Wyrmrest Horde RP has been dying out for a while now, and it’s pretty painful how obvious it is. I think Shadowlands especially took a big chunk out of the RP community in general, so that in just didn’t help WrA-H’s already shrinking population. A few years ago you could go into Orgrimar and just get those oh so casual walk-ups. But Nolsferatu has a point. Moon Guards A side might have the larger population, but that also means that it’s just inevitably going to have a section that might also be on the younger side - thus more free time. People want a long term roleplay partner and a story or connected stories that they can feel engaged in, especially for those of us who simply don’t have as much free time as we used to. As the server ages, so do the people who are here. And there are a LOT of regulars who’ve been here several years to be honest.
But it’s really a domino effect isn’t it? People see less activity on H side, so they swap to alliance, swap to a different server, or just swap to a different game all together. Log into server > get frustrated that there’s a small population > swap to a diff server or play an alt more > there’s now less people on WrA > rinse and repeat. When I had come back from a break around the beginning of summer last year it was pretty clear to me that the Horde side pop on WrA was dwindling. That’s of course for various reasons, but I distinctively remember having buddies who were tired of not being able to “fit the bill” of niche RP groups at the time, or even find anyone to play with that enjoyed being around so they left for Moon Guard, Stormrage, Tichon, ect ect. hell, even as an avid PvPer and raider it was just frustrating for me to find a group that I could feel I could get along with and wanted to stick around. And it didn’t help that having those limited options either.
So I jumped ship around November or December with a friend to go over to Moon Guard since it was…you guessed it, more populated. I don’t know what the current RP scene is currently like since I only hop onto my WrA toons every once in a blue moon to play with some buddos here, but I’d imagine you’d have to go out searching for specific groups as opposed to being able to just go up to some random bar and find some whoever to have a one-shot RP experience with. It’s not fun logging into a server on ANY game and walking around and not finding a single person, or those that you do are just AFK waiting for the walk-up that will never happen.
I noticed server sharding hasn’t come up which is a -major- factor in perception. I posted a thread none too long ago of two different characters logging into the same space in Orgimmar at the same time showing that one has a whole populated city whereas the other looked like a ghost town.
Even this late into Dragonflight’s lifespan, the sharding is still pretty aggressive.
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Not sure if this is the reason, but every time I head to VoH, I end up seeing very few people there and Vulpera outnumbering everyone 5:1.
Not really a reason since Vulpera like to RP just like everyone else.
That said, most the Vulpera who also engage in longer term storylines and are doing more than absolute SoL or comedic relief are generally not in the VoH for RP as I have seen.
You see very few people, but there’s a lot of vulpera.
I’ve had some luck finding people who don’t mind playing up the rivalry? It takes some mental athleticism to justify it (no more than any other weird thing that requires hoop-jumping in this ridiculous game), but it can work.
People are hard as heck to find, though. The Valley of Honor is still the best place I find Horde RP, but it’s mostly everyone just sitting around talking to Vulpera.
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So is Orgrimmar and Stormwind still sharded? I know they had to for the DF launch due to lag.
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I was going to disagree then forgot I’m still on WrA lol. Still, it’s a lot lower. Thunder Bluff used to have fairly regular activity along with Silvermoon and that’s just not present like it was 5 or 6 years back.
MG I suppose has Horde RP but very little in the way of stuff in cities, so, it makes it pretty rough if you’re not in an established guild already.
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guilty as charged
i’ve never really been a VoH RP’er, to be fair, but I’m planning on hosting some long-term storylines on my Vulpera dealing with Zandalar and Kul’tiras. They’ll be public. Keep an eye out.
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WrA is like a community of campers. We go out into the world and play off the environment.
MG is like NewYork.
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my guild frequently rps in Tyrs Hand, I know most groups have their preferred locations outside of the capital cities
I want to give them a caravan park
On the rest of the topic, i think Nos has a point. When I started RPing back in MoP I was a somewhat lazy and carefree university student. Since then I’ve gotten a job, gotten married, had a couple of kids, and generally gotten tons busier.
I used to RP near daily, usually in Stormwind or Orgrimmar (to the point that I got sick of the places). Now I maybe do it once or twice a week, and most of that is guild or friend group stuff. I maybe make it to the Valley of Honour once every couple of months. I’ve made it to Duskwood like twice ever. Still subbed, still playing, just much more casual than I used to be, even on the RP front, and my limited time often goes into my pre-established connections.
I’m sure I’m not the only one in that boat.
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And we do the ruins where DK starting area was.
Doesn’t help that the overall storyline is kind of bland.
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Blizzard cramming loads of quest related NPCs in the VoH still disappoints me. Kiro can stay, the other NPCs need to scram.
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I think something also needs to be mentioned here. The RP landscape has changed, dramatically and not always in a positive way. People are very touchy, and I don’t mean about issues that are important and should be addressed. I mean in a way that has me a bit concerned for RPrs overall mental well being. It makes running RP guilds extremely stressful and not really worth it when more of your time is dealing with self created ‘drama’ instead of running events. Who has time to deal with issues like that AND have a life, and run content etc. ? I think the social landscape becoming more volatile has caused a lot of people to fall into burn out and just quit the scene entirely as a result.
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Oh, I want to keep calling it “the scene.”
We’re the cool kids club, it’s true