Requested Tools for Immersive Roleplay: Tents

Community WoW Community Council
1

Hello, and thank you for opening this topic. As a short backstory, I started my time in WoW at the tail end of Draenor. It is because of this that I have missed all sorts of experiences that others would have as current content.

It is as of recently, I have become aware of features from past expansions that could be beneficial for immersive roleplay in the world. Things that are still present in the game, but locked within their respective zones. For this such post, I will be speaking of tents.

More senior roleplayers from Moon Guard brought them to my attention, and it surprised me for all of Draenor’s expensive crafting recipes that they were actually quite affordable. From the Garrison leatherworks, these tents offered variety, from Horde and Alliance inspired designs, to neutral factions like the Argent Crusade or Kirin Tor.

They lasted five minutes, offered a rested bonus, and resting for ten seconds gave a 10% bonus to all stats for one hour. At the moment, you can place down an unlimited amount of these tents- so long as you are in Draenor.

To add to that last part, I do not know if placing an unlimited amount has always been the case, but I was surprised to hear- at least on Wyrmrest Accord or Moon Guard- that this wasn’t abused when they were part of current content.

I would like to see these tents- or a variation of them, at least- unlocked from Draenor. This would allow roleplayers the ability to place down tents, adding a more immersive experience for when we are outside or cities and require more shelter on our adventures. There would need to be changes, however.

For the roleplay community, extending the duration to ten minutes will mean less stalls in roleplay. To everyone’s benefit, and to prevent griefing, do not allow them to be placed in rested areas / capital cities, and only allow one tent to be placed at a time.

For other players, I would reduce or remove the buff, that it does not disturb the delicate balance of leveling and current content (current content in this case including future content). Perhaps making it a short, empowered campfire buff.

To add how they could benefit roleplayers, I will mention of the Warcraft Conquest: a massive, cross faction experience on Moon Guard. These events last for one-to-two weeks, curated and organized by several DMs and community members appointed as leadership. We are constantly looking for spaces that we can utilize for our events, and making everyone fit is always the biggest issue- from commons to medbays.

These tents could help us add options for how we can make our players feel as though they aren’t competing for space- for the Horde community, this has especially been an issue, as outposts for Horde players tend to be smaller and less sheltered.

So to overview:
-unlock from wod
-extend the duration to 10 mins for rp
-reduce or remove buff
-make so they cant be put indoors / in capital cities / resting areas
-make it so you can only place 1 tent every 10 mins to reduce abuse

I open the discussion to understand how this could effect the rest of the community- and also see pros and cons from other roleplayers in the Council. As well, other ideas for how this could be implemented are welcome.

209 Likes
2

So I briefly touched on this in my RP wishlist post without really going too deep into this, so here goes:

First off, I’d really expand the scope of this beyond just tents and include more or less every placeable object, there’s a breadth of possibilities to enhance immersion through these means and I think those should be expanded upon :>

I wanted to discuss duration and potential griefing a bit. Most placeable items currently only lasts for a few minutes, I think some of the longest-lasting ones are the guild banners at 15 minutes, and they can often be quite annoying to have to place down continuously. 15 minutes fly by really quickly during RP, and having to constantly break character to place them down can be very annoying.

I realise that one of the reasons this is the case, is that players can abuse this to add a lot of clutter to the world to ruin other people’s sense of immersion, or downright grief someone by continuously disrupt their experience of both RP and also other types of gameplay. Let’s all remember that some jokesters find it really fun to get up on a big mount and block a questgiver or something else that you need to click on. Having the ability to place down tents or any other items can also create similar situations.

I’m not entirely sure how to resolve this issue, for on the one hand, I really want tents, tables, banners et cetera that I can place down and keep there for a while, and I don’t want someone else to ruin my experience by doing the exact same thing, except that they’re doing it to grief you.

Cooldowns are an okay solution, I think, and also being limited to having one item placed down could also be a reasonable thing. Or perhaps you could have an option to hide placeable items of people on your ignore list, or have an option where you can toggle it on and off? Probably too complicated ideas to implement in a reasonable time frame.

16 Likes
3

Referring to your first point- I completely agree with your desire for tables, seating and other such fun items. After all, not all of us want to sit on a fuzzy green beanbag or a toadstool.

On the subject of griefing though: griefing should always be considered with the addition to new items and toys, and I am glad you have considered it too. Truthfully, there is no way to completely resolve the potential for it, as it has been an issue longer than I care to delve into various -pedia articles to understand the history of it.

However, it can be mitigated. We have seen in recent years that key quest givers have been given an AoE that dismounts us and helps prevent clutter. This could be utilized across more quest givers to at least prevent that particular issue.

As well, I made a point that tents- in particular- should be reserved for placement outside of cities and resting areas (the two overlapping in that case for faction hubs, not including Dazar’alor or Boralus).

The issue of outdoor griefing, though, remains. However, it is just one more object that a small few derive enjoyment from abusing, and we shouldn’t punish players when the fault is on the trolls. We must handle that as we always have, until a better solution presents itself.

On that note, though, this could be exactly what the newly announced report system could be used for! Griefing seems like exactly the type of thing that can be reported for “Gameplay Sabotage”.

11 Likes
4

I think the restriction of having tents only usable outside of cities and so on is pretty reasonable, though I can see a case for having it be available in cities too.

Yes, I’m really looking forward to seeing if the new report system is going to be able to curb this sort of behaviour, so that we won’t see any measures taken that would disrupt everyone else’s enjoyment. I’m a little pessimistic about it, but here’s hoping.

10 Likes