Conquest of the Horde

Ya'll seem to forget that WoW gnomes wouldn't take your shit either.

Or have we forgotten about the ROUGHRIDERS?

Seriously, gnomes have funny voices and act... strange with bizzare politics, but they work with bombs and guns for a living.

Also they can turn you into a chicken.

I was thinking about this thread, and I came up with another train of thought that may very well be relevant.

A lot of the time, I think people adhere to the typical stereotypes. This goes for any of the races. It's so easy to go by those stereotypes and not consider the more realistic strengths and flaws that each race has, and people do tend to play characters that are at least somewhat based on these stereotypes quite a lot, as a result. It's easy to roll your eyes when you see "another blood elf," because a lot of people might think, "whoops. Skinny prissy elf with a snotty attitude." A lot of what is taken in, may be taken in at face-value. The fact of the matter is, though, that not all races live up to those outlandish stereotypes.

That isn't to say that those stereotypes should be completely destroyed, of course, because they're based on some form of truth. Gnomes aren't all crazy, puntable little robo-folk -- but they are eccentric, techno-savvy, and one of the shortest races on Azeroth. Orcs aren't all blood-thirsty killing machines -- but they are an honorable, battle-hardened race steeped in shamanistic roots. Certainly, there no doubt always will be characters that go by the stereotypes, and that isn't such a terrible thing - but it's when people start thinking that all characters go by those stereotypes and thus begin ridiculing people for playing characters of a specific race, or playing a character solely based on those stereotypes, that there becomes a problem.

Gnomes. I've never RPed them, I've RPed with them however and the ones I RPed with were good fun. I recall Kimee, Glocken and a gnome who's name I've sadly forgotten right of my head who made a database for Nuraava's victories. That was awesome stuff. You wouldn't want to mess with the first one, the second was a business entrepreneur who was all about the profit (that's how I met him at least, and it was part inspiration for Meline) and the last gnome was a technological wonder with his ideas and inventions.

Thing is, back then I never met a gnome to the point of being crazy. Now? I don't meet gnomes at all which is a shame. I do miss those guys with their inventions and ideas, but all I can really offer to those guys is to roll an gatherer/crafter gnome and get him/her involved in the union. Anyone beating you with a stick, harassing you or otherwise disrespecting Meline's employee's will magically find themselves in concrete shoes. After all, it's bad for business.

That aside, I have to agree with Kiffles. Stereotypes aren't bad, but not everyone is the same. I personally got Learyn my bard elf who I had expected hate towards or some kind of commentary at least how she's not a Sentinel / racist / serious-nature-elf and instead 'just a waitress'. I've gotten none, which I wanted to mention. That's a positive thing and those should be mentioned. Perhaps it's because of her being a night elf (and hey, we all love those secretly) but nobody ever gave her an odd look OOCly like "Dafuq is that."

I'll try rolling a gnome sometime, I've been tinkering with the idea of a gnome toy maker with a more lethal hobby on the side.

As for Forsaken mentioned earlier; They are rotting/walking corpses. OOC I'm fine with that, but -all- of my characters are at least somewhat (most are worse) creeped out by the idea of the dead walking about. That isn't to say there isn't more to the character, but the whole appearance thing just doesn't go well with their minds. .. I personally would lose it IRL if I saw a walking corpse, zombie Apocalypse? Don't count on me. I suppose it's more common on Azeroth but I still find there to be a difference between an ugly/scarred toon and a person who died and came back in that state. (Goes for DK's as well mind you. But they visually look less.. ...dead?)

Edit; The union actually got her hands on Mertice, a DK Gnome. Good fun.

(12-11-2012, 06:22 PM)McKnighter Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-10-2012, 09:06 PM)Scow2 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-10-2012, 08:52 PM)McKnighter Wrote: [ -> ]I honestly don't take any gnome who sticks to the retail-like sterotype of them seriously. Doesn't do their race justice and it makes my eyes bleed trying to understand and follow whatever the heck it is that they're doing.

You can't take anyone who plays a gnome without rejecting the gnome's culture seriously? I take the race at face value - to do otherwise is to dilute and belittle their culture.

A gnome isn't considered an adult until it's earned a PhD.

If they're being excessively annoying, yes. Primary reason I avoid gnomes because they are flat out played to be annoying little buggers that you want to punt. There's been a rare few that I actually liked and tolerated, because they didn't act like such. Gnomes have always been the joke race, which is a pity.

But, for example, in Guild Wars 2 there is a race called the Asura. Basically gnomes in superior intelligence and living underground before being forced out of their homes by bid bads. I love them because they aren't annoying, they're smart and sassy and don't let anyone give them crap about their height. If you punted one, they'd come back with a siege golem to rearrange your face or pull out some other invention of destruction. I don't feel the same vibe from most gnomes that I have role-played with.

I'm not asking them to speak 'dumb' or watered down, but something other than a mad scientist or the one that bounces off the walls with techno everything and gets into everyone's face would be a refreshing change.

The biggest reason for that though, is that the GAME ITSELF takes these characters seriously. It feels like that here in WoW, the devs decided among themselves that almost everything involving Gnomes would be a joke. The animations, the voices, a lot of it is hard to take seriously, along with the goofy expressions they automatically put on their faces.

Every so often, there are people that play Gnomes seriously. When those Gnomes come about, my characters take them seriously.

Everyone talks about Piken and Rofupi for examples of good Gnomes... but I want to point out Rigley's Jovana. She is a gnome that I take very seriously. The way she is able to act apathetic about just nearly everything is great, while still providing some level of emotional depth when needed.




GRANTED, with Spachemin I probably propagate the stereotype, but that's why I personally don't like to play Gnomes compared to almost every other race--- I know I can't do them justice.

Sadly, this also means initially I find it hard to take a Gnome seriously upon first interaction. However, if you're not annoying about the gnome yourself, you won't get the jokes.

I will agree though---I'm sick of seeing fights where all people do with Gnomes is try to punt them twenty times. That's a tried joke that's overused ICly. I hope the next person that does that breaks their toe on one of their skulls.

(12-12-2012, 07:25 AM)Rensin Wrote: [ -> ]I will agree though---I'm sick of seeing fights where all people do with Gnomes is try to punt them twenty times. That's a tried joke that's overused ICly. I hope the next person that does that breaks their toe on one of their skulls.

If Abrams (I seriously need to play him more) ever finds himself subjected to the a hostile force's kinetic accellerators, he will use the trajectory and momentum to advantageously increase the linear distance between himself to buy himself time to perforate his enemy's skull with his high-powered rifle (Currently a Gyro-balanced Khorium Destroyer, with the obscene power implied therin. I should switch it to the purple laser gun instead.)

Of course, I need to do a lot of work on Abrams, and figuring out combat is one of those issues, since he's not the type to "fight fair".

Hey, on that gnome punting thing in an IC fight? I do that. Once a battle though. And it's only because slicing down at a small target is -so- much harder then kicking.

More to come.

Certain characters of mine have a habit of using football kicks / punts in fights. Not only towards Gnomes, though: :3

Enough force behind it and it's going to hurt for a rong rong tiem if it hits home.

huhuhuhuhuhuhuhu

Some of the comments I'm reading in this thread are annoying me, but I won't go as far as pointing them out. However, I will say that since many of us are strong RPers with a lot of experience behind us, that we know better than to take a character at face value. When your character is interacting with a character, it's your CHARACTER that should either take the other character seriously or not, and not YOU the player. I don't care what you think about a race OOCly; if I play a character that seems to be stereotypical because he/she reflects a lot of the recurring behaviors of his/her race, I still expect you to take him/her seriously as a character. Certain races have certain cultures, and this will result in a lot of characters of that race sharing the same characteristics. It should take more than a few roleplays before you as a player can verify whether or not another character has depth. If a character seems stereotypical for his/her race, such as a axe-swinging and bloodthirsty Orc or a technobabbling tinkering Gnome, remember that there is plenty of room behind those quirks for a lot of character development and complication. They probably aren't that simple, and if they are, remember that players can be new to RP, and that there is always room for improvement.

TL;DR: You the player should never dismiss a character because of how it is being played, only your character should. It is a part of the 'respect' that is the #1 rule on CotH.

I'm not sorry if this sounds pushy or preachy; the fact that players are not wanting to play with certain characters because of how they act is one of the things that made me want to leave this community again. I'll speak my mind about it.

(12-12-2012, 08:45 AM)KageAcuma Wrote: [ -> ]Hey, on that gnome punting thing in an IC fight? I do that. Once a battle though. And it's only because slicing down at a small target is -so- much harder then kicking.

More to come.

No surprise, everyone does it. What I'm saying is that at this point it's overused. I'm guilty of it too, but it wasn't until a while ago when I saw it happen during a tournament, and every time a Gnome was fought it was about fifty percent of the attacks against them that it got annoying.

It's like attacks that go for the groin. I'm just not as amused by them as everyone else seems to be.

My disclaimer: I thought this thread was interesting enough I necro'd it.

I read through quite a bit, and it resonates. However, I'd like to say that in my week of being here it seems to be reciprocal -- as in, the racial OOC jokes and the IC hate tend to come across from every side. I really haven't seen any particular group NOT make some kind of negative reference ICly or potentially negative reference OOCly (quite interpretive, i.e: is it a joke, or is it really a veiled attack, etc).

Now, here's my question, what's the line?

I've seen people call taurens and orcs beasts numerous times ICly, and say similar things OOCly, jokingly of course. Among other insults.

I made two dwarf/gnome punt jokes today OOCly (my first on this server). Is that considered not alright in the community?

Bit confused as to what the standard is.

Wait, so how short are you? I mean, when you sit in a chair do you break a nail AND your feet swing in the air, never touching the ground?

Okay, I'm done. I was juuuust kiddin'. Thank you for the advice, I will use those rules of thumb.

I think people swarm GM's no matter what in OOC. Like, one of the things I regularly do is go stand next to people. I think it should be made clear too, that IC racial hate is pretty appropriate considering the setting we play it, however OOC it can get old when people drag out the same stereotypes all the time.

However, another side of the coin, I think sometimes people can be too sensitive about generally harmless things. Yes, there are those that maliciously try to flirt the line with what's acceptable and what's not, but in my opinion I've been wondering why people get so offended over certain comments about race and such.





I guess what I'm trying to get at is, do we really want to become that sensitive, where we worry about such things OOCly? If someone says Tauren (My Favorite race) are big beasts, or Blood Elves (...Admittedly, my second favorite race) are sorta like rabbits, is it really that harmful? I think it could foster some very strange protective habits and feelings among the community.

To phrase this another way--- it's already hard to have a character that has these traits (Racism) without having the hurt feelings spill to the OOC. Seriously, it's damn near impossible to play a character that doesn't tolerate interactions between the factions because it feels like only a handful do that anymore.

That last part goes into a whole different topic, but I think it holds hands with this one nicely. And it's something I've been sitting on for a while.

But Riegen what else might I harass you with... srsly glad to know you think that and sorry for making the short jokes and getting on my tauren specificly to make short jokes for any of you >.> Yes I actauly did that. (These red lines are way to numerous I should really stop taking French it's screwing up my spelling >.<)

EDIT: That was at Riegen and any other character I've made fun of for their size I just like playing talk races >.>

DOUBLE EDIT: Take all the Riegens and change them to Reigens.

Take ALL the Reigens. XD