Since the highly controversial Lord of the Rings Online avatar changes, some current and former Lord of the Rings Online players have contacted me via email to express their outrage at Standing Stone Games. Others have come to my site and shared their stories.
For many people, Lord of the Rings Online’s fantasy virtual world was an immersive oasis of escapism into Tolkien’s majestic Middle-earth. All that changed when the Standing Stones developers introduced unwelcome African and Asian avatars and grotesque bearded women.
Not only has the Boston MMO studio desecrated J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but they have also permabanned players who have voiced their concerns on the forums. There is a chill wind of censorship blowing through our culture and much of it is being promoted by Big Tech and the entertainment media complex.
I am very moved by the passion, dedication, and love that these LOTRO players have for Middle-earth. I can only imagine how gut-wrenching it must feel to have dedicated years to leveling up your character(s) in Lord of the Rings Online, only to have them all banned by a woke Standing Stone Games community manager — just because you stood up and defended the veracity of Tolkien’s universe.
Many years ago I played LOTRO. I think I played the MMORPG for 2-3 years. That time was well spent and I have a lot of fond memories of my various characters traversing through the incredibly detailed regions of Middle-earth. The pastoral Shire and the eternally stunning Rivendell were particular standouts in beauty and authenticity. Turbine, the original studio that created LOTRO, had reverence for Tolkien’s works and would have never allowed these lore-breaking avatars into the virtual Middle-earth.
One LOTRO player who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, contacted me to tell me that he crafted a petition addressed to Standing Stone Games and posted it on Change.org. I have read his petition and wholeheartedly support it.
I also urge everyone that appreciates the works of Professor Tolkien, to head on over to Change.org and read and sign the petition if you agree with it.
Since most other MMO websites are accomplices of the woke globalist agenda, they will most likely refuse to report on this story. In case the petition is taken down or removed, with permission of the petition author, I would like to reprint it here in its entirety.
–Wolfshead
To: Standing Stone Games
As a passionate community of J.R.R. Tolkien enthusiasts, we have long appreciated the opportunity to explore the captivating world of Middle-earth through the Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG. We recognize the challenges inherent in adapting such an iconic and beloved work of literature into an interactive experience, and we commend your efforts in bringing Tolkien’s vision to life for millions of fans worldwide.
However, we feel compelled to address our concerns regarding the recent inclusion of new avatar customization choices for the race of men in Middle-earth. These additions feature African and Asian-looking avatars and facial hair options for female humans, which, while well-intentioned, are not part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original legendarium. As devoted fans, we believe that the integrity of Tolkien’s Middle-earth must be preserved to maintain the immersive experience we have come to expect and cherish.
Moreover, we are alarmed to learn that loyal players voicing their concerns about these changes have been banned from the official company forums. We believe that open dialogue and constructive criticism are essential to fostering a healthy community and ensuring the continued success of the game.
In light of these concerns, we, the undersigned, respectfully request the following:
- Reevaluate and reverse the avatar customization choices that deviate from J.R.R. Tolkien’s original descriptions and intentions for the races and characters in Middle-earth. As scholars and admirers of Tolkien’s work, we believe that preserving the authenticity of his legendarium is crucial to the game’s continued appeal and success.
- Reinstate the loyal players who have been wrongfully banned from the official company forums, allowing for a respectful and open dialogue about the game’s direction and adherence to Tolkien’s vision. By fostering a sense of community and understanding, we can work together to preserve the enchanting world of Middle-earth for future generations.
- Encourage active engagement between Standing Stone Games and the Lord of the Rings Online community, involving scholars, fans, and players in discussions about potential changes to the game. Through collaborative efforts, we can ensure that the game remains true to its source material while providing a rewarding and immersive experience for all
We understand that the task of adapting Tolkien’s Middle-earth for an interactive medium is a complex and nuanced endeavor. However, we remain steadfast in our belief that maintaining the integrity of Tolkien’s vision is paramount. We thank you for your consideration and eagerly await your response.
Sincerely,
Will Whitfoot
I signed the petition, but sadly these Change.org petitions rarely do anything. It would be nice if at least it gets enough signatures to show everyone how many people actually disagree with this change so it doesn’t look like Standing Stone Games censoring everyone and making it look like 98% of the game population likes the change.
I signed it as well. The only way this petition can spread is by word of mouth. Standing Stones Games will never allow anyone to link this petition on their forums. Also, the MMO and video game “news” sites are all shills for the video game industry so they won’t cover it. Most streamers are cowards, so they won’t cover it either.
It seems there is nobody left that will defend Tolkien, except his beloved fans.
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
If websites, TV, news anything weren’t parroting propaganda, they would be shut down, the only reason they are around and some are enjoying popularity is because they align themselves to the agenda, otherwise they would be silenced.
Exactly! The mainstream media complex is a tribe. In order to be a member of the tribe in good standing you must believe in climate catastrophism, LGBTQ rights, and identity politics. The media are stenographers for the elite globalists who really run the world.
I keep being reminded of this cartoon/comic:
https://i.ibb.co/qpjsV0d/image.png
People are fed crap so they are too busy believing and being angry/upset/frustrated about mostly meaningless things, but somehow made to believe they are paramount, and different groups believe in opposing things so they are pushed into bickering with each other rather than uniting and seeing the real problems and opposing the people who tries to separate them and rule over them.
That’s the thing those who provoke all this are scared from the most – people putting their differences behind them and uniting against them.
When I was younger and more stupid than now, I was daydreaming how fun it would be if everyone one day decided to stop going to work, those same people who “run the planet” will be scared shitless, because if this lasted just a few hours, everything will turn to chaos.
I just found out Amazon is working on a new Middle Earth/LOTR MMORPG: https://www.amazongames.com/en-us/news/articles/lord-of-the-rings-mmo
I’m calling it it’s going to have black elves with dreadlocks, women with beards and there won’t be any genders, just body type 1, body type 2 and there will be a lot of LGHDTV+ propaganda. Every second man will have a husband and every second woman will have a wife, maybe some wives will have their own beards too. Maybe even female elves will have beards.
Thanks for the link about the new LotR MMO!
I’m trying to read this as sympathetically as possible, but I find that I just don’t care. I see a black or gay hobbit or whatever and I just don’t care either way. Yes, that black skin is completely unrealistic to the setting, but it’s so easy to push out of mind and concentrate on the stuff that matters in Tolkien: valor and heroism of the grand and meek alike, the emotions of desperate martial stands, the treacherous lure of power, ancient intrigue going all the way back to the Valian years. It doesn’t break my immersion or wreck the virtual world. Since I don’t care, then if it makes someone else out there happy, I say leave it in. I think most readers/players/viewers feel exactly as I do.
You can’t know my heart, so I have no way of proving to you that I feel this way deep down, instead of saying it to virtue signal, or being brainwashed by globalists, or lying as a foot soldier for some agenda. I get it, although I hope you believe me. ‘Representation’ means nothing to me personally. But I really don’t care. I shrug. It destroys nothing in that world that actually matters.
What Tolkien would have thought of it all is interesting, and also unknowable. Especially if Tolkien were brought back and had a chance to form opinions of the modern world. I know he was strongly against South African apartheid (“I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones…”) and Hitler’s racism back when a lot of ordinary people found both appealing, so who knows, perhaps he’d have gone woke himself.
Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Truth matters. Being true to Tolkien’s books matters. Tolkien specifically created Middle-earth as a mythology for the English people. When a video game studio disregards what Tolkien wrote, what he intended, and his sensibilities (which are very well documented) then they are telling us that they know better than Tolkien. They certainly do not.
Countless millions of people worldwide of different races have read The Lord of the Rings and enjoyed it. They didn’t need “representation” to enjoy it. When you read books you put yourself in the role of the protagonist When you play a single-player video game, you put yourself in the role of the protagonist. You see the fictional world through their eyes, not your eyes.
Fantasy virtual worlds are different. The player is obligated to role-play new characters to help bring the world to life. This notion of you must bring your real-life identity into a fantasy virtual world is completely wrong and anethema to the “RP” in MMORPG. Players who think it is clever to be themselves in a fantasy virtual world are at best uninformed and at worst thoughtless, lazy, and selfish. Their failure to be active part of a cohesive ensemble cast of players is unacceptable.
Imagine how the people (shops and visitors) of a Renaissance Faire would feel if people showed dressed up as astronauts or space aliens? They would feel awful because the fantasy is being disrupted. In the case of LOTRO, SSG is enabling the disruption. This is outrageous as they know better as they are the custodians of the only virtual version of Middle-earth.
MMO studios have every right to make demands of the players that play their games. However, many studios have completely forgotten about role-playing in the past 20 years. All they care about is bending over backward to attract anyone and everyone.
You say you don’t care. That’s fine. But do you care about the people that DO care? The people that actually care about the authenticity of Tolkien’s world are making some very legitimate arguments about this issue. They are the ones that are sticking their necks out and being banned by SSG for their courage. The players that are going along with this and being silent, face no such persecution from SSG.
At what point would you care? If SSG introduces wheelchairs for disabled players to make them feel represented, would you care? If they created one-armed characters and one-legged characters for real life amputees, would you care? What about Siamese twins? If they had PRIDE parades in Hobbiton would you care? If alien technology and sci-fi elements were introduced into LOTRO, would that upset you? How about real world advertising in virtual worlds?
For 16 years Turbine and then Standing Stone Games were committed to honoring and respecting Tolkien. They broke faith with those people because now they are no longer interested in doing that. That’s shameful because, for many people, a virtual Middle-earth is one of the last places on this planet where they can escape all the non-stop identity politics activism and simply immerse themselves in a wonderful fantasy world.
LOTRO was an oasis and a refuge. Now it’s open season for SSG to pander to every passing social fad.
By introducing things that do not fit into Middle-earthm, SSG is creating needlessly distracting players and eroding their suspension of disbelief. Creating fantasy virtual worlds are not easy, so why would a video game studio introduce elements that do not belong there?
It’s very telling that SSG has not engaged any of their customers, the community, or Tolkien scholars in meaningful discussions on this. There are behaving like tyrants. The corrupt video game media are letting them off the hook too. No debate is allowed. Shame on them.
If their decision is so virtuous and righteous, why are they afraid to discuss it? Why are they banning people who are talking about it?
Answer: they know they did the wrong thing and they know it is indefensible. So they hide. Evil hides in the darkness. It can’t stand the sunlight.
Sauron would be very proud of what SSG has done.
I think you might want to reconsider your position on this. The following quote comes to mind:
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
If you don’t want to read everything, just read the last paragraph.
I have to say, I also don’t have problems with having African or gay people in media, as long as that media is its own universe or the universe allows it. If it doesn’t, then it has no place in it. Especially twisting and ruining someone’s work without their consent is neither fair nor honorable. It’s a cowardly and dishonorable thing to do only because the creator can no longer defend its creation anymore.
The implications of this are more about not including different kind of people into something, but more about changing something that’s already established.
There is no explanation lore-wise what will African or Asian people do in Middle Earth. They exist, but they are so far away and on bad terms with the people of Middle Earth that whatever lore supports their existence, it points against them being in Middle Earth.
Then there is the thing about adding beards to women. OK, the general argument of the defenders of this is that there are women with hormonal imbalance that have facial hair. Sure, I don’t deny it, but that’s not a normal thing and if they are adding some disease like this, then they should add amputee characters wearing prosthetics, blind, deaf, insane, paralyzed, etc…
The problem with this whole thing is it’s full of double standards and the reason they are doing makes no sense.
Are they doing it for money?
Are they doing it because someone above told them to do it?
Are they doing it because they think it will make the game more popular?
There is no reason to add this, because it doesn’t improve anything, it just serves as a mockery of existing players who spent time and money on the game and were asking for improved client performance and server performance, instead they get this mockery that is:
– unwanted
– unneeded
– it doesn’t improve anything
– makes it look like the developers think of their players as human garbage that pays their wages and it doesn’t matter how they feel since if they aren’t agreeing with the change, they will be banned and their posts deleted
I began playing LOTRO in 2021 and between then and 2023 when this update made me quit the game when I realized I was no longer welcome in the game anymore, I haven’t seen any improvements to any of the game’s technical flaws. Instead, every update they released, made the client perform worse and the server lag remained the same.
What they are doing is not improving the game, just tone-deaf changes to try to be “modern” and push woke propaganda into the game. They are trying to make it feel normal to have things like women with beards or transgenders or whatever. Now 9 year old kids in elementary schools think its normal or cool to be transgender and want to change their gender before they are old enough to make informed decisions, this is all happening, because this is propaganda on a global scale to brainwash people into becoming clowns, this is not about representation or making everyone feel included.
If it was about inclusion and that kind of stuff, it would not have been a thing at all. Because a game/book/movie that focuses on trying to include a lot of things will always end up not including everything and it will do itself more harm than good. But by ignoring the whole thing and just adding male and female and nothing else and just focusing on the story and creating an intriguing adventure, it does more by not involving itself in questionable problems.
But when you say you don’t mind that you will see African on gay Hobbits in the game, then I think this is a problem and you should ask yourself if you are really a connoisseur of a good story or you are OK with everything, it doesn’t matter if it’s ruining some already established universe and is making a mockery of someone’s work.
The answer is simple – whoever want to add all these things – African, Asian, gay, transgender, whatever, they can just create their own universe and add whatever they want, I will be totally cool with that, but to twist and destroy something that’s already been established and has been preserved for decades and to ruin it in one fel swoop and to use it to piggyback on it to spread some twisted and deranged woke propaganda is just wrong, scary, dishonorable and cowardly. That’s all I have to say.
I wasn’t going to keep going, but since both of you took trouble to write extensive replies, I feel it’s polite to answer a couple of the points raised.
I do disagree with SSG silencing debate, no argument. However, my position in the debate is that black skin or a same-sex npc couple are about as jarring as slightly inaccurate architecture, or the runekeeper class, or Moria being reclaimed at the wrong time, or wrong-colored pebbles on the beach. Meaning, not at all. That black hobbit still has hobbit habits, a hobbit’s fussiness, a hobbit’s reluctant courage, and all the other things that define a hobbit. The hobbit is a hobbit, not some black guy from modern-day Harlem.
Just like a Haradrim is a Haradrim because he comes from Harad and has been subjected to Harad’s unfortunate history, not because he’s dark-skinned. A dark-skinned Man of Bree is still a Man of Bree.
So all this is fine because it doesn’t change the way Tolkien’s world works, like for example electricity and radio and modern corporations and ads would. It doesn’t destroy or mock the story. Skin color isn’t integral to the story and it’s only a minor aspect of esthetics at best.
I agree about the perils of apathy in the face of evil (a Tolkien theme if there ever was one!) but I just don’t see any evil. I see two fringes battling it out over this stuff while most players get on with their virtual lives.
You make some good points and I believe your heart is in the right place. However, these changes to avatars in LOTRO didn’t just happen organically. This initiative is a deliberate attempt by Standing Stone Games to promote the woke and specious doctrine of representation and gain brownie points via virtue signaling.
I do not believe that SSG has evidence that LOTRO players ever wanted this. These changes cost a considerable amount of resources to effect. That is money and time that could have been better utilized to address chronic lag and the horrible user interface that LOTRO has.
How long will it be before LGBTQ activists demand that blue and pink hair be made available to players all in the name of inclusivity?
As far as hobbits being hobbits. I wonder how NPC hobbits would feel if suddenly African and Asian hobbits appeared out of nowhere. I think that would certainly start ringing alarm bells. Fictional hobbits who live rustic, provincial lives are not like metropolitan real-world humans who live in the Bay Area — accepting, tolerant of diversity etc.
Yes, these changes cannot have come organically. If they were, they would have been in the game since 2007. A lot of games that are trying to capture a mainstream audience (but mostly by Western developers, Asian developers are still more conservative and I really appreciate that) are adding those “features” to the game in the recent 5 or so years.
The fact that those changes happen around the same time is very fishy and suspicious, there has to be a reason why it happens all of a sudden and it’s not different games adding it at different times.
First, it doesn’t make the game or movie any better.
Second, without it the value of the product is not any less, but actually has more value.
Third, products that add this put too much effort and resources into is so other, more fundamental aspects like story, plot, enjoyability suffer.
Fourth, products that add this don’t have much substance and the negative reviews on most such products show that people aren’t excited about that.
The overarching problems with this is that it’s made the main focus and it’s being shoved in people’s faces. I think it was on this website that a point was made that transgender or homosexual characters in movies or games are never made the villain, they are always the hero or someone who provides significant support to the hero. Very strange… I guess there is no equality and it’s a discrimination to the end since gay or other characters aren’t allowed to be the villain. Maybe someone like this wants to be an evil doer but the White Male Privilege Patriarchy doesn’t allow him/her to be evil and are oppressing him/her to be good only. … The irony.
As for whether SSG has information if people wanted this or not and how much resources it costs, I think unless EG7 made them add this in hopes of making the game more appealing to the mainstream, and they are the ones who had decided to add this instead, they really suck as developers, because the main problems with LOTRO are:
– absolutely poor client performance (stuttering, FPS drops, slow loading, constant asset loading/unloading)
– absolutely poor server performance (lag, rubberbanding, being stuck in combat for 10+ settings where you can’t do anything and are just standing with the NPC looking at each other in a dumb way)
– redundant gameplay mechanics left from 2007 that serve no purpose and just make the database situation worse
– leveling speed in the first 60-70 levels if awfully fast – you can outlevel every zone just trying to complete every quest, the solution is to buy an item from the cash shop that pauses your XP, if you don’t have LOTRO points, you have to spend real money
The game has these very serious problems that I’ve been experiencing for 2 years straight and they add these woke options into the game?! If that’s not them mocking the intelligence of their players, I don’t know what else to call it.
It didn’t make the game any better, there weren’t enough people who actually wanted to make women with beards or men with girly hairstyles who were losing sleep for years because they couldn’t make women with beards or men with girly hairstyles, so why do this instead of working on performance or UI, I don’t know and no explanation is good enough.
Their BS about “inclusivity, diversity and expression” is just pure garbage. At least they should be honest and say “the higher ups in suits who never played a game in their lives and only look at Excel graphs and pie charts told us to do it, because it would make more money to be woke” or “we are incapable of fixing this mess of a game so here is something that nobody asked for just for the sake of adding something”.
Even as an update it’s so lazy that the avatar changes made a lot of headgear equipment clip inside the new faces, they spent more time making African lips and noses an Asian eyes and 50 different dreadlocks than to make sure the new faces work with head gear… So pathetic.
The problem is there is no lore evidence (can’t really call it historical evidence, can I) that there are African or Asian hobbits. The history said they originated in Middle Earth and they settled in only a few places. There are no hobbits in Harad, Khand or the Far East, just like how in real life all Koalas have gray fur, there are no Koalas with yellow or red or black fur. It’s genetics and that’s how it is. Having African or Asian hobbits would mean they would travel very far East and South and settle there, which hobbits don’t do. All information point hobbits to be unadventurous and spend their lives in their homeland and their biggest worry in life is about marmalade texture.
So African or Asian hobbits don’t even exist.
As stated, African and Asian humans exist on Arda, but they are not in Middle Earth and they are enemies to the people of Middle Earth. For this reason they can’t be in Middle Earth, because the people of Middle Earth will be afraid of them and won’t accept them. Also the Asian and African humans live so far away from Middle Earth that it would not make sense for them to travel to Middle Earth – for several reasons:
– distance, lots of resources like food and others required
– going to face hostility, prejudice, probably get thrown in jail
– basically only diminishing returns
For those reason Asian or African humans don’t have a place in Middle Earth.
I’d like to ask you, if in the next update, SSG adds the ability to create a female elf that is Asian or African, could have dreadlocks and a beard and be fat and probably ugly, how will you defend that?
Tolkien has explicitly described elves to be fair-skinned, gracious, beautiful, elegant and almost angel-like beings that those who see them for the first time almost become enchanted by their beauty and perfection.
How a fat, African, hairy, with beard, female elf that looks like a pregnant a Gian Forest Hog is a “fair-skinned, gracious, beautiful, elegant and almost angel-like being that enchants people with its beauty”?
There is no explanation. That garbage series Rings of Power added African elves and an African dwarven queen that has no beard and she was a queen of a dwarven tribe that’s not featuring African characteristics. The tribe of dwarves that features African or Phoenician/Babylonian characteristics, lives southeast of Mordor and also have no business in Middle Earth, it’s too far away and they have their own problems to deal with.
Well said.
There’s nothing wrong with humanoids who have different pigmentation and facial features, but they have to make sense and not cause people to be distracted. Humnan races have all evolved differently due to various geopgraphical factors. Black people spent more time in the sun and lived closer to the equator so they have more melanin to protect them from the sun. This is an evolutionary advantage. Whites have less melanin due to being further from the equator. Again an evolutionary advantage. All species adapt to their surroundings. Where I live, we have plant species that have adapated so well to our climate that they are impossible to eradicate. But other plants have a tough time growing because they are not meant for our climate.
Rings of Power utterly failed and looks like an incoherent mess because on its version of Numenor is multi-racial. This makes no sense. On the other hand, HBO Game of Thrones used racial differences masterfully. The people of the north have certain homogenious racial features. The Starks are a good example of this. The people in other climates of Game of Thrones were uni-racial — they had a consistent look for each geographic location. This makes it believable! When it’s not believable like Rings of Power (a hodgepodge of erratic races thrown together) it distracts people and then erodes immersion.
Standing Stone Games has done the same thing as Amazon did in Rings of Power. It’s a reckless irresponsible chaotic mess that has no basis in science. Yes, even fantasy worlds have consistent laws of physics and biology.
Wolfshead: Thank you for your kind words. I think you’re a perfectly cool person as well, you just got yourself all in a lather over (in my humble opinion) nothing.
I don’t think blue and pink hair is some kind of required uniform for LGBT people, lol. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
I lack your expertise in game design, but I doubt making a few new art assets is equivalent to big engine improvements. If it was, obviously I’d prefer engine/UX improvements. Are they even worked on by the same people, though?
Allwynd: Your lore argument is correct but unnecessary, since I acknowledged from the beginning that black or Asian-looking hobbits (or Bree Men, or Vanyar-descent elves, etc.) are unrealistic. My point remains that it’s the kind of pure-esthetic unrealism that doesn’t affect anything important. These aren’t actual African, Asian, and European people from planet Earth, anyway. Changing an avatar’s skin tone or hairstyle doesn’t change culture. You still pick a Harfoot, or Lórien, or Bree-lander or whatever.
Not too keen on fat bearded elf ladies personally, but I also don’t think the angelic enchantment is something that can translate to game visuals anyway… especially in LOTRO. It probably doesn’t depend on sexiness, either, since elf dudes would also be strikingly beautiful, like “male” biblical angels. Not that I think it’s impossible for a black-skinned or almond-eyed woman to look good, come on.
Now, once they start making tall willowy dwarves, then I’ll join your revolution. 🙂