Patch 8.1 and Cross-Faction Roleplay

[Ariiah-wyrmrest-accord (Ariiah)]

I would like to mention and continue to point out. BLizzard commented on the Tournament Of Ages I believe this year(?) saying how happy they were the rp servers (MG and a bit of WRA) made and consistenly held the event nearly year after year, and Crossrp was used this year, it was even in the forumpost about the plans for the event, so they knew it existed backthen and again, did nothing, no warning, nada.

so again it’s odd in hand you’re blueposting, supporting the community for being…well a community. but then do something that hinders that community.

Indeed…it’s frustrating not having an answer as yet on this issue, but hopefully tomorrow we’ll hear something. It is certainly hard to imagine that they’d be happy about such a strong community drive in their own game and then do something like this out of …spite? Or something? An accident of some sort seems much more likely to me, some hiccup in coding that’s caused Cross RP ( and other addons) to have trouble functioning or simply not function at all.

[Raithioss-moon-guard (Raithioss)]

as more and more addons…that I think were harmless, are being mentioned, it…does seem like it was accidentally broken. but my question is: if they are going to fix the issue…i’m actually incredibly nerv ous and worried for later today cause i’m 90% sure they’ll not answer eventho this has been up since patchday.

[Dlaciabia-sisters-of-elune (Dlaciabia)]

I have noticed the map scanning function of TRP3 remaining greyed out. After 8.0 the new communities broke that, but TRP3 v 1.5 (I believe) put it back together and it worked until 8.1. I think it and possibly most or all of the features of TRP rely on chat channels in some form.

If I had to guess, I’d say they were targeting something unrelated and it just happened to bust up all the RP addons. I hope that’s the case and that things can get functionality back because otherwise it’s just a slap in the face to some of their most loyal players (especially since people asked about CrossRP before the patch and were told that it was fine).

[Drannon-moon-guard (Drannon)]

Here to throw in some support for Tammya’s exceptional addon. It brought our community even closer together, enriched server roleplay and presented many new and exciting opportunities for us.

I really wish the naysayers in the thread would spend as much time reading and understanding how Cross RP actually operates as they do posting ignorance on “abuse” and "ToS violations. Parameters were set to prevent both from ever occuing (via opt-in, PvP disable, RP realm detection and data transfer efficiency), and it couldn’t be put any more clearer if it were presented with crayons and puppets.

While I’ll admit Blizzard has been flexible by allowing role play add-ons I feel that over the years our small community has been cast aside as minor, harmless features were limited or disabled without cause. Roleplay is the only reason I’ve kept my subscription going for well over a decade, with the occasional interruption due to leaving the country. But I can’t in good conscience continue to support a company that makes hasty decisions without putting forth any kind of effort to gather information, understand said information and prompt the community (especially its mod authors) for feedback and input before making a critical decision like this. I ask that you reconsider your decision for the better of our small but loyal community. Or at the very least work with our mod authors for solutions you are comfortable with.

[Banrok-wyrmrest-accord (Banrok)]

Wooop, back up with you.

[Zenrao-wyrmrest-accord (Zenrao)]

That was truly, epicly incredibly funny and amazing.

[Nearo-emerald-dream (Nearo)]

“Watch, wait, pray it goes away”

[Kirsy-wyrmrest-accord (Kirsy)]

While I’ll admit Blizzard has been flexible by allowing role play add-ons I feel that over the years our small community has been cast aside as minor, harmless features were limited or disabled without cause. Roleplay is the only reason I’ve kept my subscription going for well over a decade, with the occasional interruption due to leaving the country. But I can’t in good conscience continue to support a company that makes hasty decisions without putting forth any kind of effort to gather information, understand said information and prompt the community (especially its mod authors) for feedback and input before making a critical decision like this. I ask that you reconsider your decision for the better of our small but loyal community. Or at the very least work with our mod authors for solutions you are comfortable with.

This. Exactly this. I would have stopped playing WoW in Cata if it wasn’t for RP. Blizzard should be helping its player base in being able to maintain communities instead of taking things away without any consideration to what that means to the majority of players using those things.

Right now for a lot of us, whether or not we’ll be maintaining our subscriptions is on the fence. We’re looking for Blizzard to confirm that our RP communities mean something to them. Other MMOs and survival games add things like actual housing and guild halls that are decoratable, specialized emotes, toys that work well for RP instead of disappearing after 2 minutes, and other perks for RPers. We don’t really see that here, and it’s disappointing. Instead, we see broken RP add ons, phasing and sharding issues that separate RPers and less and less reason to be here. We’d really appreciate Blizzard taking a look at this add on and bringing it back into play.

[Nearo-emerald-dream (Nearo)]

How does a roleplayer play out the war and conflict?

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.

The way I see it, with #1, it’s only enhanced if you can talk to the enemy, and it’s not because of literal talking, it’s action too; like if you come across a stinky orc, you can literally try to engage in some harsh/violent RP towards them, if not straight up emoting trying to kill them.

#2, RP-PVP has those moments where the leaders declare terms of war on the battlefield, and it’s a bit of a hassle to do this through Discord and such. It might only be strict PVP against the enemy faction in most circumstances, but what cross-faction chat does is adds a bit of convenience at the out-of-character level.

For #3, that sounds fun, and it’s honestly a good argument against cross-faction chat, as when you’re in a city, there’s a small line between warmode and not, because it’s basically a crowded hostile area regardless.

My guild is an active RP-PvP guild, much of our RP revolves around fighting the Horde - particularly in Kul Tiras. We prescribe to the Daelin Proudmoore philosophy of “exterminating the mongrels” and our characters idolize him as many Kul Tirans do.

We’ve done organized RP-PvP events against Horde guilds (we are always in War Mode also), and it would be great to be able to RP directly with them on our Alliance characters without all the barriers present. We have a Horde-side charter with undercover agents who are part of our Kul Tiran version of SI:7 with High Elf spies masquerading as Blood Elves and Undead Kul Tirans who reject Sylvannas.

We’re pretty heavy on cross-faction and espionage RP, but also PvP… being able to communicate across the faction divide opens up the possibilities not only for conversation-driven RP, but also for conflict-driven RP-PvP.

[Niélenn-moon-guard]

Nearly 800 posts on this thread and still no response or acknowledgement from Blizzard on this. Not even a blue post. Sad.

[Altherei-wyrmrest-accord (Altherei)]

G’morning everyone, happy Friday! Keeping my fingers crossed we can get an answer in the Q&A today, but even if we don’t it’s important to remember to keep up the momentum! They know RPers are a passionate, creative crowd- we’re persistent, too!

I’ve already posted my question in the Q&A, and I’m pleased to see so many other folks doing similarly. I feel hopeful about how things will turn out regardless.

[Yoloswagweed-thrall]

You might find this to be compelling: wow.curseforgedotcom/projects/gw-patch/files/2647245 from what I can tell, the author, realizing that everyone runs Greenwall, captures chat that’s about to be sent to guild before it gets |K wrapped using the EditBox and sends that text as an addon message instead.

This of course, should also work with CrossRP since all are using the addon. However, it leaves addons like mine still broken (GG blizz).

[Nearo-emerald-dream (Nearo)]

I don’t think they want to address this because they would most likely have to defend their inane and lore-breaking policy of not allowing Horde and Alliance speak to one-another, which they themselves break by facilitating communication between certain races/classes.

[Tammya-moon-guard]

You might find this to be compelling: wow.curseforge dot com/projects/gw-patch/files/2647245 from what I can tell, the author, realizing that everyone runs Greenwall, captures chat that’s about to be sent to guild before it gets |K wrapped using the EditBox and sends that text as an addon message instead.

This of course, should also work with CrossRP since all are using the addon. However, it leaves addons like mine still broken (GG blizz).

Community channels don’t have parallel addon channels that can transfer data like that, so it’s not possible for Cross RP. Even if it was, I’d want to wait for a response from Blizzard before doing any more development on the matter. Don’t want to cause more of a headache if this type of software isn’t welcome.

[Yoloswagweed-thrall]

Forgive my ignorance, but could you not use that data capture to send an AddOn level Message? Are AddOn messages faction specific? When running /etrace I frequently see CHAT_MSG_ADDON for the addon AstralKeys pinging me from people on my bnet that are on characters of the opposite faction. IDK if that’s a possibility. I’ve never really had to deal with it.

[Tammya-moon-guard]

Forgive my ignorance, but could you not use that data capture to send an AddOn level Message? Are AddOn messages faction specific? When running /etrace I frequently see CHAT_MSG_ADDON for the addon AstralKeys pinging me from people on my bnet that are on characters of the opposite faction. IDK if that’s a possibility. I’ve never really had to deal with it.

There’s just no addon messages for community channels. For bnet friends, and for guild chat, you can still do addon communication via addon messages, but you can’t do that for other community channels, as those only have text (which can no longer be read on the receiving end by addons).

It’s one of the uglier aspects of Cross RP’s design that it has to deal with due to technical limitations - the protocol was passed through plain, readable text (everyone can read your chat, and it’s logged in the channel), as well as being susceptible to multiple caveats, e.g. the mature language filter corrupting data.

[Fallanaa-area-52 (Fallanaa)]

Wow! An addon author that is polite, takes criticism, and is open. The developer of oQueue could learn a thing or two from you.

That said, I’ve never used the addon, but love the idea of anything cross faction. Did you post any of this in the UI & macro forums and the wow reddit as well? I think it would garner additional attention there.

Sounds like it would be a great addon if I start getting into WoW RP (I RP on FFXIV all the time.)

[Taeana-moon-guard (Taeana)]

Doing my part to keep this thread going. Please answer us, Blizzard! Please give us the logical, lore abiding ability to talk to any other player!!

[Veydaras-moon-guard (Veydaras)]

Just throwing my support for the add-on

[Azighan-moon-guard (Azighan)]

You guys have my support. RP should have as few hoops as possible.

Ya be doin’ de Loa’s work mon.