As I’m sure a lot of you know, I’m pretty active in the World of Warcraft RP community, and I can practically be found everywhere. One of the biggest things that I like to do with some of my social media accounts (Such as Twitter) is share screenshots of events, highlight event organizers and members of the community, and engage with other Warcraft players who do more than RP - such as people who PvE, PvP, or just play the game in general with friends.
One of the most often asked questions I get from other players is how to get exactly involved with Roleplay in the first place. A lot of people who are interested in the hobby but unsure of how to join think a lot of things about Roleplayers that really aren’t true; such as thinking that to get involved you either have to know someone who can introduce you to the community like some sort of mafia member. Other people seem to think that the stereotypes of Roleplayers are true, in how a lot of us are grandiose, larger than life, and full of Mary Sues and are worried about stirring the pot when it comes to wanting to roleplay concepts that they find interesting. Others still don’t know how to engage other people and often feel awkward logging in and approaching other players.
My advice to these people used to be pretty simple: Just walk up and start talking to people, and observe how they do things. Sometimes this works out perfectly well, but a lot of times I find that this isn’t very sufficient for new players getting into the hobby. They’ll try to do that and they’ll find that they still don’t know what they’re doing and this can sometimes lead to conflict that they’re unprepared for. Conflict that sometimes does chase them off and make them feel like they’ll never be able to join us.
It’s no secret that our Community on WoW fluctuates depending on the expansion cycle. We’ve seen it time and time again from how it remains stagnant during an expansion’s beginning, grows in the middle of it as people start to explore other game options, and then decreases as the expansion drags on and people want to do different things. During the middle of the expansions cycle though we see a lot of new people come in and wanting to explore and try things out for various reasons.
This is great because a community thrives off of new blood coming in since old blood cycles out continuously. It’s how communities grow, and remain healthy. Unfortunately, the old advice I gave of “Walk up to people and start talking” just doesn’t seem to work as well as I thought it would, and so, I wanted to do something that explains Roleplay on WoW a little bit more in-depth for people who want to give it a try.
This is where I’ve written this Guide. It’s called the “Warcraft Roleplaying Guidebook For Beginners” because I feel compelled to give things fancy titles, but really at its core, it’s just a small guide for people who are new to Roleplaying on Warcraft and need a little bit of guidance on how people generally interact with one another. While I still firmly believe all you need to do is just talk to people and observe, I hope that this at least helps give a clear idea to beginners who are starting out, either playing WoW for the first time or just trying an RP server for the first time.
Instead of one large Guide to link to, I’ve instead broken it down into smaller components for readers to look at, as a sort of “Table of Contents” on what they need help with exactly. As of right now, I’ve only got a small section of the Beginner Guide done, with each new section coming out Mon/Wed/Fri. So expect to see more down the line. I’ll be updating this Thread whenever a new section comes out (or if you follow me on Twitter, can see it as I post it).
Beginner Guide Section
NOTE - There’s a space between tinyurl and .com, simply delete that space
Part 1 - Introduction – Understanding, the Basics - tinyurl. com/rpguide01
Part 2 - Servers – Which One to Join - tinyurl. com/rpguide02
Part 3 - The Roleplay Profile - tinyurl. com/rpguide03
Part 4 - Extra Chat Functions - tinyurl. com/rpguide04
Part 5 - Misc Addons - tinyurl. com/rpguide05
Part 6 - Installing Addons - tinyurl. com/rpguide06
Part 7 - Roleplay Etiquette Introduction - tinyurl. com/rpguide07
Part 8 - Tense, Perspective, and Attempts - tinyurl. com/rpguide08
Part 9 - Consent, Courtesy, and Adult Themes - tinyurl. com/rpguide09
- NEXT SECTIONS COMING UP SOON -
And there we go. I hope this helps out new players to the server, since having new members join and interact and having fun is always a great thing to see.
Another thing that I want to include in this post is also links to other resources that can be found on the Forums; from either Moon Guard, Wyrmrest Accord, or the Worlds End Tavern. Considering that I’ll be posting this on all three, I’m hoping that Roleplayers will be able to see posts that are relevant to their interests outside of the Basic Guide and can cover a myriad of other topics too, such as Running Events, joining Communities, Creating their own Communities, Roleplay Applications of In-game Items, and so on.
Further Roleplay Guide Section
HORDE ROLEPLAY: A LORE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS by Flywheel
- NEXT SECTIONS COMING UP SOON WILL EDIT IN FUTURE -
F.A.Q
1) Do you plan to format this thread to look nicer?
A: Yes I do! Currently, my forum Trust level is only 1, but I intend to try to get to Trust level 3 as quickly as possible so I can give it proper links, graphics, and more in the future. So stick around for a bit!
2) Whats your future plan with this guide?
A: Right now it’s mostly gathering other guides that others have done, putting in the other sections of the guide I did, and working on my Forum Trust level so I can make this look nicer down the line.
- More questions coming soon! -
Thank you for reading, and I’ll be editing this mega post over the next few days as I gather more guides, and come out with further parts of my guides, and include a F.A.Q section on questions I’ve been asked and will probably be asked.
So when’s the next one comin’ out?