It’s always funny that old blizzard produced basically all the male and female characters that people actually liked. These characters are still the core of the storyline. People generally liked Tyrande, Maiev, Jaina, Sylvanas, etc., at least before the new writers ruined them (particularly Sylvanas)
The bold new diverse equitable writers have yet to produce anything of real value. Still leaning on old characters like Thrall and Jaina to sell it 20 years later. I thought these new voices were supposed to bring new insights and value? The characters of the past were better fleshed out, more diverse, more interesting, and had better stories around them.
Well they tried with Faerin. I can even imagine the meeting she was created:
“We have to make her cooler, any ideas?”
“Yeah she should’ve lost something like a leg or an eye!”
“Let’s make it both!” applauding people
“Yeah but she needs to be more than cool, also caring, any ideas?”
“She is an orphan and in her free time
She reads for other orphans!”
“Oh yes people will love that, should she also crocheting clothing for the homeless with her feet?”
“Naaa we covered the feet fetish with Xalatah, so that would go too far…. Or? Ahh no we will keep the idea for later”
“All well and done, but she is just a very young adult, why should anyone listen to her, why should Anduin be able to care for her words?”
“Naa she will act wise for no reason, people won’t question it!”
“Great I think we are done here, or?” One is shouting from the back while leaving the room “make her a Lothar!” applauding people
Yes, she’s a character foil meant to aid another protagonist along in their journey. They are archetypal good and light-filled for a reason. It agonizes Anduin who is struggling to let go of his dark past, whose own self-doubt and anguish prevent that light and goodness from emanating forth as before. She is helping to move the story along in a critical way, but for whatever reason, the optimistic approach isn’t a method that people like you want to hear. Why is that?
The problem with that is… It’s missing a lot of context.
The predecessors over the course of millennia… There was one. This isn’t about a woman being better than thousands of men, it’s about a woman being better than one guy at one thing. One thing that was critical to the plot, but one thing nonetheless.
And what she was better than him at was… Being nice to animals.
It’s not unbelievable that some random girl is better at being nice to animals than an old military boss that uses those animals as instruments of war.
Stop being dishonest. There is a clear agenda being driven. Whether by the team as a whole or by some activist employees, there is an underrepresentation of males in the expansion. Its such an imbalance, that there is no possible way it could had happen naturally or by accident. Just take a moment to look around at npcs, you’ll often notice 4-5 females to 1 male. This can only be intentional.
WoW has always done a good job with female representation within the narrative and environments. Could it have been better? Yeah, but what we are experiencing now is a clear bias driven design. I can only imagine the groups empowered at Blizzard now, in the wake of the sexual harassment scandal.
This is harming the game that’s already bleeding out. End of story. It’s a shame because so much about this expansion, especially the zone design and music, is on point. It’s just too bad there are such strong anti-male messaging coming from the narrative and npc allotment.
EDIT: I know a lot of people complain about all the bearded female Earthen, but I think its fitting. We’ve only seen Earthen with beards, so my opinion is that any Earthen, male or female, without a beard is irregular and SHOULD be in the minority for npcs.
He should make the strong choice to work out his emotional struggles outside the game and offline. Work isn’t the place for it. Online isn’t the place for it. Customers don’t choose escapist fantasy to be confronted with someone else’s life issues. It’s a clear fact that Anduin along with most of these characters are in search of a therapy session and not much else. Oh, except Alleria, and the story takes pains to make it clear that she is the one that needs it most.
I’m not sure if it’s arrogance or ignorance that allows a person to take this course. It’s naked self-interest at best though.
And there it is. Why did they make this choice? What was the goal of the storytelling/gameplay that made this the obvious choice? They had to spend extra dollars to get this in the game. What was the purpose? Why spend the extra resources on this?
And to anyone that is going to say it is in Tolkien. Okay a one paragraph reference that also was written by his son and that also makes it clear that you wouldn’t be seeing a female dwarf outside her burrow. Did I mention that they are dwarves and not Earthen? A different IP with a different race doesn’t make a strong argument.
BUT, now that they are in the game, they aren’t going away. And it makes sense within the game that if beards are normal for the race overall, then they should all have them.
For everyone looking for a summary of this thread:
### Summary of Forum Thread: “New Xpack All Female Leads”
#### Original Post
* **Proposal**: The new World of Warcraft expansion purposefully exclusively features all female leads.
* **Rationale**: Emphasizes diversity and representation in the game, but seems forced.
#### Common Arguments in Agreement
1. **Diversity and Representation**
* **Support for Inclusion**: Many users agree that having female leads promotes diversity and inclusivity.
* **Positive Role Models**: Female leads can serve as strong role models for players.
* **Fresh Perspective**: Introducing female leads can bring new and interesting storylines.
2. **Current Trends**
* **Alignment with Modern Media**: Reflects the trend in media towards more diverse and inclusive storytelling.
* **Market Appeal**: Could attract a broader audience, including more female players.
3. **Historical Context**
* **Underrepresentation**: Historically, female characters have been underrepresented in gaming.
* **Balancing the Scales**: This move could help balance gender representation in the game.
#### Common Arguments Against
1. **Forced Diversity**
* **Tokenism Concerns**: Some users feel that focusing solely on female leads might come across as forced or tokenistic.
* **Quality Over Gender**: Emphasis should be on character quality and story depth rather than gender.
2. **Game Lore and Continuity**
* **Lore Consistency**: Concerns about how an all-female lead expansion would fit into the existing lore.
* **Character Development**: Preference for developing existing characters, regardless of gender, rather than introducing new ones solely for diversity.
3. **Player Preferences**
* **Diverse Player Base**: Some players prefer a mix of male and female characters.
* **Gameplay Impact**: Concerns that focusing on gender might detract from other important gameplay elements.
#### Neutral or Mixed Opinions
* **Balanced Approach**: Some users suggest a balanced approach, with both male and female leads.
* **Wait and See**: Others prefer to wait and see how the idea is implemented before forming an opinion.
My two cents, WoW has been Disney-fied for a while now, and what we’re seeing in the story of this xpac is the culmination of writing that began 2 years ago. Blood and body parts have been removed, even a lot of the violence. You don’t see the spider queen get stabbed, only after. You don’t see the troll’s severed head, only the shadow on the table. you don’t see blood, you see spilled red wine to represent blood. Hell, they wanted ‘toxic males’ out of the game so badly, they completely removed the Horde from the storyline, and gave all the ‘toxic masculinity’ to Alleria. It’s not World of Warcraft anymore. I don’t know what it is now. I’m gonna keep playing, because I’m enjoying the systems and gameplay (so far) is pretty fun. But the story makes no sense (“we need to get home so we can get reinforcements to stay down here”, “wait, what?”, “Hey, there’s a tunnel to the surface over there?” “What, you didn’t expect us to walk out of here over the last twenty years?”
If they stay on this course with the game’s development, like Disney has, the only War Within will be in trying to keep the lights on in the server room.
See this is where I agree and disagree with you. I’m 100% with you on the bearded dwarven women, but I see Earthen differently. I know you don’t think its a strong argument, but I see Earthen as being like androids and not a biological race. Them having beards to begin with is purely aesthetical.
Why make all of your Earthen androids have beards? idk, take that up with the Titans.
I know this is reaching, but the choice to go beardless honestly seems like a decision by the less Titan bound Earthen. I also won’t deny that certain people probably LOVED including as many bearded women as they could.
There’s NPC dialogue that says that Earthen appearance is randomly generated via the Awakening Machine and they consume certain minerals to change their hair/beard/appearance. Also their hair are actually plaited wires. So it’s basically just the random button on the Sims and they can change it as they wish.
As a woman myself, I despise these girl-boss characters. Not only has every lead role been given to a female character this expansion, but the men are total weaklings.
Faerin should’ve been a grizzled older man that took Anduin under his wing and gave him a father figure/role model.
There are so many missed opportunities for the cast of this expansion that it’s honestly ruined the story for me.
Every piece of media you consume is made by someone using their own life experience to inspire and create it. It’s impossible to write a story without any of your own personal bias and life experience getting in the way because it’s what we draw from the most when creating anything. It’s impossible to make anything 100% objectively and separate yourself from it entirely.
This is how I know that you didn’t even pay enough attention to the story to even listen to the dialogue, or even watch the cut scenes.
There is literally a whole questline in the main story quest where you’re doing stuff around a huge pool of blood they refer to as “Black Blood”. It’s the opening quests in Azj-Kahet.
In his latest interview, Metzen mentioned that the process of writing WoW is quite a bit more democratic than it used to be. While overarching story beats are driven by Metzen and other top-level writers, individual details (such as whether a character is female or not) are likely determined by the individuals in charge of the details of those story portions.
When the story is split up between different teams, and every team goes, “Hey, we should have a strong female as a central character for this story bit” (in an attempt to be “original” or “progressive” or “cool” or whatever), then we end up with a finished product where every prominent character is female.
The only males that wiggle their way in are side characters, villains, or already-existing characters to leverage as a hook to invite interest in a new story. Marvel movies did this throughout the entirety of phase 4… and it didn’t pan out well.
Regardless, I’ve actually really enjoyed the story so far in TWW, and the female “lead” characters haven’t been written in a way that is distractingly “in-your-face” (I don’t even find any issues with Faerin as of yet, but I’ve only completed up through Hallowfall).
No, I actually considered it when writing my post. But the “Black Blood” doesn’t look anything like actual blood, we don’t see its source, and there’s nothing visceral about it. It could be a pool of green water, for all it matters to the narrative.
I also considered the “Bloody Perch” fishing mechanic…but, that’s not exactly story-driven, is it?
Anything else you want to berate or belittle me about?
I think that is also part of the reason why people are finding their entertainment in other media (not from U.S.), where there is no feminist, LGBT, or whatever agenda-driven narratives to be shoved down their throats (South America, Asia, Middle East come to mind). People are tired of this and are tuning it out (I know I have), which is also why it is impacting the reception people have and therefore profit.
I always enjoyed WoW’s lore and stories (been playing since Warcraft 1) and I still enjoy the game for its systems and mechanics. But I am not as attached to the story so far. We will see if this changes as we get deeper into TWW and continue the trilogy of expansions. Fingers crossed.