There is a desperate need for a true neutral RP hub on AD. One that is not Dalaran (which many characters have no reason to visit and no means to get there - its a city in the sky, literally), and not Booty Bay, which is, well known pirate land and not a place that many guilds stick around for long periods (more a visiting hub than a true hub).
I am creating this thread to facilitate the brainstorming of ideas for a true neutral RP hub, perhaps on Kalimdor or the Dragon Isles? There are a lot of neutral aligned characters that are on horde races that need a hub to go to. Please, drop ideas and if anyone wants to take on the organisation of such a hub, I am certain there will be many who will support it!
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A city in the sky that’s well-known for its expertise in teleportation magic, and to which portals are readily available in Stormwind and Orgrimmar at the very least.
If anything, I’d say tourists have more reason to visit Dalaran, which is at least safe, than the Dragon Isles, which are filled with dangers and until recently were a target for an army of elemental dragons and their cultist followers.
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It’s also the place that’s most invested in providing a space for all the peaceful/friendly cultures of Azeroth to visit and inhabit. If someone said that they arrived via flying mount (be it their own or a flight master’s) or a zeppelin, I wouldn’t question that either.
Dalaran is a massive hub for trade, based on how it’s presented in Legion with its shops and the Underbelly.
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I agree, Dalaran is an excellent hub, however there are also very good reasons that it doesn’t work for every character. Some people prefer low magic / slice of life RP, and there really isn’t a good hub for that, as seen by the number of horde/neutral characters turning up at alliance events. Clearly there is a need not being met.
One day I’ll run a neutral tavern guild. One day. xD
I get where you’re coming from and I’m scratching my head trying to figure out somewhere viable (Jade Forest has a few potential hubs if I remember correctly), but since WoW is a high magic setting, most of its major cities and zones tend to reflect that.
The other most obvious option is the other one you discounted, Booty Bay. It’s always waxed and waned as a RP hub, but you’re right in that its niche is reasonably specific. Merchants, pirates, and ne’er-do-wells.
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i think thats the problem, there’s not an obvious place to make a hub. booty bay does have potential (its the obvious one to me but I know some people don’t like it). Maybe more investment needed there?
Tanaris and Tol Barad Peninsula are two locations that can feature netural RP. Tanaris with its focus on trade to survive in a desert enviroment, and Tol Barad Peninsula which has Rustberg Village.
Other than that, you also have Shattrath.
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Valdrakken might work quite well as a neutral hub. Especially going forward, once the sharding ends.
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I didn’t mention Valdrakken because the OP noted they wanted something to cater for low magic RPers, and Valdrakken is no less high magic than Dalaran.
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Does it have to be a city/hub? Can it not be an entire zone if said zone has a decent hub for both factions and you could mingle inbetween them? Could be neat, also.
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I believe the more prominent problem is the lack of Horde RP in general. Which to be honest I completely understand, because scarcity doesn’t encourage more roleplayers to show up and one thing brings the other.
I think it would be better if a Horde RP hub could be established and I mean an actual hub like Stormwind, supporting random walk up RP and the opportunity for spontaneous situations, rather than scheduled meetings. I think the main reason horde PCs show up in Alliance cities / events is because they can’t find casual RP elsewhere.
I believe Dalaran and Booty Bay are both great neutral hubs and both cater for different (not necessarily) styles of RP. It doesn’t solve the issue though that they are mostly visited once a week and when the Alliance leaves and returns to Stormwind/Stromgarde/Gilneas, the Horde has nowhere to go.
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Hi, hello. Wonderful thread and I agree! Yes, Dalaran is quite a decent spot, but besides what has already been said in regards to critique, I also think the fact that it is entirely separated from a landmass makes it hard to grow it as a hub. If you look at other examples of roleplaying hub communities, like Duskwood, the new Gilneas or the Stromgarde one, they are all very much built around either events or interacting with the world OUTSIDE the main city. And if you look at the numbers so to speak, people are not really RPing in Dalaran unless the weekly market event is up. Events = activity and engagement for a lot of people.
With that little piece that is entirely my own opinion based on some observations, I’ve got some spots that could easily be a new community hub. These are also areas that are generally broad enough and not as specific as somewhere like Valdrakken, which would realistically be 90% dractyhr and little else:
Ratchet or Gadgetzan for Kalimdor; I think Ratchet is easily the best since it is incredibly central in the continent.
For Eastern Kingdoms, there isn’t too much admittedly, though Light’s Hope Chapel or Hearthglen could be interesting with argent focused RP.
Pandaria has a LOT of possible locations; pretty much everywhere to be honest! But in particurlar, I would say Halfhill is the best city.
Finally, there is Shattrath… frankly, I am unsure how one would open an RP hub there, but it could probably be done?
All in all, Ratchet has my vote for being the best possible RP hub. I would definetly be quite interested in helping with organizing a project like this from the ground up. ^^
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On the Tol Barad peninsula, there is a mob free inn (there’s a few mobs outside it, but the inn itself is empty).
Before it has been used for a variety of reasons (no longer though).
It could be used as a hub for people sailing from Kalimdor to Eastern Kingdoms? As a stop for respite before continuing the journey? (Edit: Not much of a hub I guess though)
Valdrakken is badly inhibited as an RP hub because of the Dreamsurge mechanic. It causes random effects to occur every few hours and some of the bigger ones like dream creatures literally fills your screen with little dream critters etc. This is an issue that dances across the Dragon Isles between that and Fyrakk invasions which makes the Dragon Isles tedious to RP on for any extended amount of time.
Dalaran has been for a long time the most active neutral RP hub because you can easily find ways to excuse your character teleporting or travelling there and it’s the only one with a lot of shops/inns/assets that’s fully neutral and has stuff like a criminal underbelly etc.
Places like Tol Barad and Gadgetzan are plagued by being far out of the way. Ratchet’s nice and I’d be interested to see life brought to it but alas it suffers from severely lacking furniture in its shops.
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This has been tried and tested multiple times with varying results, with the current iteration the Casual Horde Roleplay Discord with its weekly gatherings. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to establish and keep a hub because the Horde is split into small pockets of communities and trying to get them all together is quite difficult. Horde is also a lot more guild-based (not REQUIRED but it helps) which also makes things hard because folks want to stick with their circles and they’re doing their own things elsewhere.
There’s an ongoing effort but it will take time.
Link to the Casual Horde Roleplaying Server thread I mentioned here.
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I would suggest Ratchet, Tol Barad and Tanaris.
And let us not forget Uldum
These are all known locations in the community, and all been RP hubs in greater or lesser degree over the years 
All locations are:
- Neutral.
- Sensible in terms of travel and trade.
- Easy to access OOC!
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really good point about valdrakken and the dreamsurge effects, hadn’t considered that.
I´d suggest Shattrath. While it´s on another world, there are many reasons why someone would come to visit, not to mention the fact that, as capital city, it should be one of those “easy to portal to” places even if you decide to avoid Portal Room portals as part of the lore. And, on OOC basis, getting there is super easy, barely an inconvenience even for low level characters who don´t have flying.
Now, reasons why it could be useful:
- It´s on the border of 3 zones, allowing people to do RP there with little to no effort.
- It´s a place with varying themes, terrace for Light/righteous characters, districts for draenei and blood elf affiliated characters, and shadier place that is Lower City (however, despite this, it´s not on the level of Booty Bay which is just a big pirate town).
- It´s relevant for many races. Outland is Draenei and orc world, so those have reasons to visit. Then there are blood elves, high elves, trolls, humans, dwarves, night elves, goblins and gnomes who all have towns in Outland, and druids as a whole have Cenarion Expedition bases nearby. Then there´s also ethereals, who could serve as reason for traders to visit.
- It´s a refugee city, meaning that unlike pretty much every place on Azeroth, you won´t be infringing on a narrow theme for that settlement (because no, making neutral Love is in the Air event in Hearthglen which is main training/military base of Argent Crusade, or in monastery in Pandaria wouldn´t make sense).
- And lastly, every once in a while someone on these forums asks “what about Outland RP?”. Sure, I doubt you would be getting hundred players just jumping at the opportunity to come to Outland, but I think you´d get far more players willing to RP there for the vibes alone than you´d get in some random neutral place on Azeroth whose only lure is allowing players to interact cross-faction (which they already can do in Dalaran anyway).
At the end of the day, a hub needs something more than just “it´s a place for RP”. There needs to be something more for it to survive and thrive and you won´t achieve that with picking some small inn in the middle of nowhere.
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I think as much as Shattrath might not make sense to some, it’s honestly the perfect place for people who just want to play what ever. Unconventional weirdos you have a hard time taking to hubs will do just fine in the lower city. Truly, true neutral.
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We can forget cataclysm era Uldum with it’s tonedeaf goblin WW2 leader, but BFA Uldum is worth remembering.
The awful implementation of Indiana Jones references aside, Uldum is a bit of a weird zone on Argent Dawn. I won’t make another post being super specific on what problems it has, so all I’ll say is that I think people treat the zone very differently than how Blizzard personally do.
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