I doubt there's such a thing as "overboard" in doing this, as if the stains of harm and trauma caused are what we're concerned about they go deep.
But pulling out direct references and positive representations of the people known to have caused great harm is like, a baseline.
I dunno. If they just pull out all references to Afrasabi (and potentially anyone else involved), that's fine. Looking around for more than that would be going overboard IMO.
Uhh wow, I wonder what this means? (I assume they're taking out the Afrasabi NPC but I dunno what else this would entail)
(edit: also calling it now, they are gonna go overboard doing this)
Also this reply is dead-freaking-on:
Jayne Robinson @_Lothical
·
16m
Replying to @Warcraft
Oh good. So when I report homophobia and sexism within game chat. You GMs will take action?
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
GMs? You mean the automated software they use to process all reports and determine whether one of the five actual humans still working in Blizzard CS will read any of them?
Uhh wow, I wonder what this means? (I assume they're taking out the Afrasabi NPC but I dunno what else this would entail)
(edit: also calling it now, they are gonna go overboard doing this)
Also this reply is dead-freaking-on:
Jayne Robinson @_Lothical
·
16m
Replying to @Warcraft
Oh good. So when I report homophobia and sexism within game chat. You GMs will take action?
I would hope they are taking action now Is that really a thing or is this a "the GMs aren't going to tell you they banned the person you reported" kind of thing?
GMs? You mean the automated software they use to process all reports and determine whether one of the five actual humans still working in Blizzard CS will read any of them?
Or maybe it's just this, in which case I could totally see that happening because auto-mods are the fucking worst.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
GMs? You mean the automated software they use to process all reports and determine whether one of the five actual humans still working in Blizzard CS will read any of them?
You can game the system pretty easily by saying you have an issue with billing, and then stating your actual issue.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
You can't change your culture and leave copious amounts of Afrasabi references in game. The stuff they "may" be doing needs to be done. Depending on what it is.
The issue is that message is so fucking vague. What are they saying they will remove? What exactly is the other stuff they say they are looking into doing? Keep in mind the message doesn't just say "we understand we did wrong. All poor taste references in game are going away. That is all". There is more in there. It just.. is vague. But I mean, its certainly better than the shit coming from the company before.
Keep in mind that statement, while vague and clearly hastily written, was from the Warcraft team, not the Blizzard C-suite. It may be splitting hairs a bit, but the cultural sea change that needs to happen needs to start at the very top of Blizzard. Heads should be rolling.
The Warcraft team removing Afrasiabi references is a small start, indeed only a baseline. If that team really wants to affect change, they need to staff up some GMs/CS again instead of the auto-bot nonsense and really lay down the law against abusive language and toxicity. I report abusive stuff all the time but I never hear anything back about it. Maybe punishments are being doled out but at least when I report bots I occasionally get that "Defender of Azeroth" message, which I guess could also be bullshit.
Switch: SW-1909-0466-9585
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
At one point she refers to the night elves as “her favored children.”
Within the same monologue she also says she allowed Teldrassil to burn so she could send a bunch of souls to Ardenweald. I guess maybe for infinite cosmic beings who clearly do not value life, it’s acceptable to let your favorite things die a horrific, tragic death.
I mean...kinda, yeah, I actually see it. If you're a being that wholly transcends life and death and for whom they're just two different parts of a complicated, multifacted existence, I could easily see your viewpoint being that this is actually a boon for them in the long run.
Like, this could actually be an interesting thing to delve into: how mortals view life vs. death compared to how gods and beings that hop between the realms view life vs. death. Is there even a difference to a being that exists in multiple universes simultaneously? Could they even perceive that to mortals there is a difference?
Unfortunately it's main plot WoW writing which means this will never come up again.
And also, was that idjit unaware that all souls were going to the Maw at the time, or what the fuck?
At one point she refers to the night elves as “her favored children.”
Within the same monologue she also says she allowed Teldrassil to burn so she could send a bunch of souls to Ardenweald. I guess maybe for infinite cosmic beings who clearly do not value life, it’s acceptable to let your favorite things die a horrific, tragic death.
I mean...kinda, yeah, I actually see it. If you're a being that wholly transcends life and death and for whom they're just two different parts of a complicated, multifacted existence, I could easily see your viewpoint being that this is actually a boon for them in the long run.
Like, this could actually be an interesting thing to delve into: how mortals view life vs. death compared to how gods and beings that hop between the realms view life vs. death. Is there even a difference to a being that exists in multiple universes simultaneously? Could they even perceive that to mortals there is a difference?
Unfortunately it's main plot WoW writing which means this will never come up again.
And also, was that idjit unaware that all souls were going to the Maw at the time, or what the fuck?
Yeah, the Winter Queen tells Elune how badly she goofed there. Elune’s reaction is basically, “well shit.”
You can't change your culture and leave copious amounts of Afrasabi references in game. The stuff they "may" be doing needs to be done. Depending on what it is.
The issue is that message is so fucking vague. What are they saying they will remove? What exactly is the other stuff they say they are looking into doing? Keep in mind the message doesn't just say "we understand we did wrong. All poor taste references in game are going away. That is all". There is more in there. It just.. is vague. But I mean, its certainly better than the shit coming from the company before.
I mean, references to Afrasabi in game being removed is not going to particularly help victims in the real world. I would rather something concrete be done for them.
Naturally, this doesn't have to be an either-or. It should be a yes-and. But the cynical part of me expects that pretty much all the changes are going to be entirely symbolic, and that people like Afrasabi being scrubbed will be treated like that somehow fixes the problem.
SO much of this is tricky and delicate too. Two sides to nearly every coin.
We don't know they're gonna remove the line where Garrosh calls Sylvanas a bitch. That was just someone's conjecture. But does that really do anyone any good? That's what I'd call realistic dialog. Sure, it might be a mean/sexist/harmful thing to say to a woman. But it's also something that is said. It lends a sense of realism. Furthermore, Garrosh is the villain of the story. Are villains not allowed to say bad things now? Should writers be censored just because something is a touchy subject?
I'm an English major, and this is something I continuously struggle with conceptually. It's not an easy line to walk. Authenticity versus correctness.
This is getting a bit off topic here, while at the same time it's 100% on topic. Regardless, I'll post this next bit in a spoiler tag since it isn't directly related to WoW.
Let's take the masterpiece work of literature, Huckleberry Finn. Society and culture flip-flops on this book with the blowing of the wind as to whether or not it's an acceptable book to read, or to teach in school, or even to exist anymore.
Yes, the book has some language in it that by today's standards is not acceptable. But it was authentic language to the time period it was written. The characters speak and behave naturally for that time period. The book, if nothing else, holds historical value as a record of how things were.
Yes, society and culture have grown, or are at least trying to grow and to be better than that. But that doesn't invalidate Huck Finn as a literary masterpiece, or a teaching tool. Use it to teach what is wrong and unacceptable language and behavior. Don't bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
Whether or not you agree with me is really neither here nor there. I'm merely using this as an example of the concept of authenticity versus censorship for the sake of political correctness.
Back on the topic at hand, yes. They should purge all self-references to Alex that he put in the game. Even back in 2004 when the game was new and we didn't know about all these sexual harassment allegations, I still thought he was kind of an egotistical dick to put himself in the game like that. So by all means, pull him out. That change would be a good one, even if it's only a superficial change. It's fine. Do it.
But other stuff, changing the dialog, or changing various character's appearances? I disagree with that.
Using Overwatch as an example of how to do representation correctly -- I absolutely love how the cast of characters in that game has people, specifically women, of all body types. It isn't just scantly clad supermodel women. Yes, it has one or two of those. But it also has Zarya and Mei and Brigitte. I think there's room for all kinds. I think the same of WoW too. They shouldn't just go back and start adding pants to every attractive female in the game. Instead, the better approach would be to add new females to the game of other body types, other sensibilities, and other walks of life. Variety. Not censorship.
The line where Garrosh calls Sylvanas that is already gone. It's been gone for years.
It's actually one of the things that you see people hamfistedly using to say "the lead writer wants to fuck sylvanas and thinks he's nathanos!!!"
I needed anime to post. on
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited July 2021
Over the weekend I leveled my 11th class -- Rogue (fun fact: the same Rogue I made in 2005, but with a different name, server, and faction/race) from 50-60 and in the course of it fell in love with Assassination. So I decided to actually gear the character and spent four hours yesterday and two hours this morning working on that. So, six total hours with a fresh 60 got me --
Not bad! Now, obviously I benefitted a lot from it being an alt -- I used eight Korthan Armaments (I could've bought way more but I got zero dupes in eight and felt I was pushing my luck after that) and sent 5k Soul Ash for the legendary. I also had layer 3 of Twisting Corridors unlocked so I could find the right layer for the Memory I needed. The gold cost for crafted pieces was fairly low -- sub 50k, but not irrelevant either. My LFR drops and vault piece were disappointing but the world boss dropped a trinket that ended up being a full 6.5 character ilvl upgrade! 140 > 233.
I would broadly say, I'm not crazy in love with preservationist, "teach the time period" arguments when it comes to adjusting language in a live service game. There are a lot of instances where living authors issue new printings of books with changes, adjustments, new scenes, removed scenes, and so on. There are in fact multiple versions of the aforementioned Huckleberry Finn because we don't know which of the versions is meant to be the "official" version - which ones contain things Mark Twain wanted, which ones contain changes by the editor, and so on.
If Activision Blizzard wants to make me really sit up and think they're serious about attacking some of these systemic issues? There'd need to be a significant purge of both the perpetrators and their enablers, obviously. But I think one of the only other things would be ... letting their workers unionize.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
@UrQuanLord88 joined my fledgling guild (and a few PUGs) that formed from the ashes of a dead raiding guild for our inaugural raid and helped us clear 10/10 N in just over three hours despite having only a couple people who had seen the whole raid.
Also the Balance Druid that plays with the #3 M+ team in all of S1 (yumytv/growl/petzergling's team) queued for our Normal Sylvanas kill? That was pretty strange.
@UrQuanLord88 joined my fledgling guild (and a few PUGs) that formed from the ashes of a dead raiding guild for our inaugural raid and helped us clear 10/10 N in just over three hours despite having only a couple people who had seen the whole raid.
Also the Balance Druid that plays with the #3 M+ team in all of S1 (yumytv/growl/petzergling's team) queued for our Normal Sylvanas kill? That was pretty strange.
probably trying to kill her for the guaranteed Shard before Mythic.
tomorrow would be a good day to not play any blizzard or activision games in solidarity with the workers, even if you are not writing off the company forever at this point
Reminder for those who give a shit.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
SO much of this is tricky and delicate too. Two sides to nearly every coin.
We don't know they're gonna remove the line where Garrosh calls Sylvanas a bitch. That was just someone's conjecture. But does that really do anyone any good? That's what I'd call realistic dialog. Sure, it might be a mean/sexist/harmful thing to say to a woman. But it's also something that is said. It lends a sense of realism. Furthermore, Garrosh is the villain of the story. Are villains not allowed to say bad things now? Should writers be censored just because something is a touchy subject?
I'm an English major, and this is something I continuously struggle with conceptually. It's not an easy line to walk. Authenticity versus correctness.
This is getting a bit off topic here, while at the same time it's 100% on topic. Regardless, I'll post this next bit in a spoiler tag since it isn't directly related to WoW.
Let's take the masterpiece work of literature, Huckleberry Finn. Society and culture flip-flops on this book with the blowing of the wind as to whether or not it's an acceptable book to read, or to teach in school, or even to exist anymore.
Yes, the book has some language in it that by today's standards is not acceptable. But it was authentic language to the time period it was written. The characters speak and behave naturally for that time period. The book, if nothing else, holds historical value as a record of how things were.
Yes, society and culture have grown, or are at least trying to grow and to be better than that. But that doesn't invalidate Huck Finn as a literary masterpiece, or a teaching tool. Use it to teach what is wrong and unacceptable language and behavior. Don't bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
Whether or not you agree with me is really neither here nor there. I'm merely using this as an example of the concept of authenticity versus censorship for the sake of political correctness.
Back on the topic at hand, yes. They should purge all self-references to Alex that he put in the game. Even back in 2004 when the game was new and we didn't know about all these sexual harassment allegations, I still thought he was kind of an egotistical dick to put himself in the game like that. So by all means, pull him out. That change would be a good one, even if it's only a superficial change. It's fine. Do it.
But other stuff, changing the dialog, or changing various character's appearances? I disagree with that.
Using Overwatch as an example of how to do representation correctly -- I absolutely love how the cast of characters in that game has people, specifically women, of all body types. It isn't just scantly clad supermodel women. Yes, it has one or two of those. But it also has Zarya and Mei and Brigitte. I think there's room for all kinds. I think the same of WoW too. They shouldn't just go back and start adding pants to every attractive female in the game. Instead, the better approach would be to add new females to the game of other body types, other sensibilities, and other walks of life. Variety. Not censorship.
This is honestly how I feel about these kinds of things. Just in general I am super against censoring art. If art offends you, isn't it also doing its job as art? That's why I'm a little worried about this "purge." Especially given their history of overreacting to shit like censoring that boat "Tyrande's Silence" in Warlords because someone thought it was offensive when it was only referencing her owl in HotS. But I guess we'll see how far they go.
One thing I was thinking about last night is I'm curious how they will handle the Tigule & Furor stuff (I forget which of the two Afrasabi is). Would they remove both names, or only one? Or will they forget because it's a character name and not his real name? IIRC there's also an Ogre in Dustwallow Marsh that is named after one of those two's EQ Ogre character too (but I don't know which one). Curious if they'll catch all these kind of less obvious references.
SO much of this is tricky and delicate too. Two sides to nearly every coin.
We don't know they're gonna remove the line where Garrosh calls Sylvanas a bitch. That was just someone's conjecture. But does that really do anyone any good? That's what I'd call realistic dialog. Sure, it might be a mean/sexist/harmful thing to say to a woman. But it's also something that is said. It lends a sense of realism. Furthermore, Garrosh is the villain of the story. Are villains not allowed to say bad things now? Should writers be censored just because something is a touchy subject?
I'm an English major, and this is something I continuously struggle with conceptually. It's not an easy line to walk. Authenticity versus correctness.
This is getting a bit off topic here, while at the same time it's 100% on topic. Regardless, I'll post this next bit in a spoiler tag since it isn't directly related to WoW.
Let's take the masterpiece work of literature, Huckleberry Finn. Society and culture flip-flops on this book with the blowing of the wind as to whether or not it's an acceptable book to read, or to teach in school, or even to exist anymore.
Yes, the book has some language in it that by today's standards is not acceptable. But it was authentic language to the time period it was written. The characters speak and behave naturally for that time period. The book, if nothing else, holds historical value as a record of how things were.
Yes, society and culture have grown, or are at least trying to grow and to be better than that. But that doesn't invalidate Huck Finn as a literary masterpiece, or a teaching tool. Use it to teach what is wrong and unacceptable language and behavior. Don't bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
Whether or not you agree with me is really neither here nor there. I'm merely using this as an example of the concept of authenticity versus censorship for the sake of political correctness.
Back on the topic at hand, yes. They should purge all self-references to Alex that he put in the game. Even back in 2004 when the game was new and we didn't know about all these sexual harassment allegations, I still thought he was kind of an egotistical dick to put himself in the game like that. So by all means, pull him out. That change would be a good one, even if it's only a superficial change. It's fine. Do it.
But other stuff, changing the dialog, or changing various character's appearances? I disagree with that.
Using Overwatch as an example of how to do representation correctly -- I absolutely love how the cast of characters in that game has people, specifically women, of all body types. It isn't just scantly clad supermodel women. Yes, it has one or two of those. But it also has Zarya and Mei and Brigitte. I think there's room for all kinds. I think the same of WoW too. They shouldn't just go back and start adding pants to every attractive female in the game. Instead, the better approach would be to add new females to the game of other body types, other sensibilities, and other walks of life. Variety. Not censorship.
This is honestly how I feel about these kinds of things. Just in general I am super against censoring art. If art offends you, isn't it also doing its job as art? That's why I'm a little worried about this "purge." Especially given their history of overreacting to shit like censoring that boat "Tyrande's Silence" in Warlords because someone thought it was offensive when it was only referencing her owl in HotS. But I guess we'll see how far they go.
One thing I was thinking about last night is I'm curious how they will handle the Tigule & Furor stuff (I forget which of the two Afrasabi is). Would they remove both names, or only one? Or will they forget because it's a character name and not his real name? IIRC there's also an Ogre in Dustwallow Marsh that is named after one of those two's EQ Ogre character too (but I don't know which one). Curious if they'll catch all these kind of less obvious references.
They're not censoring anything, they're changing a few names. Get some perspective.
The list of changes is up on Wowhead, it’s literally just removing/renaming references to Furor. And wow, but there were more than a couple of those things.
did they seriously just implicate that the burning of the tree was partly Elune's responsibility because she wanted to send souls to Ardenweald? Or was that meant as a thing of convenience? I mean, I thought most night elves went to Ardenweald anyway...
They're not censoring anything, they're changing a few names. Get some perspective.
I think Warlock was referring to censoring as to changes like Tyrande's Silence or Garrosh calling Sylvanas a bitch, not the name changes. I hadn't realized they removed the bitch comment from Garrosh, myself, but as Garrosh was an asshole, I thought it was both fine and not fine.
I thought it was appropriate for the character and fine to have in, but WoW is more PG friendly than that so I remember being shocked when I first heard it in Cataclysm because WoW didn't strike me as that type of game (ignoring the murder and butchering because hey, THAT'S FINE :hydra: ). I'm actually okay with it being removed on the grounds that WoW is more PG / kid friendly, but I'd argue (because it's fun) that Garrosh saying it was fine otherwise.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
They're not censoring anything, they're changing a few names. Get some perspective.
I think Warlock was referring to censoring as to changes like Tyrande's Silence or Garrosh calling Sylvanas a bitch, not the name changes. I hadn't realized they removed the bitch comment from Garrosh, myself, but as Garrosh was an asshole, I thought it was both fine and not fine.
I thought it was appropriate for the character and fine to have in, but WoW is more PG friendly than that so I remember being shocked when I first heard it in Cataclysm because WoW didn't strike me as that type of game (ignoring the murder and butchering because hey, THAT'S FINE :hydra: ). I'm actually okay with it being removed on the grounds that WoW is more PG / kid friendly, but I'd argue (because it's fun) that Garrosh saying it was fine otherwise.
^ this. I'm totally fine with them removing Afrasabi and that kind of stuff. I don't really consider a self-insert npc "art" the same way the writing and stuff is. It's more like banning someone from the game because they are an awful person. (edit: Plus it helps that his NPC really doesn't do anything as far as I remember, other than be a checkpoint for a couple quests and IIRC you turn the Onyxia and/or Nefarian head in to him... it's easy enough to just swap in some other NPC and slightly re-write all the associated quests)
The list of changes is up on Wowhead, it’s literally just removing/renaming references to Furor. And wow, but there were more than a couple of those things.
Oh, that's good then. I'm glad they didn't go overboard. (edit: so far... I found the wowhead tweet and it looks like it may still be ongoing since the NPC is like, a green texture :P Hopefully they mostly keep it to this kind of thing tho)
did they seriously just implicate that the burning of the tree was partly Elune's responsibility because she wanted to send souls to Ardenweald? Or was that meant as a thing of convenience? I mean, I thought most night elves went to Ardenweald anyway...
My understanding is when night elves die either most just turn into a wisp or get a choice about it, and Elune went "no wisping", thinking most of them would pour into Ardenweald. Then it turns into a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode when Winter Queen tried her where they actually went.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Referring to a woman as "bitch" is extremely misogynistic and removing it was an unequivocally good decision. Now if only they had applied that same good decision making to the real life misogyny in their offices!
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Referring to a woman as "bitch" is extremely misogynistic and removing it was an unequivocally good decision. Now if only they had applied that same good decision making to the real life misogyny in their offices!
Yeah but it's Garrosh. It's not like he was a good person to begin with :P I'm always in favor of letting the villains be assholes :P
Yeah, that's the part that gets tricky. Writing a character who is an asshole and a misogynist is not necessarily reflective of the writer themselves, or a reflection of the company's values. At least, it shouldn't be. As it turns out, in this case it is a reflection of their values. But that's beside the point. The point is simply that a writer should be able to create awful characters who say bad things without fear that the bad things the character is saying are a reflection of them.
And the reason why I say it gets tricky is because sometimes those very same things are true. Sometimes writers do use fiction, and do use characters to push their own beliefs and their own agendas. It's not a black and white topic, but I generally fall strongly in the camp of no censorship.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
We wouldn't accept a bad guy "just being an asshole villain" if he was throwing around homophobic slurs, I'm not sure why you're giving a pass on a sexist slur.
We wouldn't accept a bad guy "just being an asshole villain" if he was throwing around homophobic slurs, I'm not sure why you're giving a pass on a sexist slur.
If it fit the storyline and audience of the game, I would absolutely accept a bad guy throwing around homophobic slurs. He'd be the bad guy. Related, that's also why I'm not put out by them removing the line from Garrosh. WoW is for a younger / all audience.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Garrosh also has a pretty sizeably fashy fanbase, in part because of moments that resonated with them like that.
Hell, what he does in the current patch is pure fanservice for that crowd. It's not the dismal last moments of an asshole villain, it's pure Garrosh Did Nothing Wrong energy.
Posts
Uhh wow, I wonder what this means? (I assume they're taking out the Afrasabi NPC but I dunno what else this would entail)
(edit: also calling it now, they are gonna go overboard doing this)
But pulling out direct references and positive representations of the people known to have caused great harm is like, a baseline.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
I dunno. If they just pull out all references to Afrasabi (and potentially anyone else involved), that's fine. Looking around for more than that would be going overboard IMO.
Edit:
Yeah, this kind of stuff. Like, "Well this line *might* offend someone" kind of second guessing...
Also this reply is dead-freaking-on:
Jayne Robinson
@_Lothical
·
16m
Replying to
@Warcraft
Oh good. So when I report homophobia and sexism within game chat. You GMs will take action?
I would hope they are taking action now
Edit:
Or maybe it's just this, in which case I could totally see that happening because auto-mods are the fucking worst.
They're going to give Alextraza pants
You can game the system pretty easily by saying you have an issue with billing, and then stating your actual issue.
I mean, not entirely.
You can't change your culture and leave copious amounts of Afrasabi references in game. The stuff they "may" be doing needs to be done. Depending on what it is.
The issue is that message is so fucking vague. What are they saying they will remove? What exactly is the other stuff they say they are looking into doing? Keep in mind the message doesn't just say "we understand we did wrong. All poor taste references in game are going away. That is all". There is more in there. It just.. is vague. But I mean, its certainly better than the shit coming from the company before.
The Warcraft team removing Afrasiabi references is a small start, indeed only a baseline. If that team really wants to affect change, they need to staff up some GMs/CS again instead of the auto-bot nonsense and really lay down the law against abusive language and toxicity. I report abusive stuff all the time but I never hear anything back about it. Maybe punishments are being doled out but at least when I report bots I occasionally get that "Defender of Azeroth" message, which I guess could also be bullshit.
Or the trial of Garrosh Hellscream, though that wasn't in the game.
And also, was that idjit unaware that all souls were going to the Maw at the time, or what the fuck?
Yeah, the Winter Queen tells Elune how badly she goofed there. Elune’s reaction is basically, “well shit.”
I mean, references to Afrasabi in game being removed is not going to particularly help victims in the real world. I would rather something concrete be done for them.
Naturally, this doesn't have to be an either-or. It should be a yes-and. But the cynical part of me expects that pretty much all the changes are going to be entirely symbolic, and that people like Afrasabi being scrubbed will be treated like that somehow fixes the problem.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
We don't know they're gonna remove the line where Garrosh calls Sylvanas a bitch. That was just someone's conjecture. But does that really do anyone any good? That's what I'd call realistic dialog. Sure, it might be a mean/sexist/harmful thing to say to a woman. But it's also something that is said. It lends a sense of realism. Furthermore, Garrosh is the villain of the story. Are villains not allowed to say bad things now? Should writers be censored just because something is a touchy subject?
I'm an English major, and this is something I continuously struggle with conceptually. It's not an easy line to walk. Authenticity versus correctness.
This is getting a bit off topic here, while at the same time it's 100% on topic. Regardless, I'll post this next bit in a spoiler tag since it isn't directly related to WoW.
Yes, the book has some language in it that by today's standards is not acceptable. But it was authentic language to the time period it was written. The characters speak and behave naturally for that time period. The book, if nothing else, holds historical value as a record of how things were.
Yes, society and culture have grown, or are at least trying to grow and to be better than that. But that doesn't invalidate Huck Finn as a literary masterpiece, or a teaching tool. Use it to teach what is wrong and unacceptable language and behavior. Don't bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
Whether or not you agree with me is really neither here nor there. I'm merely using this as an example of the concept of authenticity versus censorship for the sake of political correctness.
Back on the topic at hand, yes. They should purge all self-references to Alex that he put in the game. Even back in 2004 when the game was new and we didn't know about all these sexual harassment allegations, I still thought he was kind of an egotistical dick to put himself in the game like that. So by all means, pull him out. That change would be a good one, even if it's only a superficial change. It's fine. Do it.
But other stuff, changing the dialog, or changing various character's appearances? I disagree with that.
Using Overwatch as an example of how to do representation correctly -- I absolutely love how the cast of characters in that game has people, specifically women, of all body types. It isn't just scantly clad supermodel women. Yes, it has one or two of those. But it also has Zarya and Mei and Brigitte. I think there's room for all kinds. I think the same of WoW too. They shouldn't just go back and start adding pants to every attractive female in the game. Instead, the better approach would be to add new females to the game of other body types, other sensibilities, and other walks of life. Variety. Not censorship.
It's actually one of the things that you see people hamfistedly using to say "the lead writer wants to fuck sylvanas and thinks he's nathanos!!!"
-- Korthia unlocked
-- 34 Renown (with seven Covenant chapters left)
-- 206 ilvl
Not bad! Now, obviously I benefitted a lot from it being an alt -- I used eight Korthan Armaments (I could've bought way more but I got zero dupes in eight and felt I was pushing my luck after that) and sent 5k Soul Ash for the legendary. I also had layer 3 of Twisting Corridors unlocked so I could find the right layer for the Memory I needed. The gold cost for crafted pieces was fairly low -- sub 50k, but not irrelevant either. My LFR drops and vault piece were disappointing but the world boss dropped a trinket that ended up being a full 6.5 character ilvl upgrade! 140 > 233.
We all know that's not happening, though.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Also the Balance Druid that plays with the #3 M+ team in all of S1 (yumytv/growl/petzergling's team) queued for our Normal Sylvanas kill? That was pretty strange.
probably trying to kill her for the guaranteed Shard before Mythic.
Reminder for those who give a shit.
This is honestly how I feel about these kinds of things. Just in general I am super against censoring art. If art offends you, isn't it also doing its job as art? That's why I'm a little worried about this "purge." Especially given their history of overreacting to shit like censoring that boat "Tyrande's Silence" in Warlords because someone thought it was offensive when it was only referencing her owl in HotS. But I guess we'll see how far they go.
One thing I was thinking about last night is I'm curious how they will handle the Tigule & Furor stuff (I forget which of the two Afrasabi is). Would they remove both names, or only one? Or will they forget because it's a character name and not his real name? IIRC there's also an Ogre in Dustwallow Marsh that is named after one of those two's EQ Ogre character too (but I don't know which one). Curious if they'll catch all these kind of less obvious references.
They're not censoring anything, they're changing a few names. Get some perspective.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
I thought it was appropriate for the character and fine to have in, but WoW is more PG friendly than that so I remember being shocked when I first heard it in Cataclysm because WoW didn't strike me as that type of game (ignoring the murder and butchering because hey, THAT'S FINE :hydra: ). I'm actually okay with it being removed on the grounds that WoW is more PG / kid friendly, but I'd argue (because it's fun) that Garrosh saying it was fine otherwise.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
^ this. I'm totally fine with them removing Afrasabi and that kind of stuff. I don't really consider a self-insert npc "art" the same way the writing and stuff is. It's more like banning someone from the game because they are an awful person. (edit: Plus it helps that his NPC really doesn't do anything as far as I remember, other than be a checkpoint for a couple quests and IIRC you turn the Onyxia and/or Nefarian head in to him... it's easy enough to just swap in some other NPC and slightly re-write all the associated quests)
Oh, that's good then. I'm glad they didn't go overboard. (edit: so far... I found the wowhead tweet and it looks like it may still be ongoing since the NPC is like, a green texture :P Hopefully they mostly keep it to this kind of thing tho)
Yeah but it's Garrosh. It's not like he was a good person to begin with :P I'm always in favor of letting the villains be assholes :P
And the reason why I say it gets tricky is because sometimes those very same things are true. Sometimes writers do use fiction, and do use characters to push their own beliefs and their own agendas. It's not a black and white topic, but I generally fall strongly in the camp of no censorship.
If it fit the storyline and audience of the game, I would absolutely accept a bad guy throwing around homophobic slurs. He'd be the bad guy. Related, that's also why I'm not put out by them removing the line from Garrosh. WoW is for a younger / all audience.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).