Conquest of the Horde

So, you can tell from the color of my name (and the handy-dandy title) that I am a mere peon, prancing through my first month of gameplay and forum-frolicking in the lovely CotH.

In my first few weeks, I have found the community filled with fun, engaging, creative, and patient people. Many of you grunt-level, 80s-toon-having darlings seem to offer handfuls of gold to some of the more vocal nooblets like myself when we start shrilling about leveling (which you also patiently remind us isn't necessary on this server).

However, I find I love to blend my roleplaying with my leveling, and that can be hard to do when you are under-dressed and scrimping every last copper you can find. Let's not forget the wider range of roleplay areas you can populate at level 80 without dying horribly to a rogue bear or spider (I'm looking at you, Scarlet Crusade event from last week... >_o Man that was embarrassing to RP-fight through vicious undead only to be one-shotted by a plaguelands spider... twice).

Okay, let me get to my point. I had this idea while running around stabbing things joyfully on my rogue, and considering I am currently fueled by wicked amounts of insomnia and caffeine (and the flu...), this idea is not entirely thought out, so I really need input, suggestions, etc.

An in-game charity that offers gold to peon characters. And that's the oversimplification. Let me offer you some bullet points on the matter:

• All interactions between donators and receivers must be IN CHARACTER. For example, once my charitable priestess, Sister Dana Whitelace, can be rocketed to 80, she will be holding events to give 5-20g to "the needy of Stormwind" or wherever she'd like to start doling out little bits of charity. In order to receive it, one must approach her with any (non-80) character and interact ICly. None of this "hai kan i hav 100000g plzkthx lolloololollolololololol" nonsense.
  
• This can be run both Ally- and Horde-side, as I plan to also rocket my Tauren druidess to 80 once my gruntship is approved. "Serving the destitute of the Undercity" or "Feeding the Calves of Mulgore" and the like are just as viable as "Planting Crops for Westfall".
  
• I find that a little charity goes a long way!
  • Lowbies who are shown charity are likely to stick around the server longer
    
  • This gives us all yet another chance for roleplay! Which will also encourage the RP-less new folk (like me) to stick around for more fun roleplaying!
• This also has the potential to become a guild (cross-faction or sister guilds) for those with religious characters and the like, which could then be used as, say, community service for those who broke the law and were caught, etc etc...
  
• It would become a fun new way to meet more RPers and more characters!

Like I said, this idea isn't fleshed out at all. I need thoughts, advice, input, and honesty. Does this just sound like an absolutely terribad idea? Tell me why! (Respectfully, kthx). Has this idea already been done? Done to death? Did it work/not work and why? TELL ME EVERYTHING, MY DEAR COTH-IANS. <3

EDIT!
I thought I'd elaborate on the "why bother" part of this:

As a peon, I found that the smallest donation of 5g from a guild mate made all the difference in my gameplay.

Between wonderful bouts of roleplaying, I then have the option to level because that small chunk of change was enough for me to buy a few pieces of the no-level-restriction dungeon sets available on GMI, as well as my abilities.

I know that we don't want to encourage an "all-gameplay-all-the-time mentality on here, but people who are peons do have to face level 80s in RP, reminding them that there are people who can go to Northrend without being horribly raped by NPCs, and who can group up and decide to go raiding, for the sheer fun of it -- and even do such things IC!

Meanwhile, the peon must wait patiently for their time. Some people would like to think they're doing something with those hours of time on CotH that is getting them closer to 80. Think of it as a placebo, if you will.

So, yes. Leveling may not be necessary, but it can be fun, and if we can squeeze some RP out of a kind act to help our new people, is it really all that bad?

Well, my character (Randian) has been promoting an IC charity - "Greystone Charities". See the Storylines section.

/end shameless plug

I think what needs to be remembered is to keep the freebies realistic and believable if done in character. If you give out fist fulls of gold then there should be some rationale behind it. ie. a rich person who has lost their desire for wealth, etc.. In the case of someone who needed clothing, what Randian and other members of Greystone would do is to perhaps introduce them to a tailor or someone with extra gold who needs a shopping partner. This way its not just "Here, take this" ending the RP, rather the RP is sustained and new people are met ICly.

Hmm.. wonder what ever happened to good 'ole "Pit"...

Pit's been stabbing things >_0 I need to be on when everyone else is on! *goes to check the Storylines section*

Also, good point. I need to have a better IC reason than "lul I am a priestess" to be nice. *nod*

For an out of character transfer, I do agree - even a little helps quite a bit. Being a guy and a peon, I initially had my character running around in whatever scraps he could salvage while questing until a kind soul (Evenal) gave me a fist full of gold OOCly so I could make him look like a priest xD.

I would say that I have no problem giving gold OOCly, however, if we're doing it IC you should consider the value of IC currency versus OOC. We usually aren't supposed to act like we have 3000 gold on us because it's in our bag and we got approved. That would put us to nobility status, I think, and if I recall a noble has to be approved before one can be RPed out.

So realistically a character might have a few gold, so to hand that out would be like giving a random stranger $50. I could see giving the needy a few coppers as change, but handing 5 gold isn't a very casual donation.

Also a good point, Wuvvums. I... clearly hadn't thought of that >_< Dang details!

I was thinking that, if I was to go through with this and get it off the ground, that it might have to be along the lines of (ICly) "anonymous donations to the church" that are then distributed out to the needy. Like I said, this is still a little germ of an idea, so more input could help me figure out the IC details a bit better.

Well, you could RP giving over a fist full of coppers, but really give a fist full of gold. Nobody would actually know...

But would that sort of behavior be frowned upon by other players? "I'm just going to pretend that this gold is copper". It seems okay to me (as roleplaying is all pretending and imagination anyway), but there's always a chance that I'm missing some key part to this idea and may raise some other players' hackles

Honestly, If you just asked, I'm pretty sure someone will set you up with some gold. If you need some for your leveling gear, just ask me IG, I'll most likely send you some if I have some on character.

McKnighter Wrote:Honestly, If you just asked, I'm pretty sure someone will set you up with some gold. If you need some for your leveling gear, just ask me IG, I'll most likely send you some if I have some on character.

Thanks for the offer! I appreciate it, but that's not the point, really >_0 It's more that I want to take something that seems commonplace (and a good thing to do, to boot) and turn it into a chance for fun roleplay.

I really really like this idea

I really like this idea also! I do, however, think it will be subject to extreme exploitation. There was a thread a while back talking about recieving OOC gold while a peon. Apparently (and this was before my time I might add, only been here for a bit over a year.) the GMs were giving out gold once ticketed. It was a mere one gold and people were still exlploiting it... I don't know, it just seems that some of our players might not be mature enough to handle it.

Anyway, just my two cents.

You do make a good point, Stormy. There's always a possibility for exploitation in any system where you give out free stuff to people... but I'd like to think most of the people on CotH aren't all that bad. (Let's see how far that gets me, hm? xD)

Really, the only thing I could do about it (and anyone else who wanted to participate) would be to ask someone for their forum name (OOCly) to make sure I don't give out tons of gold to someone over and over. Clearly there are flaws in this, too, but... eh. I'm hoping this might work. Damn you, positivism! I know people are, as a whole, assholes, but I like to pretend they're not. Especially in groups I like. :3

Haha, I understand. I would love to believe in the general goodness of people, but I just can't. There is so much immaturity even on CotH. I have witnessed it countless times, even by our veteran players, sometimes they can be even worse. Regardless, I have a char that is into all this goody-goody nonsense and would like to help out as soon as I can get my comp out of the shopzor.

Good luck with this idea!