All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.
Your character is like an arrow. He was launched from the birthplace of your imagination with the aim of creating spontaneous stories with other creative people. Your character's personality is the particular direction he travels in, and his background story is the bow which set him on his way.
The bow-string tension that gives a good backstory its momentum is its lack of resolution. The desire to find resolution propels your character forward into the game, but it doesn't predict with certainty where your he or she will end up. Realizing this can free you of a great burden: your story doesn't have to make the New York Times Bestseller List. In fact, the whole idea here is to purposely leave your backstory unfinished, ready to be resolved through roleplaying. Too much emphasis on a dramatic background leaves you with not enough room for an interesting foreground, and little else to contribute other than the saga of your epic past.
Obviously, people aren't logging into WoW to read your miniature novel. They generally won't want to hear your backstory unless they specifically ask you about it (which they might!), but even then they'll care less for its narrative value and more for its ultimate impact on your character as a person. It's best to think of it less as a story in itself (e.g. "How I got to be this way"), and more as a prologue to the story you want to roleplay (e.g. "How do I get out of this mess?"). Its purpose is to set up challenges for your character to overcome with other people, and it should establish a direct line to your character's desires and aspirations.
If you're a fan of fan art and haven't seen Wyndforge's work yet, it's definitely a must-see. He basically creates digital art direct from screenshots, and by combining poses (along with a few extra sparkles), he turns out some pretty amazing stuff. And while he does sell custom orders if you want a shot of your own character, Wynd gets bonus points for opening up all his other work as wallpaper-sized versions in the galleries. He doesn't list prices on the site, so we're not sure how much it costs to make one of these, but even if its pricy, it's fun just browsing through the galleries.
Very nice stuff. He really has a talent for sculpting the screenshots together, and keeping the original look of the characters while also adding a little extra to make them epic enough to be framed and hung on the wall.
All the World's a Stage is a column for inquisitive minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.
The media usually portrays WoW as a "boy's game." That's not to say girls don't play too, of course -- just that the game is basically about qualities such as aggressiveness and violence, and our culture expects males to be interested in that sort of thing.
Whether such a designation is true or not, the "masculine equals violent" stereotype is very pervasive, and it is natural for many male players to begin the game with a powerful and intimidating character in mind. The player may imagine that his avatar is warm and kind-hearted inside, but outwardly, his character looks as though he could rip out your throat with a flick of his pinky finger.
But there are many men out there who don't like such exaggerated manliness in their characters, just as there are many women who don't want their character to look like a dainty barbie doll. Being a person isn't just about just one gender attribute, after all. Indeed, female characters in WoW can achieve a full range of human attributes in their appearance; they can look friendly and intelligent, yet lightning quick and deadly at the same time. However, the appearance of male characters is often so filled to the brim with "strength and honor" that there's not much room left for any other human quality.
Togus is right-- there's something about your first character. Many of us, as I said yesterday, have tons of alts floating around, but your first character (while probably not your best-- I didn't understand First Aid when I started playing the game, so I just didn't train it at all) was a big deal. Finishing that starting area and realizing there was a whole World out there, grouping up for the first time, and learning just how all the spells worked and what everything looked like-- your first character may not be your main now, but odds are it's still sitting there on the server, like an old friend from years ago.
This idea of a "first character" is actually especially interesting to me, as just yesterday my very first character dinged level 60. As I said on the podcast the other day, I'm going back to play the Night Elf Hunter (yeah, yeah-- I was young and impetuous, and I heard Hunter was a good solo class) I started playing the game with, and take it all the way to level 70, and then 80 when Wrath comes out. In some way, I see it as finishing what I started way back when. And after all this time playing something different in game (Horde, obviously, and classes besides Hunter-- Warrior, Shaman, Rogue, Priest), it's been extremely interesting to go back to the beginning. And seeing Outland (and eventually Northrend) through the eyes of the first character I've ever played promises to be a trip. I feel like I'm rediscovering this game I've played so much of already yet again.
What happened to the first character you ever started? You didn't delete them, did you? Were you able to get them all the way to 70? And when the next expansion comes out, will you take them further?
We've done a lot of talking about alts here at WoW Insider, and if I had to guess, I'd suspect that most of our readers tend to be what most of us writers are: alt-a-holics, with many, many classes and levels of alts, sometimes even spanning across servers. But not everybody is like us-- some people, like the Nameless One over on LJ, have only one character. And to tell the truth, I kind of envy her a bit.
I've known a few people who have only played one character in the game ever, and in my experience, they've done great-- all the money they make goes directly to them, they never have to redo rep runs, all the keys they collect never have to be collected again. If you are an altaholic, think about all the gear you've gotten across the board and all the time you've sunk into other characters-- people with just one toon get to put all that time and effort into just one character, and get to reap the rewards.
There is a lesson here, however, even for us altaholics. I've often found that if I really want to level up one of my alts, the switching just can't happen-- I have to choose one character and stick to it. All the money I earn stays with that character, and my only goals while online are for that character alone. And when I focus, and put effort into just one, that's when things actually get done. I, like many players, get bored easily-- if I had only one class ever, I would have had to give up on this game a while ago. But when it comes to earning gear and leveling fast, the best strategy I've found is to sit down, focus in, and play like you have only one character.
All the World's a Stage is a column for creative minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.
The best characters in novels and movies often leap into your mind from the moment you first see them -- something they say or do sets them apart and captures your interest, and from that time on, you're hooked.
Likewise, when we roleplay, our characters should always have some memorable trait which can hook other people's interest. Too often, I see roleplayers focusing too much on dark secrets that they only reveal to their closest friends, and neglecting those mannerisms which could give everyone they meet an instant and profound impression of their character. Of course, if some people prefer to roleplay this way, that's fine. But to my mind, roleplaying is best when it avoids cliquishness, and the best roleplayers are those whose characters stay with you, even if you never see them again.
When I'm creating my own characters, I think of such memorable traits as "gimmicks," but that word usually has a negative connotation that doesn't apply in this case. For now, the best word I can think of is "quirk." It's an instantly recognizable pattern of behavior or speech that can let others know who your character is right away. Below you will find some of my favorite quirks I have seen people use in their roleplaying in WoW, each of them entertaining and inspiring it its own way.
This little informal survey by Ralloszek over on the WotLK forums raises a pretty good question: is anyone not planning on making a Death Knight when the next expansion hits? We're going to end up with a world full of pale people in black armor wielding gigantic frostblades-- maybe Blizzard should call it "World full of Lich Kings."
It's pretty easy to see that not everyone will switch their main (I don't ever foresee leaving my main, although I do plan to level a Death Knight as an alt), but even if people just roll them to check it out, it reminds me a lot of the Star Wars Galaxies "new game enhancements" where they made Jedi a playable class. If you can roll a Jedi as a class, why would you roll anything else?
Of course, we could give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here-- they haven't revealed much at all about the game's first Hero Class, so maybe it'll be so hard to get one that they really will be very rare, or they'll only be allowed in certain areas (so you won't see a pack of Death Knights swarming around the mailbox in Stormwind). We already know that they'll start at a higher level, so the good news is that you won't see Elwynn Forest flooded with a bunch of level 1 Death Knights. But as for other ways to keep what is supposed to be a special class special, we'll have to see what Blizzard comes up with.
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.
All those people who say "Roleplaying is dead" simply misunderstand what RP in WoW is all about. It's not at all about stepping into your favorite fantasy novel and acting out an epic story in which you are the great hero, sacrificing everything to save Azeroth from the legions of evil. For that sort of storytelling, there are pen-and-paper role playing games, which allow for a great deal more flexibility than any computer system can. While the majority of fantasy literature uses this "save the world" motif, it doesn't work at all for roleplaying in WoW because things happen in the game that couldn't possibly happen in a story.
But that's okay, because when we roleplay in WoW, our focus should not be so grand and epic in scope. Instead it should be more personal and down-to-earth, about our own characters, their hopes and failings, and their relationships with others. For all the game's outward appearances of epic battles and the fight against evil, WoW roleplaying is really all about character development, relationships, and the expression of who you are. Think less of the latest Oscar-award-winning fantasy epic, and more of your favorite sitcoms or drama series.
Your character is a savior of the world and a regular nobody -- both at the same time. All of us do exciting, heroic things in the game, but, while Blizzard has put a lot of story elements in there, none of it is actual storytelling. For a roleplayer, most PvE is just background to the storytelling, something your characters do offstage -- kind of like food, paperwork, bathroom breaks, and sleep in the movies or novels you enjoy. Of course any event in life can be an important moment for your character, but in roleplaying, you have to let all the repetitive hero stuff fade into the background while your characters interact with one another.
It's that time of year again-- the time of gamer giving, and the good folks over at The Bronze Kettle are running a terrific event for Child's Play that is sure to bring in some great cash for the annual Penny Arcade sponsored charity. They're auctioning off a custom Starprints illustration, charm, and avatar of the World of Warcraft character of your choice. Starprints actually sent us one of their pieces for our recent fan art contest, and while they didn't win, they are definitely cute little charms, and a completely original piece of art for your character.
As of this writing, the highest bid is only about $31, but come on, people! This is for charity! If you have any interest in getting your character immortalized in a piece of art, get out those wallets and offer some cash. Not only are you picking up an illustration, charm, and a custom avatar, but you're supporting a great cause, too-- 100% of the sale price goes straight to the charity, which supports hospitals around the country with videogames and other needed items for children.
FlagRSP and its descendents have long been the de facto standard addons that most roleplayes use to "flag" themselves, letting other roleplayers know at a glance not only that they're interested in roleplaying, but also sharing character descriptions and basic information about what sort of roleplaying they prefer. The original FlagRSP is defunct, but the torch has been passed to two worthy (and superior) successors: FlagRSP2 and MyRolePlay. Both use the same methods to communicate with other roleplayers, so you need only choose one and you'll be able to share information with players who use the other (be careful not to use both at the same time, however). Both addons help a lot with the problem of roleplayers being hard to find.
FlagRSP2 and MyRolePlay both give you a space to write things like your character's first or last names, a character title (such as "Priestess of the Dark" or "Wacky Troublemaker"), as well as some description about what your character looks like; and of course they both enable you to see the information other people have written about their characters too. Both have "roleplaying flags," which can tell other people whether you are a "casual" or "fulltime" roleplayer, as well as whether you are in or out of character at any given moment.
FlagRSP2 has a cleaner, more intuitive interface, in my opinion, and it has nice little popup windows for character information which can appear whenever you mouseover or target someone. MyRolePlay only has a popup button which you must click on to see other characters' information, but it also has two separate spaces for physical descriptions and story backgrounds, which FlagRSP2 users sometimes mix up together. MyRolePlay also uses less computer resources on my system, and keeps things running a bit smoother. I often switch between the two since I can't really decide which is best.
Posted Oct 24th 2007 5:05PM by David Bowers Filed under: RP
In last Sunday's All the World's a Stage column, we talked about one way to get started with roleplaying, using mainly a character description made of two simple words that highlight the essential qualities of your character, without too much concern for background and details just yet. The idea here is that you can start with a basic character idea, and fill in the details later on as you get involved with other roleplayers.
Over at WoWBlues, however, Nairuil has a different way of getting started. She has a list of questions for you to answer that are designed to help you think of your character's background, as well as give you some helpful tips for what sorts of backgrounds would be inappropriate for WoW (such as the cliche "vampire" idea), all before you actually get started roleplaying in game.
Which approach do you find more useful to you personally, and why?
I like Zymm's idea over on the forums-- he suggests that people who have been playing WoW for a while, or just "older" characters, should get some sort of special recognition or title as a WoW "old-schooler." Not just because I am a WoW old-schooler, but because it'd be nice of Blizzard to give out a little recognition for players and characters that have been active and playing for a while. I'm not saying that they should start handing out Epics just for standing around, but a special tabard or title would be kind of nice.
And there are other benefits, too. It'd be a quick and easy way of telling who the veterans are in-game-- as in, who should know what they're doing and who might not. Plus, our characters don't actually age, so while gear is some indication of where they're at in progression, it doesn't tell you who's been on for years and who just powerleveled to 70 in the past few months. Some common indicator of age would set a milestone for how long characters and players have been around.
Eyonix jokes about "Old School Zymm," but it's a good suggestion-- we should have some way of showing off how long both we and our characters have been around Azeroth.
Perhaps brought on by the news that a Chinese MMO wants to reveal gender bending gamers, Cary posted a pretty interesting poll over on the WoW LJ, asking readers what their gender is and what sex they play as on their main character. The general consensus seems to be that most people play as their own gender, but overwhelmingly, more women play as their own gender than men. The poll itself seems a little off to me, as it's really pointless to compare the percentages given, but by crunching the numbers a bit (and please remember how bad at math I am), I get that 40% of men who answered play the game as women, while only 11% of women who answered play the game as men. Here's more data on this, that we've covered before.
Very interesting. We've touched on the reasons for gender bending in gamea few times before, and there are all kinds of reasons why people play as characters of the opposite sex, from staring at an attractive behind to garnering more money and attention (or less attention) from other players, to roleplaying a character.
But really, none of that matters too much-- it's just a game, and for whatever reason, people are welcome to play it as they please. A better question might be how you refer to the gender of other players. I've gotten in trouble a few times here by referring to players on the forums (including CMs, way back when I started) as one gender when it turns out they're actually another, so eventually I just decided to call it how I see it: if someone plays a female character I call them "her," and a male character gets called "him." For people playing a different gender, sure, it might come off a little strange. But it comes with the territory, I guess, of pretending to be someone else for a while.
I have several characters in World of Warcraft that I play most frequently, two being Horde and three being Alliance. My two Horde may well be my most frequently played at the moment, with both my warrior and shaman being active in their guild, but when my wife is home I generally play with her, and that means playing Alliance.
I don't know how or why it happened, but we've developed totally different mindsets. She is very invested in the Alliance questlines and stories, to the point where unfinished or unresolved quests annoy her, and she can't get into playing Horde with quests involving feeding diseased food and drink to helpless prisoners. As she put it when we discussed the situation, there's a world of difference between stiffing workers out of their pay and plotting to exterminate all life on Azeroth.
For myself, however, I have no trouble playing Horde. But when I'm playing my tauren or orc characters, I run into the opposite issue: many of my guildies are excellent players but they really dislike the Alliance, especially night elves. The amount of anti-NE bias I run into seriously staggers me at times. Maybe it's just because I have a night elf at 70 as well, but it always floors and baffled me when I run into statements like "All the Alliance are little kids" and "Horde players are more mature" because, well, so far I've seen utter toolboxes and jackasses in my time on both factions. The same proportion of people who teabag their dead opponents in PvP, the same general amounts of noobishness and dickery in the chat channels... I just honestly don't get why someone would prefer one over the other. Horde and Alliance both have their own compelling storylines and their own unique NPC's, and some fun quests as well as ones that ask you to do objectionable things.
I personally have no problem killing Alliance on my Horde toons or vice versa. In fact, I've often wished I could somehow PvP against myself, so to speak: I'd love to see how my tauren would fare going up against my night elf. (I suspect the tauren would win, he has much better gear and I think I've come up with a really effective build for him.) I guess for me the cross faction antagonism is just another element of the game.
What do you think? Is it important to pick a faction and support it? Does it enhance or detract from your ability to experience all the game has to offer? Or are you missing out if you're not invested in your faction?
Killah sent us a interesting question: who is the most powerful character in all of Azeroth? We've talked about this one before, but it's been a while, and considering that we've learned a lot since last December about Azeroth and what's happening in it, I'd say it's worth another look.
So who's on top? Last time around, we said Sargeras or Elune, but let's refine things a bit-- those two may both be very powerful, but Sargeras is currently "ceased to be," and Elune, who supposedly created the world, doesn't actually use that power much, does she? If she was so peaceful and in charge, why's the world called Warcraft?
Still, looking down the list, Elune does seem to top it-- if you're talking about potential power, she's it. Aman'thul and the Pantheon are up there-- they toppled Sargeras and have even killed the Old Gods. But the most powerful character that we know for certain is actually in Azeroth right now? Besides the winner of the our One Boss Leaves tournament, I'm not sure. Nozdormu? The Lich King?
Unless by "most powerful character," Killah actually means player character. In that case, I have no idea. Awake? One of the guys from Team Pandemic?
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.
Togus is right-- there's something about your first character. Many of us, 
We've done a lot of 
This little informal survey by Ralloszek
It's that time of year again-- the time of gamer giving, and the good folks over at 
In 
I like Zymm's idea over on the forums-- he suggests that people who have been playing WoW for a while, or just "older" characters, should get some sort of special recognition or title 
Perhaps brought on by the news that a Chinese MMO 
Killah sent us a interesting question: who is the most powerful character in all of Azeroth? We've 
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