I think I've ranted about this once or twice and I'll rant about it once more.
I also admit, when I first started RPing in an MMO, my character was probably what you'd see in a dictionary next to 'Mary-Sue'. Some highlights:
-She was a Blood Elf-- But she came from some pocket dimension in the Nether where numerous warlocks lived with demons
-She was mute
-She was a hunter for no real reason
-She understood every language
-Her hair changed colors with her mood
So, okay... I get in game on Ravenholdt server which, coincidentally, had a wonderful community. NOT. ONE. PERSON. berated me on how unorthodox and lore-breaking my abomination of a character was. Not one. I had countless walk ups where people did their best to take me seriously, I even got pulled into one of the larger guilds on the server (right after WotLK) where the leader gently began to press me towards the lore by sharing it with me in and out of character. He gave me examples, using his own character, rather than trying to shove it down my throat like bitter medicine.
My character was killed and underwent a three day long process (72 hours) of a group-wide effort to resurrect her as a Death Knight after WotLK, along with several other guildies. In fact, every non DK who joined, unless they were a warlock, ended up being turned into a Death Knight. Why? Because our necromancers, after the expansion, spent weeks training ICly on forums and in game to achieve that level of skill.
Not many people appreciate DKs now since they were overdone for RP-- it meant you could start a whole new character without having to bother leveling to 58 and they could be your vampire, more or less. I've never seen a guild since that went through the level of care that that particular guild put into helping its members develop their characters with near constant attention and a stable environment and structure. Sure, that character was still a special snowflake in her own right, but after that change I had more freedom to learn the lore and all characters after, with the impression my guild leader left on me, I've built to be supporting characters.
I wasted a lot of time working in taverns or Cantinas, answering the calls for help where ever I go on a character if my character has the personality to respond to it, which they usually do. I do this because I enjoy it, not because it gives me some sense of elitism to say I play a virtual NPC in the RP lives of others by playing fairly cut and dry characters. I add little tidbits in here and there if I want to do something interesting, like in Siobhain's history. She'll be a decent fighter, physically, but she's neither tall nor short, nor super feminine or super masculine; she'll be working a minor job, she won't ever learn every single skill or class (Paladin/Blacksmith So technically what... Four? Only because Paladin takes two.), she's not incredibly rich or poor-- she's there. Her past was difficult but not extremely uncommon, I imagine. Her personality should make her interesting, but that's about it.Â
Playing a 'normal' or 'boring' character is usually special in its own right, because so many others are almost -too- interesting and when the exceptions to the rule outnumber the 'rule' so to speak, it becomes the majority. On the other hand, 99% of the people on Wyrmrest Accord that I've seen don't play their class because it's 'overdone and game mechanics have no reflection on roleplaying' so many of them are merchants or bards or blacksmiths or leatherworkers-- civilians because they don't want to be the stereotypical hero. At the same time those people who otherwise claim to have little to no combat experience won't allow their characters to be fought or killed as though being a citizen in Azeroth makes you immune to death. It seems, again, like a conflict of interest. Frankly, it's boring-- sure, not everyone has to be a hero, but enough of us genuinely enjoy writing up semi-plain characters that we intend to develop rather than having everything set out for us and playing 'NPC' to help drive strangers' character development as well as our own. So many of us are like that, in fact, I just don't grasp why people bother to complain so much about those super special outrageous characters-- I've seen about a 5 to 1 ratio of intentionally bland and ultra realistic to Dragons or Demons or super-powered paragons of awesome, birthed of the loins of Thrall from the seed of Wrynn. Not one single avatar of Azeyma or Rhalgr, but I'm still holding out hope.
People will always be on either side of the fence and as readily as I'll defend anyone's right to play whatever character they want, I'll keep shaking my head every time someone gets degraded or overlooked for a lore-breaking Mary-Sue. We all had to start somewhere and for most of us it wasn't being ostracized or ignored for our lack of knowledge or our decisions. I'd like to enjoy some more perfect people, personally, because bland can be as boring when everyone's doing it as ultra-shiny choices. I'd also like to see more characters open to potentially altering their personalities and lifestyles rather than just treating every RP like an in-depth Q&A of 'How would my character respond to this?'
I also admit, when I first started RPing in an MMO, my character was probably what you'd see in a dictionary next to 'Mary-Sue'. Some highlights:
-She was a Blood Elf-- But she came from some pocket dimension in the Nether where numerous warlocks lived with demons
-She was mute
-She was a hunter for no real reason
-She understood every language
-Her hair changed colors with her mood
So, okay... I get in game on Ravenholdt server which, coincidentally, had a wonderful community. NOT. ONE. PERSON. berated me on how unorthodox and lore-breaking my abomination of a character was. Not one. I had countless walk ups where people did their best to take me seriously, I even got pulled into one of the larger guilds on the server (right after WotLK) where the leader gently began to press me towards the lore by sharing it with me in and out of character. He gave me examples, using his own character, rather than trying to shove it down my throat like bitter medicine.
My character was killed and underwent a three day long process (72 hours) of a group-wide effort to resurrect her as a Death Knight after WotLK, along with several other guildies. In fact, every non DK who joined, unless they were a warlock, ended up being turned into a Death Knight. Why? Because our necromancers, after the expansion, spent weeks training ICly on forums and in game to achieve that level of skill.
Not many people appreciate DKs now since they were overdone for RP-- it meant you could start a whole new character without having to bother leveling to 58 and they could be your vampire, more or less. I've never seen a guild since that went through the level of care that that particular guild put into helping its members develop their characters with near constant attention and a stable environment and structure. Sure, that character was still a special snowflake in her own right, but after that change I had more freedom to learn the lore and all characters after, with the impression my guild leader left on me, I've built to be supporting characters.
I wasted a lot of time working in taverns or Cantinas, answering the calls for help where ever I go on a character if my character has the personality to respond to it, which they usually do. I do this because I enjoy it, not because it gives me some sense of elitism to say I play a virtual NPC in the RP lives of others by playing fairly cut and dry characters. I add little tidbits in here and there if I want to do something interesting, like in Siobhain's history. She'll be a decent fighter, physically, but she's neither tall nor short, nor super feminine or super masculine; she'll be working a minor job, she won't ever learn every single skill or class (Paladin/Blacksmith So technically what... Four? Only because Paladin takes two.), she's not incredibly rich or poor-- she's there. Her past was difficult but not extremely uncommon, I imagine. Her personality should make her interesting, but that's about it.Â
Playing a 'normal' or 'boring' character is usually special in its own right, because so many others are almost -too- interesting and when the exceptions to the rule outnumber the 'rule' so to speak, it becomes the majority. On the other hand, 99% of the people on Wyrmrest Accord that I've seen don't play their class because it's 'overdone and game mechanics have no reflection on roleplaying' so many of them are merchants or bards or blacksmiths or leatherworkers-- civilians because they don't want to be the stereotypical hero. At the same time those people who otherwise claim to have little to no combat experience won't allow their characters to be fought or killed as though being a citizen in Azeroth makes you immune to death. It seems, again, like a conflict of interest. Frankly, it's boring-- sure, not everyone has to be a hero, but enough of us genuinely enjoy writing up semi-plain characters that we intend to develop rather than having everything set out for us and playing 'NPC' to help drive strangers' character development as well as our own. So many of us are like that, in fact, I just don't grasp why people bother to complain so much about those super special outrageous characters-- I've seen about a 5 to 1 ratio of intentionally bland and ultra realistic to Dragons or Demons or super-powered paragons of awesome, birthed of the loins of Thrall from the seed of Wrynn. Not one single avatar of Azeyma or Rhalgr, but I'm still holding out hope.
People will always be on either side of the fence and as readily as I'll defend anyone's right to play whatever character they want, I'll keep shaking my head every time someone gets degraded or overlooked for a lore-breaking Mary-Sue. We all had to start somewhere and for most of us it wasn't being ostracized or ignored for our lack of knowledge or our decisions. I'd like to enjoy some more perfect people, personally, because bland can be as boring when everyone's doing it as ultra-shiny choices. I'd also like to see more characters open to potentially altering their personalities and lifestyles rather than just treating every RP like an in-depth Q&A of 'How would my character respond to this?'