WoW RP. Where'd it go?

What happened.

WoW used to be full of quality RP at the most random places in-game.

Now; we have 2 servers with most of the populations being consumed with trolls and or rp-bashers/bullies. Why.

What happened to all of the WoW roleplayers?

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RP has pretty much always been relegated to the two main servers, at least for the last couple years. Nothingā€™s changed on that front.

RP is still abundant and everywhere. Stormwind is full, Silvermoon is full, Wyvernā€™s Tail and Blue Recluse see near-constant activity, guild events are organized every day and things like the Tournament of Ages on MG and the Story Circle on WrA are attended by hundreds.

You might just not be looking in the right places, but WoW RP is certainly not dead.

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Well, before it was WrA, Moon Guard, Earthen Ring, Feathersomethingā€¦ I mean, there was like at least half a dozen (or so I thought). Now itā€™s just 2.

And of those 2, itā€™s uhā€¦ different. And Iā€™ve seen a couple of the guild events, which are somewhat impressive depending. Though it still seemed pretty riddled with mockers and bullies. And, Stormwind on WrA is uhā€¦ Well, the Mage Quarter is rather dull unless your a Void Elf or a Pirate/Rogue.

Maybe youā€™re right. Maybe I am just missing the goodie spots, but I donā€™t know. I get around and I try to be pretty flexible.

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In regards to rp communities dying outside of WrA and MG I imagine the source of the issue, or rather sources, are numerable and varied. I imagine one such source could be lack of solidarity; particularly I mean people being unable to come together to improve things and instead simply move to where things are still favorable. I myself did that very thing when I became dissatisfied with how guild centric Ravenholtā€™s rp was, along with the paradoxically low variety and in rp guilds there, at least from what I knew at the time.

I would also like to blame griefers along with certain habits that Iā€™ve observed in the communities Iā€™ve been part of. I lack the experience and knowledge to confirm the former, however; I also fear I canā€™t quite articulate my views on the latter well enough atm.

To an extent I wonder if the very perception of rp being dead also contributes to waning activity. If people get the impression there is no rp to be had they likely wonā€™t bother even trying, leading a lack of new participants along with the possible lost of existing ones.

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Thereā€™s also a couple million fewer players playing WoW now than in itā€™s heyday, so that will naturally contribute to the situation.

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Very true, very true

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Blizzard just doesnā€™t support itā€™s rp community like other games, so many move to fresher lands. Many toy with the idea of starting our own RP forums as blizzard seems content to let this avenue fade like the others. The game has moved a lot towards a more action game than roleplaying. Theyā€™ve dropped a lot of little things over the years, and those little things add up. Theyā€™ve not added any good and new roleplaying aspects either. I think the one thing was transmog, which is nice.

That plus the decline in player numbers only further progresses the disease. It begets a circle where people drop because they are burned out or have no support, thus more drop and more drop.

We have a cup with a gradually growing hole in the bottom, with no one fixing the cup nor refilling it. We make due with what water is left, but we only bandaid the issues.

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Itā€™s also the holidays and finals for college students. There are people dealing with school, work, seasonal affective disorder, and holiday depression.

BfAā€™s narrative is also not really great.

Servers seem to die as people move to greener pastures. I feel like it has something to do with public RPā€”The death of walkup is the precursor to the death of RP on a faction.

Also it seems like a bunch of nasty types followed the Emerald Dream mass exodus to because they wanted to keep griefing RPers.

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While it is true that most of the smaller servers are no longer active RP-wise, thereā€™s still plenty of RP on both MG and WrA. In regards to these big realms, I think that youā€™re running into the same problem that a lot of us have in the past. When we canā€™t find type of RP we want, we feel like we canā€™t find any RP anymore.

By the way, if youā€™d like a smaller server, CC/SoE is still chugging along.

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This could also very well be the case.

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WTB player & guild housing TBH.

One of WoWā€™s problems is that all the public areas are crammed full of NPCs, especially in the new stuff, itā€™s like theyā€™re allergic to giving us empty places to use, thereā€™s NPCs everywhere.

But thereā€™s still plenty of RP around.

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I didnā€™t get your first comment. But Iā€™m new soā€¦

And yes, I noticed that too and thought maybe that was part of the issue, though I seek and seek. Iā€™m either not impressed, quickly distracted/bored, orā€¦ Iā€™m like the only ā€œhumanā€ from Lordaeron, itā€™s just weird. Iā€™m starting to think the more I ā€˜investigateā€™ / play , the more Iā€™m thinking maybe I just have outgrown this whole ArePee thing anyway. I donā€™t know

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Sorry. ā€˜Want to buyā€™ and ā€˜to be honestā€™ are the acronyms. I want WoW to join the modern era and give us player housing so we can have our own chunks of the world without having 10,000 NPCs shoved in our faces.

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That would be pretty cool. I imagine a Sanctum of Light that was fully customizable with different opts, etc .

I will just speak up for Emerald Dream. We are in the rebuilding process now and part of that is figuring how to RP and have WarMode: ON. The warmode caused sharding to be a massive issue with walk-up RP; when I have to add my wife to my party to see her standing next to me, it complicates things. To combat this, we have had to start to pre-arrange some activities. And like anything else, it takes effort to figure out what is not working and then develop ways to fix it. Lately, with the efforts that have been made to have quality events, RP is alive and kicking on ED. Steady events weekly and monthly, participation, and welcoming to those that are new to RP has been central to this re-growth, and we are in a much better place than when the expac dropped and sharding hit us in the collective face.

However, I do agree there are some changes that Blizzard could make to support RP, more specialized character customization, not just mogs, would be first on the list for me.

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Yesterday I bought game time on my accounts with gold. The expansion is so bad that token prices cratered.

I feel like Blizzard is going to have to pull another Legion if they want their game to recoverā€”pull out all the stops, turn things up to 11, and finally give the players things like actual housing and guild halls if they want to get people back.

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I just donā€™t understand why they wonā€™t. FFXIV does it in a cool way and they make $$ on the mog station selling little things for housing. They also sell emotes and boosts and what not too.

Another neat thing is how much they embrace RP. You can style your house like a forge, with mannequins that you can display armor on, that people can interact with to buy your armor. Itā€™s pretty neat.

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However, I do agree there are some changes that Blizzard could make to support RP, more specialized character customization, not just mogs, would be first on the list for me.

The best way to support it right now is to fix the sharding issues, honestly.

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I feel like I missed out on all the good rp. I started playing in 2007 on The Scryers because it was rp. Mind you I didnā€™t really understand how rp worked back then, but the was a little bit here and there. Now Iā€™m looking for more through cross realm groups because I donā€™t think my computer can handle the high population of characters in major cities in MG and WRA.

Iā€™d like to argue that despite what yā€™all are saying about ā€œdying RPā€, Iā€™ll have you know WoW RP seems to be one of the biggest hovels out there on the internet, one of the huge ones that -have- an official place to be.
This very forum happens to be one of them.

Look elsewhere and you may realize how incredibly difficult it is to find RP of any manner, that most are built by tiny groups of friends on home-made websites or forums that come and go as easily as sandcastles on the beach.

When I first visited FFIV, the Final Fantasy MMO, and searched for RP, I came to the rude awakening that RP is NOT as common as magikarp on the internet. There are many people out there that have never even heard of RP before, it was startling.
Though FFIV is relatively young compared to other MMOs like WoW, it had at least one realm where RPers are almost as active as they are on WoW (including its own ā€œGoldshireā€).

Iā€™ve yet to look around for RP on The Elder scrolls Online, though I get the feeling it might not be there, or if there is, I havenā€™t found their hot spots yet.

Thereā€™s actually a small but healthy amount of RP on the MMO ā€œWildStarā€ last I checked, which was a pleasant surprise, though the locations they have for it are nearly exclusive to their character housing lots which they can turn into public or private in-game RP hubs.

Anyway, my point is, we are very fortunate to have the stronghold of RP we have here on WoW, even if it does recede and grow over different parts of the seasons.

Mark my words: RP has been here on WoW for a long time, which Iā€™m willing to bet stretches back all the way to Vanilla. That means itā€™s been here for over 10 years. THATā€™S what makes the RP of WoW a stronghold compared to hundreds of trillions of RP hubs that are hidden, like tiny flecks of gold dust all over the ocean of sand that is the internet; these precious tiny flecks of RP hubs usually ever hold up anywhere from a few days to 1 or 2 years before they are buried, lost and forgotten.

That is all.

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