Roleplay in the PCU (Federation of Evil) community kept me around way longer than I intended. There are a handful of guilds and perhaps communities outside that are decent but personally I find PCU to be a safe rock to call home.
That being said and by the looks of your ideas…
That sounds cool and I think everything is worth a try - assuming you get a community together for it.
There is no doubt that the new expansion will pull more players in. Whether new or returning; thus the server will have a wave of RPers who want to well… RP. I would say that’s your biggest strength.
Furthermore, from your previous posts on other threads; I can’t help but feel like you do want to return to WoW. Unfortunately you won’t get a “Yeah come back! It’s ace now!” because its not. (Nor are WoW players a happy-hivemind like FFXIV players)
Get 2 months of gametime and see how you feel.
I’ve been thinking about this myself. Even though I’ve mostly kept myself out of the PCU business for the most part (I don’t hold a grudge, just believed in casual RP the most part), I just don’t feel like logging in, in my precious free time, and risking some of the cringy horrors casual RP can rub in your face, as it has done in the past.
Like sure, I can just “ignore” that I’ve read some over-the-top weird internet fetish that just cursed my virgin eyes before I could even consent, but it drains energies. And I’m just not fit to open myself to any childish obnoxious RP style at this point.
So I do am interested, perhaps, in which systems or guidelines these different RP-Communities operate in? Do they have their own RPG-systems and elements that I can perhaps integrate in? Their own currency, weapons, roll-systems, traits, etc?
Do you have any links so I can read into it? PCU or other communities?
As a new expansion comes closer, more people will begin to return, so I think the RP community will become a little of a shadow of its former self.
As hype builds, so to does desire to play.
As for PCU guilds and other communities, what specifically are you after in a guild? I don’t want link something that would be of no help.
A community that does demand some degree of standards of their members
Uses their own RPG systems, such as combat rules, currency, gear, etc
Knows how to keep roleplay grounded with emphasis on character growth
And perhaps enjoys making their own stories that aren’t too heavily connected to Blizzards bi-polar consumer orientated World Building.
For the most part, I enjoy classic D&D settings most. Even though this character, for example, is a Demon Hunter, I prefer to caller her a “Illidari Inquisitor” and desperately try to soften her edges somewhat to distance myself to the power-fantasy that’s the Demon Hunter lore.
Basically I prefer to roleplay her as a somewhat-powerful demonic spellsword, rather than go all overboard. My character still needs to work together with other Roleplayers to defeat the task at hand.
I don’t really understand why you ask, because it seems to me that you have already made up your mind.
Maybe the question you ask would better directed at yourself: “what would you get from returning to rp in wow (compared to what you get from not doing it)?”
I get a feeling from your post that you consider yourself bringing some big contribution and importance, should you return? I’m not a native english speaker so I may misunderstand your tone and intention, and apologies if I do. But, if you do have that feeling then I feel you set yourself up for a major fall, both because of the extremely hard and dedicated work it would demand (as opposed to toning it down and just sliding in in a more lowkey we’re all equally important kind of way), and also big egos and showing lots of self importance tend to create a lot of animosity among people. Especially here on the internet.
I personally say come and join, the more the merrier, but skip the major project and just rp instead. I’m not a fan of closed communities that do their own thing at the exclusion of what else goes on, but that’s just me. Most of all, if you lose out on using your free time on this, don’t do it. You should not lose out on something. Just have fun and do what makes sense to you.
Don’t worry. I don’t. In the end I’ll always see WoW as just a game, and not something of uttermost importance compared other elements in my life. So perhaps it’s the way it’s written? Most of the time I’ve mostly spend casually RPing with others, but I do think I’m somewhat in-between in wishing to return, but expecting something new and engaging instead, which is a bit naive, I agree.
Oh. Thanks for clearing it up and sorry I was picking up the wrong vibe
To be honest, I don’t think new and engaging can be found in a game this old. The cosyness of nostalgia can be there, but it won’t ever live up to what it was in the golden days of WoW.
I kind of hoped that Blizzard would completely overhaul the World of Warcraft formula to re-design the next online-rpg experience. Which might mend not focussing so much on Expansions, but rather re-do everything as a whole so it works better together.
I don’t want to grind the upcoming expansion through the dirt, and people who will enjoy it, more power to them. But I just don’t have the feeling this will become the game-changer the game actually needs, rather just another expansion you need to pay for to get the new class-thingie to do the same dungeon thingies we’ve been doing in the past.
But perhaps the new expansion will change things a lot, who knows.
Reflecting on some of the answers a bit, I think it’s better I just wait subbing back into wow untill I’m certain this is the product I wish to play and invest time in. Perhaps trying some tabletop instead.
Experiences vary massively guild-to-guild, generally no. Very few guilds in WoW use Dungeons & Dragons-esque rulesets, solely because their implementation into WoW is oft difficult and tedious.
Again, experiences will differ based upon whom you RP with, but almost everyone left on AD tries to adhere to the lore as best and as much as possible, for the sake of maintaining the Warcraft setting. Deviating from such leads to circumstances like Moonguard, something most on AD are not entirely keen on ever seeing happen on the EU.
Everyone on AD, from what I’ve seen in my years, uses the copper, silver and gold given to us by Blizzard for Azeroth. Though, admittedly, use of currency to any great length is rare to see in RP, it mostly exists for plot hand-waving.
Far be it for me to speak for you, but it seems like you enjoy the idea of Roleplay but not necessarily the game World of Warcraft or, at least to some extent, the setting, anymore. DnD alternatives sound like something you might be more interested in from what you speak of in your posts about the different systems and XP-based progressions.
I haven’t resubbed for about a year now properly because all of my friends quit and so it’s a struggle to find an RP community or guild that interests me. From what I saw, there’s very little RP to be found outside of Stormwind nowadays, with very few if any local server events being hosted.
If I had to guess, I’d say after the Shadowlands disaster, the server is only ~500 strong for active roleplayers (people have a lot of alts). A lot of roleplayers have moved to Epsilon or FF14, neither of which are really for me.
Of course the PCU will always do its thing, but if they’re not for you then they’re not for you. My personal recommendation would be to hold off for at least until the Dragonlands pre-patch, when some locals inevitably flock back. There’s always ebbs and flows; we’re just in an especially quiet time.
EDIT: To be more specific about what I’m after, hmu if anyone knows about any Alliance-based guilds that use long-form, emote-driven roleplay.
At this point the PCU feels super divisive. It seems half of the server likes the PCU and the other dislikes it, even putting explicitly in their OOC that they refuse to interact with anyone from the PCU.
It can range. From petty excuses of events that occurred weeks, months or even years ago, to people who only ‘heard’ what they ‘do’ and therefore, they don’t want anything to do with them based on hearsay.
But there are also cases where people have had bad experiences and/or don’t like people in the PCU for valid enough reasons.
The reasons all vary but more often than not, it is the former of what I said, rather than the latter, for the dislike/refuse to interact.
This is true.
What I do enjoy about the World of Warcraft setting is that it’s really flexible, and people can do a lot of wacky things with it’s setting. A Tauren surfer, next to a valiant Human Knight, next to a Undead who goes steampunk is all possible in WoW RP.
What kind of puts me off over the years is that Blizzard changes the lore to be more pleasing to it’s costumer, and it always has a high emphasis to be over the top epic. Want to be a Death Knight? Now you can. Want to be a over-powered Demon Hunter? Here kiddo. Want to be a Dragonperson? Coming right up!
You can sometime notice this by RPers who feel they rather roleplay something more grounded, such as a simple high-way bandit, that need to compete against a Rogue-Shadowmaster-level??-D00mlord, often ending in furious debates on lore.
Although I still have a nostalgic heart for the great moments WoW-RP has given me, the setting itself has become somewhat of a mixed back that just goes all over the place and doesn’t feel it has much vision anymore. Everyone is free, anything goes! And for the people who enjoy that, I won’t ever hold it against them.
I don’t blame Blizzard too much about this, in the end the game was never focussed for the roleplaying experience, they just made separate servers for the minority that enjoys that. It’s just for me, personally, that I do miss the roleplay servers, but am also really estranged from it’s setting.
