My first character in World of Warcraft was a worgen rogue named Harwil, all the way back on Emerald Dream during Cataclysm. I was a teenager at the time, and I had no time, patience, or interest in many of the more “game-ified” metrics that I do admittedly enjoy today.
I ran around, questing erratically, and spent my time split pretty evenly 3 ways between roleplaying/engaging in community events, questing/exploring, and getting caught up I world PvP.
I played this character for a full year without ever breaking level 50, because SO MUCH of what made the game fun—what made this game the game that it is, to me—were those experiences. I wouldn’t enter a raid the first time for four more years, because this game was HUGE, and it was just not needed for me to have fun when I could march on enemy territories with my guild, spend hours skirmishing on the roads of the Blasted Lands, or prove to my guild that I was worthy of a promotion by infiltrating the Undercity.
This was in Cataclysm—a far cry from the peak or the “glory days” of RP-PvP environments, but not even close to the level of fragmented worlds and servers that we’d see by the time of, say, Warlords of Draenor.
RP-PvP IS the World of Warcraft. That’s why I’m so shocked and taken aback that they said they don’t plan to support it, and I won’t shut up until they change their minds.