The third post in my Officer Meeting roundup is going to concern role-playing (RP).
Shadow Council (ShC) is a PVE-RP server, but it’s also an OLD PVE-RP server. Over the course of time, non-role-players have migrated to ShC because the PVE-RP servers usually have a higher level of maturity. Or did; I can’t really say if the maturity level on ShC has degraded, as I can’t see the forest for the trees.
It’s very important as a guild that was created and designed to augment the role-playing aspect of the server that we continue to reach out to the community and foster its growth. But before we can do that, we need to address problems that have made themselves evident during Wrath: Do we actually RP?
I don’t know the answer to that.
There are so many terms. Light RP guild. Medium/Moderate RP guild. Mature RP guild. Heavy RP guild. What’s Pox?
It’s generally accepted a Light RP guild doesn’t do any role-playing as a guild, but instead is a guild with people who RP. A nice, safe environment for them. Usually run by a role-player guild leader, but for the sake of numbers or progression, non-roleplayers or a focus on PvP or Raiding has taken the focus away from RP. A medium/Moderate RP guild is seen as somewhere between a Light RP guild and a Heavy RP guild. A Heavy RP guild is one who role-plays almost all the time, and will have IC RP happening right in guild chat.
Mature RP guild? Half the time I’m wondering if people are looking for texty-porn or if they just want a guild mostly full of adults and, in theory, less full of drama (adults have drama too, TRUST ME)
A large number of us do role-play, and we toss role-play events on the calendar, but the over-arching, multiple-occurence, drawn out guild-wide stories are not being played out. I want to see a return to this before Cataclysm drops, because when it does, a lot of the guild’s old history will be re-prioritized. We’ve also had a very heavy focus on raiding this expansion, with how easy it has become. Raiding is no longer the domain of the crazily devoted, 5-days-a-week raider.
That’s great. But I can’t feel as if the Pox I founded three years ago is dying, even though I know the sentiment may upset people. I’m not saying Pox is dying, nor am I implying I intend to disband. I’m merely saying we’ve lost our focus and purpose, which is to role-play, have fun, and encourage role-playing and teach on this server. And I hope it something we can all agree to work on going forward.
So the TL;DR version: We’re going to emphasize RP.