I created a thread about the potential for RP on the Hardcore Classic servers over on the general roleplay forums a few weeks back (Do you think there will be an active RP community on hardcore servers? If so, what will it look like?) where I also talked about the potential for a closer link between gameplay mechanics and roleplay in that context.
About 5–6 years ago, there was a goblin guild on here (might still be around) with a sort of “qualified always in character” approach that I found kinda interesting. AFAIR, their approach was “everything you do gameplay wise is in character, but it is probably not the exact scenario presented by the game”. So if you ran Razorfen Kraul, your character wasn’t literally killing Charlga Razorflank (the final boss), but perhaps they were taking down the leader of a quillboar presence somewhere else. Or if you were doing dailies for a certain faction, you weren’t becoming an extremely well-known champion of that faction, but perhaps you were doing odd jobs for them. As far as I recall the guild was of a quasi-mercenary character, which lent itself to this kind of approach to the link between gameplay and roleplay.