I’m going to first summarize my thoughts on WoW and its rp environment. I actually like WoW as a game, it’s fun, the graphics are interesting, and the combat mechanics are usually really good depending on the class. Working with people in dungeons and raids tends to be a satisfying experience.
When it comes to rp however, WoW is severely lacking. Most rp is done by walk up rp. You literally need a tag that says, “walk-ups welcome”, which is actually silly if you think about it. As much as I like trp, it also takes away a lot of mystery if used incorrectly when people describe everything about their character, allowing you to instantly judge that trp and decide if you want to walk up or not. People end up standing around in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, looking for some small social interaction, that probably won’t lead anywhere. Many people won’t take the initiative to walk up themselves, so they end up standing their just looking cool. Some guilds are effective in running events, but they are few and far between.
Onward to why I started playing and rp’ing in ESO. I’m just going to list off everything good about it, and why it excels compared to WoW’s rp. Player housing. ESO allows you to find/purchase thousands of items that you can use to furnish a couple dozen different home types. Everything from a mud hut to a dwemer underground chamber. You can find these items in game through various means, or buy them with Crowns (you get some Crowns every month if you pay the sub which is $14.99). Being able to fully customize your player’s house is amazing. I’ve seen players with large houses which they use as a guild hall, and it really enhances rp in the game. Open world rp is harder to find now, so that is a drawback, but it still occurs and they’re great places to meet new people.
You actually have to interact with character’s to get to know them. There isn’t a trp to tell you that this guy has a scar on his head, or he smells like lilacs, or she has an aura of Shadow. Usually you can customize your character so heavily that you wouldn’t even need to do that anyway. There’s so much lore in the game, it’s actually kind of crazy how the wiki pages go into detail about different religions, people, gods, pretty much everything. WoW has a lot of lore as well, but the Elder Scrolls is so much more in depth so there’s a lot to draw on for character inspiration. There are so many different types of people and cultures in Elder Scrolls, so it makes for some interesting character concepts. There are many different emotes, you can sit about 5 different ways. You can cross your arms, fold you hands behind your back. Lean against tables or walls, and so on. This just adds to the immersion for ESO rp. There’s an outfit system similar to transmog, but you can actually dye your outfit to create the exact look that you want.
My first night back in ESO was more eventful than months of rp’ing in WoW. My ashlander dunmer (dark elf) character traveled to the Reach where he ended up following a tribe back to their camp. The first thing they had him do was try to capture a goblin to see how fast of a runner he was. He ended up breaking a rib and nearly killed the goblin by accident. One of the Reachmen got angry at this and shot an arrow into his leg. It was an amusing and enjoyable experience and I immediately found a community of players to rp with.
The gameplay in ESO, particularly the combat, is very fast paced and there aren’t many abilities that have long casting times, so there’s something about it that doesn’t feel as satisfying in comparison to WoW. That being said, I don’t think I’ll ever come back to WoW for rp unless they continue adding customization options and give us player housing. There’s other games that simply provide a better atmosphere for rp.
This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, and feel free to defend WoW rp because I’m actually interested to see if that is even possible. A gaming company with the money that Blizzard has could add housing to their game, but they don’t see it as a way to make money, so it won’t happen until WoW’s end times as an attempt to draw players back in. What does that tell you? It tells me that they don’t care about the joy of the game. All they plan on doing is releasing more expansions so that you can continue to chase the carrot on the stick, whether that’s a new mount or getting your ilvl up in order to do new content.
TLDR, Blizzard needs to add player housing before they earn my money again.