Hi there, and welcome to the server! I hope you enjoy your stay!
Don’t worry - it’s totally normal. A lot of people get anxious in roleplay situations, but it does get a lot better the more you get used to mingling with folks! You don’t have to go out of your way to try to impress anyone ICly!
If you’re having a hard time thinking of how to respond to people at first, just start with striking up common conversations, or even asking them questions to get to know what their story is better if you don’t yet have a lot to talk about regarding your own character that you’re still fleshing out! Usually that’s a good way to get ideas for keeping up conversations.
As you continue to roleplay, you’ll more than likely start getting more and more ideas for what kind of person your character is and what you’d like for their goals to be. They don’t have to be an out of this world person! They can just be someone people can relate to and empathize with. After all, every person has things that make them tick and drive them to get out of bed (or I guess in your character’s case, the coffin) every day!
You’ll run into a lot of folks who are kind and understanding that you’re new to the rolepalying scene, and many will even be willing to help you out. Just do your best to interact with people when they interact with you, because otherwise they might just get the impression that you’re not interested in roleplaying with them. If you’re feeling too nervous or need to go when someone walks up with you, you could always politely excuse yourself ICly and let them know that perhaps another day you will continue on the conversation with them.
Also, I really recommend checking out some of the open to the public roleplay events that get posted on the forums here. A lot of them are neutral, so make sure you bring some items called Elixir of Tongues sold by a goblin vendor in the Dalaran Sewers in Legion’s Dalaran. It lets you understand what people on the opposite faction are saying in the Common tongue.
Public events are a good way to get your character out there and mingle, too! Though, you can also always get plenty of practice on a daily basis mingling with people in Orgrimmar, particularly at and around the Wyvern’s Tail.
Shaysinn offers some really good advice as posted above! On that note, here is a list of recommended roleplayer addons to enhance your roleplay experience:
- Total Roleplay 3 (TRP3)
- Cross RP (Lets you see the profiles of people on the opposite faction, and reminds you to refresh your Elixir of Tongues when the buff is about to fall off.)
- Listener (Makes it easier in large events to keep track of who is talking to your character by highlighting your character’s name in conversations and emotes in the main chat, and it also gives you a separate chat window that collects these “replies of interest” so you don’t have to scroll to find them again in the main chat. It also does this with characters you have targeted whenever they speak or emote, and you can set it up to include more “words of interest” to highlight. For instance, if you want to catch every conversation about the Titans, you can add “Titans” to the keyword database in the addon settings.)
I hope this all helps, and once again, welcome to the server! You will no doubt make many friends on both factions here, and more than likely a few folks who get cross-realmed into various events and the like! You won’t necessarily need to join a guild to get plenty of satisfying roleplay these days, though I do recommend attending some open events, joining some of the in-game and Discord communities that interest you, and skimming through the Horde Guild Directory thread that Shaysinn has awesomely taken the time to make, if you are interested in the near future in progressing your character through a guild storyline or are just looking to make even more pals!