Patch 8.1 and Cross-Faction Roleplay

[Kunbo-wyrmrest-accord (Kunbo)]

At the Quilen & Cloud Teahouse events some people use CrossRP & many do not. Since the Teahouse is located in Pandaria & is used as an opportunity to introduce others to Pandaren society this mix allows players to effectively portray a variety of levels of experience with Pandaren language and culture. Part of the fun we have is when those who can understand each other translate for those who do not. The translations are not always accurate. Some non-verbal communication (emotes) are not understood by everyone - there have been misunderstandings that called for diplomacy.

Without something like the things Cross-RP allows the Teahouse just could not be a deep way to share lore about our races, and engage each other without violence. Canonically a major component of Pandaren contribution to Azeroth at large has been aiding others - all the way up the hierarchy to Vol’jin & Anduin - to seek opportunities for cooperation across factions. With all the limitations intentionally built into Cross-RP there is no reason to force us to behave non-canonically when we RP.

[Zandrae-wyrmrest-accord (Zandrae)]

I’ll be honest here, I’m super disappointed that the API changes have caused t his addon to break.

I was going to put together a Wyrmrest Discord holiday party with people from our discord server (who play on both factions).

Now that can’t happen, and I am a sad sad peacock’dorei.

[Erilea-gorefiend]

I believe one of the core reasons as to why this addon was intentionally broken was due to it’s actual cross abilities to talk between factions. However, we see this capable between DHs and Void Elves. Something that Blizzard has been very iffy on doing because they believe it allows toxic players to be toxic amongst multiple people from different factions. However, that’s simply one of the many reasons as to why I believe they might have intentionally broken this.

I however don’t care about that sort of thing and I don’t think they should’ve broken something meant specifically catered to RPers itself at all as a result at that point it’s up to the community to not ruin something they’ve allowed due to their own gross behaviors.

[Nyalmi-moon-guard (Nyalmi)]

Giving my support as well.

I’m hoping this was an unintentional side effect because if it isn’t this is pretty sad.

This addon has been an awesome thing for the rp community and it was great watching both factions be able to actually interact at the Tournament of Ages event on moon guard.

[Zandrae-wyrmrest-accord (Zandrae)]

because they believe it allows toxic players to be toxic amongst multiple people from different factions.

In my post up near the top I detail several other solutions which could solve this problem and several others, such as fixing ignore and changing how it works. Additionally, there’s also the whole actually enforcing their code of conduct in game.

CrossRP, being opt in and player controlled spaces means we, too, can hurl misbehaving players out and a lot of times players are totally more willing to throw out a bad egg than Blizzard is.

[Daviellight-moon-guard]

Throwing in my support for this as well.

Here’s hoping that this is all just some bad bug, causing the addon to be all screwy. Because this addon was truly amazing, I’ve gotten to meet so many awesome people from the other side.

[Karanga-wyrmrest-accord (Karanga)]

My guild used Cross-RP to do storylines and I’d been hoping to use Cross-RP to do some cross faction events. People keep saying it COULD have been used for trolling or been exploited, but the thing is, I’ve yet to see any evidence of that. I have, however, seen with my own eyes all the good this addon did for the role play community, how much people loved it, how much it encouraged people to be online and active.

I offer my support to the creator of Cross-RP and hopefully Blizzard will fix this.

[Venjin-bronzebeard (Venjin)]

As somebody who has been burned by their implementation of communities, I support your issue as well. Seems they pulled this off with no real rhyme or reason.

[Erilea-gorefiend]

I saw and think it was very well put together! I simply think that Blizzard’s view on this sort of thing is very…different than ours? While we see it specifically meant for a very “small” community, they see it as anyone can download said addon and abuse it to however they want. But, there are ways of avoiding that as you mentioned above, and even myself think that there is plenty of ways of avoiding such gross behavior in the first place.

Overall I still definitely think this sucks despite never actually using Cross RP. I do think it eliminates a different option of story telling for RPers and hope that some sort of compromise can be had with Blizzard in some sort of way!

[Dazkuz-wyrmrest-accord]

It should probably be mentioned, that the defense of ‘it can allow toxic players and trash talking cross faction!’ is a moot one, considering there are already ways around this without using the addon, which is also disabled by default in BGs, the place you will find the MOST trash talking.

MANY of the more toxic pvp players have shout macros to spam ‘you lose’ with the lettering set up that, thanks to how words are scrabbled by default, appear as such insults and some worse ones, to the opposite faction. There’s tools that you can find with a simple google search that allows these things, if not just figuring it out yourself with the decently simple letter cypher WoW has built in.

There’s very little stopping actively toxic people from being toxic, trust.

[Iahri-moon-guard]

I’m not sure if someone brought this up, as I’m still reading through the comments (and wow there’s a lot of them… awesome.) but SW:TOR’s concept of cross-faction RP was interesting: you could chat to them, just not use /e, or /emote. I was heavy into the game’s PVP scene at the time, and I didn’t see rampant abuse of this either.

[Erilea-gorefiend]

I by no means am saying it’s ok that they disabled this, I’m simply stating it’s a possibility as it is something Blizzard has discussed due to their allowance of cross faction talking already. I do think that this Addon already addressed those concerns, however there are still plenty of ways people could use that in a toxic way that doesn’t have to be strictly done in a BG/Instanced PvP way.

However, as I stated earlier, I think it is up to the player/community to actually do something about said gross behavior in the first place. An addon shouldn’t be punished due to the players, and players that could most definitely do something about it with multiple ways of getting said people in trouble.

[Aresia-wyrmrest-accord]

I want to add my vote for blizzard to help correct this. With BFA the addition of Rendorei, Windrunner reunion(s), human and forsaken cross over, this addon was a much needed boost to RP which seems to get sidelined again and again. blizzard do the right thing and work with the dev to fix this

[Mæve-wyrmrest-accord]

I hope this gets brought back. I didn’t use it, but it’s not like I can pretend it wasn’t a cool addon. I did plan to use it one day, but if it dies then I’ll be very sad.

[Astrala-wyrmrest-accord]

BOOOOOOO!!! This addon was one of the only things keeping me subbed.

[Réase-moon-guard (Réase)]

Could also be big tournaments, and competitions and stuff. Literally almost anything

Here, this is the sort of thing you’d see on Moonguard with CrossRP enabled. While you see it not used early on in the video you can see by the end of it enabled. Everyone there, horde and alliance, were able to talk to one another with it on.

To put that into perspective; Over the course of 7 days the Tournament of Ages saw over 1,000 people on a day on average. And it’s hardly the only event of it’s kind that’s been seen since.

[Jodariel-moon-guard]

Throwing in my support for this addon. Cross RP has made a difference in the lives of many people, whether at the Tournament of Ages, where hundreds of people turned out from both factions, or in massive cross-faction events between guilds, or even in small, one-on-one RP between players.

Conflict is a part of the game, but being able to talk between factions can be part of that conflict in a constructive way. I’ve had incredible cross-faction RPs using the addon acknowledging the faction differences, and it’s really brought depth to the story of Battle for Azeroth I found lacking before.

Please bring this back, or bring a way for us to talk cross-faction without addons. You can keep restrictions such as no war-mode and the like, but don’t take this away.

[Alliarose-moon-guard]

CrossRp is an amazing Addon. I’ve only really used it a handful of times (At Tournament of Ages), but the addon has been a godsend. It opened up so many new possibilities. It made it feel less like I was limited to rping with my faction, and was open to rping with anyone that wanted to. It was great to be able to emote my character speaking Orcish (something they can do in-character), and have the orc I was looking at easily understand what I was saying and reply. I would love to see this Addon re-enabled (if that’s the term I’m looking for?). I’d love to see it function again, because in that week of ToA, it made the game, and my rp experience so much more valuable to me, and I’d love to use this addon again in the future. So please Blizzard, look at some way of making this work, because you have a few large communities of Roleplayers who would be not only grateful, but joyous for the unique rp you’d be allowing us to take part in with ease.

[Zandrae-wyrmrest-accord (Zandrae)]

Here is the thread over on World of Warcraft EU talking about the same post.

Patch 8.1 and Cross-Faction Roleplay

Hello European friends.

[Domína-moon-guard]

Okay, new forum design is sort of offputting, but I do like the new features.

With that out of the way, I’d like to put in my two cents coming from seeing, witnessing, using, and eventually watching the death of add-ons that had attempted to facilitate cross-faction communication, even if it is for Roleplay.

Now, while I don’t wish to be the one that dashes the hopes and dreams of the roleplaying community, I do want to put forward that there’s an example of an addon that existed during the days of Vanilla that allowed players to communicate across faction. Now, mind you I don’t know the exact rules of discussing previously banned/broken addons so I’ll go over this lightly.

The first addon to do this was aptly named Babelfish/Babblefish. It translated the opposing faction’s language into that of the character you were playing, and vice versa, this also allowed players with the addon to speak to each other without seeing [Orcish] or [Common] before their messages.

Blizzard caught wind of this, and if my memory isn’t failing me there were some Cease and Desists thrown out and the API was mended to block use of that addon.

While times has changed, and there’s little meat to even have two factions at this point, I do see why Blizzard may’ve gone out of their way to break the addon. First and foremost, whatever addon you publish will always be used by someone in a fashion that, you the author, do not intend for it to be used; which goes down the path of easily accessible cross faction harassment without the hassle of creating characters and alts to continue to poke, prod, haze, and humiliate another player for whichever reason this theoretical person may choose.

While yes, the RP community should be seen as a cross-faction community that wants to break the bonds of faction restriction to roleplay, but at the same time there are people out there who will use your addons in a malicious manner and potentially ruin the fun for all.

I, myself, am not a fan of these cross-faction communication addons mostly due to how they’ve sprouted up in the past, gained some traction and Blizzard goes “Nuh-huh, you can’t do that.” and disables functionality.

I don’t see Blizzard turning the tides against in-game cross-faction communication anytime soon to the point where they’ll be in favor of addons like Babelfish or CrossRP.