Patch 8.1 and Cross-Faction Roleplay

Community General Discussion
478

So just to condense a lot of what I’ve seen today in various channels- here and in discord, for the ease of Blizzard devs/CS folks who will read this thread. There are a few main guesses as to what’s happened to Cross RP and why- if I miss any, feel free to add them:

  1. Privacy. This is a concern I can understand. That you have to give out your battletag and be connected to a relay where your emotes are logged is something some might not be comfortable with.
  • Suggested solution: remove the language barrier on RP realms in the open world. This allows for players to retain their privacy while upholding the immersion that Cross RP provided. It also has the added benefit of not requiring a community to connect to, which makes it even more open.
  1. Harassment. Again, a fair concern, except that harassment happens in this game on a daily basis, with or without this addon. The steps taken by Tammy to ensure the safety of those who -do- opt-in to its use cannot be understated. Harassment will still happen no matter what solutions are implemented, or what blocks Blizzard puts in. The only effective way to truly end harassment would be to make WoW a single-player game (and nobody wants that).
  • Suggested solution: Give players a more effective account-wide block feature, make reporting more streamlined, and enact harsher punishments for those who harass/stalk/doxx others.
  1. Not Intended Use. With the comments about the ToS, it was bound to come up. However, Blizzard has already previously stated that this addon wasn’t in violation- if something has changed, it’s only courteous to let us know. If not? Then it doesn’t matter, as Blizzard’s own ToS allow for pandaren, demon hunters, and void/blood elves to chat across faction barriers. Bnet also allows for this, as do btag communities, so it seems a moot point to limit it in other ways. Not to mention there is ample lore backing up the ability to speak across factions from major lore characters, other NPCs, the lore indicating everyone can speak Common, and the fact that the player characters were important enough to be Champions of their class- surely we know how to talk to others!
  • Suggested Solution: Remove the language barrier, same as Argument 1.
  1. Unintended Victim of a Larger Purge. I consider this option to be the most likely situation, in which case hopefully we’ll get some more info soon. However, it’s indicative of a larger issue wherein harmless addons (or beneficial to the community in this case) are affected by a blanket ‘fix’ that ultimately breaks more than it fixes, in addition to the playerbase not being warned in advance.
  • Suggested Solution: Communication. Devs, you have repeatedly said you want to have greater communication with the playerbase- this is your chance! We want to know what’s going on, what’s being done, how it can be fixed, etc. Keep us in the loop, please!

Ultimately, I think the continued existence of the faction language barrier is antiquated and unhelpful in the larger scheme. Removing the language barrier provides the following benefits (in addition, reinstating the functionality of Cross RP would also):

  1. Provide greater immersion for all players seeking that environment. As it would be contained to RP servers, or perhaps something you can toggle into, this would allow players interested in having a more immersive experience to opt-in. With that, comes the world feeling that much more alive and lived in, which creates greater engagement…
  2. With the story you’re trying to tell. This is a war story at present, and while there are a lot of folks like myself who love neutral, peace-seeking RP, there are just as many who like the war story and want to play in that environment. Allowing communication across faction lines allows for ALL types of RP to flourish, and without trying to come up with workarounds that feel clunky or ungraceful (like going through a translator, btag, etc.).
  3. It will make your playerbase happy. It’s as simple as that. While we RPers have a laundry list of things we’d -like- to see, ultimately we are not a hard bunch to please. We know you’ve listened to us before with legacy content sharding and that does NOT go unappreciated- please consider this for us as well, and we will be happy as clams. :slight_smile:

If I think of anything else I’ll edit it and add it in, sorry for the wall!

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