Week 35 - Lament of a Perfectionist

Stormwind is Broken

Stormwind Consists of Blades for Hire, who as far as I am aware (correct me please) have no vested interrest in the Kingdom and are open for contracts from all sides. They so large, that they aren't even small-time mercenaries - they are a fully-fledged mercenary regiment one can hire to tip the scales of a large battle.

Then there is Dieudonne Seal, which is so overwhelmingly large that one may begin to think that Stormwind's colours are white&purple, not blue&golden. The seal has vested interrests, but no real antagonists to their ambitions.

Then there is the Chapter, who sit in Northshire Abbey and seldomly come to Stormwind unless it is for masses. Even if they do, casual role-play involvement with others is greatly limited as they are not allowed to enter Pig&Whistle, and are shooed by the Seal on sight. (Shoe on Sight!) Not to mention Chapter is working overtime trying to make itself incompatible with any other guild.

Then there is Lordaeron Alliance, which hangs out in Stormwind regularly with no clear goal as far as I am aware and that has highly ambiguous relationship with everybody. As far as I am aware, both the Seal and the Chapter consider them 'enemies', the Blades consider them unwelcomed afaik.

Forlorn Cartel has some occasional spikes of cool activity, but must fight in their criminal RP against fanatics who see a crime as an offense against Light itself, or against the Seal who have no guard-rights and no guard-training/discipline. Due to...

The Stormwind Regiment, which as far as rumours are concerned is not doing that well.

Then there are also the Disciples of Light, from whom I've seen only good (but in small numbers). *waves at JP and Irys*

And of course there is The Cult - Eyes of the Dark Realm, from whom I have also seen a lot of good, but in small numbers, and who are getting a new cool officer *waves at Cyrdain*

At last, but not least, there is House Mistmantle. Braiden is awesome, there are rumours that Talasha is also awesome - but I was not able to confirm or disprove them.

To top it all up, we have the Stormwind Council with regular meetings of unclear composition and plenty of ghost-ministers, no offense meant there. The guy organizing the trials is not the guy who is the minister of justice, and the guy holding occasional masses is not the guy who is the minister of faith and councillor-voting has lost any significance since about half people entitled to a vote are not there. Just enough to make the vote potentially contested even if councillors present are unanimous.

To sum it up, I find the situation very unclear, very restrictive for role-play, highly fractured and fragmented and one-sided in certain points.

What to do? I don't know...but may be I will before the meeting starts.

Well evidently, as the Banner isn't mentioned. We're doing nothing but grand things for the Lion's capital. . When is this meeting going on?

We don't talk of the Banner....


And sorry, forgot to mention you. From what I've seen, you are doing some pretty amazing stuff!

Thank you. Still, if there's some sort of meeting concerning the well being of the SW RP scene, I'd like to attend it if possible.

Aye, one is held during Week 35, go vote for a day in Game Related section

Exaythe wrote:there are rumours that Talasha is also awesome - but I was not able to confirm or disprove them.

I was like . You dont know, I might just have made up Talasha to seem like I'm running a successful guild with more people in it then mysefl or he's a ninja ...

Well alot of valid points, there's a situation to attend to overall. Time to step into the cloning vats...

Think perhaps I'll do my best to attend this next meeting, purely because after having only been back around for three days, I'm.. seeing a lot of what has been mentioned here.

And frankly, I'd like to help out, since I'm looking to bring the OTS back and Stormwind is the only place for it.

Exaythe wrote: Stormwind is Broken
Stormwind Consists of Blades for Hire, who as far as I am aware (correct me please) have no vested interrest in the Kingdom and are open for contracts from all sides. They so large, that they aren't even small-time mercenaries - they are a fully-fledged mercenary regiment one can hire to tip the scales of a large battle.

I'm not sure whether this is intended to come across as criticism or...? But as it's how it seems to be stated, we are aware that several people are getting twitchy about our size and are temporarily pausing recruitment until we have a better grasp on existing members. Likewise during this period we're trying to handle concerns people have had about unruly members, and have a discipline system both oocly and icly to better manage disputes/issues as they arise.

We are deliberately morally grey as at the time we came about there were primarily very clear cut sectors of 'hardened criminals' 'guard guild' 'Light guild' 'cultist guild' etc. Some have interpreted that as being bad for roleplay, we have no 'aim', etc, which isn't particularly true; the IC motive is somewhat similar to the Seal in that we seek to do what a merc company would do; scrape by, make money, gain influence and information.

It's upsetting that what was initially a very positive reaction from the rp community seems to have turned to very sour/snide one in some respects & quarters. A few times I've had people whisper saying 'so & so is mouthing off to me about the Blades' but when I try to directly ask what the issue is, any criticism is always denied. We want to be a good guild that offers interesting/varied rp opportunities to the stormwind community, and as such want to hear criticism and concerns as they arise; but improvement is impossible if people don't talk to the officers about problems.

My entire post is rather satirical, and I am speaking with same cynism about all guilds - even the ones I love, am part of, or lead.

If you ask for detailed criticism of the blades, I am unable to provide it. I've not had any in-depth interraction with you! What I think, is that Blades are in essence a reaction-guild. You are meant to join other people's role-play, or react to it. At least, taking initiative seems to be contrary to mercenary ethos.

I would love to involve the blades in my role-play by hiring them, but I cannot do so for IC and OOC reasons. OOCly, I have no idea -what- sort of assignments you take and what you can/want/enjoy to do.

ICly, Sophyra has seen the Blades affiliate with Lordaeron Alliance beyond what seems straightforwardly professional, and her contact in the L.A told her that Blades have an agenda of their own. Fellows in the Seal have also said that Remai was doing stuff, and getting Blades to do stuff, out of his personal affections/loyalties rather than for money. This all makes the Blades unreliable in Sophyra's eyes, making it risky to do any form of business with them.

So, I hope what I've just said was helpful in any way. May be a nice OOC advertisment post will help, where you expose what sort of things you can/want/enjoy to do, what tasks you will never undertake, and give examples of tasks you have done/want to do to act as an inspiration to customers?

The idea behind the guild lottery was to bring guilds that previously have had little or no interaction with each other closer together. Either it isn't working or there hasn't been enough time for this to pan out if what you say is accurate, Exaythe.

I believe this is a valid concern. As I'm writing this I can't suggest a course of action but I hope we will come up with something. This many creative minds must surely be able to figure this out.

I am concerned that this is like the issue whether Stormwind RP is dead or not that was discussed at the beginning of the summer, in the sense that there will be those that will say that Stormwind RP is not broken. It'll result in an argument whether it is or not and very little will get done in the end once people have vented their frustration or the discussion gets side-tracked.

Kittrina brings up a very important point that should be emphasised. Improvement is not possible if people don't talk. Have the guts to stand up and deliver criticism. And the recipients should be able to handle it without viewing it as an attack against themselves.


...A final thought about something Vyrinn said to me the other night. Make note that this would be a temporary solution at best. In order to bring more interaction between guilds, a common adversary would be needed. Such as the Eyes of the Dark Realm. It might let the various guilds look past their differences and work together against this threat. However in order for it to function, ground rules would have to be laid down OOC or we'd have chaos and drama. It'd have to be approached with an open mindset and a cooperative attitude. Try and say yes as often as possible and never flat out deny an idea.

More later if anything pops up.

I think this subject touches on a point that I have become aware of recently. I think there is plenty of interaction between guilds going on, but the Stormwind Council is not necessarily at the heart of the action these days.

As several of you will be aware, I have been trying to get guilds with a military aspect to them to work together, recently, as a Stormwind Army, and have had some small degree of success. During the recent Path of Conquest campaign, the Disciples of Light and the Stormwind Regiment worked very closely together. However, when we decided we needed reinforcements and called in Blades for Hire, things went wrong. I think three of these, in particular, are worthy of note.

1. I sent a messenger to the Stormwind Council at 9pm on a Tuesday in order to ask for reinforcements. There was no one there.

2. My messenger ended up speaking to the House of Nobles instead. The House of Nobles participants in this little event included not just House Dieudonné but other houses too. They agreed to help but it was clear that they considered themselves to be helping the Disciples of Light rather than the Stormwind Army. It has become clear that the House of Nobles has little regard for the Stormwind Council or a Stormwind Army led by officers appointed by the Council.

3. When Blades for Hire arrived at the event, they were sent away again. I believe that this is partially because they are not seen as being part of the same community as the other guilds involved in the event.

Are we then seeing a division within the Stormwind Community between those who identify with the Stormwind Council and those who do not? Is it that some guilds just don't want a Council or is it because they don't feel affinity with the Council in its current form.

I hasten to add that the Disciples of Light still support the Council, but I would like to see everyone working together as a single community.

I support the council to a degree that:
1) I tend to take its side in discussions which call for disbandment
2) I try to involve the council in some way whenever my RP 'goes political)
3) I respect IC descisions of the council
4) I always try to think along and state my concerns/share ideas

But, I do not feel any affinity to the council as a role-player. Many of the council's values (most of them implicit) are alien to me.

Waiting for the moment someone says that Stormwind is broken because of us.

Geldar wrote:Waiting for the moment someone says that Stormwind is broken because of us.

I pray it never comes.

*becomes overwelmed with temptation and scraches her horn*


On another note.. I myself have had 30% of my rp frends list go inactive/left the game.. we have lost many many old Rp'ers over the last year.. and I have also seen many many new roleplayers who when I have spotted silly errors.. I have found out that most of these players are brand new to rp they genuinly want to give it a go but feel ousted..

I have met 5 such players in recent weeks that have simply been ignored and nobody has even hinted at guiding them into the community.. as such we are not only loosing old rp'ers but new ones as well.. as a result we end up with lots of quiet rp'ers.. those that follow.. take orders... basic soldgers and meat shields that thow good, dont realy add much to the community.. as a result people stop trying and the cycle of inactivity begins.. these small rp guilds dissapear leaving only the big 4 In sw that being blades seal lorderon and chapter, cartel thow awsome go threw large inactivity spells every so often from what i have seen..

A possible problem may be that we are not giving fresh blood a chance and are labeling them as trolls too quickly.. perhaps this may help?

*throws in a few coppes to the table*

WoW balance is fine, stop whining and l2p.

Oh lolz, wrong thread.

I am not saying the Council is reponsible for the current situation in Stormwind. The Council has a long history of promoting a strong RP community. However, I do think that the Council needs to put some effort into bringing the doubters into the fold.

Close to impossible from my perspective, Valestrion. Currently the RP is really guild focused with guilds having interlinked plots involving each other, not enough random RP, random events or player initiatives for us to join in and those that we create are simply not enough to provoke interest.

PS:

We want to be a good guild that offers interesting/varied rp opportunities to the stormwind community, and as such want to hear criticism and concerns as they arise; but improvement is impossible if people don't talk to the officers about problems.

First, I'd wish to say that I have seen only good things from the Blades for Hire simply because they provide the so much needed greyish variety and not to mention the brilliant events I have been on alts that were hosted by them.

But back to the point, I know all too well about what you quoted. People do not talk, do not share criticism and concerns and suddenly you end up facing a bunch of problems you did not even knew about.

Valestrion wrote:My messenger ended up speaking to the House of Nobles instead. The House of Nobles participants in this little event included not just House Dieudonné but other houses too. They agreed to help but it was clear that they considered themselves to be helping the Disciples of Light rather than the Stormwind Army. It has become clear that the House of Nobles has little regard for the Stormwind Council or a Stormwind Army led by officers appointed by the Council.

As I told you in whispers today Valestrion; It's not in any way the intention of the house of nobles to step on anyones toes, that is why we IC did not claim autority to send men but instead offered to send supplies from our characters own pockets to the collected forces of the campaign while our characters IC pointed out the absense of the council.

The aim of the house of nobles is not to overthrow the council, we have had a large discussion both IC and OOC about building the organization. I'll be providing a first draft soon enough but the main aims right now is a trade coalition, control of the treasury+taxation (to create events, we have tax collectors ready once it comes to that) and the posibility for people to ask for loans/favors in exchange for various things. It is also tought to include both noblemen and wealthy merchants at the meetings with only noblemen having the right to vote in all matters. The OOC aim is to create RP in various ways, not power over anything or everything. It will become clear soon enough.

Noticed this a while ago and i agree 100%. Stormwind RP wise doesn't feel like a proper city as I would see it IC, lack of guards and civilians and too much exceptional badass fighters. This isn't a bash at people but it is present. When people make RP characters they want to play a cool character, something powerful, at least most people from what I see. No one wants to play the merchant that stands at his stall selling pumpkins all day, or the farmer who works the fields dawn to dusk. On top of this, not seeing how it would be hugely possible to RP some normal civilian without some dark secret/past, twist to evul, rise to power or it getting killed off by something soon after.

Blades for Hire are possibly the biggest guild in Stormwind at present, and when half the city are the super cool mercenaries it's just..odd really. This isn't their fault though, they can hardly be criticised for being popular. Mercenaries are "cool" so it's understandable they would be one of the popular ones. But it makes the city seem very odd when you see more mercenaries than civilians(yes I could even include NPCs and this still would be the case when I would be RPing somewhere).

But of course, people will always be allowed to create their own character, and pick whatever they want, so number balance is basically impossible. Crosses over into guilds then, every guild mentioned was not made at the same time, they were made by a group of people that felt they liked the concepts and got it running. They did what they liked, not nessacarily what would help make Stormwind look/feel/be more functioning(once again not their fault). At the moment I don't feel the guilds make up a good representation of what the city would be like ICly. Especially when it comes to:

Leadership and Powerful Positions

These are always really dodgy, it is currently very hard to RP properly in a powerful high up type positions because you more often then not get called a power hungry c**k or whatever by jealous people or power hungry people themselves. But people are also put off by people that have taken a high up position and RP'd it badly, or the new guy who didn't really understand RP and just picked something to make his character look shiney, thus making it even harder to get accepted. Can't really think of someone in a high up position that is as accepted as it should be by the entire server. Well..there's Fortesgue who is a Bishop, which isn't even HUGE and he doesn't play anymore last I checked. So there isn't really any authority, only what is accepted. What about who controls the guards? Who will be able to have that kind of power? The council? Well, if said guard guild has applied for "guard rights", there's only so much a player can do to act in charge before they're OOC ignored. It's quite fair oocly in that everyone can do their own thing and there's no one to say what goes and what doesn't but it has it's own problems. Not really saying we should appoint someone as "da king", this could very well be the best system in this type of RP community but hell some of it just seems weird from a pure IC sense.

People can't represent these things without being called power mongers. In my dream RP community the Chapter -is- the Church of the Holy Light, smiting heretics with the Inquisition being allowed any means nessacary by the King, above the law, similar to SI:7. Yes I know this will never happen. What if we were bad? What if we used our IC power OOCly on people we didn't like, ruining the experience for others. Completly understandable This is just the best example I can give, -NO ONE- is allowed say anything from high NPCs like the king, and you're not really able to represent such a large IC body by yourself. The best you can do is make a community of light, a side group that helps where they can, more of a hobby then a job.

This makes it hard for Stormwind to function properly. Who decides when a guild/group/whatever is to be banned/outlawed? Council? No dudes they'll kill my guild. Besides, look at the Crimson Flame, they got outlawed and half a month later they derp back into the city like nothing happened. Where were the guards? Oh yeah the only guard guild around went inactive and died round then.

Functioning city indeed.

Then people become desperate to connect RP guilds and make them RP with each other, but will this always make Stormwind better? Do you really want to see the Chapter and Blades roar abuse at each other EVERY week? Or Forlorn Cartel and mugging, eventually it could just turn into the same people, "Fancy meeting you here again in this dark alley that I got robbed in last week, I should probably stop coming here so often".

What I wish Stormwind would be like but probably will never happen :

Much larger Stormwind Military, preferably human based, after all this is Stormwind.
A good number ratio of civilians, average characters.
Less evul people in broad day light in ye olde lich king armor
Much more defined authority and well defined leaders. What the captain of the guard says, actually goes, for all military, not a "my guild is not rping with that guy, he phag".

Note I'm bad at making walls of texts, but I hope I at least made -some- sense :<

Perturbo wrote:Blades for Hire are possibly the biggest guild in Stormwind at present, and when half the city are the super cool mercenaries it's just..odd really. This isn't their fault though, they can hardly be criticised for being popular. Mercenaries are "cool" so it's understandable they would be one of the popular ones. But it makes the city seem very odd when you see more mercenaries than civilians(yes I could even include NPCs and this still would be the case when I would be RPing somewhere).

I don't like to single out a single paragraph, but I agree with this entirely.

The trouble is that there are so few SW chars. Loads are Lordaerons, or arathorians, or gilneans or villagers/duskood. Really, I should know like 50 Stormwinders yet can bearly list 5. Half the council is not from SW for godsake. Our army is led by dwarves and a Lordaeron. When the last war council got put together there where all sorts in there, even theremore, yet the SW regiment got overlooked, there is no SW pride. Any alliance army going to war should be led by a human from SW fact!!! SW is the Alliance. It is the america of NATO.

Im a dude who works on positive energy tho and i like SW RP at the moment and these threads will make it even better.

Well, for one I can elaborate on Valestrion's 'Stormwind Army'

One can make a group of people dedicated to w-pvp, lets call it Stormwind Army for convenience, even though I think another name is needed. That group can be made up from volunteers, it can be made up from various orders and houses providing men. (ie: by virtue of some treaty Dieudonne Seal and the Chapter must field 10 and 3 men respectively). This army would elect its leader (New Model Army/Jannissary style a bit) and engage in what the people like doing - w-pvp/military RP! They can just go to some border land and do military RP there without any huge arranged w-pvp battles, and have only some random engagements...or actually organize w-pvp. I think it will create a sense of unity if at least several days a month people from all SWs guilds actually -work together-. (We can even force-recruit some Cartel People/Penal Legion them!)

Some morning inspiration:

"Stormwind Army" - group of people doing world-PvP/military RP together every month. Every guild must be includable under some pretext. (Contributing soldiers, obligation to the king/church, penal legion, hired as mercenaries, forced recruitment)

"Grand Mass" - (bi)weekly gathering in the cathedral, giving every guild a chance to parade in full glory and show off its numbers. Handing out of blessings and reading of sermons.

"Subhubs" - we have the blades bar, we have soon a cultist bar...now holy people need to hang around the Cathedral more and we all know where to find what sort of role-play in Stormwind!

Exaythe wrote:"Stormwind Army" - group of people doing world-PvP/military RP together every month. Every guild must be includable under some pretext. (Contributing soldiers, obligation to the king/church, penal legion, hired as mercenaries, forced recruitment)

Valestrion told me of an idea that included diffrent batalions of the army each with it's own niche. This idea basicly means that while the army as a whole works together there could be units representing the holy orders, the noblemen, the pure militairy regiments etc. The batalions would be able to contain non guilded members aswell and the idea would contribute to more politicing around going out on campaigns aswell since anyone gathering the army for a campaign would need to seek the support of each respective niche (and I for one love more RP around the war machine other then the pure militairy aspect). I'm sure Valestrion can explain this idea of his further however

Exaythe wrote:"Grand Mass" - (bi)weekly gathering in the cathedral, giving every guild a chance to parade in full glory and show off its numbers. Handing out of blessings and reading of sermons.

This I like, the holy orders could take turns being "in charge" or even have the time divided between them. Stormwind is a light fearing nation, it's about time it showed.