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Warcraft Roleplaying Guide: Friends list and Guilds

The Beginners Guide to Immersing Yourself in Online Interactive Storytelling

By Rease ArchboldPublished 3 years ago 15 min read
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The section we use to learn how to organize our friends.

Previous Section - Part 12

As I've said, Friends are really great, and they make Warcraft a lot better. The quality of your friendships that you'll be developing with other players is entirely dependent on you, of course, and how well you interact with other players. It's not uncommon to meet people and build something that goes well beyond just Warcraft. In fact, I still have friends who I met years ago and still talk to that date all the way back to my raiding days from the Burning Crusade. Not only that but I also have friends that I still talk to that date even further back to my days playing Ultima Online.

I even still have friends on my Facebook that I knew back in my teenage years and Roleplaying in various Chat Rooms, Message Boards, and other places from the late '90s, to the early 2000s.

So keep in mind that ALL of the tools and ways that you can communicate with other Players aren’t indicative of how GOOD of a friend you'll be, or the quality of the relationship. Talking and being friends with people is still entirely dependent on you.

It just doesn’t hurt when you can have many different ways to drop a random 'Hello" to someone is all.

Or squeeze your buddy in a beefcake sandwich.

So what I'll be going over in this section is the two simplest forms of communication in Warcraft: The Friends List, and the Guild system. Each of them are vastly different from one another that have no overlap in functionality and are used for different reasons, with different goals and approaches. The Friends list mainly being used as a self-curated list of people you like to talk and roleplay with, and the Guilds being centered on a micro-community within the larger community that all have a shared theme, goal, and culture within.

With that said, let me get started on the first item on my list of subjects to discuss: The Friends List.

Friends List

The first major subject that I wanted to discuss with this topic is The Friends list.

So what exactly is the friends' list, and why is it considered the basis for all other social circles that you want to foster?

Well you see, in the early days of World of Warcraft - usually defined as anything before the Cataclysm Expansion - there weren't a whole lot of different ways that you could stay connected with other people unless you made use of the Friends list. The only other major way to do so was through guilds (More on that in a bit), and a lot of times those guilds were also housed on third party websites such as Shivtr and Enjin.

Not only that, but collaboration with the opposing faction was also strictly against the rules - which thankfully Blizzard relaxed and rescinded that rule. So back then you couldn't even technically talk to other players who were on the opposite faction unless it was on a third-party platform.

Heck, if you played on a PvP server, you couldn't even roll a character of the opposing faction and had to stick to either the Alliance or Horde for that server alone. While Roleplay servers had a different ruleset than the others, coordination was still enforced, even if wasn't heavily enforced.

While Cataclysm isn't exactly remembered fondly for a lot of reasons by Warcraft Players, it did bring with it changes to staying connected that thankfully made it so much easier. It not only relaxed a lot of those old rules to keep the player base separated into factions - mostly because it's really stupid to keep your players from playing with one another - but it also brought in a lot of other ways to stay connected that I'll be going on later.

Still, the Friends list IS limited in scope, even if it's one of the most basic, and widely used tools for staying connected. There are some definite pros and cons to the system, which I'll be going over right now.

This is pretty much what it looks like. Though this picture IS out of date.

First off; the Pros of the system. The most important part of why the Friends list is still useful is because it's extremely easy. You simply target the player you're conversing with, right-click their portrait, and scroll down to "Add Friend", and that’s it. Alternatively, you can also manually put in the other player's name, and they'll be added.

The second upside of the system is that it informs you when the person you friended logs on. You'll often get both a text and sound notification when a friend logs on, and you'll see them in your friends' tab, including the area that they're currently in. When you want to send them a private message, all you have to do is click on their name, and scroll down to "whisper" to allow you to send them a message.

Simple!

The cons? Well, the biggest downside is that it's still rather limited as I said. You can't friend players of the opposite faction, and you're limited by only a certain number of people. This limit is around ~500 or so players and is tied to your Battle Tag system. While that SEEMS like a large number of players, and a hard cap to hit, it's still something to keep in mind if you're the sort of player who likes to Friend everyone you meet or like to keep in contact with various other people for collaboration.

Another downside (or an upside depending on the mood of the other player) is that it's tied to THAT character only. Meaning that if they log off of that character and onto another one, you won't know. For autonomy this is great, but it still makes getting in contact with the other player for conversation and collaboration cumbersome if you needed to talk to them.

It's for this reason why the other systems of communication I'll be going over are preferable, and why you should mainly use the in-game Friend system as a basis for your budding friendship. It's a good place to start, and to collect Roleplayers that you enjoy roleplaying with on one in-game list.

Though right now I’ll be going over an even BETTER list of players that you can get into contact with, and one that will help you achieve your goals and give you something to build off of. I'll be going over Guilds next.

Guilds

Guilds are great because they’re essentially the foundation of any sort of social life when it comes to Roleplay on Warcraft. They’re a smaller, more focused group of people who tend to come together with a similar theme or goal and work together and collaborate towards said theme/goal.

When it comes to roleplay and character development, Guilds on either Moon Guard or Wyrmrest Accord come in three different flavors: Social, Themed, and Misc. Social Guilds tend to be more focused on just being a place where players congregate together and hang out without any sort of overarching storyline or goal, while misc. guilds tend to be more focused on other aspects of the game, such as PvP, or PvE. Themed guilds are by far the most common you’ll find on Roleplay Servers and are typically designed to fit around themes, lore, or roleplaying styles.

We’ll use my guild as an example: I roleplay on Moon Guard predominately in an Argent Crusade themed guild where we each roleplay as soldiers of the Argent Crusade (A knight based organization in the lore of the game). While a lot of us aren’t really Knight Characters, we still try to fit in the established lore of the organization as it’s presented in the game.

Just to show you what it looks like. Blocked out most of it for the privacy of other players.

Now, this should be said: A guild can make or break your time when it comes to Roleplaying. A bad guild can make you feel isolated and alone – which is the opposite of what you WANT when finding a guild. A bad guild will take and demand things of you that you can’t really afford to give or don’t want to give – such as time and resources or more.

A good guild on the other hand will make your time so much better and could serve as the epicenter for which you base all your roleplay off of. A good guild is one that will work with you, and help to develop your character, your concepts, and allow you in. Bad guilds ruin the hobby, while good guilds enhance the hobby and get you excited and feeling immersed.

It’s true. The only reason I started to stick around and Roleplay was because I met a good core of friends in a guild, and I’ve been Roleplaying on World of Warcraft for nearly 8 years now. I use to be a dedicated raider and I mostly only Roleplayed on the weekends as a way to escape the grind that comes when constantly gearing for raiding. Met some people, and started to spend more and more of my time on Moon Guard and seeing what other shenanigans I can get into.

Eight years later, here I am; writing this guide so you can (hopefully) experience the same magic.

Now, this isn’t to say that you HAVE to join a guild. It’s merely presented as an option that you could do. In actuality, a lot of players on Moon Guard or Wyrmrest Accord aren’t part of guilds and are still successful when it comes to integrating themselves into the community. All too often people create guilds that have just them and their alts in them (Called “Vanity Guilds”) and they bounce around from scene to scene. This is a perfectly viable way to play and if you’re a player who wants to be connected but don’t feel like you can devote your time to a guild then feel free to either make yourself a Vanity Guild or just not join one.

However, if you ARE a player who wants to join a guild, then feel free to find one that works for you!

So, to sum it all up, what are the pros and cons of a guild for a beginner roleplayer then?

The obvious Pros are pretty immediate as you can see: You have a central hub where all your roleplay can be based on, and you can do a multitude of different things with other players outside of Roleplay as well. Plus, it's just fun to get involved with a new group of people that get along with and try new things.

The cons of a guild? Unfortunately, there are plenty of those. Most of which I briefly touched on above, and revolve around the fact that sadly a lot of guilds aren't run well. Running a guild is a skill that a lot of players sorely lack because it takes a lot of organization to do properly. Organization and skills that can easily take up a whole other guide (Of which I'll touch on one day) to discuss.

Needless to say, a poorly ran, and organized guild can be frustrating and alienate you more than being alone would. Plus some Guild Leaders simply see members as a numbers game, meaning the MORE they have, the BETTER they think they are. This isn't true, as all Roleplaying Guilds are based on quality, and not quantity. A guild with 5 members who regularly contribute and socialize with each other and the community will always be seen as better than a guild with 20 members who rarely log on or talk.

So the downsides are plentiful, but the upsides are what make it worth it in my book. Simply because you CAN leave a guild if you feel they're not giving you what you need. Signing up and joining a guild isn't a contract after all. You can leave, and find one till you feel comfortable.

This leads me to the next topic that ties up into the above.

Finding a Guild

So how do you find a good guild then, since there are a lot of choices out there and you probably don’t want to just bounce from guild to guild?

For starters, go to your interface option, go to the social tab, and turn on “Block all Guild Invites.”.

Why? Isn’t the whole point to finding a guild is to be invited to one?

Yes. However, the difference is you don’t want to join a guild that spams out invites to random, unguilded players without first getting to know them or what that guild is particularly about. If you want to, just to have a place to go – that’s entirely fine. However good guilds are ones that work actively in creating a mini-community within the community, and creating an inviting culture; something that you’ll probably not find in a “mass invite” guild. Don’t worry, you can easily turn it off when you’ve found the guild that you want to join since it’s just a simple button and doesn’t take more than several seconds to activate.

Another good tip that you should be aware of is to never go into the “Guild Finder" tab that is offered through the Communities section. While there are plenty of guilds there that are offered up – with a lot of them that ARE active (In fact my Guild is there too), more often than not you’ll find guilds that are either long since dead, have a lot of characters in but no active members, or just don’t fit what you’re looking for. My main Roleplaying guild has been listed for five or so years and has only ever found ONE person through that tool, and they left immediately afterwards.

Like above, I wanted to protect the privacy of players. Just showing what it looks like.

So where do you find guilds then if those two ways aren’t viable? Luckily, Guilds are everywhere, but you have to go and find them.

One of the first places that you can go is to go to the Blizzard Forum. As long as you have an active account to World of Warcraft, you can post anything on the forums. What you’ll want to do is go to either the Moon Guard forums, or the Wyrmrest Accord forums, and look at who is advertising there.

While a lot of the larger, older guilds more than likely aren’t posting there consistently since they’re already established, you’ll find plenty of smaller or newer guilds that are looking for people to join up. A good post will give you an idea of what the guild is about: Such as schedule, types of events that they run, extracurricular activities outside of Roleplay that they offer, and easy to reach information.

Simply engage with the post, and see if they're a good fit for you!

Lots of choices on where to go for discussion.

Another tactic for finding a pretty popular, well ran guild is to simply go to Server Events. Sometimes a person will run a “job fair’ type of event where guilds looking to actively recruit will be out in force selling themselves to potentially interested people. Though, more often than not you’ll just find guilds that work well together hanging out at Server Events roleplaying with one another. If you see them active and around, and they catch your eye? Just walk on up and engage them and see how friendly they are right off the bat. If you enjoy talking and interacting with its members, always feel free to ask questions OOCly if you’re interested and ask if they’re looking for people to recruit. 8/10 times they are, and might even be willing to recruit you once they’ve engaged with you and see how you act with them.

The third and final tactic for finding a guild is to go where IC recruitment tends to happen. For Alliance, this typically happens in Stormwind, while in the Horde it’s in Orgrimmar. When you’re Roleplaying in the capital cities you might hear people occasionally yelling about their guild and asking for people who are interested to sign up. While this form of recruitment is slowly being phased out because of the potential to spam people’s chat boxes, it’s still a popular way to quickly gain attention and get a guild's name out there. Plus, it DOES work still, so it remains a popular tactic for newer guilds, and established guilds alike.

Just like with the Server Event, just approach, talk, ask questions OOCly, and see if they fit you.

Once you’ve gotten through that, what’s next?

Well depends. Some guilds take anyone who shows some interest right away and invite them immediately (which you should turn off the “block all guild invites” option off for). Some guilds require an IC interview to see if your character fits into what they’re going for. Others require a bit more extensive interviews or questionnaires to see if potential players are willing to put in a bit of work on their end to join.

No matter what your comfort level is when it comes to that; that’s all that’s needed.

Conclusion

Quite a lot has been said already on just these two ways to stay connected with friends – or connect WITH new friends – alone, and that should show you just how easy it all rather is. When you play World of Warcraft, you’re not playing it alone. It IS a multiplayer game after all, and the draw is meeting new people.

So what else needs to be said? For here, there isn’t much else that can be discussed. In the next part, I’ll be going over Battle Tagging, and how you can find – and join – In-Game Communities and use them to stay connected and to meet new people. They’re a little bit more complex than the previous two ways, but they can help enrich your time in the game to a massive degree.

Hope to see you then!

Start of this Guide

Part 1 - Introduction

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About the Creator

Rease Archbold

Nothing more than an Indie Author with several books in the works who likes reading, writing, telling stories, relaxing, and having a good cup of coffee.

Works include themes of Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, and non-fiction on the gig economy.

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