Restricting RP! Rawr!

[Uthaniel]

Prestiges: The removal of prestiges was never intended as a means of restricting RP. This is because of one simple fact: the prestige system itself is a means of restricting RP. The entire point of it is to prevent people from becoming certain things easily, and instead make them jump through hoops in order to become them.


(Edit 2: Also, because people have this incorrect notion that I hate variations. I dislike base classes that aren't base classes now, due to my own exposure to Runemasters after playing one, but I don't dislike variations of existing base classes. I was never attempting to stomp people into all playing the same ten base classes with no differences between them at all. I, for example, still love the idea of Grakor as a Spiritwalker because of the RP it gives.)

This is because of one simple fact: the prestige system itself is a means of restricting RP.

Is contradicted by:

I, for example, still love the idea of Grakor as a Spiritwalker because of the RP it gives.)

But worry not, for I saw your point. You love Grakor for he is a Spirit Walker, not because he is a Prestige.
And that's what I want to use to develop this post.

I think adding variant classes as it is? It would be awesome. It would honestly be awesome, specially if someone can, say, roll a demon hunter without having some sort of roll bonus for it.

It also opens the ground to another thing. Removing prestige classes is one thing, but why not add a similar system of power now that there aren't classes? I understand wanting people to grow on their own. But, WoW was meant to roll "heroes", or at least have "Heroic" classes, like death knights on retail. Characters that start with a higher degree of experience than others, stronger.

Why not allow us to roll, instead of prestiges, "heroes"? With a limit per person, of course. I mean, hell. Even -one- "hero" per person would be awesome already. With variants instead of prestiges, classes wouldn't be broken or need a lot of planning. Make it a case-by-case basis and see how it goes from here.

But that's my opinion and suggestion, of course.

[CappnRob]

I would just like to chime in on the Asholme idea: cities like Stormwind ARE NOT NEUTRAL. They're lawful, and they uphold good and just values. BOOTY BAY is neutral, as Saronsen said.

[Saronsen]

You do not offend, Dj, but you're still not correct.

If Saronsen, my well known Paladin, walked into asholme without a disguise, he'd probably be taken prisoner on the spot. And again, Asholme is /still/ not neutral, even if they 'tolerated' him.

Neutral cities tolerate everyone. They don't give special treatment to others just because. Asholme gives special treatment to necromancers and the like.

Booty Bay would give you special treatment if they were getting rich from you. Not because you're a necromancer or undead like their leader. Which he's a goblin.

[PvtFrog]

If I recall correctly, Asholme was supposed to be an evil city. If it was advertised publicly as an evil city...paladins and priests would ICly flock to it screaming "RAWR PURGEE!". That and you have a city who's 'Queen' is a Death Knight, you really can't expect it to be fully accepting of Light users. :P

[Rosencrat]

We can do nothing about Asholme.

Yeah. No.

I denied your request to plant explosives in Asholme because that is a server rule: No one player or small group of players is allowed to inflict structural damage upon a city. This was implemented because it forcably inhibits RP and, more importantly, would open the way for someone to make a throw-away character, bomb a segment of a major city, be killed and then repeat the process.

But to the grander topic: An inability to influence special content.

I told you, when you asked to kamikazi the island, that you, as Saronsen, would have a chance to enact your revenge on Asholme in-character. Asholme will not be re-built post restart, so I have no problem divulging the planned route for it.

Asholme was to be established through player activity. After its establishment, it was to run afoul with Argent Crusade. After a series of build-up events a small contingent of Argent Crusaders would wage war on Asholme. These events would culminate in full-out war.

This was to be an attempt at mini-conquest, which would have no effect on cannon lore or anything of the kind.

Neutral cities tolerate everyone. They don't give special treatment to others just because. Asholme gives special treatment to necromancers and the like.

Asholme is neither a neutral city or a faction city. It was given the monicker of 'neutral' because it defied all other classifications.

Is it pure neutral, in the sense that it allows all entrance? No. It was never billed as such and, from day one, rules were established to banish the illusion that this was a new Booty Bay.

It is, however, a place that welcomes all into its folds. IC and OOC, the people of Asholme know that good people will walk among them. They accept that. They just ask them to not be idiotic. And if you show up to an evil city wearing pauldrons that glow like the summer sun and carrying a necromancer's head on a pike...? It rather forces their hand.

Now, I want to hear no more of this discussion. We are here to discuss the questions Kretol posed and we are beginning to deviate.

[Jonoth]

I appreciate this thread very much. That said, on to the questions at hand.

Is it the announcement of the impending prestige system removal?

Yes to a degree. I've been around for three prestige systems. I tried to apply all three times. I only got a response on the third one. So right off the bat (and probably very selfishly), it stung to hear after a few weeks writing, and after a ton of research, that the new direction I was looking forward to taking my character was null and void. I will resume writing just to write the story at the encouragement of a fellow CoTHer, but this honestly hit very hard. I'd been excited about the Sister of Steel since the previous system, and was planning to use it as a springboard for both my own guild as well as collaborating with another player on the intoduction of that character as an influence for other smiths seeking to take themselves as far. The removal announcement happened early enough for me to cancel any IC changes and to keep the prestige as a pure writing exercise, but it does change my plans.

From what Grakor mentioned, it seems like there may be room for advancement beyond the base classes, but I won't be able to have any feelings about that until I can have a sense of what will be allowed.

Perhaps the denial of conquest RP? and Or maybe the lack of the world being changed by every character's actions?

Addressing some of the points brought up earlier:

-A few people have made good points about the scale of conquest and changing things, in that they don't have to be major changes. It can be taking over smaller towns, or just actively engaging in current conflicts that may not even come to a conclusion in the near future (ie the fighting on the border of the Barrens and Ashenvale).

-This is a huge point for me, that we do -not- need -more- guilds. We need better ones. I have a guild myself, and understand how difficult it can be to remain active and keep things interesting in the long run. Just ask Ural. He's been in Axestorm Smithing for a while, and only the good Lord knows how I'm managed to keep him this long. I've seen tons of guilds pop up and vanish/go inactive, especially the "pro-active Horde" guild concept. The reason why this happens is because in large part people get mass recruited, then don't spend time building IC relationships between all the guildies. So unless the guildmaster calls for an event, the characters have absolutely nothing to do and just log off. I've had the privilege of being in the Stormshade Clan for most of my time here, and what makes it work is that -any- two characters that log on can RP and have some connection/thing to talk about. Many of the guilds I have joined and left lack this, and the ones I've stayed in like the Stormshade and Shakur are the ones that have this quality. For a guild to survive, the characters need to bond, whether their relationships are positive or negative.

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

I don't think this affects much. Only characters that are as much lore buffs as their players would be affected.

[Saronsen]

when you asked to kamikazi the island,

Yeah, no. I didn't ask that. Strategically placing explosives and then bailing is not kamikaze. Diving in with explosives strapped to your chest and suicide bombing is akin to that.

But as you said, not the place to argue it.

And it was my example.

/shrug

[Evaszion]

Is it the announcement of the impending prestige system removal?
Honestly, I could care less about prestiges. I think that they're just a mess, quite frankly. Prestiges should be what they are, taking an in-game class to the next level. All a Dark Ranger is, IMHO, taking a Hunter and a Death Knight and going BAM! you have a Dark Ranger, for an example. I think that we should be able to do the "prestige" class we want, just water them down to make them decently equal to the in-game classes. People on this server, AFAIK, aren't going to go around, "HERP DERP I'M A BONECRUSHER ADKFLJDGADFUIGJKFHAGKLADF /SMASH FAISE".

Perhaps the denial of conquest RP?
Not such a long post 'cause I'm not so sure on this, but it would be nice to see more, I suppose.

Or maybe the lack of the world being changed by every character's actions?
This. This. This. This, and in case you didn't see. This. I, honestly, think the world should and possibly can be changed by events and even just random RP! Let's say Bobby-Jeff's guild goes and attacks Jimmy-Jones's guild in... Ashenvale, but Bobby-Jeff's guild brought flamethrowers which set some trees and bushes and animals and stuff on fire, along with Jimmy Jones's guild. Why can't we show that that portion of Ashenvale is burned?


Or could it be us no longer considering the RPG books canon? (We're simply following Blizzard on this)
This, I could honestly care less. RPG Books are RPG Books. They're books about certain events throughout the Warcraft Universe. Doesn't always have to be true. I've always considered them basically just fan-fic.

~~
My two cents.

[Delta]

"HERP DERP I'M A BONECRUSHER ADKFLJDGADFUIGJKFHAGKLADF /SMASH FAISE".

I see you never met Barney...

[Zarquon]

It's more of an ideology, of the concept of accepting the fact that the world could be changed. As far as it can be observed, the Administrators are quite against custom lore and editing the world, but allow me to say this: it is what makes a private server unique.

There is few things other than ERP that gives that same fuzzy feeling you get when the actions of your character changed the world and the change remained. So that when some time in the futur, when you lead a new player through Elwynn, he's going to look at that burnt house and ask what happened. And you, through your character goes, "Oh, that? Well, it's just that one time when those bloody bastards were holing up in there, so I turned to my pyromancer friend Jack and told him to burn them out."

You know, the little things that make the world different, that binds the characters to the world. By the way, I think there's some attitude problem when dissentment to a decision is taken as 'end of the server', just noting. Detrimental? Yes. End of the server, end of the world, apocalypse? One thinks way too much and take criticisms way too seriously if criticisms imply that.

[Kretol]

Custom lore and world editing is only one aspect that can make a private server unique. It is not the only thing. That said, it can also be a large aspect as well!

I'm assuming your comment about "End of the server" is referring to GMs/me stating that? Please do not be presumptuous and assume it hasn't been said by folks, because it has. It's quite silly, and I'm glad you appear to agree in that regard!

[Terant]

I'll talk about the only issue that I care about personally.

Conquest RP/Custom Lore/World Changing Events: If I thought it would make a difference, I would have been fighting for world changing events and custom lore as hard as I could since they were taken away. I think that a stagnant world is, quite frankly, boring, and I cannot say I have ever had as much fun or felt as much excitement about RP since we had conquest events here. This is what "killed" the server -for me-. I still enjoy roleplaying here, and I respect that not everyone loves conquest RP as much as I do. I know that my opinion is just that: -My- opinion.

CotH was the first ever RP private server I ever tried. When I came here, the first restart/wipe had happened fairly recently. Because of this, the Wiki had outdated information detailing all the old custom lore and rules. It had articles about wars that were going on, GMs spawning creatures for people to have to deal with at random times/places, Stormwind burning, Tokens to get items... Then I got onto the server and found that none of this was actually there anymore. The world was, for all intents and purposes, the same as retail. As a Peon, there was absolutely -no- way to get money, decent looking gear, etc... But I stayed. I chose to give CotH a chance, and that was a very very very very very very very good decision. I came with a few friends from retail, though. A couple of these friends were so disappointed by the lack of cool custom stuff that they left almost immediately.

I've seen Grakor say several times that people he's talked to have left because they were confused by/unable to follow/disappointed by all the strange new custom lore, and I respect and understand that many people feel that way. I'm not at all invalidating their feelings or saying they are wrong. But -my- entire experience has been the opposite of that. I don't care if that sounds selfish. Some on the staff say they hated Sin'sholai. Well, I loved it. Many players I talk to loved it. The GSF taking back parts of Gnomeregan was simply AWESOME. We were sad to see it go in the restart. Did it kill CotH? Of course not. That's a ridiculous overstatement, as we've established. But it made playing here less fun. Yes, people will "deal with" things getting taken away over and over again, but it gets a little less fun each time until good people end up leaving out of sheer boredom. There might be fewer angry people for a while, but in my opinion it's not worth the loss.

And you know what? If anyone -ever- again uses the argument "It causes drama" against having something ever again, we might as well delete CotH. Because we should all know by now that the #1 cause of drama on a private server is existence.
Edit: Perhaps an exception to large-scale PvP wars. Those are just plain headache-inducing for all parties, but that's simply due to human nature.

P.S. Oh, and let's all agree one more time that the end of the server isn't coming because of any of these things. No matter how much we all may seem to care about these issues, they're all minor as long as we still have awesome admins and awesome GMs keeping CotH up and running, enforcing the rules, and doing the best they can to make sure everyone here has a good time. Don't let us get you down, guys!

[Spiralin]

Well for one, I must say thanks, I've always wanted something like this done. For months on CotH, just asking for player's opinions before making decisions off of only a few gathered from here and there.




Is it the announcement of the impending prestige system removal?

Yes, yes it is. But I believe the reasons vary from person to person. The main point I see people thinking that it's restricting is you've given the people something and are now taking it back.

An example would be:
A 16 year old boy's curfew is, 9:00PM servertime, his parents move it up to 10:00PM for two month or so, then they just decide to move it back down to 9:00PM because they have decided he's misused this extra time to stay up. That thereby makes the child feel that his parents are restricting him.

Now, I believe, the reason people would possibly use the excuse above, because. It's work, and it's a lot of work to write prestiges. I find it rather harder getting out 600+ words without putting maybe two hours into it. Now of course to some it may seem easy. I personally can write an essay in a hour or two, with thousands of words. But the difference that makes it hard is you have to make it into a story, not just a story, but something that molds and makes sense. It's like writing a book, you're publishing to the world.



After you do all that. The police come and remove the book, and tell you that you never wrote it. (This is essentially how it feels)

That is what stings, and that is what made me lose all motivation in continuing to write my prestige. Therefore I cancelled it and took the character elsewhere.

Have I gotten over it by now? I'm not sure, probably not since I'm replying to this thread to share my opinion.




Perhaps the denial of conquest RP?

This is something a bit, hard for me to write about. I'm not sure if there ever has been Conquest RP on CotH(If there was I wasn't here for it.) But if there was, and there were players here for it. Then the same example would apply from the one I used in prestiges being removed.

Now personally, I'd like to try Conquest RP. I've never been able to, and have heard really fun stories about it. That's about as far as my opinion can go on that matter. If it happens, I'll be happy to try it, if it doesn't, no skin off my back.





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

I really like the idea of the world changing from a character's actions. But not major changes, just talking to an npc puppet is good enough satisfaction for me.

Already -just- today, while I was doing some one on one roleplay with a friend. Walking through Mulgore, icly we passed by some tauren talking about centaur they killed. The npc approached us and told us to watch out Centaur have been running around Mulgore.

-Just- that small little thing sparked a lot of roleplay for our characters, which we took and told the entire Stormshade Clan.

Just that small interaction with the NPC oocly sparked an idea to create events for the Clan in Mulgore that has to do with helping combat these Centaur. Thereby giving the characters the satisfaction of actually helping something icly. Instead of some random thing being made up that just the Clan knows about.





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

When this is removed, and people are still sticking to it. It's a tad annoying, when people are something that was just canon the server doesn't use anymore.






Basically all-in-all when you give something to someone that isn't restrictive, that's been around for -so- long that everyone takes it for granted. When you finally take it away, it becomes restrictive to them until it's given back, or forgotten about.

On a sidenote, if little things like Xigo did with the npcs continues. It really, really is appreciated. Character to npc puppet character interaction is really fun to me. I don't know why, but it makes me enjoy myself a lot more.

It's also one of my most favorite past times to do when I've the ability to puppet NPCs. Of course not on CotH, but in the past when I've been GM at other places.

[Kaghuros]

That post was almost quintuple-spaced. And bolded.

[Kirabo]

It's not you guys doing a bad job. Not you, Kretol, who actually created this paradise we spend our virtual time in, nor Grakor, who basically invented everything Kretol didn't. Not the GM team, no. They're doing the best job they can to make roleplay around here as amazing as it should be. The problem here is quite easy to see. It's called Lust.

Yes, I said it.

Is it the announcement of the impending prestige system removal?:

Sure. People who didn't make prestige classed characters won't mind. People who did, however, just got their work tossed into the trash, (possibly) never to return. Some of them want roll bonuses, some want the specific of a prestige implemented in their character so they can be unique, and... Well, better.

Perhaps the denial of conquest RP?:

I'll just repeat what everybody says. If you want to make this server an official Blizzard one, go ahead and follow their lore. I believe that they created it on this principle:

"Hey guys, I watched this movie today."
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Well, I'll just go and write some lore into World of Warcraft from it."

He goes and writes random sentences, pulling some improvised events together. "Oh, I forgot this! Hmm... Where do I put it?" And then he makes a text of this type:

'A death knight held the guy's neck tight in mid-air. The guy could do nothing but fall on his knees.'

There's a way to manage all those events without wiping out custom lore, or doing PvP, and yet bring excellent development to custom lore, and characters taking part in it.

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

'A single drop of rain does not grant crops.'

Or could it be us no longer considering the RPG books canon?:

Why do the spells being used from the books have to be only the offensive ones? As Flammos already stated, and I share her opinion, 'custom' classes, or variants should be able to get some roleplaying abilities. Casual roleplay is roleplay as much as slashing swords for fame and glory. People tend to forget that too often.

--------------------------------

I still stand to my statement that it's the wish of most to be at the top; better than everyone; preceded by their own reputation. Everybody wants people talking about them, but do nothing to make up for it.

Listen. You all have classmates, colleagues, family and friends if nothing else. It's a mass of different people with different religion, opinions, knowledge, states of mind. I'm not asking of you guys to love each other, and greet with kisses and hugs. I just want you to tolerate each other. That much.

I'm out.