Project Quarm - 1 Box Planes of Power

chthonic-anemos said:

Just the recently I was called a barbarian for eating meat barehanded, without utensil or plate. It's so hard to hold the tears back; my people have infamously hunted and gathered north of the empire.

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Lumi said:

Eh it's definitely a ridiculous change imo but tbf this is easily the best emulated server there is by miles. Bankers in EC, allowed an IP excemption for a mule account so u can easily xfer shit urself, non aids based raiding with instances and not having to camp 50+ hours for shit like manastones and epic pieces.

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Pooch said:

Jesus all this over fucking gypsy? That are like what in 2 zone? That like crying erudite aren’t represented more on norrath Jesus don’t fold to these snowflakes it’s a fucking game

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Secrets said:

To be blunt, there were approximately 26 references ingame changed. It's hardly a problem, and the functionality of the game remains the same.

As to the reason why the changes were made... I don't know if this person and their lover are legitimate. Frankly, I don't care, because the point is valid, and it has nothing to do with "DEI" - a valid contestion to the rules were made. That is the important part. I do not know who the person is, and do not care.

I have to enforce the rules as written. This has everything to do with hypocrisy if I had banned people for using a term as a slur, but not for other slurs.
Players could then they cite, "Oh, the game has the slur in it." That puts me in a wild predicament.

Do I let Romani people that find the word Gypsy offensive just quit the game? Does gypsy then become the stand-in for the n-word? P99 players have started to refer to gay people as 'fire giants', a stand-in for the word faggot. Nurga has become a standin for the n-word. All would technically be disallowed under our rules, and this is a bit more clear-cut than those.

I'd have to let them harass the person or adjust the rules as written. Or make changes to the game content and rewrite history.

I'm not adding an exception for a term people find offensive that clearly references that group. And that doesn't even go into Romani people who self-identify as gypsies - which is STILL a rule violation if they self-identify and verbalize it, and someone ends up offended.

That same logic is identically applied to most commercial MMORPGs. In the 9 years of industry, at least 9 months of that was spent in Customer Support, where we'd have to rule on technicalities like that. It sucked. I didn't enjoy doing it. But I understood why I had to do so, and fundamentally, you can't add exceptions to a racial slur rule as to what racial slurs are allowed and what aren't. Those kinds of exceptions work perfectly fine here, as FOH is primarily a forum with a culture that includes slurs, and they're explicitly allowed here within reason.

Furthermore, any legitimate argument in where I'd be considered 'arguing in good faith' is wildly complicated by the fact that I'm a queer person, and yeah, it's easier to point fingers at a queer person and say, "Yeah, look at that faggot! They're pushing a woke agenda!" - no, let me tell you.

I just spent the last 14 days convincing a mongoloid that the n-word was disallowed because they spelled it 'negro' - they even cited they referenced the Chapelle's Show skit (which was funny, btw, I love Chapelle's skits), but not when you're trying to allow folks of all ages and backgrounds into a game you run.

I personally am not trying to pander to any woke initiative. If I end up inadvertently doing so, and you don't want to play here, that's your God given right to choose to quit.
Also, I personally don't care if people are offended outside the context of enforcing the rules - that goes for both sides of that argument.

But in the context of the server, if you break the rules, I enforce them as written. If our rules aren't expansive enough, we expand them further.

In polite company, folks can do what they please. I do that, for example, in this forum and swear and slur up a storm as I've always done here.
I'm not going to attempt to come here and argue what I've done would ever be accepted here, and that's because the rules and culture of this house (FOH) are different. I'm not going to try and convince y'all that's the case otherwise, either. I have no interest in a culture war, because people are here to play an elf simulator. The changes do not impact your enjoyment of an elf simulator.

Quarm is still going to be high quality no matter what "woke" changes go into the server. And as I mentioned, this doesn't affect your gameplay there.
If you want to fork our codebase and make your own version, or feel we''ve gone 'too far left', then make a version of the game that suits your tastes.
Nothing is stopping you from doing so. I support all of the folks that have forked from us, and would also support someone else forking the code, yes, even for that purpose.

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Secrets said:

To be blunt, there were approximately 26 references ingame changed. It's hardly a problem, and the functionality of the game remains the same.

As to the reason why the changes were made... I don't know if this person and their lover are legitimate. Frankly, I don't care, because the point is valid, and it has nothing to do with "DEI" - a valid contestion to the rules were made. That is the important part. I do not know who the person is, and do not care.

I have to enforce the rules as written. This has everything to do with hypocrisy if I had banned people for using a term as a slur, but not for other slurs.
Players could then they cite, "Oh, the game has the slur in it." That puts me in a wild predicament.

Do I let Romani people that find the word Gypsy offensive just quit the game? Does gypsy then become the stand-in for the n-word? P99 players have started to refer to gay people as 'fire giants', a stand-in for the word faggot. Nurga has become a standin for the n-word. All would technically be disallowed under our rules, and this is a bit more clear-cut than those.

I'd have to let them harass the person or adjust the rules as written. Or make changes to the game content and rewrite history.

I'm not adding an exception for a term people find offensive that clearly references that group. And that doesn't even go into Romani people who self-identify as gypsies - which is STILL a rule violation if they self-identify and verbalize it, and someone ends up offended.

That same logic is identically applied to most commercial MMORPGs. In the 9 years of industry, at least 9 months of that was spent in Customer Support, where we'd have to rule on technicalities like that. It sucked. I didn't enjoy doing it. But I understood why I had to do so, and fundamentally, you can't add exceptions to a racial slur rule as to what racial slurs are allowed and what aren't. Those kinds of exceptions work perfectly fine here, as FOH is primarily a forum with a culture that includes slurs, and they're explicitly allowed here within reason.

Furthermore, any legitimate argument in where I'd be considered 'arguing in good faith' is wildly complicated by the fact that I'm a queer person, and yeah, it's easier to point fingers at a queer person and say, "Yeah, look at that faggot! They're pushing a woke agenda!" - no, let me tell you.

I just spent the last 14 days convincing a mongoloid that the n-word was disallowed because they spelled it 'negro' - they even cited they referenced the Chapelle's Show skit, but not when you're trying to allow folks of all ages and backgrounds into a game you run.

I personally am not trying to pander to any woke initiative. If I end up inadvertently doing so, and you don't want to play here, that's your God given right to choose to quit.
Also, I personally don't care if people are offended outside the context of enforcing the rules - that goes for both sides of that argument.

But in the context of the server, if you break the rules, I enforce them as written. If our rules aren't expansive enough, we expand them further.

In polite company, folks can do what they please. I do that, for example, in this forum and swear and slur up a storm as I've always done here.
I'm not going to attempt to come here and argue what I've done would ever be accepted here, and that's because the rules and culture of this house (FOH) are different. I'm not going to try and convince y'all that's the case otherwise, either. I have no interest in a culture war, because people are here to play an elf simulator. The changes do not impact your enjoyment of an elf simulator.

Quarm is still going to be high quality no matter what "woke" changes go into the server. And as I mentioned, this doesn't affect your gameplay there.
If you want to fork our codebase and make your own version, or feel we''ve gone 'too far left', then make a version of the game that suits your tastes.
Nothing is stopping you from doing so. I support all of the folks that have forked from us, and would also support someone else forking the code, yes, even for that purpose.

Click to expand...

Secrets said:

To be blunt, there were approximately 26 references ingame changed. It's hardly a problem, and the functionality of the game remains the same.

As to the reason why the changes were made... I don't know if this person and their lover are legitimate. Frankly, I don't care, because the point is valid, and it has nothing to do with "DEI" - a valid contestion to the rules were made. That is the important part. I do not know who the person is, and do not care.

I have to enforce the rules as written. This has everything to do with hypocrisy if I had banned people for using a term as a slur, but not for other slurs.
Players could then they cite, "Oh, the game has the slur in it." That puts me in a wild predicament.

Do I let Romani people that find the word Gypsy offensive just quit the game? Does gypsy then become the stand-in for the n-word? P99 players have started to refer to gay people as 'fire giants', a stand-in for the word faggot. Nurga has become a standin for the n-word. All would technically be disallowed under our rules, and this is a bit more clear-cut than those.

I'd have to let them harass the person or adjust the rules as written. Or make changes to the game content and rewrite history.

I'm not adding an exception for a term people find offensive that clearly references that group. And that doesn't even go into Romani people who self-identify as gypsies - which is STILL a rule violation if they self-identify and verbalize it, and someone ends up offended.

That same logic is identically applied to most commercial MMORPGs. In the 9 years of industry, at least 9 months of that was spent in Customer Support, where we'd have to rule on technicalities like that. It sucked. I didn't enjoy doing it. But I understood why I had to do so, and fundamentally, you can't add exceptions to a racial slur rule as to what racial slurs are allowed and what aren't. Those kinds of exceptions work perfectly fine here, as FOH is primarily a forum with a culture that includes slurs, and they're explicitly allowed here within reason.

Furthermore, any legitimate argument in where I'd be considered 'arguing in good faith' is wildly complicated by the fact that I'm a queer person, and yeah, it's easier to point fingers at a queer person and say, "Yeah, look at that faggot! They're pushing a woke agenda!" - no, let me tell you.

I just spent the last 14 days convincing a mongoloid that the n-word was disallowed because they spelled it 'negro' - they even cited they referenced the Chapelle's Show skit, but not when you're trying to allow folks of all ages and backgrounds into a game you run.

I personally am not trying to pander to any woke initiative. If I end up inadvertently doing so, and you don't want to play here, that's your God given right to choose to quit.
Also, I personally don't care if people are offended outside the context of enforcing the rules - that goes for both sides of that argument.

But in the context of the server, if you break the rules, I enforce them as written. If our rules aren't expansive enough, we expand them further.

In polite company, folks can do what they please. I do that, for example, in this forum and swear and slur up a storm as I've always done here.
I'm not going to attempt to come here and argue what I've done would ever be accepted here, and that's because the rules and culture of this house (FOH) are different. I'm not going to try and convince y'all that's the case otherwise, either. I have no interest in a culture war, because people are here to play an elf simulator. The changes do not impact your enjoyment of an elf simulator.

Quarm is still going to be high quality no matter what "woke" changes go into the server. And as I mentioned, this doesn't affect your gameplay there.
If you want to fork our codebase and make your own version, or feel we''ve gone 'too far left', then make a version of the game that suits your tastes.
Nothing is stopping you from doing so. I support all of the folks that have forked from us, and would also support someone else forking the code, yes, even for that purpose.

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Secrets said:

Do I let Romani people that find the word Gypsy offensive just quit the game?

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Kithani said:

I think it’s dumb but even if you don’t.. “consortium”?!

Lute of the Consortium Princess?!

IF you gotta do it just replace the word Gypsy with Hobo IMO

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Secrets said:

No - Lute of the Consortium Bard. They accept all sorts of magic classes into their ranks; including bardic songs, because they're interested in everything that has magical properties, even those that do not inherently have magical powers or draw them from non-standard sources.

There's only so many groups of people involved with Qeynos, too - I picked the name "The Consortium" because they could be passed off as an offshoot of the Order of Three - they consort with anyone in their quest for knowledge, including vampires. The Concordance of Research makes a bit more sense coming from aggressive researchers in pursuit of lost knowledge or new scrolls made from old. There is now a better lore reason for research existing at the encampments where they reside.


I've met less than 5 who have said they are or know someone that plays that is, but I'm not checking papers to see who is and who isn't. We're not the Gestapo here. We've banned 2 people that have had a history of borderline rule violations of many types, including kill stealing, training, and other verbal harassment. The other 8 people got a timeout for 7 days, and of those, 4 reached out to me in private, some initially hostile, but we worked things out. Others, however, have not.

We generally give people enough rope to hang themselves. I'm surprised Ryan and Sean lasted 6 months before being permabanned. They were our first and only permamute, and that was only a handful of months ago.


Wasn't aware 'the game's integrity' had to deal with instances of text which include about 19 quest mentions, 6 items, and 3 NPCs.

I challenge you to play on PQ and tell me if it's fun or not to you, and if it resembles EverQuest enough for you to enjoy it - those 26 text strings withstanding, because you've already cited them as a source of discomfort for you.


What the fuck are dark elves again? Also, if this 'kills it' because I removed 26 lines of text, I'll eat one of my shoes on livestream.


It stops at this reference because it's direct enough where it's not a coincidence. The stereotype ingame and the stereotype irl have near-identical overlap. The other examples have loose connotations to the words in question only by their descriptors. "Fire Giant" sounds like the word, and it's more about how it's used, not how it's said. The one argument for keeping 'gypsy' ingame was that it was a product of its time. I still agree, loosely, with that. There's self-identified gypsy people out there. The game can have them. But, if someone calls someone a 'fucking gypsy idiot' ingame, they should be shown the door.

I personally do not think we're alienating anyone from the project by changing a few text strings, and if that is really the straw that breaks the camel's back for someone playing PQ, then maybe this server isn't for them.

I'm personally moving on to releasing upcoming content, fixing bugs, patching exploits, and improving the user experience to make this the best it can be. Kunark's soon, and we'll have an early access event with Kunark-locked Iksars. That sounds more exciting than arguing the eugenics of a fictional character race on one of the only remaining MMO forums, personally.

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