I actually resubscribed to WoW after getting nostalgic from all the time I RP'd there. It was my entire roleplay experience up until recently I shifted over to Neverwinter Night servers and I'm having a Twilight Zone moment where after roleplaying on a dedicated RP server ran by RPers that take it super seriously I start noticing the flaws of MMO rp and it gets to me.
"We have Death Knights... And warlocks running amok with a bunch of demons and undead in the middle of town."
"Everyone has glowing armor, some guy has armor the exhumes fumes, and everyone is wearing platemail in a tavern."
"Everyone is a highlord and every paladin has lightbringer. More importantly, some guys are RPing being the wielders of Lightbringer."
Etc, etc. minor details I didn't take notice originally. It really doesn't help that WoW puffs up so much smoke up your ass in the class halls.
It also might be that I have no friends when I resubscribed and everyone left at some point and time. CRZ especially didn't help because I was RPing in the tram earlier and there was a bunch of off-server normies having keks and generally taking me out of the scene and when you have such a low quality, it's little surprise I get outright ignored when I try to walk up to a guild event that went on while I was questing in Duskwood. I'm probably not even remotely credible as a level 20-something in their eyes.
5- 6 years of roleplay and it took 1 year of RPing elsewhere to notice the flaws in MMO-roleplay and how poorly supported it is. I'm sure I could eventually find an elite cadre of RPers that took it really seriously after a month or two of WoW, but even then you're RPing in your own little bubble as opposed to some grand narrative the whole server gets to experience in. In fact, server canon is outright frowned upon on Wyrmrest Accord and makes fun of Moon Guard for it.
I'm a bit sad revisitng, I very well should've stayed away.
Last edited by Conspicuous Cultist; 2017-04-21 at 04:09 AM.
And the Social Justice Paladin who plays on Alliance but is immediately offended when somebody doesn't likes Orcs or Undeads.
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Don't people on Moonguard play as Kings and Archbishops? Don't want to insult anyone, this is only what I've seen on the Wiki.
Of course RP is still a thing. People still roleplay affliction warlocks as masters of shadow magic and demonologists as masters of demons.
I don't care about the point of his post. I am asking WHO? Which couples? Names! Not just "Uh couples there and there." I am specifically asking to whom you are referring. That's the point of MY post, WHO are you referring to? The only people I remember people suspect homosexuality about in Hyjal is the nelf and tauren druids there fighting back to back. The guys who have forged a deep friendship in battle, a brotherhood. But honestly, who are you even referring to in Arathi?
I saw a serious decrease at EU's RP-PvP Realms over the last years. Where before one could spot the occasional random-RP, out in the streets and world, today that seems to have decreased to scarily low levels, or disappeared completely.
I'm guessing most, if not all, of the Roleplaying that happens there now is merely within-guilds and other closed groups.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been RPing in various online games for many years. As a member of that probably not very exclusive club, I can say straight up that RP is still a thing, and will continue to be a thing. Simultaneously, RP has been dying since it started online. In fact, I remember reading very serious threads 14 years ago about how RP was dying on my then favorite Neverwinter Nights server.
One thing that inevitably happens with all RP communities is that they become isolationist in some sense, and this is, essentially when you know that the real death throes are going on. It's not that RP is 2 days away from being gone. Stubborn people can and will keep going for many years even at such a point. Hell, the heydays of my favorite NWN server were well finished over 10 years ago, but people still run the servers and cling to the RP and friends there. In some way, RP is only as dead as you decide it to be.
If you want to have fun, and want to in some sense feel as if you're helping keep RP alive, then I heartily recommend you to play a character so outgoing as to speak to literally everyone. Say hello. Talk about some random shit. My first real RP character way back in the day started off as a woman who constantly had an oversupply of apple pie that she wanted to give away to people, so she'd aggressively flag them down and try to make them taste it and tell her what they thought. Sometimes that'd be it, a lot of the time it turned into more RP. You might go "that's silly, you're dumb," but a lot of the time, the people making these comments are making them from the safety of their blanket fort in the corner of some inn where they'll stand alone for 2 hours to then log off and complain about RP being dead.
That same, sometimes forced, openness can and honestly should be put into events. A lot of people focus on events purely as a way to tell a story, and you can have some great times with those things. At the same time, those stories are rarely as good as just sitting down to read a book. What makes them good, what makes RP good, is the characters you do it with. Set up events where the primary reason for attending is socialising. You can think of plenty of activities that either make people socialise, or give them something to talk about.
These days... I don't know what it is. I don't think people don't know that socialising is important. Maybe they don't consciously realise it? Sometimes, I wonder if they're just afraid of being judged by the angst-brigade out to, well, judge anyone who isn't doing things their way. The best times I experienced on AD, for the server as a whole and personally, were the times where we had public events that virtually anyone was invited to multiple times a week. There'd always be at least one that it'd make sense for your character to go to. Not only are these kinds of events great for meeting new people, they're great for new people to meet established people. This kind of openness is how you keep a roleplay community fresh, and it's how you avoid eventually realising that your own character is stuck with almost no one to talk to in some boring hole you can't find a way out of.
All that said, MMO roleplay is always going to be flawed without some level of quality control. I preferred NWN roleplay (Even more so on servers with active DMs) if for no other reason than that you could set someone hostile if they acted stupidly in character, and no matter how many emotes you do about your everything-proof mana shield, you're still a smear on the landscape if 3 people decide they're done with your antagonising then. Pen and paper roleplay circumvents this entirely, though I do find that the emotional depth to the stories can be lacking. Us nerds aren't the most comfortable with acting our hearts out for realsies.
So... yes. RP is a thing. Help yourself (and those around you) by being open with it.
I don't know why, but it's hard for me to really play rp in an mmo. In forums you can write everything and imagine it. The smell, the wind, the everything. In mmos I just read what others say or small emotes. Or they write huge emotes about what their character does, but the char in game just stands still.
You go out, fight wolves, get bitten and /lie down your character. I can't imagine the scene in my head when I see the character ingame doing the lie down emote.
It kills everything RP is for me, but I still keep trying. There are a lot of groups alive, I just didn't find the right one to stay a bit longer.
You "can" find it on any realm, but you'll need things like RP addons as I understand it to find them on most non-RP realms. RPing out in the open is a way of finding others anywhere, regardless. (You may even invite some to try who never have before.) But as I understand it, most people just RP on the PTR because it has more benefits for RPing. (Many free race/faction changes, character copies galore to make as many RP alts as you need, etc. etc.)
I used to be casual roleplayer. But the increasing number of people roleplaying as gays / transgender even ruined my experience. Can people keep that LGBTQ whatever stuff out of fantasy game?
I miss Mists of Pandaria
Yes, RP is still a thing. Not so much for my main server (The Sha'tar EU) but it happens alot on Argent Dawn, just stay the fuck away from Goldshire if you ever hop onto Argent Dawn EU... That is a living horror story that will give you nightmares and mental scars, at least enough for one lifetime.
Shath'mag vwyq shu et'agthu, Shath'mag sshk ye! Krz'ek fhn'z agash zz maqdahl or'kaaxth'ma amqa!
The Black Empire once ruled this pitiful world, and it will do so again! Your pitiful kind will know only despair and sorrow for a hundred thousand millennia to come!
Avatar drawn by Sir Meo
Yeah, it's much easier to RP with Lord Dukemore the Dragon Knight whose faceclaim is Brad Pitt and who channels the Light and the Void through his massive two-handed sword that's twice as big as he is. That's much, much more realistic than the fact LGBTQ people exist. I'm with you a hundred percent my dude.
...seriously, though, RP does happen a ton US-side on Moonguard/Wyrmrest Accord. I used to RP regularly, and it's still very popular. There are regular RP events going on and active RP guilds. If you're into RP, they're not bad places to be.
To many uninspired copycats and to little original fantasy. It is what you make it so if you're into it knock yourself out. Everyone is looking for an escape so beggars can't be choosers.
If you knew the candle was fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
On AD in SW yes there is a lot of RP. If you are into erp then there's also goldshire
How many times does this goddamn thread need to be necro'd?!
That is also my issue, that people try to incorporate stuff from real world, and our modern values upon fictional races, which are often described as being violent and intolerant.
I saw lots of crack cross-racial couples that made no bloody sense (like troll guy and belf fem) where it feels that players don't really get the race they're playing.
Or that they rp a gay when they don't know if that stuff is even tolerated in society they're part of let's say orcs. Lantresor of the Blade was getting crap treatement for just being a half-breed, do you honestly believe orcs would be cool with gay stuff? Or trolls which are based mostly on african tribes which most likely don't even know what the ook is that to begin with.
But transgender is where it imo went too far. How would that be even achieveable in World like WoW?
I honestly don't care what people do IRL with their lives, it's their business. But don't transition stuff that either doesn't exist or isn't a thing in WoW. If certain race is written in certain way then stick to the description. It's written there together with their lore for a reason, you can't just hand wave it and bend it for your liking there are always limits how individuals of certain races could act- so yeah there are no tribal blood elves aswell.
But yeah I saw too much and I'm really repulsed to the RP so I stick to casual stuff that I do with my friends. I honestly preffer lollers now as at least they're funny and they don't even pretend they're serious.
But that is just my opinion.
I miss Mists of Pandaria