wow WoW Developer Comments on the Recent Emote and NPC Removals and Changes

[Starym 3,787]

 

There has been a lot of discussion lately on the changes coming with patch 9.1.5, specifically the removals of certain emotes, renaming of NPCs, adding of new male counterparts of certain NPCs and mobs etc. The reactions to the changes have been mixed, but certainly very passionate on both sides, on the forums, reddit and pretty much anywhere the subject is mentioned, and we now have WoW developers responding to some of these comments.

ARandomUserNameThatW compiled some of these tweet responses, with developers responding to the claim that "no one asked for these changes" or that the only reason they are being made is because of a PR stunt and more. The developers responding are Patrick "@ScarizardPlays" Scarborough (Systems Design), Valentine"@Valentine_irl" Powell, (Senior UI Engineer), Kenneth "@Kenandstuff" Huang, Senior Encounter Game Designer and Allison "@Trulyaliem" Steele, Systems Designer.

please read. been seeing a lot of (frankly upsetting) comments from people who follow me / ‘support devs’ about some of the updates to in-game content being a ‘smokescreen for distract from bigger issues’ when really… it’s being led from within, by people who care, a Lot. https://t.co/5ddnn3nQTR

— Batrick (@ScarizardPlays) September 30, 2021

As a developer on the WoW team, when I see people say “no one was asking for this,” that feels odd to me, because yes, someone did, we as devs asked for it. If you support the devs of games, please be aware that we also have opinions on inclusion in our games. https://t.co/8K8awwBeWF

— Valentine Powell ??️‍??️‍⚧️ (@valentine_irl) September 30, 2021

The way I see it is that "they" are two completely different groups of people. "They" in charge of company wide policy changes are not the "they" in charge of wow content changes. I agree there needs to be company changes, but that doesn't mean there can't be game changes.

— Kenneth Huang (@kenandstuff) September 30, 2021

I can say with certainty that these changes did not come from requests from the c-suite, these changes came from demands from wow devs.

— Kenneth Huang (@kenandstuff) September 30, 2021

imagine a world in which everyone agreed that the trash should be taken out but they get upset when you clean up the trash's residue afterwards. if you're going to clean up shit, get the lysol and disinfect. otherwise it still stinks.

really don't understand people sometimes. https://t.co/mXc6dz4tmB

— Allison Steele ? (@trulyaliem) September 30, 2021

You can find more related tweets and a lot more player commentary over in the reddit thread.

[Frogspoison 63]

The latest /flirt changes have me shaking my head.

Heck, considering that Dwarf Female is the least played race/*filtered* combo in the game, I would be willing to bet 10k gold that, outside of Goldshire, there hasn't been a single Dwarf Female using the /flirt emote in the game for several months.

 

And some of the removed jokes/flirts, I don't have the neccessary neurological pathways to see the harm in them.

[Halock 156]

48 minutes ago, Frogspoison said:

The latest /flirt changes have me shaking my head.

I hadn't seen those.

That's nuts. That's clearly over the line of sacrificing what players like. 

They're removing 'Nice pants. What's the drop rate?'!!?!?!?

[Halock 156]

3 hours ago, Starym said:

it’s being led from within, by people who care, a Lot 

Currently what we players have been given is this:

'Goofy jokes and occasional mature innuendos are part of WoW, and probably always will be. Still, we want to remain mindful of whether certain elements of that world are welcoming to all players. In short, we want our jokes to be inclusive and not punch down.'

What's 'punching down'? How do you define that? If somebody finds something 'unwelcoming', do you take into consideration how many people find it welcoming? What sort of 'mature innuendo' is acceptable, considering we've so far seen WoW's raciest but also its mildest innuendos removed? Can we have examples? What's a 'goofy joke', meanwhile?

We need a line that at least explains what's being removed and what isn't. But the only line we've been given ('mature innuendos' = fine, 'punching down' = not fine) can't be interpreted in any useful way to explain at least half of the changes that're being made. 

... But we do have the tweets in this article. Maybe that's why people were saying, 'the corp wants it!', and are now saying, 'the devs want it'.

There's no rhyme or reason otherwise.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Halock

[Devylknyght 83]

If the Devs asked for this. Imagine how bad the expansion is going to be. 

[Borgoff33 95]

the last dev talks about taking out the "trash" and not leaving a "stink" and yet to 80%-90% of the player base all the devs are doing is adding trash to the stink pile

[Babel 39]

I've been playing this game since it was a beta in the olden days and I witnessed how people like Valentine Powell have been destroying it for the last few years. I uunderstand removing Afarsabi, but the rest? That's just stupid. People that had no hand in creating this game are claiming it and turning it into political stomping grounds for their ideologies. Well no more, it's dead to me forever. All it takes is a few snowflakes with personality issues trying to force those issues on other people.

Valentine Powell has only recently started working for Blizzard (4 years, 1 month), but he is claiming and changing content that he was never a part of. Feel free to change BFA and Shadowlands, that's how much content you might have been a part of creating, and look how people disliked said content! Other than that? GTFO!

Allison Steele - *filtered*! you've been here for an astounding 6 months! you have no talking rights! can't even claim working on Shadowlands, it was already on and kicking when she joined.

[WyzrdX 1]

30 minutes ago, Devylknyght said:

If the Devs asked for this. Imagine how bad the expansion is going to be. 

And this is one reason why I will likely let my sub expire. If I wanted to pay for some PC agenda, I would subscribe to Peacock/NBC

[Dejo93 995]

55 minutes ago, Dicebar said:

I've got a few non-binary friends, and I it turns out I do like them. I think you're misinformed.

I meant clowns like these that demand these types of ridiculous changes. The post clearly mentioned those types

[Arcling 887]

What's weird is that even some harmless stuff is being removed or changed. Removing references to devs who have done some questionable things is understandable, but some jokes and flirts? It was mostly some juvenile humor. Also, apparently even reference to Wirt's leg from Diablo is gone. Never saw it as innuendo, not sure if it ever was meant to be. Someone was really overreacting there.

[solitha 84]

3 hours ago, Halock said:

What's 'punching down'? How do you define that?

"Punching down" is a concept of a person who has social status above another doing something at the other's expense. Imagine a tall person using their height advantage to punch down at a shorter person. Men joking about women. Straight people making jokes about LGBTQ+. White people making jokes about black and brown people. The group being picked on has little social power to object, and is often ridiculed if they even try... "Oh, it's just a joke, lighten up!"... and may even be driven out because they "just don't fit into the culture here."

 

[solitha 84]

8 minutes ago, Arcling said:

What's weird is that even some harmless stuff is being removed or changed. Removing references to devs who have done some questionable things is understandable, but some jokes and flirts? It was mostly some juvenile humor. Also, apparently even reference to Wirt's leg from Diablo is gone. Never saw it as innuendo, not sure if it ever was meant to be. Someone was really overreacting there.

Wow. Third leg? Innuendo? It's not even opaque enough to be innuendo. It's more like an outright nickname for male anatomy.

[Migol 433]

Quote

please read. been seeing a lot of (frankly upsetting) comments from people who follow me / ‘support devs’ about some of the updates to in-game content being a ‘smokescreen for distract from bigger issues’ when really… it’s being led from within, by people who care, a Lot

...Ok, that would be fine if the timing wasn't so damn suspicious.

If this had happened slowly over the last year (/spit is honestly something that not many would have been sad to see leave years ago), then whatever.     But the timing of this all coming out now just as Blizzard corp is desperate for some way, any way to wash clean their very muddy faces...it's very eyebrow raising to say it spontaneously happened now. 

[Arcling 887]

11 minutes ago, solitha said:

Wow. Third leg? Innuendo? It's not even opaque enough to be innuendo. It's more like an outright nickname for male anatomy.

Could have been, but Diablo character Wirt already had one wooden leg. Was that an innuendo too? It was more viewed as a reference to Diablo, how his spare leg somehow ended up in another world. If devs really thought of something else, they could just rename it to something like Wirt's Second Leg or just Wirt's Leg. Now it's just Southsea Lamp, so entire reference is gone.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Arcling

[Lithari 194]

6 minutes ago, Migol said:

...Ok, that would be fine if the timing wasn't so damn suspicious.

If this had happened slowly over the last year (/spit is honestly something that not many would have been sad to see leave years ago), then whatever.     But the timing of this all coming out now just as Blizzard corp is desperate for some way, any way to wash clean their very muddy faces...it's very eyebrow raising to say it spontaneously happened now. 

The sad thing is, all this is telling everyone is all you got to do is have a childish hissy fit and threaten them with a lawsuit and you can pretty much get anything changed....as long as you are part of a certain, unnamed community.

I never understand why people want things changed, i mean, they remove the /spit emote, yet they keep in the burning of Teldrassil....the killing of 1,000s of innocent civilians....but apparently the /spit emote is problematic, but the burning of a very, very old tree that led to the death of 1,000s of innocent civilians......is okay.....well, i guess they got their morality going the right way. lol

[ResoWho 68]

the problem is, that you see them do those changes while the whole addon lagging behind due to several reasons like covid 19 or cutting off jobs or due to that lawsuit now.

those changes are ok for me and probably for most people also, just the timing is off. if they gave us 9.1.5 without bigger issues and then doing those other changes i bet there wouldnt be such a cry out

but then again those changes, unlike the devs say, comming just right in time for reputation improvement

Edited October 4, 2021 by ResoWho

[Halock 156]

1 hour ago, solitha said:

"Punching down" is a concept of a person who has social status above another doing something at the other's expense. Imagine a tall person using their height advantage to punch down at a shorter person.

Thank you, although not sure if great example of bad idea or complex example of complex idea.  😉

The question was rhetorical, though! Because their former statement said (removing a little context) 'innuendos and jokes are okay unless they punch down.' So removal hinges on whether or not the joke punches down, right?

... But application of that to the actual changes we're seeing doesn't yield a consistent, logical explanation of them. Half of them punch nowhere at all, let alone down. 

I was saying, 'it seems to me like if this is justification you should define it more precisely because it doesn't match up', not, 'I don't understand the justification you gave.' 🙃

[mickeymousebrigade 0]

This still doesn't solve an overall problem. Folks can still make their own emotes. Why just the other day a nice fellow decided he wanted to S*** on me through an emote. I was all like.. thanks man. Appreciate it... 

[Arcling 887]

23 minutes ago, Sparkiekong said:

This still doesn't solve an overall problem. Folks can still make their own emotes. Why just the other day a nice fellow decided he wanted to S*** on me through an emote. I was all like.. thanks man. Appreciate it... 

The difference is that opposite faction won't see them, they see custom emotes as "(name) is making some strange gestures". Normal /spit is visible to everyone.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Arcling

[BobTheHuman 72]

Hey devs, instead of looking on women as fruit salads how about you try and develop a good expansion for a change? You've been making pointless, time wasting progression systems and then you add catch-ups, which invalidate all time investment the very next patch. I know it's hard for you, I mean you're the ones who considered disabling covenant abilities outside of Shadowlands, I'm sure it took a 5 head galaxy brain to decide against it.

However, since you've made your priorities clear, let me just say 'Fu'ck you very much!' in advance, for the next time you improve the game by changing an Achievement name.

[Nym85 72]

1 hour ago, Arcling said:

The difference is that opposite faction won't see them, they see custom emotes as "(name) is making some strange gestures". Normal /spit is visible to everyone.

That would be a solution tbh. Keep the function of emotes that can be used for harassment on the side of the player who uses them but for everyone else, make them function like custom emotes.

 

But really I don't think the emotes are the issue. The changes to quests/achievements that are at worst immature humor and puns that aren't really misogynistic or bigoted, they are just immature make no sense given what they said. It makes it feel like the point is to sanitize the game. Are they planning to sell to Disney???

[Arcling 887]

8 minutes ago, Nym85 said:

But really I don't think the emotes are the issue. The changes to quests/achievements that are at worst immature humor and puns that aren't really misogynistic or bigoted, they are just immature make no sense given what they said. It makes it feel like the point is to sanitize the game. Are they planning to sell to Disney???

Yeah, this game was always 12+ and such humor was fine. It was harmless and mostly juvenile. Now even some Disney productions seem bolder, in comparison to what they are doing here. Apparently raunchy joke is way worse than genocide.

[Helvorn 57]

Insert "Well, that escalated quickly" MEME here

[Grumar 186]

WoW devs are such arrogant douchbags, most of us have been part of this game longer than they have and they have such an inflated ego despite releasing and creating *filtered*. They feel they can do what ever they want and we should just gobble up their *filtered*.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Grumar

[Calorat 78]

Until Thrall (which literally means slave) is named changed throughout the entire game to Go'el or something else, it's obvious they aren't serious about changing all offensive names or ideas, they are just serious about changing mostly minor things to win brownie points / pat themselves of the back.  Like I've said before the game is called World of War craft,  wars are one of the worst acts in history and the game glorifies it with it's name.  Nearly every act in game is you killing something else (often beings that the game says are sentient) and apparently that ISN'T offensive or mean??  Wanna prove this is about actual ideals and not pandering change the name of the game itself. Cause honestly the names Blizzard and World of Warcraft are viewed in a worse light and seen as more offensive now than any name, emote, or image in the game itself.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Calorat
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