'Gansta Elves'?

[Aphetoros]

Honestly, the only time Astus really swears is in horribly life threatening situations aka all the time.

[Krent]

I agree with the post (WHOA AREN'T I ORIGINAL?!), but I think the problem lies in people getting lazy with writing and development. I'm A-OK with profanity and vulgarity for everyone in an IC context. But the diction of a character's language is something that needs a lot of careful thought and justification. It's not necessarily an issue of fitting the norm of a race, it's about fitting a character type. If you're character is a rough and tumble farmer from Stormwind, one with a low education, chances are he isn't going to express himself as eloquently as someone of the nobility would.

He'd be firing off F-Bombs like a well constructed metaphor that strengthens my argument.

How your character presents themselves, how they act towards others, how they express their ideals are all something you have to spend a lot of time thinking about. What are the reasons behind it? Why does your character call everyone a "mudda asshole", despite their maternal status or bowel capabilities?

I think the problem with these Elf Bludz is that they don't put that much thought into it. I think its exactly as you think, Xigo. They see the pretty, they do the clicky, then they just RP as a normal human.

But I have to admit I'm incredibly guilty of RP'ing characters that don't fit racial norms. Look at my most famous character; Rofupi. He's a freaking dumb ass drug addict who picks fist fights with everyone (though he's trying to stop srsly). I'm sure his antics have done more than roll more than a few eyes here and there.

Its a very, very risky, often controversial, endeavor to play a character that doesn't fit into the conventional norms. Part of me understands and sympathizes with everyone. Blood elves ain't street, yo. But the other side of me is always wanting to explore new facets, ideas, arch-types and clashes. And where I can lead it. Hence, I feel most at home writing characters that have ties with Steamwheedle and the like. Its challenging and I'd like to think I put a lot of effort into it.

That amount of effort behind development is necessary in making the character seem "right". Its hella risky, I've messed it up plenty of times. But...I've seen people go on about how people need to "play the races right", and I totally agree. But maybe we should also add "...but if you wanna be different, be prepared to work your ass off and develop a lot of justifications for it!" to that also.

Hrm. This post is a lot more serious than I intended it to be.

Ergo, Gal O Sengen.

SENSUAL EDIT: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CAN'T FIGURE OUT YOUTUBE EMBED TAGS NOW WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU FORUM IT USED TO BE SO EASY BLEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Spoiler:

[video=youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EKTw50Uf8M[/video]

P.S I've noticed a lot of rage threads lately. And I've noticed that, despite being rage threads, they're actually quite cordial and polite. And constructive. I think you guiz need to see some reel raeg.

[CappnRob]

The problem, Krent, isn't people exploring new character facets, but rather people who RP these sorts of characters as if they're perfectly normal. Which, you could say, isn't exploring the facets of a new character direction at all, and is just being lazy.

That all said....

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO...

[Cressy]

Eh...

We have all done it at one point or another.

Jus' sayiin', yo.

[c0rzilla]

"One point or another" != lazy writing.

The point Xigo is making is about consistent laziness and lack of effort in tailoring a character's language to their environment. They come across as the factious example I provided.

[Cressy]

Sorry I am on my phone and do not feel like writing a paragraph stating that.

[c0rzilla]

Accepted.

[Jonoth]

My own Draenei has a complicated view on Orcs due to his shaman influence. He tends to give more peaceful, spiritual Orcs the benefit of the doubt, while giving the fiercer warriors the cold shoulder. I had a nice argument ICly pre-restart when the DP ran into Duron in Telredor, with my Draenei wanting to let the orc pass peacefully while the other wanted the Orc to turn back. I loved this confrontation and hoped to see more of it after the jump.

And again to beat the dead horse, I love variations, so long as there is a reasonable explanation for it.

And in response directly to the OP, I think there are too many foul-mouthed characters in general. A foul mouth doesn't make a character tough or cool. There are better ways to play your character rough around the edges. Not to say chars have to stop cursing completely, but just think before you type, and decide if the situation is right for your character to drop an F-bomb. Hell, I play a Dwarf that says pretty dirty things, but I find it much more amusing to say he's going to make an open faced Dwarf sammich then say he's gonna f*** her.

[BountyHunter]

I've always believed that if a character has a plausible reason to be outside of the norm and are ready to face the consequences, they are free to do so. However, a lack of explanation for why their x is y and not z does cause their character to become very shallow and 'Just 'cause'.

A Blood Elf who grew up in an orphanage, became entrenched within a crime syndicate, got imprisoned on false charges, was promptly conscripted into the military and thrown into Draenor and got trapped when it exploded probably has a valid reason to throw a vulgar curse around every now and then.

[Dae]

They see the pretty, they do the clicky, then they just RP as a normal human.

I think nothing epitomizes this quite like when my Tauren was trying to deal with being in Silvermoon for a while, and struck up conversation with some Belves sitting on a street corner across from a bar, chatting. The topic of age came up, and (When the adult age of belves was still +100) each said that they were somewhere under 200, and then a few of them said, "Its the equivalent of *X age* for humans."
Suffice to say, my Tauren was very confused by these comments and no idea of the typical lifespan of a race she had no contact with.

Also, one of the things that really irks me with the Man-Belves the OP alludes to will be perfectly fine with ignoring all social procedure in being a Blood Elf unless there's a Tauren present, in which they suddenly develop an air of ethnocentrism, with comments of various levels of sophistication about "the cow in the room." Forsaken in the middle of Silvermoon doesn't even garner this sort of attention from them.

Still, I think we're all a bit guilty of the "Buddies with everyone" bit. But we've a relatively small population, and I, myself, will play a bit of a deviant in order to facilitate roleplay opportunities.
My forsaken character, for example, doesn't strongly identify with the sort of nationalism of the Undercity. She still feels that she sort of owes Sylvanas and would feel an obligation to help her people in a time of (especially dire) need, but most of the time, she's taking the opportunity that being undead has provided her. She travels to escape the mundanity of her former human life, and I feel that the biggest homage to her race that manifests in her character is her alignment- very much a neutral character.

I would try to rally help to stop the plotting of an evil character. My Forsaken? She'd only bother with it if it affected her interests, and even then, only enough to get those interests out of the line of fire.
And that fits a non-evil individual of her race. She's still very much dead and a bit smelly, and she knows where she came from.

I feel that the root of the issue is the fact that many people are playing characters to fulfill desires vicariously, even on a subconscious level. A lot of young people these days don't really know what its like to have to deal with overt racism and class division, so they simply don't address the issue in-game because they'd rather play a character like themselves. Admittedly, one could find ways to make a character who acts like oneself in reality through a bit of study on race and general lore, but then, your character would be a deviant and have to face social repercussions of being a "Love everybody" character. They don't want that, though, so the logical thing at this point would simply be to take WoW out of the equation. But they still want to have some WoW-related things, (they are trying to roleplaying on a WoW server, after all) so they shoehorn themselves into an existing race, without taking heed of what being a certain race entails. There's this unspoken, but persistent misconception among these sorts of people that if they don't fall prey to the general tropes of Mary Sue and general overpoweredness, that what they're doing doesn't hurt anything.

They are, and this needs to stop.

And for that matter, vicariuos intentions in character creation and roleplay should altogether stop, too. My rule of thumb is see, not be, because roleplay on CotH should ultimately be collaborative writing within the scenario of the Warcraft universe, using the game as a visual aide. Self-insertion characters ignore the fact that this sort of roleplay is tailored to be a part of a whole, not for the individual.

I tried rolling a Belf here, and a deviant at that- a young elf with a sense of adventure and wanderlust, actively trying (And failing miserably) to not constantly slip into formal posture and prose. Within a day of playing this character, she wound up in a potentially romantic situation. Never had that with my other characters here, and not even all that often with my Draenei elsewhere.
I suspect that so many people play Belves not simply because they look pretty, but of all the playable races in WoW, they're the most overtly sexual.
insert argument of architectural aesthetics in Belven society reflecting a sense of subtle eroticism alluding to blah art history blah I'm an art student, blah.
I know that for sexuals, some degree of sexuality is a part of one's identity, and the visuals associated with Blood Elves better reflect that than even the giant, erect crystals of the Exodar.

Not playing a Blood Elf means that people have to go out of their comfort zone on this issue, and either avoid sexuality at all or try to transpose this intuitive aspect of a sexually-reproducing race onto a fictional person with very different ideals on the matter.

And by no means am I trying to imply that CotH is a hotbed of passionate fantasy romance, but I'm asexual, and for me, the sexuality of my characters is always a stretch, because they are normal individuals of their race, and "normal" typically involves having a sexual orientation. And even in reality, sexuality stands out to me like a sore thumb, so what's going on with people, their characters and sexual interest is a bit of an elephant in the room for me. Handling the sexuality of another species can be a difficult one, and requires a level of general literary prowess that many people who "play themselves" may simply not be aware of- even an understanding of interracial relations can come down to lore and statistics, but what your character is thinking right there, right now about everyone around them is something deeper than that.
You have to really know what your male Orc is thinking to be able to identify that he would find that lady Orc warrior over there attractive and treat her subtly different, as people do of attractive people in real life. And then, you have to understand that your Orc is not going to find the Blood Elf woman over there particularly alluring because she does not conform to the ideals of the Orc race. All of this on top of the fact that the lady Orc could be of a different tribe, and that even if the male Orc was to have to interact with the female Blood Elf, she'd likely be hesitant to do so, if not downright contemptuous.

But yeah, thesis rant on why people who can't roleplay belves (but like to play them anyway) done.

[Micheru]

However.. What about cursing makes one 'gangsta'?

[Kirabo]

My rule of thumb is see, not be, because roleplay on CotH should ultimately be collaborative writing within the scenario of the Warcraft universe, using the game as a visual aide. Self-insertion characters ignore the fact that this sort of roleplay is tailored to be a part of a whole, not for the individual.

Yes, exactly! That's another problem; People seem to treat CotH's roleplay as a chatroom. You know what I mean, "Chatroom Booty Bay: Romance and crime". Gathering up in an inn and forming a group to talk OOCly is definitely NOT what this server is supposed to be about, but cooperative writing. Plot creating, story-crafting, tale-knitting.

A bit of awareness raising would not be bad at this point, anyone agree?

[Krilari]

I think I can point out a small root to why these so called 'gangster' elves are about.

Constantly ICly and OOCly Blood elves are referred to as the girly race of Warcraft. If people are like me, then they have grow a severe hate for these obligations if anything because it's frustrating. In result of this frustration they may feel obliged to make their character appear ' tougher' by going through these habits that you all have pointed out.

Of course, this is just a theory.

(Posted from the iPhone)

[c0rzilla]

Obligation? Hatred?

Apologies if my lack of sleep makes my typing harsher than intended but...

Get over it.

Yeah, elves have pretty curtains. Yeah, elves have a delicate, organic (i.e. the way their architecture flows "naturally") culture.

Are these things considered feminine?

Yes.

So the eff what?

Apologies, but this "I'm so tough" backlash just makes the player that reacts to it and the juvenile insults seem...juvenile. And horribly insecure. "I'm teh manliez, elfs teh homoz".

Really? I'd like to think we're of better mental stock than retail where every other sentence is "ur so gay".

[flammos200]

Obligation? Hatred?

Apologies if my lack of sleep makes my typing harsher than intended but...

Get over it.

Yeah, elves have pretty curtains. Yeah, elves have a delicate, organic (i.e. the way their architecture flows "naturally") culture.

Are these things considered feminine?

Yes.

So the eff what?

Apologies, but this "I'm so tough" backlash just makes the player that reacts to it and the juvenile insults seem...juvenile. And horribly insecure. "I'm teh manliez, elfs teh homoz".

Really? I'd like to think we're of better mental stock than retail where every other sentence is "ur so gay".

Precisely. Also, see those things listed? Those are from a -HUMAN- point of view. To Elves, those might be masculine(Who am I kidding? The gender divide in Blood Elves is pretty much non-existent, and 'feminine' things are typically ascribed to males in Kaldorei society) for all they care. Every race sees things differently, to the point at which they are damn near alien to one-another.

Stop looking at other races through Human eyes. Look at them from their racial perspective, for it is the key to role-play; Assume the role.