Exotic?

[spawnloser]

Backing up just a little bit, since Carnage didn't understand, I did not say that playing a pale character was being a twink.  Someone basically said that since people enjoy it, it must be okay.  I said, without being blunt enough apparently, that the logic behind that statement was flawed since some people enjoy being a twink but that does not make being a twink okay.  My stance, now being blunt, is that being 'pale' should be uncommon but, amongst the PC base, is relatively common.  I don't think that there hasn't been at least three running around at any given point in time, and I have even recently seen four PCs in the same room with that keyword in their sdesc.  'Pale' is way overused.

[Callisto]

THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ON ZALANTHAS ARE DARK SKINNED IT SAYS SO IN THE DOCS STFU, YOUR POINT IS NO LONGER VALID BECAUSE ERS AND I ARE SAYING THAT PALE PEOPLE ARE OK BUT STILL NOT THE NORM AND WILL SET YOU APART..SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE THAT YOU ARE.

We are now on par with counter-strike forums. Winners are we!

Someone basically said that since people enjoy it, it must be okay.

Why is everyone else, their brother and sister, four cousins and kank all pale?

I'll take a leap here and say.... because that's what some people enjoy?

No one 'basically' said anything of the sort.

What WAS said is that there are pale PCs because some people enjoy it. Nothing more, nothing less.

It isn't against the rules, it obviously isn't an incredible exception in or out of game since these PCs continue to be approved, so, being blunt, what the fuck is your problem? You play what you enjoy, let everyone else play what they enjoy and let the staff handle the rest.

[Sir Diealot]

Someone basically said that since people enjoy it, it must be okay.

Why is everyone else, their brother and sister, four cousins and kank all pale?

I'll take a leap here and say.... because that's what some people enjoy?

No one 'basically' said anything of the sort.

What WAS said is that there are pale PCs because some people enjoy it. Nothing more, nothing less.

It isn't against the rules, it obviously isn't an incredible exception in or out of game since these PCs continue to be approved, so, being blunt, what the fuck is your problem? You play what you enjoy, let everyone else play what they enjoy and let the staff handle the rest.

ahem..I didn't mean to flame, it's just that they don't seem to get the difference between pale skinned PCs being a minority, and pale skinned people being /nonexistant/.  Because there is a fairly large distance between those.  Infinity times difference if you want to be technical.  

Now, one thing that I, personally, wouldn't mind seeing come out of this thread would /be/ staff putting a limit on pale-skinned PC, as per the documentation.  That would be both realistic, and very much a part of the IC world.  It may be a bit hard for them to do that, since I'm sure there's a ton of applications, and staffer's don't always talk as much as would allow them to do that most likely, but it would be nice.  Now, once again, we're back to square 1..and the actual point of the thread! pale skinned people (we're talking just pale, ie. indoors, not genetic mutations..) are rare, if the PC has it in their bg that their skin is a mutation, that's cool..much more IC than I am an uber speshul fuck-me PCobject.  If you want TS go to ..if you want harsh, realistic desert Rp on a harsh, realistic world, come to Armageddon..it's a /very/ simple concept..

[Carnage]

Backing up just a little bit, since Carnage didn't understand, I did not say that playing a pale character was being a twink.

No, I just got confused at the vagueness of your posts and the constant way you'd switch your words around.

[Angela Christine]

How pale is pale?  How dark is dark?

Is "typical" mediteranian pale, or dark?  What if that mediteranian person has blond hair?

Does dark hair have to be black to be dark?  Is dark brown dark?  Is dark red dark?

On earth, most ethnic groups have black hair and brown/black eyes.

Australian aborigine: Very dark skin, corse black hair, brown eyes.

African: medium-dark skin, corse and tightly curled black hair, brown eyes.

Native Americans: medium skin, black hair, brown eyes.

Asians: light to dark skin, black hair, brown eyes.

Southern Europe: Usually medium skin, brown or black hair, brown eyes.

Northern European: light to medium skin, brown, blue, green or hazel eyes, blond, red, brown or black hair.

Albino: very light skin, white hair (texture depends on racial group) red eyes.


On Earth most racial groups that have dark skin also have brown eyes and black hair.  Does it have to be that way on Zalanthas too?

Arabs are caucasians, just like Swedes.  So if you had a person with arabic skin tones, red hair and blue eyes, would that be acceptable?

What about someone with rich, cocoa  coloured skin, brown eyes, but their hair is fine, straight, and bleached dirty blond by the sun.  Acceptable, or not?


AC

[spawngone]

No one 'basically' said anything of the sort.

I said there was something wrong with everyone being pale...your comment could only be taken as opposed to mine by nature of how it was phrased and when it was asked in the conversation, meaning that you came off as saying that being pale was okay...and it seemed to be okay because people were doing it because they enjoyed it.

Now, I'm sorry if rhetorical questions and analogies are beyond some people, so I will be absolutely blunt from now on, Carnage.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I see a lot of points that I'd like to address, and I'd like to do it in one big post.

Justice may be applied very differently to citizens and non-citizens, and can mean the difference between a short stay in the dungeons and summary execution. In other words, citizens of a place are treated more leniently than are non-citizens. Remember that Zalanthas is a harsh world, and some seemingly harmless crimes may be punished with the death of the offending character.

While I am sure that the templarate keeps documents of citizenship, an Allanaki soldier cannot read, much less gain access to them.  Instead they have to take one look at the perpetrator, decide whether they are from the city or not, and based on that information either arrest them, or slay them where they stand.

From what I know, the code supports this.  If you are in Tuluk and commit a crime in Allanak, you will be killed rather than captured by NPC soldiers.  Correct me if I am mistaken on that point.  This suggests that the soldiers can tell somebodies regional ethnicity just by looking at them, and indeed would have to in order to do their jobs correctly.

No one 'basically' said anything of the sort.

What WAS said is that there are pale PCs because some people enjoy it. Nothing more, nothing less.

It isn't against the rules, it obviously isn't an incredible exception in or out of game since these PCs continue to be approved, so, being blunt, what the fuck is your problem? You play what you enjoy, let everyone else play what they enjoy and let the staff handle the rest.

That is a very bad attitude, and let me explain why.  There was a time (which I think you remember, Callisto), in which an inordinate amount of people decided that elves were really not bad people after all.  Elves were peoples best friends.  Half-elves were just humans with better agility.  It wasn't exactly Armageddon MUD's proudest moment of racial RP.

The staff can tell me that I shouldn't create so many characters that disregard the prejudice against elves, and the playerbase can too.  But in the end, nobody is going to stop me if every character I make starts making friends with half-breeds.  There isn't anything wrong with making a character that will go against the social norm every once in a while.  But if everybody does it, then the game is harmed because the exception has become the norm.  The same thing can be said regarding the skin color of your character.

Nobody is pretending that we have power to force people to decide what kind of character they play, because not even the staff is willing to do that.  All we are doing is asking (perhaps begging would be a better term) to please take the environment into consideration when playing and creating your character, because in most cases you are the only person who will tell yourself to stop and think about what you are doing.

Although it probably isn't very prudent of me to join in on the pale arguement, that statement applies equally to the part in the documentation that discusses regional skin tone, and the part that states pale-skinned people are rare.

Now, one thing that I, personally, wouldn't mind seeing come out of this thread would /be/ staff putting a limit on pale-skinned PC, as per the documentation. That would be both realistic, and very much a part of the IC world.

It would be realistic, yes.  But it would also be impossible.  It's easy to make sure that no dwarf without a focus appears in game, because the staff can simply deny EVERY dwarf application that doesn't include a focus in the background.  But what about pale-skinned characters?  They are different from dwarves without a focus in that they exist.  It's possible for there to be a few of them, here and there.  Must the staff keep track of every single one?  Do the pale-skinned players have to send in an E-mail when their character dies, so the staff knows that there is a new "pale-skinned" slot?  Should pale skin be a special application?  I think the answer to all the above questions is no.  This is a clearly a realm of the game in which we, the playerbase, must police ourselves, as I have pointed out before.  I optimistically believe that we are mature enough to do so.

On Earth most racial groups that have dark skin also have brown eyes and black hair. Does it have to be that way on Zalanthas too?

Arabs are caucasians, just like Swedes. So if you had a person with arabic skin tones, red hair and blue eyes, would that be acceptable?

What about someone with rich, cocoa coloured skin, brown eyes, but their hair is fine, straight, and bleached dirty blond by the sun. Acceptable, or not?

Southerners tend to be darker in skin tone and hair color than northerners.  Fair-skinned people are very rare.  I think those are the only real hard and fast rules.

Documentation might help give characters a better idea.  However, defining what northerners and southerners look like further than they are defined now would have an obvious down-side.

Lets take people of Asian descent.  Asian people tend to have angular, squinty eyes, skin that ranges from fair to faintly golden, and black hair.  Every Asian that I've seen looks like that, and yet I can distinguish between my Asian friends and other Oriental people.  How?  I can't really explain how.  I can't accurately describe the details that separate my Asian friends from other Asians, it is more like a group of tiny, barely perceptible details that my brain has subconsciously trained itself to notice.  Obviously, this is too difficult to convey in a 6-8 line text description.

So having detailed documentation would probably make everyone seem to look exactly the same, even though nothing could be further from the truth.  Beyond the few, vague guidelines that have been presented, I would say not to worry about it.  Saying that your character has "features associated with the Southlands" or "lighter skin marking her as a descendant of the Gol Krathu area" would be a better way to go if you are interested in conveying that your character has a very noticable regional look to her.

Just a couple quibbling details...

If my next char would be a merchant class character who would join Kadius and stay in the compound crafting all his life, I would see no harm in making him/her pale.

Skin tone is genetically based.  A character's occupation will not change it in any way.

THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ON ZALANTHAS ARE DARK SKINNED IT SAYS SO IN THE DOCS STFU, YOUR POINT IS NO LONGER VALID BECAUSE ERS AND I ARE SAYING THAT PALE PEOPLE ARE OK BUT STILL NOT THE NORM AND WILL SET YOU APART..SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE THAT YOU ARE.

I agree with the point you are trying to make.  But if you are going to be rude and over-use the caps lock key, please leave me out of it.

[Sir Diealot]

Once again, sorry for the caps-lock and rudeness, I just couldn't fathom why they didn't understand that, very simple, concept.

[jhunter]

Skin tone is genetically based. A character's occupation will not change it in any way.

Yes, this is true...it is also true that skin tone can be altered by the amount of time spent in the sun...or lack thereof.

[Forest Junkie]

Skin tone is genetically based. A character's occupation will not change it in any way.

Yes, this is true...it is also true that skin tone can be altered by the amount of time spent in the sun...or lack thereof.

Both of you are correct.

[Sir Diealot]

         Both correct! (ligthening the mood, since all of us are getting a bit serious..me included.)

[Callisto]

Now, I'm sorry if rhetorical questions and analogies are beyond some people, so I will be absolutely blunt from now on, Carnage.

You aren't clever enough to pull off statements like that.

That is a very bad attitude, and let me explain why. There was a time (which I think you remember, Callisto), in which an inordinate amount of people decided that elves were really not bad people after all. Elves were peoples best friends. Half-elves were just humans with better agility. It wasn't exactly Armageddon MUD's proudest moment of racial RP.

I remember.

However, you can't compare the two. That was a problem that extended to a large portion of the player base and was a wild throw in the face of the established social environment, where as the number of fair skinned characters is and, excluding a few passing trends, has always been relatively low. If and when it gets to the point where there are a large and consistent number of them in-game, I'll admit a problem, but I don't think it will get to that point.

Right now there is a major area in the game that has quite a few fair skinned characters, but that isn't consistent for the area and will decline as those characters die off. It's much the same as the sharp increase in the number of tribal characters, there just happens to be a trend  and it will pass, so there's no need for spawnloser and the other self-appointed RP police to piss and moan about it.

It's the nature of the game and it will happen again, just like the trend of everyone being a magicker, a tribal, a nobles aide, a desert elf, people using two-handed weapons, the number of dwarves, half-elves... you see what I'm saying? It'll pass. The game naturally balances itself out sooner or later, just like it will throw itself back out of balance the next time something new comes into the game, Ex: two-handed skill and the tribal accent.

Just let them play what they want, the game and the staff will balance things out in the end, just like always.

[jhunter]

Just let them play what they want, the game and the staff will balance things out in the end, just like always.

Exactly the way I feel about it Callisto.

[EvilRoeSlade]

That's a good note to end on.  With that, I bow out.