Blizzard. The main villain of this current expansion is a villain who explicitly uses domination magic and tortures people, if domination and torture is bad to you then you need to change large parts of Shadowlands story. Changing the dialogue regarding this character doesn’t change what is obviously happening to her neither. Just remove this character completely. If you’re going to make changes don’t be lazy about them.
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“But, but making utterly valueless virtue signaling in-game changes is soooo much easier than actually changing our real-life cooperate culture that we just wanna do that instead!”
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I was literally just about to make this thread when I read the news.
It is so damn bizarre reading the before and after dialogue. She’s still a mindslave, but that’s not the bad part? The bad part is the language?
There was a point to the dialogue. It sounded gross and evil and weird because it was selling the Forsaken as completely and utterly alienated from their humanity.
Why not just, I dunno, REMOVE THE MINDSLAVE TO BEGIN WITH? Especially if you don’t want the Forsaken to seem like monsters.
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They made a similar change on the Alliance side in 9.0. The three mages who wanted to create a love potion had their dialogue scrubbed, and they now just sit next to Archivist Thomas.
It also looks like every last use of “greenskins” is gone. Is this in the game already or on the PTR, like other changes?
Oh my god, why remove that? How is that offensive to anyone?
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There is speculation that there are trademark issues with Games Workshop, due to the word being used in Warhammer. It is also possible that they want to make the faction war less racist. Furthermore, there’s also a theory that “greenskins” was removed from Trollbane for being similar to a real-world slur against Native Americans and First Nations people. If that’s the case, they have caught up, by removing it from other dialogue.
Edit: I didn’t mean to like the post in response to this one.
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Removing dispicable characters and actions from your narrative to demonstrate your stance against dispicable people and actions does not make your narrative better. It makes it worse. The game will be lesser for it.
You dont remove the brutality from the book of Judges to demonstrate a Judeo-christian stance against brutality.
And since Blizzard is removing anything that might suggest some level of sexism or racism from the game, what does that say about their stance on murder? What about religious fanaticism?
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My dream patch notes:
- The Slave Pens renamed to The Rehabilitation Sphere
- Lich King renamed to Lich Leader
- Scourge is too reminiscent of venereal diseases; renamed to Undead Army
- Dwarves renamed to Dangles and are now above human height - Tolkien was racist and based his mythological creatures on racist stereotypes
- Scarlet Brotherhood renamed to Scarlet Group
- The Barrens renamed to The Wasteland; offensive to AFAB people unable to conceive
- No races have distinctive accents; all speak the same
- All mention of the word ‘war’ replaced with ‘dispute’
Anything else I’ve missed?
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How about a “factory”?
Lich Monarch.
How about giving everyone all the accents?
Nup. Monarchies are problematic. Factories perpetuate toxic work culture.
Nobody has been killed, they’ve been defeated (ala Call of Duty)
1 Like
Interesting.
I was thinking :
“Wow, I am really out of it as far as the culture and lingo. How is “Finkle Einhorn” Transphobic?”
Then I learned how that name was formed. OK - I guess I can see what the issue is.
While I loved that movie, it seems like a weird thing to add to the game in the first place.
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Do monarchies have problems? Prince Lich. Not in the sense of the heir to the monarch, but the sole (?) ruler.
Manufactory?
Alright, fair enough, though it’s still upsetting that this stuff isn’t even being replaced with anything.
I love when fictional worlds have their own sets of curse words, idioms and even slurs that are different from real life.
Characters should be allowed to be allowed foul mouthed as they like.
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I’m sad about the removal of adult themes, but I’ve also spent enough time in the forums during BfA to know that the playerbase isn’t mature enough to handle mature themes respectfully.
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none of these changes make the game better.
none of these changes make Blizzard a better company.
it’s like they called a press conference and the PR guy literally just spent the entire time saying the words “Empty Platitudes. Empty Platitudes…” over and over again while staring off into space with a creepy grin.
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There are two schools of thought when it comes to world building (Im simplifying here).
One: Fantasy is supposed to be fun escapism, including mature, sensitive or offensive themes in fantasy is counter productive to that goal.
Two: This is meant to be a real world inhabited by real people. They have the same flaws as people would irl, thus the same problems emerge.
Both of these methods are entirely valid, and it ultimately depends on who it is being made for. Because people aren’t always looking for the same thing in fantasy, it makes sense that some people praise the censorship going on in Warcraft, while other people despise it. Warcraft can be silly escapism, but it has never shied away from adult themes. It’s humor in particular has always been somewhat adult. Which makes a lot of the censorship happening atm all the more heinous.
This is not the Warcraft I grew up with. Granted, that warcraft has been dead longer than any of us would like to admit, but it doesn’t make the reality of the situation any easier. The people at Blizzard are stealing the Warcraft IP, and they are rebranding it to reach out new, younger audience.
It is a sound marketing strategy. The OG Warcraft fanbase is getting older. We have jobs, families, less time and energy to commit ourselves to this game. We are older, wiser, and jaded by the trials of life. It is harder to write a satisfying story for us, our suspension of disbelief is more difficult to achieve. Finally, there is Blizz’s reputation to consider, which as been damaged beyond repair for many of the OG players.
A younger audience does not have these problems, and it is doubtful that current non-Warcraft fans are aware of the Blizzard’s workspace controversy. It’s simple, as OG players lose heart and leave Blizzard, Blizzard seeks to replace them with a younger audience, who tend to be more Woke, and wont get the more dated references anyway. So might as well remove them.
But it’s not Warcraft. It’s a knockoff. An offshoot. And it is unlikely we will see anything like the true Warcraft ever again.
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If this is done for the sake of the people working on the game then maybe it’s time to move on to something a little bit different or having a career change.
When the changes started to first happen my biggest concern was that Warcraft’s personality or “soul” would be lost and it seems that is the direction that we are heading in.
I have thought for sometime that we need to remove the writing staff not for individuals but for the philosophy of that writers room. If you cannot handle Warcraft you should not be writing for Warcraft and if you do not like what Warcraft is you most certainly should not be writing for Warcraft.
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I have felt that the changes are oddly specific. When this whole thing started blowing up, I posted that Blizzard might have their own reasons for these changes that aren’t even directed towards the Players.
Like maybe there were things we are not aware of that the offending Devs put in to the game. Maybe they asked their workers to make lists of things that they knew of already, or felt needed to be changed. Talieson made a you tube video saying a similar thing.
We don’t know the exact history and details of everything being changed, so it is hard to make an example. But let’s say there was a girl named Sarah Smith who worked at Blizz. The Dudebro Devs called her “leggy” because she had long legs. Then they put in an NPC named Sarah “Legs” Smythe. She deals with it, because she loves everything about her job except the toxic superiors.
Then the story breaks. That NPC gets renamed, because Blizzard asked the opinion of their workers, and the workers bring up their reasons to rename that NPC. We wouldn’t know the specifics. We would just see Forum Posts that say:
“AMG, legz r censurrd! SJW! woke! insert buzz words!”
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You know what would have been a better way to resolve the Theresa thing? Let Alliance players frigging kill Gerard Abernathy and free her. The repulsive things that he’s done to her are an easy catalyst for an arc where we defeat the villain and free the victim and that would be infinitely more satisfying than this, which almost seems to trivialize the gravity of what was done to her.
What’s wrong Blizz? Worried about putting a scenario in the game where an abuser gets their comuppance?
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