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[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of "Faction Conflict" in roleplay.

Hello good readers one and all, it has been a bit of time. I have for the most part been simply busy RPing or generally engaging with that strange realm called 'real life'. I was given a drop about the latest weirdposting thread courtesy of Hatescale/Dargeus/Santern regarding his effusive praise, or some may say delusion, for Faction Conflict RP, or WarRP I suppose you could call it.

RP PvP has always been contentious on Argent Dawn, going as far back as the fabled on and off conflicts between the 'North' Rpers and whatever brand of Undead or Blood Elf roleplayers were present. It has been a source of more drama and discourse rather than actual character development and narrative storytelling. Don't let anyone otherwise tell you. It can be a fun distraction and has been the source of many hilarious memes over the long years of Argent Dawn's existence but it cannot seriously be considered on the same level as normal RP.

I noticed that some friends of mine have pointed out that WarRP is no better than other forms of roleplay that don't really fit with the setting. We're talking on the level of Witcher RP, GoT RP, Boardwalk Empire RP. That is certainly the case these days. The lore is an ever evolving and changing - for better or worse- thing. The era of BIG WAR has passed with Legion and BFA.

But there are a handful of groups - you know who I mean - who are adamant on remaining locked into this clown fiesta of an RP mode. Usually I am of the opinion as those who may have read previous posts I've made, that there's a balance to strike between anything goes and grounded in the setting. Lets not kid ourselves that the primary pursuers of RP PvP are after a power trip rather than actual RP interaction, the mechanics behind it entirely gear towards your standard toxic pvp bros who think that the only meaningful interaction is /duel. Why not settle your differences in Counterstrike? A far more balanced game mechanically.

Even that alone isn't truly the issue, strange players can do strange things as long as they're not infringing on anyone else as far as I care. What truly is the problem is that they elevate their - type - of RP as the sole and only true arbiter of RP, the litmus test for self-awareness, to quote Santern himself.

Had this been in Legion or BFA, sure I'd say WarRP has a place but it's time has long passed. It really started during WoD when the lack of actual expansion relevant material that players could engage in forced players to 'write' their own 'lore'. The results being that many lazy roleplayers got hooked on the quick fix of RP PvP campaigns and did no upkeep on their own guilds, only thriving from one campaign to the other and even recruiting non-roleplayers to make sure that they 'won' their fights.

So by all means engage in your WarRP, but you're no better than the 'Darkshire RPers' - whatever that is meant to mean - or any other niche community.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of “Authority” in roleplay.

A hot button topic I’ve seen mentioned about recently being passed back and forth on the official forums has been the problem of “authority” in a roleplay setting. As in, playing a role that by virtue of that role is logically considered to be one with a level of authority over other players.

There are several ways to approach this issue. Some are more straight-forwards than others. Firstly you have to determine what is an authority role. Aside from Guild Masters, there are actual few player roles in game that are concrete. Roleplay however lets you play anything conceivably imaginable.

Roles such as Guardsmen/Sentinels/Grunts - whichever patrols a settlement - have always been contentious because of the implied power structure that comes with playing such a role. Now, a player is more than entitled to play a guardsmen. However we as other roleplayers are entirely permitted to ignore that guardsmen, for any reason.

Roleplay is after all built around co-operation. If none can be found then there is no point in trying to force the other player into doing things they do not wish to do. Happiness and satisfaction in roleplay comes from enjoying yourself with a group of like-minded players, curated as needed.

That solution above is the simplistic solution. Not everyone is as high minded to do such things. For those who do not like to ignore other players - which again is a completely valid approach - there are other ways to manage problematic players playing a role purely for the sake of power fantasy at the expense of others. There can always be ways to diffuse, diminish and accommodate inconvenience in roleplay. A guardsman roleplayer begins talking about certain laws that sound nonsense to you? By extension perhaps, your character? Make roleplay out of that. The ball is then shifted into their court, and it is an excellent litmus test on determining what the other player is trying to get out of the situation - roleplay? or the satisfaction of making themselves feel important?

Now the opposing side of the coin is those playing as criminals, the antithesis to the “cops and robbers” genre of roleplay. A much maligned group of players - for some good reasons - who often are the most resistant to accepting the consequences of their actions. Why is that? Escapism of course, and not the positive sort. The sort that requires wasting the time and energy of others in order to make themselves feel better.

My suggestion to accommodate criminal roleplayers is rather generous, if i say so. Ensure that the consequences enforced upon their character is also something to roleplay out. Penalties should not feel like a punishment on the player - differentiating character and player may be a challenge for some of them though - and there can always be something done to make engaging roleplay for the criminal, beyond laborious and tiresome “chases” across a town or city. Fines make the most obvious sense for a lot of races that don’t clearly use prisons for petty  crime - Orcs, Elves, Trolls seem to lack any sort of gaoling aside from those who have committed high crimes against state.

For those who wish to do prison roleplay, simply dumping the criminal in the cell and leaving them would be a waste of a roleplay chance. Interrogation, coercion, monitoring and all sorts of things can be done. Otherwise I would suggest leaving prison roleplay to be a thing done off screen. Alternatives to imprisonment may be penal duties of varying degree, which allows a criminal and law-enforcer to do something co-operatively.

Of course with all these potential areas, those criminal roleplayers who categorically refuse to engage should reasonably not be considered roleplayers but mere fantasists who would be better suited playing a single player game.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

Hey ToAD! I've got a question. Where's the line on gatekeeping? If there is any. Quite a few times I found myself facing things that make no sense in the lore. A DK who's not undead (or frozen). Demon Hunters completely ignoring what they are. I've tried to help bring some understanding but to no avail, or only for them to say 'Oh well, this is how my character works'. At one point, if any, can I say. Well... I don't want to RP with your character, and is that gatekeeping?

There is always a balance to strike. You can take the logical extremes of both ends and say both are ideal but the truth of the matter is we can't have all gatekeeping and all lorebreaking either. On a fundamental level as players I think we have a problem with the paucity of lore in some areas and how Blizzard throws it around like a football carelessly.

WoW is not a lore heavy setting and has been prone in recent years to massive and jarring changes without little to no meaningful explanation from Blizzard themselves. The problem with that is when you have characters with more than superficial depth - like any proper roleplaying OC should have - you are going to hit problems time and time again because where there are gaps there will be people who fill it in with their own personal takes or conjecture from what - is - present.

Now you may think to yourself is it gatekeeping to not roleplay with someone? Absolutely not. Is it gatekeeping to then tell others around you, friends, guildies and the like to not play with someone based on what can be broken down to aesthetic, artistic licensing? Its fine and well to put a ring around a harmful player who's actively trying to upset or disrupt other players but someone playing a character concept that is a bit - off - ? Less so. Many players are wholly open to being enlightened on their flaws and most roleplayers want to become better at what they do.

Those who dismiss help at every turn? Bite back with nasty bile at their precious self-inserted character being insulted or harmed in anyway and who absolutely MUST be the different special person in the room? Feel free to shut those people out, and most people will probably shut them out but do not try to force the hands of others to exclude people from their experiences, that is entirely the choice of others to make.

So to answer your question - can YOU say you don't want to rp with someone? Absolutely, that is your prerogative as a paying customer. You don't have to RP with -anyone- if you're that way inclined and you can RP when and where you wish. So long as the RP you do is with consent of the other person, and is not visibly breaking the Terms of Service? Go wild. If someone comes to you though and says "you shouldn't rp like this, its bad because I don't like it." or "You are a bad roleplayer because this offends my tastes." You ignore them.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of Escapism in Roleplay.

While the dust settles on yet another erp “scandal” across Argent Dawn I found these particular narrative framing devices to be quite odd, weird even.It seems that certain groups on the server have come to realise they need a new buzzword to use as a stick to hammer others with. The problem is however they’re using a very dangerous word that can be used on them just as easily down the line, far more than amorphous terms like “hypocrisy” or “lore abiding” or “good roleplay”.

Escapism, despite what some are wanting to paint it as is actually vital for roleplay to happen in the first place. It is the essence of it. Why else would people want to play something else other than to experience something their normal lives would not allow for it?

Even the soulless autocratic masters of the past and the would be crypto-fascists of today understand its power. Bread and circuses. Without it the masses realise the horror their vampiric overlords are trying to inflict upon them.

So then why is escapism a bad thing? Regardless of what you - do - in roleplay you are in effect partaking in it. Unless you are actually roleplaying a self-inserted vehicle for your own selfish less than positive ends. Be you play a mighty warrior, wizard or ranger or a lowly shit-shovelling peasant, you are partaking in a form of escapism. I would hazard however that the ones who seem to dislike it more are those of the latter camp, and those who particularly dislike individual creativity of characters. The sort - i’m sure you’re all familiar with these types of guild leaders - who wish only for their guilds to display total obedience and uniformity to the great leader, all action is done to aggrandise them and only them. To step out of line and be yourself is treat as if you have an “issue” a “defect” that wishes to be different from the glorious collective body.

Absolutely spine-wrenchingly dystopian, in other words.

So, to engage in escapism is to indulge in the fantastic, to explore and enjoy things you would never usually be able to, to dream and to dream of good things and even hope that you can gain something even marginally close to it in some way.

But I digress, I am well aware I am responding to a certified cow-shaped sockpuppet that was famously described by an intelligent man as usually being “someone who’s been summoned in off realm” to distract from the topics at hand and generally likes to think of themselves as a modern Raphael Hythlodaeus when in actuality they behave like a Pee-wee Herman - which has a whole other set of unfortunate implications behind it - and is hardly taken seriously because when you consider the statement below

It becomes rather hard to take someone who derrides someone as genuine for posting opinions on the official forums when they themselves have posted well in excess of nine thousand posts while trying to cowardly hide their real identity away from others.

Your life must be ever so sublime to not even sympathise a little with people wanting some relief to their lives. I hope your existence remains as ever as splendiferous as ever, Teyha.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On  the matter of Elitism in Roleplay

Thanks to my friends at CoAD for supplying me with this interesting little nugget. Taken from the “official” - a lie - Argent Dawn discord server, the same one ran by a few well known guys. Actually for a change talking about roleplay rather than their next distasteful cosplay attempt. While not to accuse the persons in question of being associated with said collective of crypto-fascists their sentiments expressed are honestly quite interesting to pick apart. The conversation was part of a larger block on whether or not certain races are relatable, what makes an interesting character and general ideas about “power” in roleplay - an entirely separate topic i’ll talk about in detail another post - . To cap off the topic of power briefly, there are definitely those who roleplay purely as a power fantasy. Roleplay itself is generally boiled down into three camps of motivation:

Narrative Storytelling Escapism Exploration of Ideas/Themes or Identities

Power fantasies neatly slot into escapism. There is nothing wrong with wanting to play the big strong warrior or wise wizard or cunning crook. You want to play something that is more than what you - the player - are. It takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness to actually realise why you’re playing these characters, most of the time people unconsciously don’t know why they’re doing it. The issue of power fantasies is when you try enforce that power over other players also trying to enjoy their escapism. By this I am talking about the vast array of “Nobles”, “Chieftains” and the like who exist purely for someone else to enforce their will upon others - because they are powerless in their real lives mostly.

With that said, people who play underpowered characters are also prevalent, though usually less for escapism reasons and more for either exploration or narrative reasoning. I’m sure you’ve all met those who are happy to play the normal grunt, the humble cleric or even the stoic knight. However what Mister Purdue - who i am confused why someone on WRA is on AD... but nevermind - takes it to the logical extreme. The “Peasant” roleplayer.

Argent Dawn has for years had a cluster of players who play - quite literally - the weakest, dumbest and inept characters. You see them primarily crawling in Stormwind City, Orgrimmar and in the past - Silvermoon. Why? I’ve talked with friends for years over what drives someone to play a beggar on the street and actively seek out trouble to have their character abused. Sure you can argue there is a narrative theme to explore there, one of neglect and institutional abuse towards the vulnerable but invariably this isn’t the case. The real case? It’s usually either a weird manifestation of the “humble brag” or even “virtue signalling”, showing off that they are “so much better” than the “lazy” roleplayers who only play heroic characters by showing rather than playing the game’s actual characters - the things Blizzard and generally players want to focus on - they will play the shit-smeared illiterate farmer purely to passively shame those who want to play higher tiered characters. They deliberately wander into events and open roleplay areas and “pretend” to not know what’s going on while drawing all attention to themselves to show how “pious” and “virtuous” they are for playing a crippled beggar with one eye who has somehow lived under a rock all their life and never seen magic used. They also condescendingly mock any character who attacks their character as “powergamers” and the “Ignores the usual” meme originated from this class of - Peon Roleplayer - the “usual” being characters they didn’t like. The second group is far less mean spirited, but rather funny in a way. They play low-powered characters purely to get off on the fact that they can be dominated by others. They are in effect fetish characters.To illustrate there was once a fellow who used to sit around in Stormwind for hours on end with an interesting RP profile who which amounted to “this is a vulnerable young man - please take advantage of him however you like.” Not to judge someone’s tastes of course but it just seems quite amusing that the two different types of low-powered characters can generally be slotted into these two categories along a spectrum of sorts. Not all Peon Roleplayers are as insidiously arrogant as the examples described above and not all fetishists openly display their interest.

Also Mister Purdue  - not very nice to use a medical condition as an insult towards your fellow roleplayers.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the state of roleplay.

I’m sure many of you have been questioning the apparent decay on Argent Dawn and in general with WoW and been asking “is it really worth the time?” While I will firmly plant the blame for this lack of interest in roleplay and in the game in general on Blizzard’s doorstep to completely excuse the wider player community is also a bit rich.

Addressing String’s first point - emptier worlds. This is primarily down to a reduction in player activity in the open world, largely through swathes of the population now simply playing other games. It simply cannot be amended without having more people fill in those gaps, there are no ifs or buts about it. Though I would dispute that this is as bad as its portrayed. Less activity in Stormwind and Orgrimmar is a good thing overall as it puts people out into the world more widely. We have a massive environment for people to use and we traditionally do not use it. Dalaran, Boralus, the travelling hubs, Uldum and other regional hubs becoming more popular is a net benefit. Whether or not you like the regulars in those places is inconsequential really which leads me onto my next point... Community cohesion. As String rightly points out a lot of activity is clustered around spheres of players only interacting with one another. This has been an enduring problem with the Blood Elf community since before Cataclysm but its been rather exacerbated ever since a certain group of players and a certain someone’s vanity project became - trendy -. Now while my colleagues might prefer to slam them as the source of all evil, there are other cabal like groups on the server doing just the same thing - encouraged probably - by the apparent success of the aforementioned group . There is one in Stormwind which tries to control the “politics” of the city, led by a demented lawyer man who not only has spend over 12 years trying to blackmail, bully and harass guilds and players not complying with his stupid “rules” but also unleashed one of Stormwind’s most prolific bad roleplayers, the Dwarf-flavoured troglodyte who tried to sabotage guilds for no less than half a decade. The Night Elves too have had a similar clique that has tried to enforce absurd, delusional headcanon on players for years as well. contradicting established lore conventions and even the words of their own racial leaders - all the while maintaining sex shops within the likes of Astranaar that would make Goldshire blush like a maiden, oh and then having the gall to proclaim how ERP is “disgusting” on the public forums... before being found out to be fetishizing transgender characters - and running BDSM dungeons in the Wailing Caverns no less. The coterie of Blood Elf guilds infamous for their appalling behaviour too - lets collectively call them the “Magisterium” or “The Spire”, known for actively trying to infiltrate, doxx and harass those who they don’t like or suspected of besmirching their name, of pretending that their people are essentially a stand in for real-world white supremacism and accordingly behave in that fashion. Lets not forget that they constantly throw spanners into the works of RP Campaigns as well with their apparent obsession with evading consequences for doing stupid nonsense like dropping napalm on their enemies, all the while expecting special prisoner treatment from their enemies because of their pretty, flawless nature. I could go on at length about the detrimental nature of “cinematic universe” type groups on the wider community but its rather easy to summarise and understand - exclusivist, elitist groups who promote a singular vision of roleplay denigrate the open world, casual and different types of RP you may come across. String is correct in saying it does not promote RP. It is RP being “provided” much like a cheap quick fix or shot of some narcotic - and as you all know I have a very strong stance on “providers” of RP. It is as said, these groups are turning RP into tribalism. You have factions within a faction who do not interact with one another or even with those outside and - uninitiated - to the point where they can declare they are doing martial law inside a city and everyone else is supposed to just accept it because they have x number of members? That’s not how RP works. RP is a storytelling, collaborative process that takes two or more people consensually interacting with one another for mutual enjoyment. It’s not a PR stunt to make your small endowment feel bigger, to make your otherwise worthless life feel like it has meaning at the expense of others or a competition to “win”.

The thread in question largely has rather standard canned responses from the eternally online and the 6000+ post talking heads who don’t actually play the game any more but there was one post that stuck out in particular.

Venysse makes an excellent point, the community as a whole, especially the forum squad are the bone picking vultures who don’t really contribute anything to making the community better and would rather sit back and proclaim how great the - good old days - were and mock others. The response, fittingly so by one who doesn’t even play the game any more summarises the increasingly toxic environment poor Argent Dawn has had to endure.

Is the state of roleplay all bad? No of course not, there is plenty out there beyond the parasitic “provider” cinematic universe types. Despite their best efforts to claim that they are the - only hope - for Argent Dawn with their weirdly apocalyptic mode of speech and the near constant shilling on the public forums for them there are plenty of venues and hubs. There are discord channels out there that provide updates on open public events in Dalaran, Boralus, Uldum and even capital city hubs. Yes it is more difficult right now but the game itself is in a rough state. But the best way to fix this is to get out there into the world and roleplay with people who you wouldn’t normally play with and avoid elitist cabals telling you what you can and can’t do in RP.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of community moderation, part 2

Again, from the recent changes Square Enix are doing to their game in response to a massive surge of players from World of Warcraft. This one however has considerable problems with its wording and the implications for what it can mean for community there, but also back home on Argent Dawn.

As you are all likely aware in general guilds on WoW are beholden unto their own rules set by the Guild Leader - usually with concert from their officers, though not always - guilds are not a democracy, they are not open to collective bargaining, and it is frankly stupid to think that. If a guild leader wishes to run his guild as a circus, he or she is quite welcome to.

This policy from Square Enix however smacks an almost sinister Orwellian crypto-fascist wet dream vibe to it. I’ll not dress it up. I have spoken to a number of people, both on my team and as an individual person and we all have come to the same conclusion. It is ripe for abuse. New player joins a free company of fifty. Fifty members are fine with the general tone, in jokes and banter of the community.

Fifty first member takes issue with it, this holds the 50 other members hostage essentially in their own guild/company. This will lead to bad faith actors (of which World of Warcraft and Argent Dawn in particular have an abundance of) joining a company in Final Fantasy XIV - as many are already moving to try it out purely to cause harassment to these guilds by feigning offence at innocuous and inoffensive (in that community) jokes and as explained previously - in Final Fantasy XIV, Game Masters are far harsher and more liable to ban players outright for even minor infractions. This is, none hyperbolically, a disaster for community cohesion. This fosters an almost Stasi like suspicion now of every single “outsider” from an in-group that they could potentially be there, silently reporting on Free Company/Guild chat and causing a community to unravel without even being able to be held accountable. This can easily be addressed by making a “Majoritarian” view of things. If in a group of fifty free company members a majority of players - be it simple or supermajority - the former being easier and logical - have no issue with how things are done, said or otherwise conducted then the minority of players “offended” senses should be directed to otherwise put up with it, or leave, - after all there are many other free companies out there.

So will this new ruling be exploited? Of course it will. The overall Final Fantasy XIV community has historically been far more prone to bending and abusing rules to the point of manipulating them to get people they disliked banned that this will be exploited, and FCs who have been around for nearly ten years with millions, maybe even billions of Gil invested into them will be ruined by the equal to social rats who want to feast on the misery of others.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of community moderation

While it’s well known these days that many of our playerbase have moved onto greener pasture it is interesting to see that main competitors to Blizzard Entertainment - Square Enix have seemingly reached a happy medium in regards to erotic activity on their game - no doubt realising a surge of WoW players will bring some - colourful - players to their environment.

While on Argent Dawn you have had literal groups of players cosplaying like some sort of KKK or other crypto-fascist moralizing group going around attacking and harassing players - reporting player roleplay profiles with no reason other than the age is “not right” - I personally can’t see the problem playing younger characters than modern day expectations considering this is a fantasy world where Orcs are physically adults at 12 and elves live for thousands of years - or other such trivialities. On top of this you have players fabricating entire screenshot logs of erp and attempting to implicate innocent players in wrongdoing - which is why posting screenshots on the forums with names visible is bannable - and it makes you wonder why the entire population of Argent Dawn aren’t living in abject fear of the spittle covered cup-hand of a certain totalitarian fetishising group.

Then you take this what Square Enix have done. They have acknowledged that people are essentially going to erp in their game and as long as it’s between consenting players in private locales (houses, company buildings and in private party chat) there is nothing wrong with that. This is essentially what any reasonable - level headed and pragmatic - person would also say. This is the equivalent of going into a dungeon, garrison or raid with friend(s) - some player are spicy - and doing as you like there. Or if needed, standing in Goldshire whispering someone.

So it appears that Square Enix have taken the big win here, as despite many people saying they don’t erp - and in fact, attack it - they will be the first to head there it seems as Square Enix are openly permitting this. It will be of a great relief no doubt to a community there who until recently largely had to live under the specter of being falsely accused of misconduct and hauled before highly effective - and draconian - game masters. In Final Fantasy XIV, unlike in WoW - harassment and bullying have a largely zero tolerance policy from its moderating staff, permanent bans are permanent - this largely has lead to a more affable community spirit but there are those who exploit this to ensnare and trap others in compromising situations. Recently with a swelling of the playerbase Square Enix have taken it upon themselves to clarify and make it far more concrete what kind of behaviours are not tolerated and which are - something Blizzard ought to do - in their game. While it’s been known for several years now that Blizzard essentially don’t care for what goes on between players in consenting groups and parties, and as Addons are optional third party content - they have limited scope to deal with them It would serve Blizzard and the players of the game far more if they just dropped the ambiguity about consensual activity between players - there is practically no one under the age of 18 playing the game anyway as the game hasn’t attracted new players since Warlords of Draenor - so a simply “Yes its fine in private channels/locations with consenting parties.” Of course they won’t do this as Blizzard tries to maintain its completely laughable pretence of “clean” “family friendly” corporation while its main developers and even president have had to resign over literal rape allegations from their staff.

It would also stop the cringe erp-hunter LARP that resurfaces every six months both in game and on the official forums, and maybe shut down some of the more narcissistic wall-flowers that lurk there.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the potential of greener pastures.

While I don’t see the need to beat the dead horse that is the incelery of Blizzard Entertainment’s treatment of women and gay men - still holding out for the claims of transphobia, don’t worry it will be there - One thing I have noticed lately is the increasing willingness of long term WoW players moving to other realms and universes of fantasy.

But the question, is it the right thing to do?

Obviously no one reasonable to advocate for you to stay playing something you find uncomfortable - that is insanity and inhuman. But, is Tamriel, Eorzea or the Galaxy Far Far Away really the type of place that the average Argent Dawn player will feel at home in? I’ve had many discussions with my fellow CoAD team friends and we all have our opinions on the matter. While we all agree that as a creative medium, we as players should reclaim World of Warcraft as something that works for us all - not all of us are particularly comfortable in remaining on the game considering what type of behaviour paying for that subscription enables. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So first up on the list. Tamriel,the main setting of the Elder Scrolls universe. As a whole I would say the Elder Scrolls Online thematically matches many popular brands on Argent Dawn. It ticks the boxes of House/Noble Roleplay, Military, Intrigue and “Race War Now!” - all fairly popular areas of roleplay on Argent Dawn. ESO also boasts a far more vigorously designed world compared to current WoW, a considerably more consistent lore and player housing that is very generous. The downsides? There always are downsides... ESO is shackled with an insular community that much like Guild Wars 2 - another former contender to WoW - has a somewhat small town Alabama mentality towards new players. This is also combined with a recurring problem of a number of players using their characters to effectively further their own real life politics or ideologies. In particular the crypto-fascists are very drawn to the Aldmeri Dominion faction, with the prominence of the Thalmor - yes the same elf supremacists from Skyrim - being a key factor. Thanks to blatant racism being a canonical factor of the setting many have gotten away with effectively using their character as a smokescreen. Alternatively the Neo-Roman Imperials also are a popular second choice for your standard chauvinistic “ew women” basement dwellers who would shrivel at the first touch of a real woman. Community issues aside, ESO also has system problems with a very awkwardly designed UI that is unintuitive to someone used to the traditional hotbar system present in many MMO games. Perhaps a minor problem in the long term as you get used to it but be prepared for heavy frustration and awkward handling. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Second up we have the supposed rising star of the genre, in the gleaming world of Eorzea, the primary setting for Final Fantasy 14. The setting is very conducive for Adventure type RP in particular, but by no means limited. The worldbuilding of Eorzea is very elaborate, with analogues to many real world cultures being present, Norse, Franco-German, Middle English, Levantine/Mediterranean and Far Eastern with smaller groups being present too. The lore is watertight, with very few inconsistencies - the few are merely a player issue of doing class quests in reverse order to the story quest mostly - and the setting is shown rather than explained through out of universe books. Player housing is rather advanced as well, with both personal and guild varieties being present in four capital cities so far.

Things are not always sunny however. Some glaring errors are present in the game. The UI and general intuitiveness of the systems present are incredibly dated and arcane. This is likely due in part to the need to keep things workable for the console players, and probably Square Enix not understanding their playerbase, especially in the West. In addition, due to how the story is the main system of progression, for those wanting to roleplay with a full understanding it is effectively mandatory to do the main story questline to completion before taking part in substantial or heavy roleplay. Finally and probably the most glaring problem is the issue of the community itself. While the general projection is that the FF14 community is very welcoming and kinder than the WoW community, this is only really applicable to the US servers. Both Crystal and Primal - the main ones - are highly active, busy and brimming with both helpful people and roleplay, so much so it spills out into the open world and cities. Crystal in particular is the most analogous to “golden age” Argent Dawn. The only major issue is the “problem” of ERP being quite acceptable and open in the games RP community, no weirdly KKK cosplaying attempts to shut it down will work here, unfortunately for some. That said it can be ignored and the players soliciting can be reported if they persist - and square enix is very good at customer support. However, the European servers are a whole other beast. Light has no roleplay of any major or notable amount, and half of the servers on it are not even populated. Outside of Lich, Shiva and Odin there are scant few players around. Chaos has more people on it, but the wrong kind of people. I have spoken to a now silly number of people on Crystal and to a lesser extent Primal giving abject horror stories they have brought from the Chaos server group. Most of the RP happens on Omega, with some smaller level on Moogle and Ragnarok. Though to call it RP is generous. Their “roleplay” consists of generally playing self-inserts in Second Life tier social roleplay. Those few who engage in actual roleplay often find themselves ostracised or even - subtly - harassed - remember, square enix are very good at customer support - for trying to roleplay within the setting they are in. It is no surprise then that there are more European players playing on the US server groups than on their own. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally the old man, though potentially most balanced of the three is the well established Galaxy Far Far Away - the setting of Star Wars: The Old Republic. With a colossal lore from both in game and the extended Old Republic universe itself the game has tremendous potential for all manner of RP, from your traditional Sith or Jedi RP to space Criminals, Military, space Researchers/Academics, Political RP and most things in between. The Stronghold System, while dated compared to the others does allow for expansive and varied environments to do both public and private roleplay within, with a whole catalogue of venues being available for perusal. Besides that, the planets themselves are highly expansive and massive in terms of scale, easily twice the size of major zones in WoW often with a variety of environments that make the planets seem like an actual world, or part of at least. Hoth really does have the sensation you are on a frozen tomb in the Outer Ring. The downsides of the game however are rather heavy. Roleplay is almost entirely guild centric, though not hidden away by any means. Competing “headcanons” have been know to create problems, but as the Galaxy is big enough it really boils down to a matter of taste rather than sociopathic cult leaders attempting to control the roleplay for everyone. In addition, the system of the game are woefully clunky, with the worst customisation for characters present, even if the transmog system is better than WoW’s. Thankfully the new expansion for it is coming soon which promises to revamp both character agency and customisation and fix systems that are horrendously out of place in 2021. Finally the other main issue of TOR is the presence of the free to play, but pay and get more model. Freemium is neither the F2P that ESO offers or the simple subscription model FF14 offers.

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With all that said, each game has its flaws and perks. Considering there loudest voices seem to be indicating either a shift towards ESO or FF14, it will be interesting to see if these become permanent converts - with all the moral grandstanding about how terrible Blizzard is - or they will quietly slink back to Azeroth once the dust settles and nothing sadly is done about the appalling corporate problems in Blizzard. I personally will remain engaged on Argent Dawn. WoW itself is a product that is shaped by its community more than its sleazy developers and strangulating Blizzard over it is realistically likely to cause more harm long term. Besides, how can we reclaim the setting for the players if we all decide to jump ship?

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of “claiming land”

We’ve all seen this happen, we may have been involved, or even perpetrated it in our inexperience. I myself in my younger days got tied up in the courtly politics of Silvermoon on the issue. Roleplayers have always wanted a little “area” as their own to say - ‘this is our patch, we control this zone’. The problem is that in such an environment where the physical limitations of the game systems simply mean players have to share the vast majority of the game world with other players - the nature of an mmo after all - this is exceedingly difficult to do without causing some sort of problem, some beef or even a vendetta between groups. These problems are more associated with guilds that have more of an explicit claim to power over implicit, though not exclusively. Examples are primarily those tied to a certain zone - Guards/Grunts/Military themed guilds generally claim an area as their “protection” zone. Historical and recent range from the Barracks in Orgrimmar, the Town Hall of Darkshire and Lakeshire, City Hall in Stormwind, along with the Command Center, the Temple of Blood and Sunfury Spire within Silvermoon City. Now from the point of view of the guilds in question and in trying to rationalise this myself they would claim that as their roleplay involves the defence and general protection of that particular area, town, settlement or building they would obviously take some sort of ownership. The issue is when this ownership then translates into exclusionary measures. I am sure you’ve all experienced the power fantasy guilds of guardsmen, grunts and the like making human - or orc, or elf - walls to deny “access” or impose “martial law” - good lord grant me strength - in a particular area. They claim that they are “providing” roleplay for people in doing this. As you may recall I’ve already covered the flaws of being a “provider” of roleplay in this previous post. Flaws aside, the other main problem with this is their roleplay is predicated on assuming other characters are already opted-in to their system. All roleplay is based on consensus, despite what anyone else may say that that their way is better or another persons is wrong or “degenerate” for engaging in another type, I pay a subscription, you pay a subscription, we all pay the same. So attempting to exclude players from an area or - in more extreme cases, entire zones - over some concocted “authority” is complete nonsense. Be the guild in question a Guard/Military guild, or some other self-authority granted guild such as ones claiming to represent part of a state body, or as is more common those claiming some sort of aristocratic privilege - ie. house guilds - that means they can “own” an area insomuch as their roleplay dictates, of course the easy solution is you could just be facetious and claim your own roleplay idea contravenes their supposed authority though this rarely leads to anything more than dull and cyclical drama that just wears down the parties involved. The obvious solution is for reaching that consensus, a give and take from both sides, dialogue as to mean there is limited trouble in the future. Lamentably however in this current year such things are almost non-existent. Those roleplaying in a similar environment or idea who do not fit into a particular group’s ideal paradigm are pressured into compliance with the mob pack, if this does not work then the tried and tested tools of undermining ranging from blatant sabotage - either through direct means, looking at the likes of you Mr Stonemug - or indirect means, rumour spreading and forging of false evidence to tarnish the non-compliant party all the way to emotional and psychological manipulation of others through all manner of social engineering techniques. It is surprising how many guild leaders treat their position as a sacrosanct place that cannot be assailed by criticism, the previous post on the circumstances that may lead a player into this type of mindset elaborates more on this. To conclude, this issue will always remain a present problem in the server community, unlike places like WRA and MG where there is a general consensus building process about what is considered lore and canon. Argent Dawn completely lacks this with its dogged insistence on atomising itself into various small closed off cliques that treat one another as mutual and hostile threats over potential partners to make stories with. Why this is the case is the topic for another discussion (More individualism, ego? Who knows). A solution from Blizzard -for the short term- could be the implementation of controlled “RP phases” where people who wish to engage in a particular avenue of RP in that place at that time could toggle a phase and jump into it. This has worked extremely effectively on privately ran RP servers. Now the naysayers may say this will only lead to further segregation and atomisation. I say however, considering the general breakdown in the willingness to compromise and discuss things rationally -look at the official forums for example- there is going to be no player led drive to mending the gap any time soon. Short of Blizzard forcibly banning key figures on the server responsible for driving the quasi-cult of personality, crypto-fascist element modes of leadership -which itself would be a hard task with blizzard’s current state of community managers- minimisation of the issue is the best I think we can hope for. A longer term solution would be something akin to how other popular MMOs have implemented various tiers of player or guild housing in the likes of The Elder Scrolls Online or Final Fantasy XIV.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the limits of “IC =/= OOC”

Hello everyone, with a busy time dealing with the gradual loosening of lockdown here, working with the rest of the team on the other blog and just a general inertia for philosophising its been quite quiet lately i’ll admit. However this is a big one not covered yet here. You’ve probably all seen this bandied about like some cure all to woes and the like yes? Used by the wrong people for the wrong reasons too no doubt. To start let me be clear, the separation of character and player is non-negotiable, there cannot be “role” playing without it by dictionary definition. If you are not playing a “role” you cannot be role-playing. That said this is also used as a shield by many players on Argent Dawn to effectively hide behind their own personal beliefs and project them onto their own character. Now I won’t condemn people for doing this, we all leave a bit of ourselves on the character, most of us aren’t professional writers after all! The issue stems from when the character stops being a “character” and becomes a “conduit” for the player to pursue whatever weird ideas they have offline in a safer online environment. Most times these are completely inoffensive and sometimes even beneficial for the player in the long term - here I am referring to those who suffer from gender dysphoria exploring non-binary or otherwise a different gender to their assigned sex at birth - and no reasonable person has an issue with this either from my own extensive experiences and talks with others. The problem of a “conduit” is when they’re used by players to engage in destructive or repugnant fantasies, ones that can lead to harm for other players around them. For example let us take the stereotypical human male paladin - sometimes dressed in green, sometimes dressed in red, and even sometimes in blue - who lecherously pursues women for the purpose of “breeding”, they claim “oh but it’s my character’s nature to do this.” really now? Being a rapey creepo is integral to your character, and singling out “younger” looking female characters for “recruitment” is how this is done? Objective nonsense, lets be fair. They are lacking the stimulation from real life and the abundant 18+ video websites out there clearly aren’t enough for their niche fetishes to be satiated. This is what it boils down to, people who for whatever reason or another in their offline lives - exceedingly so this last year unfortunately - find a lack of fulfilment in dead end jobs, they feel disempowered, weak. They may even suffer from mental health issues - your mental health is not an excuse to harm others, mind - and thus turn to their online fantasy world to soothe their aches and pains.

These players are simply not roleplaying, by definition they are not playing a role they are inserting themselves into the sleeve of an online persona to fantasise about things they cannot have. Overbearing, culty like guild leader with a massive ego and tendency to shit on their “lessers?” - probably works a low paid, long hour underappreciated job either in retail, clerical, delivery/logistics or hospitality - especially restaurants - and feels the need to have a group of loyalists telling them how important and great they are to deal with the crushing pain.

Immaculate and charismatic human male paladin chad chasing females of every race and acting very creepy around them? Probably a lack of confidence offline, perhaps social anxiety and a feeling of worthlessness, likely raised a misogynistic culture as well. Over-powered, can’t be defeated super fighters with anime-level reflexes Or always right archmages at age 16? Likely someone who feels weak in their life, either through abuse or a sense of underachievement, they’re seeking to feel better by playing something powerful. Weirdly overly obsessing about race or religion in a universe where the notion of “race” is about as dumb as trying to class a dolphin and a cow as the same? Do they insert odd phrases that look like they were taken off /pol/ or reddit? Probably someone who has been either radicalised or someone living in an insecure environment, looking for an -other- to redirect their worries onto.

These are just some of the examples i can offer. In general a good way to check if someone is roleplaying or simply playing an avatar of themselves is to see how they react to something unexpected or perhaps unpleasant to their character. If they react neutrally and go along with it, or accept what is happening then they are likely playing a character. An avatar however will likely recoil in shock and disgust and declare “how dare you harm my character without my permission.” in a very indignant and weirdly personal manner, as if you were attacking the player. A certain cinematic universe on Argent Dawn love to mock these people as “second life roleplayers” - ironically failing to look in the mirror themselves - and the appellation is quite fitting, they would get far more out of such a game than this one.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the matter of ERP

Oh, I’ve wondered when it’s best to talk about this particularly contentious topic. Though considering there’s been outright harassment of GMs (Game Masters) about their approach to it recently this might be the pertinent time.

ERP, if anyone reading this doesn’t know is the broad term meaning “erotic roleplay”, its a loaded term in itself to be quite honest - what is erotic to one person may not be to another, subjective terms tend to get very messy in situations when there’s a multiplayer dimension towards it.

Whether or not you engage in it. Many claim they do not but... regardless of the online roleplaying community you will be in, it will happen. Human sexuality is a very interesting, sometimes terrifying thing to see in action. Clearly the only moral viewpoint is to prevent underage players (depending on the country, this definition may vary) from being exposed unduly to clearly things they should not be. I should make it abundantly clear here, those who deliberately target those who they know are underage (by their own country’s laws) and impressionable with the clear intent to manipulate and get some sort of perverse satisfaction out are the problematic individuals. They are thoroughly repugnant and should be taken into therapy for their issues. forcibly if needed. Now, with that out of the way, onto the nuances of the matter. What goes on between two consenting adult players in their own private chat channels (or in a place they aren’t displaying it to others) is truthfully, none of our business. The comparison I would like to give is this - you see two people making out with one another rather publicly on a park bench, this is the equivalent of writing your saucy erp in the middle of Stormwind. You wouldn’t do it offline in such a place, why online? Now two people sending spicy texts to one another while one is on the bus and another one walking down the street? That is the same as doing it over whisper. If you’re trying to peer into someone’s phone and see what’s being written that’s a completely different crime being taken place, and you’re arguably worse than the people doing the erotic actions. Now, two people (or more) in an  instanced area that only those who are consenting to the situation are inside? The equivalent is being in someone’s home behind closed doors doing as they like. You want to know what’s going on there? Again none of your business, and while the authorities (or blizzard) have a right to check, why would they when they have more important things to do? On the topic of blizzard, it is a well known fact that blizzard GMs are trained on day one to expect “unusual” and “weird” things when it comes to roleplay servers. A former member explained on twitch during the great lay-off that so long as consent wasn’t being violated and players were comfortable, they generally let it continue as normal, if it’s in private channels not being exposed to the public, there is little cause for concern. In their paraphrased words “You will see some weird shit on roleplay servers.”

Now onto the murkier areas. An often thrown about argument is that “you can’t verify their age” well yes, you can’t. Much in the same way if you click “I’m over 18″ on any of your favourite adult content websites while being 17 you are in actuality lying about it. Where does the liability fall there? If someone says they are 18 or older and persistently states that, the problem falls then on the dishonest party. Not to mention that in a number of nations the age of adulthood is set lower than 18, further complicating the process. In most European countries it is set anywhere between 15 and 17. Now I know some parts of the community would love to call all european nations nonces or whatever worn out term is used these days, despite being in them themselves... but besides the point  the whole “underage erp” argument is a dramacow itself, over inflated for the purpose of scoring some sort of points.

It’s become the point now that people actively “hunting” down erp or the more heinous crime suspected erp like some sort of online gestapo looking for thoughtcrime are now more of a problem and are compounding the deeper problem even further. How many times have you seen people falsely accused of erp? (Remember above, between consenting adults and in private, blizzard literally really has better things to care about) It happens on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. “Oh i saw A and B in the garrison” - oh really? I mean garrisons are the closest thing we have to housing in this game, so why automatically assume there’s a problem?

“Ah but F and G were in this instance for several hours.” - yes people can roleplay in dungeons, some of the best environments are inside them, Karazhan for example is wonderful for everything from gothic dance halls, theatres and creepy, massive libraries. Court of Stars is the only way to roleplay in Suramar without having to deal with endless re-spawns of mobs.

“But I saw J and K sat beside each other for over an hour in the Cathedral district/Valley of Honor/The Bazaar not speaking in say, they must be erping!” - Or they’re talking about private things to do with their characters that you wouldn’t be announcing to or in fact need to tell to the world unless you’re fishing for attention? And even if they were, recall the whole sending texts to one another scenario.

The simple fact is in many cases these “erp hunters” have had irrefutable proof given that they also erp, making their efforts a complete sham. They aren’t after a “safer server” they’re after good boy points with whatever bizzaro crypto-fascist groups that equates hunting down erpers like “finding the jews” or “purging the commie”. At the same time their overly publicised attempts to “stop erp” just makes the genuinely heinous individuals who predate and go after impressionable and easily manipulated younger players more careful, or even worse, easier to hide under the veil of being aggrieved wrongly because your “cry wolf” over every one not roleplaying to your subjective standards as “an erper” has now reached the point where genuine cases of abuse are being brushed aside because people can’t be bothered to deal with your dramacowing.

But will they listen? Probably not, and the unfortunate thing out of all of this is it poisons the atmosphere of the server even more when you have people running around, rather than roleplaying, they look for perceived faults to use as hammers against their fellow players.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

Recruitment for guilds is always am important part of how a guild is seen and taken in the community. Some guilds have absolutely tear inducing methods such as the standard “Stand around and wait” approach. What does this give the impression to players? “Come to us we’re better than you all, we don’t need to do anything, you come to us, not us to you.” It’s lazy and arrogant.

Alternatively the inverse is the hunting down guildless members and repeatedly prodding and pleading for them to join. It smacks of desperation and neediness, and also a lack of interest from the guild to the individual as a person but as a number. (a trait we’ve found at CoAD the PCU guilds have in common)

The best and (probably controversial in saying this) primarily proper way to recruit someone is through actually roleplaying with them, getting a bead on if they suit a guild or not and then bringing them in, introducing them and making them feel part of the team.

Nothing turns off players more than being just another cog in an uncaring machine that only looks for how good they look, (gee 250 numbers wow!) rather than the quality of what is being offered.

You have to consider, is your guild a provider (ie bad) of roleplay or a machine for which roleplay can be achieved (ie good). “Providers” (with uncommon exceptions) almost are always formulaic and boring, cookie cutter type events on a “rota”. “Provider” guild leaders like to think they’re doing the server a great service, because it plays into their ego.

“Machine” guilds are the ones who last the longest, save for guilds centred not around an idea, but a person (ie house guilds). These are guilds which while may have the typical structure of any other guild encourage its members to take ownership of their own roleplay, doing it when and how they like within the parameters of the guild itself. “Machine” guilds are very much the guild for those wanting to have character development rather than being told what their character is doing.

Many players are simply content to accept what others give them and go with that, fast food roleplay. “Machine” guilds are those that purposefully tailor stories, events and development from the bottom up rather than the top down. If Argent Dawn gained even a dozen more of these types of guild we would have a far more vibrant and busy community.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

Expanding on the problem of Blood Elves

As i wrote in the previous post about Blood Elves and High Elves, there is problem which ranges from just mildly creepy to outright disgusting within the BE community on Argent Dawn (would love to hear thoughts on the matter for other servers). Back when they were first released it was considered quite fine to show off the draconian, authoritarian (even totalitarian) elements of BE society in the rp scene.

Of course that ended with the Sunwell patch and Blood Elves effectively transitioned from ultra-nationalist xenophobic goose-steppers with brainwashing and enslavement to the morally grey, ends justifies the means, wrongfully scorned trope of elf (dark elves without the dark skin basically, keep that in mind).

The problem is though that didn’t slow down those in the BE community from wanting to portray the elven gestapo. For years there have been groups on Argent Dawn who continue to treat the BE racial traits as being “racist” “pretty” “blond haired and (only) white” “zealous” “arrogant” and the one that has transcended past memehood “pragmatic”

Of those listed traits, only the “pretty” “arrogant” and “pragmatic” ones actually have any sort of weight in lore. The likes of the Sanguine Eye, often featured by the CoAD team, the Eclipsion Blade, Highblood Myrmidons and Phoenix Vanguard and similar militant orientated guilds have always had a crypto-fascist element in them. Yet these guilds were often praised as being the “gold standard” for Blood Elf rp. Lets not forget the numerous “Magisterium” and other pseudo-Royal Court type guilds which pop up and burn out like acne, almost universally carrying the same disturbing white supremacist surrogate theme.

Why? Blond Haired (blue) Green-eyed master race elves with drug addictions? Is it striking a bit -too- close to the historical matter of a great nation betrayed from within, only to rise from the ashes under the banner of a great and wise leader? Who am i describing here? Post-1918 Pre-1945 Germany or Quel’Thalas?

Crypto-fascism isn’t a problem just held in wide portions of Blood Elf communities, its endemic across the Horde (more on this later) in one way or another, Orcs, Forsaken, even (Grimtotem) Tauren and more recently the appearance of Mag’har and Zandalari Trolls have only helped this keep burning.

Its particularly insidious within the BE community because of a generalised and well recognised cultural practice amongst its players to - not talk about - the various problems they see and encounter inside guilds, both their own and their fellow players. Whatever encouraged this strange deferential silence to their “superiors” within guilds is unknown, but its a very authoritarian leaning idea to not kick up a fuss when there is clearly abuse taking place.

Of course not all Blood Elf players are like this, I myself while stopped playing as one over five years ago (directly as a reaction to this bizarre behaviour), I still know very good and decent roleplayers out there. The Sun Hawks, Oath of Silver and Phoenix Dawn are some of the nicest people within the community. The matter stands though, unless the Blood Elf community is more willing to call out and act appropriately against those who are clearly perpetuating a toxic culture, and simply lore unfriendly tropes beside that there won’t be any progress and this rather crusty sphere will only get worse with time - just look to the behaviour of Talenthiel and the Sanguine Eye Stazi in the last few months when they have been exposed repeatedly.

A final and more comical, though equally stupid observation was when the new player customisations for Shadowlands were being revealed there was more outrage among certain Blood Elf players for adding “Black elves” than there was for any other race. It says a lot about the type of players who drift towards playing Blood Elves.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

Gatekeeping - Yay or Nay?

It’s probably something we’ve all seen on Argent Dawn over the last few years is the increasing incidents of gatekeeping. By gatekeeping we go with the definition of :

Proponents of this often say that it’s to keep “bad rp” out of a community, or to maintain a “standard” that they themselves often set. The gatekeeper inevitably sets themselves up as being the only arbitrator of a particular type of roleplay and those who do not match those standards are thus not allowed to gain entry.

In the past this was quite important when World of Warcraft was a relatively new game without a strong precedent for how roleplay communities would operate. I for one certainly remember the days when the primary problem an rp community faced was petty harassment from non-roleplayers, via mounts, chat spam and general abuse and disruption.

These days however? We have reached an inverse situation. The raiders, pvpers and the like have largely matured and mostly ignore the roleplayers, even sometimes being converted themselves. The primary threat to roleplayers these days is unfortunately - other roleplayers, of the gatekeeping variety. We have become our own worst enemy, letting other players in our community dictate what is considered “right” and “wrong” to roleplay, even going beyond the public space, there are those now who think they have the moral authority to tell what players do between one another. Roleplay has forever been a collaborative effort. Another player only has as much authority as you let them have. Attempting to force a player into accepting a particular pseudo-doctrinal approach to how they roleplay is by dictionary definition: degenerate.

Gatekeeping is a chronic issue in limited roleplaying sectors such as races with much smaller populations, or concepts that stand apart from the mainstream. It is also a practice engaged in by the likes of the PCU, who by their very existence act as gatekeepers. They create a guild in a particular field, say “This will be a Defias guild” and then declare that their standard is the only standard, no other guild can match that standard and therefore you should all just quit your current other Defias guild and join theirs.

This is destructive practice, whether or not you particularly like or care for the politics that comes out that group of players, in the long terms this is what destroyed servers like Earthen Ring (in particular Earthen Ring). An overarching “body” that scrutinises players and guilds on asinine subjective points will only drive a community to fracturing or violently and (sometimes) abusively reject it. What we see on Argent Dawn is the latter. The server is just too big to have a single body trying to control things, despite their best efforts.

The anti-pcu/pro-pcu split is simply a symptom of a much deeper problem, gatekeeping within the server.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

The ever present problem for (or of, depending on your perspective) of High Elves finding their sweet spot in roleplay has been an issue arguably since the introduction of Blood Elves in 2006. The Blood Elf inclusion into the Horde has always been seen by a selection of the community has baffling and bizarre. Blizzard themselves have gone on record to say it was to boost sales in East Asian states, where the “Ikemen” and “Bishounen” type man is very popular. Similarly the argument being to have a “pretty” race to populate the Horde more does stand up today, on Argent Dawn, Blood Elves make up the largest percentage of the population on Horde.

The issue? It’s Alliance players wanting to play their handsome/beautiful elf preference, but not the desire to play on Horde. Absolutely understandable, there are a number of reasons, (morally) to not play the Horde faction (more on that in a future post) and would rather have their elves on the Alliance.

Blizzard however has dug their heels in far too much on the issue because they know if the perfect replication of Blood Elves on the Alliance is possible, ie with the same range of options, there would be a mass exodus of thousands back to the Alliance. The only ones who would stay on Horde are the Horde mains who made their Blood Elf for whatever reason, or those who somehow sympathise with the strangely crypto-fascist elements within the Blood Elf cultural milieu (again more on that later).

Blizzard needs to come to the truth that they are spitting on the faces of some of the most committed and dedicated people in their playerbase and offer up a real, full solution and simply accept that people wish to play the “good and noble” classical fantasy elf inside the “good guys” faction. Unlikely as the Blizzard developers have historically, and even currently have a strange fixation with the Horde and have repeatedly mocked their larger playerbase (alliance players do make up more numbers globally) as being the “haha weak” and “aw poor alliance no story for you” players.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

Starting off with a strong hit here. Queteron has been a significant force on Argent Dawn for quite some time. His approach to roleplay has always been a bit “different” (I’m sure a lot of you remember the Tauren milk farms he attempted to make) which can be refreshing.

However his takes here on the importance of Judeo-Christian thought in the game is a stretch even for him. While Its impossible to deny that the original Warcraft 1 and 2 settings had clear parallels to Christian thought they were largely retconned into something less overt by the time Warcraft 3 and vanilla WoW was about.

The Light (which Queteron seems to want to conflate to the abrahamic God) has far more in line with Buddhist and Dharmic thought than any other religion, the idea of good actions makes for a good soul, not to mention the concept of rebirth and reincarnation in the Warcraft setting makes it rather hard to ground in Christendom.

Now i want to assume Queteron is acting on good faith here, he is after all apparently a professionally trained priest offline as well. Though the remarks of  “civilizational decline” suggests a lot more projection of his own insecurities upon the game and the community as a whole rather than an actual inherent problem.

He speaks of “knights, crusaders and priests fighting under the banner of good against the forces of evil.” despite from the outset the likes of Garithos, The Scarlet Crusade and more recently the Lightbound show that the “cosmic good” of the setting has never been so black and white as he likes to claim. That is not to say that the story quality has declined, but this is mostly down to a confusion of writers not seemingly knowing what consistency is within the setting. While people love to attack Warlords of Draenor on Argent Dawn for being a “terrible expansion” its story was one of the best written from a narrative perspective, the only let down was the rushed and clearly ill-timed design of their patch content.

What Queteron asks for “returning to the roots” would unfortunately likely require an entirely new setting, a reboot of the entire Warcraft franchise to work as there is 21 plus years of story to undo at this point, something which the current Blizzard writing team is woefully under-skilled to do.