This is the NPC name that seems to be replacing a number of “Fras Siabi” items/objects in the game world.
Glad they’re doing this, but is this name someone I should know? Because I don’t recognize it.
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It’s the make a wish kid. Probably.
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Ezra is a relatively common “cool” name for fantasy settings, but if it is a reference to him, just for full context he was behind this NPC;
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Ezra is his first name. Not sure why they chose Grimm, though. And not all are being renamed that.
Honestly, as much as I despise Afrasiabi for what he did to women, his writing was good and it’s sad that we’ve regressed to the ancient times of Egypt, where we go back and erase people from their accomplishments and existence.
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He also created the Phoenix mount.
And I don’t think they’re looking to revise everything Afrasiabi ever touched; they’d be insane to try. There would be entire questlines implemented by people aside from Afrasiabi that would just be purged, leaving giant gaps in WoW’s narrative. For instance, they’d have to retcon much of what Sylvanas has been doing pre-BFA because Afrasiabi has his fingerprints all over it.
However, NPCs and elements that primarily exist as tributes to him probably have no place in a game that is in continuous development by people that are his victims. We’re dealing with a different beast than just pretending a controversial figure didn’t write something good 5-10 years ago.
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Noooooo not my pink and yellow birdy
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Not sure how removing a few npc/item names is comparable to “regressing to the ancient times of Egypt”…
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I understand what you’re saying, but I still don’t think it’s right for this country to keep falling into this pattern of deleting people from existence.
No no, Ezra created it.
And I don’t think “deleting people from existence” is what they’re doing.
NPCs aren’t just meant to say “this person worked on a game.” They’re meant to say “this person is pretty cool.” Once it turns out that person wasn’t actually cool at all, there’s really no reason to keep promoting them in one of the most popular MMOs of all time.
Side note; do you think Blizz was wrong for removing Bario Matali?
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The quests he wrote, his actual work, is not being changed.
But all references to him which effectively glorify him, are being removed. It’s kind of like the removal of various statues that happened over the past few years. The history of these people aren’t being removed, but the statues that glorify them are.
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I wonder what kind of cigars I’ll be getting from Stratholme now
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It’s exactly what they’re doing. All references to him in game will be gone.
… I didn’t even know he got removed. WTH?!
Exactly. Thank you for proving my point.
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I didn’t really prove your point.
His ‘accomplishments’ his ‘work’ is not being changed. All the quests that he wrote, all the contributions he made which made WoW into what it is, aren’t going anywhere. Blizzard is just making a stand not to glorify the man by having references to him in their game.
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You absolutely did.
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He’s disagreeing with you.
His point, and mine, is that there is a very clear difference between remembering someone for their work and exalting them for the content of their character.
There are certain dictators that are instrumental in the histories of their respective countries, but it would be absurd to claim that removing statues of these terrible people is anything close to “censorship.”
Afrasiabi’s name will always be attached to the history of WoW. You can google search that any time you want. But there’s no reason to say he’s a pretty good dude in the year 2021 when people he actively victimized are still working on WoW.
Statues, monuments, tributes, etc. are not historical records. Books are. Afrasiabi isn’t becoming a non-person. He’s just getting tributes removed. Because he doesn’t deserve them.
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Again, you said and I quote:
His writing is not being changed.
The quests he made are not being changed.
Every contribution he made to WoW from 2004 to 2020 is staying in the game.
Blizzard is just choosing to remove his NPCs and in-game references, which puts him on the same level as every other person who has worked on WoW that doesn’t have a reference to them in-game, which is the vast majority of them.
You would only have a point if they were purging every quest he ever wrote.
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Irrelevant. He proved my point. The Egyptians did the same thing to erase people as we do with removal of references and statues.
I have never once used that word.
Again, I see what you’re saying. I simply don’t agree with erasing everyone like we tend to do these days.
I don’t condone the actions of those who did these horrible things and I understand where you’re coming from. My concern is simply how often we do this nowadays.
It’s a game. We don’t need monuments for bad people in a game.
Plus I don’t think I want people who got harassed or worse by him to work on the game knowing there’s an unnecessary high number of references to him.
And then if you look at the Lord Afrasastrasz one, he’s surrounded by only female NPCs and it creeped me out when I saw it in a way.
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Grimm.
The obvious would be Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which was written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. They were a pair of librarians who collected fantasy folklore and put it all in a book.
That’s kind of a nod to Alex Afrasiabi’s role at Blizzard too (besides his long hugs of course).
Ezra… that part I’m not sure of… but Ezra can be rearranged to Azer, as in Azeroth… so Ezra Grimm COULD mean the folklore collector of Azeroth?
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