Draenei role-play

What is it about draenei role-play that makes it so difficult to get a steady playerbase going? Why has it proven so difficult to band the draenei together in a unified role-playing directive? It's not just proven difficult on this particular server. It seems to be a problem everywhere. I feel there is a draenei-shaped hole in this server. It is certainly not for a lack of characteristic iconography. The race oozes character that could make it distinct from anything else. They've got a funny accent, unique architecture, lots of locations to use (Shattrath and the Exodar: two major cities!), recognizable armor and weaponary; hell, they even have a unique music! Maybe it is this very unqiueness that makes them unattractive. But I digress.

Why has it been difficult to bind this iconography with a steady group of players in a group of draenei in similar armor, with similar weaponary, charging at the Horde on their elekks?

As some of you might know, this problem is very dear to me and has caused me a great deal of stress, almost to the point of spoiling my enjoyment of this game completely.

What is lacking? Are the draenei simply too unpopulair a race to sustain a steady playerbase? Or do most draenei prefer to identify themselves with multi-racial guilds and directives? I'd like to hear your opinion on this.|

As a footnote, I would like to add that I personally strongly feel part of the problem is that draenei is such a populair race for death knights and shamans. This is not really a problem on its own, but when most of the server's most recognizable dreanei characters are all of the shady kind, rather than the pious paladins you'd expect them to be, something has gone awry. The exception should never become the norm, or it seizes to be the exception. The two classes you'd expect by the lore to be the most populair, namely; priests and paladins, feel underrepresented. There are more shamans in the Naaruvada than there are priests and at some point there were as many death knights as there were paladins.

Another part of the problem might be that draenei lore has been pretty much stagnant since the Burning Crusade. However, this had been the same for Blood Elves untill very recently and that did not stop that race from blooming in role-play. So I'd like to think the actuality of a race in recent lore has very little to do with its popularity.

I would at some point in the future return to draenei role-play as a vindicator. A character like that has been building in my chest for a as long as I have been playing Thelos. Whern I inevitable start actively playing this character, I only hope there will be a draenei community to role-play with.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

I think, sometimes and for some people, it is because the race just seem so/too alien. I know that might seem weird. This is a world of talking cows and wolves in human clothing. But the Draenei are a very "alien" race. They're quite unlike the others, really. And the very thing that sets them apart (They Came From Outer Space)... sets them apart.

Orcs and trolls, goblins and werewolves, elves and humans, even the undead. They're all part of a much more "accessible" and "standard" fantasy fare. Tauren's and Draenei are different. And this is a big part of the challenge they face with players picking them up, and as such, numbers of people who go on to RP them.

There is, too, the feeling that they're a little "left aside" since their introduction in TBC. Perhaps that means people don't connect with them so easily.

Draenei females do have a nice wiggle though. And the males look good in armour (but less so, to me, in cloth (just like Taurens in cloth)). Their voices are one of the better things about them, nice voice acting. And how things look and sound does have an impact, of course it does.

The lack of draenei love and story from Blizzard since TBC makes them less visible and thus less immediately appealing, certainly. As for myself, I personally find it difficult to properly 'get into' a character with the lifespan of a draenei, especially when a lot of the Argus backstory is also a little vague (at least to me). Having hundreds or thousands of years of inferred character history is certainly some form of roadblock (albeit not insurmountable), compared to some of the younger races, which can have altogether less history and less character background.

I do think it's a shame that draenei don't have a solid core on the server, and are rather more dispersed. For what it's worth, goblins Horde-side are in a similar predicament on the realm, although I suppose having them spread about is fitting to their commercial and industrial interests too.

Pao wrote:
As a footnote, I would like to add that I personally strongly feel part of the problem is that draenei is such a populair race for death knights and shamans. This is not really a problem on its own, but when most of the server's most recognizable dreanei characters are all of the shady kind

Wait draenei shamans are the shady type? (though a lot of old dreanei characters are shamans because they're the first shaman race available in tbc.)


If you ask me, the biggest problem for a united dreanei front, since imo, there are plenty of squids around to make a (for DB measures) a medium sized guild is:

Story.

They have no Story coming from Lore since TBC, making them space-squids. Which means, if you wish to RP the continuing story-lines that blizzard created - mainly the war, but before that wotlk had nothing for dreanei either, and neither did cata - You'll have to ride on the waves for the other-races.

So look the main story-theme currently in wow = the war.

that war is being fought on panderia, in arathi, in ashenvale. soon in the belfie lands. Making Shattrath pointless and deserted, making exodar pointless and deserted. There is no reason for anyone interested in participating in the main theme to be there, to interact there bar the off event. Making RPing in either of those places, a very lonely affair, and for a medium-sized guild even that would be difficult.

Add to that; for military aligned squidies, there's no point to be in either of those places, as the wars aren't being fought there, and there are better options guildwise available for that.

So knowing that there is no room for random RP in squid locations, Knowing that half the squids potentially interrested in a draenei guild, are military aligned, how would you keep organise a guild in such a fashion that you could keep up activity?

I never liked draenei because it was a bad excuse from Blizzard.

There was draenei, there was eredar. Suddenly Alliance should have to play tiny-holy eredar, so lets make up a third spiece, and while we're at it the draenei race will be the most deformed one, practicly mindless ones.

The new one will be the broken ones, mildly deformed, this is the race we got introduced to in wc3. Even though they don't look like it.

Oh and let's not forget the holy eredar that now are playable. Have fun!


No, but.. It's a massive thorn in my side as to why I can't respect them as much as I perhaps should. I still think they've got good potentional and concepts. But that unconscious part will keep me from it.

And they're ugly.

Draenei appear to be insufferably boring blue skinned boy scouts.

I'm sure they're a fun and interesting race once you start looking into them in greater detail, but first appearances are important and let's face it, their first appearance in RP terms is as big blue alien do-gooders.

To keep things constructive:

Amaryl wrote:
They have no Story coming from Lore since TBC, making them space-squids. Which means, if you wish to RP the continuing story-lines that blizzard created - mainly the war, but before that wotlk had nothing for dreanei either, and neither did cata - You'll have to ride on the waves for the other-races.

Though they haven't had much specifically for themselves, draenei could very well have a specific military raison d'etre. With Hellscream's Horde increasingly reminiscent of the Draenor Horde under Ner'zhul, the draenei both have vengeance to fight for and a duty to prevent the genocides on Draenor from repeating. Along Wrathion's lines, bringing a swift defeat to the Horde so Azeroth's focus can move to the Legion might also be a primary concern of the draenei.

The draenei home-zones may not be under attack, but for a race that have been driven off whole worlds, no doubt they would see the 'bigger picture' and thus have as much reason to want to fight and win as any. I agree on the point that Exodar and such are a little remote, but I see little reason a draenei guild cannot use the draenei starting-zones in between deployments to various zones, and aiding various other Alliance guilds.

I'm not saying they cannot use it. Nor am I saying that dreanei don't have reasons to participate.

I'm saying that there are clear obstacles to be overcome, that don't need to be overcome by playing a different race, or if you're a dreanei, to be in a different guild, say an achorite in DoL, or a vindicator in well DoL.

People to roleplay with is essential, and isolating yourself, will suck away activity. Which makes dreanei roleplaying difficult, because all the iconic dreanei culture isn't used in the storylines nor themes of wow currently.

I once levelled a draenei paladin for rp on my old server, and just as it reached a useful level the guild disbanded. QQ. Back then I thought I would be moving to AD and transferred the char there, where it has been gathering dust ever since. My current living draenei is a shaman, since I wanted to try a different class, and already have a human paladin here on DB.

Ehm, anyway my point... I agree that draenei rp seems very interesting. I also agree that their past being terribly vague can make it very challenging.

I also think that it's true that the general consensus of "draenei can only be good" could scare off people, as it makes them sound shallow. If people go far enough to look into their lore and draw their own conclusions, they can of course be made much more interesting than that.

I don't really have any ideas on how to create better draenei rp though.

Some thoughts:

1. The draenei are different. When you play a draenei, you want to be alien. You're not alien among your own kind. The coolness of all the cool draenei stuff decreases as the number of draenei present increases.

2. The Dranei, while vastly different from everyone else, are presented to us as monotonous. They are, as presented to us, mind, ALL Uther's stern grandfather. Deviating from that standard seems like cheating, so my creativity is trampled by conformist lore.

Thank you all for your honest and insightful replies.

Reading this, I can once again draw the conclusion that has been drawn several times already: that draenei are unattractive to many players because of two reasons: (1) They seem too boringly good without any nuance to them and (2) they are too alien.

While both points have been argued against (I should know), they undoubtedly make draenei an unpopulair choice.

From this I can only conclude that there are not enough players interested in the race to support a racial guild; and even if they were, many of them are more interested in being as alien as possible and will therefore seek to be part of more standard role-playing enviroment.

I will stick to my Pandaren with a draenei alt in some multi-racial guild...For now.

"No recent lore" is a fairly shitty reason. RP doesn't rely on current lore. Because afaik RP is about making stories within the lore, not being a part of the lore. Shit, if I wanted to play a soldier in Pandaria I'd do the Pandaria quests.

It's a completely untrue reason, anyway. There's no lore regarding Arathi right now, but everybody's there. There's server lore, sure. But there could be Draenei server lore too.

As for them being too different, I always liked that. I really wanted to try proper draenei RP, I just never really had the time for alts.

Imo it's probably the same problem that killed Northern RP. The community is so small and tightly bound that everyone flocks to the newest initiative by the best-known RPers and it gets hyped up. The majority of guilds have loose concepts and will find a reason to be there. Any guild that doesn't falls into the background. It's unknown, forgotten about, and it's isolated, because everyone else is somewhere else.

Of course it's possible to get some RP going. I'd imagine it's harder for draenei RP than Northern RP because draenei is less commonly played than human, but it's essentially the same: you'll need to spend a lot of time and effort to get your RP known and attract people to it. Then, because you're isolated from the wider community (which really doesn't help in getting known), you'll need to spend a lot of time creating RP so people don't get bored. And as soon as the RP starts to dip, people will start to leave, so the RP dips more, etc.

And when that happens, people will go to join the better-known guilds involved in the bigger storylines.

That's what I think is the problem, not just for draenei RP, but for all RP following a solid concept. Maybe I'm wrong.

If that is the problem, I don't know any way to solve it. I always thought perseverance would pay off; even a very niche concept will grow, however slowly. But if you can't be there to make RP all the time, it'll shrink.

If you're gonna try to start up draenei RP again, Pao, I'd recommend trying to get it known on the Blizzard RP and realm forums. Trying to get people from other realms or just outside of DefiasRP will probably be better for a stable community.

Before I started roleplaying I played a Draenei, they looked very appealing and unusual. But as I got more interested in roleplaying and started off my roleplaying 'career' by reading stuff on WoWwiki and such, I could not help but feel that the Draenei, although they look cool and interesting, did not have a great deal of personality. I realise there are plenty of roleplayers here that know how to make them shine, but otherwise they seemed bland. Very goodey, very correct and rather boring... :<

One more thought:
Draenei do look alien, so picking a draenei for your first RP toon is a pretty ballsy move for a new RPer. If this is true, draenei would have fewer RP mains than the other races, and any guild/community needs its mains to survive.


(This all being said, I do have a draenei character I've RPed on occasions, but it's not as natural to me as several of my other toons)

I disagree, RPers make a char boring. Lore is just a back ground it is the probs on a stage show. A Good RPer can make any char of any flavour interesting. Most Chars of whatever race are boring if you open your eyes.

Thelos, you are one of my fav RPers and I love ya bro. Keep the faith and dont let it get you down

Most Chars of whatever race are boring if you open your eyes.

Yeah, this. Honestly, I find a lot of Stormwind human characters boring.

What Raenmar said pretty much, I think. I'd be interesting in trying draenei rp again, but it would be on sporadic alt-basis for now.

Edit: Dwyburn is right, many draenei are alts, which is also something that makes it hard to keep things going. It's hard to keep things living and consistent when consisting of alts, a problem too many interesting projects and concepts have.

Lexgrad wrote:I disagree, RPers make a char boring. Lore is just a back ground it is the probs on a stage show. A Good RPer can make any char of any flavour interesting. Most Chars of whatever race are boring if you open your eyes.

Thelos, you are one of my fav RPers and I love ya bro. Keep the faith and dont let it get you down

But (as has been mentioned) if you start out RPing, would you not pick a race you like instead of something that may just work if you are very good but does not really speak to you?

I believe there is still such a thing as personal tastes and doing what you enjoy in a game. On top of that you will probably do better at playing something that you like -because- you like it.

*strokes beard* I'd say it's because there aren't/weren't enough carrying personalities among the Draenei.

Dwyburn wrote:One more thought:
Draenei do look alien, so picking a draenei for your first RP toon is a pretty ballsy move for a new RPer. If this is true, draenei would have fewer RP mains than the other races, and any guild/community needs its mains to survive.

\m/ I'm ballsy \m/

My opinion of draenai comes down to these points (I'm becoming obsessed with lists!)

• Their physical look. They're too broad and squid like for my taste. If I had to play a big, bulky character - it'd be an ogre.
  
• Spaceships and what not. I don't mind that WoW has a heavy steampunk influence as it goes hand in hand with their fantasy elements, but I can't get into the whole space travel thing in a fantasy world. I don't mind that it exists and each to their own, but I prefer the more magic, swords and shields approach.
  
• Lack of lore. Human is my most common race because of how many lore sources you can draw upon and how swiftly it is updated.
  
• I don't think I could RP a being that is thousands of years old without being somewhat bored. A lot of the draenai I've seen in lore are too human which is always something I've not been a fan of, I don't believe Blizzard does the race a lot of justice (in fact, I would go as far as to say lazy writing on parts). Their leader is really well thought out and really fits the bill in my opinion.
  
• The Naaru don't really excite me.
  
• I don't know how else to put it, but they seem like the depressed/content race. Stormwind and Teldrassil have quite wonderous, proud and war-hardy civilians, the Worgen/DKs of the Alliance filling in the 'dark side' of the Alliance where as Draenai seem to stick out like a sore thumb.
  
• Their culture doesn't really appeal to me from an RP point of view.
  
• The reason I wanted to role-play WoW is because I love the lore. Characters from a film/game/show I watch could also inspire me to craft characters similar to them, e.g Vaell consumes a lot of mushrooms and has the mannerisms of Walter Bishop from Fringe. When I come on to RP, 90% of the time it is because something has urged me to be creative but nothing about the draenai race really clicks with me. Same with Pandaren and Tauren.
  
• I have always been more Terran than Protoss.
  

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:*strokes beard* I'd say it's because there aren't/weren't enough carrying personalities among the Draenei.

You wound me, sir ;_;.

Pao wrote:

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:*strokes beard* I'd say it's because there aren't/weren't enough carrying personalities among the Draenei.

You wound me, sir ;_;.

Well, you did go panda. Why didn't you clone yourself?

I am considering making a Thelos 2.0 (paladin) which is why I made this thread in the first place, to dip my hoof in the water.