I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been having about the “Get Our Hostages Out” quest in WoW undermined update. While I understand that its just a quest in a game, I can’t help but feel uncomfortable when I’m working through it. For some reason, the idea of rescuing hostages really resonates with some of the more real-world, heavy themes tied to global conflicts, particularly what’s been happening in the Middle East.
While the quest is designed for gameplay and lore, the wording and premise of “hostages” in a conflict is hitting a bit too close to some very sensitive, real world issues. it unintentionally triggers discomfort when I’m just trying to enjoy a game.
It’s hard for me to separate the fantasy world from the very real pain that people experience in situations involving hostages and international struggles. It feels like a somber reminder that what we experience in media, even in games, can sometimes echo the very real suffering of others.
I just wanted to voice this because I feel like im not the only one who might feel this way. Has anyone else experienced discomfort with quests like this or felt that certain ingame themes unintentionally bring up real world issues that are tough to process? I hope world of warcraft can step away from political issues and just be on its own <3
I get what you are saying and I’m not going to make light of what you wrote, but there’s tragedies constantly happening around the world. If we rewrite or delay a story based on the timing of a real world event, we’d never have any media.
In this case, I still think hostages in the game are different enough than what has happened in the real world.
Gallywix is obviously the worst kind of tyrant. He spies on his people. He blasts people who disagree with him. He exploits workers. By extension, his underlings do bad deeds as well.
I’d urge you to think of this conflict as an extension of the enemy we are facing - someone who doesn’t mind using other living beings as pawns in his endgame despite the danger they’d be put in, rather than trying to draw real world comparisons to what is a video game story.
If we followed this logic, we literally would not be able to do anything in game except for stand in a featureless room with no movement. Everything could potentially maybe be triggering to someone out there, and therefore it should just not be a thing by that logic.
Yeah, no. Grit your teeth and do the quests and move on, or quit.
This is a non-issue. If we pretend this is a reasonable “issue” to create narratives around, then there are VERY few stories we can ever tell. Everything is based in reality to some extent. We’d essentially have to have a game with no actual conflict.
I’m sure this is bait, but there are people who think like this. It’s no good when taken to extremes.
You mean this VERY COMMON thing done many times not only in this game, but all of fiction?
it has nothing to do with any real world conflict even slightly.
Maybe think about it as not global conflict related and 70s or 80s bank robbery, bearer bond thief, or plane hijacker style instead! Everyone wants to solve the DB Cooper mystery right? Also, Die Hard is the best Xmas movie ever and it had hostages in it.
I mean this questline is onviously more of A Die Hard or “Batman” hostage situation and not a conflict zone one.
I actually did not think about this real world connection at all, before the OP mentioned it.
And I agree with him, some folks might feel uncomfortable with it, as it is without a doubt the biggest topic since about 15 months in our society.
It seems reasonable to assume that Blizzard in all those months could have come up with something different, to honor / out of respect to the victims of October 7th.
It is a bit shocking that he is receiving a lot of trolling for his thoughts, but it shows that we are living in a pretty cold world. I remember how after 9/11 movie scripts and games were rewritten, so it is not unreasonable to expect some common sense by the community here.
I would honestly suggest just uninstalling the game. You’re not going to find many games that won’t offend you outside of Switch games or similar, so I’d suggest getting a Switch. It’s also quite telling that hostages of different kinds (such as Orcs) don’t illicit the same effect from you, and you clearly have an extremely narrow view of the world as a whole, and dare I say, probably different views of whom you consider lesser.
Don’t we miss the day when warcraft lore was about orc genociding an entire race to use up their soul to power up a portal to another world, where they intended to genocide another, other race…
