Yeah I think it’s worth noting that this isn’t just a forum thing either, and to be honest places like Stormwind or whatever are a bit more constant in terms of being unpleasant. About 3/4 of all characters you meet in SW fall into the category of being someone you don’t want to interact with, be they a statue waiting for the exact kind of person they want to RP with, a pushy guild recruiter, an ERPer, someone with a character so unpleasant and edgy that you can’t possibly justify your character wanting to interact with them, etc.
Some of this translates OOC as well, when you can spot the people who play insanely racist/homophobic/misogynistic characters as a blatant excuse for their own irl feelings - you can play a character with some of those traits if you portray it as bad, but I also don’t think racism against other humans, overt sexism for the sake of it or homophobia have much place in WoW.
And all of this together is probably what has the biggest effect on new players or people trying to get into RP rather than forum drama. I still think some of the big ego stuff on the forums has a negative effect and some of what goes on is kind of stifling some creativity a bit, but that’s kind of secondary.
That’s the thing, it wasn’t. It had every other race apart from blood elf. The name didn’t betray that sort of theme and when I checked, it had every other Horde race in it (this was before allied races).
Also, not the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing.
I suppose it’s probably part of the general stigma that Blood Elves (unfortunately sometimes rightfully) have as a race, being that they are stereotypically the most likely to be drama-prone self-inserts. I’ll happily agree with you that it’s odd there wasn’t any real thematic or IC reason for refusing you, though. Then again, their stance in this case implies you may well have dodged a bullet.
Oh, I fully agree on that. It’s part of the reason I prefer to RP with the rest of the Horde as a whole. Looking back on it, I likely did dodge a bullet if that was their outlook, but it’s still difficult wanting to RP certain characters but being relegated to the blood elf/nightborne themed guilds.
Unfortunately there’s always been a bit of homophobia / angry masculinity about Blood Elves in the Horde, since they’re a “girly race”. They always conveniently ignore that Blood Elves are ruthless and vicious.
I literally saw that the other day on my blood elf, with a character describing them as “probably gay” and thus not being much good to the Horde. Said blood elf character actually was gay as well.
Never understood this one from a practical standpoint; the blood elf male model is ridiculously muscled, almost comically so (I remember the model being redesigned in BC alpha to seem more “manly”).
Blizzard really doesn’t help the fact, seeing as most of their /silly’s depicted them as effeminate fops, not to mention the fact a whole lot of Cata-era quests portrayed them as easily mistaken for a woman (the red-haired maiden in Maximilian of Northshire’s quest, the blood elf male swooner you pick up in The Day Deathwing Came).
It’s a shame we still have these quests in-game as a legacy, because belves have developed to be some of the better integrated races of the horde, as opposed to being Blizzard’s feminine punching bag for a while.
I mean we’ve had quite a few toxic threads in the last month alone, so I will have to disagree Kump.
That said, on the in-game/RP side of things I don’t notice much drama although that’s probably because people are focusing on their own group/fun. Which is fine, of course, but it does mean that there won’t be much server campaigns at all.
And yes, I’m equally as guilty for that myself. (Co-)managing campaigns was a a mess and definitely made me give up on them (for a long time).
(damnit didn’t post as Lotheridan but there you go)
It’s worth remembering that the forums isn’t - and never has been - particularly representative of the server, outside of the circles of people who post here.
For sure. I think of it like PR; a lot of people’s behaviour on the forum have discouraged me from ever wanting to roleplay with them in-game, and I that’s 100% a fault of my own for letting a person’s OOC persona impact my IC interactions, but it is what it is. People are right in saying we all have the right to pick and choose who we want to spend our time on, and the forums definitely help narrow that.
It’s perfectly reasonable not to want to interact with someone IC because of the way they are OOC (it’s when this is the other way round that it doesn’t really make sense, unless it’s like because they tried to ERP with you or something). If you don’t like someone you don’t have to spend time with them, and that’s not a failing imo.
