[Suggestion] Tone Down and Eliminate Racism in Norrath

The world events of the recent few weeks have made me notice so much more poignantly how much racial hatred there is in Norrath. I don't mean skin color, I mean race. I first noticed this when I made a Teir'Dal SK and betrayed her to a paladin. Everywhere she went, even when dressed in the KoS paladin yellow pineapple armor and winged helm, NPCs hurled racial slurs and general hatred at her. It got to be annoying enough that I sent her back to being a shadowknight.

I'd personally like to see a lot less xenophobia and absolutely no slurs based on race in Norrath, myself.

OTOH, It's nice that the game does at least so-so job at allowing one to create characters that aren't lily-white Northern European. I say "so-so" because there are some races that can't be anything but pale (high elves and dwarves being the palest), so that people can make characters that they feel represent their real world selves a bit better.

If we ever get an EQ3, I'd like to be able to adjust body build as well. Some games let you control body shape and size of specific body parts the way EQ2 allows facial customizations. I don't need a boob slider, but I do wish we could select at least from "willowy", "average", and "thicc".

The point of fantasy is to pretend to be something that you can't be in real life. Forget about race. Humans, Trolls, Fae, Ogres, Kerra, and Elves aren't even the same species. Lets keep the real life woke politics out of eq2 because it makes no sense in the context of Norrath. The way characters hurl insults at each other is like a dog barking at a cat. It is an eternal rivalry. Teir'Dal will forever be hated by everyone but themselves. I hope that never changes.

Gnomes have been going through this racism forever. It gets old and some days, can get pretty bad and I agree, it should not get to the point where it is viscous. Fun teasing is one thing, but at times I think some take it too far. This is a game, it should be fun for everyone.

And since it was brought up by Obano, can we please keep real life politics OUT. Religion and Politics have no place in a game unless your talking about game deity. I don't care about your politics or religion and you don't care about mine and that is how I feel it should be. Go back to having fun.

I would be more concerned about the attitude of the players (discrimination) more so than aspects of the game.

While racism and other forms of bigotry happens in gaming, the real problem with gamers is elitism (based on character power, guild power, seniority, social circles, estimate of knowledge, perceived moral standing).

Seems like a solution in search of a problem.

All I can say is OMG you have got to be kidding me!!!! Hey should we go after the statues next?

Lol now this is a thread

Uhh, racism is kind of built into the Everquest lore. Wars have been fought using it. Wars that weren't that long ago, timeline wise. Now I'm pretty damn liberal, but just as in real life, I don't think trying to ignore, erase, or paint over a somewhat sordid past is a good thing. You need to confront it. You can't just wave a wand, and poof, racism's gone. You can't do that in real life, and you shouldn't be able to do that in game.

You should be advocating for storylines going forward that bridge the gap, not trying to advocate to rewrite history. People need to realize, in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, first you have to acknowledge and accept that you cannot change history. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Ironically, that is a phrase that has been uttered or emphasized by people who did the very same. However, the wisdom of it persists.

Also, you play a game where there are literally achievements for murdering thousands of sentient beings. Maybe slow your roll a little.

Edit: bad phrasing.

Very well put.

As long as gnomes and dwarves keep their hairy lil feet off the bar & quit pilfering the guild kegs at night, we can have a meeting of minds.

Otherwise, all bets are off.

I would rather agree. The society is changing with each passing year and it is getting more gentle and friendly.

That would be because racial characteristics are mostly a product of climate/environment from whence they originated. I guarantee you won't find any ebon skinned eskimos in the arctic circle or pasty-white zulus round the equatorial belt. And although this is a fantasy game one of the characteristics that drew some of us to it in the first place was the 'realistic' type of design with which it launched.

Fantasy media has a tremendous opportunity to address social issues. To do that, these issues must be presented in-universe in that media to have something for our heroes to combat against.

Star Trek would be tremendously boring if every planet they went to had already solved all their societal ills and was a conflictless utopia. It is by addressing racism and xenophobia in fantasy stories that we are then able to talk about parallels to the real world.

Some people are trying to push an extreme narrative relating to WoW's Alliance vs Horde war, by claiming it is symbolic of racism. Reaching such a conclusion requires an Olympic level of mental gymnastics, as they have to allege that Orcs = black people, while simultaneously believing they are not extremely racist.

Some of these people also claim the call of "For the Alliance!" is a call for white power.

While I am not surprised to see absurd woke ideology emerge on the EQ2 forums, I was surprised to see the OP of a thread accusing DBG/EQ2 of racism also express their desire for boob sliders in character customization.

Your reading comprehension on this one wasn't all it could be. Go back and read again. I said I didn't want boob sliders (although some games allow you to customize such things). I said it would be nice to be able to choose to be chunky if you wanted to. Or willowy, or average.

The constant racial slurs bothered me YEARS ago, on my DK-then-pally-then-SK who was created in January 2006. So much so that I re-betrayed from paladin to SK.

And why do you say "absurd woke ideology"? Why do you think it's absurd? Is it absurd to want to encourage people of color (and everyone else!) to play EQ2 to keep it alive?

There are better ways to present the issues, I'm pretty sure, than having every other random NPC hurling racial slurs at your character as you wander the streets of Qeynos.

The Combine could be a fantastic vehicle for addressing these issues in-game, especially as we've just re-encountered Combine folks on the moon. Somehow both Seru and Recuso Tor are managing to have folks of multiple races and alignments living productively together.

The only problem I have seen is when my Kerra character walks or rides through Qeynos, there are remarks about not letting him steal fish. Hmmm... did the same in Freeport before I changed cities.

I think such remarks aren't color by play, but nonsense. The character is a good guy. No need for an NPC to pretend my character is a thief.

Dreamweaver censored the most appropriate responses to this thread. I'm a little disappointed in him tbh.

Did anyone supporting this idea play EQ1 in the beginning? When you couldn't even talk to players of the opposite alignment? And different races had to learn each others languages before they could communicate? And your race/deity made you KOS in a good chunk of the world.

I played dark elf back then, tough times.

I remember seeing an article recently that a player of Dungeons and Dragons had created a working model on removing the concept of race from the player creation process, because "Race" itself carries implications of privilege.

The workaround was to create a character by giving them heritage traits instead. This would allow you to create, say, a half-orc who was raised among gnomes, allowing the player to look like a half-orc but entirely have the traditional traits that the gnome race would be given. I don't play D&D so I don't know how well it works out.

That said, EQ2 was released back in 2004, where racial prejudices just weren't a social issue as much as they are now. It's built into the lore of Norrath that dark elves aren't going to be fully trusted because they were created by the God of Hate himself. A Dark Elf Paladin is still going to be scrutinized for existing in Qeynos, and being a paladin who worships Erollisi Marr isn't going to be obvious to the locals.

Your character betrayed his leader, people and alignment and you are surprised they don't trust you at the new home?