Hello class! Today you could say I was actually inspired by a training at work… *gasp*
I know! Hard to believe. This will be at least two parts, I think. But today's Cultural Diversity training at my office got me thinking about it in Azeroth and how it can apply to in-game characters and gamers alike!
Much like the real world, in Azeroth there are many different races with their own cultures and subcultures. Each race has their own stereotypes they assign to other races, and even classes. The cultures can and subcultures can be viewed as where members of a certain race live, what class they are or tend to be, their racial traits, etc. Subcultures could go further with classes and specs, and even roles.
And like in real life, there are certain things throughout our lives that mark or symbolize us, our generation, our culture. Things we embrace which shape who we are and how we interact with the world around us. I might even toss up some of the workshop's “busy work” questions and see what we can do with them from character perspectives.
As in… imagine Syrana and a bunch of other Hordies sitting through this training and what they'd be getting out of it.
Piqued your interest yet?
I hope so. I don't want to go to wild on this first part and more or less wanted to outline this idea so I can start piecing it together and organizing my thoughts. Plus, I had to look through a ton of screenshots before I found one that seemed fitting for the topic. (Yes, I know, somehow I screenshotted a loading screen…)
What we'll explore:
- The stereotypes and subcultures of races in Azeroth
- The co-existing groups that include traditionally Alliance and Horde races
- Becoming culturally diverse in the World of Warcraft (from a character or RP perspective)
- The players behind the toons, including another spin-off look at the hardcore vs. the casual debate
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Looking forward to that casual vs hardcore debate then. I always find the arguments from both sides interesting (as long as they’re civilised).
I could think of some stereotypes from an RP point of view, but also from an OOC point of view (Undead rogues and Night Elf hunters being classic examples of stereotypical race-class combinations based on OOC perceptions of the one choosing the combo)
Anyway, since I’ve no idea how a cultural diversity training goes, I’ll just have to wait and see how you tackle the subject before I can give more of an opinion ^^
P.S. why would you screen a loading screen :p ?
Seems very interesting. Maybe we should teach those Tauren that punting gnomes is not nice at all.
This sounds splendiferous. Could be really funny/informative at the same time. Good luck!
I was called racist once in-game when someone was gquitting. They actually called the entire guild racist, which was funny to me because I’m pretty sure none of us have ever really seen pictures of each other to know what race we actually were. This was around the whole election time and also two of our members were returning from Iraq, though not a whole lot was really said in gchat about anything that I could see. Heck, a large portion of our guild is Canadian (which they did comment that American elections are so much more intense then theirs, which I thought was a polite way of saying we all lose our f-in minds, but if the shoe fits…).
In retrospect, it was probably all my negative talk about mages and paladins that upset them. That would make me a classist though. /busted.
@Aeltyr – Thanks for stopping by! I hope that the hardcore vs. casual bit will be civilized, especially since I’m proposing a way to look at it that I have not seen anywhere else. (Doesn’t mean no one else has looked at it the way I will, just I have not seen it in all the posts I’ve read on the subject).
As for the screenshot (/embarrassed) I think what happened was I went to take a screenie while on a zeppelin, and the timing was… off. 😛
@Darraxus – I think we need to teach everyone that punting Gnomes is not nice! 😉
@Fulg – Ooh, good to see you’ll have some discussion ready to go! I’m also glad to hear the interest. I’m hoping to have fun with it as well as spread some info at the same time. (And even if no one wanted to read it, too bad, I’m gonna do it!) 😛
I think that this will be a very entertaining series to read, especially the first two topics of stereotypes & subcultures and co-existing groups. I’ll be sure to look for them!
[…] Part One – Introduction […]