Dear Watt, i can’t tell how happy I was to read this topic and see more like-minded people that are unfortunatelly so rare!
First, please don’t be destracted and frustrated by some sarcastic comments above. Just don’t pay attention, even be those comments left by ‘veteran roleplayers’ or game masters themselves, - one thing I had to learn while playing this game. You DO have the right to enjoy this game your way, and there ARE like-minded players who enjoy it same way as you described.
Second, what you describe sounds exactly what I and my in-game friends do. We play wow the way it seems to be supposed to be played on an rp-server - we roleplay everything, making our characters alive, enjoying quests and dungeons (roleplaying them all) as a part of one big adventure in a big fantasy world. When we log in, we turn our real life off and dive into the game completely, never going out of character, never spoiling the magic with ‘real life’ talking. Full immersion as it is!
Personally I am playing wow for the first time in my life, and even though I have been playing it for almost a year - none of my chars have yet reached level 60. And that is fine. I started playing it this way (roleplaying everything) from the very first second, and never rushed. I take my time and enjoy the every moment of the game, because everything happens ‘for true’ and it feels like you are reading a book or being a cartoon character. I was surprised to know that NOT everybody is playing wow this way, and I still wonder - why, why are they stealing this pleasure from themselves?! But fortunatelly, there are plenty players who DO play for immersion, DO follow the rp ruleset, DO make our server feel ‘alive’.
However, to find such players is always a trouble and cost lots of efforts (though it’s always worth it), and I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, and most likely that’s the reason why you wanted to build such a guild in the first place.
From my experience, I would recommend NOT to look within the so called ‘tight inner circle of roleplayers’ - those who use trp addon and play some DnD-like games inside wow, not wow itself. Most of them (again, from my experience) give no damn to that ‘immersion’ - they would stay ooc most of time and spoil their chats with irl talks. When I pick players to roleplay with, I hardly pay attention if they even use trp, I rather look at their nicknames. It tells a lot about player’s type of thinking - if they created a char with a nickname or a ‘real’ name. (to clarify - “IamJohn” and “JohnDoe” are both nicknames, but “John” is a name) I more often find ‘true roleplaying’ players, who follow the type of gameplay that you and me are following, within those with no trp addon - just ‘casual’ players, who log in for having fun in a fantasy world and play for full immersion.
Now, I have been always dreaming about such a guild that you describe. I’m thinking about running such a guild myself, but have no guts to carry that responsibility so far. If I finally DO start running my guild (it technically exists already as “the Squirrels”), that will be a full-rp guild, with a fully IC gchat, mostly dedicated to PVP (open world roleplayed pvp, NOT dicerolled rp-pvp) and PVE (what others would call IC-levelling, just we call it - adventures!), and just ‘living our characters life’ for true - hanging out together, rolling any storylines mixed with the ingame quests, helping each other with professions etc, all IC and all in-lore. And basically, that’s exactly what we already do with many other players (all from different guilds).
Now, I would be VERY glad to interract with you and your fellows in that field. While we don’t share ALL the vision and interrests (say, I’m absolutely not interested in raids, never even saw what they look like, and I definitely have different view on the drugs\alcohol thing), I’m sure we still have enough in common. We could join our forces and work on building such guild together. Or just run separate guilds and interract, knowing that our guilds will be a constant source of players who are really fun to play with.
This way or another, if you are interested in discussing it in more details, feel free to contact me. You may contact me in-game, but please do it IC, be it a direct approach or ic-whisper\mail (I’m sure you know how to do it). Also you may find me on discord (TheMisterMike#6058) where we could talk OOC.
Anyway, I wish your guild an eventual success and lots of fun to you and all your fellows. I’m always happy to know there are more players who understand what rpg games are made for, and who have enough imagination to fully enjoy them!
(btw, Ayelin and Zodd, from your comments above I can tell, that all I say refers and to you too )
May you walk on warm sands!