Hey everyone. I’ve been playing on WrA for a few years now and have noticed lately that the prevalence of RP seems to have decreased since the buildup to Shadowlands. A few friends and I figured that this was due to people burning out on BFA, but even after Shadowlands has been live for a couple of months, it seems like there are overall less people logging on for RP.
Admittedly I play both factions (though I am a Horde main) and don’t exactly hang out in Stormwind or Orgrimmar (city RP isn’t really my cup of tea anymore). This perception comes mainly from noticing that less of the people I used to RP with are logging on, and it seems like there are less people showing up to events (in guilds I’m in and at server events I’ve attended).
This isn’t intended to be a “doom and gloom” thread; I’ve been playing Shadowlands and really enjoying it. The raid is fun, the dungeons are good, there’s something for me to like in every zone and covenant. But the RP scene feels a bit barren compared to what it used to be.
What do you think? Have you noticed a slowdown in your own community/circle of friends? Or are things just as good if not better than they were in BFA/Legion?
I can safely say that I have had no shortage of rp, there have been lots of people in Duskwood recently and I am in love with all of you. #MakeDuskwoodGreatAgain
I might be in the minority of thinking here but I feel SL isn’t an RP friendly expansion.
My limited experience the times where RP has been the most active(not necessarily the highest of quality) during expansions where both players and the factions at large are encouraged to be in conflict with one another (Catacylsm, MoP, BFA). But when faced with a common villian where the stakes are fairly neutered in their eyeroll tactics (Warlords, Legion) I’ve seen alot of storylines just fizzle out.
And now weve turned the realm of death into an Orlando theme park. It’s just been a turn off for me.
That said, all the more recent expansions have a gameplay loop that discourages just sitting in the cities playing pretend. If you’re not grinding X power or completing objectives for loot rolls, you’re falling behind and very rapidly at that.
This is kinda a double edge sword for me. I love to rp, but I also like having stuff to do to keep me busy. Like. I hate just sitting around looking at my characters going… “Well now what?” And previously that was alot of my time. But now I have all kinds of stuff to do, and not much time just roleplay. So now I just wish I had more free time to do all the things.
People come and go. Most of my friends list has quit for some reason or another, but it isn’t hard to meet new people either. They didn’t quit because of lacking in RP but because of frustrations with Blizzard, IRL financial issues, boredom or simply being overwhelmed with life. While BFA pruned my friends list, I’ve also added a solid 15 new ones since the start of Shadowlands.
I personally find the current state of things refreshing in Shadowlands for RP
It very much, as I will put it, eels like a return to normalcy for the world. Why Normalcy? Mostly because some malicious third power trying to steal your cereal isn’t new to Azeroth. The ultimate result for both sides I find is SL has removed the pervasive nature of faction that dominated the scene. Like, sure, probably wont like the other faction, but interaction with them in a non-hostile setting is far more excusable. Does it mean x-faction bffs? No, but I personally prefer a levelnormality over constant sneering at each other (but not being best friends either. That can get yeeted into the sea until story dictates it is actually viable for more than some fringe groups)
Most importantly. I enjoyed the RP scene in MoP. At that time the Garry loyalists hadn’t quite yet overstayed their welcome and it was more interesting to RP a rebel against them. It was not nearly as interesting with Sylvanas loyalists. It was “Oh boy, discount Kor’kron…” and, thanks to the rebellion overall being less important to the story, it was not nearly as engaging since it was like “Sure, Sylvanas loyalists pose a threat, but given my racial leader’s stance, it’s safe to assume the power they wield outside Orgrimmar is that of a paper tiger.”
I find RP opportunities to be increasing. As is the number of people I RP with.
For me the latest patch content doesn’t drive RP. To give an analogy from RL, I’m aware of how bad things are in Yemen, but it doesn’t force me to work on the patio jungle (potted plants) any differently.
I know there’s a general (might even say stereotypical) pattern - many people stop RPing towards the end of an xpac cycle, and many people are too busy running content of a new expac to RP. Maybe I’m weird (in the sense of being far from the norm) - I RP pretty consistently regardless of where we are in the content cycle.
When I first came to WoW back during MoP I leveled my first character almost entirely by doing quests, archaeology and pet battles. I only started to learn how to raid during WoD.
There’s a difference between play, game and sport. Play is strictly for fun. There may be some agreed upon bounds, but there’s no strict rule set and no score kept. That’s what makes a game: rules and score. Like play, a game is played for the sake of fun. Sport on the other hand, is a game plus some sort of extrinsic reward: money, prestige, social privilege, etc. If you’re more worried about being first than having fun you’re probably in a sporting competition rather than just playing.
It’s roleplaying. There’s no standard way to score RP, or get better gear by RP. Blizzard doesn’t host an international competition for RP groups or guilds. The only measure of good RP is fun. My fun doesn’t depend on how many people are in the party. The setting is important sure - it makes sense to RP Pandaren in Pandaria. OTOH some of the best RP experiences I’ve had were with other Pandaren players in a major city.
The fun I have is worth way more than fifty cents a day. And that’s all that matters to me.
In my experience, you see the most RP when there’s less to do with the game. So either people are still eating up the content and chasing gear, or they’re fed up with it and just chill and roleplay. Up until the middle of the expansion, Legion had less RP than WoD, even though Legion saw an explosion of players. It wasn’t up until 7.2 or 7.3 that I saw roleplay come back in full.
BfA burned people out quick, it was fast and quick to get strong gear, so people would finish a character and sit on it and maybe start roleplaying.
SL still has a big rush of people trying to get gear quick, but I predict walk-up roleplay will be coming back in as more people reach their gearing goals.
Same tbh. I actually largely had fun in BFA, despite the crappy stuff. Shadowlands… I dunno I’m just feeling disconnected from the whole story of Azeroth. I’m not loving Shadowlands that much. It’s more grind, that’s harder to do (no flight master’s whistle, all world quests take longer), and it’s hard to relate to in RP personally.
Tbh if not for my friends and guild I probably wouldn’t be here. And after a decade of playing WoW that’s a first for me.
I’ve played WoW off and on and RP’ed off an on since just a little before BC hit. I never really found any shortage of walk ups when I wanted, and even had a couple little interactions that lasted a couple months. But like I said, it was always off and on.
I didn’t dedicate myself to regular RP and “get into the community” until the end of Legion. And by that I meant I started thinking more about my characters and how I designed them. I downloaded addons to facilitate RP like TRP Extended, Elephant, and Emote Splitter. I started following RP events on the forums and social media. I started adding people I RP’ed with to my B-net ad Discord lists. I actually started being more proactive in going to RP hubs and events and initiating walk ups- then sticking to the resulting interactions and stories.
That’s when I found the frequency, reliability, and quality of my RP skyrocketing. When BfA prelaunch saw the introduction of Allied races, coupled with the introduction of the CrossRP addon/Elixir of Tongues, my RP got another big bump.
Stuff remained pretty stable throughout BfA. After patch 8.3 and the content slump the followed, things did indeed start slowing down, but by then, I’d joined an active guild and built up so many contacts that I was still RP’ing and meeting new people regularly.
With Shadowlands, activity has steadily been rising. However, unlike all the flood of flavor-of-the-month Allied race characters I saw around BfA’s launch, Shadowlands has seen more returning players, people who want to facilitate RP and newer players who are legitimately interested in the RP hobby.
The past 3 years have been the most fun I’ve ever had RP’ing in WoW.
Whether they Love BfA or hate it, everyone’s character could have an opinion on what ws going on during BfA. From the lowliest farmer who only heard about it fifth hand to the soldiers on the front lines of the war. It also gave us so much lore about AZEROTH through Zandalar and Kul Tiras too.
But Shadowlands is really far removed from Azeroth. Only the big name heroes are really involved. And the stuff they’re dealing with goes even beyond Azeroth- as it largely includes a place no Azerothian has ever been to and its goings on concern the fate of countless worlds.
And once the expansion’s over, none of this is going to matter to most of us and we’ll never visit the Shadowlands again. It has little to no effect on anything. You can’t say BfA didn’t at least shake stuff up.
I’ve been doing more content this expansion. Going for keystone conqueror and ahead of the curve and often it cuts into my RP time. But that’s not all.
I’m… not a fan of Shadowlands’s narrative from an RP perspective. To keep the complaint short, I don’t think it fits in with the WoW universe, except for maybe the Maw. It doesn’t feel like an afterlife for Azeroth, more like an alien dimension. Because… well, it is another dimension. The Death dimension. That’s the writers’ choice and just not one I vibe with.
Because of this, I struggle a lot to engage with the ongoing story, and the way I RP relies on a consistent flow of current events for my character to experience. Though I am trying to figure something out, as it stands it’s just making me less keen to RP. If there’s a noticeable lower number of RPers, that may be a contributing factor.
I am having much more fun with content now that I was in BfA, but can say with certainty that there are more planned server events happening now than there were during BfA.
tiny.cc/wowrpcal is the calendar myself and others manage for WrA & MG and there are so many events scheduled each and every night. Taverns? There’s reliably 3 on Tuesdays. Lectures? Happening at least twice a month. Markets? There’s been two every weekend in January. Storytelling? Happens weekly.
Granted these aren’t over-arching large-scale plot events like the Banshee Cough plotline run during BfA or Kingdom Come just before the release of Shadowlands, but there’s still plenty going on all over the place!
