Patch 8.1 and Cross-Faction Roleplay

Community General Discussion
694

Yep… :frowning:

You’re actually logging the coded IDs (that appear like messages when displayed on screen, and not the ID), and then those IDs are invalidated when you restart (and it’ll likely show up random chat from your new session from ID clashes).

The IDs are known as “kstrings”, and look like |K[id]|k or something literally, and that’s hidden by the game and replaced with the data. Usually this sort of method of obfuscation is to protect personal data (hence my guess in the OP). Like, these have always been used in place of real life names, so addons couldn’t read them.

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695

Speaking of real life names. They enabled people to change their first names meaning people who have me on realid and Bliz CS will finally stop dead naming me. \o/

But it got me thinking. Why is that even still a thing? Like nothing good could come of this.

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696

Drat. I had logged in and out when testing earlier, but I hadn’t completely exited the game. Just tried that and you’re right, the logs just say “unknown” now.

:frowning:

697

Thank you for informing me that they did that now! Cries tears of happiness Finally I won’t be afraid of adding people to my friends list!

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700

But why would they be using those on guild chat (which is character names) or Communities (battletags)? It’s not like a battletag is privileged information - if I log into pretty much any Bnet game besides WoW and maybe D3, battletag is the main thing that’s shown to people. :thinking:

701

It’s definitely not just you.

There is literally no longer any reason to limit cross-faction chat.

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702

Honestly it was a bit annoying during development to not have access to battletags, because otherwise there’s no way to have any unique ID to associate with messages, but that’s just the way it worked.

As for the new addition of hiding messages from addons as well, you’d need to wait for an authoritative response.

My guesses:

  • To stop addons from scanning for personal data in guild/community logs.
  • To stop addons from getting data fed in from external sources (i.e. someone feeding data into a BattleNet client which any user in-game can pick up.)
  • To stop Cross RP and cross-faction chat – but this seems like a small fish to fry considering the effort it might have taken to implement the message hiding.
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703

It could have to do with some privacy and data deletion thing.

That is all I can think of.

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704

Blizzard wants you hating and pvping the opposite faction in warmode, not holding peace summits and role playing with them.

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705

What about when war mode is off, on an RP realm?

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706

Then this issue escapes the bounds of what Blizzard has control over, and it’s no longer Blizzard’s problem if the method used to spy on, or harass other players is through discord.

At that point, you are just being poked at by children.

Edit: Unless you push for Blizzard to enact Warden to track Discord as it would any other malicious tool and shut down the game once it’s detected and prevent programs from running until it’s cleaned and/or closed.

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707

pretty sure they want you role playing with your own faction, talking about how much you hate those horde savages.

708

Over the year on Moon Guard there were massive events were Horde and Alliance clashed (building up to the finale at the gates of Lordaeron). Some of it did consist of actual PVP, but there were also segments of just writing/roleplay with each other. You don’t need your characters to like each other to roleplay, because you can also play out hate and violence.

The way I see it, if war mode is disabled, you don’t have really anything to do with the opposing faction, so why not have that as the option to enable more communication, especially for RP?

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709

All this feedback is still relevant even if we take it as given that Blizzard specifically does not want the factions to be able to talk, because that fact itself needs to be addressed. This thread is an example of the overwhelming preference for cross-faction communication that’s been consistent across the entire MMO market.

If they won’t (or can’t for security reasons) re-enable CrossRP, it is long past time for Blizzard to reconsider their stance on this topic. The faction communication barrier adds absolutely nothing to the game and is widely unpopular.

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710

Yes, speak for me.

I am in favor of a faction language boundary.

Edit: While some may see a faction language barrier unnecessary… why pick the the expansion where there’s a global faction war over Azeroth’s blood to push for a cross communication addon for the game?

711

Honestly, I saw this coming as soon as this wonderful Addon was released. Simply put, Blizzard doesn’t care about Roleplayers or the RP community. We’ll probably be the last to leave this game, but I doubt we’ll get any special favors for it.

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712

Except at this point there’s more neutral factions than you can shake a stick at.

Classic Contained:
Argent Dawn, the Bloodsail Buccaneers, the Brood of Nozdormu, Cenarion Circle (Which a large portion of druids on both sides are part of, you can see this in moonglade), Darkmoon faire, Gelkis/Magram Centaur Clans (which you could become an honory member of) Timbermaw hold, the Steamweedle Cartel (Which runs Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan and Ratchet and employ mercs of both factions)

In BC we saw
The Cenarion Expedition (insert another nod to moonglade and the zangarmarsh outpost here), the Keepers of Time, the Netherwing, and we also have Shattrath and its splinter factions as well.

In Wrath we were introduced to;
The Oracles in Sholazar Basin and the Frenzyheart Tribe, focus on the Argent Crusade, we saw more of the Kirin Tor, as well as the Wyrmrest Accord, we also were introduced to DEATH KNIGHTS, who are only horde/alliance by ‘birth’ race. In death they all technically belong to the Ebon Blade, a faction that can be considered neutral at its base.

And these are just ones I can remember off the top of my head through the years. I don’t even really need to mention you know, all of pandaria.

Then we also have the fact that the factions constantly stop their bickering to get together and fight ‘the big bad’ in the majority of expacs through the years.

There are also countless minor characters that wouldn’t give two chicken nuggets about the faction pride thing. Merchants, crafters, explorers, collectors, a large chunk of the general populace.

While some people do enjoy their faction pride and rivalry, others do not. The great thing about the cross rp addon, was you can choose NOT to use it. You are capable of autonomy here. Nobody will force you to download it, or jump through the hoops to use it, or go to neutral roleplay events, or participate in peaceful cross faction roleplay.

What most, if not all of us here are requesting, is simply to have a CHOICE in our interactions. We, like you, like everyone else, have a right to choose what we do. We like these options, we choose to use them.

You do not like them, you do not need to use them, and that’s perfectly okay.

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713

I can agree with a faction boundary too, due to the gameplay it provides. I’m a pretty casual PVPer and I wouldn’t really like the Horde talking to me while I’m griefing them.

That being said, there isn’t any PVP when war mode is off, so why not add cross-faction chat capability there? Nothing else to do.

As for why this expansion? I think there’s an easy enough reason: How does a roleplayer play out the war and conflict?

Of course there are two answers to that, one is through allied roleplay and PVP against the enemy. But when war mode is off? I think it should be through allied roleplay, and cross-faction roleplay.

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714

As always, people trying to contend that PvP and RP are mutually exclusive are simply being contrarian. RP-PvP has been popular throughout WoW’s history; there used to be dedicated servers for it, until all PvP servers were abolished with the new War Mode rules.

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715
  1. Express severe racism towards the enemy faction.
  2. Participate in RP-PVP events that have been going on since… forever ago, I do enjoy these ones, while CrossRP did alleviate the issues with coordination just because it’s lost doesn’t mean these need to stop too.
  3. Roleplay with friends and do fun stuff like rob the bank of Silvermoon City.

Just a few examples of how to enjoy, and play out the faction war and conflict. Yes, the tools have been decreased, ease of access has been reduced to prior to CrossRP, but that’s no reason why such events or gatherings should stop.

Lennonites still need love too, so I guess there’s a bunch of roleplayers that resolve faction conflicts through peace and love, and I have little suggestions here.

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