(09-01-2013, 04:14 PM)Myxie Tryxle Wrote: As for a scientific, statistical basis for proving the worth of this thread, it's unnecessary. If fifteen to twenty people come up to me and say "Hey, I really enjoyed/learned from that thing you wrote," it has value, even if a small group or even the majority has no use for it. Just today since this thread has been resurrected, I've gotten three new rep boosts for the original post from people who missed its original run.
Limited value to a small number of people, and is as unnecessary a talking point as hard data backing up the "value" of the statement.
Basically, we're saying that nobody cares how many reputation points you got for it, and it doesn't effect our opinion of the subject matter in this thread in any way, shape, or form.
Personally, I can't fathom why you would even think it's worth bringing up.
(09-01-2013, 04:14 PM)Myxie Tryxle Wrote: I just hate when I see someone pop into a thread (any thread, not just my own) and say "Why does this even exist? I don't need this. It's unnecessary." Why even bother posting that? In my mind it's like walking into an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting and saying "I can hold my liquor. This group is stupid." And another guy walking in and saying "Hell yeah! Who wants to get a beer?" Or standing outside a soccer stadium and proclaiming "Your sport sucks! American football is the only football!" It adds nothing to the discussion and often brings worthwhile discussion to a screeching halt as we spend the next two pages arguing back and forth until one side finally throws up their hands and leaves the thread.
I think the sentiment here is more along the lines of "You've dug entirely too deeply, and are entrenching yourself in territory that's not entirely sound, and may attract a lot more negative, weird bullshit than it will positive."
(09-01-2013, 04:14 PM)Myxie Tryxle Wrote: If you honestly believe there's something positive to be gained from continuing to argue about this, please send me or the person you're arguing with a private message, and we can discuss it further.
Nnnno. No, this is a public forum, where we discuss things out in the open so everyone can see and contribute to them. We're gonna go ahead and keep using it as such, obeying the established rules of course.
(09-01-2013, 04:14 PM)Myxie Tryxle Wrote: If you have discussion relevant to the original topic of discussion, by all means post it. If you want to see a discussion of other aspects of Miqo'te culture, start a thread on that.
We have been! Thanks for the endorsement. We'll keep doing so.
(09-01-2013, 04:14 PM)Myxie Tryxle Wrote: If I see this thread continuing to devolve into something worthy of the depths of 4chan or reddit, I will request that it be locked. Please allow it to remain constructive for people like Siobahn, Clover, K'nahli, and others who are spurring discussion that is on topic.
The fact that people disagree with you does not lower the quality of the thread. You don't get to claim shit like that. Honestly, this isn't even a very good veil for what amounts to a personal insult. Do you really think that nobody can tell that you're throwing this crap out there? Because it's not that hard to decipher. Let's not behave like adolescents. We know you've got people you like. We know you don't really like us. Big goddamned deal. We're gonna take part in this discussion anyway, and that has no bearing on it's quality.
(09-01-2013, 04:14 PM)Knahli Wrote: Oh, I see. I kinda of stated the same in my previous post actually so we are in agreement ^^ If I gave a different impression then I apologise for being unclear. I don't mean to imply that miqo'te are different on a mental level but rather that their cultural mannerisms are more closely comparable to animals than modern society(but as I said, this can apply to any race).
Nah, they honestly just resemble tribal humans. Like, that's it. A ton of tribes that still exist worldwide have power structures like this.
In fact, if they were more non-human in behavior, the rules wouldn't be quite so rigid.
Onward.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: Was this really the only thing I've said so far that you can make anything debatable out of? I'll consider myself doing fairly well then. I didn't really feel I needed to express how I was obviously joking and I realize that what he's doing is not-so-discreetly drawing attention to some male Miqo RPers who are 'obviously' (by whoever's definition) only after some cyber fun. That was my mistake.
But just as that is a blatant foible, assuming you know what another person is doing just because you're interpreting their actions, my humor is a parody of that. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear enough, but you seem to have the teeth out anyway.
We always have our teeth out. It's a problem, we know, but braces are expensive.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: Sylvari in GW2 are trees that look like people. Elves, Orcs, Trolls, etc. in Warcraft are humanoids also. Does this define them as being 'human' in nature? No. Sexually, physiologically, they're all supposed to be vastly different. If something is not human but close to human, genetically, then they're still NOT. HUMAN. Therefore we can only relate to the characteristics that we find similar to our own and attempt to justify or understand them using our own understanding of ourselves plus what we see. In truth, we don't know what goes on in a cat's head as it lives its day to day life, we just assume it's not capable of any higher level of thinking or feeling than its most primal instinct allows because it's not us and we're not them.
Sylvari aside, sure, they're supposed to be vastly different, but they aren't. Orcs are observably similar to Barbarian human tribes (because that's who they're supposed to be), Elves are similar enough in everything they appear to produce viable offspring with humanity, and their social structure is always something similar to "Noble" society in whatever time-period they're part of, and the Trolls in Warcraft are skating some really shady territory with the fantasy genre's tendency toward racist caricatures.
I mean, granted, none of it's supposed to be serious, but these are easily identifiable societies and rituals because they're all human rituals.
The only ones that stand out in this crowd are the Sylvari, who are just kind of aping humans. They reproduce via falling out of a pod. Like a seed. Sure, they're equipped for sexual relations, but that's, according to the lore, largely because the tree is trying to imitate the dead guy by it's roots.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: That same condition applies to races in this game. Even 'humans' aren't really human, they're Hyur; Lalafell, Elezen, Roegadyn, and Miqo'te also aren't human by any definition and along with height difference and gender-oriented prestige, there'll very likely be as many biological differences in the individuals of their species as there are differences in their basic skeletal, muscular, and overall genetic structure. Having a functioning, higher-thinking brain doesn't mean everyone uses it the same way, we see that in different human societies so why is it so hard to accept that maybe, just maybe, the different races have different outlooks on what is normal versus what is abnormal for them rather than what is normal versus what is abnormal for the roleplayer?
It so does not in a few of those cases. Societally, none of these people are distinct from humanity. None of them. At all.
Physically, you have a point with the Elezen, Roegadyn, and Lalafell. We have no idea what's going on in there. We know that Hyur are humans. We know that. Just like "Humes" were human. They're supposed to be "us", and arguing that they're something else entirely is kind of a useless endeavor. You'll push that stone up that hill forever.
Anyway, as for each of these races having a different outlook on shit, nobody's arguing that. They probably have as varied an outlook on this as any group of people in the real world. But none of these viewpoints deviate from what we can see in the real world. They just don't.
Elves occupy the "Noble" stratum, once again, with the Dark Elves being more solitary and mistrusting.
Roegadyn are comparable to any other seafaring society that's ever existed. They have raiders. Most are fishers. They sail. The ones that live near the volcano worship it.
On, and on, and on. What's being posed here, in this particular sub-discussion, is that there's nothing radically different that would separate us, out here, in the real world, from the races portrayed in this game.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: I have little to no interest in anyone's opinions of real life sex or the amount you've had or not had and thus how much you want in game or how one might feel the need to posture and act like a big boy or girl at the mention of ERP by putting anything that might vaguely be related to it down as hard as they can manage.
All I see here from nay-sayers is 'It's wrong, it's wrong, not because I have facts to disprove it but because you don't have every single detail worked out and SE just isn't going to give it to you'. Hence it's a theory, not a law. She's not forcing it down your throat, she's offering something that could potentially be legitimate.
That's not true. I've said "it's wrong", but I've expounded upon why before. I'll do it again here:
Exclusive inbreeding on this scale would require a working knowledge of bad alleles and how they get passed along in order to maintain a healthy genetic stock. Natural selection doesn't do all the work it has to do in an organized society of sentient individuals, so all it would take is one particularly crafty individual that doesn't know he's a trainwreck of genetic disorders to seize power, and fuck up an entire generation. Because the Miqo'te have no fucking idea what genetic engineering is, and in a tribal society, wouldn't know a sickness until it produced symptoms (which is entirely too late).
On top of that, with homogenous genes comes the risk of a single disease wiping a tribe out.
Then there's the myriad of issues we see popping up in a really handy real world example: Pedigree dogs. We watch their genetic health. We selectively breed them. We control as many variables in that environment as we can, and they are still prone to a great deal of health issues that mixed-breeds just don't get.
Her original post negates all of this in favor of selling her hypothesis. It's bad science, good salesmanship.
There. There you have it.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: And on the matter of rep-- Myxie pointed out rep as an indicator, rather than just counting up posts over nine or ten pages, that people appreciate the consideration she's given this topic and the brain food it offers. Putting it down doesn't erase it, doesn't make those people ignorant or stupid or naive, and doesn't make you look any smarter by getting in fights over the impact of numbers. They -don't- account for everything by a long shot, plenty of people probably haven't read this thread and still more would probably at least enjoy her post before this mess started.
And it also doesn't account for the people who, like us, don't find it helpful/see some major flaws in the thinking. What about it? We've already established that it's a pointless thing to throw out there, and the message being broadcast was "This doesn't matter, don't try to use it as a talking point."
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: I'm personally tired of hypocrisy, as much of a hypocrite as I can be at times. I don't like meeting someone new who's afraid of doing something or not doing something because a bunch of people they don't know or respect said that it's 'overdone' or it's 'meta-gaming' or that they'll be a mary-sue because of it. Warcraft, SWTOR, GW2 are all filled with as many of the most generic, bland characters as outrageously over-powered ones, if there aren't more of the generic kind.
Yeah, peer review can be rough.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: I can't tell you how many individuals in Silvermoon City alone have 'Looks like your average Sin'dorei' or 'Troll' or 'Orc' or 'Tauren' or 'Forsaken' written in their MRPs, and those that don't, seem compelled to fill in a paragraph-long OOC disclaimer of WHY they chose to make their character a little prettier than 'average'. It's stifling creativity. Just because some people don't want to think a bit more on the potential differences instead of just assuming all races are meatier, taller, shorter, child-like versions of our own doesn't give anyone the right to sit in here and try to convince others how wrong they are for taking two minutes out of their day to apply some critical thinking skills.
Sometimes, you're totally right. Creativity gets stifled, and that sucks. It sucks a whole bag of dicks. Other times, an idea is just fucking bad. Not even necessarily on it's own! Let's take a walk:
Say that everyone is suddenly inspired to make a character that is just a little bit special. Great. Awesome. Say they even all somehow, magically find a way to make their specialness unique. Holy shit, this is amazing, right?
No.
See, now everyone is special. And that means being special ain't all that special. It becomes mundane. When it becomes mundane, you can kind of start to ignore it. When you can start to ignore it, becomes narratively superfluous, and at that point, ditch it, because you're wasting your time.
When people are steered away from these "special" things, they tend to focus more on making a character that actually functions...like...a person. Which is great! In my opinion, it's the only goddamned way to go. Because people don't have gimmicks. They don't have one thing that makes them unique. They're a complex mish-mash of shit, and it's the messy, half-made nature of us all that makes for compelling stories.
Anyway, back on point: This has nothing to do with not thinking a bit more. Nobody's being lazy about this. You're just talking about a race that's observably human. We know they eat, sleep, drink, produce waste, and breathe. So their internal structures have gotta be pretty similar, given that they're also all bipedal hominid-style things. Their societies are similar to ours (falling just figurative micrometers short of being direct mirrors). They're us. And they're us, because we made them. There's no getting around that.
(09-01-2013, 04:20 PM)Siobhain Wrote: You -don't- and may -never- know if a Miqo'te has scent glands or goes into heat, humans don't to the extent of felines, but we also don't have enhanced vision, hearing, or smell which Miqo's might. Those little things that you want to say 'take them off and they look human' makes them -inhuman- and that's the point you should be focusing on. How are they -different-? How can they be more -interesting- than humans with a catgirl cosplay fetish?
Actually, there's a great deal of things we can tell just by looking at them. Their sense of smell can't be all that much better, because they don't have any additional space to put the nasal cavities needed for advanced scent detection. There's just no room for the extra chemoreceptors.
We can also figure that they don't have sight that's much better than ours in any light. There's no reflection to their eyes in the dark when light hits it. Which means no tapetum. Which is a reflective membrane that lets cats and dogs see pretty well in the dark.
We know that their tail counts for nothing, because tails don't really help bipeds. An animal that uses a tail for balance typically has a long, heavy one. They lean forward, because the mass of the tail pulls them backward. Bipeds stand upright, so a long, heavy tail would actually serve to put them on their heels. Which would make them easier to knock over.
Can't speak for the hearing, as the most we know is that their ears are shaped a little differently, but are largely the same size. They probably hear things very well in the direction that their ears are pointed, but due to the shape, not so great when it comes to things they aren't pointed at. We can also say that the position of their ears would be...interesting for the inside of their skull. They'd need to have large cavities to facilitate all that inner-ear business, which would leave less room for brain. Alternatively, the cavities are not large, and they don't hear as well as you'd think.
Basically, when we get down to it, I don't think the Miqo'te can be more interesting than "human in costume" unless we talk more about how human they are, and less about their goofy ears and useless tail.
