The Tauren weren’t the only natives of Kalimdor though, and there were other native groups, namely the Night Elves, that were allied with the Alliance. Two colonial forces that had native allies. This isn’t particularly without precedent even in the IRL European colonization of places like North America. As you are almost certainly aware, Indigenous Americans are a very diverse group in themselves and had their own alliance system when colonizers arrived that ended up being folded into alliances with the colonial powers in order to counterbalance the influence of other indigenous powers. We see it happen similarly in WoW with Kalimdor. The Tauren themselves entered into an alliance with the Horde initially in order for military assistance to defeat their chief indigenous rivals (the Centaur)
One of the bloodiest conflicts in recorded North American history was the Beaver Wars, which was almost entirely fought between rival indigenous confederations, and all it took for it to happen was for the economic balance of power to be disrupted by the Columbian exchange.
So in the case of the non-indigenous to Kalimdor groups in the Alliance and Horde it’s not really fair to say that one was “more” colonial than others. If it’s a case of one group being “white” and the other group being “not white” then I guess I can’t really dispute how you feel on that matter, but I does make it appear that the problem here isn’t with different races in WoW being excessively ethnicity-coded (which is a legitimate issue) and more that the “right” ethnicity-coded groups aren’t dominating the other ones, which doesn’t seem like an approach that is going to go anywhere.
I perhaps could understand this if I was criticizing my own rewrite, but I obviously wasn’t. My point to Baal is that his solution didn’t address these issues, and, at the same time, retained the Horde’s image as aggressive invaders given that everything in BFA, including the War of the Thorns as he established, happens anyway, sans the burning of Teldrassil.
The basis principle for ISO 9001 is “the customer is right, and please LISTEN to your customer if you actually pretend to improve in the Quality department”.
Heck, we “complainers” put it easier for them… in the exercise of my profession I´ve found the “hard” customers are the radical ones (the ones that say nothing, literally bann you and your products and may even talk bad about your products or your company to other business while you stay happily ignorant of all of the above).
How many people leaves the game cause the feel their issues (both regarding the narrative but more importantly, regarding the GAMEPLAY) just up and leave saying nothing to Blizz and badmouth WoW as a trash tier game? All and every player that does that means one potential customer lost for the company.
And that´s bad.
I´m talking about the contradictory and incoherent attitude you portraye here, in which you condemn Blizzard for the bad execution of an even worse story, but at the same time defend the existence and permanence in the game of both the story AND the execution of it when confronted with the hypothetical chance to revert it and by proxy revert ALL the damages it caused for your enjoyment of the game.
You don´t have to jump obstacles to defend this Kyalin, you can simply say “this won´t happen cause this doesn´t follow modern business practices; therefore it is a moot point investing time discussing a scenario that will never be implemented” and you will be right (every company will burn to the ground BEFORE making any admission of being in the wrong; this is no novelty Kyalin…).
Honestly with the orcs’ home being ruined by proudmoore and pretty awful overall, it reminds me more of bigger tribes pushing smaller tribes westward when the American army pushed the larger tribe off their lands.
Still not a good thing, but more of a “Better me than you” than the kind of colonialism the Alliance was up to in Vanilla. I mean between killing a village so they could loot their burial mounds for “treasures” and strip mining random lands for no real reason (Aren’t there perfectly fine mines in EK?), the alliance just seems to be the picture of the early 1700s/1800s colonialist power.
Only way they could have made it more blatant is if they were chopping off orc hands at the internment camps
Laugh all you want, but there´s a difference between modifying your design parameters to fulfill the wishes of every Dick and Harry AND literally telling your customers in public media you don`t give a f over their opinion on the product you SELL to them.
Blizzard degenerated into the second case. This is NOT us demanding the impossibke from them, is us demanding a minimum of respect for teh stuff they charge us for (I mean if the policy is "take whatever I want to give you and don´t dare complain, then me thinks this game should go F2P ASAP).
A lot of them were destroyed and plagued, ironically by an indigenous power in the Eastern Kingdoms that was receiving military support against their other indigenous rivals by colonial forces from Kalimdor (namely the Forsaken.)
It’s actually surprisingly equitable as far as colonialist narratives go. If the Horde has the right to complain about all those Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes in Kalimdor then the Alliance should have the right to complain about all those Orcs, Tauren, and Darkspear constantly intervening in Lordaeron for the sake of their own colonial interests.
I mean if you’re going to start arguing that the Alliance’s core races don’t have indigenous rights to anything then I don’t know if a discussion is possible. It also strikes me as the same kind of rhetoric where people excuse European colonialism in the Americas on the basis that indigenous peoples came from somewhere else initially too.
I’m not sure where you get a defense out of a statement that a retcon won’t fix the problem or make it go away in the minds of the audience. I also don’t feel that the specific suggestion on the table actually did revert all of the damages.
I also would dispute your comment on “modern business practices” with respect to admitting fault or reversing wrongdoing, in any industry. The Tylenol example is a pretty famous case study that would speak against this. More contemporarily, No Man’s Sky is an emerging case study of a company taking it on the chin, fixing their issues, and being heralded for it. In both cases, a modicum of sincerity is required of course - both actually went and fixed their problem, and this was good for their brand equity. I’d call that especially important, furthermore, in an environment where CSR & ESG is increasingly critical.
Lastly, hiding behind professional standards in my experience doesn’t work. Clients tend to appreciate it when you walk them through the mechanics, in a way that they can understand, of a complex topic and why you’ve arrived at the point that you have. In auditing, for instance, this allows you to get a lot more done because your decisions don’t feel arbitrary, and the client can connect to why you’re proposing the adjustments that you’re proposing.
Otherwise, in my experience, people roll their eyes at you - sort of the way I’d like to when I ask a client how a control operates, and they come back at me with “Well, we use a robust framework informed by best practices that was subject to a rigorous executive-level review.”
Well … Then only a small number of Africans can claim that someone invaded THEIR land.
And then only trolls, elves (all) and elementals are native to Azeroth?
I’m not saying they don’t have a right to live in the EK in their current homes (especially the parts that weren’t inhabited beforehand), just that if we’re talking about colonialist narratives, its a distinction to be made. They were absolutely not the first ones there.
I would say that the EK troll tribes do have a very legitimate grievance towards all of those races (including the forsaken and blood elves) however. I’d love to see an actual take on the Troll wars that paints the trolls as something other than horrible savages being “irrationally” angry about the Alliance continuously and violently stealing their lands.
Just because you say it is, it doesn’t mean it is especially considering that the Orcs in every other medium are blood thirsty unintelligent monsters. Or is that somehow less racist?
My point is that you can say this about literally anyone in an attempt to discredit their indigenous land claims and people IRL do it all the time in bad faith in order to minimize the effects of colonialism on indigenous populations. Like, “This group displaced another native group X years ago so really they’re just as colonial as we are and have no legitimate grievance in the face of our colonialism.” Mind you, the Troll Wars happened literally thousands of years prior to WoW and the only ones who participated that weren’t long, long dead were Elves (who, incidentally, are now Horde)
You’re just flipping that script around to excuse Horde colonialism in the Eastern Kingdoms when if someone tried to use the same rhetoric against the Tauren (which they could, since we know that the Tauren displaced the Centaur to claim the lands they currently hold) you would rightfully identify that as a bad faith argument.
The Amani are practically a strawman representation of aggrieved natives/forcibly transported natives of somewhere else whose ideas of righting wrongs (which aren’t really acknowledged by anyone but them) are revenge genocide and global conquest.
