It seems like a lot of rp themed guilds have disapeared in the non retail versions of WoW. In MOP there are a couple of guilds only on Grob from what I have found so far and Anniversary did not even get a RP themed server. Has anyone had better luck ?
Classic simply isn’t getting the traffic to merit a dedicated rp server.
Not that it matters, Blizzard stopped caring about rp servers on retail long ago… Realm sharding has destroyed them.
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It makes sense Retail would have more rp. I almost question how people would go about RPing in these legacy versions of WoW.
Would they acknowledge current lore, but in a way that’s fitting for the era (such as namedropping Boralus if they’re playing someone from Kul Tiras) or would they outright pretend the later expansions don’t exist and that these locations are still narrative blank slates that you can write plausible headcanon onto?
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It allows you to put in story hooks that reference future expansions instead of being blindsided by sudden changes in lore. At the same time, while referencing Boralus makes sense or mentioning worry about a family in Waycrest you would avoid talking about Shadowlands and entirely since there’s no way you know about it. It allows you to play wow through storylines with character arcs that makes sense with what’s coming up.
The only way I could see an Era RP group working now is having the characters aware they’re in what is effectively a Groundhog Day loop of the week before the Dark Portal reopens.
The problems with classic etc RP, besides population:
- everything in narrative after vanilla either completely sucks for RP or is followed with an impending sense of doom that the next major event in the story will suck. Why would you want to relive the investment of getting excited in Vol’jin, who will matter for five seconds?
- WoW has by far the worst feature set for RP among big MMOs until roughly BFA or SL with transmog being very limited for “ordinary people” of Azeroth up until then and no housing besides the WoD Garrison
- Beginning with Cata or so the game undergoes heavy lobby-fication which lowers the appeal of non-city RP
No population, no desire to participate in the narrative, no tools to make your own thing. After vanilla, why would someone bother?
World of Warcraft has always been terrible for RP.
Vanilla pretty much pigeonheld you into a certain type of character, most of the freedom and creative tools that allow RP to flourish either never existed in WoW or are fanmade addons.
Not to mention that when it comes to classic, most people fundamentally had a different means by which they would RP in the past.
People during vanilla’s era had a very different sense of how RP went about, and most of the time didn’t even RP Warcraft but rather GoT, LotR, Warhammer, or D&D. Most people could give a rats @ss about actually RPing in Warcraft specifically.
There’s also something to be said for lore in general.
During vanilla’s time the world was vague and relied a lot on the player to interpret or headcanon in a lot of the missing pieces. Massive missing pieces, might I add. Nowadays it feels like we have an answer for everything, which makes it difficult to RP in classic.
I specifically referred to “narrative” with the bullet you quoted and went on to talk about how bad WoW is for RP generally yes
Its that impending sense of unkown doom that makes me not want rp in retail. At least I know what is going to happen to Vol’jin and can make an informed choice on how I make and rp with my character. In retail it feels like driving in blizzard - I have no idea what sudden swings the story might take that could break the background or story I want with my character. At least with a progression server I can brace for these sudden jolts.
It used to be exciting to find out what would happen next, especially with new expansions, now I tend to just flinch. I am excited about housing though.
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I did a lot of RP in Classic from launch to LK, and generally it was a la carte for lore. Locations existed, but cosmic changes I ignored. Ultimately, in Vanilla and TBC there isn’t a lot of things that come up outside of edge cases that’d actually require much knowledge of Retail lore.
As for knowing what will happen, it’s all pretend. It’s acting, improv. Sure we know what comes next, but we can still enjoy the moment for what it is. I hate the fact that C’Thun was just made to be dead-dead after we poked his eye out in Ahn’Qiraj, but I still greatly enjoyed the leadup to opening the gates IC and OOC.
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As someone who just has good instincts?
Greenbud Goodleaf was solitary, even for a Night Elf. When the call came for his people to populate a new World Tree… he was reticent. He went to pay a visit, but he didn’t pack belongings.
He returned home, steadfast in his solitude. His people have lived on the continent for thousands of years - what sense is there in moving into a giant tree off the coast?
I was agreeing, yes.
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Probably on account of the fact that virtually all of the RP on classic has died. There’s no walk up scene at all and none of the guilds can recruit because new people aren’t joining.
It’s the same reason why RP is dead on retail outside of MG-A, AD-EU, and to a lesser extent WRA-H (though that’s been on a tragic decline lately as well)