wow New Character Customization Options in the Shadowlands Expansion

[Brutalis 165]

9 hours ago, Vxn said:

Representation matters and the fact that you see no problem in an all white world and actually feel as though an all white world is normative and natural says you have a lot of work to do in unlearning your own racial privileges and/or internalized racism. 

This just in, writers and game devs create works predominantly based on their own race. Hell, it's a well known fact that other cultures draw Jesus as their own race as opposed to looking like he's from the Middle East - white folk depict him as white, oriental as oriental... Is it problematic that Journey To The West, one of the most important works in Asian fiction, has no white people in it? Of course not. It's a fictional world based on the writer's own view of the world. You can tell me that's an ancient example from a world that wasn't global like today, but historical context has never prevented pro-PC activists from trying to enforce a modern take on historical fiction. Take Saving Private Ryan, for example. African-Americans were not allowed to serve in combat roles in most regiments at the time and yet people were outraged at the lack of them.

Or Dunkirk. There were no blacks, at all, in the BEF at the time and the other coloured regiments such as the Sikhs weren't at the spot of beach depicted so it's historically accurate for every soldier in that film to be white. Yet still, complaints about the lack of black actors and soldiers.

It's sorta the same with WoW. Warcraft has existed for decades and has never been this way. Twenty-Five years or something, and from the get-go it's only had Caucasians with an in-universe explanation to boot. It didn't need to have other races because it's a fantasy version of humanity and does not reflect the real world in the least. This latest move, this retcon, makes no in-universe sense.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Brutalis

[Jagarn 0]

4 hours ago, Brutalis said:

Point A: ...It didn't need to have other races because it's a fantasy version of humanity and does not reflect the real world in the least...

...

Point B: ...There has never been separate races of humans, and humans are only a few thousand years of evolution away from the Vrykul so there's no way they could have evolved and diverged like this in that space of time...

A: So you're telling us that the world (of Warcraft) has not reflected or adapted different human cultures in it's universe? That every fictional cultural is so original in concept and design that we don't see it at all in the world? That this isn't a world where we see midieval European architecture, cultures, and religious practices adapted to in-game humans? Where it even diverges to show Victorian inspired gilneans or the cutural differences in its maritime daughter nation of kul tiras? We even see our own cultures reflected in other in-game races: native American inspired art and architecture in tauren, trolls that almost universaly speak in a Jamaican accent and practice some adaption of Caribbean hoodoo/animism, where some Asian architecture and aesthetic is adapted for night elven and pandaren establishments. Heck even the kyrian are in some part adapted from ancient Greek architecture and apparel!

This is a world that constantly reflects and sattires pop culture references in their quests, achievements, and even characters: e.x. John Keeshan. WoW and fantasy in general is a reflection of our world whether you want to believe it or not. That's why we like it so much.

 

Point B: Evolution in this game is almost comically fast. It's even suggested in Northrend that humans started to develope in a single generation - which is intregal on why we even saw their vrykrul ancestors in the Northrend war. This is a world where in a few short thousand years the highborne diverged into "diminutive" high elves without the well of eternity. And conversely with too much magic they diverged into nightbourn in between a speculated time of 1,000 to 7,000 thousand years. Even the trolls diverged in a few thousand years of surviving in this hostile world.

Heck even orcs are more racial divergent from each other: i.e. green orcs vs draenor orcs, and blackrock orcs are almost significantly different from the other clans.

With the sheer amount of diverse races in wow, the prime example being trolls and elves who have at least 5 different races each, it's not an outlandish idea that humans could develop minor "races" in the game. Which is probably inappropriately called that by the players when you look at all the other races development. The differences between these different "human races" is so minute in facial skeletal structure and skin tone in comparison to the other evolutionary examples ingame. 

With magic being a major driving force in evolution, it's not bizare in the slightest for minute changes in human in the short amount of time they've been around. I doubt humanity is even 5000 years old.

[Mumbls 2]

Are we gonna be able to customize our existing character or are we going to have to roll alts?

[Brutalis 165]

15 hours ago, Jagarn said:

This is a world that constantly reflects and sattires pop culture references in their quests, achievements, and even characters: e.x. John Keeshan. WoW and fantasy in general is a reflection of our world whether you want to believe it or not. That's why we like it so much.

The fact that there are references and ideas taken from the real world doesn't mean that the humans of Azeroth are representative of human culture and society IRL. The fact that are different races of humans IRL does not mandate there being different races of humans in an entirely fictional, fantasy universe.

 

15 hours ago, Jagarn said:

Evolution in this game is almost comically fast.

When influenced by magic, yes. I do not see any great powersource or magical event that turned the entirely Caucasian humanity into divergent races. Do you?

Trolls became Night Elves because of the Well of Eternity. Night Elves became Nightborne due to the Night Well and became High Elves due to the Sunwell.

Vyrkul, for some reason, started to have "weak and ugly" children after "their gods abandoned them". They gave birth to humans. Where abouts in the timeline do those white humans, who have been depicted as being white from the dawn of Warcraft, diverge into other races? There is no evolutionary pressure for humans to get dark skin, at all, because humans never settled in the hot or jungle regions of Azeroth, so can you explain it to me?

 

15 hours ago, Jagarn said:

Heck even orcs are more racial divergent from each other: i.e. green orcs vs draenor orcs, and blackrock orcs are almost significantly different from the other clans.

The changes in skin colour have in-universe explainations. Fel, and lack of light respectively.

 

15 hours ago, Jagarn said:

With the sheer amount of diverse races in wow, the prime example being trolls and elves who have at least 5 different races each

The native sentient life of Azeroth originates around the Well of Eternity, which "accelerated the cycle of growth and rebirth" according to Chronicles vol 1 - and the trolls were one of the very first to rise from the primordial ooze, and thanks to the way the Well accelerates evolution they diverged into the species we see today. And I've already explained elves. Magic did it.

What magic made black humans? When and where did it happen?

[Malenroh 0]

They're all still ugly af

[Jagarn 0]

On 11/4/2019 at 8:05 AM, Brutalis said:

Vyrkul, for some reason, started to have "weak and ugly" children after "their gods abandoned them".

............

What magic made black humans? When and where did it happen?

My friend, I'm terribly sorry for not elaborating on the obvious reason for the development of humanity. Thankfully I've had some time to think and know that I wasn't clear enough: Humanity did not develop because their gods abandoned them or there was strong evolutionary drive to make them smaller. It was magic, I can assure you of that, because there's a name for it: the curse of flesh.

That's right! The same curse of flesh that turned all those clunky iron and stone automotons into the hunky gals and pals we all love to kill!

Now the curse of flesh is important in the degeneration of vrykul is that it manifested a second time. It had never struck again before, that we know of, but this especially virally case begs the question of how strong is it? We don't know! It's funny how much we don't know in this game that the lore team isn't liable to tell us immediately or at all.

What we do know is the few, and I mean painfully few, examples of dark toned vrykul in the world. You can see some dark toned, not super dark, vrykul in Northrend, probably stormheim too - if you look around quite a bit. 

Though we do have Ragnvald Drakeborn, a warrior class Vrukul follower who is considerably dark toned. Yes I know he's the only one I could find, more on why later. Before you say humanity exclusively came from the Northrend tribes, we already know that the Drust -certainly humans- are all descendants of vrykul from another part of the world.

We don't know ALL the tribes of vrykul that sailed around the world to degenerate into humans. Nor do we know how existing dark skinned humans came to be. We don't need to because the lore is somewhat solid, compared to void elves at least.

Why?

1. We have some darker toned vrykuls who are descendants of other dark toned vrykuls. It's not hard to believe that there are or were some dark skinned muarders in history. That kinda thing probably doesn't just appear randomly.

2. It probably does just appear randomly - that curse of flesh sure is tricky when it acts up! We don't know the it acts on a day to day basis or how it affects humanity's children. But it is certain that it played a vital role.... twice in the development of humanity.

3. And this is important to consider: we've already had dark skinned humans in WoW for 15 years. That's right, the last 15 years there have been dark skinned human NPC's running around! Who would've guessed that? And let's not forget too that players can be black or otherwise as well! If it's an option in-game then it's pretty lore safe... I pray it is.

4. Why are there no black or brown fellows as lore characters? (Besides Natalie Seline, Justin Bartlett, Don Carlos, Interrogater Vishas - not huge characters I admit but they're important enough to kill, resurrect, or do quests for.)  It's an easy one: blizzard didn't care about that in the beginning. It's an easy one because a bunch of white dudes grew the begining story of Warcraft from their DND adventures... And continued it on with other white folks for quite awhile.

Pro-tip they still don't care about a lot of things, e.x. masterloot, mission table, high elves, etc.

5. You're right that they're not mandated to implement or care about the diversity of a highly diverse species they were inspired by (humans, even the brown ones). But you have to consider the demographic that created this story and how it's effected by their perspective. Especially with their story mandate of cool rules.

6. We have void elves. Because... Alleria is cool, right? Right? The take away is that blizz can add whatever they want, whenever they want. Establishing lore beforehand is not too important when you can establish it right before you add the race! Which they don't need to establish anything extra because there's been dark skinned humans in game for 15 years.

But that's all I got, friend.

At the end of the day you can hold your opinions of matters both real and fictional all you like. It's certainly not changing anything in-game. Nor are my opinions either! But please consider long on why you fervantly want

On 11/3/2019 at 11:12 AM, Brutalis said:

no blacks, at all, in 

World of Warcraft.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Jagarn

[Crookid 3]

On 11/3/2019 at 5:02 AM, Vxn said:

They got it wrong a decade ago though. Ten years ago media, hollywood, and the genre of fantasy in all it’s forms was incredibly white-washed, but why? Why are all of these supposedly imaginative fictional worlds dominated by white people? White privilege, the fact that many of the WoW devs are white and our society historically white washes fantasy. I think this is because of euro-centric beauty ideals as well as white men dominating media production. 

Representation matters and the fact that you see no problem in an all white world and actually feel as though an all white world is normative and natural says you have a lot of work to do in unlearning your own racial privileges and/or internalized racism. 

And how quickly what you really mean comes out. It is quick to see why it is your ideologue that is truly the issue and how quickly your principles break down under scrutiny. Besides immediately jumping to racism when you started your response originally quite well, shows more about you than it does the person making a very fair point. Why is it that his opinion is so problematic according to you? The fact that you cannot voice your opinion about ethnicity without someone labeling you racist or misrepresenting your point is the true bias. 
 

Medievil Fantasy is an overtly European-based genre. By your own logic, it makes perfect sense why they would not think to include nonexistent ethnicities in a fantasy game just to include specific people. Also, read the Kotaku article. He is right, it was about inclusion and pandering. They had to refer to their diversity department which is so ridiculous in itself. In fact, I would be willing to bet my entire life savings that you are not black or Asian.

 

As for the races, they do not make sense. Historically the other races took in appropriated real life cultures. That’s what gives wow it’s charm. The fact that could never exist today if it was a new game is what is truly problematic. Also, the reason why focusing on representation is futile is because you will immediately run into issues. For example, I don’t see Italians being represented in the humans which are European so now it looks like the game is prioritizing blacks and Asians over Italians. Obviously, I do not have an issue and I see Italian culture being represented in goblins which I think is awesome but do you see how “inclusivity“ for the sake of woke ideologue as opposed to what fits the game or genre snowballs?

Telling someone to “just don’t play the game if you don’t like it” not only hinders free expression but is overtly intellectually dishonest and inconsistent. Why is it that you think your opinion is the right one or do you just think you are morally superior?

Go ask 100 WoW  players what they would like to see in character customization. I bet 99% of them will say posture options for the hunched races, no bones for undead, body type options for humans, Wildhammer for dwarves, high elves for the alliance etc. before ever mentioning black or Asian humans. Besides not blaming people for having at least a little bit of an issue with forced diversity when other races already represent different real life cultures, why are people not allowed to feel as if the game is for them simply because they are white? If there was a genre rooted in an African culture that was popular and they added white people as playable despite not making sense lore wise, would you be making the same arguments in reverse? No, you will likely make a point about historical oppression. Well, then what about an Asian game rooted in Asian culture? Would you argue that whites must be represented?

The game was already inclusive you just see otherwise because of flawed ideology used to control you, vilify white people for having an opinion that aligns with their interests hypocritically enough and promote self loathing victim by proxy. Forced diversity ruins everything. Just look at Game of Thrones also. Woke outrage by those never even interested in the show until it was popular demanded representation leading to the most uninteresting characters.  Again, I doubt any black or Asian person gives a damn especially when you look at BlizzCon’s demographic. So why the change? To fend off Twitter mobs and pander to countlessly debunked ideologue, period. And that is why people can’t stand it. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Crookid

[Brutalis 165]

22 minutes ago, Jagarn said:

That's right! The same curse of flesh that turned all those clunky iron and stone automotons into the hunky gals and pals we all love to kill!

Do you have a source for it being the curse of flesh that made flesh-vrykul birth human children? The quest "Anguish of Nifflevar" where we learn about human evolution makes no mention of it being the curse striking a second time. Can't find it mentioned anwywhere that there was a second wave of the Curse but I may be wrong.

Regardless, Vrykul are white. The fact you've found a single example of one that has a tan doesn't change that.

 

30 minutes ago, Jagarn said:

blizzard didn't care about that in the beginning.

So you freely admit that they're making the change now because of social pressures and modern culture, and are forsaking their original artistic vision for the game? Because that's my point.

24 minutes ago, Jagarn said:

Before you say humanity exclusively came from the Northrend tribes, we already know that the Drust -certainly humans- are all descendants of vrykul from another part of the world.

No. The Drust are literally vrykul. Not descendants. Blizz say so in this interview:

Humanity arrived on Kul'Tiras and found it was already inhabited by Vrykul. Therefore, humanity evolved exclusively from the Vrykul of Northrend.

25 minutes ago, Jagarn said:

And this is important to consider: we've already had dark skinned humans in WoW for 15 years

Dark skin, yes. Not black. They never had the facial and skeletal structure of an African human. Nor have we had orientals before.

35 minutes ago, Jagarn said:

But please consider long on why you fervantly want

A company to stand up against pressure from the Left to mandate diversity in a game that has had none in it's universe for decades. A company to stand up for their creation as it was and not bow to the politically correct crowd who scream for such things when they're not needed.

[Crookid 3]

38 minutes ago, Brutalis said:

Do you have a source for it being the curse of flesh that made flesh-vrykul birth human children? The quest "Anguish of Nifflevar" where we learn about human evolution makes no mention of it being the curse striking a second time. Can't find it mentioned anwywhere that there was a second wave of the Curse but I may be wrong.

Regardless, Vrykul are white. The fact you've found a single example of one that has a tan doesn't change that.

 

So you freely admit that they're making the change now because of social pressures and modern culture, and are forsaking their original artistic vision for the game? Because that's my point.

No. The Drust are literally vrykul. Not descendants. Blizz say so in this interview:

Humanity arrived on Kul'Tiras and found it was already inhabited by Vrykul. Therefore, humanity evolved exclusively from the Vrykul of Northrend.

Dark skin, yes. Not black. They never had the facial and skeletal structure of an African human. Nor have we had orientals before.

A company to stand up against pressure from the Left to mandate diversity in a game that has had none in it's universe for decades. A company to stand up for their creation as it was and not bow to the politically correct crowd who scream for such things when they're not needed.

And don’t forget, if there was a game rooted in African or Asian culture, and whites became represented, they would never defend it. That is the hypocrisy of woke culture. It’s okay for white genres like Medieval fantasy to get retconned for “muh diversity” but never the other way around. 
 

Frankly, I wouldn’t even care as much if Blizzard stated “we are doing this to give people more freedom and expression. This will not change our philosophies and we are not doing it over political / PC pressures”. No, instead they admit to Kotaku that they referred to their “diversity department” to ensure there is no “cultural appropriation” or to ensure they don’t “offend” anyone. Never mind the people who made up 99% of Blizzcon. It’s all about ensuring the Twitter mob doesn’t criticize them for not being woke enough. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Crookid

[durdyenglish 298]

On 11/3/2019 at 2:12 PM, Brutalis said:

This just in, writers and game devs create works predominantly based on their own race. Hell, it's a well known fact that other cultures draw Jesus as their own race as opposed to looking like he's from the Middle East - white folk depict him as white, oriental as oriental... Is it problematic that Journey To The West, one of the most important works in Asian fiction, has no white people in it? Of course not. It's a fictional world based on the writer's own view of the world. You can tell me that's an ancient example from a world that wasn't global like today, but historical context has never prevented pro-PC activists from trying to enforce a modern take on historical fiction. Take Saving Private Ryan, for example. African-Americans were not allowed to serve in combat roles in most regiments at the time and yet people were outraged at the lack of them.

Or Dunkirk. There were no blacks, at all, in the BEF at the time and the other coloured regiments such as the Sikhs weren't at the spot of beach depicted so it's historically accurate for every soldier in that film to be white. Yet still, complaints about the lack of black actors and soldiers.

It's sorta the same with WoW. Warcraft has existed for decades and has never been this way. Twenty-Five years or something, and from the get-go it's only had Caucasians with an in-universe explanation to boot. It didn't need to have other races because it's a fantasy version of humanity and does not reflect the real world in the least. This latest move, this retcon, makes no in-universe sense.

Out of all the things to die-on-the-hill over, opposing the addition of racial variations to humans (designed to mirror our actual species and allow us to feel like WE as real-life individuals are in the virtual world, as opposed to a fantasy race avatar) puts you on real shaky ground. Given Blizzard's willingness to retcon major lore when it's convenient, I think them going back and saying "oh and not every human is a piece of white bread" is fairly innocuous. 

Stop making this about opposing liberals, snowflakes, and SJWs. While true that the original Warcraft lore focused on light-skinned humans, these humans were from two specific kingdoms. Now that the WORLD of Warcraft has opened up, Blizzard is recognizing that there are pockets of humans all over Azeroth, many of which are not from the kingdoms (admittedly) modeled off European/Arthurian culture. As demonstrated with the other races, large variation in skin color and cultural aesthetic makes sense for humans. 

Remember: nobody cared when they added dark skin Kul Tirans. Since Kul Tirans are essentially no different from classic humans (their bulkier physiques are more the product of multi-generational, hard-working lifestyles rather than being a separate species), why would it be odd to imply that that variation exists across the human spectrum? I'm uncomfortable with the notion that the original human has to be light-skinned in order for people to be happy - seems a little too much like the white-supremacy/pure-race argument for me.

I'd recommend picking at something else if I were you - going against methods of inclusion really doesn't put you in a good light.

[durdyenglish 298]

21 hours ago, Brutalis said:

Do you have a source for it being the curse of flesh that made flesh-vrykul birth human children? The quest "Anguish of Nifflevar" where we learn about human evolution makes no mention of it being the curse striking a second time. Can't find it mentioned anwywhere that there was a second wave of the Curse but I may be wrong.

Regardless, Vrykul are white. The fact you've found a single example of one that has a tan doesn't change that.

 

So you freely admit that they're making the change now because of social pressures and modern culture, and are forsaking their original artistic vision for the game? Because that's my point.

No. The Drust are literally vrykul. Not descendants. Blizz say so in this interview:

Humanity arrived on Kul'Tiras and found it was already inhabited by Vrykul. Therefore, humanity evolved exclusively from the Vrykul of Northrend.

Dark skin, yes. Not black. They never had the facial and skeletal structure of an African human. Nor have we had orientals before.

A company to stand up against pressure from the Left to mandate diversity in a game that has had none in it's universe for decades. A company to stand up for their creation as it was and not bow to the politically correct crowd who scream for such things when they're not needed.

"politically correct crowd who scream for such things when they're not needed." Can you imagine playing a human in WoW for 15 years as a non-white person? Humans are the race for people that don't want to play a fantastical avatar; if you're any other race but white, you're denied that experience. This was a mistake from the gate and Blizzard is right to correct it. We're not talking about maintaining the historical accuracy of real life events, we're talking about adjusting the aesthetic of a fantasy world so that the race designed to mirror our real-life counterparts did so more accurately. 

Edited November 7, 2019 by durdyenglish

[Valks 2,373]

Just a reminder to everyone: it's fine if your discussion becomes heated as long as it stays on topic. If the discussion falls apart and it simply becomes about insulting each other, I'll lock the thread and ban as necessary. 

Discussion is fine, but please keep it relevant to the original post.

[durdyenglish 298]

18 hours ago, Crookid said:

Another straw man. I bet you’re white, frankly. I’ve never heard a black or Asian person complain about this. The only ones who do are those who don’t even play the game spending their time exercising  their wokeness on social media. 
 

inclusion for the sake of inclusion that doesn’t fit otherwise snowballs. The same logic can be used for any other ethnicities. Even white ones that aren’t represented. What about Italians? What about white hispanics? What about Jews? Especially European cultures, does that mean you’re prioritizing black and Asian countries over European culture in a genre rooted in European history? Could you imagine if that happened in a genre rooted in African or Asian history? Please, save me your moral grandstanding. 
 

Like I said earlier, the problem doesn’t even lie with the changes themselves but WHY the changes take place and you can’t blame people for having an issue with it. “Diversity division”, “we don’t want to engage in cultural appropriation or be offensive” these are all Blizzard stances they admit to and instead of people having balls and bringing up tough ideological questions, they’ll just allow Blizzard to be hypocrites as long as the outrage mob gets what they want so they don’t get the bad PR shareholders fear so much. We want changes because they fit not because the developers are scared of those who don’t play their game instead of those that do.
 

Unrelated, but a serious question I’d like you to think about: Why is it that Europeans or whites are not allowed to have something that represents them without needing to “include” everyone? The Witcher heavily rooted in Polish history is retconned for diversity on Netflix. Why? Same thing with GoT. The list goes on. Why if someone has an issue with it, they’re a “racist”?

So your issue isn't with them adding the customization options, it's that people wanted it so they got it?

I'm not really sure where you're going with this. When players are outspoken about other game design matters, we expect developers to take it seriously (i.e. Heart of Azeroth/Azerite Gear). When Blizzard changed those systems, we were all happy. 

With these new changes, the WoW team killed two birds with one stone: they soothed the growing voices of dissent regarding the lack of inclusive options AND bulked up the customization options for the most homogenized race in the game. As many people have put it, a true win-win. 

I understand that you're upset about lore continuity, but I've made the point in a few other posts that Blizzard makes fairly sweeping change to the lore/game world at will. Why would adding some strangely absent-from-the-gate customization options be the thing you go to war over, especially when it makes a lot of people (specifically those of non-white ethnicity) feel better about their game experience? You may think that inclusion is pandering, but it matters to people who struggle to find representation and who, maybe for the first time ever, now get to see "themselves" as the hero.

It's not a straw man: I'm saying your argument for lore continuity is bogus given your willingness to accept other, more sweeping changes to the lore. I'm saying your argument for some sort of historical accuracy is also bogus as this is a fantasy world (as is GoT, by the way), so saying it's based solely in a particular culture is incorrect. After invalidating your claims, I'm stating my own position that this addition should have been included in from the beginning. Humans in Warcraft may have been based on the Arthurian aesthetic, but in World of Warcraft they've always been the avatar of those who wanted their character to look like them. If large portions of the player base are denied that option, it seems odd given the amount of customization given to the fantastical races.

As for your "white representation" argument, I suggest you review the entirety of entertainment history in the modern world, excluding maybe the past 10 years.  

[Melvorn 1]

So I will try to keep my two cents on this relatively concise.

I generally am against trying to overly culturally appropriate things that don't fit together in media. Especially when people change specific characters with an already established appearance - like when there was the talks of changing Ciri's appearance in The Witcher - from another creator's source material. I consider that about equal to if there were talks of making T'Challa (Black Panther) an Asian guy, but still have him be the king of Wakanda. 

But you can't go seeing that in every instance of there being any hint of increased representation. It's very easy going down that rabbit hole.

Have we had characters shown as being Black, Asian or otherwise in Warcraft so far? Not explicitly no. Would it be the first time that Blizzard changed their lore to fit their business/plans for the games going forward? Not at all. Warcraft lore has no shortages of retconned material. If that's the reason you are upset about them adding these features, then you should be crying foul about every other instance of them revising other parts of the story as well.

Is this politically motivated? Honestly? Probably not. As far as I am aware, they have not gone out of their way to change the ethnicity of existing lore characters to make them more 'culturally appropriate'. Anduin isn't suddenly an Asian kid. They are giving players more customisation options.

Why? If not politics and societal pressure, then why? Simple. Blizzard is a company and a business first and foremost. They don't NEED a political motivation to put these options in the game. Does it hurt the current player base? Nope. The most likely reason is that all it takes is some new face and potentially some skin tone options (on top of the new hair), no need to mess with the skeleton of the models and it can potentially act as one of the features that attracts more customers and thus increase income. You can agree with that assessment or not, but that seems to be their conclusion judging by this. If they had figured that adding these features would somehow decrease their income, they wouldn't have done it. From a corporate standpoint there's nothing more to it.

So in short? Like most things in business it's about money. 

[Gilifire 2]

Very nice discussion, for the most part, from everyone involved. I really do believe that and it is fantastic to witness it - again, for the most part.

For myself: I am very happy if it helps more WoW players feel more engaged and connected with their own avatar. And I am happy if it helps to attract new players. I know that to you, those who feel very much annoyed or even frustrated by this, it might be harder to understand, but really do please consider that this might be a big deal for certain people, especially younger kids. I do know a couple personally and it really is worth it seeing their excitement when they suddenly feel included in a world/community where they desperately wanted to feel like they belonged but for whatever reasons could not. Please, believe me that this is a VERY important aspect of our lives. Yes. They are not the ones who moan about it, its us, SJWs as you might have the urge to say, who moan about it. But, for my part, I think they do not moan about it, because they do not believe it can be any different, not that they do not want it (based on my, obviously, limited personal and academic experience).

I am pretty sure it is not really a big deal to you. Maybe you are just irritated because you feel that things are changing way out of line in order to suit certain people's requirements - which run counter with the supposed historical and whatever other, e.g. lore, context. If all the other things were equal, then I would agree. However, please then I ask you to look just a bit further back into our history (as durdyenglish says) and consider all the moments where basically all parts in all media content were portrayed by caucasians (and initially only caucasian males) - starting with Ancient Greece theatre where eunuchs played female roles with women not being allowed to act to the first half of the 20th century where non-caucasian roles were played by caucasian actors to the second half of the century, where, gradually, the non-caucasian roles were played by non-caucasian actors, but they very often referred to very demeaning and stereotypical depictions of said ethnicity, usually based on some condescending reductionism. The European world of fantasy is most famous for its white-washing, understandably, since it is based on medieval history which has always been depicted as predominantly white (as it for the most par was) - note however, that Sapkowski has never explicitly stated the skin colour of any of the characters in his books - hardly ever do any authors do this, it is primarily our, again understandably, white-centric minds who imagine all of them to be caucasian. If you can agree with this then surely you can see the major imbalance in representation. And if you can also agree, even if just for a second, that representation CAN matter to those who would appreciate if their WoW avatar looked more like them, is it not a path definitely worth venturing on? I feel that in such context simply throwing in stuff to allow more customization AND to allow some people feel more connected to their characters makes sense. it is a win-win for literally everyone.

It definitely is worth it, at least for my part, as I have played WoW since february 2005 (with long breaks here and there) and I always love seeing new players join the fray. I still have not managed to find a better MMORPG than WoW (unfortunately) and though I wholeheartedly agree with Melvorn (Blizzard's reasons are driven entirely by profit, shockingly), I still thank Blizzard for many things, while I lambast them for only one or two.

Have a great day

EDIT: Crap. Now I really want to play WoW even though I have not turned it on in 10 months. See you there ?


 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Gilifire