It’s my understanding that, after Alex Afrasiabi’s behavior became public knowledge, Blizzard changed their policy so characters and locations in-game are no longer named after their employees, as Alex named a lot of NPCs after himself. In whatever cases they could, Blizzard changed the names.
But as it turns out, “Furor” was Afrasiabi’s Everquest character name, and the druid talent “Furor” was named after his character, as well. And “Furor” is one of the talents that they’re bringing back in the current draft of the druid class talent tree; it’s in between the feral and guardian columns.
Now, it’s understandable why this could’ve been overlooked; “Furor” is a word that has meaning apart from Alex’s screen name, and the talent was taken out back in WoD. But I figured I should say something about this.
Maybe a name like “Fresh Perspective” or “Through Nature’s Eyes” would be a better description of what the talent does, since it requires shapeshifting into a new form for it to kick in?
If I’m incorrect about how the Furor talent got its name, then there isn’t a problem. But I could’ve swore I read somewhere, years and years ago, that the talent was named after Afrasiabi’s EverQuest character.
Normally, Wowpedia is pretty good about referencing things like that - noting the reference and citing where it was stated. While it does have the “if you mean it in THIS context, go here”, it doesn’t say anything about it being named for him in particular.
I could’ve swore I’d read that the talent was named after him, but this wouldn’t be the first time I thought I’d read something for certain, and then couldn’t find it back when I checked.
I do know he had Furor Planedefiler as his Everquest character; that much I managed to confirm.
The game did have several other references to his character, but it seems likely the talent wasn’t any specific reference.
They’ve since removed the references, but there was a bunch of items that mentioned the adventurer Foror which is a reference to his character Furor. There was also a number of things named after Alex himself, which have also been renamed.
Foror was also often mentioned alongside Tigule which is a reference to Tigole, the Everquest character of Jeff Kaplan.
As far as I know, those references aren’t removed.
He liked the word “furor”, so we should ban it. He liked the color blue, so we should ban it. He liked Lucky Charms, so we should ban it. He breathed oxygen, so we should ban it…
Okay—I’m the only one who thinks the talent was named after the designer. And I’ll admit: I could be incorrect about how it got its name.
But at this point, I’m keeping the topic in place to see if Blizzard looks at this thread and just reads what the OP said and renames the talent, or if they read to the whole thread that’s quite literally filled with nothing but posts saying I’m incorrect about how it got its name. And I’m actually hoping it’s the listens-to-everyone option, at this point, because that means…well, that they’re listening to everyone! I mean, listening-to-everyone is something they don’t always do.
If they are, then I hope they unprune Denounce in Dragonflight!
