Which of your characters got the best and worst reception?

Wyrmrest Accord
21

It was a good lesson in reading the environment. While you can have any character you want, and should be allowed to play whatever character you want, there’s still the matter of where they fit in and where they don’t. It seems people aren’t too found of some scenes in public and it’s understandable.

This is something I always strive to encourage, and may even be why Altielle is so popular. All it takes is one person to be an exciting firecracker that people want to interact with and it sort of works everything out. It creates a big group, and then from that group people split off into smaller groups to talk about their own thing. I’d say it’s healthy for the walk up environment.

Though it can be tiring to respond to 4+ characters at once. It also threatens to turn your character into the butt monkey where everyone just makes fun of them constantly and it makes me sad to see it with Altielle when it happens to her.

3 Likes
22

I only have two characters, both of which are received pretty well. My void elf here is usually treated with a little more caution, skepticism, and distaste. But that’s just the nature of the beast being a void elf. Her personality is such that most of those negative presumptions are quickly overcome upon giving her a chance to speak and interact.

My other character, a lightforged draenei priest, gets typically warmer receptions. Though I have had her side-eyed a few times due to the newer stigma of the Light being unmovingly rigid and intolerant. I have even had her openly cursed and sneered at by a mag’har orc during a neutral event. Personally I thought that was kinda neat though. :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
23

Great question! I think about this myself sometimes. I have many RP characters; I will just talk about the ones I have RPed the most.

My first official RP character was a night elf Death Knight with the typical “I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-so-I’m-giving-her-amnesia” situation. Her backstory was lore inaccurate, she was too human-like, too nice, too self-pitying, among other things. While her characteristics were sorely lacking and with no real depth for the long run in mind, I believe now that I did set her up with a fairly decent foundation of backstory upon which to refine later. Alas, she has not seen the light of day since I revamped her story. Deciding on a Death Knight was not a wise choice for me as a noob; she was bullied by strangers simply because of that, with no antagonization on her part. I do not know why I did not just quit, but I did have some fun times, so I stuck it through.

The other character who gets a poor reception is my night elf Demon Hunter. On the outside, and looking at her bio, she is the typical Illidari bound to a succubus. People have made judgments based on just that, and I suppose some of it is my fault for not letting on, but no one gets to know the “real” her. She does not let it show and puts on an outward persona and facade.

My night elf Sentinel does fairly well in terms of walk-ups, which honestly astounds me for she is rather closed and traditional. I know I do scare some people away because of this and my somewhat extensive knowledge of night elf lore. :frowning:

My worgen here gets the most walk-ups because she is the most open (she is a bartender, after all). Humans get all the fun.

4 Likes
24

Worst received characters - it’s a tie between:

Kirsy - I’ve taken a lot of crap for RPing a Belf, especially while RPing in Forsaken zones. But it wasn’t limited to there. Early on, I got crap from “Old Horde” for being a Belf - in SMC!

and

Colbie - She was a Human pally I rolled to RP with Cole when he first hopped over to playing a Dwarf. It was when the Dwarven community was nothing like it is now and they would shut out any non-Dwarves by switching languages if the non-Dwarf was in their RP group. And then they made comments like, “is that your pet Humie?” It didn’t say much for them in my eyes and I ended up swapping back to Horde.

Best received character:

Larisi - my Gnome. Literally no one hates her no matter how obnoxious she gets. She steals stuff, fences it, lies, doesn’t listen well to authority, and is generally a pain. She’s almost blown up RP parties with malfunctioning robots. She drinks until she passes out. Doesn’t matter :slight_smile:

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25

I must say I’m somewhat surprised at how surprised I am to see that this became a common thing. In retrospect it seems glaringly obvious to me that it would.

26

The same character. Back in Wrath, I played a happy-go-lucky DK and payed no attention to lore. When the character services came out, I race-changed IC. Then later got bored of DK and had him come back to life IC as a warrior. I had a pretty big friends list and steady, fun rp. But also a lot of hate because of the total lack of sense the character made.

27

As I’ve gain experience building RP characters and personalities over the last 25 years, I find each one seems to achieve of higher acceptance/popularity level than the last. Cermaa the pragmatic orc hunter (with her faithful dire-boar partner “Snoutie”) is probably my best entry yet. I’ve always kept to a few core principles when making my characters:

  1. Have a character that starts off ready to “like everyone,” and who wants to be liked by everyone.
  2. Pick a name that’s easy to read and pronounce.
  3. It’s better off to start with a “too young/stupid/senile to understand” personality than a “smarty pants who knows it all” character. A character can always mature and improve with time.
  4. The character can have strong hatreds, dislikes or prejudices - but make sure they are always directed at non-player-characters, races, groups, etc.
  5. If the character has an exaggerated opinion of themselves, make sure you play it for comedic effect. Invite other players to laugh at you, as in “Look at him/her, they think they’re so super-human, but they’re obviously an idiot because…” Reasons for the obvious idiocy can be anything from wearing your armor backwards, to holding the sword or wand at the wrong end, or having hilariously wrong knowledge about factions and politics.

I can’t emphasize #1 and #5 strongly enough. Cermaa has made the mistake of developing a dislike for goblins because members of one goblin-themed guild embarrassed her during her attempt to join. Having to work around this in subsequent RP is a challenge at best.

Even a character with the best of intentions will run into villains and scum. Allowing a snide attitude or outright hatred to flourish will only constrain future RP into a tighter and tighter corner until the character becomes almost unplayable.

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28

Wot, mate? You still fresh out the portal, innit?

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29

I… yes? I think.

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30

Come round and we’ll sort you out 'wif some company an some party favors. Next show’s in a week… barring her majesty’s pleasure.

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31

Don’t mind Scardust - we don’t know why he talks like that either. Personally, I think the rot hit his brain a little bit too hard, but that’s okay. He’s like a local Wyrmrest mascot!

(Also, love the devotion to the character, btw, Scardust.)

4 Likes
32

Ursuola is probably my worst-received character just by sheer volume, but particularly in the sense that she thinks a lot about social justice with regards to the draenei and how they fit in the world and isn’t afraid to say so, which leads a lot of people to say and do things to her that would be “social ostracism” levels of racist if someone did that in real life.

Which is weird to me, because I don’t think anyone who has their characters say stuff like that to her would ever actually be that way to anyone in real life. It just seems like people are less willing to apply their understanding of social issues to fictional races, I guess?

Probably the best received character I’ve gotten is Gharka, my orc warrior. Which is weird because she also has wildly heterodox ideas about the draenei and also isn’t afraid to say so, but she also hangs out with a much different crowd (I can basically only take her to neutral RP events, of which there are few that fit with my schedule) and, personality-wise, she’s basically a bald, green Labrador.

I don’t get to play her a lot, but when I do, everyone really seems to hit it off with her. I miss that side of RP a lot.

1 Like
33

From a public RP perspective, I was always the kind of person that was always too shy to walk up to people, and I never really thought about my characters would behave when/if they did, or anyone else walked up to them, so I didn’t get very far. Almost all of the RP I’ve ever done is in guild settings.

I would say most of my characters are/have been well received, but I think only two of my characters have ever been particularly endearing to anybody. My demon hunter is well received in the crowd I run with. He’s a bit sad and reflective, and I play him as the hermit in Felwood archetype without much affiliation to the Illidari.

My other well received character is my necromancer. He’s a villain the people that I RP with seem to like. A little flamboyant villainy, a little pathetic bitterness towards humanity, a very slightly sympathetic history that is mostly overridden by his callous disregard for other people. He’s over the top, repulsive, and vulnerable, not in a way that invites compassion but one that provides a bit of catharsis whenever he suffers, because he does suffer, and his feathers do get ruffled. Both of these characters in particular never show up in public, however.

I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone, that I can notice, not want to RP with me–again, probably a consequence of not doing a lot of public RP. I had a mage try to join a guild, and they looked really interesting, but they seemed to want something from potential characters that, at the time, I didn’t want to attach to my character, so I tried to wiggle around it. They decided not to take him. In retrospect, I probably would have been okay with having that a part of their history.

2 Likes
35

Thats easy. I joined a guild when I first got to the server and made a warrior. I played it for maybe 2 weeks and then then dumped him for my paladin. I played that paladin for a month or so and made my mage really just so I could stop walking to and from events.

My mage blew up. He was a low ranking dalaran senator, basically a paper pusher. I dont remember what committee i had him on since it was just filler but it amounted to making sure there wasnt excessive trash on the streets and the amount of weight was evenly distributed around the city based on a dubious study that showed the place risked flipping over in high wind. Literal nothing work.

Anyway, he joined up and (as it was a magical themed guild but with only loose ties to dalaran) he was very much your sort of uppity haughty mage-lord. Critiquing every incident of non standard magical practice, conjurings performed without filing paperwork and, this is the part that got big, constantly in a state of alarm at the presence of warlocks.

Anyway, i had never meant for him to be part of anything major, just your run of the mill character that was perhaps a little antagonistic but not much else. Before I knew it though people had latched on. The officers made an announcement warning people to be wary around him and people who just generally were annoyed by him began to make rude comments so we spun that out so he interpreted it all as suspicious behavior.

Before long he was poking around, asking questions and there was general unease. The guild lore explained that they had very limited approval to use fel magic but no demon summoning and it became a sort of subplot that both sides suspected the other of trying to frame the other.

I wont bore you with all the details but over the next year he went from nobody to a major guild villain with multiple subplots revolving around him, he slowly turned the gms son against them by playing off his desire to learn more magic and it culminated in a big confrontation at his office balcony in Dalaran after he and my mage vanished through a portal. The GM and he were in the middle of negotiating a resolution (in short, he would step down and my character informs the senate he was mistaken about the presence of illicit activity) when we suddenly hit our guilds peak hours. As we were having this meeting in secret they saw the two of us in Dalaran and ic pinged the gms commstone. Suddenly they flood to the city thinking the gm had been arrested and it turns into a wild standoff as before the metaphorical handshake they burst into his office making demands. Immediately my mage is back to posturing and it all goes off the rails.

One of our guild mates, another officer was mostly inactive but had gone through our guilds very strict rules for icly being recognized as an archmage and was serving as my mages defacto supervisor on the issue since the guild was technically under the officers charter. It concludes with the gm announcing he was turning the guild icly to his inexperienced wife (a warlock as well but not public) and that the archmage had resolved the investigation bh having them evicted from the tower. The last scene was my character invoking a last minute bit of fluff allowing the upper crust of dalaran to extend a special offer to anyone with magical talent inviting them go study in the city academy. He hands the letter to the gms son and effectively steals him away from his pseudo mother figure breaking her heart, a sort of last jab in order to save face.

It was glorious.

For years after that he would still be mentioned by characters in the guild, cursed as a monster. It also gave the guild a springboard to restructure and take on a less school focused and more action geared rp style. I think the reason it stands out so much to me was that none of it was planned. The officers mostly talked on ventrilo back then and I didnt have a working mic (i didnt use mine much so when it got chewed on by the dog I never bothered to replace it.) So it really was this sort of epic adventure thaf was unpredictable because neither side was coordinating or plotting with each other just acting and reacting naturally. It was great fun for me and I think the officers enjoyed having a plot that they could be a part of where it was open to everyone, they could build things off of and didnt have to closely follow every step or try to stick it to a certain plot path.

3 Likes
36

My best walkup character was a human male Paladin. He got approached all the time by goofy types - HMPs being a classically trollable sort - but since he had a sense of humor and rolled with it, we’d just have a weird, fun time.

1 Like
37

Holy Male Paladin?

38

Human Male Paladin.

39

That was my initial guess.

Drat. But, thank you.

40

Male Human Paladin with no back story beside hes a Knight and not a paladin get some reception.

Male Night elf Hunter with little back story and a cute pet gets no reception.

I’m shy and don’t uselessly walk up to people but I do like walk ups. Once on my Paladin I did follow a small group of rpers “was bored” and get sucked into there rp for a very small bit. That was fun. But idk, I think night elf get a bad rep but then again I rare see then at blue recluse “have not been to blue recluse in a few weeks”
Do night elf have a new place they rp now or am I alone, lol?

41

Ishnu’alah Rosenoa!

Night elf roleplay is somewhat all over the place. A few groups roleplay in Feralas out of Feathermoon Stronghold. Others RP in Val’sharah, Azsuna, Winterspring and Ashenvale. The Silver Circle posts all of their events on their guild website calendar, for all to see. Anyone interested in night elf RP is welcome to join or spectate those events regardless of whether your character is a night elf or not. If you want to get your hunter out there a little more, you’re welcome to swing by and join us anytime :purple_heart:

There is also a night elf Discord, if you’re interested in a place to connect with other night elf players.

A few other night elf or kaldorei-centric groups I recommend looking into are:

  • Keepers of the Moon
  • Moonglaive Sentinels (f/k/a Sentinel)
  • Starfall Sentinels
  • Kalimdor Collective
  • Falah’dure
  • Moonshroud Covenant
  • Jai’alator’s Vigil (f/k/a Wings of Kalimdor)

My best received character is hard to pick out. I think it would have to be Feyawen, but not because of anything particularly interesting about her. Rather, it’s because she’s a character that’s interested in learning about other characters and assisting other characters however she can. This results in people seeking her opinion for things, and occasionally means I put her own story and development on the back-burner. But she is enjoyable to roleplay nonetheless.

My worst received character is my highborne alternative, Mythera Darkthorn. She was only 5 when she and her father went into exile and she spent most of her life in poverty in the jungles of Feralas. But, because she is highborne, many characters approach her and mistake her abrasive personality for the cliche haughtiness and arrogance of an old highborne. It’s honestly a dynamic I love, particularly when people have the opportunity to peel back her layers and really get to know who she really is.

4 Likes