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City of Heroes: Rainbow Prom
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
The City of Heroes / Villains official site has been updated with a look at a recent event held in in-game called the Rainbow Prom. The event was held for the prominent gay and lesbian community in the City of Heroes / Villains games and was featured on Gay.com.
Hundreds of super-powered lesbians and gays let their magical hair down at a new LGBT prom recently. They danced, flirted, elected a prom king and (drag) queen, played outdoors in their underwear at a mountain ski resort, and levitated with robotic boots and angels' wings until they crashed the server. Yes, they were in a virtual online world called "City of Heroes."
Queer gamers have been making strides toward virtual equality for a while now. They've won the right to marry in "The Sims," "Fable" and "Fallout 2." A gay pirate named Bertram romances male avatars (game characters) in "The Temple of Elemental Evil." "World of Warcraft" nearly shut down an LGBT guild (players' group) in 2006, but ultimately backed off and apologized. Makers of the new online "Lord of the Rings," on the other hand, have scrapped the option of marriage altogether -- for straight as well as gay hobbits -- rather than face the issue of same-sex nuptials, not to mention interspecies wizard-elf unions.
"City of Heroes"' Rainbow Prom may have been the first virtual LGBT prom ever. Gamers were invited to finally enjoy the high school dance many missed when they were 18. At least 200 'toons showed up, organizers reported, and partied so hard they actually forced NCsoft to reboot the computer generating their virtual world -- several times.
Read the full article on Gay.com.
Comments
That's wonderful that City of Heroes actually listed this news event. It's good to see big companies with a more enlightened view of humanity.
It's Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo superheros!
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/334265/the_ambiguously_gay_duo/
"What's everyone looking at?"
"Nothing!"
Sounds like it was a lot of fun. Shame I play the EU servers
I don't have anything against gay gamers or Christian gamers or athiest gamers or democratic gamers or republican gamers or most other type of [fill in name of real life group] gamers except hate groups. None of these people ever wronged me (except the hate groups), so live and let live.
But at the same time, I don't play video games to make, or have made to me, political, cultural, lifestyle, or [fill in real life nomenclature] statements. These are fantasy games and I play them in part to get away from real life, including these and all other similar issues. For that reason, my preference would be for game companies not to support this or any other real life cause or agenda in the game. That is not limited to gay gamers, by any means. It extends to anything not expressly within the storyline and lore of that game.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
This is a pretty cool idea. My hat's off to CoX.
Arrgghh..Someone get thier politics out of my game! This was a great event right up until someone decided to make it poltical on the web, now I'm worried about what other poltical crud I might have to deal with in a non-real world as well as the real one.
I do not see it as politics more of a lets get the word out that there are groups like this in MMO games. I know for my self before I had herd about the community within COX I really did feel that I was the only one, Now logicly i knew this to be not possible but it sure did feel that way. Now the whole WOW thing that was mention in the story, did turn into a political thing cuz of what was happening to the group, and that in itself is a totally different thing.
There's a light at the end of every tunnel, just pray it's not a train.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
That's awesome! This kind of thing is important because gay kids, in particular, take it on the chin psychologically more often than not in gaming.
As a woman, I'm sometimes made to feel uncomfortable in game when sexist language is used, but how many times do you hear someone called a fag in a derogatory way, or when something is patently unacceptable you hear "that's so gay!"
I recently published an article in my paid blog on this: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977042395
It's political in the same way that it was political to take down the "no blacks and jews" signs from US restaurants in the 50's and 60's, folks. If you don't want politics in your games, don't play online. Every community has politics that are an extension of society.
This event was a positive reaction of a community to the fact that on a daily basis, they are bashed. I say *huzzah*!
Yrs,
Shava
More power to them.
call it what you will,
When will they have a all black , white, bisexual, all redneck, all raciest, all illegal etc, etc, blah blah blah.
You cater to one you have to cater to them all
I really don't have a problem with this at all, but I am a little curious. I'm a 36 year old white father of four, and I'm hetrosexual. In nearly three years of playing CoH, I have never once felt the need to share any of this in game with my fellow players. What is so different about being gay that these people need to display this part of their personal lives with the rest of the gaming community in game?
This is just a personal observation and not meant in any way to be mean spirited (p.c. disclaimer required nowadays), but it seems that many people can't be happy being gay unless they are shoving it in everyone else's face. The funny thing is that most of us really couldn't care less what other people's sexual orientation is.
Yeah, thats awesome. Equality ftw!
I really don't have a problem with this at all, but I am a little curious. I'm a 36 year old white father of four, and I'm hetrosexual. In nearly three years of playing CoH, I have never once felt the need to share any of this in game with my fellow players. What is so different about being gay that these people need to display this part of their personal lives with the rest of the gaming community in game?
This is just a personal observation and not meant in any way to be mean spirited (p.c. disclaimer required nowadays), but it seems that many people can't be happy being gay unless they are shoving it in everyone else's face. The funny thing is that most of us really couldn't care less what other people's sexual orientation is.
Its like the kid with the loud car stereo , I call it the look at me i need attention syndrome.
What I dislike is groups like this, as well as many others, will use any medium to get their agenda across. Frankly, in my op, its impossible to find a more confused person than 1 who is gay.
i agree these groups try to force their views on us and feel we are obligated to accept it. LGBT are notorious like sevral other groups use this medium as a soapbox to spew out their subjective innate BS. Im in a game to be immersed, have fun, be a superhero, not to be hit on by some flaming flamboyant super queer lol. no offense to be taken. they are notorious of doing that. its halarious their Real Life wacky misadventures translate into games.
No one wants to know your LGBT nor do they really care. To me this so called prom is there way of proving or justifying their presense like they have something they feel they have to prove. like the old saying "we are queer and we are here" who really cares. To me its a blatant form of forcing their views on us. you want to be LGBT do it somewhere else. there is always some medium where groups in general take a innocent platform or environment and ruin it with their political or generalized subjective trite. Also Im personally sickened by the Political correctness of most people.
You cant take it too bad, grow a backbone. It just silly these days in games everyone wants to bring their Real Life issues into games, Id like for one day to be able to play and not have to have some sue or sally or shaun to talk about innate BS that has nothing to do about the game.
We can debate about this til our eyelids fall off, but it wont clear the issue of who is right and who is wrong, I just feel keep your real Life issues out the game or at least keep it seperated from the rest of the normal population of the game. so we arent forced to view it, hear it or be subject to its interaction.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
I really do not think that people were forcing anyone to read about or go to the prom. If you do not want to know about such things do not read about it. Simple as that. The reason for the Pride SG/SG's and the prom was for like minded people to get together and hang out. I mean that is why people join guilds in the first place, to find people who have the same interests as you and play the game with these people. Now I am the first to admit that gay comunity can go a little too far in some respects, but I think it is the same with any group.
The reason this story is makeing the round is simply for the fact that something like this has not happend like this in a MMO on this large of a scale at least. Gaymer's in recent years have come into light, due to the fact that MMO's and such have become so popular in the mainstream world. it is just like any group the pops up in games, They are news for a bit then things will slowly die down.
People also need to know that saying things like "That is so gay" and calling someone a "Fag" is just as bad as calling someone a N&*$@# or some other demeaning word. Words carry alot of power, and a gay teen who gets teased at school for being who he or she is has just as much right to escape from the real world for a hour or so a day, just as much as the str8 teen. They have the right to go into this game out or not and not have to see people useing words like "Fag" just as much as a black teen has the right not to see the N word. the sad fact of this is, most games when the word "fag" is reported nothing happens, but when the N word is reported swift action is taken.
There's a light at the end of every tunnel, just pray it's not a train.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Well said!
I'd be gay if it got me more chicks.
Seriously though, why is there even an article about this? Let's stop breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back about how 'enlightened' we are by bringing so much attention to a party just because it's gay people.
(It's kinda transparent to me. We wouldn't pat ourselves on the back for being understanding about hetrosexuals, so why do it for gay people? This just illustrates how much people want attention for being 'different' and makes me question the real reason they decided to be different to begin with. People are so transparent, it's embarassing.)
I think if I were really gay, it would bother me that this got any attention at all, not to mention all the phonies just looking for attention.
- Phos
What most people are missing is that this event was a month ago and was very low-key. It was announced on the Player Events forum and received almost no notice at all from the detractors. So it wasn't a "Look At Me" type of thing. The event came and went without incident. It took place in the Pocket D instance, which is designed for such thing and anyone was welcome, I was there and it was no different than any other player event. Hell, I even won in the Costume Contest. It should also be noted that this is not the first event sponsored by one of the GLBT Super Groups.
Somehow Gay.com took notice of it and Cryptic, as they do anytime City of Heroes is mentioned in any non-gaming specific media made note of it in their News section.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Im cool with them having a gay prom, as long as they do straight superhero proms too. It might get some more females playing. Anything to build better gaming communities on CoX. I did notice a gay SG (Reignbow Legion or whatever) broadcasting that they were looking for male players to join them on the Freedom server. They were saying something about "We are looking to fill some holes in our group(pun intended im sure), so if you are beefy and interested pst., Hags may be accepted too!" I was laughing my ass off when I read that on the screen. It shouldnt surprise anyone, comics and superheroes have always had a not so subtle gay undertone. The costumes, the emphasis on physique, you name it. Same goes for pro wrestling. Im a fan of both things and have just had to over look those things and enjoy the game for what it is. Freakin cool!
When, exactly, did heterosexuals become an under-represented minority? I'm curious because comments like this throughout the thread seem to say that hets are threatened and oppressed. This is the first I've heard about it. I find it no end fascinating, and ironic, that some posters had to point out they were straight guys and didn't make a big deal about it in game, so why should LGBT players get 'special treatment'.
I don't make a big deal that I'm female IRL, nor do I feel that it entitles me to some sort of special treatment by Cryptic. Point is, the folks who organized the Rainbow Prom didn't, either. There was no entitlement thing going on, no one sending emails to the community managers demanding they be recognized. It was like any other player-organized event, like the old Tanker Tuesdays on Test, or the Taxi-Bot SGs on the servers, or an SG organizing a party to recognize their recently dinged 50s. This just happened to be LGBT themed and Cryptic and NCSoft made the choice to do something in recognition.
Don't like it? Don't participate and don't talk about it. It's as simple as that. Ignore it and let others who want to enjoy it enjoy it. If you're feeling left out, organize your own little straight white male event on Test and have yourselves a party. No one is stopping you. They might ridicule you, and you probably won't get the chalet turned on, but no one will stop you.
With companies like Blizzard trying to hide behind their ToS in order to hide their bigotry and Turbine utterly caving so as to avoid any controversy whatsoever, it's refreshing to see Cryptic and NCSoft take a positive stand against bigotry.