Been around since early WOTLK myself, although back on Defias at the time. And I recently was just thinking of how I got into RP - and a bit around it!
Having a friend asking me to give the RP a go; one that used to Larp and that. And I was very skeptical of it all at first but got hooked quite quickly haha! Loved the interactive storytelling / collaborative internet theater
Sooooo - I figure; why not ask it here as well! Heh!
I got into RP in late TBC. I returned to WoW after a long break (not that I played it much before â my only character was level 30 or so) and decided to create a new character. I saw that RP servers were an option, and, curious, I googled what RP was. It sounded fun, so I just entered the world (I picked Argent Dawn because it was the first in the list), found the RPers, and started RPing with them.
As for what RP is to me, the answer wonât be terribly original: collaborative improv storytelling. But itâs also a fun way to explore various personalities and ways of conduct in a relatively safe setting, learn more about yourself as a person, and sometimes, discover sides of yourself that you didnât know even existed.
How did I start? In early vanilla (may 2005) by complete accident back on DB! It was by recommendations and peer pressure of friends but I ended up hooked and out lasted them all.
And what is RP to me? Adventure! In all its forms, wild, quiet, mysterious, inspiring and even sometimes frustrating. Yeah, RP means adventure to me!
My story began years ago, when I found myself at my wits end and struggled with a very serious burn out. Factors such as PvE communities falling apart and increasing levels of toxic behaviour, was the single major factor that I decided to try my luck elsewhere.
(I moved to AD from another server)
I did not want to do PvE anymore, I was absolutely raw as it can be, terrified of interacting with others, to make mistakes.
It is at this time that I was made aware of roleplay in World of Warcraft, of Argent Dawn.
At least I would be left in peace, right?
It struck me as a good 3rd alternative to still be in the game I loved so much.
After moving and simply staying in the background for quite some time, I came out of my shell. I tried to walk the streets of Stormwind; And this story, I told in a thread of mine perhaps 2 years ago nowâŠ.
Where I simply, to this day vividly and very humbly want to express my gratitude to that random gnome I met. Who took his time to help me, to give me a tip or two and encourage me.
It all began a decade ago when a good friend of mine invited me to play Space Station 13. I didnât quite grasp the gameâs mechanics but I loved the âassume a role and stay ICâ part of it all. Noticing this, said friend then invited me to try out RP on WoW on a quaint little server called Argent Dawn. That must have been around 2013ish; I quickly levelled a character and joined their RP guild and its been a continuous journey since then. I love the concept of mutual storytelling in a living world that can often have random consequences. That sense of adventure is important to me in RP!
And for the record, I still regularly talk and meet up with the friend that convinced me to buy WoW and try out RP, even if our RP styles diverged a little since then and we hang out in different guilds these days.
Back during Cataclysm, I was a pretty avid forum user and once stumbled upon the Role-Playing forums, where there were several of these Open RP (or something) threads up. Essentially just RPing out your character in the premise given in the OP, through forum settings.
I was immediately intrigued and tried hopping in with my main character, with obviously no real knowledge of lore and whatâs right or wrong, but nobody was really there to say no. Eventually, I met someone pretty frequently in the forum RP threads who invited me to try out real RP on AD, so I made a throwaway human character.
In parallel to this, I was somewhat sociable and on my PvE server, Goldshire was the social hangout where I met a different friend (who for some time became a very close friend to me). Since Cataclysm had a really long content drought, I decided to try out RP more seriously and invited him to join me on Steamwheedle Cartel. We rolled gnomes and joined a pretty fun guild there (called G.N.O.M.E, some sort of engineering guild) and had a blast.
Night Elves had been always my favourite race in the Warcraft universe though, and I knew they had a really long history so it was initially a little daunting ( hence why I went for Gnomes as my first ever character, no history = no need to know lore) to try out a Night Elf character, but after some time playing the Gnome, I decided to roll a Night Elf on AD (and was quickly invited to the infamous Darnassus guild).
And thatâs what Iâd say got me into RP finally, I even ended up transferring my main over from the PvE realm to AD. Funnily enough, my main character now and who everyone knows me by is Nerathion, who started out as an alt character to have fun with in the guild. Funny that.
I logged into a roleplaying realm in Neverwinter Nights thinking well this is a roleplaying game so it makes sense, I didnât know the difference between the act of roleplay and the game genre of roleplaying
Someone explained to me after it was obvious that I did not know what the act of roleplaying was, figured Iâd try along and got hooked
Then TBC launched and I bought WoW and saw RP as a server type I knew it was going to be one of those servers to RP in.
I was very much a DnD style RPer and wasnât as lore savy and probably made a lot of people cringe before I got more comfortable with the lore.
Oof, thatâs a long way back for me. My love for RPing started before I even knew what RP was. Way back when I was about 8 years old (pretty much 22 years ago as I write this), I had a friend with whom I played during lunch break in the schoolyard. We would re-enact scenes from either Star Wars, Gundam Wing, or other movies/series we watched during that time.
This died down once we both went separate ways due to new schools, and I wouldnât be RPing until I found out about it when I was playing on a WoW private server. Back then I just wanted to dress up like a certain character, didnât even RP then, until someone told me I looked and played like NPC, and said I must be an RPer. After asking what an RPer was they opened a world for me.
Now, that server didnât have RPers really, but the chap send me over to another private server that was all about RP. From there, things started going and gradually progressed.
After several years, I came to love pretty much every aspect of RP. And RP has become pretty much a form of art and expression for me. Much like actors in movies. Which did make me consider if I wanted to pursue an education for acting, but eventually I decided against that and just kept it to digital RPing XD.
Got into RP at eleven. Did it on MSN, then Gaia, then Warcraft! I originally started on a pvp server, so when my ex quit I decided to move servers and saw RP ones existed; googled and found out AD was the most popular. So I moved here and yea.
My first forays into rp began during Warcraft 3 custom games, usually in either Azeroth Wars: Legacy Reborn or Dark Ages of Warcraft RP versions. I had been interested in the Warcraft universe since seeing the demo of warcraft 3 long ago.
Finally, my close friends had stopped or taken a break from world of warcraft, leaving me stranded on Grim Batol all alone. It was during that time that I saw Argent Dawn usually dominating the daily topics of the day, and I decided âHey, RP sounds fun, might as well try it out.â
And so I migrated my worgen warrior, Hargorin, brother of Desartin, to Argent Dawn somewhere during the summer of 2013, during MoP, and saw all these people interacting with the world. It was then that I was picked up by a very kind guildleader named Aevaria, who lead the Band of Blood guild back in the day. It was in that guild that I learned the ropes of roleplay, was safeguarded from too crazy lore mistakes ( I wanted a red dragon mount IC but she thankfully talked me out of that quickly). And eventually, I even ran some events of my own!
And that is how I ended up on Argent Dawn rpâing.
I actually joined The Shaâtar as a fledgling OOCâer. I had zero role-play experience. I believe this was shortly after the release of TBC. I was actually a troll for a very long time. Iâd occasionally pretend to role-play and gate crash events with my âbrandâ of what I considered role-play to be.
After that, I spent a lot of time on forums and on sites like Byond, where I rediscovered role-play and was introduced to multi-para, semi-para, etc, really in-depth stuff and I got sucked into world building and character development. I returned to The Shaâtar so I could engage with the RP community on an authentic basis and it was extremely pleasant. MMORPG RP offered a lightweight, more socially oriented approach that I felt was a relief compared to the pressures of constant para-play, and I really liked WoW as a setting.
Role-play to me is all about character immersion, character building and expanding on the world around my character. I like creating a character that has an autonomy all of its own, so even if Iâm not at the steering wheel, the character has left an impact, people might talk about them or eventâs theyâve been a part of or influenced, etc. I really like writing short stories about my characters and character related RP, as well as having concept art made. Itâs not so much âjustâ an escapism thing for me as it is a way to creatively express myself.
Back in Vanilla, my first character was a night elf rogue. My RL friend had assisted me with the long run from Auberdine to Stormwind. (What a ride.)
Upon arriving in Stormwind, my RL friend logged and I did a little exploring, eventually finding another night elf rogue sat in front of the tree in the Trade District. I sat next to him and we got to talking in a bizarre dance of OOC/IC as he patiently showed the ropes. This went on into the early hours of the morning. But when I finally grasped the concept, I sought out a sentinel guild.
I would stay with this guild through a reformation in the run up to TBC, until halfway through the expansion.
I had the joy of finding out that the person who taught me the ropes that fateful night almost 2 years prior had been flirting with my girlfriend. I ended up leaving the server after a bitter outburst.
)