(07-04-2017, 08:00 AM)Dinah-mite! Wrote: If you want to feel welcomed and like you really belong on the server in the community join the discord, everyone is pretty wonderful there, and really the discord group is what handily won me over.
I actually did join the Discord (labelled "RPM", since I hear there are multiple). I admit I stopped logging into Discord after a few days, for entirely unrelated reasons; specifically I keep (well, three times) seeing long, protracted arguments between two or three people (usually different ones every time) about every conceivable subject. I'm pretty sure I'm not misinterpreting playful banter as serious arguments, because the mods had to step in to restore peace.
This has nothing to do with making me feel welcome or unwelcome, so I have no complaints about the Discord in that regard. As mentioned, it's a completely separate issue.
(07-04-2017, 10:20 AM)Greenley Wrote: To see one, two, even three people say something and take it as gospel, to let it form opinions on an entire community or subject matter... I don't know. Seems very silly to me. Please note I'm not speaking to only you directly in this matter, nor dismissing your RL woes (I understand those very well on a personal level, you can take my word on that that), but it's a game and people are going to argue.Â
The issue I'm having is that it keeps happening. I acknowledge that there is probably nothing the vast majority of Mateus people can do about this, since there's really no way to prevent the occasional person from expressing their "immigrants go away" views from time to time.
Which doesn't change how it does happen, and every time it happens it's one more to add to the pile. It's very difficult to let even one instance wash away, since the doubts that "I'm not welcome here, and there will be people who will never accept me due to where I come from" tend to fester. RL and in-game blur together, especially when the rhetoric is so similar.
It doesn't have to be directed specifically at me. It never has, actually. But here, in-game shouts, Reddit, and the Official Forums, I keep seeing the same refrain: immigrants go away, you're ruining Mateus. Most of them don't actually care if we "go home", as long as we're not here. Transfer to Goblin or Zalera, as long as we never set foot on Mateus again.
One person saying this is something I can deal with, especially if the rest of the community tells me that they do not represent the server as a whole. Two people, or three people, fine. One person (or more) every week, even if they are different people, gets tiresome. I think I've seen double-digit numbers of people by now express anti-immigrant views regarding Mateus, not including those who don't want Balmung transfers anywhere, at which point the numbers rise sharply.
Double-digit numbers for a server in the thousands is pretty small, yes. But they make their views loud, known, and in public spaces where I am likely to see them just through my usual browsing/playing.
Again, I'm not expecting anyone else from Mateus to keep defending the server in the face of such sustained bad publicity. I'm just saying that it's happening, and it's causing a reaction, and I don't know what anyone can do about it.
I'm fortunate in RL in that I look more or less the same as the "native citizens" of my country (ie the one I'm in now). But I've long since learned to recognize a particular look I get when I mention where I'm from. It is almost always followed up by certain questions, apparently to ensure that I'm not one of The Bad Ones. It's darkly amusing to see almost the exact same complaints here as in RL (in online discussions and Letters To The Editor): that due to People Like Me, housing has become scarce/more expensive, and public services are becoming overcrowded, and these strange habits and cultures are incompatible with the native ones. And, as with FFXIV, these complaints keep happening.
I don't know how to deal with it in RL, which means I don't know how to deal with it here.
