Thoughts on recent events to my character

The minister titles have been there since Wrath of the Lichking.

but even previous versions of the council, they still acted as government representatives for the kingdom of stormwind.

The legitimacy arguments have been held since Vanilla though. and that hasn't changed. Don't get me wrong, they're legitimate arguments, and I agree with that. But the fact of the manner is that the question isn't "Oh these people are powerhungry egotists they wanna control everything and pretend they run the rp scene!' Doesn't change if its a guildleadermeeting or guild-representative council or whatever you guys have now.

Because the thing is this: The council is a political RP scene. Cultists want to get goody-two shoes to fight. criminals want cops to foil and civilians to rob. cops need judges and oversight to rail against power. and elves and dwarves want to roleplay with humans on a different level than just on the battlefield and in the pub. etc.etc.

And in a council of guild-leaders that RP, who decides that cultists aren't welcome the cultist leader has an equal voice in such a council, that's not political RP that you want.

Yes, you cannot say: We decide what stormwind is doing! we decide the rules of the city! we decide which organisations are allowed and are not allowed! but the reality is - that people still want to roleplay with those boundaries ICly in a way thats dramatically appropriate.

Is there any legitimate way to say a cultist got a super-powerful artifact, that caused the city of stormwind to be evacuated across the sea for a 2 weeks long pvp battle with horde, while the dwarves took control of the dwarven district and cultists ruled the street of london, with resistance RP on every corner? Of course not, not within the narrative that blizzard has crafted. But was that a shit load of fun for the 100+ roleplayers at the time? Shit yeah.

In my experience with various versions of the council, it has never tried to be an exclusionary elitist group that thought to control RP. I'm not saying it wasn't like that some times, or the perception hasn't been like that sometimes, that has never been the intention. And saying: I have it on authority of the king is wrong. and The council has when i was playing tried to avoid saying that, even while having minister titles (because political rp) however, for a lot of the time they did have working approval of the rp community, due to the fact that every week, week in week out, you know where you could get your political rp fix, where you could get your community updates ic, where you could put forth your views and your event ideas and get help with them.

and there's always been a group that said: this council is illegitimate. lets fix it. or reform it, or replace it. and all those things have happened in one way or the next. but the fact remains, that political rp needs a council in some form or another. not to control shit, but to actually RP.

Maelmoor wrote:We have vastly different opinions, nothing new there and neither will convince the other so it won't lead to anything good.

Quite true. We do have vastly different opinions upon how to do things.

I however believe in change and adaptability in order for things to work. I've agreed with Azapha for instance on topics regarding Council, how some change would be good for the RP community. The Senators and I accepted her coming to the Senate since we look for capable players with ideas to promote, who is willing to go through with them. We have worked on quite a few things to change in the Senate, along with those who no longer are part of it but still wish to provide useful advice.

This is what makes the Senate survive. It gets us credibility on both Horde and Alliance, that we can organize things in a proper manner. We are communicating with one another to get the planning done and details needed to accomplish our goals. Thandol Span proved that by far, VSP members whispered us to thank for the quality of the event and one even made a dwarf to join CoKM with shortly after.

I also couldn't help but notice you didn't really answer anything that Hutchins pointed out. You are just avoiding the topic now. Either you really can't see it, just don't want to face that your Council is failing at what you intended it to do. Or you just don't care and want to sit on your imaginary throne.
As for Reyxor's comment:

Reyxor - Urgual wrote:Maybe people at Senate are too bored to bring any sort of will to cooperate, just plainly saying the boredom is spreading.

Just the typical slander for slander I had in this post. Bored.

You do realise this whole situation started because of your lack of will to cooperate OOC, right? It doesn't really help that you did write a letter as well, which you posted on this forum (I saved it in a document as well), threatening the Senate to cooperate or we'd be accused for high treason. All of this mess, merely for the Senate disagreed with you on a topic. You reap what you sow, told you that before I think.

The thing is, the Council simply isn't generating RP. Sure, a handful of RPers come there to afk on the sides of the room every week. While it's important to have a regular event for announcing things, the pseudo-political power RP roles aren't needed for that.

The Minister roles that are supposed to create RP are, in fact, just limiting the amount of things that people can do. Since the server merge, I have probably heard the same question a million times: "What can the minister of xyz even do?"

It's terrible that the organisation has existed for over a decade, and people in it still don't have a clear idea of the things they could do, or what their predecessors have done.

Also, as Charlie already pointed out, with the exception of the person making the laws, every single person on the Council/Senate might as well be a random civilian. They could do all the same events that I've seen in these past few years without their "authority". And they could have done more if they weren't being limited by the one small theme that all of their things are supposed to revolve around.

Cid wrote:just don't want to face that your Council is failing at what you intended it to do. Or you just don't care and want to sit on your imaginary throne.

Not sure what justified such a harsh comment?

Anyways, as I said I'm not interested in a "we are better because of" argument, I don't see any reason to compare this and that.

I rather see us work together for the RP community, each person who provides a story, an event, helps out people who are new to RP or simply RPs with someone else contributes to the RP community and that is what should matter in my opinion.

I've discussed and argued opinions with Hutchins for quite some time, he has his opinions and I have mine, we could argue til the end of time and it wouldn't lead anywhere but I rather just state that I respect his opinions but I just have a different point of view

Maelmoor wrote:

I rather see us work together for the RP community, each person who provides a story, an event, helps out people who are new to RP or simply RPs with someone else contributes to the RP community and that is what should matter in my opinion.

Storys are hard to tell to people in the closed council , I mean for the council it works sure and the idea of having one is reasonable. when you want to talk the fine details of the laws of magic, or that the exact definition of law X.Y.G2351. yeah that is boring shit to read for half hour as people standing around who are not involved with it, THIS SHIT i dont think anyone wants to hear in the main council room

A good story generally has heels (bad guys/people to hate) and a bit of Drama. Politics from what i have seen is a place full of it, just look around at all the in real life ones, and the ones in our world are no different from what we have to go by.

I hate to do this, repeat my points, or even defend the council, because - Yuk! but.

Webbles wrote:The thing is, the Council simply isn't generating RP. Sure, a handful of RPers come there to afk on the sides of the room every week. While it's important to have a regular event for announcing things, the pseudo-political power RP roles aren't needed for that.

A weekly RP event. You can go there and afk if you want to. but saying that holding an event every week isn't generating RP is just plain wrong. The meeting itself is the rp that's being generated. Tuesday at eight (or has the time changed these days?), you know exactly where to go if you're bored and have nothing else going on to engage in rp, by either talking with the people that are standing on the sides or just making a random petition. (Something I've done a lot of times, my favourite, was a petition to ban hats.) The fact that an RP event is so ingrained that you don't even see it as an Event says something all in and off itself.

Webbles wrote:
The Minister roles that are supposed to create RP are, in fact, just limiting the amount of things that people can do. Since the server merge, I have probably heard the same question a million times: "What can the minister of xyz even do?"

It's terrible that the organisation has existed for over a decade, and people in it still don't have a clear idea of the things they could do, or what their predecessors have done.

Also, as Charlie already pointed out, with the exception of the person making the laws, every single person on the Council/Senate might as well be a random civilian. They could do all the same events that I've seen in these past few years without their "authority". And they could have done more if they weren't being limited by the one small theme that all of their things are supposed to revolve around.

You bring up the biggest problem with the council in general here, and its super funny. Because if people would actually think they have power to decide how RP is done - That would be another bag of drama.

Oh the minister of defense does nothing. Well obviously he does nothing. Because not a single guild-leader would accept if a non member went to them and said: You have to go here and fight the horde for the next week! I order you to do this because i'm the minister!

Its the legitimacy problem. Players don't have authority to command guilds to do things. Hence they don't. Yes you can make events without council approval, and yes councillors can make events even without the council.

But you can't have political RP without some-form of player government. I mean drugs are illegal in stormwind, not because the minister of justice decided it was, but because the criminal guilds oocly asked for drugs to be illegal so they were actually peddling criminals.

I've always looked at the SW council as your local Municipal government or even better, the annual general assembly of your local Sports-club. Where people go to see whats new and post their complaints and have a discussion about it. and hear a bunch of announcements that do absolutely nothing. But its still interesting to hear what's going on and laugh at the talking-heads with your friends. And they're community figures that you can approach to talk about shit that's going on in the community after the meeting.

But if you honestly think that the minister of magic should have the ability to tell a mage he can't use spells and then lock him up icly because he does without that mage's ooc approval, then you're dreaming. its all consensus and unspoken approval.

Can you remove the minister titles? Sure. Will that change anything? No except the title is gone.

Heck I don't think even Maelmoor would be upset if the council adjusted/reformed Again and moved away from minister titles back to being Councillors.

The good thing that the minister titles did bring was: Hey I want to talk about defense - bringing that up to the person with that in its portfolio might bring up a more interresting narrative than with just a councillor. Same with magic. or trade, or faith or justice ( do you still have faith? I don't think so...) But its definitely not necessary.

Thats a nice summary Amaryl!

But just to explain the concept of Ministers, it's a co-ordnating role, where you help, create and support RP. If you want to have political RP you need a structure (unless you want to RP anarchy) and defined roles is a big part of that.

If you have a work place with x amount of employees, you have a defined role and a responsibility area.

Now ICly to have someone who can handle questions or help to co-ordinate and organize helps a lot. Someone needs to be ín charge of say the laws and trials, to gather or make suggestions, to organize trials, manage judges etc. In these days we have actually a very fair process in place, with all Stormwind guilds represented and things are voted upon. This is a very clear and simple structure and thats why it has worked so long.

Obviously if a guild or individual wants to arrange a miltary drill then they don't need to get permissions but if you want to kill someone ICly (and the other person agrees) then we have guards, laws etc in place that provides lot of RP for those interested in such.

I've personally been contacted by people who want to arrange a certain type of event but for various reasons wanted help with it, then it's been very easy and clear with the Minister roles.

Over the years new people have joined just cause they enjoy political RP and it requires a certain struture and approach. As Amaryl said we have tried loads of different models, we have tweaked and improved for eleven years now and we will of course continue to do so, it's an evolving process. For those who wasn't around then it could be interesting to know that the Council was kept in closed sessions only for the first few years, which obviously resulted in a quite elitistic and excluded RP scene, now we have a much more proven and mature setup that involves anyone who would like to join.

Last but not least, as I mentioned in another thread we had hundreds of new roleplayers who got into it by attending events such as the Council, a place where you can meet people, get news what is happening, get ICly information about upcoming RP and in a Quick way learn and get involved, many have joined the Ministries and in such a way been able to enjoy their characters specialization in a more focused way.

@Amaryl

You missed my point entirely. I mean people are struggling to come up with events regarding their ministry. And, even if as an outsider I want to involve a Minister in something I'm doing, the only way to do that most of the time is just asking them for a permission to do whatever you're doing.

Also bear in mind that half of your information is really outdated, e.g. criminal RPers are literally extinct, and the "political RP" 99% of the time is someone asking for "guard rights" or something similar.

Maelmoor wrote:Last but not least, as I mentioned in another thread we had hundreds of new roleplayers who got into it by attending events such as the Council, a place where you can meet people, get news what is happening

Yes, but all of that could be achieved with a weekly gathering at the gazebo or something with one guy yelling "Hark! Stuff is happening on Friday!"

Maelmoor wrote:But just to explain the concept of Ministers, it's a co-ordnating role, where you help, create and support RP.

...

many have joined the Ministries and in such a way been able to enjoy their characters specialization in a more focused way.

That'd be fine and dandy if at least half of the people joining actually did that instead of just basking under their shiny title.

Webbles hit the nail on the head IMHO, if the role means nothing and wont be used, RPed with the role it has, why RP that role at all? when the same level of comfort that people want to RP with is something less than what the Minister of Defence has.

I wont go into the topic of if or if not Minister's should be there, its Rayxor's thread so ill keep my point relevant to what he started it with rather than go onto something different.

If someone wants to RP out that they are a dragon and gives me "quests" or plat hooks and a reason to RP with said dragon RPer im cool with it.
If someone wants to Roleplay out a actual SW official working for Si7 im cool with it if it actually does something for your character or for what your doing great!

You are the part you are saying you are in these situations, like the assassin having contacts in high places letting him get plot hooks from time to time from "tip offs" if you have a cool way of using it then go for it.

they are that role, you put your self in that position to be RPed with like you are the Minister of Defence because you was, as such, your words carry the weight of the Minister of Defence, if i did not react to you i would be deflating the seriousness of your position ICly from the point of view of my character!