Role Playing Mode

Mornnah-dalaran · March 1, 2022, 2:55am

Good afternoon,

World of Warcraft is categorized as a Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). I recall upon its release, players engaging in role playing was fairly sufficient. If you created a character onto a Role Playing (RP) realm, the chances of you being able to engage into role playing scenarios with other players was fairly frequent. Unfortunately, role players suffered a lot in that aspect of the game once Blizzard integrated cross-server interaction.

Now, role players are typically forced to navigate through Communities and Guilds in order to engage in actual role playing scenarios. Furthermore, I have witness role players being cyber-bullied in the game for being “cringe” and “losers” when they are engaging in role playing activities around players of non-role playing realms. Even individuals whose characters belong to RP Realms are typically unable to engage in role playing activities since they are surrounded by non-role playing players.

I propose that Blizzard implement a “Role Playing Mode” (similar to how Warmode works). I believe this will promote a safe environment for players interested in exploring the role-playing aspect of the game, as well as those wanting to engage in role-playing in the open world without having to “break character.” It will also alleviate some of the confusion amongst non-role playing players when around or interacting with role-players.

I will further propose, contrary to Warmode, that the this “Role Playing Mode” affect the randomized Looking for Group functions. I have seen role players enter dungeons with others and use a spell or ability which are tied to a RP macro be cyber-bullied or insulted. I have also seen non-role players feel insulted or confused because the role-playing player may be using a character who is (example) written as a pretentious snob (which seems to be more common amongst the Nightbourne now), and behaving accordingly. Having a “Role Playing Mode” for these randomized functions will allow players to safely engage with their character without fear.

I would finally propose that Blizzard allow players to activate “Warmode” with “Role Playing Mode” so that players can engage in RP PVP (similar to how realms such as Twisting Nether worked in 2006). I understand Blizzard will have a bit of “shard” balancing to conduct in these instances as my experience has shown role-playing to be more common amongst the Alliance, but I am confident that is an algorithm Blizzard will be able to produce.

I believe this new mode will provide a much needed breath of relief amongst the role playing communities. I also believe it will encourage those interested or curious to try it out. It will certainly add a new exciting mode of gameplay for the player base.

Let me know your thoughts

Halite-bonechewer · March 1, 2022, 2:27pm

Great that this has been brought up, even if I do have some criticisms and alternative opinions on the matter :>

I don’t wholly agree with the idea of an RP mode largely because I think it doesn’t necessarily fix the problems roleplayers face, and can also be a half-baked solution to a wider problem. Plus, if this is another layer of sharding, you’re going to split the community - and that is a greater threat than anything listed in here.That isn’t to say they are bad ideas in of themselves, but these things are important to consider carefully.

Cross-server interaction in itself has been pretty good for roleplayers, it has meant that they can participate in the actual game without having to leave for another server, as RP realms are often not as populated on the top end. The real problem that came along with cross.realm-zones was sharding. When it was first implemented, roleplay almost died overnight because you couldn’t log in and go around to interact with people as you used to. There are rules set in place now that prevent sharding to take place on RP realms, but as far sa I know, it only applies to cities. Most old zones also avoid being sharded because of low traffic, which is why they are also usable by roleplayers.

This is only true to an extent. Although I can’t speak for every RP server, on Argent Dawn EU you can pretty confidently find roleplay without having to do much organisation, assuming you know where to look. Major cities like Stormwind or Legion Dalaran being good examples, but you can also head out to Uldum or Duskwood to find people. The main limitation for finding roleplay is numbers; there’s just not enough people to cover the entire world, and so they tend to gather in hubs and stretch outwards from there through guilds and communities. Granted, AD-EU is a pretty big RP server, and this is likely not the case for smaller ones.

Even if you can’t wander around and find people to RP with, there’s usually other solutions that can help you find people to RP with without having to resort to joining a guild or community. In-game channels have (at least traditionally) been a good way to advertise and announce roleplay to the world. There are also out-of-game resources for many servers that allows you to find what you’re looking for, whether it be a discord server, an independent website or the WoW RP forums. If you know where to look, you will likely find it!

This has unfortunately been the case forever, and still is, and there’s even a lot of cyber-bullying going around between roleplayers as well. It’s a problem in general and definitely not unique to roleplayers, but I also don’t think sheltering us in a safe space is the solution, it should be cracking down on bad behaviour and eliminating the stigma of roleplay to normalise it.

Again, I can’t speak for every realm, but this is also only true to an extent on AD-EU. You rarely see roleplay happen in current-expansion zones because of the high traffic of non-roleplayers, but also because these zones are heavily sharded because of the traffic. I do agree that this can be somewhat problematic and off-putting for many roleplayers, but it depends on your style of roleplay a lot. In other words; there are other limitations than the existence of non-RP players that hinder a lot of roleplay in more modern zones, and to reiterate my point from earlier, old zones see so little traffic that non-RPers are rarely seen or felt there.

I don’t actually know many roleplayers who actively roleplay while engaging with general gameplay (i.e. without breaking character at all), whether that would be by macroing a yell to an ability or whether they stop to talk to each other during questing, and I know a lot of roleplayers personally, and hundreds by association. Most roleplayers that I know have a pretty strict separation of in-character (IC) and out-of-character content (OOC), and it is simply much more difficult to arrange roleplaying (IC) content in newer zones because it typically requires you to play the game using traditionally OOC gameplay. You’ll also find roleplayers who abhor the usage of in-game abilities at all, and exclusively fight with one another through emotes, roll battles or otherwise. Players who don’t break character at all are fairly niche, even in the roleplaying community, at least to the best of my experience. That isn’t to say this style of roleplay is bad or unwanted, I’m all for enabling these players to enjoy the game as they would like to play it.

Just as an aside; “RP LFG dungeons” is probably going to be very niche and will have long queue times, and would need to come with a lot of caveats attached to it to enforce that the mode isn’t being abused or otherwise used for targeted harrassment. Besides, there’s nothing really stopping you from doing these dungeons in a fully-decked RP mode already; assuming you have four friends who are willing to tag along, and you enter the instance through the portal instead of through the LFG tool. (Teleporting to dungeons randomly while out in the world alongside four random people is pretty immersion-breaking to most roleplayers anyway!)

I think the real solution for most roleplayers’ woes should come from implementing new rules to RP servers specifically, just a handful of half-baked ideas here:

Instead of adding an RP mode toggle, add a toggle to opt in/out of sharding for roleplay realms. If you opt in to sharding, you can shard to other servers, but if you opt out, you will stay on your server. You can only shard to an RP server if you are invited by someone already on it. There might be some ways to abuse this, but overall the intention is to preserve the sanctity of the community of the RP server, because community is the key to roleplay’s survival.
Return to stricter enforcement of the terms of service for RP servers. In my young teenage I thought RP was silly, and I was goofing around on an RP server by making a tauren called McBeef. I rightfully got reported for my trolling and my character was either deleted or was forced to change its name, I can’t recall the exact outcome. Either way, the point of my anecdote is that roleplay servers used to be fairly strict with what behaviour was and wasn’t tolerated on them, and it seems prudent to reinvest in some of that to curb trolling, cyber-bullying and worse (Community Management and Toxicity - #3 by Halite-bonechewer).
Create tools to help players find and get into the roleplay they want to find. This isn’t strictly speaking about tools made by the devs either; most existing tools to find roleplay have been created by the community. Whether it is a LFRP channel in-game, a discord or otherwise, every little bit helps.
More positive representation of RP in general. RP is considered a joke by so many people, often because its representation in wider media has been incredibly minimal, or viewed through the lens of someone cracking a joke at it. Blizzard and content creators alike might want to highlight RP more, and celebrate it as a part of WoW and its fandom, because it will not only appease existing roleplayers, but also bring new players into the fold, and reduce the stigma against roleplayers. The notion that RP is “playing the game wrong” is pretty rampant in the WoW community, and is certainly a myth I think we ought to dispel. Just because an activity within a game appeals to a smaller niche, doesn’t mean it’s invalid and doesn’t deserve attention.

I’m sure there are lots of things I haven’t thought about, and I might not be entirely right in some of my assessments (I’m biased coming from a big RP server as well!), so I definitely encourage more opinions and discussion on this. I also noticed a thread on the GD attached to this topic, so I thought I’d also link that here, as it has relevant points: Role Play...mode?.

Mornnah-dalaran · March 4, 2022, 12:02am

Good afternoon

Shout out to Valestia for linking my post in General Discussion and prompting another forum discussion. It also encouraged others to contact me in-game for further perspectives. It granted me a grander view of other people’s thoughts and opinions, which I’ll try my best to articulate below.

One of the most common concerns players were voicing was the griefing/harassment/bullying when engaging in Role Playing. One poster nailed it on head when he explained that role players (RPers) want to feel safe while role playing. Many posters were in favor of implementing a more stringent “Report Hate/Harassment” connected to Role Playing realms so that the griefers can be immediately expunged from the realm. In my initial post about creating a Role Playing Mode, I believe griefers just simply would not turn on the Role Playing Mode, so that RPers could engage in open-world role playing freely. Unfortunately, there is the sad reality that some players are going to be jerks and would turn on the modality just to harass others. If a Role Playing Mode were to be implemented, Blizzard would need to enhance security to prevent such bad actors from spoiling the fun. Perhaps similar to how there is a vote kick in LFG Raids, players in said mode would be able to “Vote Kick” a player from the Role Playing Mode modality, with a strict lockout punishment (perhaps hours/days).

One of common dissenting opinions I noticed about Role Playing Mode seemed to be tied to the method in which players engage in role playing. I mentioned it in the initial post, but currently RPers are forced to engage in Communities and other websites/applications to arrange scheduled role playing events. It seemed some of these players enjoy controlled role playing storylines where everyone engaged in the event is aware of what they are role playing into. It seems these players fear that an open Role Playing Mode would allow any random role player to walk into an active storyline and possibly derail it, even if unintentionally. It also seems they feared competing RP groups trying to install their own storylines into an active RP event. I will admit I was a bit baffled by this concern as it also seemed that the consensus was they want role players to be more seen. I don’t believe Blizzard would be able to really provide a solution to this concern, and it would rely heavily on the player-base self-policing if they do not want outsiders engaging into their own storyline. My only thoughts would be if these tight-knit role playing communities wanted to carry on an active storyline without disturbance, then they would be able to do so outside a highly populated area in the vast World of Warcraft.

In response to Halite, I will admit all of my role playing experience has been on American/Latin American RP PVP Realms. It also seems to be the consensus that the European Role Playing realms put the other countries’ servers to shame hah. I appreciate your criticisms and feedback. I wanted to pick your brain about your commentary on role player’s separation of in-character and out-of-character content. You mentioned newer zones typically require out-of-character gameplay, which causes players to swap between the two modes. I concur. That was one of the reasons I thought Role Playing Mode may be a solution, so that everyone with that modality active can stay in-character while that is active. I believe players swap out of character because the new content is sharded heavily, and players are not surrounded by other role players, so to try to role play through new content would be futile.

I believe your suggestion of adding an RP mode toggle and sharding into role playing realms is basically the same idea I’m proposing with Role Playing Mode. I agree with all your suggestions.

Hopefully we can keep this discussion going with greater ideas to assist the role playing community. Thanks to everyone thus far to has spent their time sharing their insight and thoughts with me

Halite-bonechewer · March 4, 2022, 4:53pm

I’m really happy with your response, and I’m glad we can keep this discussion going :>! I think a lot of good points were raised, I’d like to throw my hat in on some of the points!

While I would love to see a democratic, semi-automated system in place, it is also very prone to abuse. There are already a lot of players who are kicked from LFG groups for no good reason, and that is not a problem we’d want to introduce to roleplayers, especially as there can often be different factions vying for control over the RP space (not sure if this is the case on other servers, but does happen on EU servers). A vote kick system can be weaponised, and that is pretty frightening to me. Perhaps safeguards could be put in place, but I’m just not sure if the automated systems are up to par right now.

That being said, I did recently have a short conversation on the GD (technically on the topic of Goldshire) where it was brought up that moderation set in place by Blizzard has also been woefully inadequate, downright draconian and harming innocent bystanders in the process. Much of the trust placed in Blizzard to help moderating the community has been shattered by these former experiences, so calling for help from them can feel threatening to a lot of players.

The solution is probably somewhere in between of having Blizzard clean the RP servers up for us, and us taking responsibility ourselves. Both we and the moderators need to be better. Griefers are a problem, and we are not equipped to deal with them on our own, and while the moderators are equipped, they need to wield that power fairly.

I sort of understand this fear, but at the same time, this is… exactly what it’s like now, isn’t it? I’ve had tons of RP events disrupted by a random bypasser walking through my event, I’ve also seen others organise to actively disrupt events. The former is usually easily cleared up with a courteous whisper, the latter goes under the definition of griefing.

I don’t think an RP mode would solve this in any way, either. I think some sort of DM mode could be nice to implement, to phase your party into a phase where only they are, with certain limitations put in place. But again, this would need to be very well-thought out if implemented, so that it doesn’t cause absolutely everyone to disappear into their own phases, or to be exploited in any other ways.

I think this is really important, because my experiences and opinions are biased from an EU perspective, and they might not ring true elsewhere. The wider the representation gets, the better :>

I suppose this depends a lot on RP style, I am definitely supportive of the idea of labeling yourself as being in-character while participating in newer content, even if it is something I’d probably not engage in myself. My reasoning for not doing so, is that it doesn’t necessarily fit with my character, and it also means that I will be beholden to various game systems put in place. If I want to visit an area that is filled with mobs, I will have to fight them, and that might not be what I want to do from an in-character perspective. Old zones don’t usually have this problem, as killing these enemies is really trivial and you’re never in any danger - sure, it’s annoying if you aggro an enemy, but you can probably kill it in one attack, out of character.

For the players that do engage in-character with all of this, I realise there’s a problem in place here. One can feel particularly exposed when roleplaying out in the open, where everyone around you is not engaging in roleplay as you do, and if you add sharding on top of that, it’s going to feel pretty bad. Sharding is a problem we can actually deal with, it’s much more difficult to figure out the other problem, as it is pretty reliant on a shift in the community’s perception of roleplay - both among roleplayers, and by non-roleplayers. I don’t have a good solution at hand, but perhaps something can be worked out!

I’d also really like to hear from other roleplayers on this matter, whether they’re in the CC or in GD. Maybe using Valestia’s thread to voice those opinions is a good idea!

Xhelann-wyrmrest-accord · March 28, 2022, 1:22pm

I do feel that there are some valid concerns when it comes to the idea that this would splinter players even further than they need to. I’m not sure how beneficial an ‘RP Mode’ would turn out and if the negatives would be worth that risk. It’s certainly something to put heavy consideration into if they were to try to tackle the idea.

However, I’d like to piggyback off of this to request something similar with regards to instances. Having a version of instances that lacks all enemies (with a raised player cap for that mode only) would be pretty fantastic. There are a lot of well-designed instances that would be ripe for roleplay if they were to add this toggle option the party leader could change the dungeon or raid to for their party.

Slacker-blackwing-lair · March 28, 2022, 6:43pm

Yea I was thinking about a RP mode added to dungeons and raids that either removes all NPCs or makes them all friendly (maybe have a NPC that can remove them or not?). It would be great to RP in some of the nice looking raids (such as The Nighthold) as it is instanced so prevents any unwanted visitors