Restricting RP! Rawr!

[Wuvvums]

I never really felt like rp was restricted. I don't mind if the world changes or if it doesn't, so long as there's something to rp.

That being said my biggest barrier and restriction to roleplay was just finding it. Sometimes I couldn't find that rp that just felt right but I decided to keep looking and try different things.

It should be noted that people assume they can't do anything but perhaps haven't tried it. A day before my absence, for example, me and a bunch of dwarf roleplayers strolled up into the Dark Iron's based, wrecked their crap, and ran away with an artifact. It was spontaneous and fun and some GMs were nice enough to phase us and spawn some enemies.

I think there's not as much restriction as we think there is. Instead, I feel like there just hasn't been enough attempts to try the roleplay we feel is restricted from us.

[Krent]

Like Krent, if you remember that charmer. (Krent, if you're reading this, you were a huge influence on my roleplaying and showed me serious character development and I will always be greatful for that.) For those of you who don't know who Krent the character was, Krent started out as a nineteen year old scout for the Stormwind Military. He was a green recruit, eager to please, and your good ol' fashioned kid next door sort of guy. He fought a Burning Legion warlock and survived, helped a convicted criminal escape public execution, fled Stormwind as a traitor, arrived in a Goblin town (I think, my memory's a little fuzzy here), and became a drug dealer/morally corrupt guy who only thought of himself and what sort of profit he could make. Mind you, this took place over months in real life. And this was what CotH was like. Demons were everywhere, the world was in chaos, and everyone on Azeroth had to fight back or die.

*blush*

...yeah, that was fun. I didn't even expect Krent to end up like that. I honestly thought he was gonna be good 'ol shonen anime hero, but instead he became a sick twisted bastard. With glasses.

ANYWAYS

I skimmed through the posts and I think I might have gotten the main points but I dunno things like these always make me laugh or hrngh or weird me out I can't seem to recall it really so if I miss someone's totally awesome valid point I apologize now I'm going to keep adding words to this sentence to make it as much of a run off as I can lalalalala today was nice and sunny in my area not too hot but warm, the kind of warm that makes ya feel all comfy inside but doesn't scorch off your flesh in an agonizing ray of pain.


ANNOUNCEMENT OF TEH PRESTIGERY REMOVEDED.

Uhhh. I think prestiges are silly. Rof's a rune master, but I ended up not doing anything with it. Part of that is because I'm so sad and ronery on this server (all the people I knew back in the day either got banned, rage quit, or moved on). The other part of it was that...it was a giant chore at times. Reading them RPG books. Talkin' to people about stuff. Crafting how to work them mechanics into the story that I was trying to write.

One giant chore.

I gotta say that I won't miss the system. It had it clinks and chanks and spider-wanks, as any system does. But I do agree with Grakky when he says it was a system that restricted RP in itself. It'd be cool if we'd be able to roll our own kinda class characters. Not create a custom class like "RAWR I AM A DEATH-GUN KNIGHT WHO DUAL WIELDS RUNED-OUT MASHEEEEN GUNZ" but more along the lines of having someone be able to say "Hey, I'm a rogue who likes to fight with a shotgun. A gun-slinger." without having that character have to fall into the niche of being a Gunman (capital G). And then having to explain why he became a gun man, describe his super hardcore mountain training, and all of the other assorted nonsense like that.

Can we getta system like that? One where ya say "Hay, you can do what'cha want, so long as its not ridiculous?".

And on the topic of power levels...I still have no idea how to approach that. I admit, I do a looooooot of work on my characters, and I always get sad-faised whenever I lose a fightan tournament due to rolls, especially when I try to put a lot of effort into my posts. But at the same time, I don't want to be one of those guys who forces his power-level onto others, by saying stuff like "OH IVE BEEN HERE A LONGER TIME THAN YOU SO I SHOULD HAVE AN AUTO ADVANTAGE". Because I feel like any guy could do that. Just roll a character who's all big and bad and then force his smegma onto others. And who wants that? Certainly not me. It'd stink, badly.


DENIAL OF THE CONQUEST OF THE HORILLIANCE

I've been churning this idea over my head for quite some time, at random hours in random intervals. And I kinda think that maybe we've been handling events in sort of the wrong way. Every time something goes down on this server, its big. Bigger than big. Its huge. Gets a lot of headlines, gets a lot of talk, makes everyone wanna come in to have fun. That's what all the big conquest wars have been. Either big one-day events that take up a good amount of hours, or a week-long thing where everyone sits around a custom area until the bell gets sounded for ROUND ONE.

Now, as I've said before, I love stuff like this. I love when stuff is happening. When the world changes. Yeah, sometimes it goes horribly wrong, but I don't think that should be any reason why we shouldn't do it. The whole reason why I got into private RP servers was because I thought retail was lame. Remember Onyxia? Yeah. That whole big quest line where ya got to uncover a whole conspiracy. Ya find out Lady Whatshername was actually an evil dragon controlling the kiddie prince and all sorts of epic shizz goes down. Then ya go kill the dragon, mount her head on Stormwind's gate, all the NPC's are like "HELL YA UR DA HERO!!!!" and...then...

Nothing.

Ya can't do anything with that in RP. 'Cause you end up seeing all that crap unfold again next week, when some other guild picks up the quest. Its like, EVERYONE is a conspiracy-solving-dragon-slayer-hero-badass. And the world never changes for the bettar.

So when I heard about this whole private servers where people can tweak the world in ways that actually mattered to the characters...yeah. That's what I signed on for. I didn't want to be a big time hero or anything like that (actually that's a lie I'm a huge attention whore(whydoyouthinkImakepostslikethislololololol?)), it was nice to know Stormwind wouldn't always be Stormwind. Stuff could happen at any time, any where.

But...as I said, maybe we're looking too much at the big picture. Wars, conflicts, politicals. All this stuff has multiple elements and various things that lead up to the big bam. We seem to want to kick off with the big bam. But how about, instead of having giant events, we have various lil side-quests that random groups of players can stumble upon. Like if someone were to find out a random group of thieves doing thieving thievery thieverify, and then that led up to them finding out some noble's scheme to a corner a market, and that led up to other political figures getting angry, and that led up to a logging area being cleared out, or some treaty being violated somewhere, or some shadowy collaboration between the two faction-enemies, and then the WAAAAAAAAAR begins....I think it might work better.

I've thought about this for awhile. Just lil baby-step stuffs into events instead of having the giant thingy bam out all at once. I think it'd be better because you could script things happening in multiple areas at multiple levels, at various times with various people. And then it'd be great if we could do all these quests Bioware (Pre-DA2. That game sucked BAD) style and have it where the choices that the players made end up affecting the entire event flow. That could be cool.

'course, its easy for me to say all this stuff, 'cause I wouldn't ever have to work on it. But does anyone get what I's saying? Baby-step into events. Start small, build big. That's how you get cool stuff. We also gotta make it hella flexible.

Good RP is like good Jazz. Bebop style jazz. The kind of thing where a buncha random people get together and just start jamming. Ya shouldn't know where the beat will go, how it will sound, or how it'll end. Its all a wild experiment made to test the boundaries of everyone involved. Of musics. Where it'll go, no one should know. Ya dig?


holycrapthatlastpointwaslongerthanIintendedONTOTHENEXTONE

CHARACTERS BEING UNABLE TO CHANGE ZA WARUDO.

Uhhh. I think I covered that in my TL;DR post above. Yeah, I totally did, so I'm gonna post a youtube song for people to listen to that has nothing to do with anything.

Spoiler:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx6Ksiaxgn4[/youtube]

RPG BOOK CANNON BEING DECOMISSIONALEDED.

Eh. I don't think the RPG cannon books really transition well into the game. I mean, some of the stuff runemasters can do is just plain silly. That whole rune-of-the-digging that turns you into a super moleman? Wtf is that?! There's alot of other nonsense that just doesn't make sense. And someone did mention (my frazzy memory forgets who, unfortunately. Might have been Grak?) that alot of the prestigey cool core skills are implimented into the classes anyway. Water-walkin', Blade stormin', fel-morphin', all them iconic stuff are implemented into regular warriors / warlocks / sham-wowies etc.

So what's the whole point of the RPG books again...?

That being said, I don't think we should ignore 'em completely. They do have some valid insights on things. Like on goblin culture and stuff.

Yeah, I think that concludes this episode of Krent's Krently Krentery. Join us next week, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel!

[Cressy]

Krent, please give me some of your awesome wisdom.

[SpiralLateralus]

I have two major qualms about this server, Kretol:

The world is unable to be changed by our characters actions
The utter lack of any actual RP most of the time.

Let me explain myself on the second point. I think GM Island needs to be removed, there should be no OOC zone on this server. Most of the times I log in to this server now, my /who list has around 80%-90% of the online players sitting on GMI dueling or talking like GMI is /b/. The few times that the majority isn't on GMI? They are in Booty Bay having drum circle RP, or an Asholme having an evil themed drum circle. The only time I ever see anybody in other zones is for events.

People might be asking, well how am I supposed to get trainers and the like? This can be easily remedied by putting the class trainers in each major town. OOC Portals can still exist too.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Let me explain myself on the second point. I think GM Island needs to be removed, there should be no OOC zone on this server. Most of the times I log in to this server now, my /who list has around 80%-90% of the online players sitting on GMI dueling or talking like GMI is /b/. The few times that the majority isn't on GMI? They are in Booty Bay having drum circle RP, or an Asholme having an evil themed drum circle. The only time I ever see anybody in other zones is for events.

Really? 'cause when I log on, I see 4 to 5, 7 at most, out of 30 plus people online. I like the people on the server. Should I not be allowed to talk to them?

[Binkleheimer]

Clearly not. You must always be RPing.
OOC is illegal.

[Kretol]

I admit it's extremely annoying to log on and see half the server on GM Island. However, rarely have I ever seen more than that there. Sure, there's a big group there more often than I'd like, but some of those folks are the ones complaining about there being no RP... and when people ask for RP (or announce there's RP at X place), they don't actually go do it.
I really don't understand people at times. Perhaps it's the type or race of characters involved that don't suit them, but people really can't complain if they themselves are also sitting on GMI contributing to the problem. (Note that I'm just stating that is also what contributes to the GMI idlers)

[Kaghuros]

Truer words were never spoken. Maybe it's just the people you find to play with that make RP great, but if there's ever a group of whatever going on consider joining no matter what it is. It's surprising how many times I've gotten sucked into a plotline or RP crew I initially thought I wouldn't like.

[Wuvvums]

Sometimes I like to idle a bit on GMI, but I think I've found CotH to be a social circle just as much as an rp community. Sometimes I've had a hard time finding rp, but then again I've been a bit bashful to even ask and I'd rather blend myself into a group of people then rp one on one. When it's one on one I worry that I may not be putting out enough of a quality rp to entertain the other I'm rping with.

I think people may have multiple reasons not to join an rp, but sometimes we got to step outside our comfort zones and give a try. I know I've ended up having some nice ones even if it was throwing my orc into a room full of draenei or being the only undead in this camp full of elves and one human. It's definitely something you have to search for at times, but I think it's worth it, usually.

I will say that there at times have been a certain unbalance. For example when Rigley and I were running Horde Stonetalon events we at times had a very hard time finding enough players. I think there were even a few times when we almost had to cancel because it just wasn't coming through. Alliance players were always easy to find, but Horde were less so.

[Nostra]

"RAWR I AM A DEATH-GUN KNIGHT WHO DUAL WIELDS RUNED-OUT MASHEEEEN GUNZ"´

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfYooL6CzbE

Instead of having big, giant events focusing on smaller stuff, bit making it big for the server, could be just as fun without forcing a server restart every now and then.

[Psychyn]

For folks that have experienced random interactions with NPCs (simple things like the NPCs talking to characters and reacting to them), how have opinions been? I know there's been some negative instances that could be seen as a GM trolling them (I would hope it wasn't intentional), but how have experiences been overall with that sort of thing?

Absolutely loved every single time. Made me feel more immersed with the world. Random Orc ambush, way back I recall a pirate captain once shouting after me. Just.. Little things, make the place infinite times more awesome. I'd be even up for doing -just- that, all over the zones with utter randomness.

It could have so much possibilities. A random insane mage running in, conjuring up a portal and BAM, your suddenly in Silithus. Begger harassing you for gold, some drunk lady hitting on you! *Drool* I'd love to see, just that.

Is it the announcement of the impending prestige system removal?

No comment on this from me.

Perhaps the denial of conquest RP?

Perhaps, or just that there is no looming threat above us any more. There is no real enemy, like Arthas who was actually a danger to the world. Player and both GM guilds get ignored, for a lot of times the event(s) being hosted aren't interesting to the playerbase for lord knows what reason. I know I couldn't be bothered in the past with so many events that apparently endangered the world.

Or maybe the lack of the world being changed by every character's actions?

Lack of phasing for me, without a doubt. I don't see my actions being reflected onto the server on CotH, yet I do experience them on retail. It just makes questing, walking around and RPing so much more awesome to see the things happen in front of your eyes.

Even D&D games have some visual reflection, monsters that move by the DM, walls being build, traps being made. WoW is always.. always the same environment. On retail it's less bad with heavy phasing admittedly.

Or could it be us no longer considering the RPG books canon? (We're simply following Blizzard on this)

Never bothered much with this myself, I don't know much RPG books.

Probably has been said before, but felt like adding. Admittedly haven't read all the six pages, might do it later or might not! We'll see. ;>

Small edit ;

Let me explain myself on the second point. I think GM Island needs to be removed, there should be no OOC zone on this server. Most of the times I log in to this server now, my /who list has around 80%-90% of the online players sitting on GMI dueling or talking like GMI is /b/. The few times that the majority isn't on GMI? They are in Booty Bay having drum circle RP, or an Asholme having an evil themed drum circle. The only time I ever see anybody in other zones is for events.

It will without a doubt, create an unofficial OOC zone. You'll scare people off if they do not have a place to just, chill out. To stand and chat OOCly. Either they make their own OOC place and screw over the rules and policies (Because hey, I would), or they won't bother in with logging in at all, reducing your online community to ~7 people (rough guess). I'd never be in support of this.

I admit it's extremely annoying to log on and see half the server on GM Island. However, rarely have I ever seen more than that there. Sure, there's a big group there more often than I'd like, but some of those folks are the ones complaining about there being no RP... and when people ask for RP (or announce there's RP at X place), they don't actually go do it.
I really don't understand people at times. Perhaps it's the type or race of characters involved that don't suit them, but people really can't complain if they themselves are also sitting on GMI contributing to the problem. (Note that I'm just stating that is also what contributes to the GMI idlers)

People get bored off RP, I know I did. GMI is the easiest place to linger and relax in, when boredom takes you over. Idle chatter, just logged in while doing other things, etc. What made the game complete for me, was all the possibilities, RP, PvE, PvP. I've seen that being reflected onto CotH's GMI as well. Last time I logged in, GMI was covered with bodies of people as an apparently PvP war had broke loose.

I think people, even though they don't feel 100% for it, miss all game functions.

[Bovel]

*throws pennies all around*

Restrictions? Yeah, they are some, I for one was just the other week restricted in my prestige application. Not that I agree to the issue that was foreseen but I accept it. Cause without restrictions Conquest of the Horde would be like any other Goldshire-nonsense. I cannot fathom why people whine about this, rather the opposite people should rejoice that we have team of GMs and forum-helpers spending their free time of keeping the server roleplay periferal to canon lore and banishing behaviour that cause drama.

At times I even find myself thinking that things are let through on CotH that I would never accept, which I find in strong contradiction of "realism" or lore. I choose to stay on CotH because of the restrictions! So thanks you GM-team and helpers yet again for running this realm of awesome.

*out of coins*

[JVNemesis]

I suppose I'd better catch this bandwagon before it putters out, so here's my thoughts as well.
Disclaimer: This was written before I had coffee, while I was having coffee, and right after I had coffee. It making no sense is almost a requirement.

Is it the announcement of the impending prestige system removal?

I was, frankly, quite irritated when this announcement first came up. "Oh come on, so soon? After all this time?" was running through my head. I refrained from commenting on that thread, just sitting back and watching it all play out, letting my annoyance run its course, then cataloging my own feelings on the subject when I was a bit more level-headed.

I like what the prestige system gave; variance. Uniqueness. A way to set your character apart ability-wise (and other-wise) from everyone else. "Hey, that guy's a demon hunter. My night elf is not a fan. Let's have some fun with this." "Hey, that's a felsworn. My tauren smells sickening amounts of fel. I smell RP." I haven't had many opportunities to RP with many prestige characters, but when I have, it's always made me go "That was fun. Wish it happened more often." If Marianna hadn't been trolling around doing her thing, I wouldn't have had an opportunity to try out slave RP on my tauren, short-lived as it was.

On a (I guess) similar note, character power scale and abilities have always been things that've bugged me. Why is this eighteen year old human mage, who's been practicing for less than a year, just as strong as my three hundred year old blood elf mage? Why can't that three hundred year old mage make his fireball spell a fire arrow or something instead? Why does it have to be exactly as seen in game? I've always used my death knight's death grip to throw people and things around, not just pull them to her. I've never seen the issue with ripping someone's weapon out of their hands and hurling it away, as opposed to pulling it to my knight, then throwing it away anyway. Some people are perfectly okay with this, even though the ability text says towards the knight. I've also had people freak out when I tried to do this.

Part of this probably comes from the term 'creative licensing', which is something I took to heart a long time ago. Writing things outside the norm are what get you readers and business, after all.

Admittedly no, this is not a failing on the part of the system, but I haven't found a good way to deal with this. You can blab as long as you want about how your character has had over two hundred years of experience and really should be able to cast a small variant of that spell and blah blah blah, but in the end it doesn't matter. Unless you want to launch another big argument, which I dislike doing.

I suppose this comes off as me whining about not being able to powergame, but that's really not my intention. I guess I'm just bad at explaining myself. I honestly don't care about roll bonuses; I find trust fighting to be infinitely preferable. Lends realism to when someone swipes at your neck and you get decapitated instead of taking one damage.

The ability to make your own spells for some titles was also a big draw for me with the new system. I love writing descriptive emotes that keep encounters entertaining. I like having some freedom to do things a bit differently than every other person of my class. I'll direct you back up to the creative licensing comment.
/special snowflake ramble
And yet, I've rambled off topic, again. So, to finish on topic; I like the prestiges. I like the prestige threads, and the stories that come out of it. I will probably be reapplying for a prestige even though the system is going down because, if events continue like I think they will, this is the next logical step for my character. I also want to write a thread like that. I want to be able to use death grip how I use it anyway and not be called out on it. I want to emote my death knight like I write characters in stories. I want I want I want

You get the picture.
If this new system allows for the kind of ability and character variance I've rambled about, then hey, all the power to it. That's really all I'm looking for.

But you know, honestly? I have plenty of fun here even without such systems. If these go, it's a minor irritation, not the end of the world. I'll get over it, move on, and forget eventually. But since it's there, why not use it while I can?

TL; DR: I was mad about restricted RP but now I figured out that it's not really all that bad and I'm not mad. And stuff.

Perhaps the denial of conquest RP?

Eh. Honestly, as much as I'd like to be able to have character actions mean something, I'm very leery of conquest, and PvP events in general, honestly. I feel the potential for drama and OOC animosity is far higher with this sort of thing than anything else, and my own personal experiences with such events have always ended poorly, which is certainly coloring my stance on this. If someone can find a way to make it work, all the power to you, but what I'm picturing (zone/town takeovers, NPC slaughter extravaganzas, then counterattacks which decimate more zones, etc) I don't think would be a good thing. My opinion.

A couple of people made some points earlier about guilds (I think it was Rosencrat and Jonoth), and about how we need, not more guilds, but more active guilds. This is what I see as the best solution to the need to beat people up and take territory, if you'll pardon the massive dumbing-down. Get some friends together, talk with some people in another guild. Arrange something. Spark hostilities, beat each other up. Invade guild bases. Recruit allies. Repeat. That sort of thing.

I intend to start something of a similar vein as soon as I get the details worked out with all involved, including myself. With all the responses here...I expect some participation.

Or maybe the lack of the world being changed by every character's actions?

I don't think every character's actions should change the world, but I would like to see some that actually do. Granted, there's characters that do, like Marianna and...well, that's honestly the only one that comes to mind. This horse has been beaten into an unrecognizable lump already in this thread, so I'll pass it over. Just seeing the changes more would be nice.
That's is nothing against you, Rosencrat. I just want to clarify.

Or could it be us no longer considering the RPG books canon? (We're simply following Blizzard on this)

Again, no strong opinion on this. I haven't read them, so I'm sure that's contributing, but I think that Pirates of the Caribbean quote comes into play here, about being more guidelines than actual rules. They've been invalidated as rules. I'll get around to torrenting them all eventually, and I'm sure they'll be an entertaining read. Maybe I'll even incorporate some fun little lore facts I find into a character. Does it make the character non-canon? Maybe.
Does it matter?
Not to me.

For folks that have experienced random interactions with NPCs (simple things like the NPCs talking to characters and reacting to them), how have opinions been? I know there's been some negative instances that could be seen as a GM trolling them (I would hope it wasn't intentional), but how have experiences been overall with that sort of thing?

One thing to say here.
<3 Xigo.
He keeps popping up whenever things are just starting to get stale with a "SUDDENLY SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENS". I've been in several of his mini-events and loved every one of them.
Kudos to you, man. Keep up the awesome work.

In summary...bleh. I had a structured idea that disintegrated about half way through the first section, but whatever. Everyone else rambled/ranted. My turn.

[Sedrival]

I don't really feel like RP is being restricted. Sometimes I do hesitate to join groups of people in RP, out of fear of imposing, but that's my own fault
Obviously, RP is being restricted to some degree but that is only necessary; if it wasn't, we'd end up with stuff like.. vampires and dragons in human form... and stuff.. <.<'

In short! Some restriction is present and necessary but I have yet to actually encounter any restriction that I thought was unreasonable.