine how much they want to be referred to by their title. Some doctors love being called “Doctor” and request it all the time. Some doctors ask you to just call them by their first name and not mind the formalities. This freedom is the reward of the title; you are free to be Doctor or High Warlord when it suits you, but not punished to be it when it doesn’t suit you.

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The only people who wouldnt call it a high honor are alliance spys

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You guys dont like being a Grunt?

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I was about to mention the console command, but I saw you tried this and were dissatisfied that you’re not able to change the game for other people, only for yourself.

My question, therefore, is: Why are you insistent on the game being changed to cater to you, when you can change it on your side - as can every single person who dislikes the titles being visible - at the expense of people who either have no problem with the titles, or even like the rank being displayed? Why is your enjoyment preferential to theirs?

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I’m not a military expect, but I’m pretty sure in an active wartime situation, a soldier is not allowed to hide rank, unless they’re in such a position that they’re required to hide their rank. And if you don’t consider the situation between Alliance and Horde in Warcraft an “active situation,” and your character being a soldier for your faction - which I’m pretty sure you are right from the outset, if you read any quest text, or even listen to the intro narration when you create a character - then I have no idea what would fall under that purview.

Doctors have a lot of agency. Soldiers do not, especially when active.

Ironically, you can, in fact, avoid getting a rank by abstaining from all PvP content. If you’re trying to RP, you simply have to be extremely meticulous about who you group up with. I don’t know about people in WoW, but anyone who plays a TTRPG or participates in a LARP is fully aware that you can, in fact, choose who you RP with, and that you will have a different experience RPing with different people. That’s really the only way to RP the idea that you’re not in the middle of a war between two opposing factions; to only associate with people who abstain from wartime activity.

tl;dr: RPers can avoid a rank by avoiding PvP wholesale, and not grouping with people that can potentially cause them to get HKs.

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My character is not a soldier, never was and never will be. She’s a swamp witch who lives alone outside of civilization.

Also I’m not saying people shouldn’t get to have their titles. I’m saying people should get to choose if they want their title to show or not. I don’t really see how that is hindering your ability to enjoy the game if people get to toggle their earned titles. Your ability to enjoy the game shouldn’t be contingent on how other people portray their characters, so long as they aren’t being actively rude, obstructive or against terms of service.

Why is my enjoyment preferential to theirs? Simply put, it’s not. But my name is my name, and I should be the one who gets to dictate it, so long as it’s within terms of service.

Lastly, I didn’t know at the time that doing Battle For Ashenvale was going to forcibly change my name. Nothing warned me of that and I certainly wouldn’t call that intuitive. If it’s going to permanently change my name, it should have made that clear and let me know not to do that.

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