Okay, I had a bad experience with the thoriumbrotherhood.elwiki.com site where the profiles in the prior entry were located. I found out that they don't want crossovers on their site as well, so while I was pulling Renawyn I decided to just take all my profiles down. In the interests of helping another member work out story details that others were claiming were in violation of lore and that the gaming company claimed such things weren't possible, I posted some ideas that would allow the player to keep their character that way should they want to, just tossing a few ideas out. Rather than simply providing counters (which they did provide good ones) to my statements, they decided to get a little insulting too, calling my ideas cliché ridiculous and more (then insisting I was not attacked), they took this aggression out on the player who had not even replied to anything yet.

Basically, as we use the term in WOW I had a run in with several lore-nazis of the type that you do it there way if you do it at all. People who are not content to see others roleplaying unless they are roleplaying within their preferences (and they are also a big reason why some just quit RPing on RP servers which is a shame). They quote the blizzard guidelines on lore like a parroting christian would the Bible (note: There's a difference between a christian who knows their religion is about more than the Bible and one who just parrots the Bible without the emotion and individuality behind them) and have 0-tolerance for any story-line that is not expressed somewhere in lore. If it's not in lore somewhere directly stated it's just not possible. The unfortunate thing with this is that the gaming company, blizzard, has insisted several times that their lore (this bible of the lore nazis) is inconsistent as they are making it up as the game progresses and that everything you find is a guideline and not a set of rules.

In the end, thanks to my guild leader, Shandala, the thread was deleted and closed by an admin so no one could reply to it. However, it was the manner in which the admin chose to do so, permanently hinting that I was at fault for how bad the discussion got. "We had someone pointing out lore inconsistancies, and then another person acting as a sort of Lorax for those roleplayers that do not adhere to lore." This is NOT what I was doing, I was trying to find ways to keep individuality and the character's story line in case the player should want to keep his character the way he started, within the guidelines of lore (which do NOT say no player may play a character who is immortal or whose life has been extended somehow; the closest it comes to that are general statements like "the night elves lost their immortality" speaking of them as a people). I was the only one who got directly hinted at in a negative light, while the rest were told "...in which case it is entirely within [Fabien's] rights to dismiss your information. While I admire the amount of lore referenced, no amount of it can deter the statement, "I understand but my character persists." "

I'm sorry, but having been an admin for 4 years for Domy, and being complimented for my ability to tactful and patient to both sides of a disagreement, playing neither side usually, I know this admin could have done better. If it were me, regardless who I agreed with and disagreed with, I would have said one simple sentence: "This discussion has been closed as per the creator's request." neutral and to the point, no one needed to know more. As for the rest of it, if it were so important to tell the community about characters' personal choice it should have gone in the site guidelines. As a side note, while I read everything in the discussion, I resolved not to play anymore, if no one else can be tactful and decides to throw in a few paragraphs of veiled insults before getting to their own point, then they aren't worth getting bothered about. Fabien knew that I was on his side and that's all I needed. After three replies in the original discussion I refused to bait and currently have no opinions voiced in the closed discussion discussion that is going on now (double discussion was not a typo). Though I'm tempted with the more tactful replier of recent who says: "Your analogy is implying we're coming in saying "ZOMG WTF U CAN'T DO THAT", which is completely not what we're doing" Poor gal, unfortunately, it may look like that in the current discussion, but in the discussion that got erased, (though not a direct quote) that is precisely the attitude that many took. It almost felt like you had several bullies on one topic who just happened to know the guidelines by heart to the point of making it biblical.

Once Fabien noticed it all and replied to the discussion, it became open again and the admin continued to demonstrate an attitude I do not want to be a part of (things such as picking at inconsequential things of another's point to try and make it look bad because the point couldn't be taken down directly). I watched but stayed out of the conversation.

In response to the first post about me being a lorax I deleted all my characters after careful consideration. Not because I was the baby who lost and had to go tend the wounds of my "fragile ego" as the admin insinuated later on. I quit because, to me, being under and admin who acts like that means I condone his behaviour, and since the creator of the site and this other person that was referred to are too busy to be bothered as the admin insinuated and I've no way to contact them *shrug* It is obvious that my ideas are poor, cliché, ridiculous and unwelcome among the site control and there are other places I can post my things relatively unharassed. See, I really don't care overly much how many people see it, it is more for my own purposes that I like posting such things than for anyone to see (though I do like visitors!), it gives me a clean little sheet with pictures for me to keep my characters in mind.

My biggest point of all was that this is a game, it's suppose to be fun, it stops being fun when people come in and boss you around adding what they believe are concealed insults and decrying lore violation. If I claimed I wanted to win the Pulitzer for these ideas then I wouldn't be creating stories for it in WOW in the first place!

When I tried to defend people roleplaying crossovers (like Rena), by pointing out that blizzard does it themselves through the character "Linken" in the quest "It's a secret to everybody" with no memory it is clear to those that know the Legend of Zelda who this is. I was told that it was a parody (as though I were thick and couldn't get the difference between crossover and parody) and then later told that crossovers ruin the immersion of the game for others. WHAT? And parodies of other games don't do that? The fact that almost everyone, even other RPers run everywhere they go don't do that? The fact that every main city is full of almost nothing but adventurers and heroes doesn't do that? The fact that every named/unique NPC in the game has been killed thousands of times, sometimes several by the same player doesn't do that? Or how about the fact that every race is extremely similar to the rest of its kind (all the same body size, limited facial and hair styles etc)? How about the fact that despite being on the world so long together that no one can even learn another race's language unless it's common or orcish? What about the strategy of learning your enemies tongue to better fight them or understand them in the interests of peace (I know why you can't, but it still disrupts the realism and immersion for me)? The game is clearly open to other worlds (two races in the game--at least--came from another world and the Titans are listed as having created an infinite number of worlds before and after Azeroth--to me, that's an open invitation for cross-overs, and I'd have done it with my own worlds but I don't want them exposed in that particular avenue).

However, all that aside, if you don't like the story of another and feel it ruins your immersion, put them on /ignore or just don't RP with them for christ's sake! I'm quite sure if you felt so indignant over Renawyn that I wouldn't want to RP with you anyway as it would be fun for neither of us!

It was like re-experiencing the bossy superior voice of a random critiquer from the (use to be DelRey) scienceficitionfantasyonlinewritingworkshop again vs. the tactful, helpful and unassuming voice of those at Dreaminginink. One is interested in letting you know when you're wrong, trying to assert control over your story and the other is interested in helping you, your story, and your voice grow (which I admit occasionally has to do with pointing out possible mistakes) while still maintaining your individuality.

Essentially: Freedom of expression damn it! I'm not publishing these stupid stories so I don't want any critiques, I just want to have fun with them and practice my writing skills a little (that would be writing not story-line creating as any WOW storyline I come up with will not be mine anyway, so why not choose someone I have fun pretending to be, like Rikku? It's called a love of acting too! It's also called fanfic which final fantasy really does not care about). You don't like it don't read it and don't participate. Because you know what? There are plenty of people in game that love roleplaying with me because they know I'm Rikku and we have fun combining our stories.

Okay I think I've gotten over-explainy enough, with a little vent thrown in.

Ja ne!

[Edit to add: The Sunpath Riders have started their own wiki site, but it's closed until we have it all up, running, smoothly and pretty well established]