It’s a question I struggle to answer every time I boot one up on my aging rig.
I hardly Raid and even when I was younger I barely cleared the 10 man raids in TBC. Dungeons quickly lose their appeal and I was at best considered “MID” at PVP. So I queue for battlegrounds, grind dailies and sit in empty cities and ask myself, “What am I even doing?”
I feel like the HardCore community lacks purpose and motivation. As stated numerous times before HC is a very unique mechanic that lends itself to two seperate communities; The RP and the PVE Raiders, both of which can get pretty sweaty. Many have already gotten to 60 multiple times… now what?
Compare this to my TTRPG sessions. A small group of strangers in a comic book shop performing bad to decent improv in a fantasy medieval setting (usually) is some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I actively think about the next time I can play all week. I know, any game will always have a disadvantage in the freedom of our imagination but my point is the powers that be are not going to implement sweeping changes to how the game is designed at this point. So we work with what we have, a blank canvas.
TL;DR
I am advocating for more casual adventuring RP, on HC servers, on a more regular basis. This would mean slower progression due to forming parties, paying mercs for hire, establishing backstories, banter, and most importantly deciding your characters Goal. Heck, now your alts can be dedicated to their profession and serve as NPC’s.
I know there are guilds already doing this now but not nearly enough tbh. It takes time to change a culture ya know.
Yeah i agree. Goldshire needs to be revived and grays needs to sell for a ton of gold on the AH so people can roleplay in sl*tty looking gear. Its great and is a great way to make some extra cash for stuff. Make all HC servers RP.
Honestly, you guys are right. I just need to do more a lot more research and trial and error. There is a bunch of wisdom here but it’s all theorycraft when not put into action.
Y’know I feel one of the big appeals to Hardcore in the first place is it’s roleplayish sensibilities and how it affects people’s behaviors when playing the game. Permadeath makes players naturally defensive and attempt to be more cautious, and that has added a whole new way of looking at the things that we’ve done before countless times.
It’s honestly addicting and I can’t get enough as even though the game wasn’t designed with permadeath in mind, it feels surprisingly resilient in it’s design. First Aid becomes more valuable than ever, health potions are actually sought after and stocked up on, cooldowns suddenly feel valid and even warranted instead of weirdly long in many cases because of their power.
But touching on “roleplay,” engaging in Hardcore is roleplaying and you can actually see hints of unprompted traditional roleplay in the community on a non-RP realm, which is saying something in 2024.
I feel that if a player ran out of things to do, they would roleplay much like how many players solo roleplay on games like Skyrim or FO: New Vegas, where you’ll see things like. Traveling crafters advertising free items if they can be found in the zone, players gambling in Stormwind, giving out gold for solving riddles in /s chat. I myself will keep playing until I finish Tier 0.5 on a few characters and then help others while roleplaying and keeping things fun for myself and others.
I agree with you, hence why I wanted to “encourage” not make people bend to how I want to play. But in order to do that, you are correct, I need to take a few steps back and see how others implement this now. Maybe I won’t be up to the task but I thought it might be something interesting to discuss.
This right here. This is not a WoW development thing. This is a WoW community/cultural thing. The community has never been deep into RP. YEs there have been some servers/guilds that rocked RP hard. But on the whole WoW players never wanted to pretend to be their characters. This probably wont change.
My advice is to look hard for the RP community that fits you best. Good luck out there
