((The state of RP on ED))

[Scylica]

((Many of you do not know me yet as I am new to the guild and the Horde-side, but I am far from new to Emerald Dream. I was playing here since about a month after server launch on alliance side until I transferred off about a year ago. I was here through the 'Golden Age' of RP on the server on that side. I was an officer in both the Knights of the Old Code and the Kingship of the East. Now my question right now has multiple parts.

I was reading the realm forums the other day (and yes I know to take everything there with a couple grains of salt). What stuck out to me was a post that said that Horde-side RP is kind of stagnant right now. It came off that, yes there are many RPers in guilds like ours and Blackmoon Tribe, but we are all missing large events and spontaneous RP that used to be here. Now obviously I am new to the Horde-side here so I haven't seen what it was like from a direct perspective. I do remember that we used to have co-faction events which would involve a scheduled assault of Duskwood or Tarren Mill. Of course things like that are just one area in a large pool of things that could happen with both factions. I remember events that we used to run over on alliance side that got a lot of people involved. There would be guilds that would run taverns weekly, there would be time (think date) auctions where people would bid for the time of certain individuals. The time could be used either as a RP date or running the other person through instances or tanking/healing/DPSing heroics etc... I personally, ran a dueling school which had tons of interest.

My question is, how much of this goes on now? A lot? Just a little? None?
Second... How much interest is out there to bring back the RP (if it is as gone as the forums suggest)?

Personally, when I get to higher levels, I would love to spearhead or join a group to spearhead the revival of healthy RP on ED.

-Scylica Shadowfire))

[Aitana]

(( In my opinion the RP on Emerald Dream is stagnate, but it is still there. I believe there are several reasons for this:

1. Raiding, Arenas and Battlegrounds
Many people have made it to 70 and are tied up in raiding. Raiding is a huge time sink. Not only does it take a lot of time to actually raid an instance, it also takes time to gather mats for consumables, get upgrades from heroics and gather badges and so forth in order to do progression. That takes away time from planning or attending RP events. It can even make it hard to RP at all because RP takes time as well. There are similar issues with formal PvP. There is grinding that is required to get the gear and consumables to be successful at it. It too is a time sink that interferes with time for RP.

People in small RP guilds suddenly discover how hard it is to gather the resources and people to raid. They make friends with people in raiding guilds. If they're any good, they end up leaving their RP guild for a raiding guild. I saw this many times over when I was an officer in <The Twilight Umbrage> both within that guild and also as an outsider watching events unfold in <The Sacred Hunt>, <Pack Spirit>, and <Howlitzer>. I have turned down people that wanted to join <Nyx> from those guilds and suggested that they stay in their RP guilds and just raid with us. I don't want to steal members from other guilds. In the end it didn't help. The members left anyway and went to raiding guilds. Even <Nyx> is not immune to this. We are an RP guild that raids so we don't raid like a raiding guild does (no mandatory raid attendance requirements unless a person chooses to sign up, less time spent raiding when we do raid, fewer raids). Consequently, we don't progress as fast as we could otherwise. We have lost members to more progressed raiding guilds because of that, most recently last night.

2. Griefers
I like to do random RP with whoever I happen to interact with, player or NPC. And as a result I have been cursed and verbally abused for it. I know other people that have received the same treatment, and even kicked from groups for simple, innocuous RP comments. It's rare that I ever get to have an IC interaction where some noob doesn't feel the need to dance on the table or try to disrupt what is going on. Some people actually come here specifically for the purpose of griefing RP-ers. It gets tiresome reporting griefers. People with thinner skins than mine get driven underground.

3. Age
I don't mean calendar age of individuals, but age of the server and the length of time people have been playing here or even playing WoW. On the Emerald Dream forums Woodwylde from <The Smalls Clan> talked about becoming jaded. While he is on the Alliance side, I think it is true for many on the Horde side as well. Nothing seems new and it's lost it's sparkle for some people. Emerald Dream lost a lot of good RP-ers to Moon Guard, but it is at least a year younger than Emerald Dream. I suspect that over time they will have the same issues other RP servers do with a perceived lack of RP.

4. Somebody else's responsibility
I have also seen the issue at different times where there is an expectation that "they" are supposed to RP and organize RP events. The problem is that all too often nobody knows who "they" are. "They" are supposed to RP and because "they" aren't RP-ing, I have seen people claim that RP is completely dead on Emerald Dream on the forums and in general chat and in trade chat. But who are "they"? The guild leaders? Members of RP guilds? People who organized things in the past? Anybody but "me"?

Then there is the problem where people have great ideas and do nothing. Once again "they" come into the picture. "They" are supposed to get their act together and implement the ideas, but if we wait for "them", I am sure nothing is going to happen since we don't even know who "they" are.

5. Expectaions
Another issue that goes along with this has to do with what a person's expectations are from RP. If my character is standing there waiting for a zepplin, chances are she will stand there quietly. That means there won't be a lot of conversation or even emotes. That is still RP as I am in character. But it is not in-your-face RP. Some people will completely miss it as being what it is though.

Another issue with expectations has to do with people that organize events and get discouraged when they don't get the turn-out they expected. Many people say they want more RP events, but when the time comes, few of them actually attend. To be a successful event leader a person has to be very thick skinned, have some skill at wrangling cats, be very organized, guard against grandiose expectations, and be very flexible. I have been to several of events that I thought were great, but the leader felt he or she had failed because they didn't go as planned, and the leader refused to organize anything more ever again.


Still having said all that, there is RP to be found both as planned events and individual interactions. The battle in Feralas was great from what I heard, although I couldn't make it. <Pack Spirit> is back in business with their Bull and Bear events. <Nyx> is working on restarting our full moon events; the next one is on WoW-Raidar.com and you'll hear more about it as it gets closer to the time. When I am interested in RP, particularly when I go fishing on as Aitana, in guild chat I invite anybody who's interested to join me. Sometimes somebody takes me up on it and sometimes not.

If anybody in <Nyx> has an idea for an RP event or would like to lead one, talk to an officer. We would love to help support you in that. I would also like to see more RP that gets started on the forums here and acted out in game.))

[Warburn]

Aitana listed all the reasons RP has stagnated. However for me personally none of those matter. As a roleplayer, I RP as much as possible, or at least as much as I feel like. Usually even in gchat. With every lowby I encounter, even in trade - I have a trade spam macro that generates "fan whispers" as well as "griefer whispers" (the latter being the minority). When I meet a customer in person for doing enchants I conduct the deal completely in character. Occasionally some of the above turns into a spontaneous RP session on the org bank, or anywhere we happen to be.

Nyx hosts about 1 RP event per month on average, sometimes more. It's ultimately up to the players to attend. It's too bad that when we have an RP event scheduled and many members online, no-one is willing to stop their battleground or heroic run and come attend - even though it's an event that has been advertised at least a week in advance.

I am guilty of that myself. I can't schedule my life based on in-game event schedules. So if an awesome RP event is at a time I can't logon, I miss out. For this reason I like forum RP. Anyone can attend anytime they want. We have developed our guild lore that way, with in-game events that tie into our forum RP story.

The harvest festival world event just started. This will be our 3rd year in a row doing an RP tribute march to Grom Hellscream's memorial. And also in less then a week we will have our 6th ever Full Moon Festival - which was originally meant to run every month, but hasn't. I suspect that when there are too many RP events close together on the calander people take them for grnated or simply don't want to devote that much time to RP time.

Anyay, I look forward to hearing what sort of events you'd like to plan as well as to see you in-game for some random RP.

[Leothiel]

Even I have become complacent about RP. There are bright spots for RP. My biggest idea of RP is when you do it, jump right in and don't give a care what others think. I did some spontaneous RP at the harvest festival table in front of Orgrimmar. I also responded to a "sup noob?" question by getting into character. I don't report RP griefers: They have a place on my ignore list.

[Voltaere]

This is a good topic. My RP experience has been a bit different. I started on PvE, and got bored - wasn't there more? So I did research - lots of it - and ended up on RP-PvP server and joined Nyx. Joining a RP-PvP server was the best decision I have made in WoW, joining Nyx the next best decision. It re-kindled my interest in the game. I joined not because i thought i would ever be raiding, but because i wanted a place to explore my character further. I really enjoy the stress free RP atmosphere in Nyx. And of course, I am a PvP addict.

But something has happened in the last few months - I have become bored with WoW, and so i play less. I also have been personally neglegent on my RPing - I am ooc in gchat more often than not these days. I am hoping LK will inspire me more - perhaps a good shake-up of my character is in order to get that fire in my belly again. Hmmmm....

[Ulua]

Personaly as an aspiring writer this is good practice for me to RP. I joined this server for a reason and the guild specifically. So all i can say is that we can only control our actions, lets RP as much as we want. Ignore the haters! If Nyx schedules a RP event u can count Ulua in as long as RL doesn't call on me. Remember, im a latenighter cuz of time differences.

Aloha Nui Nu