Results tagged “RP” from From the Abbey to Outlands

As many of you know, my character Telaan, a level 70 Draenei Paladin, recently got married in game to Eilana, a level 70 Night Elf Rogue. It was a spectacular occasion with many friends and allies in attendance, and fireworks to celebrate the occasion. Below are the photos.

    

I have been blogging a little less than often in the last few days, but I promise I have a few good reasons. I tried to get some posting done in advance, and it worked, to a degree. I did run out of advance writing on Friday. The reason I was in need of working ahead, is because I had a couple of important events in the last week. The first was a private event in game, and while I will not go into what it entailed, let's just say it was an added level of connection for me, and involved a collar.

The second, this past Saturday, my Draenei Paladin was married at an as yet undiscovered location in the world by most players. I will be posting screenshots as soon as possible, but I had several high stress days where I tried to write the  words and timelines for both of these ceremonies, which mean a lot to me. Once the wedding was done, I decided to take a day to relax, and then I realized that my game time expires on the 30th, and I wanted to spend as much time as I can in game, in case I can't come back until around the time that Wrath is released.

I should be back into the writing now, and will do my best to get a few more 'in case' posts which can be posted just in case I am not able to write something on the day of. I also plan to do a podcast episode in the next day or two, and will try to edit it for release by the end of the week. In the meantime, enjoy the vibrant worldwide economy, check out my past posts, and see ya soon!

I figured, since I am on an RP server, and RP servers are one of the most misunderstood beasts in the World of Warcraft, I would give you my top 5 tips. Let's start off with...

1. Naming - Yes, folks, the #1 part about being valued on an RP server is choosing the right name. No, Legolass, Legoass, Gymli, Gundalf, or Bobssexykitten are not appropriate names. The naming rules on an RP server are significantly more strict, and while it may take 65 levels for someone to report your name, it is still wrong naming for the entire 65 levels.
2. Understand - Life on an RP server is not the same as the other 2 styles of server, counting RP and RP PvP under the same banner. RP servers are often more laid back, but can be fun if you are into RP.
3. Try - Give it a shot. What will it hurt? No, you don't need to study up on Middle English. No, you do not speak like the King James Bible. You do not, though, use lol, afk, brb or the many other net acronyms that are in common use in the channels deemed In Character. These are Say and Yell primarily, though some do RP in party and whispers. Don't talk about tanking, DPS, hit rating, and all the other mechanics of the game in these channels. This is why you have parties and whispers. If there's a bunch of you, join a raid. If only two, take it to whispers. Hit R to reply, which is just as easy as Enter to open a new chat line. Addons like WIM(Warcraft Instant Messenger) are helpful in these situations as well.
4. Compromise - Ok, so you tried to RP and just couldn't get into the swing of it. You have no desire or interest in PvPing. Gotcha, I won't ask again. This is where compromise comes in. You don't like the RP, and I won't force you to. This is still and RP server, and I assume you have friends here, so let's agree that you will keep your game talk from breaking my RP, and I won't have to report you for every infraction. If someone tries to RP with you, just respond with ((I am not interested in RP, but thank you)). The (( and )) and pretty universal indicators you are talking OOC(Out of Character). The other person will either respond with thanks, or move on to more willing folks.
5. Maturity - This is a big one. If it weren't for the importance of Naming, this would be at the top of the list. RP does not mean cyber. RP servers aren't a playground for PvP server kidlets to come to and wreak havoc. GMs will suspend your account and may even ban you for harassing RPers on their server. If you have nothing better to do when your realm goes down, guess what! There's these things called books, sports, and friends. Go find some and make use of them until your playground comes back online.
   

I hope that these tips have helped you, or maybe someone you know, in knowing how to become a valuable member of an RP server's community. There were a lot of others I could have chosen, like Respect, Honor, and so on, but these 5 were a good start. What are yours? We do not demand you RP, we just demand you respect the rules. 

I previously asked you for your thoughts on the race and name of your own planned Death Knight and my future Death Knight on the Argent Dawn realm. While I do not have a decision on these two points, I did want to bring up one last discussion regarding the new information for the Death Knights that we have received before I begin to work in on the leaked information from the WotLK Alpha Wiki. Back story is one of the most integral aspects of playing in the biggest part of Argent Dawn, Roleplay.

I talked a bit of the back story of my characters in an earlier part in this series, but now I want to delve into back story a bit more. The big question for the Death Knight will be to extend or create fresh. If I extend one of my current characters, what happens to the character I extend? If I create new, how did he get there. Hell, the same question could be asked of an extension, because Medros, Arita, and Ameland haven't been to Northrend.

I truly feel that, in an RP sense, the Death Knight has to be a new character. Will he be one of the peon's who was helping build Arthas' base in the Warcraft 3 campaign that has him chase Malganis? Will he be the Captain who Arthas commands to protect the base when Athas and Muradin Bronzebeard went in search of the ancient blade, Frostmourne? This also begs the question of how there can be Night Elf, Draenei, Tauren, or Orcish Death Knights at the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, since to our knowledge none of those races have gone up to Northrend either!

I guess the sense I get when I close my eyes and think up a history of my Death Knight, name yet undecided(but not Darth), is that he was a soldier who, finding the ships destroyed and his leader claiming the mercenaries did it, went into a fury like no other. He helped his fellow soldier slay the mercenaries, and then proceeded to fall into a deep, cold depression. Desperate to leave, he wandered out into the wilderness, willing to take the smallest bits of wood and make a raft to try and get home to his family.

He got lost, and soon found himself to have lost more than just the path to the camp, but his resolve and his way. With the voice of the Lich King haunting him, he wandered for months. It is only for this that he was lucky enough to be spared when the Prince returned to the camp as a Death Knight of the Lich King and slaughtered all. When he finally returned to the camp, he found only the smoldering wreckage of the camp and the bodies of his countrymen, men of Lordaeron, lying scattered on the ground, frozen in the snow.

I can go on from here, but this is the idea I had for my Death Knight, and there will be more to come. I still need a name, and if I decide against this story line, I would also need a race, so feel free to let me know your thoughts on those posts. I would also love to hear your thoughts on history and back story for your own Death Knights! Next post I will talk a bit about the leaking of information, respect for the development process, and what a company earns when they snub dedicated fans who work hard for their game. 

I love WoW, often more than I should. I love the art, the story, the feel of accomplishment when a goal I reach is a long toil, but worthy in the end. Grinding Ogri'la to get my Vortex Walking Boots. Grinding out SV runs and buying up every available Coilfang Armament I could until I got my Cenarion Hippogryph. Pushing every day to get my Netherwing rep to exalted for a Netherdrake. Even grinding out the rep for Darnassus to get Medros a Saber instead of his tired old Charger. All of these have been enjoyable but long battles for rep and a bit of coin, to get the items I want in the game.

Some call me hardcore. Some call me a farmer. Different people, different titles. I have even been called the WalMart of Argent Dawn. Addict is a popular one, and one I am not even sure I can deny anymore. Me? I call myself casual. I don't spend hours on end mastering fights that can turn on the chance of a crit. I don't spend hours getting the rep or reagents for a raid. I don't spend days upon end running heroic after heroic to get the best gear in the game. I don't fret over going somewhere and wiping over and over, giving 30-50g worth of repair bills. It's a game, and not really worth all of that effort.

My question for you is this: can you be a hardcore casual? How about a Casual addict? Can you be addicted to the game and still play casual? I guess the base problem in the entire discussion is definitions and classifications. How do we define an addict of WoW? How do we define a casual player? How do we define a hardcore player of WoW? Can a casual still play 5-10 hours a day on a weekend? Can a hardcore play only 10 hours in an entire week? Is an addict someone who can't stop? What if you are a hardcore player who is addicted but only plays for 10-15 hours a week?

In the end it all breaks down to stereotypes and classifying people by our own biases. For someone who is struggling to get the time for their first character to hit 70, someone who raids Kara every week and does a 25 man or Zul'Aman on the weekends could be hardcore. Someone who has a couple 70s and sees the same guy RPing in Shatt every time he is near, wearing the same level 45 greens, could see that person as a casual n00b who can't play worth a damn. To that RPer, the hardcore who ridicules him, or even the one who just doesn't respond to the attempts to RP, those guys in all purples from Kara, ZA, or the 25 mans could be seen an elitist jerk raider who can't follow the rules.

You see how perceptions are? They only serve one purpose: to break up the community into divided camps, more easily picked off by other games and bad patches, leading to a fractured, aggressive, and volatile community. What keeps us apart as a community, what maintains the divide, is the fact that the patches seem to focus in one area at a time, making one part of the game good while seeming, from the player perspective, to break or sacrifice the other parts of the game.

I wonder, though, is there any way to repair the problem? Can we fix this growing divide between the different goals? Will we just drift apart until the game falls apart with players drifting to different games that fill their particular need more than WoW does? What do you think of this problem, of the stereotypes in WoW?