Once upon a time, a man who had Nerubian Spider legs growing out of his back built a railgun beneath Stormwind Cathedral.
These were the golden ages.
Less flippantly I RP’d between Vanilla and late Cata/ early MoP, and I preferred it then but largely because of the community of people I RP’d with. I don’t think it was any better or worse, but I will say that the advent of anything beyond forums (Skype, Discord, etc) created more separation in the community (whilst also bringing other elements together) and ruined to me what I felt was largely a ‘One Server’ vibe.
That campaign, I saw so much character development, not with just my own, but with everyone’s. We need another sever wide campaign like that – AD really came together and delivered a outstanding two part campaign for the opening of BfA.
After the years of ‘Pick a side, or else’ back and forth from various ‘communities’ and whatnot (and possibly some bleed over from the escalated tribalism brought on by BFA) I’m not massively surprised.
No, and it is not wholly unwarranted, but it is a sharp difference between “now” and “the golden age.” A lot of roleplayers treat an outsider who is not a part of their bubble, initially, with a deep distrust. That was not at all the case back in 2009 - 2013.
People were more open back then, and less distrusting and snobbish.
It is as Niars said (Hi Niars! Long time no see!), there was a far stronger community feel, and even OOC enemies did still RP with each other most of the time. You had a single RP community, and people cooperated to make it work. Yes, despite the grudges, at times.
The RP itself is not better or worse, but this truly stands out to me.
There are way more quel’dorei roleplayers in Stormwind than I remember when I stopped playing just before Shadowlands. Is this how the Horde felt in TBC? (I kid, they’re cool! ) I feel like human, dwarf, gnome* (to a lesser extent) characters were more common there from Cata to BFA, but guess it may be because there are more (accessible) options now than ever.
I’ve noticed that some people in the walk up RP scene are super up-front about what they won’t interact with in their RP profiles now, (usually DHs, Dracthyr, Man’ari Eredar, etc) but I’ve only poked around for a couple of months after a five year long break so take that with a grain of salt.
I appreciate it, I think; it would’ve saved me a lot of trouble when I was a Cathedral Square DK in Cata/MoP.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. I can remember that there was certainly snobbery in wrath & cata (think i started roleplaying in late TBC and early Wrath).
There was that atrocious blog dedicated to lampooning people’s MRPs either for poor english or a bad character concept. As an example.
These are the musings of someone who’s only been here for a (comparatively) short time, but looking from the outside at all of these campaigns from Ye Olde Argent Dawn, I really wish people still found the main playable races as interesting to play as before. It could just be my luck or pure coincidence, but things like MU Orcs, Darkspear Trolls, Humans from Stormwind, and many others have become a rarity in roleplay.
As someone who really enjoys Warcraft’s lore, it’s just a little sad that there are few roleplay characters interacting with some of the most extensively fleshed out (and in my opinion, some of the better written) parts of Azeroth.
I second this, I strongly disagree with the narrative that the community was better in the past, I had awful experiences in my early RP days during TBC-WOTLK
I distinctly remember being treated pretty badly by other RPers I ran afoul of, I’m dyslexic and I remember distinctly when I would make spelling errors a particular group who had it in for me would make jokes about it IC, they’d also pretend to engage with my character and my RP to lure me into situations where they’d then ‘kill’ my character they’d also see I was trying to RP with other people and they’d try and lure those people away from me.
It was super awful behavior it pushed me to the fringes of the RPing community for a long time and it also made me resolve that I’d never make any other RPer feel that same way.
I also recall that a collection of RP GMs set up a channel to collab on RP, but it very quickly turned into an elitist RP echo chamber where they’d laugh at people and guilds that didn’t meet their standards and in some rarer cases actively sabotage other guilds that didn’t fall within their bubble.
These are some dire examples but there was a lot of good as well, I think there’s always been awful little bullies in this community back then as there is now.
I get what you mean, i just thought it was crazy to have a rose tinted glasses type thread about the “old days” before you started playing when even by your own admittance youve been an rper for a decade! I think calling people who started RPing a full ten years ago “new” in any way feels completely insane, as though in order to be an established rper on AD the amount of time youve been rping your character is legally allowed to drink. Ive met people who’ve been playing wow since classic who I’d rather never interact with again, and people who started RPing less than a year ago who i deeply admire. The nostalgia factor is great and im glad everyone here is enjoying it but calling yourself new because you’ve “only” been on AD for a decade feels like its downplaying both your own and other peoples dedication and enjoyment because they didnt have a wow sub in 2010, and that feels weird to me.
Also being in a hobby for a decade means youre not new that feels insane to even consider
I don’t think anyone in this thread is seriously insinuating that people who started playing a decade ago are new, though. According to the OP’s own words they started later than many, and hence being newer, sure - but I doubt people think they’re new around.
My read was that the OP is merely interested in hearing how people remember the server in its early years.
Like I said, I get it and i’m glad that everyone is having a fun nostalgia fest. But even saying that you’re ‘newer’ to rp because you started a full decade ago rather than y’know, 20 years ago still feels bonkers is all i’m trying to say.
Like we’re talking about RP that was happenning before I and no doubt many others were even in our teens so, naturally it’s just odd to see where the line between ‘old’ and ‘new’ is drawn, and all I’d say is, ten years is far from new xD
Yeah, I suppose people perceive the terminology slightly different. I for example read ‘newer’ in this context simply ‘not as old as’, rather than being ‘newish’ to the realm.
the joys of language. enjoy your nostalgia, honestly if you’ve been rping on argent dawn for 20 years you’ve earned it. Can’t wait til i get to tell people about the rp i was doing when they were kids, it’ll be a whole new world xD
The other thing about Ye Real Olde Days/ Vanilla was how much larger WoW felt at the time - it was months and months before my Night Elf ever made their way to Stormwind IC. You’d spend your time walking (on foot! uphill in the snow!) through Teldrassil and Darkshore (before they blew it up, those damned dirty apes), marvelling at the trees that went up forever, and that might be your RP for the next few weeks solid. Flying wasn’t a thing, portals were rare (extremely so in the Night Elf community - no mages!) and Flight Masters were somewhat more spread out.
Between that, no phasing or sharding and the lower population, it meant that you tended to avoid territorial disputes, and when you did bump into other roleplayers it usually meant your evening’s plans had shifted to some impromptu camp social/ tense interfaction standoff.
Stormwind was a whole other ball game but I particularly enjoyed the years in the Watch and interactions with the Legitimate Business Club, Shield of Light, Stormguard and Shadow Sentinels in that time. And a little before that, Tobes and Ath’s parties in the Park with the abovementioned Shadowdancers providing entertainment.
Again, this is all very rose-tinted for me because it was the time I enjoyed most, but I accept it wasn’t perfect and everyone has their own preferences.
I may be committing a faux pas here by double-posting, but for some super nostalgia, take a look at this article (largely focused on the Argent Caravan event, and Stormwind at the time):
(for those scared of spoopy links - this is part 2 of Dr Marinka Copier’s PhD thesis entitled ‘Beyond the Magic Circle - A Network Perspective on Role-Play in Online Games’, and can be found hosted on the University of Utrecht’s site via some quick googling, or your local friendly university journal hosting site).
Much like the oldest AA articles, they’re a real glimpse into history and what was going on back then - and moreover, something that again you don’t really see much of these days - independent in-character newspapers/blogs.
Yeah, the only one I can see being that slow is DKs, who don’t get any option and have to do the original Wrath tutorial area.
Which is… kinda agaonisingly slow, I can’t lie. Mostly because it hasn’t changed a single bit from when it was designed to have a Current player population going through it. Not… one person.
Depends really. If you’re really immersing yourself in say, exiles reach, (or getting unlucky with lots of people around, which does happen) it can take a surprsingly long time. But otherwise it’s possible to blow through it 20 minutes or so.
I’m not entirely sure why somebody would want to go that insanely fast, but it is possible. Otherwise it seems to take about an hour.
The, what I will in hubris call the ‘real’ start zones, can take a fair bit longer… mostly because the travel is very much locked in the ‘old era’.
Mulgore for example, if you do just the isolated start bit it’s about 15 minutes. Mulgore as a whole (if one wanted to or wanted to learn about tauren stuff for rp? A fair bit longer.
) I feel like human, dwarf, gnome* (to a lesser extent) characters were more common there from Cata to BFA, but guess it may be because there are more (accessible) options now than ever.