So I stopped playing WoW around 5 years ago (work, life in general, the usual) I used to be quite active on Argent Dawn, Towards the end of playing I was in the Crowsgarde on Alliance. Before that, I ran the Thalassian Royal Navy, a Navy based military guild.
I’m mainly a Belf player, first day of RP after 5 years today, lots has changed and I am still learning the lore.
Got a few questions I wanted some help with, if you folks would be so kind.
Whats the state of the server? Better or worse?
Still lots of good guilds kicking about? Are Division Twenty Three, Sun Hawks, Farstrider Regiment still about?
What’s the best spots for RP right now?
I’m playing a Belf Ranger right now, for ease of RP, he’s been in a coma since the storming of the Orgrimmar gates by the Horde Revolutionaries (Right where I got to with Battle for Azeroth before I got sick of the grind) so he’s still catching up on events, like I am.
I am worried though, I don’t want to annoy people when I RP by making them explain everything to me, working around it by saying “Don’t worry, I have much to catch up on, I’ll inquire at the library about what’s happened.” so it mirrors me reading the massive loredump since BoA.
But my question, would this annoy others? Have had a few really fun interactions surrounding the not having been about since BoA. Boy! did my ranger hate hearing the Horde is a horde by committee! Up **** creek without a warchief, am I right?
And my last question, What have I missed?
Thanks all, look forwards to RPing with you all again.
I think in terms of lore from now and then, the main one that might impact your character is all the stuff that happened in the Battle For Azeroth expansion, as it was very much Horde vs Alliance during most of that, and I’m pretty certain the blood elves (like every major group in the two factions) were dragged into that. I’m not sure on specifics, however.
I can’t answer honestly with this one because I pretty much started on AD around the time you took a bit of a break, but what I can say is that you’ll still find active guilds about doing their own plots, a fair few hubs are still active. Hordeside (in my experience) is a lot quieter than Ally, but there is roleplay about if you know where to look for it.
I’m fairly certain Division Twenty Three are still about but I’m not 100% sure. I think the Sun Hawks went dormant after the unfortunate IRL passing of the guild leader, Brigante but I’m not quite sure.
Honestly, if anything this might make more of an interesting interaction than most. So many characters are made with specific thoughts and opinions on given matters in mind. Having a character that is having to learn these things for the first time and adapt to a different world than the one they previously knew is it’s own appeal - heck, it’s a major driving force for people making dracthyr characters.
Very short explanation of the opening of Dragonflight + Shadowlands
…Oh right. Uh, Dragonflight is the current expansion and now it’s fairly common to see dracthyr which are tall draconic beings that were grown in an underground lab by Deathwing, sealed away for ten thousand years and then freed shortly after the Dragon Isles revealed themselves.
Oh, and the Dragon Isles revealed themselves. They’re a place you can actually go to.
And Shadowlands happened. The only notable part was the pre-patch where hordes of scourge rampaged all over the lands but then just kinda stopped. The rest of the expac can basically be entirely skipped in terms of impact on general RP.
I remember most pre Shadowlands lore, My character IC got injured during the H/A assault on Orgrimmar where Lorthemar and co rebelled against Winderunner and has been in a coma since, woke up and hitched a ride straight to Silvermoon, For Now, I’m sticking to Silvermoon, When he found out the Horde and Alliance are fighting he was shocked since they worked together during Sylvanas’ weird hitler moment.
You having said that made me do a search for Brigante on the forums, And I’m honestly really sad to hear he died, I couldn’t find what happened. But, He was such a great guy, RPed with him loads over a few years and our characters were friends, He was a friend.
I’ll always the remember the nights Wing Commander Brigante of the 9th Escadrille “Sun Hawks” and Captain Silvaesz of the Thalassian Royal Navy drank the nights away discussing old war stories, bantering.
He taught me so much about lore, roleplay and creating a community. I will miss him, and this world and server are poorer with him absent.
RIP Brigante, May the Light of the Sun Guide you.
Well, that’s a development, I’m currently playing through Shadowlands bit by bit, WoW gameplay is never why i played, the RP scene was the best part of the game.
Will read up on the Shadowlands Lore a bit, see what the deal is.
Shadowlands lore is ignored in RP for the most part.
Other than that… not much. Which is a positive, I think. I can’t speak for the Horde but the Alliance currently has three active RP hubs in Stormwind, Darkshire and Stromgarde. Boralus and Dalaran are used at times as well.
I roleplay a character from drustvar who is out of touch with the rest of the world, which does offer some hilarity if done well. The character doesn’t verbally inquire after every little breadcrumb, mostly observes and comes to conclusions by herself; listening goes a long way, but of course she’ll ask questions. I think it could offer you a slight comedic edge if you’re subtle about it.
The state of the server horde side is less populated than alliance but it is active! There are a load of discord servers that help build the community. I can inquire about the blood elf farstrider scene since a friend has participated in such more recently.
As Obahar already said, Horde RP is mostly Guild based, but honestly, the public hubs on the Alliance aren’t something to talk about here. If you want quality, look for guild, altough I see you are doing that.
As for the lore, as it was said, you can ignore most of Shadowlands, Azeroth was affected by it little - Few leaders missing and possibly returned changed (Anduin) and Scourge rampage - Argent Crusade has lead the fight against it, those who fought there could see some Mawsworn time to time, but not in great numbers. This is basically all, it affects you far more if you RP Death Knight as Ebon Blade has counterinvaded the Maw, lost crap ton of Knights and was there the res of xpac, and in general, they are the most connected to the realm of the dead from all playable stuff.
I don’t think it will, but keep in mind that, due to overwhelming majority of RPers ignoring Shadowlands, which were followed by 3 years long timeskip, and then Dragonflight whose story (and especially quite childish aspects of its storytelling) just didn’t catch that many people, the answers you will get won’t often tell you a lot about the lore but rather their personal experiences.
RP has always been about creating your own story, but I think in last 4 years, that mindset has only grown and the level of connection to the events taking place in the canon world has decreased.
It’s also why I think you don’t really have to do the coma backstory unless you actually want to, as the world your character left after the war ended in 8.2.5 isn’t that different from the one you’re entering now.
I have little to add that hasn’t been mentioned above. Except for the fact that the Alliance and Horde have been at peace for some 4-5 years now. There still are the occasional skirmishes in RP-PvP I believe, but there isn’t an all-out war ongoing and there has been a lot of neutral RP.
Especially because of the ability to form a cross-faction guild or group these days! It will require either a battle.net friendship or guild membership to invite into a group, however. Most people utilize the Elixir of Tongues that replaced the cross-RP addon and allows for opposite faction members to read your /say and /emote.
Also: I personally feel that having a character seeking knowledge makes for a fine means of interacting with all sorts of folks. Especially now that you can seek RP cross-faction.
All in all, the server is still ongoing and populated. The RP scene may not be entirely what you were once familiar with but I believe you will find plenty of fun people to interact with. A lot of communities have popped up on Discord as well, so you may want to look in to that. (I recommend the Argent Dawn EU Roleplay server)
Blood elf RP in particular has taken quite a hit in recent years, but I’ve been seeing some new (and old!) guilds pop up again. I reckon the upcoming Quel’Thalas expansion will bring back life over the next few months/years.
If my memory serves, I think I was in the Thalassian Royal Navy once upon a time on a vastly different character.
In my opinion (as someone who also took a lengthy hiatus from WoW in BfA and recently returned), one of the biggest changes to roleplay scene itself is the accessibility of neutral roleplay, assisted by the introduction of cross-faction guilds, as summarized by Consumer above. The notion of “oh, we aren’t at war anymore and I do not need to hate the opposite faction?” was and is something I eagerly explore in roleplay, but might feel weird to soldierly types.
May have to log on to Alliance, They were a great guild to be in and RP with.
Its my little ode to Tolkien’s Lothlorien
Well, makes things easier, reading lore bit by bit, like to be thorough, might be some niche thing in there thats a cool thing to RP around.
Stormwind it always busy, Alliance overall gets all the love, being the “Good team” that they are. Been reading a lot of Warhammer books, the idea of a “Good faction” is a bit foreign atm lol.
I do a similar thing! When Gala found out about Lor’themar getting married, and to a magister at that! He joked if Thalyssra used some sort of trick or enchantment to win over their Regent, because “Magisters are a bit odd, aren’t they?”, which was amusing to those present. I was told the marriage is in a book only atm, or something, need to look that up.
Just joined the AD discord, will be checking out those hubs again, slowly remembering where all those damn portals are.
If you could inquire, I’ be very greatful, Belf Scene was thriving when I last played.
I shall see if their GM’s are about!
I’ll likely fin all the most important stuff out by playing the questlines of shaowalands as I level.
I do have a Death Knight, he was lvl 85 in BfA so need to level him up. Focusing on one or two characters tops atm, my hunter and my druid.
That’s okay with me, will mill about until I find a guild or a regular hub. Leveling in teh background on shaowlands content, I don’t have dragonflight yet. But lore wiki’s can mitigate that.
I’m planning to keep the amnesia thing, its a cool device for RP, til I find my feet, its not permanent amnesia, that would be boring, wouldn’t it?
That’s cool, cross faction guilds? I like it, brings the community more together, well, within reason, can’t exactly RP my belf in Stormwind lol.
That’s the plan! Want to dive back into the fray and find my feet again.
Wait… It’s not april fools they are bringing it out on? Quel’thalas has been unloved by Blizzard since BC IF its true, I will be overjoyed, Gimme a big and functional SM, populated towns, the mobs gone, ghostlands… maybe just lands?
Tried to run a campaign with a bunch of guilds in south QT in… 2016 I think, but it didn’t go anywhere due to IRL stuff.
Good to speak again! Been a while
I am intrigued alot by Cross faction RP. I shall definitely find out more.
For my Char, he doesn’t see, after everything, H and A are still fighting, why did they fight together against the legion, Sylvanas and others, to years later still entertain hostility as an option towards one another. He has comrades, friends, family on both sides.
Indeed! My own headcannon (given the limited number of Thalassian words, I would fill in the blanks with words of the master fantasy linguist, a proper elven language, I mean, Tolkien invented the modern idea of an elf. Wow elves are based around them.
In short, my (totally not canon) head cannon is it means “Tree people star”
Dal is a Thalassian word for Star if i remember correctly, I made the name and character back in Warlords.
IF its true, I will be overjoyed, Gimme a big and functional SM, populated towns, the mobs gone, ghostlands… maybe just lands?