World of Warcraft®

Greetings, Cenarion Circle!

I am posting this thread on every RP server aside from Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord.

This is a survey of RP activity on the various RP servers, many of which are only vaguely known by WoW's RP community at large.

This was inspired by a handful of requests for insight on the various RP servers, which were met only with talk of Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord.

However, there are over a dozen RP servers out there, one of which is yours.

I would like to gather the feedback from each of these surveys after a week for a general consensus and post the findings altogether.

So if you are a role player, a member of an RP guild or have experiences and/or insight to share on the RP community of your server, for one faction or both, then please represent in this thread within one week of the original posting date.

Thank you very much to everyone who participates.

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EDIT For Additional Notes!

1. Replies From Trolls Will Not Be Included In The Final Results Report / Every Server Has Its Trolls

2. The Final Results Reports Will Be Posted On The World's End Tavern Forum

3. Potential Feedback Topics :

- A history of the RP community
- Where the RP community is at / How the RP community is doing now
- Where new players to the server can go to find RP (RP 'hotspots')
- What the RP is like (very guild-based, more random, faction events, etc)
- Current RP Guilds (and what they're all about)

Again thank you very much to everyone who participates!

Let's keep the creative writing alive! =)

03/18/2012 12:12 PMPosted by Azastala

A history of the RP community

??

03/18/2012 12:12 PMPosted by Azastala

Where the RP community is at / How the RP community is doing now

CC does a lot of event RP

03/18/2012 12:12 PMPosted by Azastala

Where new players to the server can go to find RP (RP 'hotspots')

Wyverns Tail in the Valley of Honor

03/18/2012 12:12 PMPosted by Azastala

What the RP is like (very guild-based, more random, faction events, etc)

Some is guild based but like I said, there are also lots of events.

03/18/2012 12:12 PMPosted by Azastala

Current RP Guilds (and what they're all about)

Lots to name but unfortunately I don't know anything about them.

Keep in mind you may not receive much feedback as not everyone uses the forums.

Uh...well, let's see..

- A history of the RP community

We're one of the first RP servers, here ever since WoW was launched. Our RP activity has come and gone. During the first few years we were pretty high up in the rankings (I still remember queues for logging on, especially after the BC expansion), then once Farstriders opened, it slowly declined as people looking for a different community transferred off the server. The day Wyrmrest Accord opened was also a fair hit to our population. Until the past year or so, we were just "one of them"--one of those RP servers that was mostly RP only in the tag.

Then thanks to some folks who buckled down to work, we've revived. I believe it was either Vasilia or Arjah who posted our advertisement over on the World's End Tavern, as well as events like the Spring Festival, Da Doctas Clinics, Caer Darrow Rebuilding Project, Troubadour Night, and several other weeklys that began pulling people back to this server.

- Where the RP community is at / How the RP community is doing now

Good, not as good as it could be. We're not Wyrmrest Accord or Moonguard, but thanks to the work of the people mentioned above, we're in the top three. That's a long way for an RP server to come, no matter what their history has been like. I'm proud to be here, and proud to have put some of my own community-building effort into this server.

- Where new players to the server can go to find RP (RP 'hotspots')

Blue Recluse in Stormwind, Wyvern's Tail in Orgrimmar.

There used to be folks around "Woofer's Wallow" (that's the pool up front of the Thunder Bluff Auction Houses, named for one of the wolf pets of a hunter in Ishnu Por Ah, back in the old old days....), though I believe it slacked off once Ishnu Por Ah began to go inactive. There's also spurts of activity in the various places guilds put their IC headquarters at. Hearthglen, Ratchet (Deviate Delight Tavern), Westbrook Garrison Lakeshire, Aerie Peak, among others I'm probably missing.

And, of course, there's also Allianceooc and Hordeooc, the server-wide OOC chat channels. Not an ingame place, but always a great resource for newcomers to the server.

- What the RP is like (very guild-based, more random, faction events, etc)

Event-based and guild-based. There's some random RP to be found, but until our server population grows, it's not something that'll be very common.

- Current RP Guilds (and what they're all about)

WAAAAAAAAY too many to list, so much it'd just be a silly popularity contest if I did! I will say that heavily theme based guilds (all-troll, all-warlocks, etc) are rare, as most of our guilds have a "catch-all" aspect in one way or another. I'm ambivalent about whether this is a good thing or not. With the guild perks, it's certainly harder to have theme-based guilds, as those are invariably small and not centered around the things that get guild experience as a rule.

My ideal would be to have a lot of heavily theme-based guilds to increase the diversity of the RP (and perhaps let people comfortable play in their own sandboxes without pulling out each others' hair), with a uniting community on top to do the more OOC things like raid or RBG, and to put together awesome plotlines. As for the perks of being part of a large, active guild? Meh...never stopped us before.

- A history of the RP community

Oh, god. That's too long for me to even want to begin, to be honest, but CC has always had a decently close community, or at least one well known to each other, even if everyone doesn't get along. The heavily used OOC and RP channels (HordeOOC, AllianceOOC and Hearthstone (for horde) and HearthstoneIC (for alliance, not sure why that ic is there to be honest :p) have helped organize folks some.

- Where the RP community is at / How the RP community is doing now

I'd say fairly well, to be honest! There aren't too many folks that are problem sorts, and the ones that are, well, enough people know about them that they tend to not be able to be too much of a problem.

- Where new players to the server can go to find RP (RP 'hotspots')

In game, the Blue Recluse for Alliance and Wyvern's Tail for Horde. Both taverns. On Tuesdays, the Doctas have a clinic near the shaman portals in Orgrimmar. A lot of our RP tends to be channel based until someone sets something up in game, however, so you're really gimping yourself on RP if you don't join the Hearthstone channels.

- What the RP is like (very guild-based, more random, faction events, etc)

As I said, very channel or event based. People otherwise tend to meet up based on what happens. Some heavy guild rp as welll.

- Current RP Guilds (and what they're all about)

Alliance - Forgive if any of this is incorrect, as I do not play Alliance.

AAMS Alliance Branch - A group of couriers and translators and the like that seek peace (By any means!) Has a Horde Branch

Stormwind City Watch: A guild of lawful good folks who seem to mostly focus on defending Stormwind and its borders, from threats inward as well as beyond. If you want to RP a guard, this is a great place to go. A criminal, well, heh, you might want to check out one of the other guilds on this list.

Terra Incognita: The IC description I was given was largely a group of Light worshipers or friendly blokes that direct their attention to combating evil, in whatever form it takes. They seem to also have heavy ties, or at least, an Alliance with, the Wildhammer Dwarves, especially the Stoneblood Circle, I think it is.

Stoneblood Circle: I think this is it? Wildhammer dwarf guild! They love their wildhammer dwarf stuff. You know. Booze and nature.

Lluchdoo Ocheliad: Personal army of Imperon, largely a gang of no-gooders and the like from what I've gathered, though otherwise I couldn't tell you much :p We'll call them morally flexible more than anything.


Pia Presidium: Another largely light focused guild! They seem to do plenty of world-pvp, and I believe I also heard about them having Knights/squires, so if you're into the whole order thing, it would be good to c heck them out.

Pillar of Honor: Not sure what they're about anymore, to be honest. For a while they seem to mostly be focused on just fighting the Horde in RP-PVP, but that was a while back. You'd have to ask a current member for more details.

The Ebon Sanction: Newish guild! Was originally the Reclamantion, but it has been retooled and focused. Largely RP-PVP based, heavy dislike of the Forsaken and Sylvanas, as well as Garrosh.

Honestly I can't think of any more off the top of my head but I'm sure there are some.

Horde - I'm sure I'll miss some as well, as there are one or two guilds Horde side that seem to largely ignore the community to focus on their own stories. There are also a few guilds that I believe are on a sort of temporary hiatus while a lot of their members take a break, so I won't include them either, and will let their actual members do such.

Homeland - Largely a catch all sort of guild without an actual focus, although that can always be fun.

Da Doctas - A group of healers and their bodyguards. Hold a weekly clinic on Tuesdays.

The Plunderblood Cartel: Newish guild, but there was an awesome goblin from them in the tavern, so putting them here :p not sure what they're after, I forget, largely PROFIT!

Modas Il Toralar: Evil people that do evil things! After power and whatever else they (and their glorious leader Aziel) desire.

Razortalons: Whilst we don't recruit, we are still an RP guild that is heavily active in the community, so best to include us :p We are... a Hardcore Agricultural Combine! (Aka varying tradespeople/collection of folks that also just so happen to have originally been formed to defend the Horde holdings against aggression.)

...and I think that's it! But I may be wrong.

03/18/2012 05:44 PMPosted by Raoul

Lluchdoo Ocheliad

For the record, I believe it's "Lluchduu Ocheliad".

03/18/2012 06:02 PMPosted by Narnicka

Lluchdoo Ocheliad

For the record, I believe it's "Lluchduu Ocheliad".

"Lucky Duck Orchard"

...to be honest I didn't even mean to type Lluchdoo, I actually know it is Lluchduu. But the brain fart typo amuses me. So I keep it.

Lillyboo O'chillybutts.

It made me laugh, Raoul, I like it. People do enjoy playing with our guild name. A girl from Classic called us the "Lucky Duck Olympiad" a lot. Even ICly.

A lot of information about Cenarion Circle has been covered, but let me go ahead and do the long post about our server history. I've been here for Cenarion Circle's ups and downs since WOW went live, so I may forget some details due to senility, but it'll mostly be accurate!

Cenarion Circle is one of the original RP servers. It's as old as WOW. Right away our server community decided that it wanted global channels to help keep the community together. Maybe some of our early members were prophets and saw what would happen to the game over time, I dunno. Maybe we just got lucky.

Just Allianceside we had /Allianceooc, /Alliancedefense, /NEK (Northern Eastern Kingsoms, a defense channel for specific guilds that were part of the NEK IC organization) and /SEK (Like NEK, but for everything south of dwarven lands). Every single one of these servers declined in population and eventually imploded by the time BC was creeping up on us.

Before that though, CC established another tradition...massive RP events involving every online role player online at the time. One of these, the Armistice Ball, became a yearly tradition for our server. I found the video that Ehlina (I think!) made of the first ball here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSi60ELMUX8 The gnome at the end is Yappy from the Lluchduu Ocheliad and you can see lots of other role players who are still around or who have made a permanent impression on the server throughout the video.

Other notable events from Classic include the Trial of Creator and Azurio's Trial (which came directly out of events beginning at the first Armistice Ball). Both events featured many individuals from both Horde and Alliance. The former event resulted in PvP, the latter did not, but they helped encourage cooperation between the factions, something we have a lot of to this day (I'm looking at you, AAMS!).

RP was excellent on Cenarion Circle during classic, but then Burning Crusade was announced and so were server transfers to a new RP server: Farstriders. It was joined shortly there after by Moonguard.

Those two servers combined came as close to killing RP on Cenarion Circle as anything ever has. Many people from many RP guilds decided to try one of the two new servers. Moonguard was hailed as the savior of RP in WOW.

Each person who transferred was encouragement for more people to transfer. Entire guilds left our server. Those of us who remained decided that we couldn't let it continue.

After some debate, the /Allianceooc channel was reborn. Those of us who first went back to it discovered that a few people (including the ever famous Amaelalin) had never left it. Pia Presidium, the Sisters of Mercy, Lluchduu Ocheliad and the Northrend Commonwealth were amongst the first role playing guilds to encourage their members to join the channel.

Anytime another role player was encountered, the offer was made that they should join these channels. Rules were agreed upon to keep the channel from becoming spammy (no guild advertisements), and to keep things civil. These traditions have remained strong even after the introduction of the Guild Macro of Doom by Ehlina.

The channel began to be used to announce RP events, to serve as a conduit for people to ask about RP guilds and to serve as a general community hub for role players.

The Horde wasn't quite, either. My experience with Hordeside RP was limited, but I happened to be online when Arjah made a serious push to populate the /Hordeooc channel (which had no Classic equivalent that I am aware of). The /Hordeooc channel took off in much the same way /Allianceooc had and operates under much the same set of rules.

Many of the weekly events we enjoy today were first announced in one of these two channels and they both remain key parts of the RP community on our server.

Since hitting a low with the release of Moonguard, the number of role players on Cenarion Circle has been slowly climbing. A major change in the server's population of role players and our ability to host reliably events came when Arjah posted the original "Like RP? Come see Scenic Cenarion Circle!" post on the old World's End Tavern. This post featured another Ehlina video extolling the many fun things to do on Cenarion Circle. You can find the second incarnation of that video here: http://vimeo.com/11333612

Since then we have seen an increasing number of people rerolling on or transferring to Cenarion Circle as the unique cohesiveness of our community along with the many excellent role playing guilds and reliable events proves to be a notch or two above the quality of the RP they're used to.

I wish I could post details about each of the amazing RP events I remember, but the post limit wouldn't give me enough space and no one wants to listen to me ramble on for that long.

Ah, about everything Imperon said is a decent summation! Except this bit.

03/18/2012 11:12 PMPosted by Imperon

The Horde wasn't quite, either. My experience with Hordeside RP was limited, but I happened to be online when Arjah made a serious push to populate the /Hordeooc channel (which had no Classic equivalent that I am aware of). The /Hordeooc channel took off in much the same way /Allianceooc had and operates under much the same set of rules.

For historical purposes, Horde also had a HordeOOC channel - amusingly, it actually had the channels first, and then the idea was brought to Alliance, which is kind of interesting considering the Alliance reintroduced the channels in Wrath. (HordeDefense, HordeOOC, and WorldGlobal, I think it was - that was the rp channel. )

They died around the same time the Alliance channels did, however. HordeOOC had a ....few clinger ons left, but the rest vanished. When... Lurial, I believe it was, went and made the HearthstoneIC channel, and folks started using AllianceOOC again, that was about the same time that people found their way back into HordeOOC and Hearthstone channels, heh.

But, yeah, nah! We had an ooc channel, stopped using it the same time you guys did, then rejoined ours when you guys did too.

I never knew that, Raoul! We came up with Allianceooc so early in the game I never thought it was an imported idea. Huh, cool.

I'm not that famous. Maybe infamous.

I can open my mouth thaaaaaat big. Did you see it?

Raoul used to be Alliance. Then he got better... or maybe we got worse.

I think the hygiene improved.

Haha, yeah, I was Alliance at the time, but yarr. And you're famous to the old timers, maemae

Amongst those of us who remember Classic you'll always be a famous person, Amaelalin. When I first jumped into Allianceooc when we decided to revive it I was absolutely blown away to find you and three or four other people still there.

I honestly didn't think anyone had noticed. :o

How could we not, yesss? Your elf-flesssh isss deliciousss, yesss.

Asss another who hasss been here sssince the ssserver ssstarted, I mussst sssay that we have had upsss and downsss, yesss. New ssserversss, new gamesss, friendsss coming and going, all have affected thingsss, yesss. ssstill, when I think of RP, I think CC, yesss. There are ssso many good anf fun memoriesss, too many to lissst, yesss. I remain here, ssso there will alwaysss be maggotsss in your coffee, yesss.

Maggot coffee would probably taste better than the stuff I've been drinking today. ><

I think at one point in a past life, there may've been a coffee bean paying child support for what's gone into my cups.

The first couple years of Vanilla were certainly the “Golden Age” of Cenarion Circle RP. You can never get rid of “trolls”, but back in Vanilla the RP community was so pervasive and strong it didn’t matter much what they did or thought. There were RP rules established at that time by the players and firmly followed. It’s what helped keep the community strong and helped to allow people to differentiate an RPer from a nonRPer in everything from general channels to raids. RP guilds on both sides were prolific. Themed guilds were highly encouraged. I could name dozens just on the Horde side, but who has the time. The list of well known RPers back then was even longer. Events big and small happened nearly every day and weren’t always planned. You could literally bump into RP almost everywhere, even in the middle of the Barrens. People kept in character on the streets, while they quested, in PvP, even during raids. Even non RP guilds and players would sometimes get involved. If they didn’t RP, there was still this general aura of understanding of what kind of server it was and the majority of people just let people play their game the way they wanted. Cross faction and forum RP was a very big part of it. Forum RP would easily mix in with game RP as well. It was a much smaller world then with a much bigger population.

As mentioned, over the years, everything from server transfers to further game involvement to people simply leaving the game started the reduction of the RP community on Cenarion Circle. A number of RP guilds simply removed their RP tag and became raiding guilds. But also some misunderstandings and bad blood between RPers also contributed to the downfall. A couple big events, especially one involving Creator’s sacrifice, were not only some of the greatest server events of the day, but also caused some big IC/OOC disputes that the server never really ever recovered from fully and made people iffy about having big events for years to come, especially if it involved conflict, no matter that it was strictly IC.

Much of the RP from the middle of BC and on became guild focused, friend focused, planned event focused, tavern focused. More “scheduled”. It disappeared from the middle of the streets and general channels. But as also mentioned, there have been small resurgences over the years as well. The RP on Cenarion Circle has never really died. It’s simply evolved with the change and shrink of the population over the years. Guilds became less exclusive entities as people started putting more of their characters into multiple guilds. Whereas, back in Vanilla, you would know a player by just one name-for example, Redearth was just Redearth and she belonged to Ishnu Por Ah- these days, you’ll find one player with 10 characters in 5 different guilds, though guild leveling in Cataclysm has convinced people to consolidate more of their own characters into one.

I've been here since the beginning. I was level six when I encountered my first major rp event. I had another paladin, but had some problems with another character on her so i deleted her and rolled gentyl. anyway, gen was level six and in goldshire when a massive horde army rolled through. I flagged up and tried to defend, but was of course, immediately dropped. Willander, an older paladin, tried to gather all the youngsters and take them to safety. i'm the only one who took him up on it. he took me hither thither and yon until we wound up in the hills of lakeshire where he built a campfire and stood watch. from time to time, someone from his guild came by to give a report on what was happening in stormwind with the horde army.

i was sold on the server following that event.

- A history of the RP community

cc has a very rich history. there were some phenomenal, in depth stories like creator's, dree'jin's, redearth's, souleater's to name a few. there were also some silly stories such as abon studying in the undercity laboratories for months and pia had to fight their way into undercity from time to time to bring her food and supplies. i actually did keep a low level gnome in undercity for months.

imperon and others gave a pretty accurate description of the rp curve here, so i won't expound on that.

forum rp has always been very much a part of cc rp. dhaymon, zach recht who wrote the morning star plague of the dead series, used to write some amazing rp stories for the forums. he highly encouraged people to write and share their stories. i've always been astounded by the wealth of talent here.

- Where the RP community is at / How the RP community is doing now

i think rp is becoming more active again. it seems to cycle. the taverns mentioned are hotspots. sister magdeleyn of pia does a sermon in the cathedral at noon. there are also knighting ceremonies in the cathedrals on sundays. Sundays are also Bloody Sunday whee we encourage people to flag up for a day. we only administer vows to members, but anyone is welcome to attend the ceremony and break bread with us. pia then goes to the arena for a trial by arms, which again, is open to all who wish to join us. And Sunday is the world rp/pvp event sonsored by ragefang of ebon sanction. (not Fri.) pia sponsors a clinic in ironforge on alternating mondays. on the off mondays pia sponsors a troubadour night in ironforge also where people share stories and songs. tuesdays are tavern nights sponsored by feathers of iron in booty bay. tuesday is also the war council meeting sponsored by ragefang of the ebon sanction. wednesday is the light and you, a sermon by genevra of conclave, thursday is campfire stories and giveaways to youngsters in goldshire sponsored by pia.

horde side i know they have a clinic sponsored by oskor of da doctas. stargazer is starting up the peace walks again which is a cross faction event. i'm not familiar with other events, but i don't play horde much.

so, there are a lot of events plus random things going on. pia stands guard over the cathedral and people often stop by to chat with the guards. people drop into the blue recluse to chat. rhumple, a mad gnome, often holds court outside the auction house.

- Where new players to the server can go to find RP (RP 'hotspots')

blue recluse and wyvern's tail or any of the events mentioned previously. pia does send out care packages to new people to the server. also, they should join the ooc and ic channels.

- What the RP is like (very guild-based, more random, faction events, etc)

some guilds are fairly insular, but i think most do things with the idea of promoting rp to a large number. i've always been able to find random rp, but i think cc is not as walk up oriented as wra is. there are a lot of events. there are quite a few events going on as well as spur of the moment things. every now and then pia decides to hijack zeps with players in pirate garb and grabs anyone available who wants to go play with the horde. the best way to get involved with either planned or spur of the moment events is to be in the ooc channels.

aams is a unique entity to cc. plainswander started the service years ago. it's a cross faction, ic delivery service. cc stirs up a tremendous amount of rp with them.

- Current RP Guilds (and what they're all about)

best to check the macro of doom or the rp guild sticky.

regarding pia. we are a holy order, think templar nights with a sense of humor and a keg, but we are not restricted to light worshippers. we are very honor bound, staunch defenders and sworn to protect the cathedral, but we don't presume to speak for the church. honor is what binds us. of course, that is a matter of perception. some think we are mass murderers.

*throws shield at Raoul* How dare you forget us in your list. Pistols at dawn, and leave your rocket boots at home this time. Knave.

Just kidding. At the moment, the Azure Crusade is not heavily recruiting, since we've got four or five projects we're trying to roll out and/or maintain a presence in. (Including a server-wide RP event that leans heavily on periodic storytelling and "chance cards". Once I get the logistics sorted, I think we'll all enjoy it.)

Also, I think Azastala would be interested in Silverquill's work. It's pretty unique, IMO.