Can you imagine such tall tales as a underground empire of Beastmen that look like rats? Ridiculous.
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Throughout my time roleplaying i’ve visited both many mediums and the venues located within them. Both on Garry’s Mod, Warcraft 3, E:SO, World of Warcraft, ecetera. I’ve been around long enough to see the birth of new roleplay spots and the subsequent fulmination and death spiral that encompasses them. Sometimes it’s peaceful and largely a long, albeit slow decline. Other times there’s a supernova of drama and tragedy associated with it as these places get snuffed out. Even in World of Warcraft i’ve been apart of Thorium Brotherhood and other roleplay servers and watched as their roleplay communities vanished into the ether.
And I can say that the patterns that made themselves evident in the past have been starting to show here in Wyrmrest Accord. And it’s not just Wyrmrest Accord - it’s Moon Guard too.
Roleplay in World of Warcraft is dying. Slowly but surely.
Theatrics aside: World of Warcraft has always had a rocky relationship with its roleplay community. Its story isn’t all that clever or well-written - though there may be nuggets of gold that exist within its setting the overarching story has been at times eye-rollingly bad and groanworthy in both terms of how it utilizes plot twists and its narratives of wanting some things to shine. Beyond that, Blizzard does little in terms of actually catering to the community in its entirety despite having the ability to fully engineer and realize such things. Whether it be something insurmountable like the vaunted housing or simple toys that could be utilized in roleplay longer than a 10 or 20 minute duration; Blizzard doesn’t give anything.
It isn’t hard to say how the roleplay community is drying up. The Individuals who spearheaded events and organizations to bring roleplay to the community have left in the years oncoming, and there’s been a vacuum as no one has stepped up in their place to make an engaging market for players to congregate and interact within. I remember back in WoD/Legion a certain Troll died and 100+ people showed up to give them their funeral with well-wishers and proper decorum. Similarly more events outside of pure social-openers have dried up enough that they’re nowhere to be seen. We’re in a literal and metaphorical drought of roleplay opportunities for both newcomer and old roleplayer alike to join in and have fun, interact and write.
The community itself has, seeing little to nothing left, recessed into their own groups that they’ve built up over the years whether they be friends or guilds. This isn’t a bad thing, and is totally understandable due to how reliable these groups are especially when you’re having fun with them. But the negative aspect is that such groups tend to roleplay within constrained environments; away from cities and average walk-up roleplay, and also unknowingly contribute to less and less people showing up. Warlords of Draenor and Legion had guilds standing side by side or off in their own little corner of the Valley of Honour and try to get people to join them. Conflicts between guilds/groups of people spilled out onto the street. Altogether it made the Valley of Honour have an almost artificial but wholly realistic sense of an actual life to it. All that’s really left is a guild throwing down it’s banners once a week for an hour and then disappearing. The marauding group of Orcs, Trolls, Elves and Goblins have left for greener pastures wherever and/or are off in their own corners enjoying themselves.
Again: This isn’t accusatory.
Most people come and point to mid-patch slumos and that subscription numbers tend to jump and dip with how long a patch goes on for, percolating. But Mists of Pandaria had the greatest numbers - Legion too - of everyone doing something. Even then during the Siege of Orgrimmar there was a stage where we were waiting almost/little over a year for Warlords of Draenor to drop but the population still held steady. People still engaged with one another. And things still moved along.
Even in Warlords of Draenor - going back to it - despite it being on an entirely alien world the population still held its ground with Wyrmrest Accord. People still logged in, walked around, talked to one another and interacted. Why? Because the story was still engaging. The lore was still intriguing. Everything, despite being in an entirely alien dimension contained by chronomancy, was still grounded and well thought out. “Realistic” and enjoyable to engage with. Shadowlands has none of that. The characters we interact with are arcane for the best and downright eldritch in the worst. We’re within an entirely new area that is too hard to adapt to. With the way of travel being inherently devoid of any actual semblance of back-and-forth by anyone who isn’t either a very powerful character or related to named heroes of World of Warcraft like Bolvar Fordragon or Dezco. And roleplayers shun the first, usually, and the second. Even with the world supposedly drowning in a Scourge onslaught it’s fundamentally broken and tiresome because of how little the world is threatened by this humongous wave of undead. Nothing is actually given to it to bring it actual weight. And with how much the narrative has burned bridges like Blizzard has burned the faith of its consumers: The suspension of disbelief and wanting to go along with the story has been shattered with a lot of Roleplayers I find. And the story matters the most for us, in my mind.
The collapse of the roleplay populaton could even be attributed to the guilds - hypocritically speaking from earlier. Most guilds are usually not maintained by a core group of officers and a guild master who have an understanding and finesse of not only providing a welcoming place but also giving entertainment to other roleplayers. Guilds are creative spaces that, for better or worse, compete with other guilds and groups in attempting to try and engage and recruit people into them to grow and become alive. With less people around most guilds cannot break out of their nascent state. They cannot grab a foothold of virtual estate that allows people to look at them and see whether they’d like to join it or not. This decline, in turn, affects the population because there’s - coincidentally - no one there to provide entertainment for them.
Personally other video games have a better reputation for trying concertedly or indirectly aiding their roleplayer base. Both FFXIV and E:SO, two games I play in the triumvirate of both them and WoW, are starting to provide better and better alternatives that eventually pushed me to the choice to start playing and spending time there instead - overall. WoW’s mechanics are degrading, and already poor.
I get housing. I get my time appreciated. I get an interactive and lively community who’s wanting to engage in walk-up roleplay, and other venues. Despite my time being wasted equally and in all three, I can go and engage and do things at my own pace and wonderment. With World of Warcraft i’m left feeling lethargic, apathetic and drained after an hour.
If anyone wishes to contact me on FFXIV and/or E:SO hit me up here. Or my discord which is Brickwall#0930.
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To get RP, I wander into Orgrimmar and jab people from steal with the needle toy.
I refuse to put in any more effort.
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Maeshkin’s every reply to this thread has been dripping with either thinly-veiled condescension or hostility, and I can’t help but wonder why.
Not about him, specifically. He’s irrelevant, just one among many. I want to know why, as of late, even the passing mention that walk-up RP on WrA might not be as robust as it once was seems to attract people who feel compelled to be smug and dismissive about the matter. Is it defensive, perhaps born out of the fear that if you acknowledge walk-up and RP in general has declined that it will decline further?
Or is it because they view walk-up RP as being second-rate when compared to more organized or pre-planned guild and/or event RP? Something that I’ve always found amusing because I have seen some real dross from people who hold such a sentiment. As it turns out, brooding, monosyllabic male power fantasies are about as interesting at a guild-run event as they are in Stormwind. But I digress.
I’m honestly worried the later sentiment is becoming more popular, which isn’t good for the health of the server. MG’s Horde scene dried up like it did specifically because walk-up, city-based RP was seen as “less than” and guilds began to pull out of the cities as a result. And I don’t want to see that same thing happen to WrA Alliance.
If y’all kill the Alliance’s walk-up scene while I’m gone I’m gonna be SO mad. I don’t want to play on MG. Don’t do this to me. 
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Defensiveness. People don’t want to acknowledge something wrong so continue to pretend nothing is, nothing has changed, you just are clearly not looking hard enough.
It’s a common enough reaction. I think I’m just immune to it at this point having watched the RP community of Thorium Brotherhood wither out and die as I did before journeying on to Scarlet Crusade (Which never really HAD a RP community) before coming over to Wyrmrest Accord.
I’ve seen this happen before. I know the inevitable end result. Time will tell if I feel like pulling up the stakes and relocating to another server, but I generally doubt it at this point. It’s weird to think but Wyrmrest Accord has been my server longer than any other server I’ve played on in WoW’s history.
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Probably.
I remember when this was happening on Moon Guard. Orgrimmar was becoming a literal ghost town and it was more or less impossible to point that out on their realm forums without being immediately, decisively bullied into silence. It’s one of the biggest reasons I left MG for good–asking about the seemingly deserted venues attracted rapid, shockingly caustic responses on the order of “you’re a stupid moron for even asking and you need to shut up and get out, you’re just another loser doomsayer”
These were people I’d interacted with off and on for a long time, too. The rancor shocked me.
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WRA Alliance gets that a lot these days. I think it’s defensiveness. People don’t WANT to acknowledge that their community is faltering. In many cases it’s a community they have an emotional attachment to, and when people start commenting on the fact that it’s not healthy, or worse, suggest leaving to try a new realm… They get mad. Irrationally so.
The word that comes to mind is desperate. And I think it’s an apt word because they’re desperate not to lose what they once had. Man I can even relate to an extent. I started on WRA Alliance. I never even roleplayed Horde until Legion. I loved the Alliance community on this server and I’m genuinely sad that it’s dwindled.
But that desperation gets so big that it leads to some people lashing out, which isn’t remotely cool. Some more than others admittedly, but… yeah.
What they need to know is that the solution isn’t yelling about how “There’s No Problem Actually 
” It’s trying to find meaningful ways to boost RP and rebuild the community. Hosting events, starting RP communities like Gwyneth did, trying to encourage a server movement, something catchy like Stormwind Sundays, I dunno! But that’s the healthy way to deal with it. Trying to fix the problem rather than trying to suppress it and bury your head in the sand, ignoring that there’s a problem at all.
So, yeah I think my rant got a bit disjointed there but the gist is that people are desperate. Mourning even. And when they deal with those feelings in a less healthy way, they lash out.
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A few months ago before prepatch and during prepatch, there was a lot of “where’s alliance RP?” And those of us that knew that to not be the case (Blue RP is dead) would defend it. Now, it’s beginning to look like it’s true. And I’ll be the first to admit it was annoying when it wasn’t true, but now it is. I can acknowledge that.
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It’s funny, I was thinking about starting a thread on this very topic. I’ve even been mulling over renewing my sub so I could get some events rolling.
But I realized I’m just not interested in seeing things get derailed by people who are convinced that there’s not a problem, or who don’t see any issue with walk-up RP drying up. I could deal with it, goodness knows I have plenty of experience dealing with people being weird to, at, or around me, but… why. Why do that when I could just play video games.
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And also I am planning on revitalizing the LFRP community in a few weeks with a new thread. The only problem I had in the past being that certain community members and event leaders, guild leaders didn’t really get on board, so it wasn’t as robust and healthy as I knew the RP community at large was. The communities are a bit segregated from the people who want to find RP and the people who don’t care to.
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It’s the big thing to weigh up with any community leadership endeavour I suppose! Being a GM taught me that leading is hard, and to be honest… not always rewarding. You’re definitely going to have more fun just playing games. The community will have more fun if someone leads a spur for change and growth. It really boils down to if you’re willing to make that fairly thankless and gruelling sacrifice. Hard choice to make! I wish you well in whatever you decide to do though.
I’m considering coming back to help as well… maybe even focusing on Alliance for a bit. My old Horde guild is in very good hands with Evelandria and Alliance needs help. But I’m also weighing up pretty much what I said to Kazimir above. Do I want to do that to myself? LOL
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If I can get a few heads to help moderate and contribute i think we can make things happen, but I have no real interest in doing all the things myself. If it’s just me I’m just putting events on calendars and bumping threads. Event running is hard and stressful with just myself.
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Kicks in door with a trail of pamphlets flying behind
I’m late, I’m late, I’m late for shilling Duskwood!
Slams pamphlets on the nearest flat surface
GREETINGS FELLOW ROLEPLAYERS! You like walk-ups? You like, uh… spooks? Come to DUSKWOOD- okay I don’t have the energy for a fancy spiel, please just please come to Duskwood I beg you we’ve got a nice little community here I swear, even if it’s not your thing there’s no harm in saying hi right? Please come to Duskwood.
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I do think WrA is healthier than ThoBro or Argent Dawn or other dead RP realms because like… if the game gets good again, people will come back. Probably.
I mean maybe two controversial expansions in a row is enough to drive people off for good, but for me, as a person who has been unsubbed since December, I’m not there yet. I’d still buy the next expansion if it seemed like they were turning things around and adding some interesting feature. WrA still has tons of characters sleeping on accounts that have only been inactive for a year or less and all those characters will come back if the next expansion sounds good.
But yeah WrA and many other servers are gonna die for good if the next expansion is announced as “no new feature except Ions new borrowed power system and weird Danuser story that you can’t relate to”
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If I’m going to be honest, I’m really not sure where WoW could go expansion-wise that would get me interested again. Azshara maybe, but she’s already been a raid boss and we’ve split her open like a loot pinata once before. Kind of warmed over at this point. Another “Azeroth is in peril!” plot? Never really got any traction in either Legion or BfA, really. Finally getting on with the Void vs the Light thing? Even as a Void Elf, it just smacks of re-treading Raymond E. Feist’s final cycle of the Riftwar. And, being brutally honest, that cycle of books SUCKED even if the ending made me legitimately cry (Decades worth of story coming to an end better damn well have an emotional payoff. But that doesn’t mean the journey to get to it was compelling).
Like you, I’m not ready to cut all ties to WoW yet. But I’m really not sure what WoW could do to entice me back for more than a month at a time as nostalgia waxes and wanes.
My point is, RP isn’t dead, you just have to seek it out.
Defensiveness, maybe. Condescension, maybe a bit. Sometimes people have to seek things out, and folks like Gwyneth do great at helping that along, and it can’t be done alone.
There’s definitely a drought in RP lately, and the state of the game is one of many factors. My point is and was that sometimes you have to seek things out instead of them being handed to you. My apologies if that’s a problem for some people. We can just not agree and be done with it. Have a great day.
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See literally every comment detailing why that’s problematic
Not even denying it, yikes.
Take your non-apology and go soak your head.
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On that we agree, Maeshkin! At least insofar as there’s a drought.
I think it’s worth putting effort in to fix that problem though. Sure, we need to seek it out. But… There’s other things that can be done as a community effort to help this problem more than telling people “Go find it”. It’s a multi-faceted approach!
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You have a great day too. It’s okay to disagree.