The Thread for all the Shit we just couldn't let go of!

well, obviously, you don't have to actually delete said characters and level a new one anymore, and i for one would object to paying blizz yet more money...but if it was either that, or roll a new character, then i'd probably pay ...if i was still playing that is

Hey.

I got that commitment.

I payed for a character recustomisation just to go through with the plot of Quint turning into a lady.

Sindee Pantilez.

And payed for another one to get him back to normal Quint when he returned from Beyond the Veil of Death!

So there!

Ur face.

I got vast oceans of sense.

But the money I spend on Blizzzzz is mere pocket change.

Alaster Grymm wrote:

Chipping in on Lion's comment about slapping bad guys on wrist instead of executing them.

Executing a bad guy is a real pain in wow as most players who want to be bad and mess up (.i.e. finally do something bad enough to get caught!) don't want to lose their character. That said I have had the pleasure of executing another player for treason ... Thanks Ian, was fun!

Of course, though I was not talking about players in specifics. Then again I am under the impression that consequences should be severe for RPers that are willing yell "Death to the Orcs" in Orgimarr :X

I know you weren't Lion but I recognise that I do do that and thus responded to the point. I have taken no offense merely putting forth the counter argument to your point.

Quint, customising a character is good, done it myself when Temis was finally killed off at the end of his plot line but the idea to 'killing' both your character and your guild as a consequence of your RP is a major thing yet to be done on this server despite several 'wars' that have errupted between various Guilds at different times.

Liontooth wrote:

Of course, though I was not talking about players in specifics. Then again I am under the impression that consequences should be severe for RPers that are willing yell "Death to the Orcs" in Orgimarr :X

Snicka once was shoulding "Death to dem Blood Elves" in the Scryer's Terrace - and was put in jail for two months because of that (at least that's what I gave as explanation for the two-months break I took from the game).

Quintilius wrote:

Well, whatever I intended for this thread to be, its working. I am not too big on flaming though, I do not very often go down that road. But I am all for heated discussions. And... this thread can stirr up some shit that can ultimately hurt the community and the RP? Heh, grow some balls will you.

Besides, I think Gurfang are pretty wrong with how you portray sexuality and the medival ages. According to a professor on medival history who had a lecture at the Visby medival festival a few months back there were ALOT of fucking.

And I mean ALOT. They were fucking left and right and there wasn't really all that much discrimination. A guy could fuck another guy, but you didn't want to be the guy on the bottom, cause that would mean you where the "bitch". The professor explained that a man could penetrate, but should not be penetrated. However, a young boy who had not yet gone through the rite of passage was not a man and could be penetrated, so they were. Often the first girl a man in the making shagged was his sister. He got told by his father to shag his sister to get practice.

Also when you got respected visitors it was customary to offer them a shag with your wife or daughter before you got discussed business. So yeah... Sex happened.

I really don't think you are accurate at all when you say fucking was just for gettin' children back then, and that they were too knackered from work to enjoy sex as something recreational. According to the BBC documnetary series "Medieval life" with Terry Jones the peasants didn't work -that- hard anyways. Sex is a basic human instinct and in the mediaval times people were all about basic instincts so I really don't think they had any less focus on sexuality then as now.

Anyways, I still don't see how sexuality was the one big thing to be discussed here. Not that I mind, but it just surprised me.

I come from a town just like that. *Strums the banjo* Oh look, there's Gurfang. *waves*

Talking about medieval man-sex...

Back on topic...Political Correctness.

No matter how you sugar coat it there is right and wrong.

Gurfang wrote:

Also, in response to Lyranne's comment about Alexander the Great and Roman Emperors, I refer you to my earlier post that mentions the Classical world and would also point out that just because Colin Farrell kissed a guy in the movie doesn't mean that it is based on confirmed fact.

Homosexuality were widely spread in old Rome aswell in the times of Alexander the great. You can also check up on the Spartans while your at it. Lyranne's wiser than you think buddy

Got to agree with Fendoor and Lyranne there. I studied Ancient History and there is considerable evidence that homosexuality was not just accepted but encouraged in some cultures. In Rome opinions were divided dependant mostly on class but in Sparta women bred and ruled whilst the men trained for war and 'bonded'.

I was disappointed that in 'Troy' that they shied away from the homosexual relations within the actual text but then again I was more disappointed that Brad Pitt didn't die half way through like he was supposed to. Silly Hollywood!

But then again can you really apply Classical ideology to WoW if, as already noted previously, you can't apply Medieval or Modern ideology to it?

Fendoor wrote:

Gurfang wrote:

Also, in response to Lyranne's comment about Alexander the Great and Roman Emperors, I refer you to my earlier post that mentions the Classical world and would also point out that just because Colin Farrell kissed a guy in the movie doesn't mean that it is based on confirmed fact.

Homosexuality were widely spread in old Rome aswell in the times of Alexander the great. You can also check up on the Spartans while your at it. Lyranne's wiser than you think buddy

If you read the post of mine that I referred to you will see that I mentioned the Spartans.

And in response to the comments about evidence for it in Rome and Greece, whilst there is definitely evidence that it happened, I think you will find that a lot more historians are of the opinion that it was a minority than there are who say it was anything else. Also, worryingly, those that tend to lean towards saying it was rife within both societies tend to be of what I would refer to as the revisionist historians of recent years who appear to be trying to put modern life and thinking into their "research".

Slightly OT: A lot of the people I interview, certainly for my books, have very rigid views on homosexuality. Mostly these are men; very dogmatic; literalist; and IMO often in denial about their own (sexual and other) identity issues.

As to the game: personally I have no problem at all with gay characters. Or aliens without sexual organs. Or anything else. But it's a commercial product and hard to separate out real world from fantasy world. e.g. you're selling into markets such as America which have a large Christian fundamentalist minority wielding enormous political influence (it always amuses me to see US politicians railing against Iran's theocratic rulers - who do deserve condemnation for some of their activities, such as repressing freedom of speech etc - when the US has a strong literalist religious streak running through it).

Also, sad to say it, but in a game where Liontooth pointed out there are under 18s playing, many (misguided) people/parents still (erroneously) connect 'gay = paedophile'.

Then again, what I find even more interesting is that we live in a world which is both more interconnected than ever before (global communications, global capital, even climate change is global!) and still as tribal and illogical as ever.

Gurfang wrote:

Also, in response to Lyranne's comment about Alexander the Great and Roman Emperors, I refer you to my earlier post that mentions the Classical world and would also point out that just because Colin Farrell kissed a guy in the movie doesn't mean that it is based on confirmed fact.

I apreciate that you feel my intellect and knowledge comes soley from television and film, Gurf. Clearly this shows a great understanding about who I am and what I'll believe and so on and blah blah.
I've not actually seen the Alexander the Great film, but I've read a hell of a lot that dates from the time and from historians that he (Alexander) promoted same sex coupling whilst soldiers were at war as a way to relieve tension. Everyone knows what Emporers like Caligula were involved in (and I'm not referring to the Helen Mirren film), and for you to decide that all that information is me reading into a film (that, as said, I've not actually watched) then perhaps you need to remove -your- blinkers.

Odd that you can discredit such an image in a film, but defend other non fact-based images and thoughts (such as in religion) so perhaps you should refrain from assuming people are merely gushing darlings who think it all very romantic, and instead learn to not ask for evidence about something that is more readily supported than -many- other thoughts that you might have. but then faith's a touchy subject, I suppose.

/end bitchy tirade.

Gurfang wrote:

On the whole death thing, I'd happily create characters to be evil and then die if the whole levelling thing weren't in the way of enjoying the game in that way. This is where something like Epilogue can be a major good thing for RP as you start from lvl 80 with no need for levelling. In WoW the only ways you can do it are delete the character or pay for a change. However, certainly on SSL, RPers are so pissed off at Blizz not supporting RP that they will almost certainly not pay for a character change (be it gender, name or faction) unless they have more money than sense!

This argument doesn't actually stand up with the current character customisation options.

I've used this to great effect killing off whole swathes of characters (some that were mere foetal in development, others that were in relationships/Guilds/etc). In fact, with such a useful tool, people willing to let their characters die should me more prevelent. The -real- reason people don't kill characters is because for most of us, our 'main' is a labour of love, that we've spent hours RPing with and developing a personality for them. It's as painful to kill a character like this, as it is for ardent fans of Holmes, Poirot, etc to read the story in which their hero dies. Whether people want to admit it or not, you do grow attached to your characters, and it's a really tough choice to go ahead and take a radical step. Ian, Tivak, and many others have all expressed a pang of guilt/sadness at their characters demise, purely becuase they had grown to love them (in a totally non freaky 'date my avatar' way, of course).

Can we save peoples intelligence, religious beliefs, maturity and other cop out posts for the WoW forums please and remain on topic?

Liontooth wrote:

Can we save peoples intelligence, religious beliefs, maturity and other cop out posts for the WoW forums please and remain on topic?

Of course, that's why I posted something on topic in a thread without a topic. It's also why I placed the /end bitchy tirade and so forth. for all I care the post can be deleted, as the on topic post was made afterwards. There's really no need to assume that we're all petulent youths out to self-aggrandise and need someone to step in and tell us to calm down.

Want to see me in a bad mood? Deny the holocaust, be a BNP supporter, anything like that. But everything else, I honestly can't be arsed to get wound up by. I am aware however that I'm blunt, but that's simply part of who I am, not a measure of my temperament.

Bitchy tirade makes for a boring conversation.

End of the day, I have made no comments about individuals intelligence, just where their information comes from. Also, I have never been specific about anyone being obsessed with films (though I did assume on the Alexander thing as so many people seemed to around the time of the film).

Sadly, my enthusiasm for this thread has disappeared (mainly because I've now got series 5 of House to watch) and I really can't be arsed to post anymore. Also doesn't help that it's clear that there are 2 trains of thought that are running on parallel lines, making it just a case of repeating the same pro and con elements.

Only final thing I will add is that the statistical evidence of homosexual numbers in the worldwould argue that any prevalence in a society is highly unlikely.

Right, and with Gurfang out of the thread then perhaps the gay talk will be finished. Mmmm.

Well quite. After 4 pages of discussion on 1 single aspect of Quint's opening post, here's a recap on the whole thing:

Quintilius wrote:

This thread can be used to continue all the lovely and quite entertaining discussions that are spawned from the various derailments that happen on this forum. So whenever a derailment becomes more interesting then the actual ontopic subject and the forum police tells us to shut the hell up, then just move it here and go nuts with it!

I'll start.

We all know WHY the posts got removed, that's not the issue. Just don't fucking delete shit like that, move it. (From now on in here maybe)

Also, there's nothing wrong with having a gay character in RP.

Forsakens shouldn't wield the Light.

You dont have to be a no-lifer who ploughes through all books and shit to know a good portion of the lore. I haven't touched neither the novels or the rpg books.

And danish sound like they're drunk when they talk.

SSL Horde is too carebear pink fluffy dress wearing take it up the bum happy fun fun twinkle dee twinkle doo teletubbie-ish nowadays and everytime they try to be evil they become like Jafar in Aladin and you're all beneath me, except those damn Lilith worshipping chicks who go "nah uh, you heel boy!"

And the Blood Elf Society would never ever ever ever ever ever ever let a troll host a royal ball. They just wouldnt.

And It's okey to be uncommon, as long as you know you are uncommon and thus have a good reason to be uncommon. And I mean a -good- reason.

And stop telling me that my RP is racist when my character is racist. Its World of Warcraft, not hello kitty island adventure. (Though the differences might be hard to spot sometimes)

I don't really want to bum Gurfang. I was really drunk that night.

I have ERP'ed.

And I love you all. Goodnight.

So i'm going to pick up on a couple of the other points i found intresting.

Quote :

And the Blood Elf Society would never ever ever ever ever ever ever let a troll host a royal ball. They just wouldnt.

Am i right in thinking you're referring to Vypra being so prominent at the Sunfury ball?

If so, i totally agree with you and the fact is Vypra was never intended to be the Host anyway. Adalan simply let her share his spotlight as a thankyou to me for taking care of the food and drink on the night and assisting with the advertising prior to the event. Essentially, IC'ly, Vyp was only there as 'the help'

Which pretty much leads onto:

Quote :

And stop telling me that my RP is racist when my character is racist. Its World of Warcraft, not hello kitty island adventure. (Though the differences might be hard to spot sometimes)

Certainly within the Horde, i feel there should be much more of this. The Majority of Forsaken should hate the living. Many Tauren should at least find the Forsaken distasteful. The Orcs are heading down this path with their upcoming removal of all but 'the strong' races from the centre of Orgrimmar. The Trolls should pretty much distrust everybody but the Orcs...especially the other Troll tribes and the Belves should mostly find the rest of the Horde savage, uncouth and primitive.

Now, while there are always exceptions to these stereotypes, the point is, in War, the progaganda machines run by those in authority to stir up the populace against the enemy, often also breed distrust among allies. The average Orc may think that Belves are simply waiting for the chance to turn on them and rejoin the alliance. The Trolls may yet go berserk at the Orcs they had put so much trust in once Garrosh's ruling comes into force. The Forsaken are surely going to resent being held responsible for Putress' actions and may even begin to think he had the right idea...and so on

Yet, whenever somebody does try to include these views in their character, they are more often than not given a hard time OOC for daring to not play happy families.

I'll hold my hands up and say that i wasn't willing to take ooc flak for playing Vyp as a xenophobe and so made her very open minded due to being forced to fight alongside people from all races while working with the Frostwolf clan.

However, i'm interested to hear the reasoning behind some other characters' 'let's all be freinds' attitudes

I haven't actually seen anyone take flak for playing a xenophobic character, but if it happens a lot, that's just...fucked up. OOC and IC separation is needed for any and all good RP. I think I agree that RP racism can get pretty tiresome, but what would be interesting to see is more different shades of this roleplayed. Racism doesn't amount to 'Jesus or Hitler' in real life, but all you see RPed for the most part is unconditional hatred or unconditional acceptance. It'd be nice to see some people awkwardly struggling to overcome their prejudice, or racists who are patronising rather than violent (think ol' Rudyard Kipling with his "half devil and half child" view of other races).

It's not something I've RPed that much myself, though. Crowley is an equal opportunities bastard, Obara grew up with other races, Davos is...actually, still a bit nervous around orcs and trolls, Zensenza is (in her own head) too detached from her own race to care, and Astartu is...also mildly racist to undead, elves of all kinds and humans. Those're my excuses.

EDIT: More thoughts. Why are people irked that people supposedly ignore the hatey-hatey parts of the Lore, when surely it's down to the other roleplayers to RP the reactions? Take Vypra hosting the Sunfury Ball (which she didn't, but anyway). If someone doesn't think that works IC, why not roll an alt and try to get other belves to hold a protest outside? A person can only play their character, not the way the world reacts to their character. If you think their actions would have consequences that aren't being RPed, that's because it's down to you to be those consequences.

Granted getting flamed OOC puts people off this, but people who do that aren't worth RPing with in the first place (not if they persist even after you explain your position, at least).

Out of curiosity, apart from the troll ambassador are there any other troll npc's in Silvermoon?

*rolls up sleeves*

Right racism!

Yes, there should be some levels of Racism, I know Al works bloody hard to fit in with Orcs (got to love the amount of work between Al and Kat to have Kat accept Alaster as something other than an object of distrust. Not so sure he's managed it yet!) and Erminia pretty much nailed Alaster as a 'traitor to his own race'.

Other ideas and attempts at racism, because racism is both a positive and negative emotion even if the word is now only used to refer to the negative aspect of it.

I knew a Forsaken, and it was beautifully played right up to the character's death, who couldn't cope with the change of factions in their heart. They'd supported the alliance through their entire life and now couldn't see the Horde as anything other than the bad guys.

Al himself can't look at another Forsaken without seeing scourge at some level. Those Forsaken who are fanatically loyal to Sylvannas he sees as having changed from being Arthas' slave to Windrunners'. He surrounds himself with the living because he sees the living as the future, as one Forsaken commented to him 'Its' survival of the fittest and as we didn't survive!' He expects the end of the Lich King to be the end of the Forsaken as well but still works towards it.

Archnazg plays a very good racist. He supports Forsaken above all and appears to strongly support Sylvanas and Putress' methods.

I can only discuss that which I've seen and really race discrimination should be seen as an acting tool rather than a bad thing as long as it stays in WoW and stays IC.

Surely supporting Purtess and Sylvanas is at odds? I actually did the Wrathgate event for the sixth time the other day, and listened to the refugees in Orgrimmar, and other incidental dialogue. The forsaken left after the shakeup are considered mostly innocent, scared and homeless. Putress is seen as vile, and there's a compassion for Sylvanas that proves they are still capable of a myriad of emotions, and so have their humanity.

The way I've looked at this event all six times is as a way of providing an example of the many ways all the races can be played. Putress and the Royal Apothocary Society are the only forsaken left in UC at this point. All others who disagreed were chased out or executed (this is actually stated in game, not an assumption on my part). Sylvanas barely escapes with her life, and most of the forsaken left are desperate. If anything, they should feel closer to the Horde than ever before... Or rather Thrall. With Garrosh, I see some very interesting potential for how the remaining forsaken are percieved, though I maintain that by and large, the remaining populace is not the life-hating, evil, torturing type of forsaken that was so prevelent in the Royal Apothocary Society.

The propoganda machine worked. People judged the forsaken on the actions and beliefs of a clique that even turned against their own kind. They still see them as being like Putress. I have, for the most part, nothing but sympathy for the forsaken that are left. Thier lives taken, their freewill stolen. Then eventually returned to them, with their souls then treated with suspcion, then even when such unfounded feelings and sentiments are shown to be only representative of a minority, they're seen as even less trustworthy.

Anyway. Racism is by and large something only interesting if the person knows how to do it. Truth be told, I've seen people RP racists and it's been pretty lame. Mostly because it's just a case of walking about and bitching about them under your breath (A tauren walking past belves and saying 'elvish scum' being an example) and as mentioned before, the veiled real life stereotypes being used in game is plain stupid (I have actually heard people refer to taurens by racist names for black people). The way something like Pleasentville deals with racism is the kind of approach people should take. The fear of change, of 'other', and of anything they don't understand (those who actually embrace the new life are referred to as 'coloureds' and are looked down upon by those still in black and white).

but as I say, it's mostly just broad strokes and it's boring. Be inventive with any kind of prejudice and your character will be remembered far more than an all-ecnompassing, general twat that just sneers -all- the time. Paul's correct in the use of patronising dialogue, and generally talking at people, rather than to them if you have a dislike for that race.

I did play a racist though. I had a character (now dead) who hated all races but the elves. He was angry at their position in the world, and held everyone else accountable. But things happened that he ended up having to face. He realised he was wrong about races, that random kindess existed in all, and that his life had been saved many times by others. His opinions changed, and he became a better person. Then he died horribly.

On the flip side, I have characters like Lyranne. Though I'd not say she's a 'let's all be fwends' type that people assume she is. If anything, she's a mediator in many ways. She's seen all the crap from many races that make them all seem as flawed in her eyes. Since Kael'Thas, there's very little reason for her to believe the elves are a 'better, superior' race. The whole Aryian idealogy that's been attributed to them is also more misplaced than people seem to realise. Blonde, blue-eyed Elves aren't belves (all high elf npcs have blonde hair, and they all have fair skin - I have taken a long long look, and about the only ones that differ are using Death Knight Belf hair, which appears to be more of a dye than anything). They're high elves, who it should be noted, are still more alligned to the allaince than anything else. Most Belves have different hair colours, skin tones, and their eyes are scarred by fel. In my mind, the elf that feels they belong to a superior race is a high elf. They're uncorrupted, they're 'pure' and they turned their backs on their kin.

In my opinion, a belf that's got a superiority complex needs to have a long look in a mirror and count off all the reasons they are (I can think of none, unless fel tainting influences their world view).

Also of note: Gurfang, I apologise for my response. I was annoyed, but should have maintained a more level head.