Draenei roleplayers

Just a few questions.
1) What made you pick a Draenei over the other races?
2) How easy/hard was it for you to get in to Draenei based roleplay?
3) What are you looking forward to ic'ly about Warlords of Draenor?
4) What would be your top 5 tips for some one planning on making a Draenei

thanks.

1.) I was roleplaying an apprentice of a Draenei Arcanist, so i did a lot of roleplaying among the Draenei RP community of that time. I also found the lore of the Draenei incredible rich and interesting. As thus, i created Inran. Admitted, she did not turn out to be exactly what i intended, but i can live with that.

2.) Not very hard. In terms of lore, i just read a lot things before started roleplaying. In terms of other Draenei RP'ers, i actually do not even sought to interact with other Draenei, so i can develop my character in connection with the other races of the Alliance.

3.) New lore about Draenei to forge even more depth into the character. The character itself (Inran)... i tend not to pre-plan. She may just as well be completely unphased as likely as fall on her knees and cry for the beauty she thought lost.

4.) Hmmm....
-Read Draenei Lore.
-Read about the Light and Naaru
-You are have lived your entire life in a religious commune devoted to the Light and Naaru. Plan accordingly.
-You are not a Human. Plan accordingly.
-Do not try to wear shoes. You are more comfortable without.

1) the draenei laugh is beautiful.

Nah, but seriously, draenei in some armor sets looks pretty epic, which is how I've always decided characters personally. The visuals and race would sort of determine the rest, i.e how the character should sort of feel and play.

2) Afaik it's basically nonexistent. And the charm of draenei imo is being an Alien race with a morally stern culture try and make sense of Azeroth, not to mention the entitlement that comes with being one of the Legion's oldest enemies. Besides, being older means you can pick on every lesser race there is.

4) Do Draenei starting zones and do some of the Outland quests. That's pretty much it, because they've got the least expanded lore in the WoW universe, probably due to the negative backlash upon their introduction.

There are some cultural things you could try and make sense of. People tend to overestimate the Light's role within Draenic society. Their affiliation with the naaru and the Light is just to play into the idea of them being the anti-thesis of the Eredar, and the overall theme of Heroism. Some interesting aspects come then in the shape of possible doubts; they are arguably the weakest of the playable races in terms of resources and numbers, and their lore is that they are essentially beaten and on the run from the Legion, and have been on the run for thousands of years. Their dwindling numbers, and the fact that many races of Azeroth such as the orcs still behave like shit, could make it hard for a draenei to uphold the draenic sense of justice and honor and all that crap.

Since the preceding paragraph is essentially only my opinion and my interpretation of the quests, I'd suggest you do just that. TLDR: Do quests in Azuremyst, Bloodmyst and the draenei related ones in Outland.

If anything people underestimate the importance of the Light in Draenei culture :/

Coppernut wrote:1) What made you pick a Draenei over the other races?

Back in TBC I wanted to make an Alliance Shaman, because I'd played a level 60 Shaman on the PTRs but I didn't much care to play Horde. Female Draenei looked gorgeous, too, so it was a fairly easy choice. I was still maining Human Rogue for quite a while though, it wasn't until WotLK when I was inspired (from watching Stargate SG-1) to give Draenei roleplay another serious try that I really got into the lore and concept of the Draenei. Kinda fell in love with it since then, over time.

Coppernut wrote:2) How easy/hard was it for you to get in to Draenei based roleplay?

I had the fortune of stumbling into "The Exodus" by complete accident, allowing me to meet and integrate with a much larger Draenei RP community than I would have otherwise (I was in Shining Strand, which only had a handful of Draenei characters). At the time I was terrible at it, because I hadn't really read the lore in-depth and made a character mostly unrelated to it, leading to me eventually reworking Sanara from the ground up in WotLK.

Coppernut wrote:3) What are you looking forward to ic'ly about Warlords of Draenor?

ICly? Most of my Draenei characters are happy to slaughter more Orcs and save Draenei lives, I suppose. Sanara is also privately pondering the (sexy) implications of meeting an alternate timeline version of herself, because that's just the kind of thing she'd think about.

Coppernut wrote:4) What would be your top 5 tips for some one planning on making a Draenei

1. Like Zaraj said; Do the quests. It's the best way to get an idea of the lore, culture and mindset of the Draenei.

2. Adjust the character to an alien mindset. They live for tens of thousands of years, possibly hundreds of thousands. It is a scale human beings simply cannot comprehend (For comparison; In the real world, human civilization has "only" existed for about 10 to 15 thousand years.) Their culture is very different from anything in our modern world or anything else in the WarCraft world, and this will shape how the person behaves and thinks. I've always resented the cheap excuse that "Individuals can deviate from the norm", used to defend characters acting strongly against the archetypes, because it misses a fundamental point; The norm exists for a reason, and deviations from the norm also exist for a reason, which makes sense in the context of the norm. It's not a free ticket to just make shit up.

3. The Light is an extremely all-encompassing thing in Draenei culture, but they are not zealots. In fact they are less zealous as a result of its importance in their culture; The Light is the Light, it does not need to be enforced or shoved in people's faces. The [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], that its ways are gentle and requires patience, not force.

4. Stick to playing a Good-aligned Draenei. Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic, doesn't matter - but Good. This is because Evil or True Neutral Draenei very rarely make for interesting, quality characters. If you're making your first Draenei RP char, just don't bother trying it, because you'll be better off making an Evil or Neutral character of any other race. See also what I said above about deviations from the norm existing for a reason.

But, at the same time;

5. Don't be afraid of the darker side of Draenei; Vengeance and retribution is important to them, for they have an entire social class named in honour of it, they knew the secrets of the Arcane before any other race and were the very first to draw upon the power of the Burning Legion, they are stronger than most other races and longer-lived than any race without some kind of outside influence (such as the Night Elves being blessed by the Aspects or the Aspects themselves blessed by the Titans). They are better in many ways and are well aware of it, and they know their destiny is to lead the charge against the Burning Legion, inspiring great conviction and certainty, both of which can lead to arrogance. Just because a Draenei is not Evil, doesn't mean they can't be unpleasant, difficult, or even hostile.

Cus blue girls are more fun.