It could have been so good for RP players in World of Warcraft. But a small detail makes a new feature in patch 11.1 much worse than necessary.
The RP community of World of Warcraft has been quite frugal in recent years, but has been equipped with some nice features in the last expansions. For example, the large tents have become a permanent fixture in RP and weather machines have also become an important part of many RP events.
In patch 11.1 Lorenhalt there are now a number of new items that allow characters to use numerous new “emotes”. But Blizzard makes a drastic mistake – and limits the items to a very small area.
What are these items? In Lorenhalt there is the club “The Low Blow”. This is a place where fights take place and somewhat resembles the “Fight Club”. The special thing is that it is not a PvP location, but a place where conflicts can be represented with special items.
Through various items, you can display health points above your character as red markers. Various “guide” items allow your characters to take on special animations. For example, you can have your character represented as “stunned”, “played dead”, or “knocked down” for 15 minutes.
The folks at wowhead have already tried this out:
You can also have your characters assume various combat animations – such as for unarmed combat, weapon combat, or magical fights. This is otherwise only possible by targeting a hostile target and right-clicking it.
The idea behind the items: When roleplayers engage in fights, they are usually represented through dice conflicts (similar to pen & paper). However, there are only very limited ways to represent this in the game with appropriate animations. With all these “guide” items, this can be done – stuns, damage, and defeat can be visually represented and enrich the roleplay.
What is the problem with the items? Unfortunately, for the roleplay community, the items are almost useless, because they have a very drastic limitation: They can only be used within the area “The Low Blow” – the fight club where you can also purchase the items.
Everywhere else in the world, the items cannot be used. Anyone who wants to use the items in RP must therefore conduct the conflicts in Lorenhalt in the aforementioned club. This is a massive limitation and makes the items unattractive for most scenarios.
Why is there the limitation? This is not quite clear. One assumption is that Blizzard does not want characters to be able to use various emotes like “stunned” or “played dead” all over the world, as this could cause confusion in PvP situations in the open world.
However, there is still some time until the release of patch 11.1 Lorenhalt. Maybe Blizzard will reconsider that the restriction to the location might not be what roleplayers want. Because even if Blizzard sometimes builds special locations just for RP fans – they certainly didn’t want this.
