Golden Advise for RPers!

Things Roleplayers can do:

#1 ROLEPLAY IN PUBLIC MORE
One of the main excuses we hear from OOCers is 'most people don't RP anyway'. Now, looking around me at all the names in Stormwind, probably about 70% of them being RP names, I know this isn't the case! That's not just on Steamwheedle Cartel, I play regularly on another server too and although the percentage probably isn't as high as 70%, it's still high! A lot of us only RP around people we trust. Understandable, but we need to remind OOCers that we exist now and then! Here are my suggestions...

* Roleplay with your bank character. You have a bank character, right? A level 1 who is parked in the city and deals with all your trade and storage space needs? Well, why Why not RP with them sometimes as well? Make them walk to the AH instead of run. You don't lose much time by doing that, but it makes a huge difference for people to see someone walking that bank-mailbox-AH route every day. You can also emote people you are trading with, for example /smile when you find them and /ty when your business is complete. Lastly, if you feel like it, you can give them a personality and background too. My bank character here on SWC has a fairly detailed background and even an in-game sister, whereas my bank character on another server is just a trader with no actual background written for him.

* Encourage random RP. We all have 'RP hotspots' we go to when we want to find RP, usually a tavern or a certain city district. But don't forget to RP in the other zones as well! When I was questing on a night elf in Ashenvale I saw a girl planting flowers around Astranaar (using her Lifebloom spell and sitting for a moment then standing again ). I've also seen people take a break from questing to light a fire and eat something, and they've called me over to ask if I want a drink. From there, you can get a conversation going and you've made a new friend. There are countless examples I could give here of how to encourage more random RP, but it's about being creative.

* RP in starting zones. I can't stress this enough! If players new to the server (or the game even) log in and see you walking around RPing, it affects their first impression of the server, and first impressions count. Whether you take your main to a starting zone and RP there, or you just make sure you do it whenever you roll a new character, please see if you can find the time to do this. Maybe you could hold events in starting zones! They often have some nice buildings or scenery to work with. Which brings me to my next point...

* Make your RP events visible. If it's a very special occasion that you don't want to be ruined, of course you will prefer to hold it somewhere slightly obscure and make it invite-only. But if it's just a regular guild meeting or a party, don't worry too much about the odd OOC interruption... I normally whisper saying something like 'Heya, this is an RP event, sit down and join us ' if appropriate, or if not something they can join in with then I say it's an RP event and they are disturbing it, please could they move along somewhere else? If they get arsey (usually not), you tell them that you and everyone else present will report them to a GM unless they bugger off within the next 1 minute.

-People willing to run events on a weekly basis that are open and accessible to all, and everyone is welcome on an OOC level regardless of style and experience with RP.

-People put out maximum effort to advertise their events and work.

-Create an accessible and elegant external RP support website. With extra encouragement and advertising for events and guilds.

-Outreach to try and make a single community rather than fractured RP groups and cliques.

-A willingness to spend over a year to make this come to fruition