Crap, really? I still wanted a copy for my collection regardless. Besides worse case these types of books might be worth alot in the future.
Just because they’re pulling it doesn’t mean they won’t end up selling it later, after a few revisions and things die down.
It costs a pretty penny to get a book put together and ready for distribution. Pulling one entirely this close to release and never releasing it is a very rare thing.
It happens, but it’s much more likely they’ll try and revise.
At least, that’s what I remember from working at a bookstore oh so many, many years ago.
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I am almost certain they will revise and release. But this will be a VERY costly mistake for them. That is a lot of inventory already warehoused that is suddenly going to have to be likely destroyed.
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Where did they say they were pulling it?
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No clue, but the Amazon listing has changed the release date to Jan 25th.
This is why Blizzard can’t win anymore. Whatever they do, they are criticized for it.
Not to defend the sexual assault stuff or the story of the last expansions, I didn’t like them at all - but… are people seriously complaining about racism and stereotypes in… a fantasy game? Really? 
I mean, in real life and regarding humanity - sure, no argument there. But it’s called Fantasy for a reason. It’s supposed to be another world with magical beings and stereotypcial races. These races have already lost so many of their unique “traits” (Nightelves & distrust for arcane magic, Draenei & the “flawless” Light, etc.) - do people actually want them to become “modern humans” in their core? It’s weird enough how the wars in WoW come to be after all these years - if they start to turn all characters now into modern, woke and unprejudiced people, it’s gonna get worse and even weirder.
tl;dr
To me, Fantasy is supposed to be escapism, not a mirror of RL. So it doesn’t have to be political correct, on the contrary - it should explore sensitive topics like racism or prejudice.
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I think the main point is people want Blizz to learn from it to do better in the future. There’s plenty of good material that exists to draw upon for storytelling that doesn’t have these problems.
Possibility that’s just the expected time of next printing, think there at least was a bit of a paper shortage in publishing that could be interfering too.
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I heard it down the grapevine from those I trust who Know A Guy, which is why I added the qualifier of “may”. I guess the Wowhead article brought the vitriol up to a fever pitch and they are recoiling from it.
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I’m pretty sure after this latest controversy they learned a harsh lesson. Whether it is the right lesson or if they will take something totally different from it remains to be seen.
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To me, escapism isn’t low key racism regarding cultures lifted directly from real world ones. Portraying racially coded fantasy beings as stereotypes is also not my flavor of escapism, nor is it a must for a fantasy setting.
To each their own, I guess.
Ok, so when the racism isn’t doing that and just exists because it exists, what’s your defense there?
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Agreed, if some had there way, they would retcon the orcs to make them not genocidal invaders.
After all…some people might be offended that one can draw parallels to real world genocide/conquering/colonization and all the terrible stuff that is done by people, especially orcs, in WC lore.
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Yeah, they have pulled it on kindle now:
and it is listed as unavailable for physical purchase.
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IRL racism is not acceptable to have in the game. In-universe racism for story purposes is different.
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There is no IRL racism in game. Trolls are not Africans.
Just like its allowed in lore for some trolls to be evil/racist (hate elves/humans)/conquerors/cannibals, does not mean this ideology equals IRL racism towards non-white people.
Are we going to start calling racism whenever someone from one WC culture teaches a person of a different culture on something?
Man those humans teaching the Light to others whom lack an understand of it…damn racists…/s
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But that line is a paper thin one. Can you honestly tell me we are suppose to think goblins generally are fair with their trades? That a good chunk of them wont try to con you at worse or at best sell a product that was inferior?
Or can you honestly tell me the goblins would do their best to take care of the rivers near them when do have a tendency of making any of the water ways they use polluted?(see my Krasarang comment earlier)
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So, serious question. Did you learn that on Newsmax or OAN? Maybe Fox?
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Lol neither.
It’s called separating fiction from reality.
When I see orcs/trolls/undead/goblins doing bad stuff, or lacking knowledge of something, my mind does not translate to “clearly they are being treated this way because of irl racism”.
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Can someone link proof this book was available/official released before this whole" publishing change"?
Suffice to say it is now an argument in GD that this book was not actually released.
Man, you should teach authors, writers and game developers that skill. Because they all openly talk about using their mediums to reflect real world issues and beliefs. They all talk all the time about borrowing liberally from other cultures and depicting them in games, books, movies and so forth, even in… The fantasy genre! And they even know they screw it up at times, and you’ll never believe this… They admit things they write and depict come across as accidentally racist!
If only those people had learned from you that so long as it is in a game, it can never be racist.
Tell me, does this skill extend to depicting women as blatant sex objects in video games? Is that also never bad, always fine? Or does this only extend to those POC?
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you know, in this case it is not from an ingame race, it is not from an ingameperspective, like “Bloodelfs think about trolls as lower being, unablee to read and write or even have a culture in the first place because amani are barbarians and unciviliciased”
this time, its from the charakter of the narrator of the book, zekhan…its weird that he ´s kinda racist to himself, you know?
I have no problem with racism in a game too, i even like it if its used smart to build an world of unjust to let us…explore this world and try to change it as player (like Dragon age or witcher did, or warhammer in parts), but in this case, its not an addition to the game, its more like “trolls are dump, they can´t even read” …from an trollperspective, not a prejudgement from a third person.
or the hatred between trolls and humans, trolls and elves…this is racism too…no living troll was ropped from their lands …they hate the humans because racism…and old bills…from xx thousand years ago…and the elfs too.