All the World's a Stage: Dear Wrath
by David Bowers 
Jul 20th 2008 at 5:55PM
The art of roleplaying is like a field of tender soil. You only get something back after you put something in.World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. But wait... before we get serious about this new expansion of our relationship, Wrath, there's something you should understand about me: I may be a hunter, druid, rogue, warlock, warrior, shaman, and even a mage, but above and beyond all these things I'm also a roleplayer. Yes, I love all those promises you're making me these days about how wonderful our life together is going to be, but something inside tells me that you don't really understand what I really want. You only understand the part of me that likes to shoot, shred, stun, fear, strike, shock and even blast my pixelated enemies into oblivion. But what about my artistic vision?
Oh sure, I see you smirking. What does artistic vision have to do with "Warcraft," "Wrath," and "Lich King?" ... well, you're forgetting the very first thing that anyone ever sees or hears about you: "World." You may have lots of violence, anger, and nasty enemies, but in the end what you really are is a world, a space, and a stage, where my friends and I can get together and have a good time. This is what you don't understand, Wrath: I'm a person, and I like to have things to do and talk about with other people that don't involve damage, threat, or recovering from damage and threat.
Okay okay, you have a point. It's not like you've ignored this aspect of our relationship completely; I'll give you credit for that. In fact, there are some new non-violent things I'm really looking forward to, which I wouldn't be able to do without you.
Yes, of course the most obvious example is the changeable hairstyles. It's really annoyed me for the last 3 or 4 years that I couldn't cut my hair, put it in a pony tail, or even shave my beard, all because your rigid rules wouldn't allow me to. So that's a welcome change. On top of that, recently you've started talking about offering tattoos too, and that's something I like as well. One thing I don't like is your steady refusal to let me change my facial expression! I may have been grimacing when I first entered this world, but that doesn't mean I want to keep grimacing now! Seriously.
And I'll also admit it's nice to have a whole new continent full of places to explore, discover, and hang out in. You've promised me that these places will be just as full of interesting stories as you can possibly fit in there, and I think I'm willing to trust you on that. You've certainly improved a lot over the years that I've known you, so chances are you'll keep on improving.
But now we come to one of the things we've talked about before but you never really seem to understand. You know I like items to do stuff with, and you try to give them to me, but the items you're giving me don't really meet my needs. I don't want a complicated widget that responds to my emotes -- I want simple things I can use in response to other people! Let's move away from gimmicks and toward more communicative things, simple effects that can be used in a variety of ways; less like Brazier of Dancing Flames, and like more Elune Stones.
Also, remove the level requirements on all those fancy clothes you have just lying around in stores -- they don't have any stats on them, and they would be great to deck out my low-level alternate characters with. What's the harm in giving my new mage a snazzy hat or flowing robe if that hat doesn't do anything for him except make him look wise? Not only would that allow more creativity for my bank alt, but it would let me fill out a nice cast of supporting characters for my roleplaying stories without having to spend all that time leveling them up. I might need a wise old gnome to give my friend's character some advice, but it really doesn't work if he looks like just another level 2 noob.
Finally, give me more legal documents and romance novels, but let me edit them too; and don't treat them as trash either! I like that stuff, and I don't want to sell it by accident.
Are you listening? Because that's not all -- my needs aren't simply materialistic cravings for more and more items, or more and more ways to make myself look pretty! I want more ways to communicate and find other roleplayers. Would it be very hard to make some kind of flagging system built into the interface, whereby I could let everyone know what kind of activity I'm looking for at the moment? You could make a setting for me to say "Looking for roleplayers" along with a brief description of my character to get people interested.
But non-roleplayers could enjoy this feature, too! You could have other settings like, "Looking for PvP battleground group" with a description of the type of player you're looking for, or "Looking for someone to level up with" with a description of what places you haven't been to yet. You could even have a setting where people could offer their help to others in one form or another. Wouldn't that be a great tool to help people connect with each other? You could even search for all the people who are using the same flag as you, or maybe even chat with them on a shared worldwide channel! Imagine if two people crossed by each other in the wilderness, and realized they were both looking for the same thing -- without this feature, they might just run on by, never knowing!
Sigh. Yes... I know. Even if you provide me with all these features and more, they still don't actually improve my roleplaying for me. They may make it easier and more lively, but in the end it depends on what my friends and I do with the tools available to us. If our creative durability is nearly broken, there's no magic repairman who can make everything okay again. We always have to put something magical into our experience if we want to get something magical out of it.
Alright, so it goes both ways. I'll admit that. I tell you what: my friends and I promise to do our part -- and if we have any trouble with that, we certainly won't blame you. But you do your part, too, okay? Don't forget. Promise?
All the World's a Stage is eternally grateful to the authors who take over for David when he's out on one of his travels, in one of his moods, or up to his earlobes in other stuff he gots to do. Check out Michael's Delicate Subjects and Added Flesh; Matthew's Non-RP RP, and Alex's RP Descriptions; and finally Zach's PvP RP.Filed under: Items, Virtual selves, Expansions, RP, Wrath of the Lich King, All the World's a Stage (Roleplaying)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kaphik Jul 20th 2008 6:21PM
I cannot comprehend why a large number of roleplayers are vehemently against pvp and/or raiding.
One would think that people who want to immerse themselves in the Warcraft universe would be even more inclined to pvp and raid. No matter what the "neutral" factions say, they are using Horde and Alliance for their own ends. There is and always will be conflict between the two factions, so play it up. Your chracter is more likely to hate the opposing faction than to be understanding of it. This isn't the real world, stop trying to be nice to everybody.
Raiding is a huge part of the game storylines. Plenty of successful raiding guilds are composed of people who "have a life" and don't live and breath raiding. Sure, they are not going to be getting world firsts or setting speed records for Black Temple clears, but they can beat the content if they put half a mind to it.
It seems to me that a lot of roleplayers aren't really roleplaying, they are storytellers acting out a specific storyline they have in their mind for their character. They don't react to the game world, or they want to be "ordinary citizens". Go play The Sims if you want to be ordinary, WoW is full of heroes.
Thhen there are those roleplayers who refute everything, and just use WoW as a glorified chat room / dating service.
Oh, and by the way, I've been playing exclusively on roleplay servers for more than two and a half years, enjoying pvp and pve immensely. My Tauren warrior has yet to stand around in a tavern yapping about his horrible childhood or some such grabage.
Roleplay WoW, please don't try and make it something it isn't then complain when Blizzard doesn't give you housing or something else equally useless.
(( Ok, I went off on a rant there and not necessarily directed towards the blogger. ))
Illyena Jul 20th 2008 6:55PM
We're not against raiding and PvP, I both raid and PvP extensively and Roleplay. We just want our specific interest to be catered to.
ILikePvPbuthatePvPers Jul 20th 2008 9:11PM
Like it or not though, your character will never Jaina Proudmoore or Thrall. YOU ARE an ordinary citizen.
Killersword Jul 31st 2008 12:12AM
I think Roleplayers don't like PVP or raiding because, they want to RP, but out of those 25 people maybe 5 out of 25 want to and it just ruins it?
David Bowers Jul 21st 2008 12:10AM
I think you'll find that there are lots of casual players of all sorts, RPers and non-RPers alike, who don't enjoy raiding and PvP. They just like the easy pace of leveling, without all the pressure that PvP and raiding can bring. People can get real critical in PvP and raiding environments when you make a mistake, and that tends to turn all kinds of people off, not just RPers. However, RPers *may* naturally tend a bit towards this casual side because we tend to like human interaction more than other things.
That said, I'm a big fan of RP and raiding at the same time, as well as RP and PvP at the same time. My time zone (in China), unpredictable latency, and working schedule don't allow me to raid as much as I like, but I do try whenever I get the chance! My guild likes to do Karazhan all in-character, and we have a great time at it.
PvP is much more accessible to me, since I can do it anytime by myself or with whoever happens to be around. If my friend is with me, we can roleplay together, of course. Or else I can just go ahead and interact with other people in-character just because I feel like it. They don't necessarily respond to me very much, but at least they don't say rude things to me. The BG channel has several noisy people saying rude things to anyone who will listen, but face to face, most players are pretty nice, I think.
Anyway, whatever my surroundings, I always have an in-character explanation for what my character is doing, and I talk about my PvP and raiding exploits while sitting around in a tavern or somewhere.
Have a look at these posts from this column, which are all about RP combined with PvP and raiding:
http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/12/16/all-the-worlds-a-stage-rp-pvp-killing-in-character/
http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/11/18/all-the-worlds-a-stage-raiding-and-rp-dont-mix-or-do-they/
Cynra Jul 21st 2008 7:39AM
I don't think that Mr. Bowers even mentioned that he was vehemently against raiding or PvP. In fact, the only person that did was you as the first reply to this entire article.
I know that as a full-time roleplayer who maintains a stable of alts across three realms, I explore everything that the game has to offer. I'm in a number of Arena teams, hit the Battlegrounds weekly, participate in attacks on enemy cities when warranted, and actively look for opportunities to get involved in world PvP; I'm actively raiding in two raids with two characters (hunter and priest), where we are in Tier 6 content. I've visited the Sunwell and assisted another guild in downing Kalecgos.
For many roleplayers, there is a lot of disparity between what the game offers and what we'd like to see. The skilled roleplayers -- the ones who are open-minded, engaging, and invite others to participate -- know how to weave those aspects into the game to get what I consider the optimal experience. For example, one of my characters was the head of a company of light infantry skirmishers who had banded together to assist the Alliance without catering to what many of us considered the corrupted elite. For months, we played a campaign against the Horde, using hit and run tactics to attack Horde camps and settlements. Eventually this resulted in us openly declaring war against our enemies and announcing our next targets. Depending on how the battle went, we would then decide our next move; a win resulted in a more favorable situation while a loss was pretty painful. We invited all players -- both Horde and Alliance alike -- to join us in our campaign and it had some surprising success.
So, to turn the tables on you, why are PvPers and raiders so vehemently against roleplaying? Because, to be brutally honest, my experiences show that the brunt of the illwill is from non-roleplayers to roleplayers.
Badger Jul 21st 2008 12:05PM
Kaphik: I'm all for you openly expressing your opinion, dude, but David didn't even mention the PvE vs. PvP argument in this article. Well, not directly, anyway. (Any time you talk about "new features" you can be sure someone will start comparing how they affect each gameplay mode.)
dAnixx Jul 20th 2008 6:32PM
You r u talking to?
David Bowers Jul 21st 2008 12:11AM
I'm talking to Wrath. Of the Lich King. The expansion. Good friend of mine. You might have heard of it.
Harlequinne Jul 20th 2008 9:19PM
Short summary:
Let me eat cake!
- I might be remembering this incorrectly but... There's a zone option in the LFG tool, which also automatically puts you in the *gasp* worldwide LFG Channel.
- The open API of WoW let's players get addons to suit their needs, and cuts down on the bloatedness of their software. The same reason why language packs are released relatively late. A sixth (or would that be seventh now?) disc cuts down on necessary install.
- WotLK is still in BETA. Not even an open beta, but a closed beta. Considering that, let's be brutally honest here, RP players are in a small minority, and that the beta is limited, it's not a big surprise that RP details have been quite sparse.
And one final, last remark: as a DM, I've conducted small scale roleplay sessions to flesh out the players' characters, setting etc. No books, no rules, no nothing.
RP has less to do with the tools you're given, and more with the players' input and effort.
Do you really need the amount of tools you say you need for a good roleplay?
David Bowers Jul 21st 2008 12:22AM
You need to read the whole article, Harlequinne. In particular, check out that last paragraph where I said: "Even if you provide me with all these features and more, they still don't actually improve my roleplaying for me. They may make it easier and more lively, but in the end it depends on what my friends and I do with the tools available to us. If our creative durability is nearly broken, there's no magic repairman who can make everything okay again. We always have to put something magical into our experience if we want to get something magical out of it."
So the answer is no, tools definitely do not make or break roleplaying. They only facilitate it. It's just like all of us could go on playing this game without new abilities and talents up to level 80 -- just the way some people like playing Classic WoW without the Burning Crusade. All you *need* is the basic stuff -- but the whole purpose of expansions to existing games is to make them better, and so here I am asking for things I think will help make the roleplayer's aspect of WoW better.
I'm not complaining or whining in the slightest. If you sense a whiny attitude in the beginning of this post, I only put it there so that I could show how wrong it was with the realization in the last two paragraphs there. You'll see the first little sentence in italics at the top reflects that too. RP is all about you and your friends -- the tools can and should just help make that easier.
Cynra Jul 21st 2008 7:53AM
I think that many people forget that while roleplayers ARE a small portion of the playerbase, Blizzard HAS catered to us. This is evidenced by the fact that roleplaying servers exist for the sole purpose of maintaining an environment for those people who would like to be in-character and interact with people who feel the same way. There are even very specific rules that exist that say that people should conduct themselves in a certain manner while on these servers and that certain conventions are in place to help roleplayers maintain a specific type of environment.
Mind you, Blizzard doesn't actively enforce these rules, but that's the stance that the company takes on the vast majority of their rules.
As a roleplayer, I'd love to see a lot of these ideas (which have appeared in other games, no less!) implemented. Are they necessary? No, of course not. But would they be less welcome for it? No! They aren't crutches used to help flagging roleplayers but instead could be used to facilitate roleplaying. A lot of Mr. Bowers's suggestions are ones that many of us have suggested in the past because they'd be awesome and fun and very viable in roleplaying.
To be honest, the core game is there. We have nine classes currently in game -- why do we need a tenth in the form of the Death Knights? We have a variety of end-game instances and raids -- why do we need more? We have two worlds to explore, a myriad of zones, thousands of quests, a variety of tradeskills, numerous towns, and the list of things in-game go on and on and on -- do we need this next expansion?
To turn the question on your, Harlequinne, do you really need the amount of things coming out with Wrath of the Lich King for a good game? And, if so (or if the rabid fan clammoring for the next expansion have a voice), why should it be that roleplayers lack a voice in saying what we'd like to see?
Tenchan Jul 21st 2008 4:05AM
You may be delighted to hear that Wrath offers a great number of new emotes. Since Wrath is still in its Beta pants, it may even add more animations to them by the time it's in its Epic Release Robe. I for my part baked Wrath a cookie for that.
Elmo Jul 21st 2008 4:15AM
simply:
empty inns in Dalaran, or at least one with plenty of tables and silent npc's
Ravenswing Jul 21st 2008 6:18AM
On the day roleplaying is anything more than an afterthought in 'MMORPG' design, I will fall over in sheer amazement. However, aside from that, one technical point regarding your article.
If Blizzard gave us editable books in game (which presumably can be copied and distributed), then they leave themselves open to someone charging them with something dumb like "providing tools for the distribution of pornography" or some other moronic concept. Not likely to happen, I'm afraid.
Finnicks Jul 21st 2008 8:11AM
Dear Wrath,
Did you know that you are THE expansion for Forsaken RPers? You are going to be a vertiable hotbed of anti-Lich King sentiment among us free undeads. It's going to be... so beautiful.
Until everyone else gets tired of it.
:D