I think the best example was when Asmongold and other streamers flooded RP servers doing the project 60 things and even after numerous cases of griefing and harassment from their hanger-ons Blizzard just shrugged and told people to deal with it instead of handing out punishments to rulebreakers.
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RP is such a difficult thing to discuss because so much is about personal immersion. For me it breaks down into about three categories for general purposes: location, tools, and security.
Security: This is the most important one because rpers want to rp in safe spaces. By safe I mean places free of outside harassment. RP events, no matter the size, are big parts of rp life, being unable to do them reduces rp enjoyment over enjoyment of the game for rpers. The community can only do so much to police their events. Blizzard has to figure out a way to remove disruptive people from rp events.
Location: Rp can happen anywhere but finding nice locations can be hard. I have noticed that in the newer xpacs there are very few rp “friendly” places or even places that look like people would live there. Cities, villages, towns, hobo camps, abandoned places, random sitting areas, gardens or anything that can be used as a backdrop. In older zones you have all these different settings but players tend to be in the new zones.
So I would like to see some intentional design with RP zones. These zones can vary is scale but ideally they would be places not hard to find but not too close to major hubs to lag them out. Places with a few npcs around to make them feel alive.
Tools: RP really does not needs much just some people willing to do it but a few tools can add to the overall feel of it. TRP3 is a really good addon but for people just trying out rp not too many people want to download an addon for that. Basic character pages would help, even if you are not on an rp server. Those pages can be used to place any information a players wants the community at large to know. Toys and reusable items that add fun elements to rp. The noodle carts, reusable feast, chairs, and etc are good starts but having something like tents, bar carts, workstations would be nice. Reducing or removing the cooldown on some toys would be nice as well. Transmog is also a tool for rp but the restrictions on items do not allow for as much customization as possible. I am not saying remove gear type or class restriction but remove things like level, rep, profession restrictions. Allow for grey/ white items to transmoggable as well. There many people that have low level characters that only are for rp, banking, or whatever else so removing those restrictions would free up more options for them.
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i used to think rp was a joke because people made fun of it, then i decided to check out one of the rp realms like wymrest or moonguard and went into cities to see what people were doing
some of their storylines and immersion put the current game story to shame
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Thanks for linking the article! It did notify me 
I look forward to reviewing all of your commentary and the responses here. I will try to incorporate everyone’s thoughts as best I can in a follow up response in the WoW Council thread.
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I used to be deep into the RP community through MoP. Ever since I came back in Legion, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to come across RP in the open world… even going to the usual tavern locales and such, I either almost never see anyone, or I see people obviously RPing in party chat. 
I agree that separating RPers off in their own “game mode” is a horrible idea, though. Would make it even harder to come across RP than it already is.
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Thanks for adding your thoughts to our responses to the Council forum thread, Mornah.
On the subject of events hosted by groups that dont want to be disrupted by non rpers or rpers who arent “filled in on the event” running into them, I believe you misunderstood our concern. (Although I can only see these posts and dont know what was mailed to you in-game. )
The concern as I read others posts, and as I’M concerned, is that an “rp mode” would give these players MORE control over an even more isolated RP community, and make those who opted into it vulnerable to their efforts to control everything.
RP needs to be completely public on RP servers to AVOID this happening. It also needs to be public so new players who dont know what RP is all about can see it at work. An RP mode would trap rpers with charismatic ill intentioned players and cut them off from growing their community. I would be highly suspicious of the motivations of a player who was in favor of or opposed to rp mode to avoid the notice of other players and, indeed, other Rpers.
The open world is HUGE, there’s no reason players hosting events cant do it somewhere out of the way of griefers or rpers who arent clued in…but griefing shouldnt be a problem in the first place, hence the need for one click harassment reporting.
We already have “a place” to do our thing, RP servers. We dont need an RP mode to fix problems with RP, we need more support from Blizzard for the playmode and its designated servers.
On vote to kick- please, NO. One bad apple with a ton of charisma can swarm victims with the votes of their supporters and abuse such a system to abuse other rpers into submission. (This already basically happens with social pressure so we know what it looks like) We already have report tools. We just need Blizz to act when we use them.
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I don’t remember where I read it, but somebody posted an idea for an “RP mode” similar to war mode.
The general idea was to allow roleplayers to wander around mob infested zones, without any worry of mob aggro, or to have hostile zones become “friendly” ones.
I know being max level erases the threat of mobs wandering into, or even affecting your rp, but it takes me out of it when I have to stop typing to arcane explode on everything around the group.
A “blank map mode” for rp would be “cool” and RPers would eat it up, but I Don t think it’s worth the tradeoff of losing public exposure to attract new RPers. The RP community is dwindling, it doesnt need to become even more isolated.
I think this speaks a lot to the import of Blizzard utilizing blank space in the future, though, with “not so blank space”.
The revamp in Cata added some “easter egg rp areas” to unused expanses of the Map that are really cool- but it would be nice if they didnt feel like easter eggs, if they were less few and far between- literally. Every “location on the map” could really use at least one blank space- more for say cities, with empty buildings with functioning furniture and such where RPers could take the chance to get immersed with the area and each other without being in thr immediate way of other players, and the world could ironically feel more alive from the addition of “empty venues not empty spaces” as an alternative to just…gutting a shard of the map so rpers can hide in it.
The players who feel they would benefit from a blank map would probably benefit even more from properly realized player housing, anyway, without it consuming entire worlds on RP servers.
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