Unrealized Concepts

Wyrmrest Accord
1

For me, BFA has been a mixed bag of an expansion. Sure, I’ve got the same problems with it that everyone else has, but there was some good stuff too. One of the good stuff was Allied Races, if only because it made my alt-oholic brain SPIN with new possibilities.

Unfortunately, my alt-oholism got the better of me this expansion. I wound up rolling like, six alts over the course of the last year and, on top of three mains and three other alts, that’s a grand total of twelve characters I do content with/RP with on the regular.

As a consequence, some characters inevitably fell to the wayside so that others might take the stage. My secretly half-draenei Mag’har. My Kul Tiran runaway. I think the worst offender is my Lightforged Mage, who I leveled because I never really played a mage before but was always curious about it, and now that he’s nearly 110, I’m realizing…I don’t really like playing mage that much. Probably gonna re-roll him as a paladin.

Tied to each of these alts was a story - some independent from the stories of my mains, others meant to weave into their stories naturally. And the problem is…

I didn’t really get to tell any of those stories. Because I was too busy doing world quests and other end-game stuff on my mains, and on my alts I was too busy leveling them. Most of them still aren’t at 120 yet. Add other creative projects, other video games, IRL responsibilities, and plain ol’ procrastination on top of all that and, yeah. I kinda bit off more than I could chew.

And now the Fourth War is over and the last patch is in sight, it generally feels like I missed my chance to tell a bunch of awesome stories surrounding my characters. And I’m not gonna lie - I’m kinda bummed out about it.

Okay, enough getting stuff off my chest. What about all of you? Were there ever any characters or storylines you wanted to write or do, but for whatever reason, you couldn’t bring that concept to its full potential?

3 Likes
2

I’ve only really been able to handle one or two characters at a time, which means I roll a lot of alts, and then taper off around level 60. So there’s a lot of cards on the table here.

I think conceptually, I really enjoyed my undead hunter who made a reputation as a troll killer in life, and now that reputation precedes her in death. I also had a fun, post-gender pandaren I wanted to flex my writing with, but yeah.

I struggle with them just like I struggle with other classes or races that have stories pretty centrally located during one expansion. I could never get into demon hunters or death knights, and I worry about the longevity of my zandalari.

It’s funny, when everything gets too crazy and complex, I come back to Idenna. No super powers, no new, complex race dynamics to navigate. Just a lady with a knife.

2 Likes
3

I’ve quit WoW, and I’ve left a lot of stories behind. Telling the epic finale to a long standing storyline is now something I just don’t have time or the heart to do. One of my biggest regrets, though, is missing the Legion invasions. At the time, I was guildless. I heard the guilds and events at the time were so dedicated to fighting the demons off, that it felt like actually like the world was alive.

I wish I had seen it, but alas, that time is now long gone. My characters would’ve done well with an actual background in defending Azeroth, eh?

Otherwise, I spent a great deal of time crafting the story of Sint Dagon. Her family, her enemies, and the struggles that came from their war. It was a tad ambitious, for certain, and I worry that it’s ambition was the main reason I started to drift away from many other stories I wanted to tell. I still wish I could’ve finished it, reasonably.

2 Likes
4

I’m another one of those people who seems to only be able to focus on one character at a time.

I’ve been playing Trolls pretty much exclusively since '06. My main character for both RP/content for the longest was an old troll witch doctor (Discipline priest) . The first character I ever got to level cap in Wrath of the Lich King and remained my main up until the end of Legion. Rest assured that when BfA launched, I was eager to explore Zandalari society, parlay with loa, and immerse myself in inter-tribal politics…

It didn’t work out that way, though. Yeah, I ran through the story and content, loving every second of it, but in terms of RP, Tam here was getting entangled in all kinds of IC plots and obligations that saw her becoming the character on which I spent the overwhelming majority of my time.

So yeah. As usual, it’s all Tam’s fault.

2 Likes
5

Forsaken who has different skins she swaps in and out of depending on how she’s feeling that day. They’re all covered in tattoos that tell different stories or are covered in depictions of tall tales and legends she’s heard/was fascinated with and wished to keep alive, so to speak.

Former librarian in life.

1 Like
6

I love Forsaken so much, their story is what made me WANT to play World of Warcraft, and I have always loved the characters they produce. My first playable avatar was Forsaken but I never got a Forsaken Role-playing character down which has always kinda bummed me out.

I made a Undead Rouge who was IC a Veterinarian in Life. He cared and loved animals dearly and used medicine and alchemy to tend for them, silently resenting Priests and Paladins for their magical healing prowess. However this made him perfect for a life of Crime as unlike the more flashy Healers, he was a lot more subtle and had less scruples. Thus Thief’s Guilds and similar organizations would constantly pay him to stitch up their wounded. A tradition he would keep in Undeath.

Another Undead Char was a Toy Maker and Clown in life, before coming back and being horrified to find his mind filled with Fel whispers. This however didn’t break him like he expected, rather it strengthened his desire to do good in the face of temptation so he would travel around and try to bring joy and knowledge to his dour and grim people.

So much potential lost to the ages. I miss my deaders, but they have to be shelved.

6 Likes
7

Horde-side anything, full stop.

I’ve tried so many different character concepts over the years and nothing STICKS. The only thing that did stick was this guy right here, but I’m a grumpy old man to the point by the time Catacylsm rolled around I couldn’t in good conscious keep playing an Elf in the Horde and shelved the character until the Alliance got the proper style (if not skin color) elves to allow his switch.

What sucks is, the Vulpera look amazing and I’d love to roll one. But to do so requires me to run Horde content and rep grind appropriately. And I just can’t make anything really stick.

Part of that problem is that running Horde-side content now-a-days is a bit…schizophrenic. Depending on the zone or context of quest, you’ve got four potential WarChiefs.

But despite finding interesting things in the races of the Horde, nothing just grabs me enough to carry on with. And it’s frustrating because by all accounts Horde-side BfA is a great story and I feel like I’m depriving myself of it.

1 Like
8

This is where I have to do a little suspension during questing personally. Either that or if you want to have fun with it just imagine your character ran into Chromie or another Bronze dragon flight member and got sent back in time to relive events of the Horde. Thus you now can explain going through four Warchiefs.

9

I think that’s where I just run into trouble. I like grounding my characters to the narrative presented. Which really is why I haven’t HAD a true alt since Catacylsm. My last character was who this guy used to be, a Human survivor of Theramore who was picked up after the Siege (ie the Level 100 boost you got during Mists of Pandaria for pre-ordering WoD).

Full disclosure - outside Vanndrel here, I only have two other characters on my roster - both Hordies (One, who this guy used to be - now a Pandaren - at Level 103 and a baby Blood Elf Priest who is going to be scrapped as I’m just rather “meh”).

So yeah. I know a lot of people would be “Just blitz through the content with your Level 100+, be done in a week” but I’m weird. I have to FEEL the character and play style, and every time I’m on my Horde Hunter, I just keep thinking about Vanndrel here and why I’m not just playing him.

10

I had this thing I was planning with my Death Knight, Sinothyr, to introduce a new character; a woman from her past who she decides she wants to make a DK. The birth of concept goes at least as far back as late legion; it’s finalized version coming about during War of Thorns.

My plan was to have a couple events for the retrieval of this person, Lamastre, an overzealous Priestess of the Moon, and maybe one for her actual reanimation; after which I’d take the character to events and develop her further from there. The main idea was to have Sinothyr take advantage of the growing chaos to more easily achieve something personally wanted; that being the custody and control of a former mentor.

While I did manage to establish Lamastre it took far longer than I originally expected. The reanimation bit, or rather its aftermath, was covered in a story I posted in World’s End Tavern. Going forward there wasn’t many opportunities to develop her further, in part due to the RL obligations of those in charge of running scheduled rp. There was also my own concerns being split between various other things throughout the year, both in and out of WoW. I would try to set up something myself but I find I’m lacking both the spark needed to figure out how I want to go about advancing the character, and the desire to go through the effort of setting anything up atm.

More recently I had a plan for a campaign for Steelpaw Shao’din. It involved two of my characters, a Shaman and Shamanic Assassin, working to prevent potential chaos caused Azshara’s actions with the Tidestone along with some related things. I also began series of shorts that would prompt the events. My planning for each of these things fell by the wayside eventually as well; again mainly due to a seeming lack of activity to help maintain my motivation. I do still plan to continue the stories at least…eventually.

I also had a few new characters I thought of, some ARs and some core races; one of the more recent ones being a Blacktooth pirate who abandoned her old life to pursue the Way of the Monk. Once more I find it difficult to go as far I need to. There are a couple more cases but the reasons are more or less the same; a perceived lack of activity around me and a subsequent decline in the will to finish the things I began.

11

I feel this way about a lot of the core races. Especially the ones who have been there since the beginning. Sure there are explanations for why you weren’t involved or what you did but you do miss out on a LOT of good stories. I think there is a lot of unrealized stories for everyone here unless they have been playing the same character since the beginning and never took any real breaks. Like take Pandas, there is no question that people who didn’t get to rp during the events in MoP missed out on some great rp storylines! It’s part of the reason why, besides absolutely loving the race and elves(especially the more drowish/dark variery) that I’m rolling with Nightborne. I don’t have to come up with an elaborate backstory I’ll never get to play out about dealing with Outland,Northrend,etc.

1 Like
12

Pretty much all my Alliance toons’ stories will never be explored. Similar reason to Vanndrel except it’s the Alliance. Just doesn’t really speak to me.

I’ve got quite a few where I like the concept, make the character, and then get bored. I have a few detailed character descriptions of some of these in another thread, so I’ll keep it brief.

  • A night elf Priestess of Elune who was touched by the whispers of the Old Gods, slowly going mad over the course of RP. She’s a rogue that was supposed to become something of a dagger wielding fanatic. It never really went anywhere and she was too lawful good as a base personality to get into.

  • A demon hunter who got left behind in the Vault of the Wardens because she was reckless, young, and just annoying. Her crystal cell traded hands in the Legion for a few months before being rescued in Argus after people attacked it. Missing out on her chance to do the one thing she thought she was destined to do hit her hard, so she resorted to heavy drinking and acting like a vigilante, Batman esque hero in Darnassus, then eventually Stormwind. Actually still play her from time to time. She’s my most active Alliance toon.

  • A former satyr who, by a miracle of Elune, was reverted back to her original form. As per part of the miracle, she is now bound to never hurt life, despite how much her satyr instincts want her to. It’s made her a harmless trickster and pathological liar who tries her best to dance the line of her condition. So far I haven’t found a way to play her in a fun way that isn’t just obnoxious and “lol so random”.

  • A drust wicker construct inhabited by several souls. One is a former Thornspeaker who sided with Gorak Tul, then over the many years of isolation in Thros, he came to regret his decision and ended up in the wicker construct after trying to stop a binding ritual. His superior knowledge of drust magic allows him to control the body, or grant control to one of the other souls inside. His goal is to help the other souls find peace. His naturally somber nature makes it hard to keep things going continually, which is what I think the character needs to be enjoyable.

13

Despite Blood Elves being one of my favourite races, second only to Forsaken I’d say, I’ve never been able to settle on a concept for one. Much like Vanndrel. I’ve tried several, but they’ve never stuck. Ironically, I’ve got two void elf concepts that have worked out really well.

But generally my recent(ish) struggle is… I’ve always been an unrepentant altoholic. Particularly with my Alliance toons (as most of my RP friends have historically been Alliance, until my defection to Horde during Legion). I had all available slots WRA filled. I had some Horde toons on MG, weirdly. And I RPed them all pretty regularly. Up until Legion, when I left study behind me, and got a full time job.

These days, bound very much to only RPing at night, Australian time, I’ve found that I still love alts. I still want to make more toons. Any time a new allied race comes out, I want one.

But.

I find myself only able to RP a handful of toons and still get development in any reasonable way. Against my nature, I’m trying to limit myself to 2 toons per faction, a total of four. With uh. Several now OOC alts, or at least alts only brought out on demand. Background plot devices that more facilitate my friends characters than have their own plots/development.

And I hate it. XD

But it’s necessary. So yeah, I wouldn’t even know where to start. I have altogether too many unrealised concepts. But I’m having tremendous fun with Sarestha, my undead dk, and Fal’therin, my void elf hunter, so that’s something!

1 Like
14

Goodness, so many. Mostly because I’m plenty busy on Taina and truly enjoy my guild and those in it :heart:

I know a few out there know of Nita, who is a more relaxing character to play for me. I like walking up to people sometimes on her. She’s usually shy but breaks the ice by randomly stating a medicinal fact. She mostly stems from my willingness to be in medicine.

I also have Kanutoh, my gentleman dudebro shu’halo. He was going to be my first real foray into male-taurendom but…well, that sure fell through.

I remember having a character who had a Highland-esque type style of hair and body, and she lived in a little home in the Eastern Kingdoms. She was adept at basket-weaving and tending to plant life, but was actually more of a shaman than a druid (meaning, she could herald a few water spells to tend to plants). She couldn’t speak and challenged me with putting thought into her emotes–super fun until I wondered who would actually walk up to her. Some of her mannerisms were incorporated into Nita, but I really want to play her again. She was one of the sweeter characters I made.

Besides that, most of my Tauren are still stuck at or below level 60, while Nita, Dela’ne, and Hualane are all above 60. It’s a matter of time for me now, mainly since I just love Taina so much.

15

This post inspired me to try Nightborne once more. I’m not super keen on a large aspect of her leveling experience being “Out of Character”, but I can always fudge the details a bit. Maybe she goes on walk-about a bit, sees the world and has various adventures along the way that grows her history.

Course, that conflicts with the off the cuff backstory I wrote out for her (She was a trainee Sentinel during the events of Legion, managed to survive the “adventurers, murderers, and cutthroats” that infested her city and then promptly got told to GTFO by her new leader at the earliest opportunity.)

1 Like
16

I feel like you can kind of fudge some things especially now. Twilight Cult should be coming out of the woodwork to be doing stuff now so that could explain some Cata things. I think there could also be some potential with Time Walker esque justifications. I’ve played with that idea of potentially using it myself. Since there is probably a shortage of them that die on missions, during their off time in the war, and etc. It could also give people a chance to rp scenarios they otherwise didn’t get to be part of. Since I doubt time issues is merely limited to dungeons and raids in lore lol.

17

This draenei in Legion. Ultimately, I had plans for both my paladin (then warrior) Basteala, and Asayo here, as both of them had personal stakes in the war against the Legion. WoD left me super down on draenei, though, so I had little motivation to RP my spacegoat. Toss in the fact that Bast’s story involved running a mercenary company, and thus, GMing, I had little in game time for any other characters.

18

I am kinda bummed the Horde/San’layn alliance didn’t really go anywhere. I was/still am kinda hopeful for a vampy AR some day. But I am content with keeping my dk wampyres for now.

19

Anything outside of the hunter class.

I have several alts (some capped), but my best characters have always been my hunter’s various persons. In no particular order:

  • A draenei who rejected the Light and was more of a pragmatic a-hole, but also forced into caring for his niece who was a bright-eyed and bushy tailed younger girl who didn’t see the world so negatively.

  • A dwarf rogue who embodied a lot more of the “rogue” aesthetic than the usual idea of a dwarf rogue

  • Gnome knight. Not a mecha-knight, just a bog standard knight.

  • Worgen rogue, who started out as a human rogue sent on an assassination mission behind the Greymane wall and ended up becoming a worgen

I’m sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind. I’m trying to get back into WoW more so I’m hoping I can try something other than my usual.