(06-09-2015, 10:53 AM)theincubuslord Wrote:(06-09-2015, 10:37 AM)Graeham Wrote: I get the impression that if someone does happen to hate Au Ra on an OOC level then they're likely to not bother seeking out Au Ra to interact with in the first place. I saw quite a few people who were very vocal about blood elves back when I role-played in WoW and I played blood elves almost exclusively for years.Â
Bar one or two exceptions I never once saw those vocal individuals seeking out blood elves to interact with or bash - and if they did they were usually quickly put in their place since the stuff they said was pretty ridiculous in the first place.
You must've been on a very nice server then. I was in <The Sha'tar> and played a blood elf as well, and every day the /trade channel was spammed with "Blood Elf f#ggots!" and the like, not to mention those who went to Silvermoon, JUST to annoy people RP'ing there by jumping around and dancing on top of people with their bulky armour and the enlargement potions (talking about overcompensating for something, huh. ;P ).
Bullying online, also in MMO's, is a real thing.
That said, I've found the FFXIV RP community mostly acceptive and friendly towards me as a gay guy RP'ing gay characters, and I love it for that. FFXIV has been the most enjoyable MMO to RP in because of that. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't people who do have some sort of personal problem with it and have indeed taken it out on me - people I have never interacted with before suddenly coming up to me and harrassing me. And when I addressed the person in /tell asking why, the hatred was really shining through every word he said. Blacklisted and reported.
I can RP with IC racists, homophobes and whatever. I can distinguish between IC and OOC, and I have had some awesome friendships with people OOCly whose characters conflict with my own, because the conflict is kept purely ICly.
Not everyone are as open-minded and acceptive, and as you said earlier, the very world of FFXIV reflects that as well. But I will not allow it to disrupt my enjoyment of the game. If there are people who's RP I don't agree with, then I just don't RP with those people. I will absolutely not enforce my views on someone and harrass them about it, and I don't wish for others to do so onto me either.
Was that on the European role-playing servers by chance? I played on Argent Dawn. I wouldn't say it was a 'nice' server (it had more than a few problems) but most people took a pretty firm stance against blatant cases of OOC discrimination leaking into IC interaction.