Board Thread:Event Discussion/@comment-5722194-20140402005508/@comment-642101-20140402052148

From an IC standpoint, backstabbing, political intrigue, falsified evidence, and all of the other things that come along with having a character who was either in the wrong place at the wrong time, or fucked with the wrong high-profile person, is awesome. Sadly, there have been many cases in recenty history on the server where a character has been, without a doubt, guilty of treason. Unfortunately, OOC whining and bitching when someone refuses to take any IC responsibility for their toon blatantly breaking the law of the land usually wins out, and discourages anyone from wanting to roleplay with that person again, and may even discourage others from creating similarly awesome roleplaying situations and subplots in the future.

I loathe to say it, but the server's become a lot more stagant, politically correct, and unadventurous over the years. The advent and success of the RP-PvP guild model popularized Lawful Neutral guilds, and all you have on the Alliance now is a bunch of people who want to have the most noble titles, the most accolades, or the best military forces without actually having to prove it or fight to protect it, and when someone sleeps with the enemy or trades off information, they are scarcely willing to actually accept serious and long-lasting reprecussions for their toon, and that's fair enough; your character is your creation, and it's up to you to decide what is best for that character, even if it means sqaundering excellent roleplaying opportunities that would put your character's life or career in jeopardy.

The fact that we've been focusing on Horde vs Alliance for awhile has fueled some interesting plots, but it's resulted in stagnation and a lack of diversity or development within our own respective factions. There's not really any kind of inter-faction conflict anymore that has real meaning or lasting effect. Characters and leaders appear to have no regard for believeable international relations guidelines, and blatantly backstab each other's toons and guilds when the opportunity arises, due to OOC grudges.

It's a poisonous environment, and it encourages a lot of the serious roleplay guilds out there to withdraw from the public RP scene, a la Blood of Lordaeron. Isolationism seems to be a good alternative to having to deal with a vox populi that doesn't really want characters or their alignments to clash or result in serious consequences. Social RP is fine and well, but there's only so many variations on, "How is the weather?" or "What have you been up to lately?"

The problem is pervasive, and the only thing that people seem to be able to do nowadays is social RP, or very politically correct, carefully-worded interactions that sidestep any uncomfortable face-to-face situations or stand-offs between characters at odds with moral or political differences.