(10-05-2013, 09:45 PM)CappnRob Wrote: [ -> ]Not entirely, Reigen. Most Alliance/Horde quests have "Minor" targets they destroy and win victory over- the only case I know of where a canon conflict arises is Swamp of Sorrows.
There's quite a few, actually.
In Ashenvale, Horde bombs Astranaar to destruction, Alliance meanwhile manages to put out all the fires and save the town. There's also the Warsong Lumber Camp there, which is rather important and either completely destroyed or saved depending on which side you're on. In Desolace, the Horde PC manages to single-handedly level the town of Nigel's Point, using some ancient magic ritual. The Horde questline manages to destroy one of its own posts in Stonetalon, thanks to Kromgar. There's a couple others, but several relatively major posts get wrecked in the canon storylines.
That all said...
The lack of RP for a while can be attributed to a few different factors, depending. There's a lot of red herrings out there that are symptoms of problems rather than the root of the problem itself. But, from looking at things, a few of my own thoughts:
People, both players and GMs, are not being active in the generation of interesting RP. We have too many people who want others to entertain them with events without wanting to step up and do it themselves. That's not an attempt at judging others, some don't have the desire or time to run events constantly. Nonetheless, it's a bit silly when there are multiple people on GMI that want RP, but apparently won't RP with one another because no one wants to take initiative to start something.
One issue that aggravates this is the focus players on wanting to "change the world" in some sense, which -generally- means "I want to alter canon lore in some sense." Now, I've explained the "no conquest RP" rule before in other threads, but let me reiterate one particular point here because I think it's the most relevant: one of the biggest things we don't want to see is being in a situation where players have to read a small novel to understand the server's own lore. This is part of what differentiates ourselves from a place like Prologue, where the lore is so heavily altered that it is essentially no longer recognizable as Warcraft. So CotH is there to provide that welcoming stability. After all, it is logical that if someone is looking for a World of Warcraft RP server, then it is likely that they want to RP in the world of Warcraft.
Some people speak fondly of things like the Sin'sholai, the old Arathi Wars, etc. etc. But what I remember most is the large number of people who signed up for CotH, saw all of the strange changes to the lore, and then immediately turned and left. CotH should be easy to get into. Nonetheless, this is an issue that is lowering the numbers of events run, because players want to affect the world. I've seen plenty of excellent events that can be run without affecting canon lore areas, however, and most everything, even "conquest" to an extent, can be done using the custom areas we have.
On the other hand, we have another issue that is contributing and also conflicting with it. World of Warcraft has been seeing a steady decline of players recently, and it is only logical that we would get some decline as well. Interest in the Warcraft setting is waning, whether it be because of greener pastures elsewhere or the simple fatigue of being invested in a game that's been around for almost nine years old now, the setting itself being far older, almost nineteen years. Combined with the (being charitable here) mediocre lore quality of Warcraft in the first place, there's no real surprise that interest is now dropping.
Personally speaking, I've never found the Warcraft setting -that- compelling. I liked the idea of it more than the execution itself, and what I have invested in it has honestly been destroyed with the lore of Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria. So, my own inactivity stems from a complete lack of interest in the setting. MoP's lore killed all interest I had in actually RPing in WoW.
TL;DR: We're in a situation with two conflicting forces bearing down that's causing a drop of interest, both the desire to avoid being too different from Warcraft so as to not be unwelcoming, but also not being too similar because of the declining interest in Warcraft and the inappropriate lore of the setting. I'm personally stuck in that situation myself: I loathe the canon lore for WoW, but equally dislike the idea of completely rewriting it due to the fact we'd then we trying too much to be like Prologue. While I'm sad to say it, it's true: I am at the point where I would not be sad if CotH were to close its doors. Thankfully, that is not my decision, but Kretol's. But, I can't help but to think that one of CotH's biggest problems right now is the lack of RP interest by both of its administrators, and the general inactivity by the GMs in keeping events running regularly.