Keeping an open mind is always a good thing. It has always been disappointing to me that people in the community haven't been. There has been, and continues to be, a fair amount of vitriol thrown a people when they are just posting up questions or asking for input. The line between critique and attack has already been covered. While everyone should reflect on that difference, I do not intend to go into a subject already well covered by others.
One of the things that has bugged me for a while is the venom thrown at supposedly lore breaking concepts by people, particularly without keeping an open mind to what the game lore might reveal in the future. By way of example, think of every insult thrown at someone who was trying to RP a DRG. Every one of those threads got just plain vicious, most of them eventually got shut down by the mods because they got to heated. We have sense gotten a ton of lore that has contradicted every single thing people previously assumed about DRGs. We watched as people were called stupid, lore breaking, and bad RPers by degrees that were all eventually contradicted with Heavensward. It was almost like people took a position, only to see that position contradicted as more stuff came out. Everything from "there is only one DRG," to "there are a bunch but they can't all jump and such," to "X race can't be a DRG." Since Heavensward launch, most of these assumptions have been proven incorrect. That will happen. It is bound to happen by the nature of how the lore is given out. No harm, foul, or shame in that.
What we have not seen is people admitting when they were wrong. To be clear, I am not talking about just lore here. I am talking about throwing out insults and venom at other people, and then being shown that one was wrong in the assumption that supposedly justified those insults. I will grant that I do not see everything, and it is more than possible that people apologized for that privately. I mean with some of the stuff said in those threads, I hope they apologized just for the stuff that got flung. DRGs are far from the only hot button topic like this, and there is the thing that we should all try remember. Before we toss out attacks, insults, and "YER DOING IT WRONGS!" over our particular interpretations of the lore we have to work with, we need to remember we could be 100% wrong in our assumptions. That is all any of us have to go off of, assumption and best possible guess. These are not good enough reasons to hurl intolerant, toxic mess at each other (not that I personally think there is any good reason for that at all). They are also the very best reasons to keep an open mind. How many of us would saddle up to the table to eat generous portions of crow if the game's lore peeps told us "Yup there absolutely can be multiple WHMs. That other method of gaining access to Succor we teased about earlier? Here are the details on that." This is true of pretty much every piece of lore that has been used as justification to pass judgement on someone else's RP.Â
We are passionate about stuff, cool beans. On its face, that is completely fine. Debate and even argument are completely fine. Jumping on the bandwagon at people, tossing out insults and attacks? That stuff is toxic. It makes us all toxic and salty, and that just bleeds out into the community at large. The next time you want to pass judgement or attack someone here for having and idea, just think back to the last time the game or the lore guys made you eat crow. Take a second and think about the other places they absolutely could make you do that again. Keep an open mind for no other reason than because you could dig in your heels, draw your line in the sand, and stand by your assumption only to served nummy nummy crow.
My two cents for now. Yar.
One of the things that has bugged me for a while is the venom thrown at supposedly lore breaking concepts by people, particularly without keeping an open mind to what the game lore might reveal in the future. By way of example, think of every insult thrown at someone who was trying to RP a DRG. Every one of those threads got just plain vicious, most of them eventually got shut down by the mods because they got to heated. We have sense gotten a ton of lore that has contradicted every single thing people previously assumed about DRGs. We watched as people were called stupid, lore breaking, and bad RPers by degrees that were all eventually contradicted with Heavensward. It was almost like people took a position, only to see that position contradicted as more stuff came out. Everything from "there is only one DRG," to "there are a bunch but they can't all jump and such," to "X race can't be a DRG." Since Heavensward launch, most of these assumptions have been proven incorrect. That will happen. It is bound to happen by the nature of how the lore is given out. No harm, foul, or shame in that.
What we have not seen is people admitting when they were wrong. To be clear, I am not talking about just lore here. I am talking about throwing out insults and venom at other people, and then being shown that one was wrong in the assumption that supposedly justified those insults. I will grant that I do not see everything, and it is more than possible that people apologized for that privately. I mean with some of the stuff said in those threads, I hope they apologized just for the stuff that got flung. DRGs are far from the only hot button topic like this, and there is the thing that we should all try remember. Before we toss out attacks, insults, and "YER DOING IT WRONGS!" over our particular interpretations of the lore we have to work with, we need to remember we could be 100% wrong in our assumptions. That is all any of us have to go off of, assumption and best possible guess. These are not good enough reasons to hurl intolerant, toxic mess at each other (not that I personally think there is any good reason for that at all). They are also the very best reasons to keep an open mind. How many of us would saddle up to the table to eat generous portions of crow if the game's lore peeps told us "Yup there absolutely can be multiple WHMs. That other method of gaining access to Succor we teased about earlier? Here are the details on that." This is true of pretty much every piece of lore that has been used as justification to pass judgement on someone else's RP.Â
We are passionate about stuff, cool beans. On its face, that is completely fine. Debate and even argument are completely fine. Jumping on the bandwagon at people, tossing out insults and attacks? That stuff is toxic. It makes us all toxic and salty, and that just bleeds out into the community at large. The next time you want to pass judgement or attack someone here for having and idea, just think back to the last time the game or the lore guys made you eat crow. Take a second and think about the other places they absolutely could make you do that again. Keep an open mind for no other reason than because you could dig in your heels, draw your line in the sand, and stand by your assumption only to served nummy nummy crow.
My two cents for now. Yar.
