A little late to the party,
But I was considering what MMORP lore is perhaps the more intresting and have some kind of thriving RP community? I know GW2 is pretty much dead on the EU side as far as I’m aware, SWTOR is not something I’m intrested, and while I’ve peered at FFXIV, I’m having difficulties to understand it’s lore.
Although Highlanders looks the most appealing to me…
ESO hands down has the most interesting lore and no one can change my mind.
RP community, though… That’s another thing. With enough friends - you can make it happen. (i look at aerilen who hasnt even logged in once)
All the FFXIV lore I know comes from just playing the game and experiencing it all – and, I’ve gotta say, it’s good stuff.
I mean ESO absolutely. Big Norse/Nord fan here. I just have difficulties with the gameplay as long it’s Free-to-play and that you have to subscribe to get the further content.
Well, ESO is a B2P game, subscription just enhances your experience and allows you to play its expansions without the need to buy these expansions.
Like Loras said, the best way to understand XIV’s lore is by just playing its story. Most of the concepts integral to the world get explained throughout, though there are two encyclopaedias/lorebooks (only up to Shadowbringers, so far) and a helpful compilation website similar to WoWpedia for further reading.
The fact most of the lore you get comes from NPCs out in the world makes the whole thing very immersive imo.
Oh, could you link it?
There’s also the thing that I’m afraid of accidentally contradicting lore by making assumptions about the setting that are proven false by some out-of-the-way quest. I am very new to the game, after all. As for RP, for now I stick to a simple and uncontroversial character concept that gives my character a believable reason to have spotty knowledge of what’s going on in the world right now.
I’d be very wary of it because spoilers are literally everywhere. A lot of the background and story of FF14 is very heavily tied into the main story which is full of twists and turns.
I just want to roleplay a dark wizard archetype across any MMORPG and not even the catgirls of FF14 can stop me
I’m not sure what it is, but the concept of Elder Scrolls as a MMO doesn’t really entice me. Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV have drawn me in so much more.
https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/
Despite being on tumblr, it’s what most people use when they want to look up something in particular as it also features lore and quest dialogue from the 1.0 version (which is still canon, but no longer in-game). As Akamito said, however, I’d be wary of looking at it because of spoilers.
Overall, my experience has been that people are a lot more accepting of headcanon/personal additions because there are a fair amount of places where the lore isn’t nearly as fleshed out as the Warcraft Universe – for good and ill. E.g. some of the races’ lore that’s featured in the game itself is either close to non-existent (Hellsguard) or very specific (Raen).
Anyone know how active ESO RP is at the moment? And the quality? When I used to play, most of the RP was over on NA. But then every guild had a brothel, so I’d be more keen to know if there is more going on EU nowadays, to save myself from that trauma.
This is still the case - I can’t tell how much public RP or easily accessible (ie without a guild) non-tavern (in a private instance, of course) RP there is right now but there was very little when I last played. If you have some people to play it with or are eager enough to find a new group/guild giving it a shot is worth a try 
Yeah I’d have to look for a new group. Though that is admittedly one thing I always found hard about ESO RP, finding guilds. At least when I played. Word of mouth / forums as no where near as strong on ESO as they are on WoW. - At most you usually get told, to read guild finder on ESO, without anywhere to look more into the guild, it’s quality, ect. - That part kinda stresses me out.
I’ll never forget joining an adventure guild on NA, through the finder, just advertised as adventuring… Joined that discord and- it was revealed the true nature. And good lord, I fled.
Just wish ESO had some way to better find RP / Guilds. Than a singular large discord and guild finder. D:
Easily the worst part of the RP scene and it’s what made me quit eventually (very few new people at the time imo, and no groups that really played around with stuff that interested me much + little interest for it when I tried setting it up!) - seeing as you already have it, might as well give it a try though! No harm done and I think the gameplay’s pretty alright to boot
I find it best to think of ESO as a big scale Elder Scrolls game that has co-op. As soon as you start thinking of it as an MMO it really starts showing it’s identity crisis, in that it’s not quite an MMO and not quite a single player RPG. But if you at least focus on the latter it’s a decent ride through all the zones, especially areas the main games have never touched.
Yeah! The only thing stopping me is that damn download time on UK internet. :'D Painful.
Though one thing I noticed- and I don’t know if it’s just me. ESO Rp seems- Slower? The pace between emotes / says, slower. From what I gathered when I was there, people are much more afraid to make grammatical mistakes and not make paragraphs of emotes, than they are on WoW, when things, bar events, are usually quite fast paced.
I think you’re right on this - I definitely needed to adjust to the relative ‘speed’ of it in Wow RP when I got back into it!
Also DM’ing without raid markers and an IG roll system, weirds me out to no end. I did however learn, people on ESO struggle with- Taking things at less face value. Than WoW players. Due to player housing, more customisation. They seem to struggle with say DM’ed events, describing things that aren’t physically there. Chars heights being different than the model, ect.
Which I find interesting! I learnt to RP with WoW / DnD, where vision is always going to be limited, so imagination is the key. But many who learnt to RP with ESO, instead use IG tools to make what they imagine. It’s curious how diff RP worlds kinda- differ and interact.
Good to know, thanks. It’s my biggest problem.