Not to go off-site, but personally I use the Argent Archives to browse recruiting guilds, and over the first two pages it all boils down to essentially three things.
Knights
Crime
Mercenaries
Given that on page 1 one already gets to something akin to “70 Weeks since last update” I felt like venturing past page 2 was… redundant.
So, where is the magic? Finding a place that even mentions magic in any considerable way has been a challenge. Not to mention any word on Warlocks.
Is… browsing the Forums really a better alternative?
The forums and discord is a better alternative to finding guilds to Argent Archives because of three things.
The code is clunky.
Seriously, as far as I’ve been made aware, the person running it had two options. Keep things as clunky as they are, or, renew the page’s code and completely erase about 15 years worth of a RP archive’s content. To say that the name of ‘argentarchives’ was the greatest foreshadowing of AD storytelling is an understatement.
Not many people use it.
Because of the above, Argent Archives isn’t used too much. It’s mostly just used as a TRP back up thing and a place to post character art, as well as having a public calendar for RP - but, honestly? That’s about as much as it’s used for right now. And even within those people who use it, if you take notice of it, it’s mostly humans, which brings me to my next point.
The Alliance Barony of Argentia Archives
The balance of the site is so near-overwhelmingly full of Alliance humans and nearly nothing else that there’s a lot of self-contained stories about entire cities and baronies right in the heartland of contested or straight up Horde territory which is able to withstand any threat.
An already dwindling non-Alliance RP playerbase using the site has practically been catapulted away from the site purely because of the fact that for every one Horde or Neutral (including magic group concepts here) story that takes into account just how the power scale of the factions are, or magical research, or exploration, and many other kinds of adventures and stories, there are twenty Argent Archives stories about how, actually, there’s a powerful human barony that goes to a different school which is so so so so powerful that it can solo the entire Horde for as long as it wants to and you can’t do anything about it or interact with it in any way- which you can guess drives a lot of people who aren’t interested or involved in those stories the hell away from the site.
The best alternative is looking around in-game, whether it’s via hubs, recruitment channels, or just spotting people with interesting transmogs, TRP profiles and guild names. There is no publicly accessible platform outside of the game that has a very diverse selection of guilds.
I wouldn’t say that the forums are a better choice. Most recruitment threads are left to fall by the wayside (outside of a few communities who regularly bump theirs) simply because the forums aren’t used that much, except by a relatively small bunch of regulars. When I dipped my toes back into WoW a few months ago, some of the most populous roleplaying guilds were ones with no forum presence at all.
Maybe things will change with the expansion, but I think that your best chance is to just play the game and see what you find.
Argent Archive is kind of defunct really. You can check the forum but only limited number of guilds maintain their recruitment threads i.e. bump them regularly. And it’s always been the case that only a very small proportion of AD’s pop actually posts here. There’s Discords but they kind of have the same problems as the forum.
I think the best bet is to break out the TRP scanner and see who is RPing in places you want to RP and then go from there. At the very least if you do that you can be certain of finding an active guild, rather a forum/discord/AA post regarding a guild that died months ago.
If we´re talking purely about guilds that have magic as main focus, Kirin Tor Intelligence comes to mind.
If you want to RP a warlock, there´s cross-faction Legion cultists Cleft of Shadow/Ashen Wake.
Then there are plethora of guilds that utilize magic a lot (for example the one I´m in), but has primary focus on other things, so it doesn´t really come up in any recruitment threads or posts.
When it comes to Argent Archives updates, there´s a one pretty big problem with it: You need to manually change something in your guild page for it to be viewed as an update. So unless the GM keeps in mind to bump their own guild page on AA, it falls into obscurity.
There are guilds out there that have not been updated in over half a year, yet are still active and I have interacted with them even in the past week.
Argent Archives is pretty much defunct, as mentioned by others.
Most non-human guilds actively involve magic and fantasy elements, so you don’t have to specifically look for a Kirin Tor guild or the like. I know on Horde side at least there’s a neat shaman community, and there’s also sizeable guild collabs on magical stuff.
All valid suggestions. The KTI are not an option, as are ‘Legion Cultist’ or ‘evil aligned’ guilds.
That is one of my main Issues. I have actually been seeking a Guild on this character specifically for a few years now. But the one-note perception of Warlock = Evil has consistently hindered me.
I want to be a Warlock and not be evil. Like, at all. Morally questionable at most. Warlocks are an asset, and that is the role I want to fulfill.
Well, main issue is that Fel does turn people evil eventually, so most guilds that are on the good side just have zero reasons to accept actual warlocks.
The only guild that might fit it that I know about (there could be more) are these guys. They are however mercenaries, so not sure if that´s something you´d want for your character.
This resonates with me as this is exactly the sort of warlock that I too enjoy to play, the kind that delves into dark magic for causes they believe to be just. Ombashi here being my latest example.
It depends on the sort of magics you want to tap into most, warlocks are FAR more than just Fel despite how they have largely been depicted that way in recent memory. Warlocks draw upon all magic at their disposal to increase their power, as we see demonstrated in our class kits and during the Black Council questchains.
However, if you DO want to RP a Fel-using warlock while still being “Good” then that will likely prove a big challenge and be impossible in most guilds who are not very morally grey. I do think that Syelia’s suggestion of the Sunnyglade Ratters is your most likely option.
I think any guild that doesn’t focus on Light-worshipping will fit your character then, as they (usually) do not view warlocks as some grand evil. It all also depends on your character concept, cause ngl if you start casting Fel magic left and right - that will by default throw your character into the Chaotic Evil category by pretty much everyone.
The Highbloods recruit Fel users to put in some work for Silvermoon. True you will be on tight leash, but the Blood Elves are lessed concerned about the moralities as long as you don’t exhibit your demons in public and use souls of undesirables.
Do you specifically want to be a warlock in a mage-centric environment; or do you just want any place that accepts a warlock? The former is going to be extremely difficult but the latter is doable.
There is a lot of RP going on in Duskwood and Redridge these days. I’d advise giving those places a visit and see if you can find any interactions or characters you like and maybe team up with their guilds. What you ask is not impossible, plenty Alliance guilds will give you a “good” aligned Warlock a chance but others said, you’ll only find about a quarter of active guilds on AA or the forums, and that will heavily skew perceptions.
I’ve had quite the opposite experience, personally. This being mainly on Alliance side, even with my Character explicitly not being an active fel user, but more a Demonologist and Fire-based Caster.
People seem to forget that Warlocks are not all Fel, I’d frankly argue that Fel is quite an optional magic in the pursuits of Warlockry, given how few spells without the green fire (which I have unlocked but do not use currently for aesthetic purposes) actually utilise it.
I’ve been pursuing the former, but I won’t turn down the latter. At the end of the day, I want to play my Character as she is. A Warlock in the name of Science, as it were. Researching Demons, using that research (and her Demons) to fight Demons and otherwise unsightly apparitions.
I’ve been avoiding Duskwood for both IC and OOC reasons, but perhaps I should give it another go. It has been a while, and last time I went the goings on around there were not quite how I want to conduct myself in RP