Rigley Ramble (Sorta): On Stagnation

[Rigley]

Hello friends,


I'm of the mind to have a discussion. While I'm not very active right now, I would like to see the possible ideas of what could be done to get people like me drawn back in by the ongoing events and rp on the server, and how to find events and storylines to pursue that would be enjoyable to those involved.

One of the reasons I've partially lost interest over time is the matter of 'stagnation', and I assume that a few others have been affected by this feeling as well. What I mean by this term is a lack of energy behind the world around us; where everything takes place in either an isolated portion of the world. By this I mean events such as Northwind and the upcoming Kidnapped-- though there is nothing wrong with these events, they're not interacting with the world in any way, and the world does not truly 'react' to them. They could effectively take place in a different setting entirely and be fine-- they're just not tied into the world in the same way.

Again, this isn't a bad thing. I do believe there's a reason for it, however. As we all know we're waiting for Cata in terms of lore; awaiting announcements to begin pre-Cata events, and as a result not running anything overly attached to main factions in the way of world events. At waiting periods like this it becomes difficult to justify such larger and more lore-involved events, and the only thing that seems to make much sense -is- pre-Cata set events. The matter with that however is how long those could be sustained without Cata arriving; how long the Forsaken could be pillaging the countrysides of Hillsbrad, etc. I think some people are wary of beginning such campaigns and then being stuck in the in-between of them, which is a legitimate concern.

Now, as usual I have my own thoughts on what could be done. And since this is my post and my blog, I don't believe it would be right to bring this up and ask to create discussion on this topic without stating my own opinions and setting them on the board.


The first inclination I have is to just begin cata pre-events. This comes with its own issues for me, of course; I don't know how long we can entertain people with horde vs alliance action, as it seems to me like something that could quickly become stale if not handled with a lot of variation or so forth. It might be prudent to follow one racial faction in specific into battle each time (such as following a troll contingent or and undead one in two separate event lines) to highlight different nuances of the races in question. Sort of a thing to help get different races in motion I suppose.

The second idea...

Wait a sec, I need to grab something.

DISCLAIMER: The viewpoint about to be presented is from Rigley and Rigley alone. Other GMs do not necessarily endorse this idea, nor does this reflect the movement of CotH in any way. This is just Rigley talking.

So yeah, I'm going to jump off the eggshells and bring up the idea of custom lore. I've heard the idea of this being increasingly tossed around, and I would be lying to state that the idea does not sound alluring. I think scenarios for events could be made to somewhat more energize the factions-- not overly much of course as we've seen in the past with the Sin'sholai, of course, but world events which would have more impact on the world and its people. This is a difficult concept to put to words for me at this moment, since it isn't something we allow and not something I'm sure would ever be considered-- and I've found that it isn't the best idea to put much thought into restricted ideas for me.

I think there is potential here, and to be honest I'm a bit weary of hearing people say it's purely nostalgia goggles which influence that sort of statement. I don't even have nostalgia goggles-- I wasn't around for the previous foray. I do believe that we could create something without entirely losing the idea of warcraft that others know, or making the ideas to alien for newcomers to understand. I would like to say I have more faith in our creative power than to believe that we're not capable of writing an adequate follow up to the aftermath of the Lich King, even if it is meant as an in-between for this and Cata.

I'm not sure if I fully elaborated enough on that, but I'll depart from it to conclude this and get to my -actual- point.


So, I'd like to bring this discussion to the rest of you. Do you think the server has stagnated in some ways? Do you think there are ways to fix this before cata, or do you think we're simply stuck in limbo until the move is decided? I'd like to have a general discussion on this, and on that note I'd like it to be both on-topic and calm in approach. So, for the purposes of this:

NOTE: What is not welcome in this topic: 'When is Cata coming/why aren't we in Cata/etc'. Kretol is looking at cores still, and we have tested three. They have not satisfied Kretol in the way of stability or general functionality enough for him to wish to make the move at this time. Though much dust was kicked up about this in the previous testing thread, what that thread was created during was exactly that-- testing. And the results weren't satisfactory to the one it matters the most.

There's a time and a place to talk about Cata, but for intents of this conversation this is really all I can offer, and all any other GM can offer. It didn't please the admin; some of us think we should go on, others would rather wait, but it's entirely in his right to make the decision of when to switch.

FURTHERMORE: Let's keep things cordial here, yeah? I don't really anticipate too much hostility here, but understand me when I say I am serious about keeping this from becoming heated. If you insult another in this thread, I will change your insults into compliments or replace it with nonsensical babble in pink text. If you begin to use hostile language, I will edit your post and place a picture in it. Likely of an animal, like an owl or something.

I'm serious about this, even if my response is in jest. Please don't do it for kicks, because we will moderate normally as well as humorously.

If you dislike the notion of the above disclaimers, well, this is my thread and I'd really prefer it not have the chance to become an angered argument. So indulge me if you please, otherwise I suppose I'll just take my cookies and walk home.


So uh, yeah. There you go! Please discuss in a civil manner, you sons of ~wonderful and respectable women~.

[mimloopen]

I think there is stagnation in roleplay as we've been in WoTLK for quite a while and after a while most ideas are just... as you said, isolated and not really impacting on the world at all. Custom lore would be a great fix to this and it doesn't have to extend so far as sin'sholai, maybe just bigger guilds or events having some impact on places. Unless we get custom lore going I don't think this is going to change much until cata, where players may be able to partake/have feelings about the progression of cata, rather then characters being thrown into WOTLK with the Lich King defeated and basically stuck in limbo when it comes to the world around them.

Im not so good at expressing myself but that's what i feel at least. Although I can't say I really have felt the stagnation, this is just talking in general terms.

[Zhaei]

I like the idea of custom lore. I don't think there'll ever be major changes (like Sin'sholai AFAIK), but there's a lot of room to add smaller things that still make RP more dynamic. How about stuff like diseases that affect X area, increasing bandit activity in Y, a scourge lord tries to go all evil up in Northrend, increased Demon activity in Z, Earthern Ring/Cenarion calls for help in A, a race calls for help in B... you get the idea. None of them affect the lore but they add more flux to the world and they give a chance to make people move to a zone that's less loved to RP. Also, if a group of players wants to just make a mini-event to stop some bandits, they can - they don't need GM permission and long wait times. Maybe a GM or two will hold a bigger event or three as more major parts of stopping the threat, like taking out a leader.

I just spewed my thoughts onto the keyboard, but I like it!

[Harmonic]

Without trying to press on things you said not to press on, it's understandable that it's taking a long while to move to Cata. However, it's my opinion that without moving to Cata---- and this is something none of the GM's or Kretol can help really----- CoTH will be caught in this stagnation. In order to move the server forward, you don't just need fresh storylines and events, you need fresh -mechanics-, new races, new areas, and things that only expansion packs can change. One of the reasons that WoW does so well is because they know that content can get dated and boring no matter what, especially if it doesn't change for a long while.


Does this mean that we should blaze through and rush head first into Cata? Hell no. Take your time there and I think we need to deal with the "stagnation" till then, and to deal with it we probably look towards doin' some stuff that'd warrant a restart. *Cough*



How come those events seem to be the most fun?

[CappnRob]

Perhaps a flaw we had is establishing CotH's lore as the post-LK, pre-Cata timeline. I was flying over Northrend for old time's sake, and I realized you could have a LOT of RP there... if Northrend was still relevent! Dragonblight especially stood out to me, with its variety of lore to choose from: WC3 backstory, the attack of Naxxramas, the Scarlet Onslaught in New Hearthglen, the Wyrmrest Temple... hell, that's just off the -top of my head-.

But, we can't do much for that now.

As for custom lore? Minor custom lore should probably be encouraged and accepted! I know retail is a bad RP model to base ourselves off of, but don't you think a reason retailers have so much fun is because they aren't being restricted to do what they want to tell stories? Of course this results in some utter crazy bollocks going down, but that's the advantage we have: quality control.

A pattern I see on CotH, and HAVE seen on CotH since I came here, is the typical stance tends to be "only if the lore supports it". While I can see some merit to this... I feel it may be too restricting, too limiting when it comes to people doing what they please. I say, why not take a "so long as it doesn't contradict the lore" route? We already do that with Northwind, Kidnapped, and other things, so why not expand it? If it doesn't CONTRADICT the established lore, then why not let us go crazy and make stuff up? We NEED original content to thrive right now in the absence of official lore to RP off of.

On that note, do more pre-Cata stuff. Hearthglen rocked my socks, and there's a LOT more pre-cata stuff to do than just Lordaeron!

Also also, I've noticed players trying to implement Cata-inspired ideas in their character profiles are getting rejected by the staff for approval. Maybe we could loosen that noose, too? I mean, we're a STONE'S throw away from Cata as it is, it isn't like anyone's gonna be using a Guardian of the Ancient Kings to duel Anub'arak or the Lich King! Most Cata-abilities are perfectly feasible from a LK pov anyway, as they're just more powerful/variantly designed spells of previously existing spells. Furthermore, we already let people make up their own original spells, which I would personally be more against than letting them RP Blizzard-made ones!

---

To elaborate on quality control: instead of shooting ideas down before they get off the ground with "NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT", let them take flight and see if they hold their water. Prevention may be the best medicine, but sometimes you gotta let people try their stuff out (so long as it isn't too radically insane), and if it messed up? Well, you're GMs for a reason. You have the power to clean up the messes. Nay, I'd say its your responsibility.

Messes might be a pain to clean, but they're a lot more fun to make than sitting in a sterile room.

That analogy seemed more meaningful in my head.

[Harmonic]

I wouldn't go as far as to say we are a stone's throw away.

[Rigley]

I wouldn't go as far as to say we are a stone's throw away.

Indeed, it's rather up to kret's discretion as to when he is satisfied with a core.

Rather pleased with the comments thus far. I'll post in-depth once I am home.

[Kage]

Oh deary me.. Two years ago I think I made posts -about- making our own lore, and on how I as angry at the fact that we really couldn't. I mean, so long as it doesn't go against the lore should be what's allowed. As soon as something does, stop it. This'll be probably be all I post, bad memories on the subject and all.

[Aphetoros]

Since I'm not sure how much I feel like typing and etc. at this moment (I'm feeling kinda sick) I'll just jump right to the chase. I think we should have CotH run through Stormrage. The events in that novel are after the death of the LK, but before the Prelude to the Shattering book. In addition, while some of the events are not... good, transposing some comic-book events into the world as lore changes could be very interesting in terms of events. I mean, for example, we could have players aid Broll Bearmantle in his quest for the Idol of Remulos.

Of course, more minor things work. I think the biggest step we've taken, and it's been around for a time, is the Interesting World News thread. It makes things very interesting, and I wish it were used more. I think adding 'weather' events would be really cool too. Maybe a tornado breaks loose somewhere, like in Durotar say, and the Earthen Ring attempts to calm the frenzied air elementals! We need to promote the "a butterfly can start a hurricane" mentality. Where everything is interconnected. If players feel like their actions matter, they will want to act, to see what will happen. More on this later, gotta run to medicine!

[Rigley]

How about stuff like diseases that affect X area, increasing bandit activity in Y, a scourge lord tries to go all evil up in Northrend, increased Demon activity in Z, Earthern Ring/Cenarion calls for help in A, a race calls for help in B... you get the idea. None of them affect the lore but they add more flux to the world and they give a chance to make people move to a zone that's less loved to RP.

Aye, I rather am in agreement with this sort of idea. I like the idea of smaller changes-- smaller, but memorable ones at least. This partially strikes upon what reaches custom lore and what doesn't, of course; There was a lot of liberty taken with the taking of Hearthglen, of course, and I suppose in that way alone we already breach into 'acceptable' departures from lore; the recent Red Dragonflight storyline is also applicable here.

While I'm thinking more politically with moving the factions in general, I do think smaller events such as disease outbreaks or local infestations of demons/other baddie could serve a fair task for an event.

Does this mean that we should blaze through and rush head first into Cata? Hell no. Take your time there and I think we need to deal with the "stagnation" till then, and to deal with it we probably look towards doin' some stuff that'd warrant a restart. *Cough*

How come those events seem to be the most fun?

Heh, I can't really tell you why-- I suppose it might be that there's more of a creative side to it than running 'by the book', as it were? Certainly I think you could argue that events oriented towards more alternate outcomes are more interesting if only because there is a proper 'conclusion', I suppose? With other events things must end in equilibrium; you defeat a big bad, and things return to as they were. It's somewhat like a feel of progression, I suppose.

Of course, the easiest way to bring that sort of thing about is conquest rp-- of which I'm not the greatest proponent of, I'll be honest. That's it's own can of worms, heh. I think you can leave a lasting mark without taking a building though, its just a matter of figuring out how that reflects in the world and how we should handle it.

I'm also somewhat of the belief that we should perhaps look into things which could tread on the edge of requiring a restart, with Kretol's permission. It depends on projections on when Cata will come to be honest, which isn't really visible at this moment. I don't really think that we should intentionally be gunning for things that need restarts, of course, but as long as we're to remain with the core for the time being it isn't a terrible idea. [Of course this view is mine alone. So don't jump on this as the team's view as a whole, heh.]

Words

I'm of the mind to just follow what Kretol's decision is, regarding such things as cata abilities and all that. It's not really my place to try and force him to change that, though depending on what we're talking on I could see it as an understandable request.

Hmmmmmm.

Now, on the ideal of 'just try it', I do believe there are things we can look at and agree as a team that we do not want it taking place. While it is our job to clean up messes, we prefer to prevent them-- because I wouldn't liken it to making a mess, since people do put hard thought into character development and how their characters are impacted by events. We don't really wish to see the situation where someone has a lot of character growth or experiences that they enjoy, only to rip that away because the event didn't make sense or was breaching rules. I believe it'd be better to try and accommodate ideas to what we do allow rather than deny them completely, or have to retcon them later. Of course that can't always be done depending on the idea-- some things just can't exist in many other fashions than what they begin as, and that' something I've had to accept as well when making characters.

Oh deary me.. Two years ago I think I made posts -about- making our own lore, and on how I as angry at the fact that we really couldn't. I mean, so long as it doesn't go against the lore should be what's allowed. As soon as something does, stop it. This'll be probably be all I post, bad memories on the subject and all.

I'll say first that a lot can-- and has-- changed in two years. I would encourage you not to get too troubled over this-- I am attempting to weigh these ideas, and something might come of it-- maybe yes, maybe no.

Words

I believe I like the cut of your jib. Though I know little about the comics or novels I do know there are things that occur in-between, and that -could- serve for a good staging grounds of events. I recall that Maeiv has a bit in the in-between as well. While it's mostly nelf stuff there I'm sure other things could be found to run alongside. I guess I'll have to confer with the others if we were to take this up.

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As always, be aware that this is still theoretical. I don't really wish to make promises to run or to discount anything in this thread; I'm more just hearing opinions and giving my own. This has given me some things to think on, though.

[Jonoth]

Two words: hostile world.

The thing about events like Solidarity, the Argent Crusade event, and Rosencrat's Plague events is that you got the sense that if you failed, it could turn into something worse, even world changing. OOC we know different, but anyone who loves superhero movies knows that the journey can be more exciting than the often predictable outcome.

So I postulate that what the world needs is just more danger. Dividing danger. Binding danger. Stranger danger. A healthy character fear of the possibility of failure. And maybe some events engineered to likely fail and make characters grow, even if they eventually win in the long term.

One place RP tends to come back to is Ashenvale. I think it's because it's such a contested zone that it opens opportunities for faction conflict, or even factions joining together to stop larger threats even if they later return to warring against each other. Perhaps our little world of warcraft could use a dose of more places like that. Less neutrality and more contested. Places where there can be greater tension even if truced. Tension builds stories, and I feel sometimes it can be lacking.

That's what I got for now.

[Rowgen]

My Deadeye Watchers are kinda working on that Ashenvale/Felwood thing. :P

[Nikodemos]

While I am in agreement that custom lore should be allowed on a VERY minor scale, I am a firm adherent to our current server policy and would advise GM approval being a requirement for any such deviations. Now to avoid beating the bush any further I would move on to my next concern which deals what we can do about the current server stagnation. While I touched on this quite a bit in Caravan is Curious About: RP it is the player base's responsibility to provide their own RP more so than that of the staff. While I enjoy the well constructed events that have become quite the norm for our server, I believe this factor is partially to blame for the current stagnation. We, as a whole, have become too relient upon staff planned events to the point that many of the people planning said events are getting burnt out and taking an extended break. A chain reaction then occurs as other members who were relient upon said guild or storyline are now idle and eventually follow suite. I advise more sponteneity amongst the server as a whole and would also pressure everyone to try their hand at some event planning whether it be a small event that you dm yourself or a group collaboration on a larger scale. Before moving on to my final thought I would note that I touched upon the concept of pre-cata events in the afore mentioned link as well, though at current I echo the concern that it may be just a bit too soon. Shouldn't stop you from logging any storyline concepts for future use however... just try not to snatch Uldum out from under me ;p

Lastly, and most importantly in my opinion, is the need to take action after we share our thoughts and click the Like button a few times. We've gathered up a number of ideas, pondered ways to apply them, recieved the staffs opinion of said matters... what's next? We get out there and DO. Its not your job or their job, its our job. I believe a monthly or even weekly OOC meeting for such discussion and application could be quite beneficial towards this goal and I am currently engaging in this stratagy with a number of other players on a small scale. I would welcome anyone who has a similar desire to take a the initiative and dedicate some time to assisting with our current predicament. Suppose thats enough of my thoughts, I hope that some of this was less /rant, more /helpful.

[Jonoth]

We, as a whole, have become too relient upon staff planned events to the point that many of the people planning said events are getting burnt out and taking an extended break. A chain reaction then occurs as other members who were relient upon said guild or storyline are now idle and eventually follow suite. I advise more sponteneity amongst the server as a whole and would also pressure everyone to try their hand at some event planning whether it be a small event that you dm yourself or a group collaboration on a larger scale.

All of my this.

[Bingles]

My Deadeye Watchers are kinda working on that Ashenvale/Felwood thing. :P

I think your Deadeye RP and stuff needs more, let's say death. NPC or not, just usually when I pop into an RP that involves conflict it ends up letting the Alliance retreat or something :/. I think you should organize RP that involves CW for both sides, just to spice things up a bit!