Unless the developers of Orbus VR are Alt right White supremacists I would suggest changing the Rune to something else. It would be like if decurse looked like a swastika. If you guys dont change it, someones going to get pissed and I doubt you want to be accused of being a Racist company. Just a Heads up. It is Creepy that it is in there and that it is the Affliction spell, actually Pretty creepy once you realize it.
if you google “runes” you’ll find the runes used in both spells and artificing. It has nothing to do with racism
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Like many of the popular Nazi symbolism, they (Nazi’s) stole them from other religions and cultures. In the case of the Affliction symbol it’s from Old Norse culture.
http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/07/norse-runic-third-reich-symbols/
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As Logan and Asterisk have said. Complete non-issue.
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This might be the dumbest thing I have seen on the forums. Accusing them of supporting Nazi’s? Really???
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I know that the symbol wasn’t created for that purpose. I’m a tabletop player I understand runes to some degree. There are just a lot of sensitive people out there and it would suck for a small company to get associated with that shit. With all the companies, shows, and organizations getting boycotted why even take the risk. I really like the game and thought it was worth mentioning.
@Riley_D How are we going to avoid this? Posts like this, in my opinion, are stupid. I understand player feedback in the backbone of this mmo, but to have people post and try to shape your game to their vision…this kind of feedback is toxic. If something is going to change in this game, such as an armor set or symbol that is already set in stone, maybe a poll that the community can vote on.
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Don’t attack the poster or the post. Just say that these are based off of something like Elder Futhark and here is more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark
And that “it has nothing to do with racism”.
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Someone pointed it out to me and showed me the symbol and I was like huh I wonder if they know this. A lot of companies try to stay conscious about those things. I simply pointed it out. I wasn’t here to feed trolls which is apparently what happened. Again I know the symbols aren’t inherently racist, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t take it that way. When I see a white dude with a torch with a swastika on his shirt I don’t think oh man he must really be into Asian power symbols… So since feedback is the backbone to MMO’s let me leave mine, you can have yours and we can both win. Or you can continue to call my feedback and anyone else you don’t agree with toxic. Which is more than likely what you will do.
nah. Not a toxic post, just I think ya gotta realize that there are plenty of uses of symbols which might in some shape or form been used for some bad stuff in the past. That is why everyone is calling this a non issue.
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Thankfully I have yet to see a single player coming even remotely close to racism and any other form of dangerous beliefs (besides playing too much). Even back at the day of Orbus launch when massive amounts of people were researching into the background or origin of the runes, never came up with any other conclusion than old norse runes. I suggest not judging an alphabet by taking out a single letter, seeing them all you will get a better context.
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So far, you are the first even noticing 
Yea the swastika is one thing which is certainly good to avoid (and if it was only because the game risks being censored Germany… but even there there’s exceptions, if it’s for example educational). But for everything else if you start looking in who used what all, you’d have to trash all rpgs ever made 
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This is the kind of thing that could easily have been emailed to the dev team. Instead it was put on full blast. Next time I’d suggest emailing the dev team directly versus calling out the devs publicly for what you believe to be a symbol of hate. Give them the opportunity to explain it to you personally before you go out publicly with your bullhorn. This goes for anything hate related/racist/sexist…etc…etc…
The development team have created a great product that we all have grown to highly enjoy. They are humans too, and as far as I can tell… are decent people wanting to create a fun world for us to play in. Even if you do find something that may have been put in the game that might be offensive, you need to give the development team the benefit of the doubt that they did not purposely include it within the game… or as in this case… an explanation that the affliction symbol is an actual rune as @Neo_Zain pointed out. At this point, if you change the affliction rune, you negate the hours of practice many mages have put into drawing the rune properly so they can accurately cast it.
@Riley_D ~ This is ya’lls game so you do with it as you wish. Please don’t curtail your vision based on the complaints of the offended. This is the second time someone has come up with something to be offended by and publicly put it on blast without researching or contacting you directly with the issue. In all honesty, if the thing that’s “offensive” is really just open to interpretation, I wouldn’t change your artistic vision for what you want your game to be. If I were in your shoes I would delete this post and go on your way.
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Op is trolling. Dont give any attention to him.
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Also, dat straw man…
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Just because you don’t agree with a piece of feedback doesn’t mean it’s trolling.
I agree with the general sentiment that we as a community and the devs as a business should be cognizant of cultural norms and iconography and make an effort to be sensitive to potential emergent issues.
Given that we’re talking about degrees of personal and cultural association with a symbol, I’d like to think that people would be open to the discussion. At some point the swastika was a totally benign symbol associated only with Hinduism, Buddhism and Janism, and clearly that changed, so it’s not impossible to think that something similar could happen with others as well.
All of that being said, in this particular case, I don’t believe that particular symbol has reached the cultural saturation that things like the swastika have, and I believe it’s fine to stay as is. (but again, it should be a valid feedback topic for discussion).
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Hey @Draven ~ I’m down for a spirited discussion as much as the next person while keeping views open. Its good for society to communicate and come together as an understanding. In this case, the thread (at least to me) was not presented as productive or “hey… what do you guys think about this? Is this an issue?”. It was…
“Unless the developers of Orbus VR are Alt right White supremacists I would suggest changing the Rune to something else.”
This is essentially saying “change it or you are a hateful white supremacist.” This kind of rhetoric is not open or discussion based. It’s accusatory and passive aggressive. It’s the same BS attitude and tactic used by religious communities and offended parents to ban books from schools and libraries.
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Agreed, the opening line in their original post was unnecessarily inflammatory.