Too much anxiety but wanting to participate

Hi all.
Shonah here.

I will be writing this as the thoughts enter my mind, so I’m sorry if this comes out as a jumbled mess.

Um. So, there’s a lot of nervousness here. I have attempted RP recently after some time in hiatus, and it is… nerve wracking, to say the least.

PvE has also been attempted, but the groups and guilds all seem to require discord activity, which isn’t exactly a strong suit of mine. (Listening can be alright. Speaking = freakout.)

Arenas are just no. Random bgs are alright, except guilt when I mess up.

Raiding is anxiety except LFR, sometimes. Same with dungeons— I really want to try tanking but I don’t know the routes and I am afraid I’d pull too slow.

So, anyways… I guess this is a long, drawn out version of “Is there a guild for me?” No mic req, accepting of returners / old school newbies, maybe RP and maybe PvE. (My character has some story. It’s been a while since I dove into lore, but being able to just chill in the background as RP stuff goes on would be nice.

CHEERS aaaa nervous okay bai.

-Shonah

ps: I like Shadowlands

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Hi Shonah.
I’m very similar to you in terms of the anxiety and not wanting to speak on discord with people. You mentioned you want to tank, I play as a healer and I could be your healer buddy! Maybe we could play together sometime?

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That sounds awesome ^.^ feel free to drop me a friend request in-game!!

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Hiya Shonah! ! ! overly exaggerated waving

I TOTES get the whole “Not Speaking” in Discord Chats! Nope, Nuh Uh, noooo thank you! Just my own little anxiety as well (trust me… I have very few! lol) But don’t let that stop you from joining what could be some pretty amazing communities! Nothing wrong with being a Wallflower until you are comfortable engaging more!

Now, TANK anxiety… I feel ya!.. It’s my all time fave, BUT… it really seems in this era of the game, you tend to get more and more toxic people who, no matter how/what you are doing, just wanna try and make others cry. Them’s called BULLIES!.. It really got to me for a long time, especially always being a bit behind on the Progression Race of WoW (I work, got kids, volunteer n such) and it makes the game content, well… not fun! BUT, silver lining: I recently remembered a very important piece of advice given to me a loooong time ago when I first started tanking, and it’s this: “There are only two group members who can set the pace of your dungeon run. The Tank and the Healer!”

So, phooey on whoever is trying to ruin your fun! Just communicate with your group at the start, let em know you are new to tanking and would love any advice and appreciate their patience. Most often times, the “toxic” player will dip out of the group knowing it’s not gonna be a super speed, raid geared run (again, soooo many bullies).

and if ya still have issues, lemme know and i’ll give em the hoof! makes grrrr face

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Greetings Shonah!! Welcome back!! I understand pretty much every worry you mentioned in your post. If you’re looking for a place to call home or even just temporary until you get yourself settled, Hell Hall High Council is recruiting. They are a new guild so the roster is growing everyday! Our patient staff are experienced with multiple class roles, and different activity. No worries about being pressured through a dungeon, or pvp. We have RP 101 classes set up for new or returning players. We take a lot of pride in wanting to help people enjoy their game time, and give them a fun community to participate and experience the game with. If you’re interested please don’t hesitate to send me a message in game or even right here! This invitation isn’t limited either!! If there are others reading this that are interested please please reach out and speak with an officer or myself! I look forward to seeing you as we traverse the Dragon Isle together!

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I’m pretty much on that boat as well. I used to RP years ago but things have changed a lot and I have anxiety trying to get back into it now.

Grouping except random BGs really makes me nervous.

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Our GM and Co-GM are quite active in random BGs. We are not hard core anything except just making a community to play with. Myself and a few other officers like to put together activities to get the guild playing together. I think it goes without saying that with the drop of the expansion most activities will be likely RP, PVP, Questing, and Dungeons. Once we have enough people at lvl cap and geared enough then raids will be a thing. Nothing is mandatory though. You can level at your own pace and those of us that are able will help where we can.

Hi!
We’ve been a guild for gamers with social/anxiety since 2012. Check out my posts

WRA [H][A] A guild for gamers with social anxiety
MG [H][A] A guild for gamers with social anxiety

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I recently told myself this thing when I decided to swap to healer from DPS:

“DPS is a dime a dozen. I am actually taking the time to learn a needed role.”

People may boo-hoo at a new healer not being God’s Gift to PvE, but ya know what? To heck with 'em! Let 'em say what they want. Let t hem boot you out of the instance, even, because every time you push a button you get better at it.

My job is to make sure the tank does not die. If DPS can’t get out of the AoE in time, they ded if I’m on cooldown :3

As for RPing with strangers, my best advice is to just wander around the city as if your character was running errands and ‘eavesdrop’ on active conversations. Be a person first, a roleplayer second.

My favorite starters for walk-ups is: “Oh my gosh, I love your outfit!”

Think of organic things to say while passing by someone. Someone is wearing a cute outfit, or, you like their haircut! It’s how humans do the social thing IRL, so it can be done in RP!

Do this enough times and get yourself five to six interesting people to RP with! Add 'em to your friends list and then run into them again while in Stormwind! You’ll stumble into more people after that, and eventually, you’ll find yourself a nice, happy spot in RP.

Take it slow. Just take a stroll around Stormwind at first. Learn names and transmogs. Listen to the Gnews every once in awhile, as that can lead to good conversation starters too.

I believe in you, Internet Stranger! <3

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sings off key and out of character YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
I truly got bit by the rp bug around outland/wotlk. I miss is and took a LONG hiatus. I miss it and have been pulled back into WoW but am terrified of everthing. It seems like ppl are fearless. Breathe. And struggle with me, knowing you aren’t alone in the anxiety and desire to return!

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Just want to say (not bragging many people have done many bgs lol) but i’ve done a ton of bg’s and if you’re exerting any amount of attention/effort to the objectives you’re doing better than most people in the BG.
The amount of bg’s i’ve done with people who just run off and attack the first red target they see (myself included) is pretty much every single one. No one is going to care if you mess up in a BG unless you take the flag and repeatedly die

If you ever want to do arenas with no coms hmu I get the social anxiety and always encourage people to PvP when I can.

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I can understand what you’re going through OP as I share many of the same concerns as you. I hope things can turn around for you and get better.

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That’s amazing that there’s a guild for RPers with social anxiety. I love it.

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Hey Shonah I tried adding you in game but it may have gotten messed up because of the special character. My name is Mim on Moon Guard! Try adding me there if you still want to play together :slight_smile: I could also give you my Battletag: Zaraie#1688

I feel you! I xferred to this server after seeing a certain bookish paladins videos and i spent TWO MONTHS typing in rp/ trying to walk up before i finally did (literally two days ago).

Won’t work for everyone but it took a few gin and tonics lol. The following day (read, yesterday) i started in the slaughtered lamb and just set a scene others could walk up to and spent hours rping there.

I also feel the performance anxiety, for some reason i have a wealth of confidence in raid but I’m scared pantsless of healing even low M+ keys (+6/7!).

I’m rambling, as i am want to do, but i just also want you to know you’re not alone :).

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The wonderful thing I’ve discovered while studying the culture of the RP server Moon Guard is how awesome most people are with walk ups. It’s rare I find someone I can actually converse with because I’m playing F2P toon these days (Pookamhura) so only people level 30 or under can actually hear me and see my emotes. What fascinated me is that some RP groups will have one member who will level lock under 30 just to act as a translator for the rest of the group when a F2P toon engages them. This is the sort of stuff that really fascinates the anthropologist in me and makes studying virtual cultures so interesting. Things like like a guild for RPers with social anxiety, and keeping a XP off toon in the party to act as translator. It’s so fascinating to see all the ways RPers deal with all this stuff.

It was interesting to learn there are different types of RP styles and how those different RP styles interact with each other.

The best thing about just walking up to people and asking them IC questions about them is even if your RP style is different from theirs IC they can just treat you like they would if a mentally weird person came up to them and started talking. So when the Pook is chatting with someone with a different RP style that conflicts with their preferred style then they basically can just act like the Pook is some poor little gnome who took too many bonks to the head and is a little bit weird.

I’ve never once had a walk up RP experience where the person I talk to gets upset because I’m not RPing the way they’re RPing. Pretty much every walk up experience I’ve had has been a wonderful opportunity to learn about how different people RP and how all those different styles of RP get along with each other. And I’m sure my mom is glad that I’m finally doing something with my education in anthropology.

Like I said before, I’ve been playing since 2006 but only in the last year, as a F2P have I been playing on an RP server and playing Twink PvP in any meaningful way and it feels like I’m playing the game on a whole new level and I’m absolutely loving it. The creativity and frankly the outright hospitality of the RP community on Moon Guard has been an absolute pleasure to experience. I wish I had taken the opportunity to engage with both the RP and Twink communities so much sooner as both cultures have been absolutely fascinating to study.

I don’t think I’ve had a single bad walk up experience since engaging with the community. I’ve had walk ups with “rude” characters (and those characters are rude IC not OCC because that’s the character they’re playing) but they’ve almost always put in their TRP that the character is surly but the player is not, and even those encounters have been a wonderful experience. I’ve certainly had plenty of walk up encounters where the characters have thought the Pook’s sanity was in question but that the Pook is “mostly harmless”.

In short, don’t fear the walk up. It can be a little intimidating but hey, there’s a reason why people put “walk ups welcomed” in their TRP. Their character might be a surly, grizzled old veteran who is gruff and rough with you but you can be pretty certain the player behind the character is loving the opportunity to take their persona for a spin.

Hey everyone, and thanks for the warm replies. (Shonah here… I adore worgen but felt like I should be an elf since they are a popular race. So I now I am true form ^//^ woof woof!

Thank you everyone. I was lukewarm towards DF but I think I will try it out… as healer ^^ maybe tanker too… since we set dungeon pace as yall said :3

Cheers so much. (Btw, I suck at replying in every facet of life.) looks at discord >_>

<3 wooffy

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I’m kind of the same way with the anxiety stuff. I hope you find a nice guild!

I was also the same with the social anxiety, especially on Discord. Turns out the guild I found was welcoming and accommodating to this, and helped me push through it a bit. I still don’t chat much in larger raid PUGs (Perky Pugs is a great place to find groups) but I learned that M+ isn’t too scary with the right group, and being among like-minded people makes things like Time Walking and learning Mythics a lot more fun. We literally warn folx who PUG with us that we’re chill AF and to expect mistakes. It’s made WoW fun again for me. (when I have time to play, that is)