"Cool Places"

The closest thing I can remember to something similar was the White Heart Tavern channel I think it was? A Cross-faction pub if memory serves right that was a channel out of game that people could connect to and had a general idea of what to expect(participants, regulars, etc).

I think this idea, private spaces for role playing and all could be executed better in forum RP, the kind of post-by-post narrative with several characters in a pre set setting.

((

Moderated IRC channels and possibly MUD's come to mind as potential out of game private spaces. For myself, private channels in WoW and or Party and Raid have always sufficed when I needed a private "room" for RP. However, such spaces would disappear after all the participants had logged out and so wouldn't have the permanance I think you're looking for. MUD's seem the most likely as that they would simply run on a hosting server and be there for anyone who wanted to log in.

))

((I ran White Hart for quite awhile using a jabber chat room and it seems like this could work for what you want. Although the event was on mondays, the room existed at all times and I know some people used it for RP during the week. The onlymproblem I could see is expecting key people to always be there. Like if there was a static room for U of K and expecting Artisania to just always be there when you show up. Obviously that wouldnt happen. I will also mention thT there was signif community backlash to taking wow RP out of game and "breaking down the community" even though the event was created to foster cross faction RP. I would anticipate this idea not being well met by the community.))

This situation is hardly a black or white issue...but I have some strong, mostly black-shaded opinions, I suppose.

As most people who know me are aware, I've become rather militant about limiting my role-play to features outside of the game, because I truly believe excessive use of these features harms the role-playing community.

That does not believe I think these features are entirely bad, or should be done away with.

I believe it is important that role-players on Shadow Council do our storytelling and adventuring as public as possible, because in doing that we provide examples to those who are curious and want to learn, as well as attract those who want to perhaps consider ShC as a server.

By putting these actions behind closed doors — whether these closed doors or locked or not is irrelevant — we harm our server, making it look barren, empty, and dead to role-players who stop in to check us out.

For a blatant example of this, check our the ShC forums and the Wyrmwrest forums. While yes, posting in public on the ShC forums can attract the trolls, by fleeing from them and hiding from them, WE GAVE away our server.

Our forums are now no different than a PvE realm's forums, and that is OUR fault.

By retreating to a /haven channel instead of using /ooc, we gave away another aspect of our server. If I was coming here, I wouldn't know to go to /haven. I'm not part of the clique, I'd not know better.

I'd go to /ooc, see it was empty, and decide RP was dead and move on.

Since decreasing my presence in out-of-game role-playing options, the amount of in-game interactions I have had as well as new roleplaying friends I have made has increased significantly.

Yet I'll still use messengers for events that are happening behind "locked doors," where people couldn't involve themselves. But any time any outsider could become involved, I firmly believe it should be in game.

To answer Sze's original point, I think in-game channels should be able to provide the thing you are looking for, while keeping stuff in-game.

One of the things we are trying to do for Pox is develop floor plans and descriptions of the Sunwalker Estates, as well as Dawnsport, the town that has sprung up to support the armed forces residing in the Estate.

I just haven't been able to find an artist able to work for what I can afford. :(

This information will be available on our website for anyone to read, and there's an in-game location where we pretend our estate exists. We also have a channel that can be used for public-area "Sunwalker Estate" RP.

I honestly and truly believe the more we rp away from the game, the weaker our server's rp community becomes...if we want shadow council to improve and strengthen and become a strong rp world, we need take back what we gave away.

/soapbox rant

Sorry. I haven't posted in so long I guess I had a lot of angry Canadian bullshit to spew. See you in five months when I next get crabby :p

I was pretty gung-ho about trying forum RP for a bit, and for a while it showed promise--but it was a little unwieldy, a little akward.  Conversely, I really enjoyed WHT, even though some of the characters I'd bring seldom really had any reason to go.  With the RPers spread out so far and so wide on this server, not only because of faction differences but because the world is so damn big, it does make having an alternative setting somewhat more appealing nowadays.  I guess the only real question is setting--where is it that both Horde and Alliance folks can get together and chit-chat and do stuff?

A few ideas of course are places that are already in-game: Dalaran and the Argent Tournament.  But there's pros and cons to that--the pro is that hey, it's cross faction neutral territory for real now.  I mean shit, we can understand what Thrall and Garrosh are saying; are they REALLY the only Orcs in the entire Horde that know how to speak and be understood by everyone?  Hell, I'm sure at a place like that a tavern would make a lot of sense and make sense for all manner of people to BE there (WHT was awesome but a biiiiiit out of the way just to grab a drink and get warm).

The cons of course are that they're already in-game, so it'd be redundant.  And then there's the hours; it's never easy with so many RPers now being raiders to organize events and have people there.  And I'm sure by now most of us are adults and have shit to do, so there's that.

Still, I'm one of those people that think that participating in RP out of the game is better than not RPing at all in the game.  If something were set-up, I'd go.

Before the thread get's derailed further into another contest of In-game RP and out, what I forgot to ask is would these "locations", private and public, end up being listed in say a separate page for a quick glance? A sticky on the front of the Haven or Realm forums?

IE:Sinsaria's Gardens in Eversong <Insert description> /channel name

Everbloom Estates <Insert Descrip> /channel name

Back Ally of Orgrimmar<Descrip> /channel name Misc: ((usually active at 6pmST))

Trying to respond to all of the above (as of this post) here.

Obviously, no system we could possibly set up would be without its faults. One of the issues frequently brought up with in-game channels is that people are already pressed for channel space as is; furthermore, it does lack the permanence - the sense of space - I'm looking for here. In-game chat can scroll by very quickly at times, and a session, unless logged, begins vanishing even before it's concluded. Forum roleplay, by contrast, has that permanence, but it's a bit unwieldy, and its slower pace often works against itself, rendering scenes an obligation.

Regarding the White Hart: as someone who was rather opposed to the chatroom, and to pick up on the strands put out here by Sinsaria & Shryn - the (at least perceived) issue I had with it was that it served as a substitute for in-game roleplaying altogether. I remember people showing up there who had more or less ceased to log in to WoW, and made no effort to tie in the events there to characters in-game. If one wasn't there, one missed out, and that was all there was to it. I'll freely admit that my hostility to a few people in the community stems from a sense that my character was being acted against in a realm I couldn't participate; I could watch, but that was it - and when the fallout finally filtered back into the game, there was nothing to do but get burned by it. If characters can commit unthinkable atrocities upon each other in a chat room and stroll back into the game without facing the consequences of those actions, the whole system breaks down. For example (and I don't bring this up as a "calling out," but rather to point to the confusion that an over-reliance on outside roleplaying can generate), how is Szeharia to react to Iloam? Iloam, after all, mutilated Llewellyn, her husband. Szeharia ought to easily be able to snatch Iloam by the wrist and demand justice; the proof of his crime is scarred onto Llew's body. The obvious problem presently is that Szeharia can't produce Llew's body, but the issue stands; it makes no sense that the two of them can share the same space without a fuse or two being blown.

However it's conducted, out-of-game roleplaying needs to remain part of the WoW experience. If it isn't tied back into the game, especially when it directly affects other roleplayers, then I'd argue that, yes, no roleplaying is better than cutting out interested roleplayers.  

Dwarf is tasty, comes pre-marinated and cooks up quick.  One does not talk to one's potential food, mon.

I hate to be the one with the simple solution, but couldn't this be achieved by politely whispering someone whos storyline you've fallen behind on, in order to get caught up and understand what is or isn't public knowledge?

I can understand the annoyance of not being filled in to something that affected your character in a substantial way, though.

(( After reading the title, I was slightly disappointed that this thread wasn't about exploring the secret forbidden areas across Azeroth before Cataclysm arrives.  I could ramble for hours on that subject.

Concerning the actual topic, my feelings on chatrooms and channels have changed a bit over the years.

I loved the old Inn Between chatbox on Realmportal, though most of the time it was more deliberately light-hearted than RP within the game, so it was kind of an apples/oranges deal.  I followed the White Hart most weeks under the guise of a potted plant, just to keep up to date on general RP goings-on, even though participating with an actual character was rather difficult for me.  A friend of mine described the usual Hart environment as "something out of a Beckett play", which seemed a fair assessment from the POV of an observer unfamiliar with everyone's storylines.  The nature of chatbox RP made it very hard to follow, with so much complicated stuff happening at once.

Today, I'm not really a fan of chatbox RP.  My feelings on channel RP within the game are mixed -- if it's a telepathic link, gnomish buzzboxes or some other form of communication across distances, I'm all for it.  If a channel is used to represent people in the same physical place when they actually aren't, I don't really like it.

I think it's more a presence thing than a privacy thing, so I agree with what Elledro said in that regard.  I think it also ties into the whole old "where has the RP gone?" argument, with the game being streamlined, the world being much larger, raiding being accessible and time-consuming to many more players, etc.  Because there is less open RP happening in the world, or at least a perceived lack of it, I prefer to have my RP happening where people can stumble onto it, even if I'm doing something in a "private" space.

While not as ideal as, say, having actual player housing (are you listening Blizzard?), this can usually be done with a bit of creativity.  Saphrona and Shari lived in a house in Stormwind for almost two years, and we roleplayed being "inside" by sitting on some barrels and a crate outside the building proper.  If someone showed up, we wandered over to answer the door.

So I guess that's my advice.  Whenever possible, do the "private" stuff in-game.  I understand some people might still enjoy access to a chatbox while they're at work, and that's okay.  But if you can do it openly in the game, do it.  Contacting people OOCly is good advice no matter where the RP happens, but every time it happens on Shadow Council where folks can find you, that's +1 for the health of open RP on the server.

Just my two copper, etc. ))