Week 35 - Lament of a Perfectionist

of corse im mighty tempted just my toons are currently not in the ic position to start such things up I just got the huff that i put up two suggestions and got well not even a wissker of notice.. And I think i will try somethin

Perhaps we should focus more on positive action and less on what's not currently happening, start brainstorming ideas for 'open' community events guilds could host that the general community could get involved with that wouldn't be too draining/hard to put together. Seeing as lack of random 'open' rp and events seems to be a concern. Off the top of my head from looking at the first post, and these are just random ideas:

Noble Houses (in general)
Balls, parties, feasts etc- a chance to show off wealth, maybe event accept in some of the less fortunate classes in out of charity Events like the Charity Ball a little while ago.
Patronage/sponsoring of 'gifted' individuals such as artists, budding young mages, etc
Knighthoods, possibly tournaments to chose worthy individuals to be selected for such
Gathering and exhibition of historical/magical artifacts for the wonderment & education of the common people of the city (and subtle snubbing of inferior/poorer noble houses, of course)

Religious guilds/Light guilds
Soup Kitchen/Haircuts/Foot-washing offered out of charity to Stormwind's 'less fortunate'. (Along with scripture being quoted to those that accept, naturally)
Hymn services
Teaching the illiterate some basic reading lessons so that they may benefit from Holy Scripture
Religious counselling for couples XD

Military guilds (in general)
Parades/showing the colours, culminating in a cannon salute at the docks or something.
Tournaments/contests of swordsmanship/hunting/marksmanship etc.

Criminal guilds
Black markets seeling stolen/illegal goods
Drug dens
Underground fighting/wrestling rings like the Fist Fighting ring that used to happen

Hear hear, Kitt. Your post wins the thread (so far).

I won't comment on the state of affairs etc. as I've entered this discussion rather late and most of what I wanted to say has already been said, prinicipally by Sophyra and Kitt.

Instead I'll provide my perspective on one issue, the issue of size. As has been said the Seal and the Blades are two very large RP guilds. I've been informed that if we'd both turned up in Kalimdor the night they were turned away we'd have outnumbered both the Alliance and Horde forces already there combined.

Perhaps it shouldn't be the case, but faced with reducing our numbers so as to make the Regiments numbers (for example) more 'realistic' or working to maintain our current size I'll opt for the latter every time.

This of course brings me onto the subject of what is realistic? Of course it depends upon what time period you choose to apply to wow. Going by the lore there is basically no evidence as to how Stormwind's society breaks down, nor even as to how Stormwind society even works!

Should we choose to work on a feudal principle it was very rare that the King's own forces were the largest in the Kingdom. It was very very common for leading nobles to have more men-at-arms than he did.

Or should we instead choose the Renaissance? When mercenary companies were the order of the day and nobles private armies swelled with renowned Condottieri. Personally this is the era I style the Seal after, in my mind it matches most closely the social 'feel' of Stormwind. An aristocracy that is powerful, but without stifling the proles or demanding submission and respect from everyone.

You could argue, quite rightly that Stormwind's society is unique and not tied to any time period, but then what argument do you have to say that it should -not- be like a certain time period?

Most importantly I think everyone should bear in mind that the Royal Family is essentially just another noble family. There was not Treaty of Westphalia in warcraft, at least not that we've been told of. Being King is a tricky business, you may wish to spend your time wrangling with neighbours and your fellow Princes but all too often monarchs found themselves constrained by the power and authority of their feudal underlings. Right to rule is only a concept, political power grows from the barrel of a gun.


On to improving the random RP of Stormwind! After many weeks away Tarv and I are back at the wheel of our guild and trying to integrate us back into the community.

With this in mind we have a large public event, one that every character should be able to take part in. More details will be posted on the forums after the creases have been ironed out and discussed at the Community Meeting.

Personally I think everyone's being pessimistic, after the quieter period of the Summer several guilds seem to be a -lot- more active than they used to be. Unfortunately I can't yet say the same for the Council which ,as everyone who has seen me defend the Council on these boards can probably empathise is personally quite embarassing.

On the 'Stormwind Army' that was proposed, I've been assured we got the wrong end of the stick. But when it was proposed to us what we believe we were told was that "ON CAMPAIGN YOU CAN BE FOURTH IN COMMAND OF YOUR OWN GUILD HOW LUCKY ARE YOU?!", fourth after Geldar, Aleric, and Valestrion, of course. With that understanding in mind we rather politely in my opinion, but perhaps not in others', declined. And that is the great barrier between us interacting with the Council. It used to be it made sense for the Council (with their fingers in many guilds IC) to instruct Tarvik in how to behave and act. But it no longer does when his private army seems to outnumber the forces they can muster combined. You might argue they have the King's authority, but so does -Lord- Tarvik. To a very real extent the Seal is the Royal Army. Feudally we're his subjects and part of the oath new 'Seals' take is to him.

When a House of Nobles 'body' was discussed one thing that we made quite clear to each other is that we would have no powers beyond what we could enforce with our own guild. We wouldn't be giving out rights, promising the Kings aid, or whatever. We'd be offering our own aid in return for future favours, or simply just to win people's approval, "Bread and Cirsuses!". Tax collecting was discussed because again that's something that only inteferes with people's RP if they want it to. You want to interact with a tax collector, arrange to pay (or not pay) in person. Don't want to interact with them, quietly pay your taxes.

Anyway..Hopefully some food for thought and not complete babble.

Provided we get consent from all the major SW guilds to try 'Stormwind Army' again, will it be enough inscentive to give it another shot?

Hear, hear, Exaythe. All up for it. Battalions of Steel, hurrah!

On the 'Stormwind Army' that was proposed, I've been assured we got the wrong end of the stick. But when it was proposed to us what we believe we were told was that "ON CAMPAIGN YOU CAN BE FOURTH IN COMMAND OF YOUR OWN GUILD HOW LUCKY ARE YOU?!", fourth after Geldar, Aleric, and Valestrion, of course.

When on a RP PvP campaign, everyone leads their regiment/guild as he sees fit. However, the organizers of the campaign, given for example one of the three names above will be 'organizing' the main RP happening with the rest of the participants, so in-directly there will always be someone in charge of these events, no matter if we like it or not. (OOCly naturally, I'll get to the IC part in a moment.)

Now we have the OOC bit almost done with, time to move on to the IC one. On Campaigns, the forces are always led by Councils of representatives/guild leaders/officers of the guilds and organizations present on the Campaign itself.

Those Councils represent the interests of all guilds and all people present, OOCly and ICly. They are there and they are formed for the sole purpose of organizing the RP surrounding the main plot which the main organizer(s) have come up with as well as leading their guilds and their forces into battle alongside with the rest.

I believe the notion quoted above is mainly due to that there is always someone that is the leading figure of the Campaign, like for instance, Jomir in the past Campaign, Seiken in many of the ones before, me and Shrogan on some in the past.

But the point of the matter is, no one will tell you what to do and what not to do on a Campaign. Everything RP PvP related is organized by all the participants, even if some people try to lead/organize these things on their own without asking for the opinion of others when it comes to the entire plan.

I do not know how others lead their Campaigns or for that matter much care as long as there are no problems rising from that. The way I've led events in the past and in the present is and will remain the same;

Everyone's voice, ideas, concerns and suggestions counts and everyone's part is equal.

Geldar wrote:
Now we have the OOC bit almost done with, time to move on to the IC one. On Campaigns, the forces are always led by Councils of representatives/guild leaders/officers of the guilds and organizations present on the Campaign itself.

I don't agree with this. This isn't military RP. Armies are not led by committees, they are led by appointed commanders.

Having said that, we shouldn't be running peoples' guilds for them either. It's a matter of delegation. The commander in the field delegates a task to a brigade or guild. The brigade or guild is then responsible for the way the task is carried out. This happened frequently on the last campaign when I would ask Sador of the Stormwind Regiment to take out a patrol, and he would carry out the patrol Stormwind Regiment style then report back to me at the end. There were times when we lent each other individuals to take part in the campaigns, but this didn't affect how we carried out our duties. Rather, it just gave people in our guilds the opportunity to get to know each other better. I hope that the Stormwind Regiment would report that I didn't try to run their guild for them, I just gave them a few jobs to do.

In theory, there could be an OOC committee, but in practice I think that if a committee was set up, it wouldn't do anything. There is evidence to this effect. Before the last campaign, the Alliance Military Council decided that the campaign would be led by Council jointly in the field, but in practice Jomir was in charge, both OOC and IC.

Assuming that Disciples&Regiment are up for the army-idea per-default...I spoke with Karlak and he agreed to it as well. The Army grows! Now just poke Dieudonne Seal, Cartel and the Chapter!

To be perfectly honest it's hard to do anything other then getting involved in the army if the rest of the Stormwind community goes away on month-long campaigns without a fair break in between. Now obviously it wouldnt be fun to just deny people their campaign but it's a reason to make the political play around building it open for more "players" so to speak. As the focus lies with the actual being in the field I as a guild leader is faced with the choise of getting the few soldiers my guild has into action and leaving the non-soldiers (which is actually a bigger number then the soldiers) behind in the "deserted" city of Stormwind or staying behind to try and interact with the few that still remains. The thing is even if there is a good amount of characters that's not involved in direct battle they may have alts that is or even gives up RP during that time because it's harder to find.

What I'm saying is that head focus right now should in my opinion be a bit of RP that doesnt have to be just a QQ-storm of unbalanced numbers and fucked up rules in RP-PvP (yes I couldnt resist) but a full fledged political and social (I'm sure you do alot of "camp-RP" but it's not what I'm talking about) machinery that makes the actual campaigns an effort to put together IC and not just an effort to plan OOC.

Kittrina wrote:
Criminal guilds
Black markets seeling stolen/illegal goods
Drug dens
Underground fighting/wrestling rings like the Fist Fighting ring that used to happen

Sorry for the delay, I noticed the topic right today, I beg your pardon.

Drug den: We had some problems with GHI lately, in fact many drugs ( Cartel's) have disappeared, but now that things are getting sorted out we plan to once again peddle drugs. And well, since our drugs are being updated, The Den is back.
The Den

Underground fighting/wrestling ring: It was hard to organise something like that in Summer in fact we've decided to wait, but we are planning to bring back those fights, even more brutal and illegal, gambling and violence galore.

Black Markets: About that, right some days ago we spoke about a possible shop where you can find some stolen stuff, illegal things and so on. we are still deciding a name and its owner. I'll let you know more this as soon as possible.

What I'm saying is that head focus right now should in my opinion be a bit of RP that doesnt have to be just a QQ-storm of unbalanced numbers and fucked up rules in RP-PvP (yes I couldnt resist) but a full fledged political and social (I'm sure you do alot of "camp-RP" but it's not what I'm talking about) machinery that makes the actual campaigns an effort to put together IC and not just an effort to plan OOC.

Then perhaps we require a campaign that has RP the main focus whilst the RP PvP has a small part in the whole thing? Like the PvP is the filler to the RP and the culmination to alot of RP effort from both sides, including political and social effort.

Rather than to tell people "Be there at XXXX and fight." I think there are a fair few ideas listed and put down in preparation for the next campaign when it happens, and if anything, that will be tried above.

Have ten times more RP than PvP, and see what happens.

EDIT: I believe that a campaign itself would be much more interesting if it had proper build up and proper RP around, just to underline that the people are actually going to war, to have them know what they are fighting for, and what the stakes are. Because right now it feels artificial.

Then perhaps we require a campaign that has RP the main focus whilst the RP PvP has a small part in the whole thing? Like the PvP is the filler to the RP and the culmination to alot of RP effort from both sides, including political and social effort.

Like the bloodwind campaign. It was the only capaign I truely enjoyed thus far. Especially the part in wetlands =O

Geldar wrote:

What I'm saying is that head focus right now should in my opinion be a bit of RP that doesnt have to be just a QQ-storm of unbalanced numbers and fucked up rules in RP-PvP (yes I couldnt resist) but a full fledged political and social (I'm sure you do alot of "camp-RP" but it's not what I'm talking about) machinery that makes the actual campaigns an effort to put together IC and not just an effort to plan OOC.

Then perhaps we require a campaign that has RP the main focus whilst the RP PvP has a small part in the whole thing? Like the PvP is the filler to the RP and the culmination to alot of RP effort from both sides, including political and social effort.

Rather than to tell people "Be there at XXXX and fight." I think there are a fair few ideas listed and put down in preparation for the next campaign when it happens, and if anything, that will be tried above.

Have ten times more RP than PvP, and see what happens.

EDIT: I believe that a campaign itself would be much more interesting if it had proper build up and proper RP around, just to underline that the people are actually going to war, to have them know what they are fighting for, and what the stakes are. Because right now it feels artificial.

Yes please.

Got consent from more guilds, as well as some suggestions. Better if we discuss it privately though! It is your idea, Valestrion - pardon me for 'usurping' it like this So, can we talk with you in-game per chance?

Drustai wrote:

Geldar wrote:

What I'm saying is that head focus right now should in my opinion be a bit of RP that doesnt have to be just a QQ-storm of unbalanced numbers and fucked up rules in RP-PvP (yes I couldnt resist) but a full fledged political and social (I'm sure you do alot of "camp-RP" but it's not what I'm talking about) machinery that makes the actual campaigns an effort to put together IC and not just an effort to plan OOC.

Then perhaps we require a campaign that has RP the main focus whilst the RP PvP has a small part in the whole thing? Like the PvP is the filler to the RP and the culmination to alot of RP effort from both sides, including political and social effort.

Rather than to tell people "Be there at XXXX and fight." I think there are a fair few ideas listed and put down in preparation for the next campaign when it happens, and if anything, that will be tried above.

Have ten times more RP than PvP, and see what happens.

EDIT: I believe that a campaign itself would be much more interesting if it had proper build up and proper RP around, just to underline that the people are actually going to war, to have them know what they are fighting for, and what the stakes are. Because right now it feels artificial.

Yes please.

^

Geldar wrote:EDIT: I believe that a campaign itself would be much more interesting if it had proper build up and proper RP around, just to underline that the people are actually going to war, to have them know what they are fighting for, and what the stakes are. Because right now it feels artificial.

This was my point, we're on the same page then

Also, next campaign... Please not the barrens!