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 Post subject: Difficulty of RPing a Horde Character
PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:03 am 
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Matriarch
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So I had this notion this morning. People are fully encouraged to refute my insane ideas. But I had this notion that it is harder to RP a Horde character than it is an Alliance one. More difficult in the sense that a person more than likely has to step away from their humanness and modern learning in order to play a good Horde race character. (There are, by the way, exceptions to this rule. Which is why you have so many people who play belfs, aside from the fact that they're just pretty. And some people find it really easy to play a Forsaken because what is a Forsaken? A human gone insane.) As an Alliance, it's much easier to transfer real life knowledge into most of the races as they are largely based on more well known western ideals and culture.

As a long time Horde player, I've noticed over time how people talk about not being able to get into playing an Orc or a Troll or a Tauren because they just don't know where to start. "Not enough lore" or "Not 'cultured' enough". But I've always considered there to be more than enough of the seeds of a culture to any of these races to be very creative and expand and expound on them beautifully without stepping on any already provided Blizz lore. I just think folks are very unfamiliar with the possibilities. They don't know much about native and primitive cultures, they have trouble setting aside their real life modern ideals like 'smoking and slavery is bad' to feel comfortable enough to talk about it like they're naive and/or acceptable concepts. And I'm even going to go out there on a limb and guess that as most players are caucasian (oh yeah, I'm going there), they haven't experienced or had much interest in the life and culture of minority races.

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 Post subject: Re: Difficulty of RPing a Horde Character
PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:17 pm 
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Heh, I don't think it's about the relative whiteness of the player (says the whitest guy ever), bit of a dangerous generalization there really. IMO, saying it's more about how much exposure to different lifestyles and/or viewpoints they've had as a result of their education, upbringing, and choices in life might be a better plan. And while that CAN be tied to ethnic background, you really have to stretch it to do so.

In my opinion, it's more about intent, theres a big difference between players who play to play, players who play to be someONE else, and players who play to be someTHING else. It all comes down to what you're looking to get out of the game. Most folks simply don't want to be something completely different, they want to be themselves, only better. The alliance races provide that. Horde requires thinking more 'outside the box/body/what-have-you".

FWIW: I play to be someTHING else. Hence, tauren. Plus, it appeals to certain parts of my ancestry... :D

p.s. folks who play forsaken as "just crazy humans"? TOTALLY missing the point. But again, just one guy's opinion.

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EDIT: this post, and any other posts I make, are to be taken as my perception, and my opinion, only, not to be taken as fact, or me speaking for anyone. If such is the case, the fault is entirely mine, and I apologize.


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 Post subject: Re: Difficulty of RPing a Horde Character
PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 3:04 pm 
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Matriarch
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I agree with most of what you said. I know I was pushing the line. I also admit that I do let my own personal experience as a minority effect how and why I play Tauren and that sometimes I, to the detriment of a situation, have on occasion let certain things get too personal. I mean, nothing horribly so. Haven't like called people nazis or anything because I had too much of a sensitive day. (You know, I've mentioned them alot lately. Hmm, there's a theme here that I think I must analyze and amend. >>) But sometimes people say things about the 'foreignness' of Horde cultures or the steak jokes get a little too much and I have to leave before I start a fight. Well, another fight. >.<

And what I meant by "just crazy humans" is that Forsaken are definately more than just that, but I think it can be quite easy for many a person RPing a Forsaken to simply take themselves or an ideal of themselves and step them up with a little "omg, I'm not really dead, how does this effect me" add on.

Also. . .you have bull in your genes?! =O

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I am a shaman.


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 Post subject: Re: Difficulty of RPing a Horde Character
PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 10:59 am 
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Well, not "bull" per se... Bull-headed maybe. And a statistically and biologically significant portion of Native American. (I like to joke that my ancestors' favorite hobby was trying to exterminate each other ... lucky for me, they failed.)

YEah, it's interesting, almost every race in wow is based on a real-world analogue race. Maybe not obviously, but it's there (with the exception of blood elves, they're based on drug addicts. Which I'm surprised so few other people get). It's only the complexity of the cultures created, and the inclusion of both good and bad aspects of each culture that keep it from being almost comically offensive at times.

You really have to divorce your own upbringing from your experience with the races of wow though, because the worlds are SO different. Here, racism is an absolutely evil thing, and the important differences between us all are 99.99999% cultural. There, in Azeroth, they go physically bone deep and sometimes even cross mode of experience like life, death, and evolution. The "created life" vs. "evolved life" vs. "undeath" thing is just CRAZY. A Tauren not only doesn't think like a Gnome, they literally CAN'T. And forsaken? Holy crap.

Heh, and thinking about this kinda stuff really doesn't help my resolve to NOT go out and buy another computer so I can play again.

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EDIT: this post, and any other posts I make, are to be taken as my perception, and my opinion, only, not to be taken as fact, or me speaking for anyone. If such is the case, the fault is entirely mine, and I apologize.


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 Post subject: Re: Difficulty of RPing a Horde Character
PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 1:20 pm 
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Well, it's been mostly ooc comments people have made that have made me go >( . IC stuff I can take in stride. But ooc when certain things get said certain ways, it pushes my refute button. Certain discussions about things like racial superiorities or assumptions made about lore because that's how it would make sense in the real world as we know it will procure an arguement from me.

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I am what brings them together. I am the knot.
I am a shaman.


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 Post subject: Re: Difficulty of RPing a Horde Character
PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 3:54 pm 
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Quote:
Certain discussions about things like racial superiorities or assumptions made about lore because that's how it would make sense in the real world as we know it will procure an arguement from me.


As well they should.

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EDIT: this post, and any other posts I make, are to be taken as my perception, and my opinion, only, not to be taken as fact, or me speaking for anyone. If such is the case, the fault is entirely mine, and I apologize.


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