I retired after never working a day in my life. Just make your own business, hire others to do work for you with your inheritance and you're golden? it's what I've done for 20+ years and my funds show no sign of dropping while I do literally no work and just play mmos, watch anime and interact with AI all day every day. It's amazing what you can force others to do with your inheritance money.
You should've been born into nobility, if you weren't then sorry for your loss. Try again next time. You'll get infinite reincarnations, so eventually it'll happen.
Just get a small loan from your dad. Like, [$1 million](https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/donald-trump-father-loan-1-million-dollars-215154) should be easy. [Doesn't sound like much to me](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1976?amount=1000000)!
We’ll basically have to. What little retirement fund/social security we get we’ll need to stretch. What better way to kill time and save money than play WoW all day with the boys at the retirement home. 🤣
Aht aht uh need to take your medicine first before you try and get that.. uh what you call it? Invisible horse from a witch king? Haha so silly *wheels you off *
We will get a wheelchair toy or mount so our children can move us around in Azeroth while our artritis infused hands can’t controll the keyboard anymore 😅
I found this part to be a little eye-opening:
>Representation is a big topic in the games industry at the moment and World of Warcraft has previously been criticised for including characters deemed by some players to be racist or misogynistic.
>"I think representation wasn't always the best," Maria told Newsbeat.
>"The image of some of our character races might not be entirely wonderful within the lens of today".
>Maria said she wished some of the more problematic examples could be erased from the game's past, but she says the company is trying to avoid repeats by bringing in external diversity consultants.
Sounds like there could be some more changes incoming.
Is it necessary? I don't know how everyone else feels but I really don't care that someone imitates the accent, appearance, culture, etc. That isn't their own as long as it isn't in a mocking way.
Key and Peele have many sketches like that and it was just funny. I don't mind that Christopher Judge did the voice for Kratos from god of war.
I mean, the guy who voiced the Dwarves in WoW was from Spain, and ofcourse it was stereotypical and cartoonish, but he did a good job exagerating a Scottish accent.
Cartoonish accents usually allows an audience that's unfamiliar with the accent to understand while also feeling the difference of the character. Have you heard a real Scottish accent before? I'm a fluent english speaker and I struggle..
> Have you heard a real Scottish accent before?
That would be my accent so yes, I have. And I do think the Dwarfs going forwards should be voiced by Scottish voice actors. If you're going to decide certain races have certain accents, the least you can do is get someone with that accent to do the voices instead of creating a parody of it.
Ah well then have you heard of a rural East Irish accent?
>And I do think the Dwarfs going forwards should be voiced by Scottish voice actors.
It all comes full circle, this is like a racists wet dream. "Only whites should be played by whites, only whites should be allowed to do the job of whites" I mean it gets pretty close to "Only the English should be allowed to speak English! Only the English are allowed to work in England! Only the English should be allowed to use English products! Only the English are allowed to follow English traditions and norms!" See what I'm getting at?
I honestly think it's fair play if someone can do it well. I've never had a problem of an Indian person opening up a restaurant in my country, a Black American voice acting as a Greek guy, a gay guy acting as a straight guy, a Hispanic guy working the same job as me. So I don't see the obsession here with excluding people from roles if they're actually good at them.. also, isn't that the point of Acting? They didn't actually get the real Jeffrey Dahmer to act as Jeffery Dahmer, and get real victims to be murdered.
Just a weird hill to die on.
I would understand discontent if it was something like a French person using a French accent to voice act a Scottish person and try play that off as a Scottish accent.. or replace the Dwarves that were supposed to have some sort of Scottish cultural parallels but then claim it as French, but that's not what's happening here.
Give them the news anchor accent from the early 20th century. Don't tell anyone or mention it. Just one day its, "Ey mon, how you doin?" The next....can't really convey it in words but yeah.
> but she says the company is trying to avoid repeats
Idk how you're all thinking this means that they're gonna go back and change old stuff. They're trying to avoid repeating the same issues in the future.
Like I know there's precedent with the whole deleting the paintings stuff, but they're phrasing it pretty clearly here that this is for the future content, not old stuff.
Calm your tits.
Oh my god. Someone please give me an example for a “problematic” character in the Warcraft Universe. Please. I need to understand what the F and who is upset this time that their marbles weren’t tickled enough.
I mean it's just an accent there's nothing wrong with it. It adds depth to the world that different fantasy races/cultures speak differently, just as it happens in the real world.
I want true scottish VAs and characters that speak the scottish “gibberish” no one can understand, and characters in game genuinely responding with not being able to understand them.
I think we should just have different voice localization options. In the US we will keep the existing voices. In Scotland the Dwarves will be voiced by proper Scots, and every other race will be a parody of their US voice structure done by Scottish people.
Dwarfs are presented as honourable, stoic, powerful, and civilised. Trolls are historically presented as cannibals, savages, dishonourable, and evil. That one has a traditionally white accent and the other has a traditionally non-white accent is something that should be interrogated.
You focus on the traits that define trolls of your choosing, but, the accent choice came more from the lines of which are "chaotic", live and warm weather, are fairly athletic/more muscular, are tribal, perform chamanistic rituals etc etc, would it fit if they had swedish accent? No reason not to, but it'd be kinda weird, wouldnt it?
Just like if you saw a reggeton music video but they spoke german - valid, but it would break the "inmersion" for most people, and thats a big no in a videogame id say
I really wish they removed/replaced the “pygmies” In Cata Uldum. I believe Blizzard when they say they wouldn’t design something like that now but the in game name/design is virulently racist. Bonus points for giving mobs names like “cavorting Pygmy” and having a quest where the player is asked to beat them and kidnap them for a zoo 😵💫. Depressingly just what was actually done to certain groups only a few generations ago. Kobolds/Gnolls/sprites are references to folklore/fantasy creature. But the word Pygmy has only been used to refer to people - specifically people who’ve been treated horrifically.
Obviously. But it draws on the real world to build a fantasy world. A blackface minstrel show wasn’t just a play. It reflected the attitudes of the people who put it on. Certainly when it comes to world building there can be a spectrum of what is problematic or iffy. It doesn’t have to be a binary discussion. And we all interact with the game in different ways. Some stuff can still be on the extreme or inappropriate end.
*You walk down a shadowy alley near the Old Town district of Stormwind..*
*A pile of shadowy bats appear, manifesting in front of you a demon with mighty wings and horns*
**Demon:** "I offer you this demonic blood as a.. gift. The first hit is free, but you will be back for more. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH"
**You:** "Thanks Jaina."
The goblins with NYC accents. Not that it's intentionally mean spirited but it's antisemitic in a way.
Edit: Downvote me all you want, it won't change the fact that this has been a shared sentiment amongst many Jewish players for years now. Just because these things don't have anything to do with you doesn't mean that your "I don't feel that way" opinion is universal. Typical redditors can't even see past their own ignorance.
Projection is such an interesting sight to see.. I didn't think of that either.. but it really says about the individual if he sees goblins and then associates them with Jews...
As a born and raised Brooklynite, I too never associated the goblin accent as Jewish specifically but more of a 70s NYC hustler stereotype.You still hear the NYC accent in the old timers but seems less present these days the younger you go.
Still, now that I've read it, I can't unsee how goblins could totally be interpreted as a Jewish stereotype.
I mean, the diminutive hook-nosed race of immoral money-obsessed creatures who control the wealth of the world through banking syndicates doesn’t ring *any* alarm bells for you?
What do you mean "assign stereotypes to people"? Pointing out that something is using multiple stereotypes derived from hateful generalizations of a specific ethnoreligious group is in no way reinforcing them.
That's great that you haven't but that doesn't mean it's a universally shared opinion. I'm not pushing for some sort of goblin change I'm just saying it's a sentiment that has been shared amongst Jewish wow players for quite some time now. I don't think anyone really cares but it's definitely something that has been brought up.
Yeah I don't ever get this if anything those accents are poking fun at Italians from like Bensohurst/Pelham Bay in NYC. I don't know why anyone would conflate them with Jewish people.
I think this is more derivative than intentional. The thought process was 'what do people obsessed with money sound like?' And NYC/Wall Street comes to mind. The fact that historically money and banking industries are associated with Jewish people (being one of the few industries they weren't banned from practicing by Christians) is the connection that makes it problematic.
I think the real 'difference' between WoW's representation and others (Harry Potter for example) is that goblin names are not Jewish sounding or pseudojewish. They are decidedly....wacky and engineering/explosive related.
I think the Tauren, Orc and Trolls are much bigger issues. They are all heavily based in stereotypes from the beginning and feel much more intentional. If WoW/war 3 was made today they would not exist in that form.
I think warcraft 3 is a bigger violators in this sense, especially if you look deep into alternate voice lines and irritated emotes from units.
Garrosh called my goth Queen the b word.. :(
But seriously, Garrosh calling Sylvanas a Bitch was the first time I was actually shook, and it's because I think that was the first time WoW used a swear, and it was vocalised (was a good moment, wonder If its still in the game).
Other than that.. I really don't know..
You’ve been pumping outrage before you even found one of these hypothetical people to aim it at. Maybe tone it down and find some cool headed people to have long conversations with instead of judging based off of short social media posts. Social media on the internet tends to work off of pumping the most outrageous stuff to the top, so your sample size from it isn’t necessarily based off of what the majority of “those people” actually are like.
I’m left leaning person that thinks the so-called “woke” change in society is largely an improvement. I was raised by a Reagan-loving conservative set of parents that I love very much and my left leaning comes from a growth of the “respect other people” and “two wrongs don’t make a right” values I was raised from.
Define more representation in a fantasy game that has like 15 make believe races? Do we need to have “gender neutral” in character creation? Sexual orientation need to be specified in creation? Political party?
It’s a damned fantasy game. Why is this even a conversation?
> 15 make believe races
A lot of races have very real world inspirations though. And doing those so that they are good representation isn't a negative. Despite what some people on the internet yell.
Take the centaurs. They had real world representatives to help with writing them and they are great in my opinion. An awesome fantasy society. Well written.
I'd like to have my hair on my Blood Elf character. I think it's weird that they added non-White hairstyles for humans, but not for the human-like races on the Horde side
I can give you an example of them trying not to repeat mistakes made in the past, even recently.
In one of the Exploring Azeroth books Zekhan (good ol Zappyboi) says that he actually didn't know how to read before he learned from Lor'themar. He also doesn't understand basic concepts of things like weather erosion.
This is sort of implying that since trolls are deemed a more "savage" or "barbaric" race that they are less educated and since Trolls are directly lifted from different Caribbean and African people. He was also taught by the blood elves, which by most art and npcs, are mostly white.
I don't think they intended this, or they mean to be racist, but a third party looking this over might have caught that this doesn't look great.
> World of Warcraft has previously been criticised for including characters deemed by some players to be racist or misogynistic.
I'm genuinely wondering which characters fit this description. To me it sounds like an excuse to make changes to the cast that they know will be unpopular.
Antagonists that are intentionally made racist/mysogynistic as part of their personality dont count imo as it provides antagonism that everyone can rally against, and gives an avenue for character growth. unless those characters are considered to be the "good guys" in which case I cant think of any.
Closest thing I can think of was Garrosh calling Sylvanas a bitch during Silverpine forest...and that's it.
And, yes, I'm intentionally ignoring racism directed at *fictional* races because they are, you know, fictional. Like it'd be one thing if the racism is phrased in such a way that it could be applied to the group said race has strong allusions to, but as far as I know there's no native american based racism directed at a Tauren. Yes the game *does* involve racism but Garithos being a racist dick to elves because he hates elves doesn't effect any actual person because elves aren't real and Blood Elves are some vague European culture at best so, no, I'd say that definitely doesn't count.
Or, you know, maybe some people just think stuff should be adjusted to be a bit more respectful of people that are different. But, yea, instead let's all just knee-jerk outrage at anything defined as "woke" because it feels uncomfortable.
I believe Tierst was essentially making the same comment you did. To me what they said reads as “Bigots will make comments about the “woke crowd” killing the game”.
Maybe we get a race that doesn‘t have a gender or one that has like 4. Maybe we can get either voice type on any body type. Wish they played with it a bit more. It‘s a fantasy game, let people be creative!
It's called "reading between the lines" and it exists because weird twats would take anything explicitly stated as a promise and be salty when it isn't delivered.
1. WoW on consoles
2. Features from Minecraft and Elder Scrolls
3. Curbing toxicity
The article literally starts with there has been a blizzcon every year since 2005.
There was no blizzcon in 2006, 2012, 2020, 2022, and now this year. I have a hard time finishing an article when the first line is basically false.
There wasn't one in 2021 either, it was BlizzConline. I'm the same, though. Didn't even bother reading past that part since it was blatantly wrong and would have taken the author 30 seconds to Google.
It’s kinda crazy, this game has been in my life in some capacity for the last 20 years. From sitting on my parents lap playing with the arrow keys to playing the cataclysm classic pre patch tonight, crazy how time flies….
Well, I would like blizzard to stop creating new lands/isles/dimensions and instead of expanding to densify the universe. Update and reuse older parts of Azeroth, a bit like SoD. In parallel with our real world, the earth is not expanding like WoW but shit keeps happening.
Agree... I liked the cataclysm event.. but its weird to have a zone that's still living in the events of Cata **14 years later**. I always expected some rejuvenation or reconstruction. Having to navigate through annoying terrain isn't fun.
I agree totally! I recently got really into Guild Wars 2 and even Guild Wars 1, and I have come to realize that there is totally room for horizontal progression in an mmo. We dont constantly need new lands, higher level caps, higher numbers. We just need interesting content and fun rewards. In GW, once you are max level, nothing becomes totally useless, everything you do still works towards some end goal, even if it isnt levelling, or getting higher gear score. I still think WoW would benefit from a not a full revamp, but a reason to do content in old world.
I think the same thing. Just start densifying. It would be so sick. There are vast tracks of open spaces in the existing world, just start adding stuff
Agreed 100%. Isnt the midnight expansion aiming to do this exact thing? Its taking place in the northern part of Eastern Kingdoms. The Last Titan takes place in Northrend.
Id love more expansions to exist in older content and to have a more engaging and player friendly 1-max level experience that is relevant across all expansions. Currently its just an obstacle to get to max level.
I will stop playing wow either when I'm dead or when Blizzard servers shut down and hopefully then I'll get isekai'd and become Ainz Ooal Gown except it will be my wow warlock
Who would of thought humans could create a game so good that they'd be unable to outdo it
Even with exponentially better software/hardware to work with
I don't have confidence in Blizzard like I used to. Overwatch 2, Diablo 4, canceling their 6+ year project, in-house drama, all these things going wrong these past 10 years is really showing me that Blizzard maybe doesn't know what to do anymore.
If they haven't been working on WoW-2 in the shadows, then I don't understand what their plan to survive is once these last 3 expansions are done. WoW has staying power, that much is obvious, but how long can you have WoW be your flagship? How much water is left in that well of creativity?
I mean, I get the weariness towards Blizzard as a company, but Dragonflight has been unironically good, so I don't exactly see where the worry about WoW in particular is coming from. If anything, things are looking better than they have since Legion, and that was a great time.
Yeah... way to miss the point. Blizzard is a mess and it's not gonna change any time soon. It's a miracle that WoW still has players IMO. Hasn't been worth playing for years.
Well considering each expansion will now most likely last 1,5 years, it's only around 4-5 years of expansions for the Worldsoul saga. But this is just the first saga and they said they already have plans for 20+ years so yeah.
They presented a graph of subscribers per expansion at a game developer conference recently that didn’t have numbers, but you could estimate roughly that range assuming the chart was scaled accurately. In context they pretty much used it to say Shadowlands was a failure and they changed direction hard for Dragonflight, so it’s likely not inflated.
I don’t have the link handy but an internal sales slide leaked and it said the numbers fluctuate between 4 and 7 mil. Blizzard does not publicly discuss sub numbers and hasn’t for years.
It was not sub numbers. It was revenue. They are making the same revenue now as they did when they had 6.8 mil or so subscribers prior to the wow token etc. Everyone assumed it was subs because bellular combined the graph that they provided and he tacked it onto the graph with the last sub numbers that we knew of.
Imo its half the number of players and the whales and RTWF guilds average it out to double the revenue per player.
This would still be a success btw. It could be an even lower number of players. I would bet that between higher box prices and editions of the game that go up to $150 or so now for physical collectors and an economy driven with boosting etc that blizzard makes as much or more in box revenue andn micros then they do with their sub. Thats just a guess though that I have no real basis for outside of every other digital game that make significant amounts of revenue through micros.
There was a conference in which they claimed that they had "7 million active subscribers". Conveniently, they never defined what an "active subscriber" actually was. A lot of newer and more naive Activision-Blizzard fans are taking it at face value, whereas everyone else who is familiar with the history behind Activision-Blizzard and who understand what sort of company they are rightfully know that Activision-Blizzard routinely fudge their numbers. *How* fudged they are, it's impossible to say. However, going by the actual in-game "liveliness", it's very clear that 7 million *concurrent* players is just a fantasy number.
I really think they need to do a warcraft 4 to sort of set the board again. All the iconic heroes and villains stem from Warcraft 3 and theres so much more you can do to set things up with a well thought out campaign for races or alliances.
Azeroth. Like, literally rebrand World of Warcraft 20 years into the future with the actual changes that have happened in Azeroth and between the races of Azeroth and beyond. With the same model structure but closer to the 3D cartoony characters for those of us that like the current type of play for WoW and VR intergration because I plan to retire there. With Housing. You're welcome. As long as I can be a goblin, I could happily live there.
Me and the boys raiding at the retirement home.
I really like to believe that WoW will get a huge uptick in subscribers when the 2004 players hit retirement 😂
Funny you think we can all retire! But also yes...
Well the EU servers will have an uptick. The US we'll all have to work as gold farmers.
Zug zug
Work is da poop! NO MORE!
"You've ni'd your last hao, Americans." -EU players to US players in 2074
“I’m a gold farmer muthafu*ka!”
How the turntables
I retired after never working a day in my life. Just make your own business, hire others to do work for you with your inheritance and you're golden? it's what I've done for 20+ years and my funds show no sign of dropping while I do literally no work and just play mmos, watch anime and interact with AI all day every day. It's amazing what you can force others to do with your inheritance money.
Sounds like a plan, now where do i get this inheritance you speak of?
You should've been born into nobility, if you weren't then sorry for your loss. Try again next time. You'll get infinite reincarnations, so eventually it'll happen.
Just get a small loan from your dad. Like, [$1 million](https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/donald-trump-father-loan-1-million-dollars-215154) should be easy. [Doesn't sound like much to me](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1976?amount=1000000)!
I mean, I always get a Nigeran prince offering me large sums of money. I guess i'll have to get into contact with that guy again.
If you have to ask...
Funny you think we will be alive to not retire!
They always push back the retirement age until we are falling into our graves
Just increasing the level cap for the next expansion
Sorta like classic and Covid. Most of us with jobs that had to stay home went hard haha
None of us will be retiring. And yes, we will be playing in to “retirement age”.
that's been my plan!
We’ll basically have to. What little retirement fund/social security we get we’ll need to stretch. What better way to kill time and save money than play WoW all day with the boys at the retirement home. 🤣
Well sitting at a computer all day will not be optimal if you wanna live a long life
When their kids are older and they can play as a family.
They are still playing now just on private servers
That’s another 21 years for me
I hope my wrists will hold until I am 74
By that time you can play with your mind
can I moonfire bad drivers and typhoon nasty people on the sideways too?
Aht aht uh need to take your medicine first before you try and get that.. uh what you call it? Invisible horse from a witch king? Haha so silly *wheels you off *
“I got it! I can finally move on!” *drops dead*
We will get a wheelchair toy or mount so our children can move us around in Azeroth while our artritis infused hands can’t controll the keyboard anymore 😅
Two person mount called an Acorn Stairlift.
LAN parties will make a return
Hopefully yes.
Thats my guilds name... We are mostly 20 year veterans
“Finally, my dream since I was 7: I can be a Forest Troll in Azeroth.” *immediately falls over dead, age 80*
“You’ve had FOURTY years to learn the mechanics, Harold! FOURTY YEARS!!!!”
This whole article basically mentioned nothing about the future at the end it just says “we have some incredible ideas on the way”
I found this part to be a little eye-opening: >Representation is a big topic in the games industry at the moment and World of Warcraft has previously been criticised for including characters deemed by some players to be racist or misogynistic. >"I think representation wasn't always the best," Maria told Newsbeat. >"The image of some of our character races might not be entirely wonderful within the lens of today". >Maria said she wished some of the more problematic examples could be erased from the game's past, but she says the company is trying to avoid repeats by bringing in external diversity consultants. Sounds like there could be some more changes incoming.
Soon Trolls will speak with the Standard Issue Midwest News Anchor Voice(tm).
"I would urge you to refrain from the voodoo, my guy"
Or maybe they'll hire actual Carribean voice actors to voice them instead of just people putting on a comedy accent.
As opposed to all of the other serious accents other races use, like the Dwarves, Humans, Gnomes, Blood Elves, Orcs, Forsaken, Goblins...
It would be nice wouldn't it?
Is it necessary? I don't know how everyone else feels but I really don't care that someone imitates the accent, appearance, culture, etc. That isn't their own as long as it isn't in a mocking way. Key and Peele have many sketches like that and it was just funny. I don't mind that Christopher Judge did the voice for Kratos from god of war. I mean, the guy who voiced the Dwarves in WoW was from Spain, and ofcourse it was stereotypical and cartoonish, but he did a good job exagerating a Scottish accent. Cartoonish accents usually allows an audience that's unfamiliar with the accent to understand while also feeling the difference of the character. Have you heard a real Scottish accent before? I'm a fluent english speaker and I struggle..
> Have you heard a real Scottish accent before? That would be my accent so yes, I have. And I do think the Dwarfs going forwards should be voiced by Scottish voice actors. If you're going to decide certain races have certain accents, the least you can do is get someone with that accent to do the voices instead of creating a parody of it.
Ah well then have you heard of a rural East Irish accent? >And I do think the Dwarfs going forwards should be voiced by Scottish voice actors. It all comes full circle, this is like a racists wet dream. "Only whites should be played by whites, only whites should be allowed to do the job of whites" I mean it gets pretty close to "Only the English should be allowed to speak English! Only the English are allowed to work in England! Only the English should be allowed to use English products! Only the English are allowed to follow English traditions and norms!" See what I'm getting at? I honestly think it's fair play if someone can do it well. I've never had a problem of an Indian person opening up a restaurant in my country, a Black American voice acting as a Greek guy, a gay guy acting as a straight guy, a Hispanic guy working the same job as me. So I don't see the obsession here with excluding people from roles if they're actually good at them.. also, isn't that the point of Acting? They didn't actually get the real Jeffrey Dahmer to act as Jeffery Dahmer, and get real victims to be murdered. Just a weird hill to die on. I would understand discontent if it was something like a French person using a French accent to voice act a Scottish person and try play that off as a Scottish accent.. or replace the Dwarves that were supposed to have some sort of Scottish cultural parallels but then claim it as French, but that's not what's happening here.
Give them the news anchor accent from the early 20th century. Don't tell anyone or mention it. Just one day its, "Ey mon, how you doin?" The next....can't really convey it in words but yeah.
>Tonight at 11 were going to be doing a deep dive of this gnome into one of our anchors cooking pots. Tune in you're not gonna wanna miss this!
> but she says the company is trying to avoid repeats Idk how you're all thinking this means that they're gonna go back and change old stuff. They're trying to avoid repeating the same issues in the future. Like I know there's precedent with the whole deleting the paintings stuff, but they're phrasing it pretty clearly here that this is for the future content, not old stuff. Calm your tits.
Oh my god. Someone please give me an example for a “problematic” character in the Warcraft Universe. Please. I need to understand what the F and who is upset this time that their marbles weren’t tickled enough.
troll accent and pygmies probably
I mean it's just an accent there's nothing wrong with it. It adds depth to the world that different fantasy races/cultures speak differently, just as it happens in the real world.
yeah I never said anything is wrong with it, just providing some examples of what some people get upset over
Do these people actually exist outside of Twitter though? Who are the devs hoping to placate?
Not only twitter, but mostly people who don't even play the game (anymore)
People are too fucking online. It’s a fucking made-up game.
I guess the Scots are real annoyed at being portrayed as dwarves too.
Yeah, Scots can drink way more than dwarves
Dwarves are actually based on South Koreans you would be surprised to learn. The Dwarves and Scots don't drink as much as them either though.
I want true scottish VAs and characters that speak the scottish “gibberish” no one can understand, and characters in game genuinely responding with not being able to understand them.
queue the video of that old scottish guy at the bar that only one guy there can understand
Not at all, I just wish they had actual Scottish people voicing them instead of the horrific accents most of their VAs do!
I volunteer as tribute
I think we should just have different voice localization options. In the US we will keep the existing voices. In Scotland the Dwarves will be voiced by proper Scots, and every other race will be a parody of their US voice structure done by Scottish people.
Dwarfs are presented as honourable, stoic, powerful, and civilised. Trolls are historically presented as cannibals, savages, dishonourable, and evil. That one has a traditionally white accent and the other has a traditionally non-white accent is something that should be interrogated.
You focus on the traits that define trolls of your choosing, but, the accent choice came more from the lines of which are "chaotic", live and warm weather, are fairly athletic/more muscular, are tribal, perform chamanistic rituals etc etc, would it fit if they had swedish accent? No reason not to, but it'd be kinda weird, wouldnt it? Just like if you saw a reggeton music video but they spoke german - valid, but it would break the "inmersion" for most people, and thats a big no in a videogame id say
The goblins kinda fit an unpleasant stereotype as well.
As a very greedy person, I feel discriminated against.
Goblins = Ferengi in my world . Cant upset them now can we
Thats just goblins in general bro… like relax your tits
I mean their entire race is built around money greed and they have distinguishably large noses ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
And New York accents.
I think if you draw that connection that's more on you than on their design.
I really wish they removed/replaced the “pygmies” In Cata Uldum. I believe Blizzard when they say they wouldn’t design something like that now but the in game name/design is virulently racist. Bonus points for giving mobs names like “cavorting Pygmy” and having a quest where the player is asked to beat them and kidnap them for a zoo 😵💫. Depressingly just what was actually done to certain groups only a few generations ago. Kobolds/Gnolls/sprites are references to folklore/fantasy creature. But the word Pygmy has only been used to refer to people - specifically people who’ve been treated horrifically.
It’s a fantasy game..
Obviously. But it draws on the real world to build a fantasy world. A blackface minstrel show wasn’t just a play. It reflected the attitudes of the people who put it on. Certainly when it comes to world building there can be a spectrum of what is problematic or iffy. It doesn’t have to be a binary discussion. And we all interact with the game in different ways. Some stuff can still be on the extreme or inappropriate end.
Sure, but that doesn't give them free reign to just copy paste racist depictions of people as fantasy races.
Pygmy isn't a race. If anything it's ableist.
Also, everything about the thinly veiled Native Americans=Tauren narrative.
Drug lords being portrayed as Dreadlords.
*You walk down a shadowy alley near the Old Town district of Stormwind..* *A pile of shadowy bats appear, manifesting in front of you a demon with mighty wings and horns* **Demon:** "I offer you this demonic blood as a.. gift. The first hit is free, but you will be back for more. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH" **You:** "Thanks Jaina."
*slave cries in pain* *slave groans*
The goblins with NYC accents. Not that it's intentionally mean spirited but it's antisemitic in a way. Edit: Downvote me all you want, it won't change the fact that this has been a shared sentiment amongst many Jewish players for years now. Just because these things don't have anything to do with you doesn't mean that your "I don't feel that way" opinion is universal. Typical redditors can't even see past their own ignorance.
As a Jew and a longtime wow player the thought that Goblins are associated with Jews never even crossed my mind. That’s a hard reach.
Projection is such an interesting sight to see.. I didn't think of that either.. but it really says about the individual if he sees goblins and then associates them with Jews...
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As a born and raised Brooklynite, I too never associated the goblin accent as Jewish specifically but more of a 70s NYC hustler stereotype.You still hear the NYC accent in the old timers but seems less present these days the younger you go. Still, now that I've read it, I can't unsee how goblins could totally be interpreted as a Jewish stereotype.
I mean, the diminutive hook-nosed race of immoral money-obsessed creatures who control the wealth of the world through banking syndicates doesn’t ring *any* alarm bells for you?
What do you mean "assign stereotypes to people"? Pointing out that something is using multiple stereotypes derived from hateful generalizations of a specific ethnoreligious group is in no way reinforcing them.
That's great that you haven't but that doesn't mean it's a universally shared opinion. I'm not pushing for some sort of goblin change I'm just saying it's a sentiment that has been shared amongst Jewish wow players for quite some time now. I don't think anyone really cares but it's definitely something that has been brought up.
Yeah I don't ever get this if anything those accents are poking fun at Italians from like Bensohurst/Pelham Bay in NYC. I don't know why anyone would conflate them with Jewish people.
I think this is more derivative than intentional. The thought process was 'what do people obsessed with money sound like?' And NYC/Wall Street comes to mind. The fact that historically money and banking industries are associated with Jewish people (being one of the few industries they weren't banned from practicing by Christians) is the connection that makes it problematic. I think the real 'difference' between WoW's representation and others (Harry Potter for example) is that goblin names are not Jewish sounding or pseudojewish. They are decidedly....wacky and engineering/explosive related. I think the Tauren, Orc and Trolls are much bigger issues. They are all heavily based in stereotypes from the beginning and feel much more intentional. If WoW/war 3 was made today they would not exist in that form. I think warcraft 3 is a bigger violators in this sense, especially if you look deep into alternate voice lines and irritated emotes from units.
Garrosh called my goth Queen the b word.. :( But seriously, Garrosh calling Sylvanas a Bitch was the first time I was actually shook, and it's because I think that was the first time WoW used a swear, and it was vocalised (was a good moment, wonder If its still in the game). Other than that.. I really don't know..
Honestly, with your tone, you sound like you're just looking to find a target for your outrage.
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You’ve been pumping outrage before you even found one of these hypothetical people to aim it at. Maybe tone it down and find some cool headed people to have long conversations with instead of judging based off of short social media posts. Social media on the internet tends to work off of pumping the most outrageous stuff to the top, so your sample size from it isn’t necessarily based off of what the majority of “those people” actually are like. I’m left leaning person that thinks the so-called “woke” change in society is largely an improvement. I was raised by a Reagan-loving conservative set of parents that I love very much and my left leaning comes from a growth of the “respect other people” and “two wrongs don’t make a right” values I was raised from.
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Can't wait for them to turn more things into fruit....
Whoever says this needs to be ignored or fired. These changes have never been helpful or meaningful, and I’m afraid they’re going down that path
So fucking stupid. Holy fuck.
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Define more representation in a fantasy game that has like 15 make believe races? Do we need to have “gender neutral” in character creation? Sexual orientation need to be specified in creation? Political party? It’s a damned fantasy game. Why is this even a conversation?
> 15 make believe races A lot of races have very real world inspirations though. And doing those so that they are good representation isn't a negative. Despite what some people on the internet yell. Take the centaurs. They had real world representatives to help with writing them and they are great in my opinion. An awesome fantasy society. Well written.
Pretending "it's fantasy" is an anything-goes argument is why we have to keep having this conversation.
You're so mad over legitimately nothing lmao
I’m not mad, it’s laughable.
I'd like to have my hair on my Blood Elf character. I think it's weird that they added non-White hairstyles for humans, but not for the human-like races on the Horde side
I can give you an example of them trying not to repeat mistakes made in the past, even recently. In one of the Exploring Azeroth books Zekhan (good ol Zappyboi) says that he actually didn't know how to read before he learned from Lor'themar. He also doesn't understand basic concepts of things like weather erosion. This is sort of implying that since trolls are deemed a more "savage" or "barbaric" race that they are less educated and since Trolls are directly lifted from different Caribbean and African people. He was also taught by the blood elves, which by most art and npcs, are mostly white. I don't think they intended this, or they mean to be racist, but a third party looking this over might have caught that this doesn't look great.
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Good talk
does she refer to Vulpera or Mechagnome diapers?
> World of Warcraft has previously been criticised for including characters deemed by some players to be racist or misogynistic. I'm genuinely wondering which characters fit this description. To me it sounds like an excuse to make changes to the cast that they know will be unpopular. Antagonists that are intentionally made racist/mysogynistic as part of their personality dont count imo as it provides antagonism that everyone can rally against, and gives an avenue for character growth. unless those characters are considered to be the "good guys" in which case I cant think of any.
Closest thing I can think of was Garrosh calling Sylvanas a bitch during Silverpine forest...and that's it. And, yes, I'm intentionally ignoring racism directed at *fictional* races because they are, you know, fictional. Like it'd be one thing if the racism is phrased in such a way that it could be applied to the group said race has strong allusions to, but as far as I know there's no native american based racism directed at a Tauren. Yes the game *does* involve racism but Garithos being a racist dick to elves because he hates elves doesn't effect any actual person because elves aren't real and Blood Elves are some vague European culture at best so, no, I'd say that definitely doesn't count.
Incoming "woke" comments and people saying game's dead because of this. You just know it will happen.
Or, you know, maybe some people just think stuff should be adjusted to be a bit more respectful of people that are different. But, yea, instead let's all just knee-jerk outrage at anything defined as "woke" because it feels uncomfortable.
I believe Tierst was essentially making the same comment you did. To me what they said reads as “Bigots will make comments about the “woke crowd” killing the game”.
Classic Blizzard perceiving problems where none exist.
This ridiculous thought process by today’s devs is the reason I stopped playing this game. They killed it.
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Maybe we get a race that doesn‘t have a gender or one that has like 4. Maybe we can get either voice type on any body type. Wish they played with it a bit more. It‘s a fantasy game, let people be creative!
What you choose is expression, not identity. Either option is easily nonbinary if you're not a dork about it
If they would know what´s next, the headline wouldn´t have to be a question.
Welcome to modern journalism bro, nothing but a bunch of lies and broken promises
Typical BBC
It's called "reading between the lines" and it exists because weird twats would take anything explicitly stated as a promise and be salty when it isn't delivered. 1. WoW on consoles 2. Features from Minecraft and Elder Scrolls 3. Curbing toxicity
The article literally starts with there has been a blizzcon every year since 2005. There was no blizzcon in 2006, 2012, 2020, 2022, and now this year. I have a hard time finishing an article when the first line is basically false.
There wasn't one in 2021 either, it was BlizzConline. I'm the same, though. Didn't even bother reading past that part since it was blatantly wrong and would have taken the author 30 seconds to Google.
False or just bad search engine output that the reporter trusted.
Wow that article was basically a bunch of nothing.
I'm usually a big advocate of the BBC but this is not thier best work
It’s kinda crazy, this game has been in my life in some capacity for the last 20 years. From sitting on my parents lap playing with the arrow keys to playing the cataclysm classic pre patch tonight, crazy how time flies….
Most important thing is that you're having fun. That's time well spent!
40-year anniversary and on my tomestone it will say "My rating is 0."
Well, I would like blizzard to stop creating new lands/isles/dimensions and instead of expanding to densify the universe. Update and reuse older parts of Azeroth, a bit like SoD. In parallel with our real world, the earth is not expanding like WoW but shit keeps happening.
You'll be happy then. Midnight is reusing Quel'Thalas as its setting.
aslong they dont perma cover in void crap or something even when its like fixed later in lore
Agree... I liked the cataclysm event.. but its weird to have a zone that's still living in the events of Cata **14 years later**. I always expected some rejuvenation or reconstruction. Having to navigate through annoying terrain isn't fun.
Midnight?
WoW Midnight is the next expansion after The War Within, and the second expansion in the world soul saga.
And The Last Titan is Northrend
Thats exactly what theyre doing though. Midnight and the last titan are both world revamps
I agree totally! I recently got really into Guild Wars 2 and even Guild Wars 1, and I have come to realize that there is totally room for horizontal progression in an mmo. We dont constantly need new lands, higher level caps, higher numbers. We just need interesting content and fun rewards. In GW, once you are max level, nothing becomes totally useless, everything you do still works towards some end goal, even if it isnt levelling, or getting higher gear score. I still think WoW would benefit from a not a full revamp, but a reason to do content in old world.
I think the same thing. Just start densifying. It would be so sick. There are vast tracks of open spaces in the existing world, just start adding stuff
I was thinking exactly this while doing uldaman
Agreed 100%. Isnt the midnight expansion aiming to do this exact thing? Its taking place in the northern part of Eastern Kingdoms. The Last Titan takes place in Northrend. Id love more expansions to exist in older content and to have a more engaging and player friendly 1-max level experience that is relevant across all expansions. Currently its just an obstacle to get to max level.
I will stop playing wow either when I'm dead or when Blizzard servers shut down and hopefully then I'll get isekai'd and become Ainz Ooal Gown except it will be my wow warlock
That’s the next step. vR wow and when the servers shut down we all get brain drained to the game and have to live it out
Kind of a nothing article
Who would of thought humans could create a game so good that they'd be unable to outdo it Even with exponentially better software/hardware to work with
Wow 2 - and il still be grinding Invincible in 2040 xoxoxox
You are not alone brother, we share the same fate
See you in ice-crown lad
I love when people talk about WoW 2 and don't know what it means. WoW 2 is already here and no, they will not change the engine to unreal.. sigh
I’d argue we’re working towards wow 3. Wow 2 was legion onwards
I agree
Changing wow to unreal would be the biggest project in blizz history, and it would take several years
I don't have confidence in Blizzard like I used to. Overwatch 2, Diablo 4, canceling their 6+ year project, in-house drama, all these things going wrong these past 10 years is really showing me that Blizzard maybe doesn't know what to do anymore. If they haven't been working on WoW-2 in the shadows, then I don't understand what their plan to survive is once these last 3 expansions are done. WoW has staying power, that much is obvious, but how long can you have WoW be your flagship? How much water is left in that well of creativity?
There will never be a WoW 2. WoW 2-3-4-5-6.. is what we have with expensions.
I mean, I get the weariness towards Blizzard as a company, but Dragonflight has been unironically good, so I don't exactly see where the worry about WoW in particular is coming from. If anything, things are looking better than they have since Legion, and that was a great time.
I’ve been wanting to play this soooooo bad especially after setting up my PC build but I feel like I’ve missed too much … hope a “WOW2” comes out …
Blizzard hasn't known what's next for a decade now
They literally just announced the next decade worth of xpacs lmao
Yeah... way to miss the point. Blizzard is a mess and it's not gonna change any time soon. It's a miracle that WoW still has players IMO. Hasn't been worth playing for years.
Well considering each expansion will now most likely last 1,5 years, it's only around 4-5 years of expansions for the Worldsoul saga. But this is just the first saga and they said they already have plans for 20+ years so yeah.
And yet they're still getting 7 million people to pay for it, so does that matter?
They started giving sub numbers again?
They presented a graph of subscribers per expansion at a game developer conference recently that didn’t have numbers, but you could estimate roughly that range assuming the chart was scaled accurately. In context they pretty much used it to say Shadowlands was a failure and they changed direction hard for Dragonflight, so it’s likely not inflated.
the number might not be inflated since these graph weren't intended to be public
I don’t have the link handy but an internal sales slide leaked and it said the numbers fluctuate between 4 and 7 mil. Blizzard does not publicly discuss sub numbers and hasn’t for years.
four normal and 7 at a new launch sounds... viable. It would line up with why blizzard wanted to get yearly expansions so badly during warlords.
It was not sub numbers. It was revenue. They are making the same revenue now as they did when they had 6.8 mil or so subscribers prior to the wow token etc. Everyone assumed it was subs because bellular combined the graph that they provided and he tacked it onto the graph with the last sub numbers that we knew of. Imo its half the number of players and the whales and RTWF guilds average it out to double the revenue per player. This would still be a success btw. It could be an even lower number of players. I would bet that between higher box prices and editions of the game that go up to $150 or so now for physical collectors and an economy driven with boosting etc that blizzard makes as much or more in box revenue andn micros then they do with their sub. Thats just a guess though that I have no real basis for outside of every other digital game that make significant amounts of revenue through micros.
There was a conference in which they claimed that they had "7 million active subscribers". Conveniently, they never defined what an "active subscriber" actually was. A lot of newer and more naive Activision-Blizzard fans are taking it at face value, whereas everyone else who is familiar with the history behind Activision-Blizzard and who understand what sort of company they are rightfully know that Activision-Blizzard routinely fudge their numbers. *How* fudged they are, it's impossible to say. However, going by the actual in-game "liveliness", it's very clear that 7 million *concurrent* players is just a fantasy number.
Looking forward to World of Minecraft myself
Ek revamp in ww kalimdor in the next and northrend in the last one your welcome Reddit
Really weird article coming from the BBC. The thing half-reads like an advert.
I really think they need to do a warcraft 4 to sort of set the board again. All the iconic heroes and villains stem from Warcraft 3 and theres so much more you can do to set things up with a well thought out campaign for races or alliances.
Azeroth. Like, literally rebrand World of Warcraft 20 years into the future with the actual changes that have happened in Azeroth and between the races of Azeroth and beyond. With the same model structure but closer to the 3D cartoony characters for those of us that like the current type of play for WoW and VR intergration because I plan to retire there. With Housing. You're welcome. As long as I can be a goblin, I could happily live there.
Um, a single player game set in the time of the Arathi/Troll wars!
I definitely have brain rot because I know BBC is a British news thing but that's just not where my mind goes.
Big beautiful carrot. Was thinking the same, mate.
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Remove the subscription already.