As a female player....oof

I agree but Jaina was always described as a shy quiet person, her outfit never matched her.

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So Blizzard,
https://fast.theraccoon.me/wowscreens/live/2011/WoWScrnShot_102411_142213.jpg

Is this OK?
P.S. can be found in Thousand Needles.

I’m starting to think people on here don’t know what these words mean…

I think that changes to reduce the overt sexuality in a game are very dependent on the exact nature of the change and why it’s being done.

I don’t think that the mere depiction of sexy content is something that needs to be changed. Blizzard shouldn’t embark on a Puritan crusade so cover every piece of cleavage they can find. If they do, then I expect Malfurion and Illidan to put on a shirt as well for the sake of fairness and yet for some reason I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Sexy things exist in the world, and just like our world, there are characters in Azeroth who want to be sexy or characters who would own sexy depictions of others. It’s not unusual to find a pinup of a scantily-clad goblin in a trade-prince’s palace. It’s not an endorsement of that behavior, just a depiction of it.

One of the reasons I’m fine with things like Jania’s outfit becoming more modest. The outfit never really seemed to fit her character personality and I’m suspicious that her original outfit was only made because male authors made sexy female characters that they want to look at. It’s happened since the dawn of time and it will continue to happen until the heat death of the universe. If the reason for the change is to make a character more in line with their intent, I think that’s fine.

But there are some characters who are more free with their sexual expression and those characters should not be changed. Easy example that I see people talk about a lot, the succubus. Succubi use sex as a weapon. It wouldn’t make sense for them to suddenly clothe themselves head to toe. And like I said earlier, the Stormrage brothers make no bones about showing off their bodies and I have no problems letting them continue to do so.

That said, I agree with others who have said that Blizzard should stay well away from transmog options. Transmog is entirely player choice and if a player wants to mog their character in a sexy way they should have that option. If they want something more modest they should have that option too. Taking options away from players isn’t empowering women, it’s just reducing player freedom.

I’m worried about the current trend of changes mostly because I wonder about their motivation. I worry that Blizzard is overcompensating because of the current lawsuit and not overly concerned about whether or not the content they’re changing is appropriate in its context. They’re just going to go scorched earth to make sure no one can accuse them of being frat boys.

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Sylvanas also blew up her own city, so I guess some women just want to burn down their own villages? Somehow I feel as though this has nothing to do with the fact that Jaina and Tyrande are women.

I imagine it would be very difficult to stop a nuke from going off in the middle of your city (Theramor) and I can’t imagine it would be easy to stop the invasion of your tree when it’s literally a tree (Teldrassil). I mean, I’m surprised the Horde never thought about taking a torch to Teldrassil earlier. It’s literally a tree.

Why are these two women failures, in your eyes, simply because they’re women and not because the forces attacking were stronger than their own? Are you objectifying women by saying they can’t win wars or fight in them? Wow.

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I just wanna go on record saying i 100% agree with all you’ve said.

I have this feeling though, its not the devs but the insurance companies demanding they do this.

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I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. Powerful characters are allowed to fail or have flaws. That’s just the nature of storytelling and has nothing to do with whether or not the characters in question are men or women.

Are you saying that female characters should all be Mary Sues that never fail or make mistakes? I don’t think that’s the road to female empowerment.

We’ve had plenty of male characters who have failed or made mistakes as well. Thrall is a prime example. Greymane has had a single-minded focus on killing Sylvanas long before Tyrande did. As it is, I think that someone being responsible for the genocide of your entire people is a perfectly acceptable reason to make killing them your sole focus.

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No one gets to speak for anyone else. It’s two camps of opinion on the matter. Fact is Blizz decided where to plant their flag in their product. All that’s left now is for each of us to decide if we can live with it or if it’s time to move on.

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What?
low-hanging fruit

[low-hanging fruit]

NOUN

informal

  1. a thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort.

“we know mining our own customer base is low-hanging fruit”
It isn’t out of context, you are offended rather easily huh? Just curious what YOU thought it meant?

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thank you,

Yeah, the business decisions coming out, it reminds me of 15yr old me being around a girl that I was dying for the approval of. Everything that they like I liked, everything that I even imagined in the remotest sense that they liked I liked. I essentially vanished as a separate being. Which of course, is a total turn-off for everyone … except I’d guess people with bad intentions.

About corrections and course fixes … there is such a thing as too much. When I heard they went back to the mage tower it was like “ok, interesting but ooof … that’s desperate”.

It’s not a good look Blizzard and that matters. This game is a house party and people only hang if the party is cool. You need cooler people vetting these decisions Blizzard. Both in terms of social skill and having a cool head, not impulsive.

Good luck, we are counting on you, do better.

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I agree and I don’t think that’s the sort of thing that exclusive to women.

I’m a male playing a male character. You can look at the transmog I’m wearing right now, I’m not wearing shoes and my abs are out in the breeze. I’m not wearing this outfit to be practical in combat. I’m wearing it because I like the aesthetic and it fits the personality I want to communicate with my character.

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I understand the definition of the term.
I also however understand that some minorities see the phrase with certain other connotations, so I avoid using it.

Its not being offended per se, its being mindful of phrasing.

A lot of those screaming misogyny are guilty of blatant misandry. Double standards at work.

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It’s likely the shareholders. Anyone who invests in WoW can control the imagery in the game. If they don’t like it, they don’t invest.

I have no doubt whatsoever; Blizzard and Activision do NOT care about some 17 year old painting that’s supposed to resemble real world artwork. I had this discussion last night. It’s not like Ion Hazzikostas was sitting there at his desk, ripping out what hair he has left, saying, “You know what will bring my game back to life? Removing the sexy paintings. THAT will do it!”

It’s just pandering to fix a non-existent problem. People keep saying it; WoW has SO many more problems to worry about. I don’t care if it takes 10 seconds to change the painting. The energy should be shifted towards a quality game with a quality world. Replacing sexy paintings with a plate of food, or covering up cleavage reduces the sensation of Azeroth being a living, breathing place. It makes it seem unrealistic.

You see how many naked statues we have even to this day? Naked paintings? Naked art in general? Even Adam and Eve are depicted as nudists, essentially.

Covering this stuff up is laughable, and the people defending it don’t even know why they are.

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I actually have a male druid who is usually in Feral Form but doesn’t wear a shirt because…why cloths?

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Even if we want to directly compare apples to apples…

The main complaint I see with video games with sexy characters is that the sexy characters have no agency. They’re just dolls made by men because men like looking at attractive scantily-clad women.

But I see women do the exact same thing. I have seen plenty of fan art or D&D character commissions made by or for female artists of an attractive male character in an outfit designed to accentuate those attractive features, if you catch my meaning. Everyone likes themselves some cheesecake.

And honestly? I think that’s absolutely fine on both sides. So long as everything is consensual and the people supplying the cheesecake are happy to do so I see no reason to get angry at people for enjoying the cheesecake. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of fan service.

A creative work will definitely suffer if the only reason female characters exist is to be a sexy doll for the sake of a male audience, or if the story bends over backwards to provide that fan service at the cost of the plot, but fan service merely existing isn’t a crime. In fact, I’d say that the solution sexy women in the game is to put more sexy men in the game. I hope that Malfurion never discovers shirts.

Honestly the more I think about it the more I think that the way we fix this problem is just by getting more women involved in big marketable creative projects. I think that a bunch of men forcing female characters to be sexy at all times is just as bad as a bunch of men forcing female characters to never be sexy at all.

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I used to roleplay a Worgen Pirate who wouldn’t wear a shirt unless he was in human form, which was very rare. He was a stinky, good for nothing, swashbuckling monster, so there was no need for the shirt. People always made fun of him ICly, but it was just part of the character so it made sense to me. It did get on my nerves when people took it way too seriously and started to make fun of me OOCly for it.

I mean, people do it all the time. But that’s besides the point. It just makes sense.

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I, for one, Respect. Women.

It’s like Pope Pius IX and The Great Castration. He added fig leaves to the private parts of male statues because he thought the imagery would lead to, “… sin in the Vatican.”

That didn’t age well.

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That’s really the thing i don’t really get with those sorts of complaints, especially since …what? …we do have characters that are definitionally sexualized, but they also kick major butt and practically control the situation as much a man would in that situation. As in, killing the bad guys, saving the day, that sort of stuff. :confused: