1)I don't know what appeals to me about the class. In final fantasy XI, my main was samurai, but there's not really anything like that in WoW. I actually did a hunter main first, then paladin, then rogue. All are 80 now, but the hunter basically never gets played. I think the rogue probably fits my personality the best though.
As far as lore goes, there's not really a *ton* of rogue specific lore for WoW, at least not compared to say, paladins or shamans. Instead, there's a couple separate rogue organizations, but rogues aren't automatically part of any organization, they're more loners. Like warriors, I see rogues as covering a very wide range of character types, from the brutish assassin to the street smart scoundrel. It includes the stealthy thieves and perhaps some swashbuckling bravado too. because of that, I guess there's not really a difficulty fitting lore, rogues just come in all shapes and sizes.
My character, being human, doesn't really have a choice: he's a muscular guy. I like wielding daggers in assassination, but I love the ninja storm in combat spec. I wish subtlety was viable, I love shadowstep too.
2) There's tons of WoW characters that could be considered rogues. Stormwind has the SI:7 which is basically all rogues. Ironforge has their hidden circle group. The Horde has the deathstalkers and the shattered hand. There's also ravenholdt which any rogue will probably visit at sometime. As for individuals off the top of my head, there's Vancleef and Garona, and Maiev.
3) As for what 'cool gimicks' I'd like: I made a post about it a while back. i think one thing that is holding rogues back a bit is that we rely so much on stunlock. Stunlock is very powerful so we don't get a lot of other things. I wouldn't mind seeing us move away from that. Get rid of cheap shot, so you have to open from stealth with a damage ability. Cheap shot is probably one of the more frustrating rogue stuns because you don't see it coming often, there's not much to prevent it, it just happens from nowhere.
Instead, I'd focus rogues more on stealth: Give vanish two changes: 1) 30 second cooldown (without cheap shot it's not as powerful offsensively, and if opponents know you're there they have pretty easy ways of destealthing you anyways) and 2) it doesn't drop your 'in combat' status. The main reason for this is so that you can use it more often in PvE to re-enter stealth, get behind the mob and open again without the mob fleeing and regenning health. Maybe only keep in combat for 5 seconds or some such.
I think kidney shot is ok because you have to build up combo points to use it, and those combo points aren't then going to damage. It has a cooldown and without cheap shot, you can't build the points while the person is stunned effectively getting a double stunlock. People have a chance to fight a bit before they get hit with it. All the other 'take away control' abilities break on damage: i.e. blind and gouge.
Then, add another rogue ability, call it something like 'escape', that does a vanish effect and an effect like hunter's disengage, and put it on a longer cooldown.
I think this would make rogues more fun for both the opponents and the rogues.
Edited, Dec 21st 2009 7:04am by digitalcraft