State of roleplay on Horde

Argent Dawn
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Hello all,

Since I stopped roleplaying regularly (around the end of MoP) I’ve sporadically returned to engage in casual roleplay over the years and never struggled to find any random encounters. This week, I returned and have basically spent the whole week until tonight wandering alone with no such luck.

Tonight I had the pleasure of running into a small gathering of players in the north barrens (until my internet suddenly died lol) but apart from that I haven’t been able to find anything (especially for tauren based role play).

Is Horde roleplay just, not really a thing anymore? Or am I just not looking in the right places?

I’m currently sat quietly, alone, at the southern point of the gold road in the north barrens, remembering better times.

I hope all those I remember from my old days with the Wolfbane clan are well!

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At this precise moment, there’s currently over twenty people roleplaying around the Crossroads, if that helps.

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Yes, this is the group I encountered earlier. Its just a shame this is the only random roleplay I’ve managed to find so far in this return. Whereas, usually I’d just return to either mulgore or Stonetalon and find a group of Tauren’s sat around a fire to converse with.

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It does exist, people are just spread out at the moment.

There are people roleplaying with their guilds, people playing the new patch that released only a couple of days ago, people doing the raid with their guilds, people in guilds doing post-patch launch campaigns, people in communities such as The Undermine one experiencing the new zone through roleplay, and many, many more. For example, our guild is doing a mini-campaign in Northrend in-between break days to experience the new patch.

Orgrimmar is a meeting point for guild between campaigns for most Kalimdor-dwelling Horde guilds, but right now, most people are roleplaying elsewhere, or just experiencing the new patch.

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Hey there friend. It’s still there, though just not as readily available as it used to be I think. I think numbers have definitely gone down over in Horde side but there’s still some roleplay to be found, you just have to use external tools such as discord servers to know where it is and where to look because the chances of just coming upon it in the game world are pretty slim. The event you’ve encountered is one such gathering that’s advertised in a Horde discord (it takes place every sunday), so it’s all a question of how comfortable and/or willing you are using those tools.

I don’t think tauren roleplay is doing that well since I barely see events or guilds advertised for it (others are free to correct me if I’m wrong) but you can still happen across a good deal of quality characters who know how to portray the race well, it’s just that most of them are scattered across your warband guilds with other races.

It feels like with the most recent patch a good portion of Horde’s community has shifted to playing goblins to ride on the Undermine hype (with a lot of roleplay planned for the place there) but you’ll still find other guilds doing their storylines elsewhere in the world. There’s always some casual RP to be found in Orgrimmar in the Valley of Honor.

If you can take your character to Outland there’s a Kosh’harg event held there (sadly it’s not held in Durotar) and it seems like races other than orcs are welcome to attend.

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If it helps, it usually also is announced in places such as argentarchives.org. Though, of course, not always. People sometimes forget, or don’t use the site at all, but it’s a good bet that if it’s posted in some Discord, and it’s public, it’ll be posted in the AA Calendar.

There’s a Darkspear-themed funerary rememberance event taking place in the Echo Isles tomorrow, too! Though it is obviously related to Darkspear Trolls and their spirituality, it seems that they welcome all races, if that’s something that would strike your fancy, Akshar.

https://www.argentarchives.org/node/277583

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Yes it’s dead. There’s no going back for us now, brother.

On a more serious note;
Horde RP has a lot of inconsistency because people aren’t really pushing or pulling with one another to keep RP flowing consistently.

There is a case where you have too many people pushing so there’s so many people arriving to Orgrimmar’s Valley of Honor and yet there will be nobody pulling to interact with one another.

Everyone wants to RP nobody is really willing to put in the footwork to make the RP stay and keep consistent.

I am an old man in the Horde scene at this point and that’s what I can say really.

Though, consistency is messy there is still Horde RP and it’s still very much a thing.

As Wraithwood has put there is a lot going on in the game right now there’s a new patch, there’s a new season that’s just started.

Goblin Community has moved around to Undermine, other guilds on their own mini campaigns with themselves, etc, etc.

I will also concur with Jeyce’s points as well the number of active groups and numbers in Horde has certainly taken a hit and it has been like that since the end of BFA unfortunately, though there is confluxes of RP and it happens in waves generally.

Tauren Roleplay I don’t think has that much of a scene there used to be the Gathering of the Horns or similarly named if I recall but even now that very rarely happens.

A lot of the ‘Tribal’ shall we say RP for races has pretty much dwindled to an obsolete if you’re looking for specific RP to a race the only three you’re gonna find right now are for;

  • Troll
  • Vulpera
  • Goblin

In that order.

That’s not to say everything is doom and gloom though, as I said it’s still readily happening and there is a lot of initatives going about; Here, there and everywhere to keep RP engaging but, Horde usually has the more ‘mature’ aged folk in which case people have lives outside the game and aren’t really about as often as you would find in Stormwind for example. That’s not to say to our fellow Bluecoat RP’ers that they’re unemployed and no lifing the game. :rofl: Just that Horde has a more older generation that are busy with life and Alliance has and always will be the majority for RP. (It’s easier to RP the usual chivalric good guys than it is the more monsterous races.)

The Ashen which is my group are usually always around Org when we’re not on events and we try to attend every Horde social gathering we can that makes logical sense to happen.

There is also the upcoming Kosh’harg towards the end of the Month and you will see no doubt plenty of Horde people appearing for that.

There’s also the Horde gathering which occurs every Sunday usually at the Crossroads and it can be packed for a bit and then slowly fizzle out it depends really on what people are doing, etc.

If you stick about you’ll no doubt find RP and there are plenty of Horde guilds always recruiting and doing things.

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Horde RP imo will forever be guild focused. Unless you hang around Silvermoon. It can never be as active as Stormwind, because slice of life casual RP on an orc/troll/undead/whatever isn’t as appealing. People don’t really make an orc to do casual RP; at that point, why not make a human? Sure, some people do but that is not the main appeal when you press create character on the red side. A lot more Horde characters are also “grumpier” given their race’s backgrounds.

The degree of fantasy RP is different as every race in the Horde is inherently mystical. There are no houses, there are no nobles (besides
elves), void elf hunts or whatever. There is plenty of RP in guilds though, you see it around gatherings, events.

TLDR: Horde dead is a meme. You just have to make effort to join and keep to a guild instead of afk waiting something to happen in Orgrimmar, but imo it is more worth it.

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It’s certainly not dead but nor is it thriving, in my opinion. Unfortunately because of the low population, a lot of the ‘bad’ roleplayers stick out like a sore thumb too which turn people away I suspect.

However, I’m of the firm belief that there’s a great deal of people who want to RP on the Horde, but log on and look at Orgrimmar, notice there’s low numbers or nothing and log back to Alliance. If these people just remained on Horde, which I’m aware is a big ask, the Horde would be closer to a healthier community.

So, it isn’t dead nor is it thriving, really. You can absolutely without a doubt find enjoyment however, which is key.

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It’s not all that much, but people tend to hang out around the Wyvern in Orgrimmar most evenings. Sure, you will never have the same numbers as SW’s Lion’s Rest (last I saw that was over the Winter Break where we had a massive influx of Hordies, but that died down a day or two after the new year hit), but it’s still Horde RP - and a great opportunity to possibly join a guild for more stable RP, too!

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There may be inactivity in regards to Horde roleplay, but that largely only applies to Orgrimmar, but even then the new patch has drawn away the interest of some folks to the Undermine or purely content.

That in mind though we’ll certainly see another influx of new or returning folks when the content rush dies down some. It’s just quiet right now. You’ll also have to keep an eye on weekly recurring events and when they take place, as specifically for neutral or market events many attend these events and in Orgrimmars case the folk there will be almost non existent due to them attending these events.

But horde orientated events, specifically larger ones you’ll find a great deal of Horde rpers present, more so those already in a guild.

So all in all, your best bet? Join a guild make some friends and grow from there, until activity pops up in Orgrimmar and you can meet new folk.

The Horde has never been as much as the Alliance, but thats just fine in my opinion.

The quality of rp you can find often makes up for that i find.

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Well yeah, they probably roll a Vulpera instead. There’s plenty of casual, slice of life roleplay on horde side too, in fact a good number of public events are catered to that with a lot of gatherings, markets and so on, from what I’ve seen at least.

I think what has put off many people from going Horde is Blizzard’s treatment of the faction which imho is going through a serious identity crisis because of past storytelling and all the race additions. Now that the spotlight is on the goblins, it’s no surprise that a lot of people are jumping into that pool though it’s still a shame that the faction as a whole has not been given much time to cook lately. Even if they are, it’s only about their faction leader becoming a saturdaymorning cartoon villain.

Oh, I forgot:

Feel free to drop me a poke on Galek should you see me online, my orc is pretty in awe of Tauren and finds them very honourable so we could collaborate on something, should you find yourself not so lucky with other avenues of rp.

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If it helps, the link to that Discord for weekly gatherings can be found here:

https://discord.com/invite/vvaWtS2xwz

Outside of that, there’s larger gatherings usually announced on the forums and the Argent Archives, like the Kosh’harg, as well as the first Sunday of each month usually being a gathering in Orgrimmar.

As a hub, Orgrimmar (Valley of Honour specifically) can sometimes be home to people without any need for events, but that can be reliant on guilds passing through, as most roleplayers just stick to their guilds. RP tends to snowball; if people are already roleplaying, it’s common for people to join in. If no one is roleplaying, it can be difficult for anyone get the ball rolling.

The best suggestion I can make is that you find or make a guild that suits your tastes. That’s the best way of getting regular RP. The second option is joining a bunch of different Discords and staying up to date with all of the different public events and campaigns that are occurring.

The final option is forgoing faction-specific RP and joining a cross-faction guild or community, which gives you access to a lot more options, at the expense of faction identity.

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It’s in the same position it has been since arguably WoD, which is a heavy emphasis upon Guilds and community weekly/monthly events. Outside of this, the only real way to consistently find RP daily/ever few days is to be part of a consistent Horde community or guild. Yes, everywhere is absolutely a lot smaller in RPers than it used to be, but that’s just the unfortunate consequence of a server that always had a roughly 70:30 divide in Alliance’s favor (with that divide only getting worse w/ the introduction of allied races like Void Elves which inevitably just gave a lot of belf rpers the excuse to gain 1000% more RP by going Alliance).

As others have said, look at Argent Archives, the Forums and Discords for specific weekly events and such - no, it probably shouldn’t have to be this way, but that’s just the bad luck of the dice unfortunately. A lot of the Horde races don’t have much in the way of any activity atm, but this was always kind of the case with brief spurts inbetween.

Tauren, as far as I’m aware, are kind of a brick wall as it stands unless you’re willing to join a Horde Warband/Extended Community with a lot of racial diversity. Blood Elves have a few guilds still hanging around but they don’t actively advertise so you’ll have to hunt them down. The Forsaken only really have Corpsegrin Irregulars currently to my knowledge(?). I’m not aware of any orc-specific guilds atm, and Trolls have Painted Shields & Whitescar Pact for Horde Trolls(?). Goblins have BOOMTEC (though I believe they’ve branched out into neutrality) and Pandaren have Ronin. There will be others besides those listed, but they’re just the ones that immediately come off the top of my head.

If you’re looking for active, consistent Horde RP outside of Guilds/Communities however then I’m afraid you might unfortunately be somewhat disappointed with how things are at current.

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Hi guys. Thank you all for your kind comments and suggestions.

I’m a really casual RPer, and although I’m not the type to just stand on a corner and wait for roleplay to find me, I don’t think I’ve really got the time to commit to joining a guild. I love the road, always have, always will.

I will keep these different sources in mind and try and make an effort to keep track of what’s going on. Maybe try and advertise some hotspot RP myself?

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Well as established in this thread these seems to be very little Tauren-centric roleplay going on and since that’s also what you’re looking for, maybe that’s a good start? :>

If you go ahead with that, best of luck.

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For what it’s worth, there’s a remembrance event underway at the Echo Isles right now, as mentioned in Wraithwood’s post.

But if you’re not attending because the racial theme doesn’t suit any character of yours, I understand, I’m in the same boat.

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There’s a Discord server for tauren roleplay on Argent Dawn, though regrettably it’s been very quiet the past months, and the Great Horn Gatherings appear to be on pause due to the host being absent/busy with other things. However, maybe worth to test if you can find some roleplay through it, or advertise tauren themed initiatives of your own?

Tauren are great and I wish there’d be more of them about!

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Thank you for this. I’ll get acquainted with the server and have a little explore.

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