RP Preservation - All Realms

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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I know that this topic has been brought up in various ways, but I want to bring it up again as we sit in the in between, where really if people are playing, its repeat content.

In the last 6 years or so (give or take depending what server you are on) the RP activity has drastically declined. There are a lot of reasons, and I am not here to debate those reasons, but I am still of the mind that quantity of players actually RP is where the strength of a server is found.

I will clarify that I am not saying small RP is not great, but in my years of experience, the most robust opportunities in RP was when there was such a quantity, that you could find your niche, or characters like yours to RP with in large numbers. More than 1 guild per race, guilds dedicated to specific categories (pirates, dark magic, cults, etc). Its a little sad to see some of these awesome profiles for these characters, and there just not be a place for them IF they want to be apart of a group.

I think that it is time that we discuss realistically the idea of requesting free transfers for RP guilds on low / medium pop servers. I understand that Blizzard might think this is a crazy idea, but why not try, and further more start asking guilds if they wont offer it up from one RP server to another, then paying for it and committing to a move.

There was a time, particularly on Emerald Dream where there was an awesome balance of Horde and Alliance, RP and RPPVP was going full force, and it felt… really fun. Imagine if WRA and MG were together with their active populations, it would be amazing to log in on either side and be able to walk into a city and RP.

There has to be at least one healthy thriving guild of RPers or more on each other these RP servers, and if we could condense those RP guild to 3 or 4 servers (or 1, that would be AMAZING) I think we would see the community built up again.

I hope between the big three fairly often, and there are amazing community leaders on each, and I think given a push from the right people and places. We could get it done.

So, my first idea is that we petition blizzard to allow all low/medium pop RP servers free transfers to the top 3 servers, MG could be free to horde only, WRA to alliance, and ED prolly both.

I want to get a ball rolling, and if the least we get done is get a couple dozen guilds to transfer to create community, then that would be a huge success.

Lastly, I am not here to argue the merit of different ideas, as there have been MANY great ideas proposed in the past, I am just asking for more of a rallying cry to preserve something that has been bleeding out for years…Also not playing the blame game for WHY it happened!

Thanks for the input, and if you support something like this, start talking to friends, discords and reaching out to the community leaders on your servers!

2 Likes
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I am not here to argue in any form or way, though i feel moon guard can be great, if we can get the elites to tone down how they think your character should be rped.

Honestly what you mentioned could be a great start. Or even shall i mention allowing rp guilds and toons to be on the same shared realm regardless of server, and allow them to join guilds on different servers.

Or something similar.

But 100% agree they need to do something

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You can request all you want to.

But you’re asking Blizzard not to charge money and that’s not going to happen.

The only thing they care about is the subs and the monetization and you’re asking them to forgo a good chunk of monetization for something that’s not going to bring them profit down the line.

Blizzard gives barely a nickel about the roleplaying community and you’re asking them to forgoe a dime.

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thanks for the input…

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I appreciate your suggestion and desire. The problem I see is Blizzard is in the business of making money for its Stakeholders. PVE makes them money, RPers do not. Free transfers do not.

If we want to make things better, we have to work on having a more welcoming environment to make people want to join RP servers or learn to RP. I see people dump all over players that don’t have good enough TRPs and even say ‘new to RP’ because they are jerks. Plain and simple. The #1 hindrance to roleplay is roleplayers. Help someone new learn, have grace in doing so, and make big stories that are not all just slice of life real life replacement RP. Bring back the magic and spark of adventure.

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Youre just speaking to a smaller problem. You cant begin to address these things if we are scattered to the wind. We gotta convince everyone to be in one or two places first.

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I understand the desire and my main concern with the practicality of this idea has already been addressed multiple times regarding the monetary concerns that Blizzard would take. Before we worry about trying to shift and balance populations I think a better solution would be to rework the Roleplaying Server grouping and allow some way to temporarily “visit” other roleplaying servers, perhaps adding a new room or npc in the Portal room to do so?

The more player community centric concern that we would need to address is the difference in “Server Culture”, especially regarding roleplaying methodology. Now of course my information is slightly out of date as I’ve only been playing Horde WrA as of late, but I remember not that long ago there was a stark difference between MG and WrA regarding “Server Lore”. Where MG had wonderfully dedicated individuals who would conduct serverwide events, and then record them on free to access third party websites as something that “had happened”. While there is nothing wrong with an agreed upon Server Lore, as far as I’ve noticed WrA still maintains an “individualist” style of story telling where no one is expected to always agree upon player driven lore.

I fear that even if Blizzard offered Roleplayers free, or even compensated transfers to balance faction and server populations, that the difference in cultures would cause dissonance. Whether that is better than the current dwindling in interest I cannot say, but i think that the preservation of Roleplaying requires two fronts.

First Blizzard must write more engaging stories that inspire players to explore their own characters interations with it, as well as characters that inspire nonroleplaying players to try creating a character themselves.
We as Players in the meantime, must push forward in creating stories and engaging our communities. It is difficult and disheartening ti post server or cross guild/faction events that have little to no turn out, but as long as even flopping events are kept alive those players that remain will hopefully be inspired to take another crack at roleplaying.

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That’s simply NOT going to happen. Active roleplayers have their set communities where they are and they are comfortable with. They’re not going to move en masse to Someone else’s server.

And the vast majority of them have nothing to do with these boards.