Since Wyrmrest Accord’s anniversary is in 2 weeks (January 16th), I thought it might be fun to visit our WrA memories:
What brought you to WrA and what other server or game did you come from (if any)?
Tell us about your first WrA character(s). Alliance or Horde? Are you still playing them? How have they changed?
What was your most memorable RP experience on WrA?
Is there anything you’d like for WrA in the future?
I started out on The Scryers when I first started playing WoW for real (beyond one brief 14 day free trial that I tried out with Burning Crusade), because I had no idea there was any significant difference between Roleplaying realms and just picked the one with the coolest name. Color me surprised and disappointed when it turned out to just be a completely standard PvE community, and I basically stopped playing regularly until I started hearing rumors about Moon Guard and Wyrmrest being more immersive. I was also having serious latency issues with my ISP at the time, so I rolled a new character on each server to test my ping… and Wyrmrest won by about 70ms.
My first character was a Blood Elf rogue, who was… embarrassingly edgy and obnoxiously sarcastic to a point that gives me genuine anxiety when I think back on it for too long. In hindsight, I feel like it’s a genuine miracle that anyone on this server was willing to interact with me, but I’m so thankful that those people were willing to tolerate my angsty nonsense until I finally grew out of that phase.
I eventually faction changed that rogue to Alliance as a Worgen during Cataclysm, replacing her with a Blood Elf hunter who was my go-to forum persona for years (“Soniae”) until I race changed her into a Zandalari at the beginning of BfA. And then leveled up Sairelle to be my new main RP character.
To this day, I think my most memorable RP experience would be getting roped into a patrol of Northrend. It was a small group, I think there were only four characters involved unless I am forgetting one — an Orc, a Troll, my Blood Elf rogue, and another Blood Elf mage. The storyline fizzled out almost immediately; I think it only lasted two nights in a row before schedule conflicts became an issue of everyone not being able to show up. But even in that light, it is something I have been chasing ever since: that kind of small, tight-knit group on an adventure out in the world. But no matter how many times I’ve tried, I could never recapture that kind of organic character chemistry where everyone felt like they were an important part of the larger ensemble.
For Wyrmrest’s future, I think my main wish is that I really want to see Silvermoon come back to life, because I just hate Orgrimmar being the only place that you can reliably find people to roleplay with outside of specific guild-driven events. All of the buildings are just way too small and claustrophobic, which makes it so awkward to find interesting things to do as an invitation for people to interact.
So, I originally came here from Ravenholt after spending pretty much the entirety of Cata there. When searching for a new server it was, perhaps predictably, between this and Moon Guard. Initially I chose Moon Guard and soon got involved with a guild, but they moved here not long after. I soon endeavored to follow but either never actually got around to contacting them again or simply fell out with them at some point; I sincerely can’t recall which.
I believe my first character here was Leandra Montebont, a Worgen Mage, the sister of one of my Ravenholt characters, Rosyllyn Montebont (also a Worgen Mage). At some point I endeavored to just remake Rosyllyn instead. I don’t think I used the same avatar as the current one is named after the latter character. I do still play Rosyllyn sometimes, though my efforts in roleplaying her have mostly died away, reduced to just internal updates to her life and references by my other characters.
Rosyllyn was a first on two fronts, my first Worgen and the first time I made a female character before it became a habit. The character of Rosyllyn Montebont was a Gilnean orphan, along with her aforementioned sister, abandoned by their mother with no known father. At some point during their childhood, they are each adopted by kindly Warmage and made his apprentices. Originally Ros gets the Worgen curse from Leandra in a feral state during the attack on the city. This was later retconned as her getting it after the exodus of Gilneas as part of her joining the Gilneas Liberation Front. Later she does a brief stint of adventuring before joining her family in Dalaran and joining the Kirin Tor. Much of my time rping Rosyllyn has entailed her conducting research for various projects that ultimately get interrupted by various events calling her action in various theaters of conflict the Kirin Tor involve themselves with. In doing so, I’ve given her a sort of growing bitterness towards the world that is staunched by the occasional good thing happening, an elven girlfriend, meeting new people, learning new things and so on. As of TWW she has two apprentices of her own, Katrina and Astralesh, and currently dodging spider people after escaping from a previous capture. Perhaps one day I’ll use her for a story or two once I finally get around to using that Ao3 account I made.
My memory overall is like if someone took a shotgun to swiss cheese, so I don’t remember a lot of my time here clearly enough to easily recall. Should I manage to grab something worth mentioning, I’ll be sure to do so.
The most I can hope for at this point is that this server remains a strong center for Warcraft rp. My own enthusiasm for it has waned significantly, so I don’t personally care too much what happens specifically, but it’s still nice to see an effort to keep things alive. As long as that continues, and I continue to have some threads here that are fun to read, I can be content.
WrA was my very first server. Didn’t come from another game but rather being a huge fan of The Guild. The guide that was included with the battle chest explained the types of servers, and I was immediately enamored by the idea of roleplaying. I did some googling to figure out which RP server I should roll on.
Ryka was my first character and has remained my main ever since. When I first started out a lot of her story revolved around covering for the fact that I was a total newbie, so she was a very young adult just setting off from Eversong for the first time. Now she’s a lot more worldly and has a history to pull from.
Hands down the most fun and memorable experience was when Ryka got super drunk at Brewfest and had a very messy, very public breakup with her boyfriend. It was a scene that could easily fit into a soap opera and I loved every minute of it.
I’d love more murder/mystery type events. Like everyone in a particular city being on edge for a few weeks due to a Jack the Ripper type character on the loose. Or spooky events of any kind, just to add some variety to the more common themes of military, politics/intrigue, crime syndicate, etc.
I used to play on the PVP realm Destromath but had always wanted to try RP. After quitting the game for a bit I moved to MG before coming to WRA.
I played Horde for a good portion of my time on WRA as the undead Versca. I play them as an alt now not an RP character. Felt the character ran their course and my friends moved to Alliance so now I’m a big space himbo.
A lot of good ones. Moots, funny RP, the many WPVP fights defending UC and Crossroads. We fought an Alliance raid that brought in that streamer Bahjeera and we still managed to merc all the Alliance leaders. The time I had COVERED IN BEES in my currently and a Nightborne going…oh…ohhh nooo and RP walked a big circle to avoid me LOL
Please end capitalism so I don’t have to work to survive so I can spend my limited time on this earth doing the things I enjoy like playing silly online make believe with my wow friends.
I honestly don’t remember what server(s) I was on first. I had been on at least 3 before I moved to Wrymrest. WrA had been open for about 3 months before I started a character here. A friend encouraged me to come to WrA and try RPing. So I did. I started a little Tauren Druid. I piddled around on her for bit and tried out some RP. The first time I tried some “serious” Rp, it was a disaster. I tried some walk up with people that I had seen around and thought they were great great characters. I didn’t know lore all that well, I was a little “edgy” - in hindsight I wasn’t that bad, but typical newbie mistakes with a first time character. They turned out to be really awful, mean people. They came after me OOCly in general chat - at the pond in Thunderbluff (which was one of the “THE” places back in the day for Tauren) and ridiculed me. It was truly awful. So awful I deleted the character.
I had made some friends by then, and moved Kina over and given her name change. So, I stalked RP events and people watched for a while before trying walk up RP again. I had also met more people who were really nice, and helpful. - And learned a lot more about timelines and lore. So that was my first year on WrA. Kinarra has been my main ever since. She’s still basically the same, just with “life” experience and a touch, or six, of retconning.
It’s hard to nail down one memorable RP experience. There have been so many, the majority from my time with the Earthspear Tribe. I remember more Story Circles than I care to admit, lol. And good grief, I remember some drama! lol. Mostly I remember stuff with did with Borgg’s guild, and I remember Thokk… and Keithoo. I remember Shirokk and his guild, and the story arc where he left it up to chance as to whether or not his character would survive a mak’gora (he did not, just fyi). I will admit remembering the korkron trials - and being involved in them. I also remember Earthspear trying some cross faction with Sholaad and his guild (I think Sholaad might have still been in high school.) Yep, lots of memories of people, characters and Rp. <3
I think, like other people, I’d like to see Horde Rp not be so focused on Orgrimmar. I’d like to give a shout out Raton and Wolfmane Tribe, and all the other Tauren tribes who are out there keeping Sha’ulo RP alive in Mulgore, and South Fury Watch for hanging on in the Barrens.
One of the things I miss is having a couple of mid to large guilds organize story lines along the lines of what Rykadiel mentioned - big ones that involve a good chunk of people. They are hard to organize and pull off, so I understand why they don’t happen. It is very frustrating to be on the planning side of that, so I’m not going to fault someone for not doing something I am not willing to do myself. But man, they can be so fun when they work.
What brought you to WrA and what other server or game did you come from (if any)?
I first came from Nesingwary. My character there was also Thokk. I have always been Thokk. Thokk came from a 3.5e D&D game my friends in High School were running - I was a frenzied berserker barbarian. When I came to WoW after bouncing from other MMOs (FFXI and Ragnarok Online [Twilight RO]), I didn’t know anything about the lore and thought I’d be a great warrior like Thrall. I didn’t know he was a shaman. Maybe things would have been different had I started as a shaman, but Warrior is where I am and who I am. When I came to WrA, Warrior was my first pick, but not Horde…
Tell us about your first WrA character(s). Alliance or Horde? Are you still playing them? How have they changed?
My very VERY first WrA character was actually a human Warrior named Thorndak. I had a friend named Ksenia, a Draenei Shaman who convinced me to come to WrA because roleplay. She had a lot of grand ideas about a guild called “Key to the Twilight”. It’s a .hack thing, but we had no idea Twilight’s Hammer was a thing. I don’t play them anymore; I think I deleted them early on after I swapped to Horde, Thorndak is now a Tauren Paladin.
What was your most memorable RP experience on WrA?
RPing a peon was memorable. I could be ignorant to lore all while playing seriously. Of course, that went haywire when folks started playing Peons as chaotic Deadpool-esque characters. I switched it up pretty quick and wrote into the OG Thokk’s backstory that he got hit with a Curse of Intellect. He became smarter and more serious as time went on. Eventually it was scrapped and current Thokk is what I’ve got.
Of course, there was the Memorial RP I had with some gnomes. I don’t think Thokk and Forbidra ever knew each other, but it’s a nice little bit of headcanon that the accomplishments of Gnomeregan Forever are so prolific, that Thokk respected them enough to pay tribute to the fallen. To this day, I still salute any G4 member I come across.
Is there anything you’d like for WrA in the future?
I’d like for the Alliance to prosper in RP again. I don’t have the time to devote to rebuilding it until maybe I get a Work From Home position; even then - I’m too focused on trying to get a streamed TTRPG game off the ground, but it’s proven troublesome. Maybe better heads will bring it back. It’d be nice to have a large (but not gargantuan) community again for all the Alliance players here.
I have only ever been on WrA, personally. Though since my guild is open to all servers, I do have a few alts on Moon Guard! Though my main is on WrA and will remain there 
My first character was a night elf druid back in 2016 who I RPd on for a few months before making Celassa in January of 2017. I have been on her since and while she did go through a semi-large reconstruction after I realized I did not want to write the content necessary for an Ancient (10,000+ year old night elf) she still remained a Priestess.
I, obviously, still play on Celassa!
I was casually RPing in the Temple of Elune with some fellow Kaldorei RPers the night before the patch went live for the Burning of Teldrassil. It was, essentially, our last night RPing in Darnassus. There were a lot of people online. And there was a human RPer who PMd me, saying they wanted to ‘end’ their character but wanted it to be a significant end. They asked if myself and the others with me were comfortable with that, we said yes.
And this character, in-character, essentially spent their last hour of life (after sustaining severe wounds) informing these Kaldorei that the Horde were shattering through the lines in Darkshore and that they were coming for Teldrassil.
This particular interaction was significant for me, and my most memorable, as it was the first time Celassa was viewed as a Priestess of Elune- a Leader to her people. Both this random person and my fellow Kaldorei RPers turned to her for direction and it was just a wonderful thing.
I personally would love to see a resurgence of the Alliance RP community. I’ve heard the Horde side is quite healthy whilst the bulk of the Alliance side RPers have moved to Moon Guard.
Despite Silver Circle being open to all realms since WoW now allows cross-realm guilds, I do miss seeing a bunch of Kaldorei RPers in a singular place regularly.
Thank you, Kina! We are happy to do what we can to promote Rp in Mulgore and beyond!
I first came to WrA for Rp. I had heard that Mg and WrA were the places to go so I made my first Rp dedicated character to try out both. I happened upon a Story Circle which was hosted by the Earthspear Tribe at the time. I joined and was immediately taken in by the lore so I threw everything I had to my Rp and the guild.
My first character is Raton here. He is Horde but I rped him as being independent with no oath to the Horde. Cairne wasn’t his leader nor spoke for him. Raton ended up becoming a Horde ally by helping defend Horde settlements like Crossroads. Good memories. I do still play him and he will be leading a scouting mission this Tuesday. He has certainly gotten more mature and wiser over the years. My character and I have learned to ignore troublesome people and not deal with their shenanigans. It took me longer to learn that lesson than I would like to admit.
It’s really hard to nail down what is the most memorable Rp experience for me. I have had so many and made so many friends that have come and gone over the years. I think I would have to say it was our first big Feather Ceremony in Wolfmane. Just the ritual of it all and how happy and proud everyone’s characters were.
I think the World of Warcraft is ripe for opportunities of all kinds. From taverns to caravans, to filling in various cities. There are so many possibilities and I hope to see Rpers take them and take up roles across Azeroth. Ultimately, I think it would be great for a generic Rp adventurer guild to spring up that is built to teach new Rpers Rp and help get them started on Azeroth. And I think that guild could eventually start a dedicated tavern & inn to help Rpers as well.
I left Llane after not being able to get a raid team together. Every time we got close, our raiders got poached or left on their own. I didn’t want to be a leveling guild.
My headcanon for my main character on Llane was that she was the eldest of 7 children and was out in the world adventuring to make money to send home to her parents, so I already had been doing RP in my head. When I found out WrA was open, I decided to give it a try. I’d also already done years of online/forum RP, tabletop and play by post by that time.
Kirsy was actually my second WrA character. Destry was my first - a no-nonsense rogue who was part of a noble family until her older brother decided to usurp their father as head of the house. This was before noble house RP was popular. Her brother murdered her parents and would have killed her, but she escaped.
Destry was still a child when this happened. She grew up behind the druid tents in SMC and became a thief and assassin. Her pickpocket skills were terrible, but she’s a crack shot with a gun. She also has an allergy to alcohol and will be deathly ill if she drinks it, but sometimes she’s depressed enough to do so, anyway.
I recently brought Destry out of IC retirement. Her brother has been assassinated (not by her) and she inherited the noble house. Now she has to figure out what to do with it.
Unhappily, there was an early RP on Kirsy (who has a very questionable backstory because I didn’t know lore). She was sitting on a bench in SMC when another blood elf walked over to sit down and asked her what she thought about the restoration of the Sunwell. Kirsy’s backstory is that she got kidnapped by cult members and raised away from SMC, so she was really, realllly behind on social events. When I responded that she had no idea, I could almost feel the eyeroll and hear the ‘tsk’ the other RPer made as they got up and left. Heh.
Kirsy also got griefed by a pair of Tauren in SMC who were the typical belf-haters of the time. I used that instance for years to have Kirsy tell people that Tauren didn’t like her and she didn’t know why.
On the other hand, my 2 most memorable RPs were with Slithals (I know, not the person you were expecting here, right?)! The guild was RPing at a wickerman event outside UC and all of sudden, Slithals ran by with the Headless Horseman sword, being trailed by evil pumpkin minions, yelling out in a panic, “P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-PUMPKINSSSSS!!!”
The other Slithals RP was when Kirsy had been captured by the Alliance and tossed into the Stockades. I had her in SW at the instance entrance and guildies came by to try to break me out. Rogue (is rogue) brought me a teddy bear or a little doll.
More population. Less drama. More varied events.
We came from a PvP server, where my then-main was named ‘Sefa’. We met there in Wrath. We were big collectors and one thought was that an RP server would suit our style of play more – we had backstories and stuff, all that. We were using Gryphonheart items in Ulduar for no reason, things like that.
We moved to WrA during ICC. It was awesome. Before xmog was a thing, runs for RP gear were THE thing. Those old RP gear runs were so great, where people traded obscure items for RP sets, it was just far more friendly than anything I’d experienced in WoW at that point.
Oh, ‘Sefa’ was taken at the time yet ‘Sef’ wasn’t, which I really dug. I have ‘Sefa’ on MG, though! I’m not playing Sef as much, not since BfA, as her bags are still too full and I wound up server/character hopping from SL to now. But… I do feel the urge to level her to max level.
I think some of my favorite RP was in Mists, where I was RPing 3 small Hozen in a blood elf costume, and would evade deeper questions by running, and would get chased by people 
I’d like more good vibes and to phase my ghost character (on an OCE server) to Duskwood to RP a bit in the future <3
What brought you to WrA and what other server or game did you come from (if any)?
I came to WrA during MoP. WoW was my very first mmorpg, and I chose it as a locus for anthropological fieldwork on how world design affects and effects the IC cultures players can create. I shopped via the forums and looking at guild sites, and WrA just seemed like the best match both professionally and personally. Was true then and is still true now.
Tell us about your first WrA character(s). Alliance or Horde? Are you still playing them? How have they changed?
My very first character was strictly an experiment. Created for the purposes of that fieldwork and tied to that fieldwork - so never had any intention of continuing play with them outside of that context, for reasons to do with professional ethics. OTOH, that character was played immersively and all of their experiences have been major influences on subsequent characters. Including my usual standard of non-alignment - neither Huojin nor Tushui, but a perfect mix of each.
What was your most memorable RP experience on WrA?
Too many and too wide a variety to pick just one. So let me tell you about my most memorable OOC experience and how it influences my RP …
Because i had zero previous experience with mmorpgs, when my first character died and everything went grey I thought it was permanent. I had no idea about respawning, had turned around before I saw the Spirit Healer, and was so unused to the UI that I didn’t even notice the “return to graveyard” button.
Since i was there to try and look (as an anthropologist) at Azeroth from the character’s point of view, I decided to explore the “grey place”. I wandered all over the Turtle, looking to see what was different about it in the “grey place”, and hoping to find a way to Pandaren paradise, whatever that might be. Because I didn’t believe the world designers would make you start all over with a new character when you’d only played for maybe half an hour.
I was doing my best to think about all this and do all this from the character’s POV. So even though I did finally notice the “return to graveyard” button after about 20 minutes, I continued to explore the “grey place” version of the Turtle for maybe an hour and a half, until I felt absolutely sure there was no way to get to Pandaren paradise. At least not yet.
So, I been thinking about Shadowlands and what a “Pandaren” zone within it might be like for a long, long, long time. Which has led me to pay close attention to all the in-game clues about whatever the Pandaren afterlife might be like. Which has been the polestar of my characters’ understanding of their place in the world. Including such things as how they interacted with the covenants in the Shadowlands. What personal lore-based IC justifications I have given for my Pandaren equivalent of DKs. And, looking toward the future, that in-depth rumination on the Pandaren spirit has also given me some ideas for how to play my paladins IC whenever we finally get that. As Pandaren analogs to paladins, but fully grounded in Pandaren culture and history.
Moral of the story - sometimes being a newb is the best thing that can happen to a dedicated RPer … Exp-Lore
Is there anything you’d like for WrA in the future?
That player housing gives me the freedom to finally build the teahouse I’ve always wanted, and share it with the whole community, regardless of faction.
Not counting the old free trial system back in Wrath, I started playing for reals on the Gilneas server at the end of MoP, then since I’ve been an avid roleplayer all my life I gave WrA a shot in WoD and joined the Mead Hall community. Shout out to those good old dwarves, still going strong!
Like I mentioned in the previous question, I started as a Dwarf rper, a Dark Iron who worked for the Darkmoon Faire! Trust me, if the Darkmoon Faire were up all month I’d be patrolling there instead of Duskwood! But even on my Dwarf I had the idea for Thomas stirring in my noodle, biding its time until I had the ability to consistently be ghosty with the proper toys, which finally came to be in BfA when the combo of Death’s Door Charm and Spectral Visage made it possible to look like a ghost 24/7 with proper toy juggling. And Thomas was born!
My goodness, I’ve had so many good memories and experiences on WrA that it’s incredibly hard to choose one! So instead I’ll do a few highlights in no particular order:
I want everyone to have joy doing what they love on the characters they are passionate for in the zones with the best memories for them, even if I never get the chance to interact with you. I want people to have the courage and the passion to start up those projects and build those communities, even if feels scary and even if it doesn’t work out. And most of all…
I want Blizzard to give us the Darkmoon Faire tabard, COME ON GUYS!!!
I started off on Shadow Council and RP’d there from Vanilla through Cata. ShC’s RP population had been steadily declining (with a notable increase when WrA opened) and Cata pretty much killed it off. I moved over with most of my RP friends sometime in mid/late Cata.
I was originally an Alliance RPer but most of my A-side friends left during Cata. So I switched to Zalinara (who’d been around since TBC) as my RP main. She’s a lot less edgy and a lot more world weary than she used to be. I’d based a lot of her backstory and RP on the Nerubian Puzzle Box from WotLK so when N’Zoth was unceremoniously killed off in BFA I had to some major changes.
I’ve taken some breaks from WoW and longer breaks from RP starting in MoP so I’ve only really gotten back into RP on WrA in the last year. I had some great times RPing in SMC back in the day.
More Belf RP and more RP outside of Orgrimmar/Stormwind in general.
I was one of many fleas to jump off of Shadow Council’s exhausted, wheezing carcass.
Enekie is still my first and main. The Rogue playstyle just resonates with me. I’m far too lazy to play a class that can’t sneak past and skip 90% of content. And though everyone can just plow through content now, it was a real treat to be skipping enemies back in Cataclysm.
I originally envisioned her as some biological weapon from some war or something pointlessly edgy like that. But I eventually came to appreciate her more as a lazy, passive aggressive alcoholic. WoW had too many edgelords and not enough lazy slobbish jerks. I had to correct the imbalance.
Mists of Pandaria, on the whole, was my favorite time in WoW. Despite some goofiness, story-wise, it had a lot of really compelling conflict and swinging stakes.
But crucially, it was when battletags started being more of a thing. Suddenly, you could communicate pretty easily with the opposite faction and it opened up the first primitive steps into cross-faction RP. Since the storyline was All War, All The Time, it made for very fun conflicts and really exciting dialogue.
Bring back people hanging out at the Blue Recluse. That place had such prime sitting spots.
What brought you to WrA and what other server or game did you come from (if any)?
After many wonderful years on our OG server, the last two RP guilds transferred off ER. We chose WrA, they chose MG.
Tell us about your first WrA character(s). Alliance or Horde? Are you still playing them? How have they changed?
My first WrA-only character was Claresta, who ambled up to random Duskwood roleplay in 2022 with a starter TRP and backstory. I had no large plans, I basically rolled her so I could join in on WrA roleplay with a fresh character with no ties. On my first night there, a certain Sir Thomas Bates commented that Claresta reminded him of his late IC wife (this also sent poor Thomas down ghost memory lane and shook him a bit at the time). I was floored to get an RP hook so early and I remember my mind whirring at the possibilities when I later tucked into bed. Things grew from there.
For my ER characters, I retired a few and brought over others. The broader structure of their backstories remain the same, with a few new IC WrA connections added in as their stories continued to be told here.
What was your most memorable RP experience on WrA?
I had a lot of fun during Dragonflight participating in walk-up and storyline roleplay in Duskwood and briefly ran one of my own (the “Oops!” switch plot) before taking a brief hiatus before the summer. I hadn’t participated in such a lively and collaborative walk-up RP scene for years and I realized the days of roleplaying and storytelling in WoW are far from over. Thanks, WrA.
Is there anything you’d like for WrA in the future?
You guys have so much more going for you than you think. Word-of-mouth is spreading and non-MG RP servers are taking notice. I briefly chatted with a potential newcomer this week about a guild coming over to focus on Stormwind RP and surrounding zones (Westfall, Duskwood, Redridge). We’re slowly but surely becoming that viable RP alternative to Moon Guard without losing our style and approach to roleplay.
We really don’t have to be just like Moon Guard. We already have one. Let’s just be WrA. I see us embracing that and really leaning into our own thing.
What brought you to WrA and what other server or game did you come from (if any)? Came from a different server (Cenarion Circle) years ago and just mostly lurk and play extremely casually/few months a year.
Tell us about your first WrA character(s). Alliance or Horde? Are you still playing them? How have they changed?: no, deleted them ages ago. Honestly I mostly play on MG now when I do play, but I still have a few alts on WRA I casually level
What was your most memorable RP experience on WrA?: Don't have one :) Stopped rping once I left CC. Tried a few times back around Cata but never got into the community much.
Is there anything you’d like for WrA in the future?: not really?
My first realm in 2009 was Blood Furnace, where ironically I was introduced to role play in Warcraft. Back then, even on backwater PvP servers, there was some RP going on. After spending a year on Blood Furnace, I moved my character to Feathermoon. Over time, that realm started going into heavy decline during Cata. Due to break up with a girlfriend I met online (I ended relations because of lifestyle compatibility issues), it was best to migrate all of my characters over to WRA. After playing on WRA until mid 2012, I moved 3 out of 4 characters to Tichondrius leaving Sadgati on WRA. This allowed form better progression for my WoW toons. After a 12 years absence from the game, only 2 out of 4 characters, Sadgati@WRA and HerbMangal@Tichondrius are active. The other two will likely stay in mothball indefinately. What does the future hold? If the rules of the game will allow, Sadgati will likely defect from the Horde going entirely neutral. If she is able to interact in BOTH faction cities, I may find it desirable to move her to Moon Guard. Due to declining userbase, WoW will likely have one primary RP realm. In most smaller MMOs, the playerbase will adopt a server/shard as unofficial RP destination. That will likely become MG.
I started with my own account in early Cata, though did level on a friend’s account a smidge in WotLK. I used to play on Thaurissan, an Oceanic PVP server, because that’s where all my IRL school friends played. We hung out there for the entirety of Cataclysm and then, to a man, each of them quit because Pandas lame.
Anyway unlike them, I’d played Warcraft 3 and I fell in absolute love with Warcraft’s lore. So my favourite thing to do in WoW was not battlegrounds, but rather questing. Alas, level 85s enjoyed flying out and ganking me quite a lot - I was dumb enough to play an Alliance character on a Horde dominated realm xD. I got REALLY sick of it and decided to try an alt on an RP server. So by the time MoP hit, I evaluated what seemed to be the three main options; Moon Guard, Wyrmrest Accord and Emerald Dream. MG Goldshire scared me as I was and am not really an ERP sorta person, and Emerald Dream was PvP and I’d sworn the heck off that, so onto WRA I went!
My very first WRA character was a Pandaren Mage named Laoku. Laoku the Blue. He wore the most absurdly blue and gold robes with a big old pointy hat, so that he would “fit in”. His backstory was simple; he was a Wandering Isle Pandaren who basically grew up on Chen’s cool stories about adventuring in the Horde (hey there Frozen Throne Orc Campaign) and was like “Hey, I want to explore the OTHER team.” So off he went to Stormwind, and did a big old adventure. I had no previous RP experience so uh, I didn’t really think about how it worked to RP in a shared space, so to my shame his early story was kind of just the quest zones. “Oh yeah I went to Westfield and solved a crime, and THEN we stopped the orcs conquering Redridge, and THEN”… yeah. Not my proudest moment. But I soft retconned that as I learned the ropes, and Lao just became a goofy adventurer.
Once I found my feet with Lao, I transferred my others over. And the RP network grew. Once I started full time work as a teacher, I couldn’t really RP at American hours anymore though, so I had a bit of a radical switch in late Legion. I’d always had Horde alts but I went much harder into the Horde at that point - a bit of a fresh start, as I missed all my friends/connections on my old toons. At that point, Sarestha was born. So sadly Laoku and many others haven’t had much airtime since Legion. But I remember them fondly. Ironically my RL partner started playing in Dragonflight and she really likes Alliance, so I’ve been dipping my toes back in the Alliance space recently, which has been nice. Largely new toons though.
Two stand out. Meeting a night elf mage named Mairethma. We started RPing regularly in the early days, and became genuine friends across the Pacific. She lives in Alaska and I live in Australia, and we send each other packages from time to time with our unique foods and stuff. I have discovered that salmon jerky is amazing, and she has discovered that musk sticks are great xD! So making a genuine RL friendship that endures to this day was special, and that’s a huge thing.
The other one is the founding of Lordaeron Unbound, to be honest. Another case of RL friendships being built. When I moved to Horde, I had zero intentions of running a guild. Sarestha was fun, she was a well intentioned Sylvanas supporter in early BFA (until the attempt to control Derek Proudmoore, something she saw as a betrayal of everything the Forsaken stand for - free will as the single most important thing that differentiates us from the Scourge). Anyway, she mostly hung out in the Wyvern’s Tail trying to convince people that Sylvanas would be a good warchief actually. But in that time I met Cadias and Otielle, and after the Derek thing development ensued with my new friends in a way that the guild just sort of happened. For a variety of reasons, mostly related to my RL stresses that rendered me incapable of continuing as GM, the guild did eventually come to an end. But man we had some good times, and I love how it grew out of just chatting in the tavern. That was neat, and special, and for that reason alone I remember BFA very fondly.
I’m not the RPer I once was, and I certainly don’t fit into the mainstream RP core of WRA anymore. Sorry, my hours are weird. But sincerely I wish for both factions RP to prosper again. More than anything, I want that. I really want us to be the crossfac server, the balanced population and generally lore-abiding reputation we used to have was great. I hope to see it return. So yeah, more balance, more guilds, more RP and more fun!
I was on an unbalanced PvP Server (Go Blackwing Lair-PvP!) and I was really REALLY into the game’s lore at that point (2011 I believe). I made a character and thought the RP was so freaking cool. I moved my draenei paladin and renamed him Sholaad to match the proper naming conventions of his people !
-Sholaad- and yes. My main since 2007; since BC. Sho’s had a variety of periods from crusader, to vengeful paladin to farming recluse. Right now he keeps a low profile, still taking orders from the Hand of Argus.
-Maybe one day I’d like to throw down another RP event, but I’m not in college anymore so it’s always the time-sink that’s tough for me.