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

[VictorVakaras 80]

4 hours ago, Calorat said:

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.

They're going to keep all the war and killing because people who've died in actual wars can't whine about it on Twitter. 

[BananaFish 0]

19 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

No, it has to be changed, the crusade must go on, no matter the damage you cause to the game.

Like a BURNING Crusade? 😄

[Mournrethar 15]

18 hours ago, Devylknyght said:

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

Oh boi..

[Veremor 2]

I'm happy that the trash is being cleaned up from the game. Imagine if in the Lord of the Ring one had found a *filtered* joke: it would have lowered quality. WoW is an high fantasy game: vulgarity should have no place in this genre, as well as in any art form. Someone says "the removal of coarse jokes changes the game as I remembered it", but I think that it would be strange if a player thinks that the most peculiar aspect of WoW are coarse jokes instead of its wonderful, magical world.

 

In the past days I was wondering if these changes were asked from top executives: that would be doing the right thing for wrong reasons. But, as these tweets show, these changes were wanted by devs (whose first concern, unlike top executives, is the game rather than money), therefore it is doing the right thing for right reasons.

[Helvorn 57]

11 hours ago, Tagoda said:

You were asked if you were OK with it...It's in the terms and conditions that they can make any and all changes regardless of whether you like it or not

I get your argument. Yes when I play WoW, I agree that changes can and will be done. Changes that affect overall gameplay and style of the game.

Now, a but. But, these are reallife things, that sink into a fantasy game. Its LGBTQ stuff, that has no background whatsoever in a fantasy game. I read the tweets of these Devs, who are mostly *filtered* LGBTQ supporters (again, I support their cause) and they want to have this lifestyle represented in Azeroth.

This is bringing real life Zeitgeist into a fantasy MMO by force, because a minority feels offended by "trash" like the Love Rocket, that has to be "cleaned out". Which tells a lot about  your fantasies, when you feel offended by this, rather than just smirk and smile and thats it. Oh and don´t forget "the lysol and disinfect." These are not my words.

This "clean up" will only end until its World of Mickey Mouse, 

[blacktiger1974 24]

Those "tweets" are corporate fakes. 

 

[solitha 84]

23 hours ago, Arcling said:

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.

Yes, Wirt was an amputee, and I dearly hope you don't go around making suggestive winks and nods at random people's prosthetics. Yes, the item in WoW was a cross-over reference, but also a very obvious bawdy male joke. Once the joke was gone there was no reason to keep the reference. All of Wirt's actual legs were accounted for in Diablo.

[solitha 84]

3 hours ago, Helvorn said:

Now, a but. But, these are reallife things, that sink into a fantasy game. Its LGBTQ stuff, that has no background whatsoever in a fantasy game. I read the tweets of these Devs, who are mostly *filtered* LGBTQ supporters (again, I support their cause) and they want to have this lifestyle represented in Azeroth.

The sole reason LGBTQ stuff has "no background whatsoever in a fantasy game" is because straight people have held the power in storytelling for so long, and defended that power rabidly.

LGBTQ belongs in WoW.

[solitha 84]

22 hours ago, Halock said:

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.' 🙃

Sorry, mistranslation on my part!

After taking a psychology course on discrimination and prejudice, I wouldn't really try to search for objective meaning in all of it. Sometimes, it's very hard to see the "down" being punched unless you're the one the fist is aimed at.

[Warmanreaper 0]

Made an account just to comment. The problem here is that you are focusing on the most miniscule minority in existence. Think of the amount of content you guys could be helping out / adding and instead you're catering to pure snowflakes that probably shouldn't have access to the internet if their feelings are being hurt by emotes and painting. Guys I don't know what to tell you other than people love the game, they just don't love the problems the game has currently. emotes and paintings aren't one of them, they aren't even close. There's so much more important and more meaningful content to produce than to change extremely old emotes and cosmetic type stuff. Just go about fixing the game, don't go about literally snowflaking the entire game just because someone on the bench like Valentine Powell thinks his personal views should be in game. That is 100% the REVERSE of what we want. Just make the game guys. Stop changing stuff that doesn't need changing.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Warmanreaper

[Jenetikitty 2]

Wow.  If this is going to make all of you quit, then please get out.

I am DELIGHTED by these changes. I haven't used /flirt or /joke in nearly a decade because I felt really uncomfortable with the idea that my character might, for example, suggest she knows what her uncle's balls look like, or imply that her father had *filtered* with her! Or might make gross gurgling noises, or imply that she has nipple piercings, or any number of other things. 

Flirting isn't saying "I want to have *filtered* with you, my body is ready for *filtered*."  ...Flirting is being teasing. Here are some GREAT flirts in the game:

• You know the way to a woman's heart? Hoof rubs. Trust me on this one, darling.
• You must be a siren, cause I can't resist ya!
• Ye put a gleam in my eye. Well, so does lava but mostly you!
• I hope you don't mind a little howling in bed.
• You have six different smiles. One for when you're angry. One for when you tear flesh. One for when you chew flesh. One for when you loot bodies. One for when you skin game. And one for when you want to kill something.
• The nights are so chilly on this planet.
• I don't feel the 1 to 10 scale is fine enough to capture subtle details of compatibility. I'd prefer a 12 dimensional compatibility scale with additional parameters for mechanical aptitude and torque.
• I like large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
• Is your mother a fire elemental? Because you are smokin' hot!

THOSE are the sorts of things I want to see when I flirt, not my character talking about how I have no boundaries or that I have a vibrate function.

"I've never heard anyone complain about this." 

Of course you haven't. Girls--and yes, I mean children--are taught (not with words, but with actions) that guys can say all kinds of things. That it's okay for them to be rude or crude. Boys can pee outside, but girls can't. Burping and farting is unladylike. Boys can go out and get muddy and "boys will be boys," while a girl can't DO that without moms freaking out.

We learn that guys can get away with saying all sorts of things, especially when they get older. No one cares about two guys talking about the size of their private parts in public, or who they had fun with last weekend--but girls can't even talk about their periods without getting disgusted looks.

Every girl (especially girls who've been playing wow for over a decade) who hangs out in "boy's spaces" learns that they HAVE to accept that guys are going to talk about whatever they want, no matter how rude it might be. Interested in computers? Programming? Games? Comic books? Tabletop roleplaying? Hunting? Fishing? Cars? Sports? Yeah. We learned a long time ago that we just have to let it roll over us. Saying something will start a conflict, which could lead to us losing friends, to being exiled or ostracized from 'the gang'... Actually it's better if we can fit in and joke right along with the guys and pretend we're not ACTUALLY a girl. Just one of the guys y'know? Haha, yeah, balls are hilarious man. No, I love when you ask me to explain why your girlfriend is angry with you.

Of course you've never heard anyone complaining. We've all be trained to accept it. Most of us roll our eyes quietly and move on, because complaining is just going to make people tell us to shut up, to stop being sensitive, that it's just a joke, lighten up, no one cares except us.

(Thankfully, this is getting better! but GOSH, being into computers/mmos as a girl 15 years ago was a wild time)

[solitha 84]

18 hours ago, Warmanreaper said:

Made an account just to comment. The problem here is that you are focusing on the most miniscule minority in existence. Think of the amount of content you guys could be helping out / adding and instead you're catering to pure snowflakes that probably shouldn't have access to the internet if their feelings are being hurt by emotes and painting. Guys I don't know what to tell you other than people love the game, they just don't love the problems the game has currently. emotes and paintings aren't one of them, they aren't even close. There's so much more important and more meaningful content to produce than to change extremely old emotes and cosmetic type stuff. Just go about fixing the game, don't go about literally snowflaking the entire game just because someone on the bench like Valentine Powell thinks his personal views should be in game. That is 100% the REVERSE of what we want. Just make the game guys. Stop changing stuff that doesn't need changing.

Don't know what you're referring to when you talk about "the most miniscule minority in existence" and then refer to the paintings objectifying women. Do you think women are that most miniscule minority? Cause if so, boy do you have some learning to do.

Or maybe that "miniscule minority" of which you speak is supposed to be LGBTQ+. Which makes me wonder if you think it's okay to pick on people because they're not the majority. Spoiler alert! It's not.

Maybe you're the one that shouldn't have access to the internet if you've got such hurt feelings over the removal of some pixels and text. You'd never have missed them if they were never there. You'll barely remember they existed in 2-3 months. Probably a lot of this stuff you didn't even know about until the news sites mentioned their removal.

Edited October 6, 2021 by solitha