It’s irrelevant. The character in question isn’t Egyptian, he’s meant to be a traveller from a different land entirely.
Exactly. And he’s “Role Playing”, which I capitalized Koontz-style to emphasize the point. If someone in real life doesn’t like that their MMORPG involves people who are actually into it (and let me confirm for you, dear reader, that in Telling #1 there were people way into it) then s/he has missed the point of “Role Playing”.
And I think this is what mouselock was getting at. This woman, whose “real life” sensibilities were clearly battered, began to criticize the individual playing the interloper for what he was role playing. The fact that the community was in an uproar illustrates exactly the kind of thing the developers want to happen in the story: the growth and development of an Enlightened Society.
It was certainly a risky business decision, we’ll see if it ends up being bad for the developers or not (that’s the problem with bad business… you can’t always tell until after the fact).
And what is that’s just not the type of role playing she signed up for? I would sure as fuck quit any MMO where the developers held this type of event, there’s nothing fun about it to me, and I’m not obligated to keep playing when I’m not having fun.
I’m reading this into three words and the fact that we know this is a person who’s been horribly, horribly offended by a game because a game character insulted her game character.
That seems a reasonable basis to infer that there are some difficulties with the reality/fantasy boundary distinguishing in this person’s life.
I don’t get it, because in the end the whole community was up in arms and outraged at such things anyway, which seems to me like it’d be more of a vindication. But despite that, I’m all about your, her, and anyone’s ability to say “Hey, you crossed the line with me there buddy. I’m gone.”
What gets to me is the “Hey, you crossed the line with me there buddy, and unless you promise to change things me, my buddies, and everyone else I can drag into this outrage are gone.”
I despise political correctness as well. I realize it’s a personal thing. But here it just seems really silly, because it’s a character. He wasn’t making value judgements and demeaning the woman behind the screen. If it had been a guy role-playing the female character, would it be a big deal? If a person can’t disentangle their character from their own ego, is the problem really the game?
Even if it was a male playing a female character it would be a big deal to me. I am not interested in being a part of or being an observer of that kind of thing.
Trying to get to the heart of your objection here. What if it were something like eye color or some other minor physical feature, as Sidd_Budd suggested? What would you think then?
Eye color I could handle. Skin color - no way in hell. Same for sexism. Make whatever stupid 3rd grade morality point you want about prejudice without invoking real hardships people face in real life.
Edited for clarity: Even if it was eye color I would have found the event stupid and not participated. I don’t play games to be preached at.
I believe I understand where you’re coming from, but you seem to be saying “You can challenge me as long as it doesn’t have any resonance with me.”
I’d presume to guess that’s not what the game master’s are interested in.
It’s a tough thing, I suppose. Obviously the person doing this has some ideology that would clash with yours. How would you suggest someone inject truly clashing ideologies in order to see how a society reacts without risking offending someone? If you can’t even summon up an emotional (rather than intellectual) response to the event, what good was it at challenging the player?
As a hypothetical response, what if the outcome of this incident is the enactment of a law that traders must not discriminate? Would that somehow vindicate the presence of such events in the game?
No, because I would have already quit.
Let me make this plain as possible: I have NO interest in this sort of thing in games. Period. Full stop.
The designer’s response to what he was doing.
I hope you don’t play World of Warcraft, I hear that there’s a lot of designer-imposed racism in the game.
I guess you missed the whole “eye color would be ok, real life issues are not” thing.
Right. So you would’ve pitched a little hissyfit and stormed off instead of using the tools at the players’ disposal to take matters into your own hands so as to get on with the damned game. Is that the sum of it?
“Lo, i give you a game that you, the player can help mold to your liking”
“I don’t like this! I’m leaving!”
As a hypothetical, would players be as upset if, say, a MMOG explored racism with a dwarf-hating merchant or anti-alien prejudice?
Troy
So you’re saying, games are okay so long as they stay all safe and pretend-like.
What would that mean for the future of games as an art form? Or if “art form” is too loaded a term, “expressive medium”?
Think of all the great films and books that have ever affected you deeply. You’re saying games shouldn’t be allowed to do that? Or what?
I say that I personally would quit a game for crossing lines I don’t want crossed in my liesure time activity and now I am singlehandedly destroying the future of games. Tremble before the might of power to not pay for things I don’t enjoy!
That’s what I asked, and our current sample offended player said that she considered dwarf/orc/human-hating to be the equivalent of discriminating on the basis of eye color.
Well, fine. But people have been looking for MMOs with a real sense of role and story for a long time. Now that one has cropped up that puts almost no limitations on that kind of thing, people are bitching because they got what they asked for.
Of course, I could also point out the Mr. Bungle LambdaMOO case, for no reason other than to self-amusingly switch sides. It’s worth asking exactly where the line lies on acceptable conduct, even in a system designed to allow for much more offensive conduct (and correspondingly greater player control) than the typically sterile environment of the average MMO. A Tale in the Desert is not by any means the first place this has happened, after all.
Sorry I missed that part of your post Silverlight. Didn’t mean to repeat stuff.
Anyway, the whole “player run world” of ATITD is a mixed blessing at best. It’s great how the players get a chance to make rules to run their world, but they often seem to be patchwork laws at best.
It seems to me that a situation like this begs for a player rule of some kind, but you can also see a number of players not thinking that a rule is needed. So, a law is proposed and fails. Then what?
Then, players have the choice to keep playing or not. They can find a way around the jackhole merchant or drive him out of town or close their individual circle to him or whatever. If they are sufficiently offended, players certainly have the right to leave. Not everyone wants social commentary in their games or reminders of the real world.
I wonder if this would have been as big a deal if a female-only merchant arrived in town. I’m not saying this is all about political correctness or anything. But a normally dominant group (like males in the real world patriarchy) being cut out of the loop in an online world might make for a more interesting social experiment than merely repeating historic injustices.
Saying that this has to do with Ancient Egypt is madness, of course. ATITD society bears as much resemblance to the court of the Pharoahs as my tenth grade history class.
Troy
You are woman, we are hearing you roar! :P
I think everyone here understands and agrees that you can take your money and spend it however you like in your leisure time. If this includes leaving a MMORPG which you otherwise liked, that is your right. But would you agree that some of the offendees are now making just a little bit too much of a stink over it in real life? What if it had gone on without Teppy’s knowledge at all, e.g. a trading guild in Egypt enacted that kind of policy on their own as part of their means to enjoying the game?