Defias' current state, low activity, etc

Yes, this shit again. If you're not even going to read the post and just call bullshit, DON'T.

Let's first look at how other people view our server: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6787309002

That's not my opinion, that's the view of someone who came here looking for RP. That alone isn't a problem, maybe he just didn't look hard enough. But look at the responses. Defias is mostly viewed from the outside as just another server that isn't AD, like Ravenholdt, ER, etc.

Looking at DB from an Alliance RPer point of view, RP is mostly confined to Stormwind. TLA and TGC have mostly gone to shit, with Stromgarde being the only really active guild left that isn't based in SW. From what I keep being told, SW RP is becoming less active too. Less random RP, no guilds for warlocks or DKs (except cults, if there's any still around). People are leaving for a damn good reason, and few RPers move here. I know a bunch of people came over from ER, but from what I can see they seem to have left.

Part of the problem is how insular we are. Only about 4 RP guilds are posted on the official RP forum, a few more on the realm forum. Not even everyone has added their guild to the guild lists on the official forum. Very few events are posted there.

Now, I ask you, HOW DO PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT GUILDS OR EVENTS IF THEY AREN'T ON THE REALM FORUMS? They don't. Knowledge of DefiasRP is not innate. People do not always hear about DefiasRP, nor should they need to.

The absolute single only way for DB to get people to transfer here faster than they leave is by letting people know we exist. Post on the forums. Compared to the effort that goes into running a guild with this low pop, copying your recruitment post to the official forums is really, really not hard. Bump other guilds' threads to keep them above the trolling of certain bad PvPers. Telling your guild members or people you RP with to join LFRP really isn't hard. Welcoming random RPers into your events or guild RP is usually beneficial to both parties.

Discussing changes to DefiasRP to make it better is all well and good, but less and less new members of the community on this server seem to be coming here. And as it is right now, if they don't come here and they don't have a guild, they'll know nothing about events or RP.

Yeah it's been said before, and this isn't even the whole problem, but things aren't getting any better. Just don't bother with the "it's always been this way" stuff, seriously.

Maybe it's just time to move on if you want to role-play with a lot of people.

Defias Brotherhood is now a small server, Argent Dawn the big one. If people want to role-play with lots of different people, it's obvious where they'll go. Nothing we will do is going to change that - making it into a problem by treating it as such is only going to give you lots of stress and headaches and will prevent you from enjoying an otherwise very pleasant game. It may seem like this is something that we wrought and therefore something that is to be 'fixed' by us, but that is just an illusion created by our proximity to these issues. You will be better off treating it like it is: a natural phenomenon. Communities come and go. No good thing lasts forever.

The fact of the matter is that times change. Maybe if it's time now to move on, if you want to role-play on a bigger server. If not, stay and enjoy your time here while it lasts, with the people you enjoy playing with. Though few in number, they're a good bunch, with lively imagination and (usually) a cheerful and productive disposition.

So. TL;DR: Accept destiny. Either make peace with the fact that Defias Brotherhood is a small server, or move on to a bigger server. We're not Gods. We cannot change the wheels of fate once they have begun to spinning. That kind of hubris will only lead to suffering. Lots and lots of suffering, fruitless toiling and swearing at the heavens and, goodness forbid - each other when we delude ourselves into thinking that this problem that is not really a problem is ours to solve when there is nothing to solve. Will this really give anyone fulfillment? Desperately fighting certain influence of players on this realm you deem undesirable - such as ganker guilds and infamous trolls - in an attempt to weed them out, only for them to stay or vanish by their own volition, regardless of or even oblivious to our titanic efforts? Scouring the realm forums, scouting for any negativity posted about our server in a desperate war to correct some image that is undeniably true? Is this an enjoyable way to spend your time with this game? Sure, you might be able to draw one or two people to the server that way, but that's fighting a flood with a pipette. It might give you some satisfaction to recruit these new players, but that satisfaction will be inevitably and invariably crushed by the monolith of truth that is the slow desertification of a server. Wouldn't it make everyone a lot happier to either learn how to make a living in the desert, or move to the grassy meadows of yonder if we're dead set on keeping sheep? You're setting up a chain of dominoes during an earthquake. You'll be glad to even get to set up three in a row without them tumbling over - yet tumble over they will, inevitably, and the brief euphoria of managing to put down a fourth domino will wane when another quake knocks over your impeccably set up row, making place for a sorrow where there once was a brief burst of joy.

Just try to enjoy what we have instead of constantly and desperately grasping at the heavens. Better. Bigger. More events. More attendance at events. Isn't what we have enough? Is it really so bad if the community shrinks?

I have made my peace with the inevitable and am much better off for it. No longer do I find myself stressing over grand questions of whether the server is dying or living or what have you. Such great ethereal notions only serve to distract is from what is truly important: role-play and the enjoyment of said role-play. Nothing spoils my fun as much as reducing said fun to an instrumental function of some greater good of keeping a machine - a machine that has no value of its own safe to serve my enjoyment - working.

You may call me a defeatist, but if you do, you miss my point entirely. I am not a defeatist, because I don't even acknowledge that there is a fight to lose to begin with. I'm not a player in this 'Game of Servers'. I play the game, not the meta-game. I do not care much for which server is the biggest. This is not a team sport and we are not trying to win a popularity contest. Sure, you might say my enjoyment of this game is directly influenced by all this grand number-crunching - but is that truly so? What does it matter to me how many players this server has? How many events per week are organized? I have my group of good friends I enjoy playing with and that's all I could have ever asked for, and, I think, more than anyone could feasibly ask for without making themselves very lonely and unhappy. When I no longer have such a group or stop enjoying the game for other reasons unrelated I will quit and look back with a smile at all the good times we've had.

Peace.

Honestly. The Cartel had -five- new recruits (new to the server!) in the past three days. If we can get that, anyone can.. Just try.
A lot of guilds are hesitant to talk to, what they believe to be, OOCers. I myself talk to everyone (IC or a quick whisper 'Hey how you doin', looking to roleplay?') and that seems to be really appreciated.
A lot of people I adressed in that way said 'No, I quit roleplaying some time ago but sometimes feel like getting back..' Just those subtle pokes makes old and new RPers feel like they're welcome.

Also partly what Thelos said on the whole acceptance thing, but I don't see much shrinking. After I came back from my break some time ago, there wasn't really a person I was suddenly missing. Everyone seemed to be there, and more.

Tbh, you can't really change it as Pao said. Defias is dying, I cba to put extra effort into resparking it and I don't think it would be possible anyway... Time to move one toon over to AD for those dead days!

Defias is nowhere near dying really, all the worser RPers with a small portion of the -decent- ones have moved to Argent dawn, we can spark it.. always have!
Either way I'd prefer a small, GoodRP-populated server, then one like Argent dawn that is full of.. egh.

I have read at least one of these threads since Vanilla about DB.
The thread never change anything, and the OP always seem to be the first to leave for a new server.
Why not just leave, and don't bother posting irrelevant and useless threads?

The thread never changes anything because the players don't want to put the effort in. Which I completely understand, and after reading Pao's post, I've reconsidered a lot.

Or some players just give shitty responses that contribute nothing, claim the thread is useless and tell the OP to leave. Which is probably why the OP is the first to leave for a new server.

Would you care to explain how it's irrelevant? Considering that we all play the server and would all suffer from it's slow death, I'd say it's quite relevant.

I've been considering moving server, as it happens, but I chose to stay and post this to see if anyone did actually want to try to bring more activity, because it's more useful than leaving. Being a massive twat in response isn't going to help the server, is it?

I would love to have more people to Roleplay with, more people using shadow magic and seeing what I see would be great, but never, not even once since I started roleplay have I considered leaving the server. And that wont happen, this was my first roleplay server and I wont leave it.
Now then for Raenmar, I em no quitter and I would love helping, but first I would like you to ask yourself this question.. Is it worth it? Think about it very deeply before answering this question, and why is it? What would be the negative effects of having more people joining our server again?
And I em not even going to pretend to be a master roleplayer or someone who writes the best, I know I suck but I have friends to tell me how to do what, and supports me.

@Gogol - This is a relevant thread and useful as a discussion point, unlike your post.

@Raenmar - There is less rp for sure, I was here about 2.5yrs ago and there was a lot of rp which was the main reason for moving Vile Thorn here a year ago. However it had changed and has gone the way that TVC went of most rp being within a guild and a lot less social and random rp of decent quality (and by that I mean with a grasp on the lore of their race).

Personally I put it down to the influx of pure pvp guilds that think attacking rp'ers is what an rp/pvp server is about. Retards. I'm all for red is dead but we seem to have a fair few that target rp guilds or specific members - I guess because the real pvpers of the opposite faction are too tough a target to find and kill. This can be rp'd through a few times but when it's night after night and camping well it just destroys the rp. Many rp'ers can't tolerate the pvp side when it's so unequal and so move off server.

I've also played AD and sure there is lots of rp but most of it is of the worst kind you find in Silvermoon here. And I hate not being able to hunt Alliance IC'ly because of the blue-shielding ofc so wouldn't consider moving VT there ever.

As for improving our lot, well I know you will hate me saying this Raenmar but you need to get stationed in a City for a while until the retards get bored of no easy targets and move off server (again). I know we would move from Brill for our gmeet if attacks got to the point that we were constantly being attacked and unable to actually rp and I'm very much in favour of red is dead (just not camped).

As for improving our lot, well I know you will hate me saying this Raenmar but you need to get stationed in a City for a while until the retards get bored of no easy targets and move off server (again).

Told you Raen

Arli you are entitled your opinion, even tough you are wrong. It is very irrelevant, and filling no use really other than letting ous stretch our fingers a little. Just like your post in it.

Would you care to explain how it's irrelevant? Considering that we all play the server and would all suffer from it's slow death, I'd say it's quite relevant. - OP.

You consider it to be slowly dying, I don't.
It's simply a matter of opinion, and mine is that the server is not dying.
Where as the chance for a thread "Defias current state, low activity, etc" to do any good is slim to non. The threads just like this might sow dis-heart in some, causing them to leave. So in the end it has only damaged the server, even if only minor. But it will surely not bring a slow death to DB because one or two persons decide to leave.

To sum it up; the server is not dying, not even slowly.
This thread fills no use. It could be hurting the weak of heart and should be removed.

Sincerely.

My dear Gogol you are also entitled to your opinions, which are wrong of course but if it makes you happy to keep stating them then go stretch those little fingers.

To me this thread could be a showcase of the rp community working together to try and fix things, rather than some trying to ignore the fact that the rp is in decline.

Arli wrote:My dear Gogol you are also entitled to your opinions, which are wrong of course but if it makes you happy to keep stating them then go stretch those little fingers.

Dearest Arli, I can not stress enough how much you are of course in your right too keep stating your opinion if that does indeed make you gay. Please do continue stretching your even smaller fingers.

Instead of posting this shit on these forums, I suggest you get these (arguably pointless) arguements off of these forums and on the realm and RP forums. Why? So people see there's people dedicated to the RP on the server and that they can be sure they won't come to a empty, unmaintained server. Such as AD.

IF there are people who really want to solve this apparent problem. I sometimesdoubt there are such folks.....

How would posting this on the realm forum help bring people here? It'd be like putting up a big sign saying "DB is dead and very few people give a fuck". I really, really fail to see how posting this to people who just might come to DB would be more beneficial than posting it to the supposed "community".

While the community shrinks in one place it grows in another, and so it goes up and down everywhere while it in the big picture remains largely the same. This is just like that vanilla nostalgia.

I must say that over my five years on DB I've seen this thread too many times.

If DB was a dog, would you really let it suffer?

Though not wanting to disempower anyone if a million of you or none of you logged it would still be a RP server until it is folded in with another one.

If you want to be all activist I would be trying to get the great and powerful Blizz to merge you. Then again RP PvP servers seem to have a high level of idiots to RPer ratio (not counting the RPers who are idiots.)

Im not going to be the one to say move to AD... but it might be worth a look right?!?

Creating RP creates things to talk about IC, which creates more RP!

Ideas (feeeeel free to steal any and all, anyone):
- Duplicate posts on Roleplay, Realm + DefiasRP forums.
- Weekly marketplace "event"
- More inter-guild interaction, friendship, cooperation
- Guild for "citizens" that don't fit other guilds' niches, and which OOCly trains new RPers. Could be run by alts from other guilds.
- RPers rolling alts to wander around just causing trouble in the city.
- RP challenges: ex. roll a char the exact opposite of your main, and play it.
- Cathedral Hospital (constant supply of medics, to promote more travel across city ICly)
- Travelling Rp groups - i.e. caravans of goods, merc guards, dem travelling thespians, Darkmoon Faire carnies etc, could run from SW to Arathor to Hearthglen and back (to promote out-of-city RP too)
- "Travel Agency" guild? For example, could hire guides, guards, caterers, ships, whatever, to ICly travel to other capitals and destinations around Azeroth, to give guided tours, again to promote out-of-Stormwind/general RP)
- "Raiders"--i.e. mounted bandits that roam, attack towns, settlements and caravans for money


Summer is coming, and there'll probably be a good chance to pull people in then. Once Stormwind RP is on a high, rejuvenated scale and there are established travelling groups of RPers all over the world, it's quite possible that RPers will then be able to base themselves again in places like Booty Bay.

I think my only issue with DB atm is that there are few large scale events. They happen few and far between. I'd like to log on and see variety filling up my calendar.

Tho I will say to everyone who does want to help DB... There have been as stated alot of these threads. The simple answer to any problem in RP is to RP more. That is all everyone needs to do really to improve things.

I must admit that I myself really enjoy the large-scale RP-PvP Campaigns, but due to IC reasons, Rargnasha can't really rile up that much trouble at the moment.

Vaell wrote:I think my only issue with DB atm is that there are few large scale events. They happen few and far between. I'd like to log on and see variety filling up my calendar.

Personally I don't enjoy large-scale events. More often than not I feel like my character is reduced to a spectator and I have little to contribute. With all respect to the magnificent Magni memorial service, I didn't really enjoy myself much there as my character was drowned in the crowd. Besides, you can't dungeonmaster with too lage a group and I do enjoy events that have a high degree of DM meddling. With a smaller group you can use a tighter set of rules and enforce them in a more meaningful ways. In many of these 'big' events you just end up interacting with one another in the most shallow of ways, staying on the surface.

"on the realm and RP forums"

Blizz got a RP forum as well, Raen. I can only agree with what Gogol has stated so far, totally exagerration in everything you've written thus far on this forum.

Pao wrote:

Vaell wrote:I think my only issue with DB atm is that there are few large scale events. They happen few and far between. I'd like to log on and see variety filling up my calendar.

Personally I don't enjoy large-scale events. More often than not I feel like my character is reduced to a spectator and I have little to contribute. With all respect to the magnificent Magni memorial service, I didn't really enjoy myself much there as my character was drowned in the crowd. Besides, you can't dungeonmaster with too lage a group and I do enjoy events that have a high degree of DM meddling. With a smaller group you can use a tighter set of rules and enforce them in a more meaningful ways. In many of these 'big' events you just end up interacting with one another in the most shallow of ways, staying on the surface.

I do agree that those are fun but what I should have probably said was "open events", not so internal. I have a character in several major Alliance guilds and yet if I logged all of them, my calendar would still only be about two events a week (often including council!)

All of the Blooming Lotus events are in theory open, it's just that nobody besides us seems to be very interested in Pandaria unless we drag them there kicking and screaming.

There's two kinds of openness. First there's theoretical openness, which means that in theory any character that showed up would be allowed entry and then there's practical openness, which means the event is open in a practical sense of being interesting to lots and lots of characters.

I may make a banquet event in Pandaria which is theoretically open to all characters but would practicly only be open for characters in Pandaria: many other players would say something in the lines of '"What's this to me? My character isn't in Pandaria or has anything to do with Pandaren. This event has nothing to offer for me". In this way, the event would be theoretically open, yet closed in the relevant sense of only being interesting to a few characters.

Even the Stormwind Council, often thought of as the most 'open' event is only open in a theoretical sense. Many characters have absolutely no business attending it. My character only attend if he's got some urgent busines, like last tuesday.

Most events are theoretically open. It's one of the role-playing virtues that role-playing should be accesible and open, after all and working against this would be considered unvirtuous. There are however very few truly practically open events and I think for good reason. For an event to be truly practically open it would probably have to be extremely flavorless as to appeal to all sorts of characters and be inevitably held in Stormwind only, since that seems to be the 'status quo' location for Alliance characters to reside in. With any other location the risk of anyone threatening to not come on In Character grounds would be significantly higher.

The Blooming Lotus events are 'internal' in the sense that they focus on Pandaren interests and conflicts that Pandaria faces. That is not interesting or engaging to every player or every character. Does that make them too 'insular' ? Should we make our events somehow less focused on Pandaria and the pandaren people? Of course not. That would defeat the point of our guild entirely. As a consequence, we would seize having our own distinct color. And if everyone does something similar for the sake of openness you'll end up with one singular guild holding general meeting events in Stormwind for which the entire server shows up to stand there and talk about nothing.

Of course I don't want to be all negativity. There's a clever solution for this and it's an obvious one, albeit one that requires an enormous ammount of effort from everyone involved. The most significant way in which you can make these 'internal' events that are so focused on one aspect of the role-playing world less insular is by making the interests of your characters the interest of other characters. This is what we tried doing during the Stormwind Council last tuesday: we tried to sweeten up future Pandaria events for other characters so that they will have a reason to partake in these theoratically open events, thereby making them practically open events.

In the end I am a firm believer of the fact that the absolute best advertisement for events will be In Character. Actually traveling around with a spokesperson, trying to rouse interest for this or that event not just on the forums, but in the actual game. Try to convince people to join your cause trough role-play. Actually go to other people to invite them to your ball, rather than to just make a post in the event section, smack up a calendar and expect people to come to you.

This requires an enormous ammount of effort from the organisers so I advice you to share this workload amongst multiple people but in the end I think you will find it to be worth it. Hopefully I will be able to prove this in praxis in the upcoming patch as my character travels around Azeroth trying to recruit people to fight against the Thunder King.