Twenty years of engine work too, since A Realm Reborn was running a completely new engine from the original. At a certain point it might as well be considered a sequel.
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Nobody suggested new engine. Current engine is fine (albeit some of the textures could be updated). Restarting the lore sans abusers, after explaining how much of the lore is a product of that, is fair.
Itās actually interesting cuz ultimately Tolkien wished he could just go back in time and rewrite the Orcs as capable of goodness, but he chose not to because you canāt un-publish a book per se.
But a video game is different.
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The original comment was about doing what Final Fantasy 14 did, which was primarily built on a complete engine rebuild. Narratively, not a whole lot was actually āthrown outā from the 2010 to 2013 releases.
Trying to figure out what parts of the lore are influenced by sexism/racism/prejudice and successfully detangling them from the rest of the lore, is a work that no franchise has done before. At some point you are still looking at a complete ground up remake whether gameplay wise or story/setting wise.
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As Iāve noted Iāve been content to let my sub run out since 9.1. I stuck out BFA from start to finish, hoping itād get better, and I think I only had genuine consistent fun with it months after they fixed 8.3. After 7 months of patience 9.1 being very lackluster content that doubled down on the Maw and left us with an unintentionally comedic cutscene that might make sense come February was enough for me.
Finding out the whole operation was a horror show even by the subterranean standards of the tech and entertainment industries has made the whole thing have a bad taste in my mouth.
I was really willing to give a lot of creatorās the benefit of the doubt on a lot of concerning story beats. Iām a white fantasy dork myself, but one who grew up in one of the largest cities in America. Iāve had the benefit of early and consistent exposure to every ethnic, religious and social group imaginable over the years. But Iāve also spent plenty of time in the middle of nowhere where my surname is considered exotic for ending with a vowel. If I grew up there Iām positive Iād still be wandering around with plenty of childish notions about people Iād never met as I was never given cause to reexamine them. Suffice to say I was willing to cut some slack to Xoomers from like Des Moines or whatever.
So finding out I was so completely wrong to do that, and that things were darker than I wouldāve ever imagined, just left me with a background radiation of contempt and disgust for a few days. I know my feelings are the least important thing here but I was so furious Iād helped fund this sustained obscenity of a company. Between taxes and the omnipresence of mega corps in many towns it is virtually impossible to not hand large sums of money to objectively cruel and idiotic enterprises. But I do give a reasonable effort to trying not do so where possible. Knowing Iād spent a positively asinine amount of money here was deeply disheartening.
And the whole scenarios a twisted one. Youāve victims who left the company but still play the game because theyāre proud of their work. And I know a mass exodus would only cast hundreds who did nothing wrong into the unemployment line during a global period of profound economic hardship. So in a way Iām glad Iād already made up my mind for relatively unrelated reasons.
I donāt want to say the game is beyond salvaging. But I do believe they need a realm reborn type event. If they want to take it all back to day one and do essentially Classic + Iād certainly perk my ears up.
But personally Iāve been pouring the time Iād usually spend speculating here into trying to form a cohesive idea out of my own fantasy world. I think I had the cunning idea of making all the non human societies have cultures that wandered in from a different genre. Every IRL culture is just a fantasy version of themselves. Going to be damn awkward if Iāve to try to set a game there and start handing out racial abilities but otherwise I think it works fine. Iām sure ish like the Ancient Egyptian analogues being necromancers will piss someone off but its not my fault floating pyramids and lich pharaohs look rad as hell. If it ever works out youāll know because a loose confederation of undead states exist.
And I mention that because thatās sort of my attitude to Azeroth. Just as D&D and Warhammer expanded off Tolkien and Howard, and Warcraft and TES expanded on them, I do sort of feel like the IPs run itās course. For me at least. Hopefully the game can be made into something fun and interesting again and if that happens I might resub.
But the stories hit a point where I canāt care less, and the brands not just tarnished but blood stained.
Thereās no right answer here. Activision will march along just fine, one way or another. Corporations weasel their way out of worse with clockwork regularity. So do what you think is right. But for me, I think itās time to keep Azeroth in the rear view as I move forward. Even if everything is perfectly restructured and made kosher beyond my wildest expectations - I just donāt care anymore.
Now that all the hates burned out of me, and I can only look upon new revelations of how deep this depravity goes with a wary sigh I just feel apathy toward the whole affair. If they told me tomorrow they were deliberating driving employees to suicide to harvest organs my first reaction would not be horror but āWell letās not give Bezos any ideasā.
Maybe itās because I had some recent tragedy in my life but I feel Iāve sped run the grief steps here. Where there was once passion I feel only apathy. And I think thatās for the best.
Baal for you personally I donāt know your acumen as a creative. You do come off as a bit terminally academic; like Iām sorry but roughly 87.3% of Earthās population would only care about appendices if they were suddenly short on toilet paper. But youāre extraordinarily knowledgeable about culture and faiths and even if it came off more like a dissertation Iād be much more fascinated in some fantasy ish you came up with than any story Blizz has to offer.
The same goes for anyone whoās written paragraphs about how and why xyz resonates and inspires them. Youāve passion and presumably an at least somewhat functional moral compass. These are things Blizz are utterly bereft of, and why Iām done with this setting.
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re FFXIV Iāve played a bit of it (I can play multiple MMOās as it turns out) and Iām not sure if itās the place to go for someone trying to escape the typical story forum grievances. Namely human dominance, racial variety, and sexualization of women.
Horde fans in particular. Iām obviously not a fan of the Horde, but if you like the Horde you definitely aināt gonna find it in FFXIV
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Ugh, I felt this when I first tried it out. And the thing is, the bare bones of the idea is kiiinda sooorta almost there? They just happen to be the unplayable beast races. It was always a bit of a bummer to run by something like an amaljāaa and go āaw man, I wish I could have played one of those instead.ā Then again, I do that in WoW too, but at least I see the occasional tauren hanging around.
Hrothgar hadnāt even been announced yet, so I ended up getting a not-moonkin costume and did an entire expansionās worth of leveling dressed up like I was ready to parade through a football field. At least they donāt restrict race/class combinations, though.
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I donāt know enough about anime to really speak with any authority but I always got the impression that your typical JRPGs and the bulk of mainstream animes tended to emphasize having protagonists as socially positive role models (from a Japanese sociocultural perspective) in a way that often precludes having something like an Arthas or a Grom Hellscream in the actual center-stage of a narrative.
That combined with the reality that, in Asia in particular, high audience demand for conventionally attractive characters is going to have a dramatic influence on aesthetic that would also make it more difficult to have folks like actually rotting undead or lanky weirdo looking trolls in a playable role (lest we forget, Blood Elves were made Horde at the request of the Korean playerbase to have a more conventionally attractive race on the Horde.)
Like it or not, āthe Hordeā as we understand it is pretty distinctly Blizzard in the MMO genre.
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Itās not really your place to say if itās a bit much, is it? A lot of people donāt really expect huge sweeping change to come from unsubbing, but it has far more to do with how theyāre choosing to process this. If they feel that WoW has been tainted and that they would prefer not to contribute money to it anymore, thatās fine. If they want to keep playing WoW because it provides comfort and security to them, thatās also fine.
Itās not about anything of āsubstanceā coming of it - if anything is going to bring tangible change, itās the court case. But people are simply choosing to do what they feel is best for themselves. Itās absolutely idiotic for you to degrade it down to a simple content draught. At this point, we are well past the quality of the game being the deciding factor for a personās sub.
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That seems more or less the case with FF14, at least. One of the earlier designs for the Au Ra race were a full-on lizardman look before they backed off of the idea and went for ādollar store halloween prostheticsā instead. And then when the devs polled for what the players wanted to see next, they mostly voted for Playboy bunnies. Alas, it kinda sucks when your tastes are a minority interest.
I donāt think Hrothgar were a horrible pick or anything (I would have preferred bangaa personally but good luck modeling armor for them) but I thought it a bit odd that theyād double down with a second cat-based race.
ā¦ Come to think of it, is WoW one of the only active MMOs that currently doesnāt offer a feline race option? FF14 has two, Guild Wars 2 has Charr, I think The Old Republic and the Star Wars MMO both have one.
I swear I read about some other not-yet-released game that in lieu of offering different non-humanish races, they were working on a sort of ābuild a monster raceā design to let you mix and match a little bit, but for the life of me I canāt remember what it was called.
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This is so hilarious to me, Blizzard apparently being āagainstā Diversity hires when their employee group photos look like your average twitter flash mob.
Forced diversity quotas and āaffirmative actionā are a cancer anyway, a company should be able to hire/not hire anyone they want for any reason they want even if itās completely nonsensible(government jobs are an exception though)
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Iām not sure where we get āforced diversity quotasā and āaffirmative actionā out of horror in response to a pervasively sexist and racist culture impacting existing employees at Blizzard. If youāre a believer in merit, as I am, then you should agree with me that a personās race or sex should never be the basis for disparate treatment, pay, or promotional opportunities.
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Folks like this tend to stick around just to try to find validation or something. Iāve seen it here. Iāve seen it in groups on social media. They talk about how they unsubbed or stopped playing the game during X period of time, but they still creep and linger.
But who here was asking for either?
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Man the censorship on these forums is real.
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Some people donāt want to hear any other views but their own.
For the record, I was not among those who flagged that post.
But, in general, Iām detecting a theme - which seems to frame the horror at a pervasive, discriminatory culture as being āwokeā or something.
Speaking as a libertarian-leaning republican. I just donāt see that. I believe in equality of opportunity, and Blizzardās practices were arrayed in a manner that denied that on the basis of race and sex - and that is putting the matter in the most tame way possible. Thatās a problem for me, and Iād argue it should be a problem for you as well.
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Iām a firm believer that in this day and age race and sex are just things that are used to key us separated into nice, neat little groups that can be used for creating division and making it easy to pander. People should be selected to perform a job based on who is best for that job and not because the government has mandated that companies must employ people based on what they are, not who they are.
I agree that people should be selected to perform a job based on who is best for that job.
I also believe that when those people land in that job, they shouldnāt have wildly different responsibilities, pay, and career advancement opportunities simply due to the fact that they were born with the wrong set of genitals or the wrong skin color. Merit doesnāt end just when you get hired - it should guide a companyās decisions around its employees from their onboarding to their departure.
That did not happen at Blizzard. This lawsuit does not discuss āforced diversityā or āaffirmative actionā - it is about disparate, discriminatory, and often abusive treatment that had nothing to do with the merit of the employees who found themselves in the crosshairs.
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so the score is:
afrasiabi: 1 Good 1 Bad but he was being a creep 9 years ago or so.
golden: 2 bads
Danuser: 2 bads.
While i might agree with the hiring new people etc, idk how the āDiverseā stuff would solve anything other than the fact that Afrasiabi was probably iranian/israeli american or something middle eastern.
But Idk how his ethnicity makes him a better writer?