After seeing them myself, I'm convinced WoW: Forever's RP servers don't need to be this separate, and I say that as a decorated veteran of MMO roleplay

After experiencing World of Warcraft: Forever’s RP servers firsthand, I am convinced that there’s no need for such a strict separation between roleplay and regular rulesets, at least for me, a veteran of MMO roleplay. As a dedicated roleplayer who has been writing and gaming for over 15 years, I initially found the roleplay ruleset to be a great addition to the game. However, being completely isolated from the normal ruleset (which I’ll refer to as PvE for simplicity) didn’t seem necessary to me.

While it makes sense that a resource node might be easier to gather on PvE, causing economic imbalances on PvP servers, a completely strict divide between RP and PvE is perplexing. Apart from technical limitations, I find it hard to understand why a complete and strict separation between RP and PvE is necessary.

There are aspects I appreciate about having our own segment of the Forever servers. The atmosphere is notably more relaxed, and I believe roleplayers tend to be more thoughtful, attractive, and have better physical attributes. I genuinely believe that considering your character’s role in the world and immersing yourself in the game does make you a more relaxed individual overall.

Toxicity and hostility have been scarce in my experience, with the worst instance being a slightly passive-aggressive tank during a Deadmines run.

However, what I predicted is unfolding: roleplaying is limited in instanced or group content since it rarely happens. Most roleplay occurs spontaneously in the open world or in dedicated hotspots. The majority of roleplayers are not in-character during group activities. Although some individuals remain consistently in-character, they represent a minuscule portion of the player base.

Regarding the strict naming conventions, I observe more lore-accurate names, but joke ones are also prevalent. Gag names don’t bother me; rather, I find disruptive or annoying behavior far more annoying when I’m roleplaying. If a player like Tsundere Cowbell the paladin wishes to watch me write while I’m immersed in the character, my immersion isn’t shattered.

In conclusion, while I believe it’s the smarter plan to keep us on our own server architecture for the most part, especially considering layering would dilute roleplayers to such an extent that finding RP would be challenging, I don’t see any compelling reason to prohibit us from accessing the Normal ruleset servers when grouping up with a PvE player or granting us the option to travel between them at our will.

Just as we often switch between in-character roleplay and out-of-character gameplay, I think most of us would appreciate the option to choose between the roleplay layer and the PvE ruleset. Even as time progresses, roleplayers still enjoy raiding and leveling up characters, and if they need to migrate characters they’ve invested dozens of hours into, rather than starting from scratch, it would be beneficial.

Believe it or not, even roleplayers enjoy raiding and gearing up, and if they can migrate on characters they’ve invested hours into, rather than having to start all over again, it would be advantageous.