I feel like people play their charecters as if they are not affected by anything. Like nothing phases them. They just have this jaded attitude where it’s like “oh I faced an army or demons today just another day” and they will make some stupid snarky quip about it and take a pull of their ale at the wyrvens tail. It’s literally the most cringe thing I see. It’s like every one wants to play some charecter from Archer and thinks they are the funniest person on the planet and it’s like no, you are not, you lame dude just stop lol. Like give your character some emotional depth, give them some ptsd, give them some Truama.
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There’s nothing wrong with characters being lighthearted, kind, or mostly unaffected by their past. It’s nice to have a character that feels in-depth without having some kind of haunting regret that always leaves an inky trail of sadness in their wake.
I had a character who had been shot with an azerite-loaded gun during the events of BFA, and he recovered, but now he has azerite permanently embedded into his arm like shrapnel. But he’s better now. He made peace with having a messed up arm. He’s not still sulking and sad about it 8 years later - it was out of his control. He’s just happy to be alive.
Our characters deal with things differently because it’s a way to etch our personalities into them. Some people enjoy the grit, even I do, but other people just want to have fun.
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This feels to be a very jaded take on RP, I can understand wanting more serious and grounded roleplay, but you can show that with more than trauma. I do agree with the general sentiment of wanting to roleplay with people who have their characters and motivations more fleshed out, but it’s okay to play more lighthearted or goofy characters in a world that is genuinely so depressing to live in. People RP for various reasons whether it is to tell lovely stories, escape from their day to day life, or just like interacting with the community. It may break immersion for you, but I feel that’s subjective to the person.
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Clearly did not suffer as a child to grow up using humor to hide the pain.
You wanna talk about something truly immersion breaking, people who use fast traversal methods (Blink, Fel Rush, Heroic Leap, etc.) while walking. Ic what’s actually the point of that? Are you in a hurry strolling your tenth lap around the Mage Quarter?
Disclaimer: I don’t have a huge problem with it, I just think it’s kinda silly.
Honestly imo it’s pretty ridiculous to see people roleplaying as anyone other than their character. That is the whole point. We get these great characters to play as. Yet I’ve seen people RP as ghostbusters and other IP characters and I wonder why are they even playing WoW if that is what they want?
The beautiful thing about WoW is that it makes RP so easy, most do it without even realizing it.
Let’s say you are turning in a quest. Instead riding your mount to the NPC and having it sit on top of the NPC, try dismounting a few feet before you get to the NPC, and /walk ing up to the NPC. Then /wave and /talk emotes, while you turn it in. Guess what? You just roleplayed.
It’s as easy as that. Talk to players, talk to NPCs, talk to yourself. Be your character as best as you can. A few emotes and one-liners here and there are all you need to get started.
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I think you are focusing on the word trauma to much. I just posed trauma as an example. I am talking about people who literally play their character like they just in that moment saw the most insane thing happen and they react with no emotion, in the most unrealistic way possible. Its like borderline soft god modding. Sure 8 years later your character might of gotten over it but like im talking as if some one that had the exact same thing happen to your character in that very moment just lied on the ground and was like ‘oh i’ve been shot, just another day I guess.’ People play themselves like they are to edgy to be affected by anything.
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That, my friend, is called sarcasm. In an absurd world, some people just wanna play the straight man.
Fundamentally, your problem is with millennials and their inability to take anything seriously.
That’s why they love irony and swear words.
I think the key issue (especially with novice roleplayers) is “main character syndrome.” They can’t fathom not being the hero, not knowing everything that’s happening, etc. There’s also WAY too much reliance on relationships with lore characters in situations that don’t make sense.
It’s one thing if you’re writing fanfiction and trying to insert original characters into the player character role. It’s another thing entirely in RP. Anyone that does this is eventually going to butt heads with someone else doing the exact same thing as both players will completely fail to realize we can’t all be the main character.
Let’s use Lilus here as an example. Because of how the Ebon Blade operates, an Arthas/Bolvar connection to some degree (in my case, Arthas) is almost impossible to avoid. In my backstory, I died in the Plaguelands after a botched mission and a zombie bite leading to a plague infection during a time when treatments simply weren’t available/known.
Ultimately: yes, I was raised by Arthas. After breaking free, it’d have been too easy to go on the stereotypical revenge tour all over Northrend. Instead, I had this character assist from the sidelines as she was shunned by the living. My only companions were my living sister and the mage that took her on as an apprentice in the Kirin Tor (two of my other characters). I’ve spent 17 years emotionally stunted and have only recently seen old traces of my old personality finally starting to surface.
Sometimes you have to take a step back and try to think of how you’d be realistically treated by NPCs in order to avoid the common pitfalls and traps that many new roleplayers tend to fall into.
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If that sort of thing is happening regularly and publicly, that should actually be reported as disruptive to the RP server environment.
I’m still fairly new to WoW RP myself, but I’ve heard the stories. I feel a key problem with RP servers is that too many disruptive people started to come over to servers like MG or WRA with no real intention of doing RP. The vets eventually got fed up and either quit or stopped reporting, therefore the clowns think there are zero consequences to their nonsense. The defense to such is almost always the same:
“But I’m doing RP!”
That excuse only goes so far.
In a different thread, I suggested at least starting with reporting non-RP names again. I feel like most the folks that get disruptive start there to test the waters before getting more and more blatant as time goes on.
Give it a read and consider it guys. The community is only going to get cleaned up once folks get fed up and start putting in the actual effort to fix it.
I think you’re mixing up those of us born in the 80s with the fresh batch of clowns born after the year 2000 champ 
The way you describe us sounds far more fitting for Gen Z or whatever the hell they are calling them these days.
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it’s unrealistic sarcasm. thus why I say it breaks immersion. Sure if it happens every once in awhile and its kind of done in a way that’s funny and well written sure but nah people will do 1 line response with no creativity and expect you to be awed at how calm, collected, and edgy their character is. Its just bad writing
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