User:SkunkWerks



=Introduction= This is all OOC info about me, but then again, it's a user page and I promise you much of this regards my involvement in Roleplay, so why not?

Some of you may know me by this name through the Official ER Realm forum, but may not be as familiar with my presence as a Roleplayer on Earthen Ring. Aye, it's true, long before I was being called a Troll on the WoW forums (and a few forums of other MMOs) I've been a tabletop PnP (that's Pencil and Paper) Roleplayer for about 15 years running. As in a lot of cases, RP troupes break up and well, I found the MMO setting to be terribly convenient to get my fix for RP.

At first I fiddled in "chat-based RP" (not really sure if you'd call it MUSH, MUD or whatever, I wasn't well-versed in those terms as I think I got involved at the tail end of their popularity) as MMO's hadn't yet reached their full splendor anyway, and I ended up helping to administrate a portion of a White Wolf Games-based RP setting. It was pretty big. Big enough that White Wolf was considering co-opting it as their official online presence at one point, as I understand it (and this was back in the day when games like Vampire: the Masquerade were still a big deal). It was also big enough to make the Oprah Winfrey show at one point, where we are all vilified as "a cult of vampire-worshiping satanists" or something to that effect.

After that, I started fiddling with MMOs, leading me through City of Heroes, and eventually, here.

As with other MMOs I've been in, I actually typically have ended up following the missus. She was actually here before me, but I hopped in about a month later and took to it like a fish to water. Some months later, I started posting on the Official Realm Forum and gained notoriety for "zOMGNOTPOASTINGONURMAINWTF*%$GOHAN!!!111!eleventyone!" In the meantime I do actually "play the game"- I play it decently, and in many ways, RP being one of several.

I started initially with little interest in Horde Races, and had actually planned to roll entirely Alliance at first. So for a good while- about a year or so- I had all ten slots filled with various Alliance characters. And then I got invited to play a bit Hordeside by some friends. I rolled a Tauren Warrior (Cualgne) and decided I had a bit of interest after all. When Blizzard finally announced Burning Crusade, I was hooked. Rolled up some placeholders (Sharael, Facet and Siderael- I would move Tenebrai from a Night Elf Alliedside to a Blood Elf Hordeside as well) and bided my time. Now I'm still a bit imbalanced- 6 Allies/4 Horde- but I'm getting better with it, and I've found some friends over that side of the line as well.

There's a pretty good chance I will finally balance all this out when I go to roll a Death Knight- my option seems to be nixing my Warlock Malchiae and rerolling him Hordeside as a Death Knight (same name and all). That'll finally bring it even, and possibly make Mal fun to play- never could get into Warlocks, for whatever reason.

This sort of information, I suppose, gives away the "big secret" about who SkunkWerks is, but then again, to my mind, it was never really a big secret anyway. And while I don't broadcast who I am, finding it out really isn't terribly hard if you want to. For more information on why Skunkwerks has, and always will be "my main", see this.

=Roleplay "Style"= I suppose everyone's got one. Mine primarily involves inclusiveness the the rejection of pretentiousness, reclusiveness and exclusivity in Roleplay. I also believe in promoting good player relations first. Because if you can't stand the people you play with, you're probably not going to enjoy anything you do with them, Roleplaying included. This also leads me to say a few things that bear relevance specifically to Roleplay in the WoW environment- and in particular in regards to "RP Servers" and how they should ideally be treated (or perhaps, not treated).

Bear in mind, this is all my opinion, of course. But maybe it will help you, the reader decide how (or perhaps even not) to interact with me. If you get something out of it, cool, if not, well, I can't really offer you back the time you spent reading it.

Good Player Relations come before ALL else
This, to me, seems elementary. And yet in my experience it's something a lot of WoW players (not just Roleplayers, but also Raiders, PvPers, etc.) seem keen to forget or ignore. But it's not hard to see this at work (and is probably even easier to see when it doesn't work).

If I don't like you, I probably won't play with you. Not for Gold, not for XP, not for Quest Completion, Honor, Rep, Marks, and yes, not even for RP.

To some Roleplayers, this concept may even seem unfair or "favoritist". These people especially are forgetting that WoW is, first and foremost, a game- a game I started playing to have fun. Let's put this in a slightly different context: would you play Monopoly with a guy who routinely cheats (or, for that matter, routinely beats his children)? No. Why? Knowing this, you probably wouldn't enjoy it. The same principles are at work with RP- I am not obligated to play with anyone, for any reason. And if I'm not having fun playing with you (and worse, the act of playing with you is actually causing me grief), guess what I'm going to do?

It's not wrong to seek fun in a game, and avoid that which is not fun. If that-which-is-not-fun happens to unfortunately find it's embodiment in a player, then understandably, people will avoid that person, and would be well within their rights to do so.

Reclusiveness
There's other reasons this matter of Player Relations is important though- and in particular, to Roleplay...

Try not to take this too personally dear reader (and in particular since I willfully include myself in the following stereotype), but it has been my longtime observation that there is a certain, intellectual, socially-avoidant personality that tends to get involved in RP most readily. And because of this, we have a population of enthusiasts who, well, for lack of a kinder way of putting it, would often rather shove their heads in the sand than deal with new or unfamiliar people.

What does this lead to? Well, it can lead to a lot of cliquishness and exclusivity, but the more common form is that I've noticed certain "troupes" of roleplayers will often distrust and mistrust certain other players or groups of players for no real reason other than the fact that they don't really know them. I call this "cattiness"- cats being full of sound and fury at new cats in their territory, but seldom fight over it.

So, how do you fight that? Well, get to know people. It's a lot harder to make bad assumptions about the way people act if you get to know them. There's a lot of ways this can be encouraged in communities, but no way to enforce it. Players really need to check themselves, honestly. If you find yourself shrinking from other people, take a moment to ask yourself why. And if you can find no good reason, then for pity's sake get back out there!

Exclusivity and Elitism
I think a lot of Roleplayers forget that an MMO is a communal setting for RP- an environment where ideally, every character is on an equal footing with one another, and has an equal right to what I like to call "spotlight time". This might not be true in an IC sense (not everyone is a Lord of Stormwind, a High Magister of Silvermoon, etc.), but it is always true in an OOC sense. And if you recall from above, I believe relations between players need nurturing before we start worrying about the relations between characters.

Or to put it in the short form: IC drama = good/OOC drama = bad.

For a variety of reasons (most of which I'd probably attribute to the typical tendencies of people who get involved in Roleplay as a Hobby) people in these MMO RP settings get very "cliquish" and "clannish" about their relations with others outside their normal accustomed circle of acquaintances. They tend to ignore such people more often, and even get a bit "catty" if forced to relate with them. Mind you, once again, I'm not speaking of IC conflict due to some ongoing storyline between characters. I'm talking about Roleplayers and their tendency to turn their noses when people (and circumstances) come along that they aren't familiar with, or don't personally identify with as fitting with their vision of "utopian" roleplay.

Obviously, this doesn't help player interaction much, and Roleplay fails along with it.

Now I'm well aware that others' Roleplay interests may not include the entire purview of others- there's many different ways to Roleplay, and many different Roles to take on. I'm a very strong believer in letting people do as they will- because, when gaming activities become compulsory, what's the point? Still, what I find funny is that many of the same people that preach about fostering a good community ethic of roleplay seem to only really mean to do so when it fits their image of what roleplay is.

A fine example of this is "skill level" and those that are new to Roleplay. I've seen a lot of people completely crushed and disheartened to the idea because some prissy nitwit decided to give them the working over for a stray "lol" or hassle them about their name. I actually find a lot of newer Roleplayers don't understand very basic concepts about the use of "non-genre" language and communication, and will often mix in "WoW-cronyms" and other "WoW-speek" without really being aware of it. And yet, instead of playing the role of benevolent sagely advisors, all too often the "educational" approch seems to be either point-and-laugh or far more often, abandonment.

Reach out to other people. Don't be so quick to dismiss them. Introduce yourself, say hi. Encourage other people to interact by your examples. Because, if the fact that you are excluding other people from your "reindeer games" isn't enough to motivate you to do so, the fact that you are probably hatching the same stale plots over and over and over with the same sorts of players over and over and over should.

Pretentiousness and Ego
Then there's pretension. I suppose maybe my reading of it isn't the only one, but I notice this in a lot of roleplayers (and sadly often in the ones the necessarily nebulous "everyone" seems to regard as quite good). So okay, what the heck am I talking about, I mean, Roleplayers should excel at putting forth false pretense, right? They are after all, pretending to be someone else. And once again I guess I have to say that the problem comes in when the pretense crosses that elusive IC/OOC line- and it does more often than it should, in my opinion.

It comes out in a lot of different ways, some uglier and more obvious than others (e.g.: "godmoding"), but some are more subtle. Now you can see here that I have a penchant for verbosity. I like to write a lot of stuff, but oddly enough, I think you'll find that while Roleplaying in WoW, I try to keep most of my speech and emotes fairly brief. Why? Well, WoW RP is a different format for one thing. See this here? This is my typing space. Now look behind you. The chair your sitting in, and that desk in your living room or bedroom you've got your computer at? Ok, that's your reading space.

I can type as much or as little as I like, and you can decide to read as much as you like or stop reading whenever you feel like it.

In WoW, I am sharing a space with other people. And as such, I feel I should try to be considerate not only to the people I'm directly Roleplaying with, but also to the people around me in the "background" who are also trying to Roleplay at the same time.

I've seen extreme cases of this, where people will hammer you with 10-to-15-line paragraph emotes. There's a few things to be said here- not the least of which involves good writing and how it relates to the concept of 'K.I.S.S.' (short for 'keep it simple, stupid'), also known as brevity. If you can't do it in 1-3 lines, you're probably not doing a good job in the first place. But as we're also talking about Roleplay, another issue comes to mind. I type at, oh say 50-60 words a minute. This is pretty high for your average computer user (and I look at my keyboard too, like I'm not supposed to), it's not exactly clerical speed, but I've got an edge on a lot of folks.

Since when should the acronym "WPM" mean to Roleplay what "DPS" means to Raiding?

Yeah, you heard me. Stop spamming my chatbox with extraneous crap. You're not that important, and if your character isn't trying to dominate the setting, then you are certainly having a good go at dominating my reading. Knock it off. Three lines will most likely suffice where you bludgeoned me with thirteen.

Most characters can't read minds (ok, maybe some, but frankly claiming yours can kinda borders on godmoding anyway). Unless what you're thinking is really, really obvious: show, don't tell. I don't have access to your internal monologue. I have, as an outside observer, only what I can read on your face to go on (which, incidentally, is why the channel's called "Emote" rather than "Narrative"). This isn't a novel you're writing here, and even if it were, since when did novel-writing become a spectator sport? Ever watched someone write a novel? It's pretty freaking boring.

And if you're thinking "well, some people might miss out on my great RP," I've got news for you, if your emotive expressiveness doesn't interest me enough to inquire or investigate further, then it's very possible that you're not interesting, or that my character is just not interested for their own reasons. Let it lie. Find other people who are interested, or otherwise inclined to be. If you think you aren't getting it across clearly to me and maybe that's why I'm not biting, okay, that's fine too. However, the solution to this isn't necessarily making your emotes longer, is it?

"zOMG THIS IS AN ARPEE SERVUR, WTF?!?!!"
Guys and gals (hey, it works for Sarah Palin, right?), I'm going to let you in on a little something I've been thinking about, more or less since starting to play this game and roleplay in it- well okay, it's not exactly something I've kept secret or anything, but here it goes anyway:

Creating and labeling specific servers as "for RP" is probably one of the dumbest things an MMO can do.

...if it isn't a complete waste of time for the company, it actually tends to be more harmful to RP than it is helpful to it.

Yeah, I know... blasphemy, right? How could I say something like that? Well, if I haven't driven you off already with my heretical tone, then I'll trouble you with the following primary reasons:


 * Unlike the difference between PvE and PvP servers, the difference between an RP server and any other is in name only. There is no ruleset you can create that will promote better RP, nor discourage griefing and other behavior detrimental to it.


 * Despite the above fact, people are not in any way discouraged from thinking that those two letters in Parentheses somehow make for WORLDS of opportunities for the company hosting the MMO to enhance their roleplay experience, somehow. Now not only has the company wasted it's time promising the consumer what it cannot deliver on, but the consumer is now wasting a whole lot of time demanding that delivery.


 * Because of point one and in despite of point two, Roleplay and Roleplayers thrive just fine in many places in many MMOs that don't have those letters and parentheses, and in fact, they're often happier for it.

Take LotRO for example. Now there's the Holy Grail of RP right? I mean, it's based on Tolkien, and pretty much any Roleplaying game in a fantasy setting is based on his work. So they'd like, totally have to have RP Servers, right? They don't in fact. But does RP happen there anyway? Oh most definately. And it's a similar situation with City of Heroes. I mean, sure, Players themselves will often declare one particular server as the "unofficial RP server" (as I understand it that was Virtue in CoH, and Landroval in LotRO) but you don't get a whole heck of a lot of this animosity between the RPers and Non-RPers. And this is because everyone understand that the MMO is first an MMO and only an RPG second.

Is that so terrible a thing? I don't think so. I mean sure, some games offer more widgets suited to roleplayers than others. LotRO for instance offers Player Housing and a pretty flexible music system where players may share custom music and performances with one another, and CoH has a character customization system that would put WoW's to shame any day of the week. What has two letters and a couple parentheses ever given us though? Save perhaps for the imagined notion that a lot of complaining about a "problem" Blizzard can't ever hope to fix for us anyway is a worthwhile endeavor.

And while I know I don't need these widgets to have an enjoyable RP experience (PnP gaming, 15 years... if anything it ought to tell you I've got an imagination powerful enough to turn a piece of paper into a fully emotive character and a dirty green table laden with chips into a rolling plain of fantasy excitement), I'd frankly rather Blizzard put their time into any one or more of those than pursuing pie in the sky.

...even though pie is good.

Still, yeah. RP Servers. Same situation as any other server: Roleplayers are a minority and Roleplaying isn't exactly a popular hobby with most folks. Is it any real surprise to us that a majority of players prefer to do other things? I don't think it should be, personally. Unless that is if we've totally deluded ourselves in this fantasy dice game into thinking we really are wizards, warriors and warlocks worthy of such a bastion against the "banality of a cruel, cold world".

Yeah, it sounded like a ridiculous metaphor. That was intentional.

Arg! I Think My Immersion is Ruptured!
As I said earlier, I started my hobby in roleplaying gathered around an ugly green table in my parents' basement. Somehow I re-imagined that setting not only as a medieval-era fantasy venue, but as a cyberpunk cityscape, an intergalactic theater of battle, and just about anything else you might dream up. I imagined sheets of badly-photocopied paper to be epic characters whose deeds would shake the very pillars of dreamed-up places and fanciful "legendariums".

In fact, when you get right down to it, imagination- the ability to see things not as how they are, but as how they could be- is a Roleplayer's most important tool. Without it, you're still some guy who flips burgers at McDonalds for "mad money" and your rolling green plain of battle is still a green plywood table in your parents' basement, not too far from the washer and dryer and the kitty litter pans.

The trade term for this, as it seems to be used among WoW Roleplayers, is "Immersion". And there's an awful lot of talk about this word when Roleplayers discuss all the "problems" they have. In fact, pretty much every woe Roleplayers suffer in WoW as an "oppressed people" pretty much centers around this one word. Names can hurt immersion, language can hurt immersion, the very presence of "non-roleplayers" can hurt immersion... The list goes on and on.

There's a "viral video" that goes around the web often referred to simply as "Lightning Bolt" that depicts a number of Roleplayers engaging in a session of LARP (or Live Action Roleplay- where more play acting is substituted for dice-rolling to achieve better "immersion"). Few people can watch this video without laughing (see if you can), even Roleplayers themselves- who arguably understand better than most exactly what's happening in the video, and yet, viewing it from a different perspective at the time, still see the humor in it.

So what is immersion exactly? There seem to be lots of ways of achieving it, and from many different various "starting points" - some closer to what we imagine than others.

If I can imagine my parents' basement as a whole fantasy world, and sheets of paper I had dad photocopy at work from a book of mine as great warriors and powerful sorcerers, and the clickety-clack of ten-siders rolling around as the thunder of lightning bolts being thrown, how is it that WoW roleplayers, with all these fancy graphical aids and giantic continuous 3D environment, have issues with their ability to immerse?

Someone, please, explain this to me. Because I can't figure it out, really... I can't.

I think it's because, rather than letting the effort to immerse come from the player himself- as it damn well should- a lot of Roleplayers are spoiled little children either too ignorant or too lazy to use their own immersive powers and are expecting, as usual, for someone else to do it for them.

NON-RPers? On ~OUR~ RP Server??
It's more likely than you think...

Sometimes I wonder if either Roleplayers at large fail to understand that our interest demographic is a minority in the larger population, or just refuse to acknowledge it... or maybe a little of both? Many Roleplayers seem to display a sort of "siege mentality" about their past time, so it seems reasonable to assume that they at least have some awareness of themselves in relative to the rest of everyone who plays WoW. So I guess it's possible that they are aware of their status as a minority interest group, I don't really know.

But I am forever puzzled at the bewilderment of Roleplayers in regards to the notion that there are so many people out there on their server that just flat-out have no interest in Roleplay. Maybe they know that there aren't that many of us, but just think that Blizzard can somehow round us up into some "wildlife preserve" for roleplayers and protect us from them nasty lolspeeking poachers?

That thought leads me to wonder if this rag-tag collection of ex-hippies and former D&D cellar dwellers completely fails at understanding just what "Roleplay" is. Last I checked it was a set of ideas leading to a very specific way of acting and carrying oneself in accordance with a fantasy setting of some sort. This is typically done as a leisure activity, too. And I understand, this is a very broad definition. But as I'm about to explain, the broad, vague nature of my definition isn't an accident- it's a necessity.

There's no sure-fire way to identify people that engage in this past time, really. Since it's a practice based on a set of ideas, not a certain brand of jeans you wear, a color car you drive, or something that is very tangibly identifiable. And not only that, but even among people who arguably do espouse the Roleplay past time, there are many varieties of expressing it, and many disagreements on that which is and is not "canonically" Roleplaying. Now I think it's pretty silly to try to single out people by how they choose to dress, or what car they choose to drive, who to vote for in a senate election, and so on anyway.

Still, given all that ambiguity in identifying just who is and who is not a Roleplayer, what is it exactly that seems to make a lot of Roleplayers think that there is some "magic sieve" Blizzard can use to keep "non-roleplayers" off their server?

So what do we have here?


 * A lot of people don't Roleplay.
 * It's very hard to define a Roleplayer from a non-Roleplayer.
 * Blizzard cannot bar people from rolling on a server because of their particular taste in recreation.

So why should it be any surprise to a reasonable, rational intellect at all that there's (~gasp!~) non-roleplayers on RP realms? And not only that there are non-roleplayers on their server, but that the ratio of roleplayers to non-roleplayers is pretty much the same ratio would expect to find in any given population?

Nevermind that whole schtick of nagging individual people on a case-for-case basis that they aren't interested in RP so they shouldn't be rolling on an RP server. Nevermind the multitudinous counter-arguments regarding valid reasons that those not interested in Roleplay could and should roll on an RP realm anyway. The mechanism is very, very simple: Non-Roleplayers can roll on RP servers and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it- not Blizzard, not players, no one.

And yet you will hear this time and time again from the Roleplay community in WoW, and they will find someone to blame for it, usually Blizzard.

"RP Names" (and the lack thereof)
Another common sticking point with Roleplayers seems to be the matter of "RP-appropriate" names. Unlike some of the other preoccupations Roleplayers have with percieved imperfections in their fantasy worlds, this one I have to admit, has some limited basis in reality. And that, if you ask me, is part of the grave error Blizzard made when it decided to have specific for-Roleplay servers in the game in the first place.

Take gun. Aim at foot. Pull trigger.

GG Blizz.

Welcome to one of the few fallacies that actually makes an (RP) Server tangibly different than any other sort of server in WoW- the "naming convention". This is an actual part of a the Terms of Service agreement everyone agrees to when they sign up with WoW and each time they sign in to the game. And what it says, basically is that, if you are on an RP server, you are expected to give your character a name that is "RP-Appropriate" or else face the possibility of being renamed.

The fallacious part of this is really the matter of defining just what is RP-Appropriate. Now here Blizzard has quite wisely taken a step backwards in the direction of what I'd call sanity, and de facto left this decision to the collective will of the given server's populace (there are Blue Posts on the forums laying this notion out very clearly, in fact). To exercise this democratic rule, all the players on an RP realm have to do is submit reports on player names that they believe to be not-RP-appropriate.

Presumably what happens from there is that the complaint goes to a GM or other authority, it is verified that the complaint is at least valid, and then assuming it is that player gets a little e-mail notifying them that they are about to undergo a name change, and if they'd kindly contact Blizzard with a name they'd like to have it change to, they'd greatly appreciate it. The idea seems to be that, through watching the mass of player reports, what is RP appropriate can be kenned out and identified, at least specific to the population of the RP server in question.

And even if you haven't really defined it, then at least the theory is that the server's Roleplaying populace at large is essentially getting what it wants, and so, should be happy.

And that's where this all falls apart, you see. Because they aren't happy. In fact, of the many spurious complaints I hear from Roleplayers about how under-appreciated they are by Blizzard, this seems to be Exhibit A. Many claim this as a grievance on the basis that Blizzard purportedly does not act on the reports it receives. Personally I find this very hard to prove since- as with all reports of misconduct reported by one player about another player- the resolution and any reprimand or punishment the other player receives as a result is kept confidential and not told to the complainant. Nonetheless, it is often heard that once reports are submitted the players they are submitted in regards to do not seem to have been forced to change their name, or whatever.

These criticisms usually include some charge of the variety that Blizzard isn't really doing anything to enforce the naming convention. Honestly, it's hard to judge the extent to which this may or may not be true merely from personal anecdotes given the circumstances.

What I can say is that- something that was understandably imperfect as a resolution from the get-go was offered anyway to the players in an effort to make them happy, and it has inevitably, and quite predictably fallen short of it's goal. I would go on to declare it impossible to enforce in any manner befitting its purpose, and why not just abandon it altogether?

After all, what's in a name, really? And why is it so blasted important to Roleplayers that they be RP-Appropriate?

Roleplayers will then often go on a long spiel about how non-RP names "hurt immersion". Let's be honest here. The last time you went to a party, walked down a street, rode the city bus, or some other activity which involved a fair number of other people surrounding you, did you notice a blue and white tag stuck to each of them with big friendly lettering that says "Hello My Name Is" followed by a sharpie-marker scrawl telling you what that person's name is?

You didn't, did you?

Well okay, that's because when you are "immersed" in real life, you really don't know another person's name until they tell it to you. Why then is something that you arguably shouldn't know about in the first place, an issue to you? What's more of a hurt to immersion? Some guy named 'Arglebarglepancake' or the fact that it's floating over his head in giant serif-lettering?

And you know? Unlike life, there is a way you can lean over and rip that nametag off the guy without having him deck you flat. You can turn the display of "floaty names" off. If immersion is the goal, you'd think more roleplayers would be doing this rather than complaining about what other people name their characters. As a rule, I generally don't report names (unless they contain something that is truly blatantly offensive in them), nor do I think it says much about the quality of another person. I have met some people with arguably "non-RP" names that do RP, RP well, and are quite wonderful people to hang around with.

So then, what's all the fuss about, exactly? Well, frankly Roleplayers will often correctly tout the naming convention (as I have at the beginning of this section) as one of the few things Blizzard promises to do differently with RP servers. Nowhere in this angry venting will you hear a word about whether it's reasonable to expect that promise to be followed through on. Just that Blizzard said so, and we're extremely non-plussed that they're not doing it.

Now you tell me, who here is at fault for unhappiness in a case like that? Is it Blizzard for promising the impossible? Or is it us for expecting the impossible? A bit of both, maybe?

Thou Spakest in Tongues!
It's a common misperception of Roleplayers as observed by those that don't Roleplay (and particularly in WoW) that we all speak in either Shakespearean or at the very least, Elizabethean dialects. And while this isn't necessarily (or as often not-at-all) true, there definately is a sort of finicky attitude on the part of Roleplayers about what is "RP appropriate" verbiage- and not just from fellow roleplayers, but also from those not interested in Roleplay who happen to be in their vicinity. Not everyone shares the same tolerance level on this- if you're like me, a whole lot just rolls off. But other folks see a few stray "El-Oh-Els" and have their RP-bags all packed and ready to go- usually off to some even more obscure venue where they don't have to deal with different sorts of people, or pretty much anything that remotely resembles their rather broad definition of "adversity".

This linguistic plague is apparently so prevalent to some that there have actually been Addons written specifically to "sanitize" WoWspeech for these sorts of folk (not of course that "Addon savvy" and "agoraphobic" are a common combination).

There's a reason I've ordered this dissertation as I have. If you peek above at this section, you'll see my little spiel about how there are non-RPers on RP servers, they're not going anywhere, and you can't do a damn thing about it. Now, that being said, it would be nice if non-roleplayers would show some consideration for Roleplayers, and try not to disturb them, but I fail to see how someone else's white text is really all that big a deal here.

Do what I do: ignore it.

We're all here to do what we're all here to do. We might not see eye to eye, but the whole "consideration for others" thing works both ways. Don't lay in to people for stupid crap that really isn't an issue. The better we all get along- because as I've already said, we all have to share this space- the better off we'll all be.

I see no point in what basically amounts to needless antagonism. Get over yourselves and please go complain about something worth complaining about, kthxbai. :P

'O Mighty Blizzard! Why Hast Thou Forsaken Us?
It's not exactly an uncommon delusion among WoW players in general to play the Martyr- feigning "unlove" of their particular class or interest demographic by Blizzard. A good place to see generalized examples of this is Class Forums- where you can, if you can stomach it, watch people endlessly opine (and far more often, just pine) about how Blizzard has not only "abandoned" them but seems to be doing everything in its power to willfully ruin their play experience. Usually the "evidence" served up to prove this neglect/hostility from Blizzard is small- a fraction of a percentage change in a statistic or itemization, or perhaps the "nerfing" of a specific power or relocation of a power in a talent tree, and you've got grounds to call in Child Protective Services and lay charges against Daddy Blizz for beating its least favorite red-headed stepchild. Spend enough time in these venues, and if you ever did feel good or proud of your Class, play interest or whatever, you'll soon feel dismal and unloved yourself.

Not too surprisingly, Roleplayers in WoW have their own very special version of these Delusions of Martyrdom, and are not at all shy about writing long dissertations about just how neglected and oppressed they are (which, I suppose is why I find myself writing this- which effectively amounts to one giant rebuttal).

Common cited examples of this particular variety of "BlizzBias™" usually include:


 * Inaction in correcting non-RP-Appropriate Names.
 * Failure to Provide Servers that are for-Roleplayers-only.
 * Don't Tase my Immersion, bro!
 * LOLlore
 * Not implementing player-housing.

...and so on.

Frankly I don't really see any of these complaints as valid. More often than not, they're the results of players having deucedly unrealistic expectations of what Blizzard is capable of doing. This game caters to a lot of different tastes, and as the rule usually goes- you can't please everyone all of the time.

If you find yourself in the position of feeling you got the shaft from Blizzard on something, yet can't really see how Blizzard could have reasonably done otherwise, what should you do?

Well, my advice can be summed up in four letters: 'S-T-F-U.*

*No, that isn't the acronym for the Space Trade Federation University...

LOLlore: Thou Shalt Have No Sci-Fi in Thy Fantasy (and Vice Versa)
What is "LOLlore" and how does it happen?

"LOLlore" is the term that seems to have cropped up on the forums meant to describe any discussion, dispute or complaint with regard to WoW's central "Lore"- or the myths and history that pretty much defines the events and reality of the WoW universe. In other trades, such as novel writing, this collective of writing and ideas is usually referred to as a "fantasy world", "mythos" or "legendarium" (if you like fancy-schmancy speek).

As for how it happens? Well, there's a lot of people out there that will tell you that LOLlore happens when some stupid stinky writer (usually new) goes and deliberately pinches a big steaming loaf and then cleans off his posterior with pages containing, in hallowed runic script, the mythos of WoW. Later on Archaeologists will discover this ancient writer's rectal ablutment parchments and confuse scatologists and paleolinguists alike with his heresy.

But I'm not here to try to explain to you what stupid people think, so I'm going to offer you what I think to be a far more reasonable explanation for the phenomenon of LOLlore.

Some wise person in the general discussion forums (whose name I can't recall, and whose words I can only paraphrase from memory now) once said the following in a thread speculating that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion could be the end of LOLlore. What he said was (roughly) thus:


 * "LOLlore will always continue to exist because there will always be some fan of WoW out there whose vision of how they should have written it doesn't agree with the way Blizzard did write it."

And that pretty much sums it up. But if you'd like me to expound a bit more on the phenomenon, sure, why the crap not?

LOLlore happens (as many percieved slights observed by Roleplay-types often do) when someone has one or more completely unreasonable or unrealistic expectations about how such things are accomplished. The first and foremost of which is this general sense you get from complainers that they somehow believe "lore" is written, start to finish, in one go- no rewrites, no drafts, no edits, no "retcons".

In this vision of things, Tolkien for instance sat down on the john for 3-5 years straight and crapped out one long loaf that we now know as the Middle Earth Legendarium. Moreover, it came out his arse in exactly the same condition as it went into his mouth. We know this isn't true, of course. And even with Tolkien, grandaddy of fantasists, the disjointed collection of thoughts and ideas that were written and re-written and eventually coalesced into the final product over time, is fairly pronounced and easy to spot given that much of Middle Earth's "lore" was written in notes that were published after Tolkien's death in more "polished" form, such as the Silmarillion.

Tolkien frequently writes and rewrites ideas, changes character names (ever notice how many different names a single character in Tolkien's writing can have?), and retcons the crap out of everything. And this is Lore-with-a-single-author, we're discussing here. in the case of WoW, we're talking about a universe that was written more or less by committee- dozens of people brought it to life- and you're seriously expecting this to be a perfect product with no inconsistencies whatsoever?

Another common insipidness LOLlore accusers like to spew like vomit is this notion that, somehow, a fantasy setting should contain no "modern" elements in it. Now I don't know about you, but as long as I've been reading fantasy novels, I've been finding them in a section of my local Waldenbooks usually titled "Fantasy/Sci-Fi". Moreover, many of the books I took from those thusly-labeled shelves indeed sometimes mixed the two genres.

Excellent examples of this phenomenon can be seen in the works of Larry Niven, or Stephen King's Dark Tower saga- which blends elements of spaghetti western, post-apocalyptica, medieval England, feudal Japan and the notion of alternate dimensions into one continuous, strangely homogeneous fantasy setting. Heck, if you really read into Tolkien's work in Lord of the Rings, you can very clearly see that one of the themes he's expounding upon with Saruman and his re-envisioning of Isengard is a theme of industrialization.

This isn't a new idea. And yet these nimrods will make posts, and throw around terms like "space goats" like it's some sort of absurdity that everyone should see and that only Blizzard could author so "blitheringly".

Ok, we get it, you don't like how it's written. None of that means it isn't written well. Furthermore, you aren't the one writing it, so please go stick it in your ear.

And I Raaaaan, I Ran So Far Awaaaaaaaay...
Part of the "sticking your head in the sand" variety of coping with adversity, this one usually comes up when other methods have been exhausted- such as making a very long, poorly-reasoned dissertation on the forums about how underloved Roleplayers are in WoW and being predictably ignored and or mocked off the forums for it. This usually only comes up with those Roleplayers who have established a particular place where their RP centers on, such as a particular empty building or area of a capital city, or whatever. It usually only finds cause to occur if that area is at least close in proximity to either "non-roleplayers" or has somehow attracted the attention of pretty much just any large mass of people with an undifferentiated variety of interest in the game, in other words: people not like you.

Now then, I don't believe that all good RP has to be rooted to a particular location, but there is a certain charm to all this environment Blizzard has created for us, and it's nice to appreciate it by using it. There's scores of empty buildings, plazas, taverns, glades, ports and what-have-you out there that make really idyllic backdrops for hanging out in-character. And what's more, RP centered on a particular place can always be found by those who know where to look. So it's a shame to me when a group of Roleplayers suddently decides to abandon a place, particularly when the reasoning seems to be that there's people noticing goings-on there and trooping on in to hang out, basically.

The deserters will then typically offer up some vapid, imagined excuse for why it's no longer a good venue- usually having something to do with "lots of n00bs hanging around saying 'lol' and such all the time" even if said "n00bs" are in fact Roleplayers themselves just making an honest effort to join in the fun and make things interesting. Wouldn't we want to encourage these people? Bring them amiably into the fold and show them how it's done?

''Of course not! Are you MAD?''

Yeah, I am just about that crazy. I have this crazy notion in mind that Roleplay and engaging in it are, first and foremost, nothing to be ashamed of, and secondly, something that is most fun when shared.

You may pull the paddy-wagon around now. I'm ready Warden.

A Roleplayer's "Utopia" or "Home Is Where the Hermit Is"
The farcical notion that Blizzard has "failed" (either through incompetence or neglect) to keep RP servers for-RP has lead some among the broader WoW RP community to thinking that even more drastic measures need to be taken in order to "save" RP from the "filthy unwashed hordes of non-RPers". To this end, many of this persuasion will advocate that Blizzard should create for them and even more exclusive place to keep their RP "inviolate" than a server that has the little "(RP)" on the end of it. Now given that I've already discussed my feelings on just how utterly pointless I think servers flagged for RP are in the first place, what form an even more exclusive safe-haven for Roleplay would take completely boggles my mind to envision, but yeah, there you have it.

And barring that idea, some of these "pilgrims" decided to make it for themselves. A good for-instance of this is that, not that long ago, there had been a big movement for Roleplayers to conduct a mass-exodus to the Moon Guard server. Posters on the forums were at that time sniping at the Realm forums of many RP servers imploring them to flee their oppressors and go to a shiny happy place where they would be more welcome, and presumably meet more people like themselves. Actually this still occasionally crops up now and then.

In the first place, the notion of "Utopia" is really highly overrated. A world in perfect balance, while predictable and comfortable, is hardly ever interesting. And while Roleplay does tend to thrive in more "sheltered" environments, this is as much due to player "shyness" as it is any statement on the value of "safe-havens". In short: Roleplayers would get out more if they would get out more- and the world (imagined or otherwise) wouldn't end because of it. Yes, sometimes Roleplay and Roleplayers, need safety. But sometimes they also need a swift kick in the ass.

If the concept of Uropia isn't highly overrated, then it's typically completely infeasible. And this is why Moon Guard is now reporting that its movement for a "perfect" RP venue is fading and losing vigor. This is partly due to principally not being able to keep those filthy unwashed hordes of non-RPers off your server, as I've already discussed, but it also because, to be quite frank: just because someone is a Roleplayer, doesn't necessarily mean they're anyone you'd care to hang around with.

I've been to places- other MMOs- where the quality of the PvE content is so poor, so "broken", that the only thing you really can do is roleplay. This draws in a lot of roleplayers in, who then sit around, cyber in harems with one another, plot against one another in the same old stale ways over and over, and generally look down their nose at anyone who doesn't think their scat don't stink.

Welcome to Roleplayers' Utopia: a place conceived by and for Roleplayers. Please enjoy your stay.

Fish or Fowl?
This is actually one I haven't really personally experienced, but I have heard from friends before that this kind of thing happens. Apparently, at least to some Roleplayers, if you Raid (PvE) or PvP, and in particular you appear to have some obvious outward evidence of your efforts in those endeavors in the form of Gear or Loot, you can't RP.

The more reasonable among you may be thinking at this point, '''what the heck is he talking about? Does he mean that Raid and PvE gear often looks ridiculous and/or infeasible as RP attire?''

And the answer would be, no, not really. What appears to be happening here is that some roleplayers (I stress that I have yet to meet any who do this myself) apparently are trying to enact some sort of edict in the form of a classic "fish or fowl" commandment: Thou Shalt Not Mix PvE Game Content With Thy Arpee. Apparently if you forsake this commandment, to these people, you can't be in the club.

Why? Well certainly there are a lot of places you would probably want to avoid tacking your characters and roleplay to PvE content (saying your character personally killed Edwin Van Cleef for instance- when hundreds of players do this every day in the Deadmines is a good example of this common faux pas). But this bit of discrimination seems aimed at the very idea that one can even engage in both interest groups at the same time. Personally, if I were to offer a line of reasoning it would be more narrow-mindedness, jealousy, and garden-variety human stupidity.

There are some Roleplayers that I understand have actually not troubled to involve themselves in a lot of the game's PvE content- sometimes to the point where they have never even gotten a character to "endgame" (whatever that happens to be at the time) despite having played WoW for years. And I'm not going to criticize that philosophy: as I said, I'm a big fan of another commandment: as it harm none, do as thou wilt. But when a personal philosophy does start to "harm some" is when you go around expecting others to subscribe to it, or else. And I think that's where this one comes from, personally.

These people can't/won't take the time get PvE-geared themselves, and look down their nose at anyone who does. They see you as part of those people and won't let you join in any of their reindeer games as such. Like I said, I have yet to see this firsthand, but I think if I ever did it would make me very sad, and want to punch babies at the same time. I don't think I can quite express how stupid I think this is.

=Characters= Two years, and some shuffling around (with more likely to happen with WotLK coming out)... It's brought into being about ten characters at any given time for em on Earthen Ring. Presently, I am directly responsible for the following characters:

Allied

 * Aphotika- a feral Night Elf girl who has an affinity with felines, and in particular, her bosom companion and "brother", Nyx.
 * Vesperal- a very old Kal'dorei who runs a secret society of rogues and mystics called The Masque who puts forth a public front as a group of traveling actors.
 * Skunkwerks (of course)- a whimsical and impetuous Gnome of the "absent-minded professor" archetype. Brilliant, but whose tendencies towards distractability frequently make him a danger to himself and others.
 * Sharael- an amnesiac Draenei woman whose inability to recall her past before the crash of the Exodar haunts her steps.
 * Senivel
 * Malchiae

Horde

 * Facet- a wisecracking jewel-thief who leads a double life as a legitimate jeweller.
 * Cualgne- a young headstrong Tauren warrior with a checkered past who has high hopes for honor and glory.
 * Tenebrai- a proud Sin'dorei Blood Knight who puts her duties to her people above all else.
 * Siderael- a young and impressionable Sin'Dorei Priestess who may have spent a bit too much time on the wrong side of the track...

=Addons= I am always fiddling with addons of all sorts. I've never been a huge fan of the default interface. I think it's clumsy and tremendously inconvenient. I am however very fond of the fact that, in WoW, I don't have to deal with it. Not too surprisingly, my penchant for addons also extends into my Roleplay as well. Many of my character's traits rely on the use of addons to varying degrees. And so, to help another player "interface" better with my characters, I'll list here some of the Addons I utilize for Roleplay with links to where they may be found.


 * MyRoleplay- a fairly new RP addon as the history of RP addons goes, MyRoleplay (AKA: MRP) has a predecessor in the old FlagRSP mod (whose "direct" successor is technically FlagRSP2) and it's function is similar to that addon: to allow a player to write and display to other observing players short bios and extra information about their characters. It remains, to my mind, the best of the trio of competing addons for this function including FlagRSP2 and ImmersionRP (which I believe has fallen into disrepair since).  However it is inter-compatible with both other mods, so it's not necessary for players to specifically have MRP, though there are fields for information in MRP not contained in the other RSP-style mods that would be missed otherwise.


 * Tongues- This is another new RP addon, but it has a history in a far older addon that was actually authored by Rook Greymantle of Netherbane right here on Earthen Ring. That addon was called Lore.  What Lore did (it is now in poor maintenance like so many RP addons and no longer works reliably) is allow a player to speak languages other than the default languages provided.  A more savvy player may even create his own language with only a very basic understanding of the coding.  Tongues is basically a continuation of Lore, and I use this with many of my characters who, through their adventures, have come to learn languages or speak in funny ways.  Having Tongues would help a player perhaps understand some of my characters better as one of it's future-planned features is language learning...


 * Ephemeral- This is a mod that has recently been resurrected from disuse. And what it does is allow a player to create and trade "prop" objects.  Players may write books, create containers that can be locked, and on and on.  I should like to use this more broadly, and yet it doesn't seem as though this addon is in wide use in the Roleplay community here on ER...


 * Roleplay Helper 2- This addon allows a player to add a bit more "flavor" to their interactions in the world with NPCs (both hostile and otherwise) by automatically triggering speech and emote in response to in-world events- such as speaking to an NPC, being hit in combat, or even Trading with other players. These emotes and sayings can be custom written by the player and have random triggers whose frequency may be set by the player.  Having this is not necessary of course, but it is a neat little mod I thought bears mentioning.

=Contact= Despite years of accusations of "hiding behind a low level alt" I am in fact, quite approachable, and quite open to being contacted. But since I am fond of alts, and bouncing back and forth between Horde and Alliance, it may be a bit hard to find me. I don't generally give out e-mail addresses, but I don't mind sharing with folks the many IM addies I use to keep in touch with folks (As I've done so often enough on the Official Forums)- these are:


 * AIM: skunkwerksk
 * Yahoo Messenger: swk42
 * MSN: skunkwerks7@hotmail.com
 * XFire: skunkwerks7

In-game it can be kinda hard to find me, though here's one way that's fairly sure-fire, assuming I'm on at all:


 * Alliance: type "/who Masque"
 * Horde: type "/who Sereghim"

This will get you nearly any of mine or my wife's alts on their respective sides. And then just say "Hi". I'll probably ask who the deuce you are, but after that it's all peaches and cream, I assure you...