Human ahh nicknames fr
4 Likes
Meerah on her own I can tolerate. It’s when we get more like her.
It CAN work - I found I actually liked Bumblebee (or B-16 as he is at the time) in Transformers One, where you get glimpses of an entirely sane and serious character outwith the ‘whacky comedy’. Which, given his circumstances, feels believably like a trauma response.
I might be reading too much into it. It might be that he is entirely 100% intended to be The Comedy Character. But it feels up for debate.
Sadly I feel Meerah was just made to be ‘cutesy’ and ‘comedy’ and, as such, the humour rarely hits the mark. The funniest characters (for me at least) tend to be the ones played at least a bit leaning into seriousness.
1 Like
I really like Vulpera as a concept, and people who actually stick to this are a welcome, if desperately needed sight. Because the prevalence of the community going for “atypical” concepts that defy their races’ fantasy, they end up sacrificing their own community’s identity as well as cheapening the concept of the race they’re copying and ultimately they make nobody happy.
Seeing actual savage scrappers and desert survivor vulpera who will scavenge everything from their slain enemies is an immensely cool vibe and I wish there was more of a place for it without going into the opposite end of becoming a trade caravan in Alliance territory. I wonder if it’s lack of quality guilds that lead to such a low interest, or lack of interest that led to such low number of guilds?
14 Likes
With this I presume you mean the vulpera which are basically a different race in a tiny fox fursuit? Because I feel like there’s a lot that fits and suits their vibe as long as you’ve got a reasonable justification for it (ie “I’m from a caravan of fighters” or “I’m from a caravan that hoards books and scrolls”, simple stuff.)
Bit of column A, bit of column B, and a little bit of an extra factor too IMO: Vulpera aren’t why Horde players play Horde. I feel like a significant driving factor for Horde RP is “RAAAGH ME BIG MAN ME SMASH” which vulpera are almost the antethesis of. I think that’s a great thing - that sort of variety is wonderful for worldbuilding, wonderful for new characters - but it’s not always going to appeal in the same way.
Yes.
1 Like
I think I can count on one hand the amount of Vulpera I’ve seen and RPed with since BfA that actually felt like I was talking to a person from a brutalist, survival-of-the-fittest desert scavenging nomad race and not just a Human in a very tight, short fursuit.
Almost 95.9% of the time it just feels like the Vulpera player would be better off asking themselves “does this concept really fit a vulpera, and could this concept be easier and make more sense in Azeroth as a different race?” and if the answer is yes, then, well…
They’ve been exclusively the types of characters Blizz has introduced or featured with vulpera, which is incredibly frustrating. At least the Kirin Tor vulpera can be assumed to be gone after this quest, and thank god for that. 
1 Like
Blizzard are afraid of Nisha’s power because she would have killed Xalatath already if they included her in TWW. Then probably left wearing her skull.
2 Likes
A bit off-topic, but I think you raise an interesting point that I’ve sometimes wondered about. In my early years/the first decade on Argent Dawn, I think people were generally much more open to cases like that. As long as someone organized roleplay, opportunities were more often welcomed than shunned regardless of if the character was a perfect fit for the context.
I was lucky to be part of a Vanilla guild that, while having its own adventures and night elf specific events, was also very actively roleplaying with the wider community through campaigns and initiating public events. I probably inherited that love for it from them. Inspired by their efforts, and to use a personal example, when I organized the Eastvale Tournaments in Elwynn on Acrona in 2006, 2008, 2010, and for the last time in 2015, people at large appeared very fine with it hosted by a night elf character and I don’t remember given bad rep for it. While in today’s climate, I feel as though plenty people would go ”duh, a night elf hosting something like that is odd. Why not use a human instead?”
Granted, due to my own shifted preferences since, I use more alts to organize stuff when they feel more appropriate for the context. Maybe even my mentality changed over time too?
The point I’m getting at - I see a lot of comments along the lines of ”roleplay used to be of higher quality and better”. And I wonder, better as in, more grounded to the setting? In many ways I think roleplay was way wackier in the truly olden times, compared to even now, with all the allied races, new classes, customization and expansions added since. Surely I’m not the only one feeling this way?
I guess for some, reminiscing about quality RP is when they first started getting more into the lore behind the setting, thanks to the increasingly convenient access to it via sites like WoWpedia, novels and audiobooks, Chronicles, youtube lore videos, WoWhead articles, datamining etc. And as a result, we’re ready to wrestle the tiniest bits of lore.
14 Likes
Rek (spoilers, my character) is literally a survivor/mercenary/bone and carapace merchant. His armour is, predominantly, made of bone and carapace as well, because surprise surprise pretty much everything in the Vol’dun ecosystem is well protected against all the things trying to kill each other.
He’s fun to play, and I need to have him travel some more.
I’m fully on with this. In the early days the game was still finding it’s feet as an RP setting so there were a lot of more experimental guilds and character concepts that would be looked down on now.
There was a much less established “community” back in the day, far less gatekeeping because few had the longevity or veteran status to even attempt it. At least back in Vanilla.
It’s become more rigid as time has gone on, for good and ill. Those whacky concepts still exist, but are a lot more frowned on and shunned. I’m definitely part of that, the second I’d read the books and brushed up on lore I became a serious gatekeeper.
9 Likes
When I arrived on Argent Dawn, around Mists, I had the impression that a lot of members in the community were very much ready to exclude certain concepts and promote others.
During MoP archetypical guilds were very much a thing, imho.
3 Likes
That’s around the time I came to Argent Dawn as well and I’d say that’s true. Which is wild given I’d come from Moon Guard.
I think to an extent, in vanilla especially but up through WoTLK, the opportunity cost of making, levelling and outfitting a character tended to promote people being a lot more tolerant of slightly odd things while today where it takes maybe a couple of days to get a character to a high level and transmogs are account wide it’s a lot easier to set up an ‘appropriate’ character for different situations.
5 Likes
Heh, MoP was when I joined too.
2 Likes
I originally started on Moonglade and the RP community was tiny so it was basically you take whatever RP you can find. Same when I moved to the US server Scarlet Crusade to join my friends, the community there was pretty much non existent so I was desperate for even a crumb.
1 Like
I think the honest answer is just that in your youth, when you’re just beginning RP, you’re unlikely to have delved deeply into WoW lore and understood what makes Azeroth a unique setting all-its-own. You’re more focused on just making what you would perceive to be a funny character to RP, I know myself when I was the ripe age of around 12 or so just made a Worgen Death Knight Runemaster, blissfully unaware at the time of my deep erring.
Nowadays I wouldn’t tolerate it, probably in part because I’m just a lot older and less willing to tolerate things in general now than I would’ve been when I was 12 and capable of going “woah” at anything I saw in WoW. I look for sensibility now in the RP scene and that it “fits”, as well as a small RP population can, to what Azeroth itself would look like IC.
I would agree it could be wackier in many ways, but I think the way in which it was wackier is where things have changed. It used to be like the likes of Shikaradoro or the Stormwind City Senate doing childish antics, but everyone was a lot younger then and people would be more inclined to play along with the antics as a result and humour it to some degree, it wasn’t quite the same as seeing 12 foot Dracthyr be a majority of Stormwind’s RP like it is now. The type of the antics/perceived problems has largely shifted from OOC to IC.
What someone perceives as “days of better quality” is generally just the time where they were predominantly RPing in their lives and enjoying it more overall. I know for myself that was around MoP-WoD-Legion for me personally, I had an abundance of free time and love for WoW and I barely have either now, so I personally feel RP has “degraded” in a sense because I see and do less of it. There probably is something to be said for an actual degradation as well, Stormwind has never been great quality but I do certainly feel “general” levels of literacy, capability and skill have certainly dimished; especially over the last few years but I couldn’t give any indicative factors beyond gesturing vaguely at Stormwind.
4 Likes
Thank you for your service 
5 Likes
sorry your character is 400 but you were born in teldrassil?
nah back to the drawing board mate i am NOT roleplaying with you
no exceptions
17 Likes
I am trying to wrap my head around how I feel about the whole idea of being more open to outlandish concepts. A part of me likes the idea of promoting freedom, and letting players venture into certain outlandish concepts.
On the other hand, I also believe these concept can also damage the setting, when they flood into the world without control, and in great numbers.
For example, having a couple of penitent eredars in Stormwind could be cool. They would be distrusted by all, but also feared for their forbidden knowledge, and arguably called upon to deal with dark magics.
I expect they would linger with other distrusted groups, such as Illidari (who may want to keep them in check) and warlocks (who may actually want their knowledge and tempt them to do evil deeds).
The problem on the other hand, is that you don’t have a couple of eredars, but dozens of them, which act as if they have a right to be treated without being questioned.
In the end, I believe there is always a point in which someone goes “naah, this ruins my immersion”. So advocating for tolerance can be a bit complicated there.
3 Likes