To address your first point about pandaren being outnumbered:
This is a pandaren-focused event. Everyone in the world isn’t going to come to it. People who are only interested in it, will be there, and not every non-pandaren is interested in pandaren affairs. I think this issue is being way overblown and will not be nearly as much of a problem as we’re thinking it will be.
And even if we are… so what? We can maintain a rule for only pandaren to give speeches, and other races to only spectate. Pandaren politics and culture would become popular and interesting, if that many people really came. Again, I do not think we will actually see so many numbers that pandaren will be outnumbered, but even if that were the case, I don’t think it’s actually an issue.
To address your second point:
Your point still doesn’t invalidate mine. Even if it is true that there are plenty of other events that are race exclusive, it won’t change the consequences of the decision, especially for the pandaren community.
This racial exclusivity ultimately does create a negative image of the community. It may be an OOC rule, but RP is deeply tied with lore and excluding player RP’ers is inherently going to be seen as a negative thing. Especially from an event as broadly named as “Pandaren Summit”. That name implies that this is a culturally/politically significant event, and a core aspect of Pandaren culture and politics is the inclusivity of non-pandaren voices and the avoidance of pride.
To my understanding, you were invited outside of the hosts/event organizers. But the event was underway so no one was going to cause a scene showing you the door. But you respected the event so it was all good.
Yeah, I asked on the forums if I could go and told I could. I wanted to listen and be there because I love Pandaren lore. My character has strong connections to Pandaria.
Glad you put in that edit though. Was about to say…
I’m pretty sure this is already what was happening, though. Isn’t it?
I’m not trying to invalidate your point. As I mentioned, I get what you’re saying. I just disagree that the precedent isn’t there. This was our thing, y’know? This is how a lot of us found out how different Pandaren guilds and the like were reacting to current events in the game, voicing what they feel is the best future for our people/continent, etc. This sort of thing very much does exist within other roleplaying race communities. And that’s great!
This is more an observation more than anything but: If you’re so confident in the presence of pandaren numbers, then why is there so much of a fear of pandaren being outnumbered? The Pandaren Summit is an excellent event, but far from being so popular that welcoming other races will outnumber that many already existing pandaren.
But anyways, other than that, let’s address your points:
This isn’t just about creating new pandaren, this is also about maintaining consistency with pandaren culture. That is broken when this RP rule is put in place for racial exclusivity. I’m sure new pandaren were created just to be able to get into the event, but again the impression being sold is of this pandaren racial pride that just goes against everything that pandaren stand for in the lore.
It’s about how antithetical this is to the lore, and how it’s creating a different impression of what pandaren are. Pandaren are meant to be inclusive and welcoming. Pandaren are meant to be open minded and above such things as pride.
And yes, this needs to be taken seriously. With the event having such an all-encompassing name as “Pandaren Summit”, decisions made here will be indicative of the pandaren community’s voice as a whole, and as a pandaren rp’er, I can’t stand by as pandaren are given a new image of being racially exclusive in the rp community.
You’re making a false equivalence in trying to stipulate that Pandaren culture is welcoming ergo all Pandaren must be. Each and every Pandaren is an individual whose morals, motives and personality will not align to their homeland. Nor should they; it makes for a boring story if they’re all too similar.
Trying to push others to effectively change their year-long traditional summit in preference to how you perceive it to be lore-abiding is inconsiderate. Please accept that others have created their own events with their vision - lore abiding or not - and you are free to pursue yours.
The concerns being raised is that other races are being excluded from the event, period. I’ve been told that when characters of other races showed up previously, the pandaren there switched their spoken language to Pandaren so as to exclude all non-pandaren of both factions from the event. That’s the kind of hostile behavior that disappointed me, as a pandaren rp’er myself.
And none of that is going to change if you let other races in. They aren’t going to suddenly stop you from seeking other pandaren guilds, or creating new pandaren. Other races aren’t inherently hostile to pandaren culture and none of this is going to stop with the handful of other non-pandaren folk who would want to visit.
I want to state that I by no means was attempting to attack the previous hosts or cause drama. To those that have hosted the summits in the past, I was and still am thankful for you putting in the time and effort for doing so. As another mentioned, those that host events are pillars of the community.
I merely wished to share my thoughts and feelings on the past events in hopes that improvements could be made or other events could be made that are inclusive. Events that I am unable to do myself. There are questions I posted earlier and I feel that individuals that meet those criteria should be allowed to attend and if willing, more than simply listen.
For hosts both past and present; I would like to see more levels of inclusion and more advertisement of events. Some events mentioned earlier I had not heard of that I would have loved to attend.
Because the population and numbers are way worse than back then. Being blunt – and I’m sure most others in Pandaren guilds will agree, but I’ll accept the fallout if not – none of the Pandaren guilds are active these days. If they’re not straight up dissolved, they’re inactive. That speaks ill for the turnout in one major regard. And then in the other, I mentioned how popular the newer allied races have become.
This, in my opinion, has the opposite effect. I think it’s cool to fly out in the world, see a bunch of troll tribes gathered together or something, discussing their views of the future of their tribe and/or peoples! It makes me wanna play MY troll and see about getting involved! If the Pandaren Summit doesn’t incentivize you to, y’know, play a Pandaren, what’s the point of dusting off yours or creating one for yourself?
This is unnecessarily extreme, if I’m being honest. It doesn’t need to be taken that seriously. This is an entirely voluntary event, and it doesn’t mean there can’t be others that aren’t like this one. Heck, if you wanna help create a festival or something that encourages all-comers, I’ll be totally glad to assist! I have a lot of friends that’d be interested in such an idea! But that doesn’t have to extend into this event, which has already existed as-is for many years.
Hey Op! I know that a few people would love it if you hosted such events. Summits, festivals, etc. I think you are on the right track and there are plenty here regardless of their thoughts that would be more than happy to help you!
In some ways not experiencing the encounters/events yourself it becomes less egregious to whatever is being listed. The assumption that such mindsets are inherently internecine to the Pandaren community while having not taken part of seems to be less grounded and more hypothetical. Someone who’s encountered and experienced such could more vividly describe perceived and actual flaws and benefits, while those who haven’t participated may see things that have and are not actually as bad as it may sound, or more grievous than superficial.
We have a small one on Wednesday actually! It hasn’t been made public quite since I haven’t planned this one out as much, I have a flight the next morning. Our festival events are usually open to all though! If you’d like to come, you are welcome, but do not expect too much from me on this one!
But this is true for the playerbase as a whole. It’s a decrease across the board. Even with the fewer numbers, pandaren aren’t going to be overwhelmed by the non-pandaren parties interested in this event.
I agree, but this isn’t about trolls, this is about pandaren. My point was about pandaren culture and the inconsistency this rule has with it. I can understand trolls wanting to exclude other races for some reason or the other, but I can’t understand that with pandaren.
And I disagree with your second point here. Excluding other races forces those players to create pandaren. It’s the content of the speeches, the culture being roleplayed and the conversations happening that actually incentivizes people to create and continue roleplaying their pandaren. Forcing players to create pandaren to be involved creates a negative impression.
But you are calling it the “Pandaren Summit” which is such a generic and all-encompassing name for the pandaren that it does create a negative impression about pandaren roleplayers to other roleplayers.
