World of Warcraft®

Starting in early 1998, when Ultima Online was the hot new thing, I have been involved with role playing guilds for over thirteen years. I have come to regard them as very important institutions that are too often overlooked or undervalued. About a month ago I decided to write an essay pertaining specifically to Cenarion Circle and its role playing guilds. This essay is part philosophical opinion, part call to action and part "I'm on vacation for two weeks I should write something useful."

As with many of my essays, this is going to require a number of posts.


Many people will tell you that role playing does not require a guild at all. In support of this they will remind you that many role players may actually be members of a raiding or PvP guild. It seems to be a favorite pastime for some members of the role playing community to assure people that you do not need to have anything to do with a role playing guild in order to role play just as often as someone who is involved with a role playing guild.

I have never found this last bit to be true. It is not members of active role playing guilds who complain about a lack of role playing on our server. What role playing guild they're in does not seem to be important. That they are in one is. Role playing guilds are important to the community of our server.

If, however, some people are correct when they say that a role playing guild is not important to be a very active member of the role playing community, if it confers no inherent benefits in regards to role playing, then what is a role playing guild for? The most common answer I've heard to this is that a role playing guild is for role playing. If that sounds like an unsatisfactory answer, well, it is most unsatisfactory and borders on useless. Role playing guilds are in fact essential to the health of any role playing community that numbers beyond a few dozen individuals.

In very general terms, role playing guilds serve two important functions. The first is the what most people are thinking of when they say "a role playing guild is for role playing." What we should be saying is that role playing guilds foster and encourage role playing by providing a more tangible focus for role playing. I had to rewrite that last sentence eight times because it kept sounding like lawyerspeak. I had to add on the following paragraphs because it still does.

Being in a guild puts a guild tag underneath your player name. Just as your character name identifies you, that guild add is an additional bit of information about you. When a player sees someone in The Stormwind Watch, they know something about that character. Not only is the character identified immediately as a role player, they're identified by the qualities associated with the role playing theme of The Stormwind Watch.

This is what I mean by "tangible focus for role playing." You want to role play with someone from the Stormwind Watch? Snatch someone's coin purse and run. Tell them you just saw Ardam heading for the graveyard with a shovel and an empty bag. Or, tell them you just saw Ardam leaving the graveyard with a shovel and a full bag.

A player who is a part of The Stormwind Watch encourages role playing along certain themes. The Watch is a rather specialized example of this, plenty of role playing guilds have a roster of role players with a wider variety of themes. Someone in Feathers of Iron or Kal Rrhom may be any number of things, but they are definitely a role player (or in the Rrhom's case, at least testing the waters) where as someone in the Lluchduu Ocheliad or Pillar of Honor is more likely to follow a more specific theme.

(continued)

Whichever role playing guild a person is in, their presence somewhere encourages role playing. While a well known role player in a non-role playing guild may do the same, the tag of a role playing guild provides extra focus and more material for initiating role playing. Rare is the player (think Gentyl or Ehlina) whose own name can as easily inspire role playing as can a randomly chosen individual wearing the tag of a known role playing guild. You do not have to know who someone with The Stormwind Watch tag is to know what they are and what they're most likely to be doing.

This leads into the second (not second most important) reason that role playing guilds are important to a role playing server. The role playing on a server will be judged in great part on the strength of its role playing guilds. If this sounds unfair, or perhaps simply untrue, join then trade chat some evening and wait. I know it's painful, I really do. The population of trade chat is hardly the sort of group we'd choose to represent our community to a passing hobo, much less someone asking the question "what's the RP like on this server?" Still, that is the channel to which people flock in order to get information on a server they're considering playing on.

Watch the answers someone gets when they ask this question. You're going to see mostly negative responses ranging from "there is no RP" to "it's just RP in guild chat or cliques. They're all jerks." What you'll also notice is that these replies come almost exclusively from non-role players. Even if you get a positive remark or two from the few role players in trade chat it won't make a lot of difference. If the community's lucky, we get the unfortunate questioner hustled off to the local OOC channel before the non-role players convince him he's on the wrong server. Here on Cenarion Circle we're pretty good about doing that. We have a steady trickle of people into the OOC channels and Allianceside at least, there's one question that they almost always ask first.

"Are there any RP guilds recruiting?" Praise be to Ehlina, we have a macro that answers that question wonderfully. The strength of Cenarion Circle's role playing is made clear by the abundance of role playing guilds that are actively recruiting and the wide variety of themes we have within those guilds.

But the only time that strength is made apparent is in a channel already filled with role players. Role playing guilds are too important to the community to only be publicly heard from within the confines of a single channel. No matter how beneficial The Alliance and Horde OOC channels have been and will continue to be to us, our role playing guilds need to make their presence felt by a much larger segment of the population if we want to continue to attract more role players to our server.

I know how difficult it can be to craft a guild ad and then to post it into some zone's /general chat. I know how nerve wracking it can be to consider posting an ad for a role playing guild in trade chat of all places. It's like sticking your hand into a dark hole in the roots of some tree. You simply can't see any way it's going to turn out well.

But it needs to be done. If all people see advertising are raid guilds, social guilds, casual guilds, leveling guilds, PvP guilds and "we'll recruit anyone, pst for invite" guilds, that's what they'll conclude the server is about. Too many people have already concluded this and guilds ads for my guild in general chats around the game world too often result in whispers along the lines of "I didn't know there were any RP guilds left on this server!"

It will be harder and harder for anyone to deny that Cenarion Circle is a role playing server when guilds ads reliably appear in general chat for various zones letting people know about this or that role playing guild that's looking to recruit. Openly recruiting in this fashion does not mean you have to /ginvite anyone who responds. The public advertisement is merely the first step in recruitment and serves the dual purpose of also letting people know there are RP guilds on the server.

I'm not actually suggesting that RP guilds start advertising in trade chat. Many of us avoid posting ads there on philosophical grounds that wouldn't go away even if trade chat wasn't WoW's Mos Eisley. But it is a channel that's seen in every capital city and lots of people hang out there. If we must have guild ads in that channel, might as well make them ads for RP guilds. If your guild doesn't want to have anything to do with trade chat, well I really can't blame you.

On a more personal level, the role playing guilds of our server, and the role playing community as a whole, is weakened when role players choose to join non-role playing guilds. This is not a matter of most raid or PvP guilds trying to keep their membership from associating with role players, it's a simple difference in priorities.

(continued)

In a raiding guild, you'll spend your time raiding. Not all the time, not even likely most of the time. But when something comes down to raid or role play, more than likely it will be the role playing that gets set aside for a more convenient time. It is uncommon to find a member of a raiding guild for whom role playing is a higher priority than raiding. It does happen, but it's closer to rare than to usual.

On the contrary, people who place themselves in role playing guilds have a much stronger tendency to make the role playing their first priority. This strengthens the community both by giving role playing guilds more of a presence, and by aiding in attendance at role playing events and hot spots.

Which isn't to say that a player will only be in a raiding guild, or only be in a role playing guild. We role players do tend to be altoholics and for any one of us who has most of their characters in a single guild, you'll find another role player with as many guild affiliations as characters. It's quite possible to both be part of a role playing guild (or two, or three) and a raiding guild. But even then, the player will lean more towards one, or more towards the other.

The more role players lean towards role playing guilds, the more they lean towards role playing. I've known more than a few role players who joined a guild for raiding or PvP and ended up never touching role playing again. I've known people to go the other way, too, but I'm not at all concerned about people giving up raiding in favor of role play where as it does bother me when role players stop role playing in favor of raiding.

We need a strong role playing community on Cenarion Circle. We cannot have that community without strong role playing guilds. When those guilds make their presence known, actively search for people who enjoy the themes of their guild and when individual role players make sure that role playing is their priority, our community gets stronger. Failure to do this will eventually result in a server mostly devoid of role playing. I do not want to see Cenarion Circle become one more server where the "RP" tag is meaningless.

(end)

03/31/2011 09:30 PMPosted by Arikia

TL;DR

Then why even reply??

@ Imperon: Well put. My main and an alt are in one of the many RP guilds on the server, and the rest of my alts are in a placeholder/bank alt guild, while I flesh out backstories/personalities for them. I think it's supremely important to have an RP character in an RP guild, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

I started on this server when I first started playing WoW, and then moved to a PvP server to play with friends. When I decided to really get into RPing, I was directed back here by a few trusted buddies who talked the community up to no end. I'm glad I took their advice.

I also agree that we need to make a better showing of recruiting publicly, if only to make our presence known, so that potential RPers aren't scared away by the Trade trolls.

03/31/2011 09:30 PMPosted by Arikia

TL;DR

It's alright Imperon, I read it three times to make up for some people who just don't care!

I started playing on this server two years ago now. I took a break for a while, but I am back. Anyway, it was a series of posts in the Worlds End Tavern forum on the old Blizzard site that drew me to CC. The one that the legendary Arjah created. I think it ended up being 14 pages long be the time it finally disappeared and the forums moved over here.

In fact, back then whenever anyone would ask "what is good RP server" the first two were always MG and WrA, but CC was a strong 3rd or 4th. I just don't see that kind of promotion/activity on the new blizzard site. Though, I am also part of the problem in that respect as I use to be a shameless promoter for the server and have not been on top of it as much as I use too.

That being said, I am all for trying to bring more players to the server; to show those already here that RP isn't dead. I RP in the AH in Stormwind's trade district. I've rode around SW, IF, Darnasus and Exador like Paul Revere when I had an important letter to deliver to all the Alliance (Ishnu's initial letter declaring war in the barrens a few weeks ago).

I rolled and Alt in WrA about a month ago just to look around. The first thing I noticed was that their trade and /lookingforguild or /lookingforgroup had about a dozen RP guilds advertised over the hour I spent in their server's SW.

Why not on CC? I honestly don't have an answer other than we don't advertise.

The last week or two has seen an unprecedented increase in the amount of RP that my guild has been involved in. Not just in-guild RP, but RP involving the entire server; both factions! With three or four major story lines on the go (check this forum, I think we are involved in all the major stories at the moment) I've decided that the AAMS, and also by extension CC, needs to expand. I had actually planned to start advertising in the various non RP channels and to start contributing the threads in the World's End Tavern forum and even resurrecting Arjah's "Scenic Cenarion Circle" thread form the old blizzard site to the new one.

I hope that other RP guilds and players within the community will take notice, join in and contribute. As Imperon so bluntly said himself:

"Failure to do this will eventually result in a server mostly devoid of role playing. I do not want to see Cenarion Circle become one more server where the "RP" tag is meaningless."

I am going to echo the thoughts already expressed here, mainly because of my support for them.

“What we should be saying is that role playing guilds foster and encourage role playing by providing a more tangible focus for role playing.”
-That is an EXCELLENT way to put it. I transferred here originally to raid. The group I was in did have a handful of people that roleplayed but never anyone I felt close enough to to ask about the server’s roleplay community. After moving to another raid guild and afterwards to a variety of roleplay guilds for a variety of alts, the importance is evident.

The second group I raided with, half the members outright bashed roleplaying as an entire concept. “It’s pointless, silly, and childish” were the reason I heard. It infuriated me at times; however, at that point I was first a raider and second a roleplayer. (I now eat raiders alive and point them to the amount of fun I have within the community. The whole “Join me, we have cookies” concept for people with some interest…) I have not been happier since leaving the sort of raiding guild and focusing on roleplay. I’m a fiber art major in college and I find myself being more creative in my works there and wanting to write again. The positive atmosphere of a roleplay guild (regardless if your affiliations are considered evil or not….) makes a person’s creativity reach new levels.

Just as Vasilia has done, I have also created alts on other roleplay servers. I was overwhelmed by the amount of recruitment guild ads in the cities. Even on Emerald Dream, which is a pvp rp server, there were more recruitment ads than on Cenarion Circle. I understand people not wanting to recruit in trade chat, that place is abysmal at the best of times. More open recruitment would greatly help the community.

At the same time, I never found any channels like CC’s AllianceOOC or HordeOOC, nor did I ever experience any walk-up roleplay that would make me want to return to those servers. However, before I was very active in the community, I was engaged in enough walk-up roleplay that it made me want more.

More people need to move themselves out of hidden little corners and taverns (I’m guilty of this myself) and roleplay out in the open. And outside of Stormwind! Imagine if we were able to give new players to the game the sort of experience I have had since shifting my focus to roleplaying. It might be a bit of a long shot, but catching people before they join “raid guilds, social guilds, casual guilds, leveling guilds, PvP guilds and "we'll recruit anyone, pst for invite" guilds” and possibly down the road leave Cenarion Circle could further enhance our community.

04/01/2011 08:17 AMPosted by Ciellia

More people need to move themselves out of hidden little corners and taverns (I’m guilty of this myself) and roleplay out in the open. And outside of Stormwind! Imagine if we were able to give new players to the game the sort of experience I have had since shifting my focus to roleplaying.

I have found that there are a few good places in Stormwind that might draw people into roleplaying, mainly locations that are near major activity hubs but in specific places where rp might happen situationally anyway.

1. The stables and SI-7. These are within chat range of both the targeting dummies and the justice point vendors. In the same area, I also like to talk to the water, which has led to many interesting conversations of people thinking I am nuts. This is an example of how something silly can lead to something serious, though of course Brenri considers talking to the water to be quite serious, especially if it is upset about something.

2. The tram, in any location (though the shadows are great for some discreet scenarios). People do still use this from time to time, especially at the lower levels, and can be a great recruiting tool for guilds. Noticing a roleplayer in a tavern does not usually surprise anyone. Noticing anyone socializing and not simply transiting in the tram certainly does.

3. The fountain by the Dwarven District bank and auction house. In another example of silly immersion that may lead to serious immersion, this fountain is ripe with possibilities. Feeling raw and beaten from days out in dungeons? Pull a La Dolce Vita and splash around in the local makeshift jacuzzi. I actually did this last week and had a few people from raiding guilds that I did not think of as particularly interested in rp actually joining me, ic, sitting with our backs to the edges. A magma totem now and then made the water more comfortable, and a few feasts and umbrellas were laid out. It is remarkable how a few lines of text featuring "wow, this water is great" can turn into an ice-breaker for "so what have you been doing during your time in Stormwind" to "and that was how I came to walk to path of the druid". This is with complete strangers; reactions amongst your guild can be even more amusing, especially if you have a strict commander or if the Stormwind guard shows up. :)

4. The city gates. As a lower level coming to Stormwind for the first time, try asking, ic, for directions from a fellow rper, or even a complete stranger. Heck, even if you just feel like watching duels this is a fun way to combine both your love of rp and bloodsport.

5. The magetower portal room. As a warlock. This is an example of using conflict and npc harassment to draw people in to roleplay. It is amazing how many mages will actually get upset and start defending their class against your beacon of destruction. If things steer away from ic and start to become forum nerf my class talk, well, just stick with your end and be constructive on the witty ic insults. This path to bar fights works well in many places that might have class bickering. Warriors and rogues come to mind.

6. The docks. The dock to ships bound for Darnassus can be particularly good for situational rp, much akin to the city gates. This is yet another example of how to make Stormwind into a functioning, living city, and a cosmopolitan one at that.

The list goes on. The point is, don't be afraid to just talk without being involved in a major plotline and guild group. Even if you are involved in one of those, bring just normal behavior into the tail end of a scheduled event (say maybe a fist fight nearby the clinic as it is about to finish, a lost traveller begging for help outside of a tavern as people exit, etc) and this will extend rp out of happenings and into everywhere else. Spontaneousness is not bad so long as you are not overtly disruptive (as a rule).

Finally, as far as raiding goes... maybe it is time to make a rp raiding guild on CC?

I agree with this for the most part. I have met some people who are fabulous roleplayers and are unguilded by choice.

The thing I like about roleplaying guilds is that they make turning an a good idea into a fun reality for a lot of people. The best rp is that which is inclusive. Roleplay that people can stumble across and be included in it.

Creativity is contagious, I think. When you have a group of creative people together it just seems to make things happen.

As for the advertising Pia in general, I'll think about it. We've only openly recruited once and that led to mixed results.

Gentyl, I would be happy to help you design an advertisement for Pia Presidium that would, hopefully, help you attract more people. As for the rest of recruitment...the Ocheliad model for what happens after someone contacts us has had overwhelmingly positive results. I'm certain not all aspects of it would work for Pia. I mean, likely you're not looking for an interview that involves intimidating the recruit to see how much of a spine they have. But still, there may be some aspects that would make open recruitment easier while getting positive results for you.

In fact, I'll open up this offer for any RP guild that's not sure about how to go about crafting a good public ad, or that has found hang ups in recruitment that they'd like to work out. In my 13+ years of running online guilds I've made just about every recruitment error you can think of and then had to find solutions for each error. I'm eager to pass along that experience to any guild master or recruitment officer who'd like some support.

I think far too often on CC we see guild events and storylines that are very specific to a few characters and are born from groups that have existed on the server from the start. These are good things, but I also see them dominating rp lately and make it difficult for us to attract new blood and keep the community populated.

It seems we have one or two extremes lately; a tavern full of people casually chatting in what seems to be an internet general interest chat room, or a storyline event that has a plot where people are totally in the dark both ic and ooc and speech is delivered erratically and staccato. Yeah, the groups that have always been around and develop internal storylines are fine, but when they seem to be the norm in a game where people expect a little story driven open-ended rp? Well, this makes new people sort of back away and look for another server.

The point is, we do need recruitment and to do so properly we need to both want it and change our focus to more inclusive events (we even have a sticky in this forum that helps with event formation and running) that can more easily draw people in. Yes, you can have your well-developed relationships and social network and events specific to characters, but just keep in mind that like in real life, new faces show up all the time and might be looking for fellowship as well.

When we created Homeland, the goal was to address that problem of RP events relying too heavily on a small population that knew all the backstories and gossip already. For our first year or so we tried to have a different, one-off event in some large public place every week.

Some were, I grant, more successful than others, but the population explosion -- three of us plus some generous alt signatures at the founding; over a hundred members within the first six months -- speaks to how popular RP is if you just do it where other people can see it and join in.

It's something I think all RP guilds should try to think about, when they can. Can someone who has never heard of my character or my guild comment on what we are doing publicly tonight? is always a question worth asking.

If the answer is "no" you lose the casual roleplayers, who would rather just run another instance than stand around a "public gathering" sort of event and feel like they don't get the gossip everyone's interested in.

Coming up with something for everyone to do is tough. There's got to be more than just a place to stand and talk. Often that requires advance preparation and a good bit of legwork getting the word out -- enter the RP guilds. The server needs at least a few groups of people willing to put some extra hours in writing forum posts, nudging the chat channels when they're silent, and in general making sure that people know that RP is happening and everyone's invited.

Lately it's been looking good. I've seen a lot of things going a lot of different directions all at once, on both sides of the fence, to the point where events are overlapping because there's so much being scheduled.

It's on the RP guilds to make sure that those events are getting promoted publicly as well as within established circles. And I can say from experience that the guilds which take the time for that extra effort will definitely see rewards in terms of interest and membership. People want to roleplay on this server -- you just have to let them.

Excellent post, Arjah. I think you just expressed perfectly what I was trying to communicate.

Posted stories to help people understand what is going on is very good. Yes, our characters only know what our characters know, but if that is the same ooc as well then we start to lose attachment to the life of the server.

Writing up forum posts is one good thing to do, and being willing to provide a friendly introduction to other players is another.

So, I have re-read this thread a few times and it would seem to me that o help facilitate the building of a stronger, more thriving community on CC, we should all be looking to:

1) RP in more open, public places so that the RP is more prevalent and easier to access/find.
2) More RP guild advertising in the none-RP channels, such as /trade and /guildrecruitment.
3) Realm advertising and promotion in locations such as the World Ends Tavern
3.1) Suggesting CC to those who ask in there "what is a good RP server?"
4) Keeping the CC forums updated;
4.1) Stickies about RP guilds and on going events.
4.2) RP/storyline related threads.
5) RP events that are more open and engaging to new players or those not with the RP core/circle/cliche.

The overall goal is to bring in new players to the server by promoting CC outside of its own forum.

Once people decide to check the server out, they will find a CC forum that is full of RP stories and threads, and not the standard "ilevel 325 geared pally looking for Raid" threads.

Then once they get to the server, they will hopefully be greeted with more open and easier to find RP events that they can jump right into while seeing more actively recruiting RP guilds. This last part will also serve to draw RPers from the current CC population already on server.

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

Now, all of this might look like a fairly daunting task to achieve and coordinate, but if everyone (the RP Community) each contributes a bit, it honestly wont be that difficult implement.

Having been pulled into the server and RP by Arjah and her <Homeland> advertising years ago, I can speak first hand that I know it works. Hopefully other RP guilds, in both factions, will read this and contribute to the overall health of RP on CC.

The post about healthypets getting mentioned on wowinsider prompted me to track this down. It is about a year old, but still an excellent tool.

We should have a "CC promotional" thread starting in the Worlds End Tavern Forum up and running soon and we can direct people to it and post things like this.

http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/05/17/wow-moviewatch-cenarion-circle-promotional-video-2-0/

I have also noticed a few of the other RPers from CC stepping up to promote the server in other forums. This is excellent to see and has already paid off with a few new players showing up and asking questions. So, lets keep building upon it!

03/31/2011 07:35 PMPosted by Imperon

it does bother me when role players stop role playing in favor of raiding.

/agreed

Bravo! Excellent post. One thing to mention, and who cares if I get flamed..I'm saying it anyway:

OOC channels are great for educating new players and whatnot, but far too much talk is being done in them when IC channels could easily be used instead, with a little creativity.

I'm freaking DONE with all the ooc channels hordeside. I refuse to use them as of today. When I first came back to CC (my original server 'Chiliali'), I didn't use the ooc channels at all. However, it was pretty obvious that I was missing out on in game stuff so I bit the bullet and joined.

The state of the OOC channels hordeside are dicey. It's sometimes nice, sometimes naughty and other times I scratch my head and loathe reading what I'm reading..smack talk, rude, prolific vulgarities (which is fine sometimes, but when its every other word.. ugh) .. it's disappointing. Most of all, it is impacting my roleplaying and my enjoyment of the game. I guess I don't really want to get to know people OOCly if they aren't very nice. I enjoy the mystery of learning about other players characters MORE than I need to know who you have a grudge against or what you're eating for dinner.

I apologize if that's rough reading. I tend to shoot straight. FOR ME, the ooc channels are not beneficial nor conducive to my style of play.

Loved your post. Devoured every word. Well done, sir. Well done. Deserves a *bump*

Forgive the self-promotion here...

Some of this is why I put together the Spring Festival. Guilds running events could advertise. You could meet up with RPers outside of your guild and form connections. With big turnouts in places that are visible to the public eye, we get the reputation of being an RP server (not just a PvE server in RP clothing).

I could have done this alone, and I did in 2009 for 6 days of the Summer Solstice Festival (Homeland took care of the other day). Good turnouts, I think people had fun, but the problem I had with it? All of the burden and most of the fame went to me, my guild, and Homeland. AAMS had a lot of new applicants. I couldn't speak for Homeland, but I know they DO have a large player-base, partly because of the events they run.

Event running is not for everyone (let me tell you stories about the stress sometime...), but its one of the better ways to put your name out there, I've found. I want to share that love. I'd love to put on another Festival later this year, maybe in the Fall, or another early next year.

But it requires other people being on board and committed. I can maybe pull in 7 other people with my own sweat and blood, maybe 20 if I'm truly lucky. But if all guilds got into this, I can see turnouts going up to 50 or 100 players. The last event of the Summer Solstice Festival DID go up that high. A festival event run on another game under the same structure maxed out the zone server, and even the devs got involved to put up decorations for us. It got bigger every year, with events running from noon until 8 PM every day for a week. And then other festival events sprung up on that server, not with quite the same scope, but the same ideas and turnouts. Griefers didn't dare show their faces.

That's what I'd like to see for Cenarion Circle. Maybe it's a pipe dream. I'd like to think not, because I've seen it achieved in other places.

Of course, there's no knowing until you try. Here's to trying! <lifts mug>

.

I'm freaking DONE with all the ooc channels hordeside. I refuse to use them as of today. When I first came back to CC (my original server 'Chiliali'), I didn't use the ooc channels at all. However, it was pretty obvious that I was missing out on in game stuff so I bit the bullet and joined.

The state of the OOC channels hordeside are dicey. It's sometimes nice, sometimes naughty and other times I scratch my head and loathe reading what I'm reading..smack talk, rude, prolific vulgarities (which is fine sometimes, but when its every other word.. ugh) .. it's disappointing. Most of all, it is impacting my roleplaying and my enjoyment of the game. I guess I don't really want to get to know people OOCly if they aren't very nice. I enjoy the mystery of learning about other players characters MORE than I need to know who you have a grudge against or what you're eating for dinner.

I agree heartily. However, I think its also a matter of the personalities in the channel. AllianceOOC SOMETIMES has this problem, but it also gets beaten down fairly quickly by our core of veterans. HordeOOC's core...leaves much to be desired. I've also seen other large OOC channels pulled off well in other games.

The basis? Griefers must be reported and called out. Every single time, to Blizzard itself if necessary. As much as I dislike having to police a place, to maintain civility sometimes it has to be done, just like in RL. Keep your lawn neat and tidy, and the whole neighborhood looks better. Let it overgrow and look seedy, you attract other seedy types.

Alliance side, does anyone have a copy of the Legendary Guild Macro. Anyone alliance side should know what I am talking about. Horde side, FYI, Alliance side has a macro created by Ehlina that was used whenever someone joined the OOC channel looking for a guild. Guild Name, brief description, who to contact.

I hope to have the CC promotional thread up in the World's End Tavern soon, as in this afternoon or this evening (with AAMS guild promos going live tonight in /trade and /guildrecruitment). I basically re-wrote the one Arjah made a year or so ago from the old forums. Found an archived copy of it online.

I've actually broken it up into three separate posts: Main body, Steps to RPing on CC, and Useful links. I will make a 4th post that will be <reserved>. Hopefully, when we are promoting the server, like a few of us are doing, we can just link them back to that one thread. I also plan to post mini-updates and information about events there to keep people interested, and as a useful way to bump it back to the top.

We've already seen good returns on our efforts in that forum, so this will only build upon them!

Anyway, back to my original question. If anyone has a copy of that macro I know a few people that would be happy to have a copy incase we start seeing an influx of new RPers.