Can anybody, or nobody be the "Azeroth's Hero"?

Argent Dawn
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The headline exaggerates the core, but anyway.
What is your view on how individual players treat RP? Many people completely despise the idea of having been anywhere near up to date with the recent xpac happening and having had the possibility to engage with it, while the others treat it as a given that they are somehow a part of the grander scheme, either directly participating, or being connected to its evolution. This, obviously, causes a lot of friction.

How do you look at it?
How do you think one should be treated?
How do you think the matter itself should be treated?
How do you actually treat a player if they think of RP the opposite way?
Do you think one or the other is inherently bad and should be banished?
Do you think it is preferable to find middle ground, or just not engage in any RP? And if so, considering the waning playerbase, do you think that is a good thing?
What is your take on hardcore RP Elitism vs. casual “The Hero” RPing?
Do you think it feels comfortable for a newcomer to come in terms with all the unspoken rules and that this philosophical divide is comprehensible to them?

Example situation:
Quel’dorei in Silvermoon
No Hero PoV: This would be flat out impossible, they would be hunted on sight and should not be interacted with, as they would not be allowed within the city to begin with.
Any Hero PoV: They have managed to procure a permit from Spire’s Magisterium and would be eligible to visit (because they are able to reach the higher-ups through contacts → and the higher-ups would be RP’d by other players spontaneously), however under close supervision of a peacekeeping unit, and should they wish to stay, they would need to pledge allegiance to the Horde and become Sin’dorei.

TL;DR:
“The game doesn’t say, so it shouldn’t be done.”
vs.
“The game doesn’t say and allows you to, so it could be done.”

Let me know what you think!

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I´m not sure what specifically you´re asking if I have to be honest. Many RPers participate in RP tied to current expansion and I don´t think I´ve seen anyone actually take issue with visiting Khaz Algar or Dragon Isles for example (Shadowlands being very different and unique beast).

It seems you´re conflating RPing in the current expansion with RPing as the player character, which just isn´t really the case. From what I´ve seen, everyone just RPs their own stories connected to the expansion, they don´t pretend to be the guy that was with Anduin exploring Hallowfall.

Secondly, and this is the reason behind my confusion, you use example of high elf in Silvermoon and the dreaded paper RP, but it´s not really something that´s tied in any way to current narrative or the expansion. If anything, this behavior is often common in public hubs that rarely if ever RP anything tied to the current story and is often sign of players who are ignorant of the lore (or don´t care) rather than those who want to explore current developments.

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I’ve actually had it happen multiple times to me when people said that “not everybody was here and there, so not everybody knows and may not be tolerant of X and Y”, to my own surprise

It seems you´re conflating RPing in the current expansion with RPing as the player character

Not entirely. I think of the players as “the armada that went along”, if you will. E.g. The Hero went with Anduin, as the armada was preparing to raid the Nerub’ar Palace with The Hero once everything is ready; My question therefore is something along the lines of am I completely off the charts, or not.

paper RP

What’s that? Sorry, I’m not a seasoned RP player ^^

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This is the default assumption that you will run into on these forums. For example, there is no lore stating that penitent man’ari are accepted into the Alliance, therefore penitent man’ari should not be tolerated in Alliance territory, is a common approach to people who play penitent man’ari.

I recall at least one guild in the server’s past that was interested in playing out a “heroes of Azeroth” fantasy, complete with wielding the unique artifact weapons from Legion, but I think that they didn’t force that fantasy on others and mostly roleplayed in their own bubble.

If there is one basic guideline that most people follow, and it’s “your character can’t do anything that would alter the canon of the setting in any meaningful way.” When roleplaying on WoW, we use the Warcraft setting as a medium for interacting with each other. If our characters are capable of reshaping that medium, then every player has their own idea of what Warcraft’s setting is, which makes interaction a lot more difficult.

Typically, if you’re going to roleplaying with the rest of the server and not sticking to a bubble, this includes:

  • No meaningful interaction with important NPCs. Something simple like “I once served as a soldier under Garrosh Hellscream’s command during the invasion of Northrend” is acceptable. “I was a close friend of Anduin Wrynn and adventured with him throughout Khaz Algar” is probably going to be frowned upon.
  • No wielding of important items. Characters are allowed to have seen and maybe touched precious artifacts in the past, but “I am the wielder of Ashbringer” or “I carried the Heart of Azeroth throughout the Fourth War” is something that might be met with distaste.
  • No killing of dungeon or raid bosses. People might not like it if your character takes the credit for subduing Yogg Saron, or defeating Azshara. “My character served on the front lines during the Siege of Orgrimmar” is perfectly fine, just as long as you don’t insert your character as an important factor.
  • No occupying positions of importance. The most that a lot of people might tolerate is a miscellaneous “warlord” or “marshal” position, though some people might still raise eyebrows at that. Claiming to be the lord or lady in charge of a particular in-game location or faction like Fenris Keep or the Seventh Legion is often seen as a step too far though.
  • No inventing significant organisations or locations that would alter the setting dramatically if they existed. Playing a lord who rules over a small, non-canon parcel of land in the corner of Elwynn Forest is one thing, but playing the ruler of a non-canon high elven island nation the size of Northrend off the coast of Westfall is another.

Considering that there were multiple campaigns at the start of the War Within, within hundreds of roleplayers playing as stranded survivors of Dalaran or reinforcements who came to rescue and support them, that’s totally fine. But anyone who actually plays as the big hero who adventured alongside Anduin would be met with a raised eyebrow.

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I obviously wasn´t in your situation, but what you wrote sounds like people saying that some concepts will not be accepted ICly by others because the average person isn´t privy to what has happened ICly.
Which is frankly a very fair thing to say, a farmer in Westfall or some random soldier are unlikely to know about the details of what is happening in far away lands.

Which is what people are doing on regular basis and I don´t think I´ve ever seen someone take OOC issue with going into those areas as part of the army.

Basically what you described in your original post, a player RPing a member of Alliance race in Horde towns or RPing a member of hostile races in those cities, justifying their presence by papers from some higher authority. Usually it´s a concept that´s very frowned upon.

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That’s a bit of a loaded question, don’t you think?

I like to think of things as a nice balance between the two. Heroes and the sort exist, but, they have to act like it. Would a high elf who participated in the retaking of the Sunwell during Kael’thas take over of the Sunwell Plateau be allowed to pass through Silvermoon for a day, while waiting for a ferry or transportation through magical means to the Sunwell? Sure, why not?

However, if this high elf hero acts and talks like a vapid human on their early twenties, crashing out at parties left and right, while still trying to portray them as this hero that are allowed to be anywhere, well… Let us just say that it falls flat, and it is quite clear that it is not that you want to roleplay a hero, but that you say you are roleplaying a hero as an excuse to ignore the lore, and that is what most people have an issue with.

In short, roleplaying a hero is fine, but if you are using heroism as a get out of jail card to just flat out break the lore or try and boss people around while not acting the part, you should probably reconsider if writing fanfiction is a less time consuming hobby for far more of a result of what you are getting from a hobby of collaborative writing.

If your thought process in making a character concept was “I want to play a hero,” it’s fine. If it was “my character wouldn’t make sense to be here, so I have to make them a hero to be able to shoehorn them into this situation and/or location,” it’s probably not great.

Characters aren’t omniscient. A group of characters could know of tales of the Arathi, for example, some might have even been there, but if you showed up as an Arathi to a group of folks in Orgrimmar, people would just think you are a blood elf. That has nothing to do with heroism, and it goes as far as being reflected in canon. In some books, it is even mentioned how as late as Mists of Pandaria, Lakeshire had very rarely seen a night elf, and few could boast of having met one.

It’s not that people are denying the existence of heroic characters, it is just that they don’t have Warcraftwiki downloaded into their cerebral cortex, and a roleplay scene where every character knew everything there is to know objectively would make for a very boring roleplay scene indeed.

Besides, a larger than life character being treated as being larger than life, or strange, by a character that isn’t that isn’t really denying someone of playing one. You are playing as something that is supposedly supposed to be strange, so, I really do not see how people reacting accordingly would put anyone interested in these concepts off.

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Yeah I could understand that in the farmer’s case, but not in a huge city hub’s inhabitant, for example.

Which is what people are doing on regular basis and I don´t think I´ve ever seen someone take OOC issue with going into those areas as part of the army.

Fair, so I guess this is not all that non-standard, then ^^

a player RPing a member of Alliance race in Horde towns or RPing a member of hostile races in those cities, justifying their presence by papers

Uh huh, this would explain that, then, as that would basically be the case, the situation I got myself in. Oh well, everday’s a learning opportunity ^^ It’s a pity all those unspoken rules are not coherently legible somewhere until you screw up.

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People can still be ignorant of developments, but given the example you provided and:

I´m going to guess that you were RPing a high elf in Silvermoon. Which, as far as our knowledge of canon goes, isn´t really something that is a thing. Yes, Alleria was allowed to visit her son for a day and her half-elf son lives in Silvermoon, but I don´t think using the example of a privilege a son of Stormwind´s regent was given as basis for a high elf to visit capital of blood elves is really valid.

We might find out otherwise with Midnight announcement, but as of our current knowledge of the lore, the only part of Quel´Thalas where high elves are welcome is Quel´Danas, and even that only as part of pilgrimage to Sunwell. Some unwritten RPer rules are not needed here, as the lore is so far clear on this topic.

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It’s much more convoluted than that, but I don’t think going on a detailed explanation of the idea I had - which would be necessary - is gonna help anything, as it would just turn into an wasted essay XD
But yeah I understand where this is going ^^ Basically whenever there’s even a slight tinge of headcanon due to inconcreteness, it’s frowned upon.

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You´re not really doing yourself any favors by talking like this. People often use headcanon to justify their concepts and it´s perfectly fine. Where people start taking issue is when that headcanon starts twisting the world around them.

We don´t know if average high elf can come to Silvermoon. We will find out soon, but as of right now, the last piece of lore we have is that those Thalassian elves that have renounced the development of Thalassian society post-Third War and have retained the high elf moniker (or re-embraced it) are not welcome in Quel´Thalas outside of pilgrimages to Sunwell. Period.

By RPing one of these elves in Silvermoon, you´re effectively forcing the notion that they are in fact welcome in blood elven territory, which people can justifiably take issue with. Trying to portray it as a case of RP community refusing any “slight tinge” of headcanon is simply wrong.

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There are certain exceptions to this in the lore, namely Cenarion Circle and important Druid lore characters, Darkspear and Vol’jin, and Theramorians and Jaina. All of whom have been specifically stated in the lore to be so tightly knit that they went out of their way to specifically befriend their people. Anduin also personally interviewed each and every single citizen of Stormwind who had a confirmed relative among the Forsaken after the Desolate Council handed over Undercity census records prior to The Gathering.

Vol’jin learned each and every single Darkspear’s name, dreams, and ambitions as an individual so that it would be harder for him to treat his people as numbers on a piece of paper like Garrosh did. When he had to make hard decisions, it was a reminder that he was sending his own friends to death — and he befriended every single Darkspear. When he was thought to have been killed by Garrosh’s assassin, a cult rose among the Darkspear that elevated him to Loahood.

Jaina in turn is said to have taken time to also befriend each and every Theramorian because the community was so tightly knit and built out of a shared bond of surviving the Scourge and the Third War. Whenever time allowed it, she took time out of her day to walk around the city and catch up with everyone, making a point to try and speak to every single Theramorian at least once a month like an old friend. This in turn made Theramore’s destruction all the more devastating for her because she knew each and every single one of the dead as an individual and a friend.

And in Stormrage we find out that the Cenarion Circle is such a close knit brotherhood that for centuries they’ve known one another as equals and friends regardless of rank. At the summit in Darnassus at the start of the novel, Naralex, Hamuul and Broll are described going out to catch up with all the nameless druids they recognise as friends. Also after Ysera lost her powers at the end of Cataclysm, she retired to become a teacher of druids, sharing her wisdom to each and any who would approach, and the Wild Gods do the same for their followers.

In short, it’s lore breaking to not have a personal relationship with Vol’jin if you’re a Darkspear, Jaina if you’re a Theramorian (survivor) or the Wild Gods, Ysera and major druid characters if you’re a long standing member of the Cenarion Circle. By being part of those factions the lore dictates you have a personal friendship with the leader, though in the case of Jaina most (but not all) Theramorians are dead, and in the case of the Darkspear, Vol’jin is dead.

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Honestly I just feel more like I’m going to start a freaking crusade if I don’t, but hey, asked for it, so here goes xd

The concept: Arathi ambassador in Silvermoon with family ties to an ancient “Quel’dorei” wishing to return to the High Home, after both got stranded in Mereldar. (air quotes used, because the elf would realistically not have had an opportunity to become Sin’dorei yet, due to being at a different continent - and neither of them would also be Horde nor Alliance, for obvious reasons)

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This might sound harsh and I don’t want it to sound harsh but;

It’s called having a standard and modicum of Roleplay.

Horde and Alliance should be kept separated and that is how it should always be treated IC and OOC.

Quite frankly the guards don’t give a toss if your High Elf has helped the reclamation of the Sunwell because your race (Quel’dorei) are traitors to the High Home (Quel’thalas), you are part of the blame and reason that the Sin’dorei ended up being wasted away.

Same goes for a Ren’dorei trying to re-enter they’re Alliance and Exiled from the High Home by the Regent Lord Lor’themar Theron which again the guards won’t give a toss if you’re acting as a visitor they will either try to execute you or chuck you out.

Now those examples above translate that to trying to attend any Horde city where you don’t have ‘much’ room further to wiggle in. Orgrimmar? Sure you may of helped the Rebellion thrice over but, it is still a Horde land.

The only time you get to try and enter is if you belong to a Neutral Subfaction such as the Argent Crusade and even then I believe the Argent Crusade are heavily against opposing faction races (Quel’dorei, Human, Dwarf) visiting Horde cities and vice versa.

Now I know in Alliance RP you have this convulation of Sin’dorei / Thalassian RP’ers tripping over and trying to skirt around the borders.

But, overall if you keep the factions separate you won’t have any issues.

For anything further above I would offer advice to but honestly Syelia and the big man Shoggy already spoke enough on that bit. :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed:

Ahh! I know who you are now yeah.

Of course people are uncertain on the expectation of this RP because there’s not much clarification behind the scenes on where the Arathi Elves stand. Where they part of the Empire before Silvermoon? Did they join after Silvermoon? We don’t know any ruling because Arathi is an independant nation and very new.

Which leaves you in a very tricky spot because if you’re a 3k+ Emisarry of the Arathi Empire you should already know all these things about the founding of Silvermoon, Silvermoon’s Sunwell and Quel’thalas as a whole. Heck you probably also partook in the back end of the Troll Wars.

This leaves a lot of room for interpretation unfortunately and without further clarification it’s a hard thing to try scoring and rolling with.

Similarly; You could say the same for an Arathi Expeditionary trying to visit Stormwind.

To what I recount so far in the Arathi Empire and the Expeditionary Force is that they’re isolated and have been building a home back in Mereldar since they arrived.

They are very against outsiders and only collaborate with the Heroes and furthermore, factions because they have to not because they want to.

I believe it’s stated the Arathi Empire is very isolationalist and until further lore is built up on the Arathi Empire and their mysterious Empire we’re still unsure if they’re about to become another villainous faction.

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On the subject of who can be the hero of Azeroth, BfA had the perfect opportunity to do something akin to FF14 with the Champions of Azeroth faction. But then they decided to canonically have it only be, in fact, one Champion of Azeroth.

Ever since Wrath honestly the game has struggled to harmonize with the Vanilla idea that your character is only as famous as they are in the server community, not just because you hit max level. IC I think a more vague notion of being present for important events will always trump any other idea of intermingling with important lore characters or items, partly because you never know when it will get rewritten and partly because it comes off as a bit egomaniacal.

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Are allowed as pilgrims?

Are we still doing this headcanon?

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I mentioned this previously:

Unfortunately, a lot of Warcraft is still open for interpretation and there are a lot of people drawn to particular elements of Warcraft, that have been less emphasised as time has gone on.

This has led to clashes between different members of the community who have different interpretations of the setting. In particular, Argent Dawn is home to a lot of people who have a grittier and more war-like interpretation of the setting, in which people are inherently hostile and unforgiving.

These people enjoy having more conflict in their Warcraft, so they will use any reason that they can think of (that doesn’t directly contradict canon) to have their characters act in a hostile fashion towards more eccentric character concepts that are not officially accepted by their faction/race.

From expelling sand trolls from Orgrimmar, to the organised lynching of void elves in Stormwind City, to attacking any dark rangers or penitent man’ari seen in Alliance territory on sight, to extreme hatred between blood elves and high elves, and so on. All of this is usually done with the reasoning of “there is no lore saying that your character would be accepted, therefore my character is free to attack them on sight.”

So looking at your character concept:

Yeah, there’s plenty of people on this server who would jump at the opportunity to attack or expel your character, because there’s no lore stating that such an ambassador would be welcome in Silvermoon’s territory.

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I’ll preface this by saying that this isn’t me trying to refute any of these points, but giving further context for anyone stumbling upon this thread later.

While High elf pilgrims are permitted to the Sunwell, you are right that entering enemy territory is still prohibited. In Shadows Rising we find out that even after the armistice was signed, entering enemy territory without permission will have you tried and executed for espionage. In Dragonflight, when Dracthyr came out, they added city guard dialogue in Stormwind where the guard have a chance to trigger a hostile reaction to your Dracthyr form, accusing you of being a Horde trespasser and calls for your execution.

While we do see examples of Alliance in Horde cities and vice versa, these have exclusively been as a result of official diplomatic visits between faction leaders with pre-arranged permissions. Lor’themar was permitted to tour Kul Tiras as part of a diplomatic effort to build a diplomatic bridge between Silvermoon and Kul Tiras because of the Purge of Dalaran — it didn’t work, but Lor’themar was hopeful that the door wasn’t closed permanently. The people did not like him being there, but nobody was stupid enough to attack an official diplomatic envoy.

Same happens in the Marran Trollbane shortstory with Horde emissaries gathering in Proudmoore Keep to hold summit, because they were specifically invited there to try and end the conflict in Arathi Highlands before it would boil into something serious.

Trespassers still get executed.

Interestingly, the Hand had both human and Dark Iron dwarf spies who had specifically sworn the Blood Oath to the Horde. All of them were undercover and refused to openly declare it out of fear their cover would be blown, but at least one human spy did approach Thrall in Orgrimmar under the cover of night after he was smuggled in to deliver an important message for his eyes and ears alone. He was then smuggled out to ensure he wasn’t seen, because his presence would have raised alarm and he might have been killed before he could deliver his message, because just declaring you have permission from Thrall doesn’t mean people will believe it.

In Before the Storm, when the Conclave sends emissaries to the other factions to parley with different healers to figure out what to do about Sargeras’s Sword in Silithus (yes, the priest Conclave orchestrated the healing efforts!) they had to be mindful about sending emissaries of the right race to the right place. Blood elves to Tranquilien, humans to Northshire and so forth, as well as trolls to the tauren and orcs to gather the Earthen Ring and Cenarion Circle for the joint healing effort.

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Yeah, that’s exactly where the headcanon enters the chat, that’s the entire problem of the “unspoken-ness”, and how in all hells would you want that to happen if it wasn’t through some paperwork xd
The character I have in Silvermoon currently is not the 3k elf, that’s the father which he’s hoping to get escorted into Silvermoon. This character in the city at the moment is the Arathi half-elf son - that’s why he wouldn’t know much of the history. The father would have been a part of the Troll wars until joining the Arathi as a part of the deal with the humans as their relationships warmed up after their Troll wars collab, which is my understanding of how the Quel’dorei joined the Arathi, and subsequently departed on the mission past the great storm.

Similarly; You could say the same for an Arathi Expeditionary trying to visit Stormwind.

And quite frankly, my inexperienced face would have no problems with that, especially considering the Arathi affinity towards Alliance.

They are very against outsiders and only collaborate with the Heroes and furthermore, factions because they have to not because they want to.

Yeah, that’S exactly the beggars are not choosers scenario, and from whatever lore we have accessible, the actual Arathi in Avaloren or where-ever do seem to be even more elitist in that regard, however on the flipside, the Arathi are also attempting to establish proper relationships with everyone they come into contact, and it’s a part of a mission too. Then again, that is only Mereldar Arathi specifically, not necessarily the actual empire.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I was wondering, and I was trying to figure out whichever is the prevalent take, thanks for that response; I am reading everything by the way, it’s just really hard to respond to everything xd

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Yeah so in this regard I will just chalk it down to your concept is too early, too soon.

If you’re wanting to partake in that storyline still I’d basically say you should wait out to see what further lore develops in Midnight as we are part of the World Soul Saga right now I’m sure the Arathi will be built out further.

Until then, I can’t say I disagree with how people may of treated you in Silvermoon. (I’m surprised you actually got interaction in the first place they’re mostly insular groups.)

But, I can say that they are of a right mind to double back and double check as priorly mentioned there’s an on-going epidemic right now of people trying to hamfist and force becrazed concepts such as the SIn’dorei in Stormwind and then the Quel’dorei apparently allowed back to Silvermoon.

This is because of the metagaming that has occurred when people heard that “Midnight is about uniting the Elven tribes” and because Arator was permitted to say in Silvermoon.

Until further explanation is built up in Midnight a lot of these concepts as of current do not work.

I would highly suggest maybe taking a lesser outsider character if you’re trying to immerse yourself into the Horde RP scene or alternatively you could give Stormwind a bash because they take char concepts not as serious and you will probably be worshipped a hero of some sort. :rofl:

Edit to say;

Thank you Tel, always great to have further context built up on it for people in future and I could’ve probably explained it a bit easier I was just using in game examples.

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Contrary to what you would expect, it was actually more pleasant than not, most of the interaction I got, while restricted - and expectedly so - was actually fairly enjoyable, I really can’t say I’ve had that lots of negative reception, that’S for sure. For context, I made the char like maybe 4-5 weeks ago and been running around on and off trying to develop the storyline I had in mind, and not only it felt like it was possible, but the opportunities I’ve got from people felt very warm - if it were otherwise, I wouldn’t’ve stuck around for 4-5 weeks on that character - and I would have probably asked sooner.

(Also on a side note - my PvP ahh flat out can’t play a belf, because they’re completely unviable in PvP, but at the same time I can’T stand the Alliance as I’ve always been a belf-head, so I’m looking for any sort of semi-reasonable excuse to non-intrusively implant something I could enjoy in both realms xd
Also, double jumping is dope as hell, and the dracthyr visuals go brrr.)

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