The RP Community Structure

Well, when you have cathedral mandated volunteer hour requirements…

Jokes aside, yes, this is part of the problem too. The general consensus I’ve experienced when putting together RP plots and bringing groups of players together through them is that, while campaigns and plots can be interesting, a lot of people are less likely to participate or they find the emotional/fun value is less when they do not already know people who are also participating. Then, for the people willing to start up a group that involves more casual events, they need people willing to participate in them. Which, when WrA is touted as the guild campaign realm, is unlikely to be found at the moment. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. The easiest solution would be a couple of MG guilds of various types (like what you listed) to transfer over and for other individual/solo RPers to follow suit of their own will and interest, but that’s unlikely to happen because… it’s a cycle. It’s also a risk and a lot of work, with not a whole lot of initial return. It’s an unfortunate problem with no actual easy solution.

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It means you need a collection of people willing to invest time and effort with no immediate payoff instead of simply following where the reeds blow for instant gratification.

So basically we have to pray for a miracle.

I can put in all the work myself but only from the angle of what time I can spare in between my busy guild schedule. All I can say is that I would rather take a straight razor to my finger flaps than transfer to MG.

I feel similarly. I honestly have had 0 drive to play DF if it means I cannot also casually RP on WrA-A, but I lack the time to manage what would amount to multiple casual recurring events and/or guild(s) simultaneously. I could do one or two, maybe, and that would be if I cut down on DMing other things. I won’t lie— I have been considering it, especially since people have generally returned for DF, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Cross-realm hosting is not something I ever did.

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We don’t want server canon here. Imagine being told that you can’t have a priest character because you’re not RPing them as part of the “official” clergy. Or that your group wants to go clear something sinister out of Grim Batol, only to be told it’s already been done 2 weeks ago by someone else’s guild “officially” and there’s nothing down there now. Server canon would put too many restrictions on guilds and players to stay within pre-established guidelines put in place by guilds and committees with stronger voices.

The server RP WrA has had in the past and currently have been well done for the most part. If someone wants to take part, they do. If they don’t, no one is telling them that they ICly need to acknowledge another group’s actions before doing their own. That’s how it should be. If someone wants to RP that the KorKron trials here never happened, no one is stopping them and no one really cares.

Our best bet currently for RP on WrA to keep moving forward is to schedule and advertise RP events where everyone can see them. Right now, a few hit the forums, even fewer hit trade chat. There are 19 events listed on the Wyrmrest Community Project Discord, including taverns and the story circle. Some of these advertise here, but not everyone knows about the Discord. If I mention it in trade chat, I get whispers from RPers asking me the URL and 3-4 people join every time. We have interested RPers. We just need to work on giving them events and resources.

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This is always a plight for Discords— lack of awareness. Thank you for advertising the WCP, and I’m glad it works out well for it! That reminded me that I should probably give a friendly bump to the WCP thread.

Since moving to MG I’m pretty indifferent about the server canon lore stuff they do. There’s a lot of them and honestly I get all the acronym groups mixed up anyway.

Vigilants is mostly made up of former WRA people so we just say we’re totally not a cult but a tax exempt organization and don’t pay no taxes and also yell a buncha dumb sovereign citizen takes and how their laws don’t apply to us lmao. People still RP with us at our public events and we just do our guild thing and no one shows up and tells us we’re not allowed to do this or that because this group already done it “officially”.

Anyway not defending or disparaging, just tossing in my 2 cents since it’s just something I hear about in passing sometimes being on MG. CSPAN RP is definitely not for me but people can do w/e with teir $15

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This.

It’s been years+s+s+s since I’ve bothered to even look at the MG forums, let alone log into MG on a lvl 1 I created years ago to buy stuff off their AH.

I don’t know if it’s changed, but I remember the way their server canon worked and that is one of the million reasons I am here and not there.

Yes, I wish WrA was a little more open-world busier and offered more casual RP, but lack of it has never caused me to consider moving servers.

To each their own.

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It also feels more complicated than simply that WRA people moved to MG, even though there was a huge series of exodus’s in the closing months of BFA and all throughout Shadowlands. It wasn’t that these people hated WRA and wanted to leave, it’s just because they thought they had no other option to get RP or keep their guilds alive and now see no reason to make the change back.

It’s…frustrating, to put it in the kindest possible terms I can.

I could write an entire essay of thought on why this happened but it does genuinely feel like the toxicity which we rightfully deride it for has actually kept it alive. Yeah sure those guys are buttholes and suck but they’re still forming a foundational pillar of public RP that WRA doesn’t have.

The Kor’kron Trials was one of the most unintentionally hilarious things to ever happen to this server.

Kor’kron players bullied people relentlessly, pushed them around and used their status as “bad guys” to coerce people in awful ways. And everyone went along with it because the Kor’kron players kept promising that they’d stick to the consequences they were given after MoP wrapped up three years and change after Kor’kron RP became a thing.

And then, like everyone knew, when the trials actually happened, most Kor’kron RPers deleted their characters, switched names or just went “nah” and went on with their merry lives.

There were some who were like “no I did suffer consequences, see how I hurt my fingee ;(” but most people were incredibly bitter toward the entire concept afterward. Which is justified. But also justified would be bitterness toward the self because we all went along with it.

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How does the much-maligned “server canon” of MG even work

I’ve never seen MGers on their forums presenting documents about the official “canon” state of the world or anything. Is it just randos trying to bully people, or is there actually, um, some sort of canon cabal on MG compiling it all.

To people who RP on MG currently, is this really something that comes up a lot?

When they do discuss it they seem to think it is just as niche and misguided as Kor’kron lore or whatever

The one controversial canon-y project mentioned in that thread is something called the Stormwind Law Project, which itself explicitly states in its rules that it is opt-in–but IDK anything about it and maybe this policy is not enforced properly.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vtdWCONISS_LJSmSWV4cf-HtQF7rHCr0lpPzxJ3QLiI/edit#heading=h.vkpgj667ksl

Server canon seems to vary slightly in definition depending on whom you ask, but in general I think a lot of people use that term to refer to server projects that get a lot of traction.

The big ones I can think of over on MG are the Stormwind Law Project (SLP), Stormwind Crown Authority (I think this one is/was an offshoot of the SLP and may or may not still be around), Conquest, and two Horde-side communities that I’m not sure have names but that I often see being referred to as “old” and “new” Horde projects.

Interestingly enough, if you consider this to be partially server canon or at least a precursor or symptom of server canon, WrA has embraced similar concepts in recent years with YoTS, Y36, Ascension, Helping Hands, and now Y40. These things all vary in size of course, but they at least all share in common a thread of gathering people into an organized, multi-guild project that agrees upon certain story points that have effects on the greater narrative and that they all choose to acknowledge even if those story points don’t show up in any official Blizzard publications.

Of course, on both servers, these projects are opt-in. No one has to acknowledge them or participate. Yet they do, rather inarguably, present challenges and come with pros and cons. On the plus side, they create environments for story-driven RP that entire groups agree upon and see development with. On the downside, they create division between those choosing to opt in versus those who opt out. This same sort of thing happens on different scales (guilds, friend groups, etc.), but when we’re talking about server canon, I think we’re specifically referring to the larger scale variety that can find itself orbiting around server projects.

As far as there being some kind of overarching agreement on what flies and what doesn’t that exists on MG but not WrA, I just don’t see it. My time on MG showed me that people in SW participating in the very aspect of the server most celebrated do whatever they want. And I mean whatEVER they want. Dream it up, and you’ll likely eventually run into it in Stormwind on MG. It doesn’t matter what fantasy or universe or whatever it’s from. People offering unsolicited criticism or malicious attacks on TRP profiles still exist, but that feels to me to be a more isolated, unrelated issue. There will always be those types about. Maybe they’re encountered a bit more on MG purely as a function of the size of the population and the increase in probability it brings for running into any particular thing.

Edit

I should also mention that one of the reasons drama has swirled around MG’s server projects at certain points in the past is due to the size and influence some of them have achieved. My own time on the server and personal observation of the SLP during one or two periods showed me that to opt out was quite often to choose just not to RP. There were so many people opting in that finding those who weren’t became challenging. Of course, it didn’t stay that way forever, but it was something to deal with in the moment. I also read accounts from many people who had tried participating in it only to detach from it later (for various reasons good and bad) who then found it challenging carrying on with RP because of the challenge of avoiding the projects.

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This is pretty much what i’ve felt and seen. You might get one very “passionate” person about lore snark at you in dms or say chat over your character on wra, but on mg it’s a toss up of one person plus their friends/guild showing up to harass you.

I wasn’t even rping anything out there when the above happened, someone was just mad about me rping my mage in “their spot” and suddenly they’re telling the area in yell chat to false flag me so I can get silenced. Granted, this was several years ago now. More recently, I’ve idled around on a meme name and the worse i’ve gotten is inappropriate whispers I wasn’t asking for.

I should mention I used to be on MG before SLP and I think back then the server lore groups was a bit more invasive into people’s day to day RP. A lot of people declaring themselves the owner and ruler of places in the game and things like that. I didn’t personally deal with it but I remember seeing LORD OF WESTFALL and KING OF ALTERAC and stuff like that.

I didn’t have much success at the time on MG because guilds back then had extremely strict attendance policies and my work scheduled prevented me from making most of them. I totally get not wanting people to dump their unplayed alts into your guild but also you’re not a raid guild so what the heck?

I also remember there was BIG DRAMA when a buncha server lore groups decided to fire the dwarf pope after he logged off. It blew up on the MG forums and it was probably the funniest chronically online thing I ever read.

I have RP’d with folks that do the law project stuff and it’s been fine. No one was like RESPECT MY AUTHORITY and got all bossy and weird. Usually it just means they have a buncha acronyms in their TRP. There’s SLP but then there’s like SCA Feyahni mentioned and just a buncha more that I just can’t keep track of.

I don’t doubt there’s probably infighting within and between the different acronym groups, we’re all a buncha chronically online weirdos playing make believe in a boomer MMO.

That said, if you are on MG and want to RP with people that are a fringe group because we don’t pay taxes we’re a tax exempt organization and your laws don’t apply to me, Vigilants is right here. Did I mention we’re totally not a cult but PRAISE TYR

One thing that hasn’t helped WrA-H is the silly server shards. It’s everywhere in game except Org and SW. That has severely hampered the ability to have many RP hubs that used to exist prior to that. I remember when Silvermoon and Thunder Bluff, specifically, were packed places to find random RP and make new friends/join guilds but long gone are those days. As a result you’re sort of pigeonholed in the creation of new characters especially if you don’t already have a fitting guild for them. If you’re a tribal Bloodhoof Tauren, for example, for what reason and purpose would you be hanging out in downtown Orgrimmar all day?

I love WrA and will probably never leave even though just about all my guild has gone over to MG-A but it can be disheartening when you look at the bigger picture, and have to join a new guild where you know nobody and are unfamiliar with their guild culture just to find RP. It takes the organic evolution of roleplay out of the equation. In my opinion.

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Brb about to declare Thomas the EMEPEROR OF DUSKWOOD

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GLORY TO THE UNDYING EMPEROR OF DUSKWOOD! HIS REIGN WILL BE ETERNAL!

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As a “newer” person and guild on WrA, there’s infinitely more RP opportunities than on our dead server. We stayed there for years there in hopes of a merge or free transfers but none came. When we finally transferred, we did it two months before the lawsuit news hit. So we’re new-ish in the sense that we took our first WoW guild hiatus then since 2007 and came back recently.

Our server had its final mass exodus to WrA and MG in Warlords of Draenor. Even back then, the “MG is Alliance, WrA is Horde” designations still existed, but we chose WrA specifically in 2021 because we didn’t want a server that was overrun, had too stringent of server Lore, or had less room for opportunity. WrA seemed a better fit, it’s Alliance population was supposedly smaller but still healthy, and its culture suited us better than MG.

When the lawsuit happened and WrA was at the forefront of the in-game protests, even appearing in Forbes magazine with our huge group in Oribos, it felt like we finally made it. This is the kind of population and energy we wanted.

But it seems that just like we took a hiatus after that and 60 - 70% of us returned to WoW (the rest remain in GW2 or FFXIV), WrA is similar. Not everyone has returned to WoW, and word-of-mouth is powerful. If anyone asks on the forums where to find RP, “Moonguard is Alliance, Wrymrest is Horde” is the predominant answer, even by non-RPers. So for every returning player finding less people to hang with on their old servers, going to the places with more population is going to be a no-brainer.

To combat this, letting our own forums speak for themselves is major. Specifically: Posting outside of Discord. It was mentioned above in the thread, but Discords aren’t the first place people look for server health — it’s the forums. There’s been a definite increase of guild and RP event advertising here, and there’s always been good RPer/Lore banter in the short time I’ve been a member. One of the biggest mistakes our old server made was abandoning its server forums to trolls early on, and it’s something it never recovered from. When we tried to course correct it, too few people took it on and it was too late. Back then, it was less Discord that was the problem vs. community sites that replaced server forums altogether. These were community projects I loved when they first started, then became increasingly less supportive of when I started to see how they hermitted and stemmed the flow of new people to the RP community. A visitor would come to my old server forums, see nothing, and assume it was dead. Eventually, those forum visitors were right.

For my part, been jumping into existing walk-up RP and also helping start anchors in SW. While I’ve always been a big world RPer myself, I understand what it takes to make connections and bring new folks to a server, because I’ve been in a place where I watched the opposite. I’ve also been ideating on event ideas that would be more about making connections vs. guild promotion, because although we want new folks, we also want the community we chose to keep being fun and vibrant. Threads like this with open, sometimes raw conversation help me understand where things are, where me and my guild can fit, and where I can help.

But I also stress two things: First, embrace who/what you are, because it will come most naturally, and people gravitate to people having genuine fun. Second, and antethical to the first at first glance but follow me: Don’t be afraid to step one shade out of your comfort zone, as it sometimes can expand your who/what, and help others as well. So continue rocking at what you excel at, and add something new as a way to scale up and raise up WrA as well.

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Hey all! Is there any mods for the WrA Community Project in here? I tried to join the Discord server, and unfortunately, it blocked me because it thought I was a bot because I had no avatar. I am actually a WrA RP veteran dating back to 2009-10. Just now getting back into the game and seeing that the scene is thriving is amazing. Would love to get back into the community and contribute!

I don’t have a main character, per se’. There is Sadgati on WRA and my other 3 toons on Tichondrius. The issue I come across on PVE more now is players will complain about not having anyone to run with. I’ll offer to Btag, sometimes accepting. Those who do Btag seem to never really want to run anything. There seems to be far better luck finding players on PvP.

I suggest asking in the WCP thread! I hope someone can connect with you soon.