Full quote being:
Which of course you know, as you’re the one who most quoted Afrasiabi on this around here over the years.
I love you Amandis; definitely one of my favorite people to discuss lore with!
Anyway, that wouldn’t effect the story just the fans who believe it, ie me, as you so delicately* pointed out : )
You didn’t think I posted that cheek in tongue? How about the Sylvanas isn’t evil developers quote? No cheek in tongue detected?
Edit: side note, I don’t think I will ever post that again.
Where do these extra “n”'s keep coming from? This is a strangely common misspelling.
Because you’re the man!
I think the best—most practical—way to move forward is to adopt the death of the author philosophy.
The fact is that Afrasiabi’s contribution to the game’s story is so large that it’s simply too hard to quantify; thus silly to try and erase. Conversely, he wasn’t really the sole “author” of any idea he pushed; those who implemented the ideas—the programmers, artists, quest designers, etc…—were apart of the sausage making process also.
Don’t punish them because of him; you just add to Alex’s victim count.
Just detach “his” art from him. You can’t do that fully, sure—no one can—but you ought to for the sake of the others—the good people—who enjoy it still and who helped Alex make it happen.
If you can’t do that, then think about this as an alternative: erasing anything identifiably Alex from the game Ivan help him. Instead of erasing and re-writing history, change the context—change how we see these things. Pretending he didn’t exist runs the risk of eventually forgetting he did; you do that and he wins. So, where you may of seen an Alex creation in the past and admired him for it, now you can see it and simply remember—remember what he did and who he did it to.
Do that for the sake of those he hurt.
Or just see it as art and divorce it from him entirely.
Your choice.
I don’t think it’s worth removing/replacing all his work in the game.
What should be removed/replaced are all his tributes in game. Any NPC or item should be changed because while he did build a lot of the game’s story he is not a person we should be honoring. Removing quests that most players wouldn’t even know he made doesn’t feel as impactful as stripping him of his personal references in game.
I’d say going as far as removing all references/homages to him in game would be enough.
No reason to really go any further then that.
I can only really think of the NPCs and lore in Stratholme that directly relate to him. Since it’s no longer a viable questing area and most of the original work is dilapidated anyway, it wouldn’t really be missed (too much.)
Hey, good opportunity to do a Story reset on Stratholme anyway. Reinvent it was a new Forsaken city AND wipe it clean of his work. A Twofer.
Bridenbrad is a good memorial. So is Michael Koiter.
Don’t me an aknave, Zerde.
If we’re talking cake derails:
When I was 7 I decided to make a cake for my mom’s birthday when I was home unsupervised one day.
I started off with a prefab cake box and followed the directions to create the dough, which was a good start, but I decided that a plain white cake was boring and needed some spicing up, so I added some ancient caked cinnamon , and some mangled apple bits.
Baked the cake, and it came out weirdly uneven and bubbled. Slapped on some vanilla frosting, and then apparently that wasn’t good enough for my standards, so I went and just dotted the whole thing with drops of food coloring, making it look just awful.
Mom gets home, is entirely shocked at the serial killer looking cake waiting for her, gives it a fair shot, and it turns out it was actually really good, the apples were undercooked but mashed small enough that it didn’t matter too much.
(I still got in trouble for making an absolute mess out of the kitchen and not cleaning up the dishes or the food coloring spills on the counter)
What exactly are we going for here?
Call me naive, but I think there are good people at Blizzard begging their Corporate Masters to wake up and listen. I think that the Light of the Truth is the best cure for lies and wrong doing - and that light is shining on Blizz.
This is where I am at :
I don’t want to add to his victim count.
I also don’t think rage and punishment is always the answer. Sometimes it is best to move on, with lessons learned. Sure, fix what can be fixed. But - to return to the cake analogy - you can’t uncrack an egg.
We aren’t going for anything - and this is a point that I do feel I need to clear up because the intent was declared in the title of the thread. This is a hypothetical. I’m asking this question to get opinions on what a world without Afrasiabi’s influence would even look like, if it’s possible to envision at all.
I am not advocating for going through with a fine tooth comb and removing this man’s influence from the game. This is more to get the creative juices flowing and to see what we think Warcraft would have been without his fingerprints.
You and I usually have very different opinions on a great many matters, but you’ve put this far more succinctly than I would’ve thought to.
I agree completely.
Imo I wouldn’t bother going to retroactively removing everything he’s ever worked on. I’d just remove (or rename) the stuff he was narcissistic about. His npcs, his ice cream, etc.
Tigole and Furor’s Ice Cream becomes Tigole’s Twenty One Flavors ™️.
Hm.
Imagining the Game without his influence - as if he were never born - is one thing.
Parsing out his contributions and sifting through to determine his impact is another.
Honestly, I don’t think it was just him that made the lore - and I don’t think it was just him who created “the culture” at Blizz.
I don’t think so either, but he did have substantial impact.
Garrosh in Stonetalon? That was Afrasiabi.
Sylvanas in BFA? Likely Afrasiabi.
Just those two alone, items that I’m aware this community is well aware of, had immense impacts on how the story went forward and was perceived - and that’s just what I can think of. I expect that others here are more familiar with other, specific pieces of work.
That no, again, we probably couldn’t simply remove. Once again, this is a hypothetical.
I’m not sure Jeff Kaplan’s EQ character of Tigole Bitties is really the kind of representation that would fit a cleaning up of Blizzard’s culture.
This isn’t the first time that this has happened in the entertainment industry. Harvey Weinstein is one of the biggest scumbags of our time, and he was involved in the following films, among others:
Shakespeare In Love
Gangs of New York
Resevoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Scream
Good Will Hunting
Princess Mononoke
Clerks
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Kill Bill
Finding Neverland
Sin City
The King’s Speech
Django Unchained
When the revelations of his gross sexual misconduct came to light, people were forced to ask similar questions about works that he was involved in, some of which are considered to be among the greatest films ever made. Everyone’s response is naturally different, but I think that most people in the industry and out determined that it would be both giving Weinstein too much credit and allowing his conduct to destroy even more good things to decide that everything that he has ever been involved in was irrevocably tainted, and I think that similar attitudes are applicable here.
What?
There is a reason the word “maybe” is there. Yes, Blizzard can add good homages but the problem is what if skeletons were suddenly discovered regarding said person? For argument sake they add some famous dude who just died and gave him an NPC only to later learn said person committed some sort of horrible act?
You left out The Iron Lady, one of my favorite films.
This is, once again, a hypothetical. Not a demand for scouring the lore to remove his influence - for the third time.
This one really hit close to home. I bet I watched that movie more times than the Pope read the bible.
(This is Cursewords on my Alliance Alt.)
If you look at the name of this Character, it refers to that movie. My personal Guilds for Cursewords and Beatrixkiddo are also references to that movie - its similar to the name of their assassination squad.
I will de damned if I will let some background money man diminish what I loved about the art.
Probably alot of stuff too be honest. I mean the guy worked on 3 zones in cataclysm I think.
(Stonetalon Twilight highlands and some other zone)
If you think the game would be without quests or a majority of quests you are delusional to the point of being in an asylum.