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More thoughts on roleplay today. 🙂

There’s been an interesting debate on our server regarding roleplay. Traditionally, and perhaps ideally, roleplay would adhere completely to the lore. So I wouldn’t, for example, play a character that is Thrall and Jaina’s half-orc/half-human love child that has been touched by magic and can turn into a dragon… at least I wouldn’t go around telling everybody that. In the roleplay world that’s called being a Mary Sue, a character that is so unique and powerful that it becomes near impossible to develop any kind of interesting story or back-and-forth with other characters.

There’s also roleplay that extends beyond the boundaries of the Warcraft universe, so for example, roleplaying as StarCraft characters stuck in Azeroth, or roleplay that’s so silly that it becomes a joke. What ends up happening is an inevitable clash between those who prefer their roleplay to be adherent to the lore and who want everyone else’s roleplay to be the same, and those who prefer their roleplay to be sillier and looser. Thing is: there’s room for all types of roleplay. If a group is roleplaying in a way that you personally find distasteful, there’s a very simple solution. Don’t roleplay with them. It’s not rocket science. Nobody is allowed to force their playstyle on another person, but that doesn’t mean that two or more playstyles cannot peacefully coexist side-by-side. This Blizz post from Goroxxigamm on our realm forums confirms this:

Normally we would stay out of this but there continues to be a trend where the environment in a realm forum, which is intended to be a place for players to BUILD community, serves only to do the opposite. So, I am posting here in the hopes that it will do some good.

So to start, the first negative post in this thread seems to have started a lengthy back and forth that likely could have been avoided entirely. Instead of responding to the post it would have been a great deal better simply to ignore it, or even ignore the user that posted it. By responding it adds fuel to the fire and detracts from the original purpose of the thread.

If you believe a post violates the Code of Conduct report it, ignore the person and do not engage.

08/18/2015 04:06 PMPosted by Xeer

I refuse to hold everyone’s hand on #edream. 🙂

That would be fine, but actively going out of your way to smash that hand with a mallet, probably something that we can do without.

This is a general statement and not specific to Xeer… The fact of the matter is, regardless of if you approve of someone’s RP or not, there are more appropriate ways to participate in a dialog where you can share you opinion. Let’s not confuse the issue either, it is your opinion and it is no more or less valid than anyone else. That you have it does not give you or anyone else the right to harass, berate or attempt to intimidate others for theirs.

No one serves as grand arbiter of what is or is not RP. Not here and not in the game.

Today (or tomorrow) marks the halfway point of Blaugust. I never thought that I would be able to keep up with 31 days straight of blogging. As much as I enjoy writing, most days it just feels like life is too hectic and to be honest, most of the time I feel like people don’t really want to read about what I think. Opinions are like, well you know, and everybody has one. Still, I find it interesting to read the opinions of others, so I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is an audience out there.

The good thing about Blaugust is that it’s making me consciously think about doing something that I would otherwise just be like “eh, screw it”. If I can hang in there until the end, I think it’ll enable me to consciously attempt other things that I would normally procrastinate on. I’m also happy to have this outlet to talk about things that are going on in gaming. When you’re a 30-something professional with all the responsibilities that go along with that, you don’t always have people around that you can talk to about gaming. Twitter is great (and I love you Tweeps), but it can be difficult to actually communicate ideas in 140 characters or less, and the chance of miscommunication is much higher.

Onwards! 🙂

Time to catch up on what is going on in my gaming world this week.

World of Warcraft: Still chugging along. Teaghan the paladin is level 95 now, and she’s about to finish up Gorgrond and head into Talador. I spent about 3k gold earlier today to buy ore and herbs to level up her Jewelcrafting, she’s been making plenty of money just through questing and such so I didn’t mind dropping the cash. She should easily hit 700 Mining and JC in a few days time through the normal cooldowns.

Beyond questing, she’s been running Tempest Keep to try to get the Ashes of Al’ar mount. I love this mount, it’s my favorite ever. I probably won’t see it drop for a year or two. 😉

LotRO: The good thing about LotRO is that since I’m a lifetimer, I don’t ever have to worry about subscribing/unsubscribing. So right now let’s just say that I’m on another LotRO break. I’m really just waiting on transfers to open up from Landroval to Gladden so that I can move my Landroval characters over and get all of my crew together.

Wurm Online: I haven’t played Wurm in a while, other than to log on and make sure that the upkeep is paid on my deed. I likely will drop $15 or so and buy gold off another player so that I can deposit more upkeep and keep the deed safe. I really don’t want to lost that spot if I can help it. Eventually I’ll probably go back (I always do), but now is not that time.

The recent news from Joystiq regarding rumors of their demise is looking more and more to be true. This will affect two  sites that I have frequently relied on for years, Massively and WoW Insider, and hearing this news was almost like hearing that an old friend potentially has a terminal illness.

Massively especially has a soft spot in my heart because they give valuable coverage to indie games that players would otherwise never hear of. Such was the case for me several years ago when they wrote about an indie game called Wurm Online. This started a chain of events that changed my life for the better. While playing Wurm, a game with maaaaaybe 1500 players at the time, I (by chance) met a player who happened to live in my area. We became friends, and that person helped me make a major career change from a dead end, lackluster job to an actual career that I didn’t think I would be able to make it in (but I am). Ultimately I trace it all back to one article about a little indie sandbox game written by Shawn Schuster. Without it, my life would be vastly different.

The thing is, when it comes to reviews and opinions on games, I personally place more value on reviews and opinions given on volunteer blogs and via Twitter than I do any outlet where the writers are paid. It may be the cynic in me, but I just feel like writers are more free to give their honest opinion when they don’t have to be concerned about an outlets reputation with developers. But what Massively does very well is aggregate all the news regarding MMOs of all sizes into one news source. Not just developer news, but news of player – driven events and other noteworthy items that we otherwise wouldn’t see. That is the gap that will be left if the rumors are true. No other outlet does this as well or as cleanly as they do, and I think that’s a huge credit to them.

Most importantly, there are talented writers at Joystiq, Massively, and WoW Insider that will likely be displaced. Anytime a person loses their job for reasons beyond their control is sad. It’s doubly sad when they love what they do and have families that are relying on that income. I sincerely hope that all of the writers land on their feet at another gig soon. They deserve better than this, and if if the closure does come to pass, we will all be the poorer for it.