World of Warcraft®

I'm thinking it might be fun to have a weekly rp class for new role players. Have it in a very accessible location so even youngsters can reach it. Have it hosted by a different guild each week.

What say you?

That sounds like a good idea. I'd be happy to help however I can.

Ya these were a good idea, wasn't Azeroth's College doing these a ways back. It was nice for new people to not only get to know community members but for new rpers to get an introduction to RP.

Like Lahkin says, let me know if you need any help with this.

That would be awesome. I have a good grip on the basics, but it's still very new for me; and my mom is interested in RP now and she is brand new so something like that would be great for her.

Give me the word, Gentyl, you've got several ways of getting ahold of me. I'm happy on most nights to help out however I can. I'd offer to have the Ebon Sanction host an event, but right now the guild is functionally about 4 people who are all on very sporadically. ;) So I'm happy to help however else I can.

It sounds like we have enough people interested, so let's figure out a time that would be good and a meeting place.

We had classes on WrA that were like this hosted by a single guild. They ran every Thursday night by the cottage on Stormwind Lake (since SW is sorta the hub city for the alliance). If you rolled a character that would have to have a fair run (elf, draenei) to get there, they offered HGWT summons or would drop off mages in the Exodar or Darn to provide IC portals to SW for the event and would then have the mages escort the characters. You may not want to go that far, but it was something they did if prior interest was sent to an officer of that guild to alert them that someone would be coming but would need help. (If one of their mages weren't available they would employ taxi service mages as well which I will gladly do once I get my mammoth or my vial.)

They actually took about 3 hours to cover everything in their classes which was really a long time to sit and learn the basics of how to RP, but it was really informative since it covered everything from how to emote, to addons, to what godmodding was, how to RP fight, to you name it. It was covered. The thing they didn't cover and I think is the most difficult for new people is creating their character. They simply pointed people to one of the many character development systems for the forum RP on World's Tavern. They also didn't cover how to RP your class simply saying that everyone has a different system and flair.

I would love to be involved in this since I helped on WrA and run my old priest as a professor. (Guess I should get the new one underway to be the new professor.) When do people have free times?

Azeroth College did a lot of these, but I think it was hard to do it with a guild -- y'know students and professors in the same guild can be difficult simply from a recruitment standpoint (angling to those experienced enough to teach but not already in a guild and to new RPers?). I think it will work a lot better to have it be a multi-guild effort

I am considering making a teacher-type alt for this though. Have I developed altoholism?

Anyways, I like it!

I think LO and the Watch should team up to teach a session on how to be a good criminal.

All right, let's make this happen. Pia will sponsor it simply so it has an organizer. We'll gather up people who wish to teach. Perhaps we can kind of come up with a lesson plan like Izby was talking about. Three hours is a long time. Maybe split it into two 2 hour sessions and then repeat?

The cottage by SW lake sounds good to me. We can use HGWT for now.

I know time length will obviously vary depending on the number of people and the questions people ask, but this is just some initial thoughts from the two 2 hour session stand point.

1. Basics
Common RP locations & standards ((practices & levels such as normal, casual, full-time))
How to emote and talk including using accents so that you can RP.
What your character knows and can deduce about a person without crossing into godmodding.
What is godmodding now that we mention it.
Distinguishing OOC and IC moments.
Profile addons. ((MRP, etc.))

2. More advanced moments.
Other addons. ((accents, gryphonheart items, etc.))
Fighting.
Playing a guard or some form of policing agent.
Playing a criminal or being evil so you can clash with those guards.
Playing your class maybe?
Creating your character maybe?
Responding to World Defense and IC reasons for doing so?

That's just a random thought to give the idea some form to start molding and twisting and shaping and contorting and... heh heh I could go on but you get the picture.

I think maybe creating a character should be one of the first things we talk about though -- I'd imagine something like this may attract people who are vaguely interested in RP but have never done it before so starting with the absolute cornerstones that make RPing possible seems like a good idea to me -- character creation and some of the jargon being the initial things I think you have to learn, but there's probably some other stuff too.

But I think those are really good topics, Izby. I'm sure there's some other ones we could address too, but I'm gonna have to think on it.

What time will the first meeting be?

What's a good day for people?
Thursday? Saturday?

Saturday would probably be best.

I also agree character creation should be one of the first subjects. People seem to stress over this.

I would suggest an order of which guilds run which weeks, and leave it to them what to base their classes around.

Thursday and Saturday should both work for me, depending on the timing.

I would suggest an order of which guilds run which weeks, and leave it to them what to base their classes around.

Thursday and Saturday should both work for me, depending on the timing.

The suggested topics were only meant to provide a starting ground. Not be a solid hardcore rigid guideline from which you had to work. Some topics will be unnecessary to cover with the people in attendance while others will generate more questions and time devoted to them. Everyone would have to tailor their lessons to their audience to some extent. Which is a roundabout way to say that yes, people would be able to determine somethings on their own, but you also want a standard set of things to cover as well. Maybe also best practices shared between guilds and teachers.

In the past I've seen effective use of multiple teachers during one class where each talks about the things that they are more comfortable with and think they can provide a bit more flair to that particular discussion. Like a priest might discuss how to use spells while RPing by toggling on the shadowform or using mind vision. Or a mage would cast mage ward to create the illusion of pulling arcane energies from the surrounding environment to use for a spell. While a warrior talked about godmodding by heaving a heavy axe at a person and splitting them in twain.

I think it would be great to do it that way. With the guilds providing a teacher each to do those discussions. Then you could rotate the topics so that no one is forced to do the really boring topics each and every week. I don't think you'll need each guild present each week but since we have an odd number so far it might be useful to do it that way or set up a 3 up 2 down rotation.

So far the guilds I've seen an interest from on the forums are:
Pia Presidium
Terra Incognita
Conclave
The Ebon Sanction
Stormwind City Watch

What time Saturday would be best for everyone?

I think it will be better organized if we have some idea of a curriculum. Guilds who prefer to do things another way are certainly welcome to hold rp classes also outside this. Pia was just trying to organize something to help new roleplayers.

I'm happy, as I said, to help out how I can. Schedule-wise, Saturdays are really iffy for me, as I have a recurring RL thing happening Saturday nights. Earlier in the day on Saturdays will typically work in most cases, but Thursday sounds a lot better for me personally.

Saturdays are probably best anyways because the people who will this will be mostly aimed at will mostly likely be:

a) casual players (most likely to be around on weekends)
b) not in the RP community yet, and therefore not likely to be chilling in AllianceOOC waiting for events to happen or hearing about this stuff -- so doing it at a more popular time when people are likely to be on anyways is key.