Race/Class Expansion 2, The Ramble Begins

[Delta]

I don't agree that the process needs to have any extraordinary measures in place. I don't believe they would have the intended effect, because Conquest of the Horde has had bureaucratic hoops to jump through to acquire unique things before. Those hoops did little to raise the quality of the roleplay. They did not foster roleplay, nor did they encourage the natural development of it, and they added to the GM workload.

They did not work. They failed at their sole purpose, therefore there was absolutely no point to them being in place.

Players should be allowed to approach it any way they want, to tell the story of their character without having to depend on the existence of an organisation. There'd be no reason for a character to join such an organisation if they disagreed with its principles, no? Characters should be allowed to have developed their skills in the past, because some disciplines take years to learn, and not everybody wants to play an acolyte. This would not stop them from fuelling present day RP, because they would be using their acquired skills in the present day. Individual characters should be permitted to have developed their abilities entirely independently of other characters. The player of the character should be allowed to tell the story of how that character's motivations led them down that path, and have past connections in place that are relevant to the character in question.

Using these characters to 'sponsor' events and public storylines is a bad idea, in my opinion. Even with accommodations like using the forums, that may not be what some people want to do with their character. Expanded race/class combo pioneers should not be forced into providing any sort of service for the rest of the server. If they want to do that and enjoy doing that, fantastic. If not, let it be, I say. Some of these combinations will lend themselves well to grand plotlines, but others are centred around a far more personal degree of conflict, and it simply makes no sense for these individuals to be thrust into the spotlight.

It feels like I can hear echoes of things we've seen fail before.

''We can't let it be too easy,'' says one.
''Aye, definitely not,'' says the next.
''Indeed,'' agrees the third.

...And no one ever stops to ask why! What good does it do to make things needlessly and arbitrarily difficult? Is it to thin out the numbers so that we're not inundated with special combinations? There are other ways to do that, like being more selective in the reviewing process and not being afraid to say 'no'. Is it to make people think deeply about these characters? I believe every profiled character deserves some deep consideration, but if more than can be found in a special profile is required, ask them to write a story about the character, as we did in the old prestige system. Doesn't need to be as long or as arduous a process, nor should it prevent that character from being played in the meantime.

We have to remember that this is merely a formality. Nothing has ever stopped any group of people on CotH from going right ahead and playing whatever they want to play any way they should choose. But it means a lot. It means the approval of our peers, and the legitimisation of our roleplay in CotH canon. We want to desire that, because it ensures quality via oversight and inspires our fellow roleplayers. If it forces us to bend to suit its trivial demands, no one will desire it, and any roleplay that comes out of such a system is going be very dry and tasteless, if you ask me.

[Loxmardin]

I honestly don't think that it's making things difficult. It's discovering a concept that is, for all intents and purposes, entirely new without having to go back into the past and alter what already exists. The custom lore that we are wanting to introduce is not supposed to alter previous policy and we want to be extremely cautious with ever introducing lore that significantly alters the history that has already been written.

Which is why these storylines have been proposed so people can in real-time, in the present, work towards discovering these entirely new class/race combinations rather than trivialize the exploration of this new lore and opportunity by making it something you can profile yourself into with absolutely no reference or established do-how since no one has ever done it before. This isn't going to be restricted to certain organizations and it's not something just certain individuals are going to gain the "privilege" or "rights" to do. We're not even saying one discovery covers all discoveries (since there's also talent trees and class variants to pay attention to), and I think people are exaggerating the supposed "red tape" surrounding this issue.

The only "hoops" that exist in this case is "how do we even start?". Once the class/race combinations have been discovered and the lore and methods established by IC exploration and storylines (for both GM and player benfit), it'll be significantly easier for everyone to enter into the class in the present, using the lore we've just established together. And if that lore is insufficient for the ideas and concepts people have then, they are free to run their own storylines to discover these alternatives to the initial concept. Since we're moving into uncharted territory with this, we don't want to trivialize this exploration by making it something readily available without any kind of prior work to pave way towards it. There is no journey; just a destination.

And that makes it utterly pointless.

[Kaghuros]

I'm going to have to revise my original posts since I agree with @"Delta" 100%. Arbitrary restrictions and OOC hoops only serve to stifle RP and kill off storylines. Working through a long plotline to change a character's lifestyle may impart a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, but that accomplishment only tastes sweet if it was your decision to strive for that goal in the first place. Being forced into it makes RP a chore, and that's not what we should be aiming for here. Rules are there to keep people from hurting each other and foster a good climate for roleplaying, as well as establish lore and canon (since that's important for many of us on the server). Outside of that there's plenty of space for people to RP things that exist in the wide world of Warcraft without stepping on anyone's toes, and we should be able to pursue those ideas with the caveat that we keep things kosher.

I can say here that I also see @"Loxmardin"'s point, which is why these should be discussed and approved on a case-by-case basis. Characters with a convincing reason to go against what we've seen in the past should be allowed so long as they're made with a good understanding of the lore behind what they're doing and a convincing and interesting reason to play the way they want to. Reward players for making an interesting potential storyline rather than punishing them for going against the status quo. So long as they aren't hurting anyone else's RP and have a good understanding of canon it shouldn't be a problem.

This post also touches on another issue, which is that people often don't go to the GMs to ask about their stories precisely because they're afraid of having them denied for arbitrary reasons, which is sad in multiple ways. On the one hand players should probably trust GMs to help them as storytellers not as arbiters and judges, because I certainly know many GMs love to help with plots and are willing to put in the work to help out. I also remember what it was like to have people be scared to talk to me about things because they thought I was going to ban them for something minor. On the other hand there needs to be a more open and transparent line of communication to GMs to foster that sort of trust. Responding with helpful criticism on Private Discussion threads could help, because it's hard to know how your story ideas seem when they never receive a response. That kind of open discussion forum seems to be what Private Discussion is for, but it's hard to just engage in a conversation with GMs about stuff.

Indeed it's hard to really understand decisions like this because you're often not allowed to involve yourself in the discussion to know why they were made. Since decisions on characters are sometimes given from an absolute position they can seem arbitrary even when they're not. In this situation, more transparency means more acceptance of GM rulings (and I can attest to the fact that I often agree with decisions more once I've heard the reasoning explained to me).

Ultimately the fact is that adding too much bureaucracy hinders RP, turns some players off of otherwise interesting and valuable characters, and makes a fair number of people try ignore it altogether (which doesn't help anyone). I like the direction we're going in with all the new options for people, especially with the discussions of custom lore and changes to class restrictions. My hope is we can do it all with as little OOC struggle as possible, and focus on writing good characters and telling stories everyone involved in them can enjoy.

[Grakor456]

Speaking from many years of roleplaying experience and from running/helping run more than one roleplaying community...

If you let people skip the journey and go straight to the end goal, that is what 90% of people will do. Call it the need for instant gratification of this generation or not, I don't know, but that has been my experience. If we didn't require work for the prestige system in the past, the vast majority of people would have rolled them straight off.

Furthermore, this is partially intended to help spark events and to allow players to interact with the world. If we're letting people skip to the end goal, this helps nothing.

[Loxmardin]

That's the thing, though, Kagh. This whole thing is about establishing a new canon that did not exist before. It's been said many times going through these discussions, especially on the GM side of things, that we're using too much old canon to try to reason our way around the new additions. The entire point of introducing these options at all is to write new lore, basing it in the old lore, but ultimately we're creating a new canon. Which is why going through the effort to run the storylines to get from point A to point B is absolutely necessary, or the system is going to end up sloppy and the class options aren't going to work.

And, like Reigen said... if you have to force your character through changes, then you aren't pursuing the system the right way and you aren't using it to its full potential, and that's frankly not a problem in the system; it's a problem on the player's part.

The whole point of creating these storylines is to create a path to point B. How we're going to go about paving that path is still up in the air, and no one ever said it's going to be forum-only or include a lot of writing or any hoops to jump through. We're throwing out suggestions since we still don't know how to go about it the best way that makes it fun and interesting for the players and still establishes a good foundation for the future so it's something the rest of the server can use, too. We do know, though, that it's not going to be achieved through profiling and individual players writing their own lore.

[Kaghuros]

I guess this may have been the wrong thread to post it in since what I'm talking about isn't dealing with this per se, but rather that the discussion here is reflective of current policy and current problems. I'd be happy to talk over skype some time just so I don't throw the thread off-topic, but more or less I was drawing parallels between the desire I see here for more rules and more oversight and the reality that even current oversight can be too much of a burden of work for GMs and players, causing burnout and whatnot.

[Delta]

I know that nothing is set in stone yet. That's exactly why I think it's good to talk about these details now, because once the measures are in place, contesting them is unlikely to yield any results. If people speak up now, they might bring light to a perspective that otherwise would not have been considered.

The parts of this process that I outlined as being disagreeable would be the most important to me if I were a person preparing to get an race/class combo approved. That's why I disagree that the proposed limitations are not all that restricting. The only situation in which they are not constraining is one where a player wants their character learn a new set of skills from scratch, building either on a current storyline (in the case of the first person to do so) or one in the recent past, as undertaken by another player whom has recently set the precedent. In other words, the only time it's not creatively limiting is when you want to do exactly what the process wants you to do. I suppose it's true that one would not be using the system to its full potential and that it would be a problem on the player's part, but I don't see how either of those things are necessarily bad. If I'm only given a fork to drink soup with, I'm not using the tool as it was intended to be used, but... I wanna drink soup, you know? I should not have to select a different food to match my instrument.

I disagree that being able to usher a new combination in through past events would render a new class/race combo pointless. For one thing, that implies that the only value these new combinations would have is their value to the server as a whole, to the absolute exclusion of no one. But we prove each time we debate that we are a wonderfully varied body of people, and we each want different things. Sometimes those desires align, other times, they do not.

Wanting to tell a story about fledgling Draenei Warlock acolytes, for example, is a thing certain people might want to do, and that's great. Perhaps different people want to tell other kinds of stories, though. If you wanted to, you could muster a group of orcs who come together with a desire to receive the gift of the Holy Light. You could make a guild out of that, run events, go nuts. An already-existing orc Paladin would not stand in their way. He may have had the gift bestowed upon him on another occasion, under completely unique circumstances. It would not presume anything about past lore, nor would it require anyone to alter their profiles. The circumstances would be wholly unique, wholly separate, and would affect him alone. The existing orc Paladin would have a different path ahead of him to those newly embarking upon the struggle to connect to the Light. It is true that his Paladin-hood would take a lower developmental priority in any adventures he may have, but that should not invalidate him as a valuable character as regards his potential.

Heck, an established [race] [class] could easily serve as a mentor for others seeking to follow in her footsteps. I can see so much meaningful development to be gained from that sort of relationship. Someone who has faced prejudice and strife all her life as a result of her choice would be an ideal inspiration for new blood.

We should not presume that a spate of individuals taking up unlikely skills occurred in year 30 of the King's Calendar, and that no one has or possibly could have dreamt of the idea before then. That, to me, seems like an unnatural contrivance. Characters with the ability and inclination to undergo training in a given path should be allowed to do so whenever in our timeline it would have made sense for them to.

If the goal and primary purpose of introducing new combinations is to spark events and bring healthy roleplay to the wider world of Azeroth, I think that this is the wrong way to go about doing so. That's the definition of 'agenda' right there. If people want to see and run and partake in more events, then we should focus on promoting those things. Sketching out ideas, plots, and propositions as a community. That is an entirely different issue to new combinations in my opinion, and linking them inseparably is only going to make both undertakings more complex than they need to be. Also, I think events have their place, and they should not necessarily be considered better than smaller group roleplay, or even one-on-one storylines. I think it was put best in this thread. Specifically, the stuff under the heading of 'Cooperative Role-playing'.

[Grakor456]

If the goal and primary purpose of introducing new combinations is to spark events and bring healthy roleplay to the wider world of Azeroth, I think that this is the wrong way to go about doing so. That's the definition of 'agenda' right there. If people want to see and run and partake in more events, then we should focus on promoting those things. Sketching out ideas, plots, and propositions as a community. That is an entirely different issue to new combinations in my opinion, and linking them inseparably is only going to make both undertakings more complex than they need to be. Also, I think events have their place, and they should not necessarily be considered better than smaller group roleplay, or even one-on-one storylines. I think it was put best in this thread. Specifically, the stuff under the heading of 'Cooperative Role-playing'.

Don't read too deeply with the word "event." Storylines for these may have big events, or they may have small group or even one on one RPs. Context is a big part of this. Nor do I think that this makes things "more complex than they need to be" at all. You're going into previously un-trodden territory: I think it is only natural that some effort be expended in order to reach that end goal.

I'm going to be frank: if people are expecting a system where, especially at first, they can just roll any combination they want without any work put into it, that is never going to happen. It's too big of an undertaking, both in story and in the technical end that Kretol has to do, for that.

Can we also stop treating "agenda" like it's a dirty word? All that word means is the underlying motivation for an action. We've never tried to hide what our particular desires for this system were, so pointing it out like it's some shock or major deception just strikes me as a little bizarre.

[Kretol]

Darn orcs and their Loktarian agendas...

[Dae]

I want to reiterate that the idea of allowing new race/class combinations is meant to facilitate the Custom Lore system.

And for now, I ask that you humor the GMs for a moment- Assume that we'll have to initially unlock new race/class combination through the creation of new lore along the lines of the sort of lore justifying Tauren Paladins or Troll druids.
(I am not saying necessarily how the policy will be, mind you.)

if that were the only way, how would you suggest the server handle it?

I ask this because sometimes going along with a concept, even with the understanding that you have a differing opinion, it puts people more on the same page.

I would also like to make it clear that I know there is merit to smaller scale anythings in roleplay, including an individual abnormal race/class combination. I think we all recognize that. The argument against starting out with new race/class combinations isn't to railroad characters with these new combinations. It is the sentiment that it probably isn't the best place to start with this new potential policy.