Blizzard to Old Fanbase: Go Away

[Th3Scourge]

Do you have some evidence of this or are you doing that thing where something is both woke and puritanical despite them being direct contradictions of one another? Rofl.

It also doesn't change the fact that few if any of these changes are "woke" and, as I've pointed out previously, are what amounts to corporate trolling which y'all are buying wholesale. They are inflammatory and ultimately superficial alterations designed primarily to gin up controversy and distract from the lack of substantive change.

But don't let me interrupt you in the midst of accusing others of mental disorder when we have a whole gaggle of folks unable to internalise the fact that a for-profit corporation has absolutely no qualm in ditching them once their values are no longer profitable or publicly acceptable. Go outside, touch some grass, remember that to capitalism your soul is only as valuable as the dollars therein, eat, pray, love, etc.

Open your eyes. The entire premise of these changes are due to woke politics. If you can't see that then you're blind. The very core of the changes are female sexuality expressed in a male-dominated environment. A fundamental breach of the tenants of wokism.

But yeah, I will accuse these woke idiots of having mental disorders, because that's what it is. I'm under no illusions that profit-seeking entities are and will pander to this demographic because they want to be seen as 'doing the right thing'. This is why you get every major corporation embracing wokism in an attempt to signal how morally virtuous they are as it will lead to short-term profits.

Is it a good long-term strategy? Who knows, a company like coca-cola will be fine because their product isn't niche so them losing a few people who might not buy coke is no big deal. For Blizzard and specifically wow? Not so sure. Their market isn't getting any bigger and wow is already a niche product, so I don't really know who changes like this will attract or what it does other than virtue signal to internal stakeholders that they care about the wahmen and they gays or some shit

[Amariw]

will be a tinsy sad to see silly succubus model go, but don't care much either way.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

will be a tinsy sad to see silly succubus model go, but don't care much either way.

The models not going any where they are adding a male one to match it.

[Venziir]

Having played since the Vanilla EU Closed Beta, I do not feel that way; at all.

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will be a tinsy sad to see silly succubus model go, but don't care much either way.

The succubus isn't being removed. They are simply adding an incubus model too, which you can activate via a glyph.

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Open your eyes. The entire premise of these changes are due to woke politics. If you can't see that then you're blind. The very core of the changes are female sexuality expressed in a male-dominated environment. A fundamental breach of the tenants of wokism.

But yeah, I will accuse these woke idiots of having mental disorders, because that's what it is. I'm under no illusions that profit-seeking entities are and will pander to this demographic because they want to be seen as 'doing the right thing'. This is why you get every major corporation embracing wokism in an attempt to signal how morally virtuous they are as it will lead to short-term profits.

Is it a good long-term strategy? Who knows, a company like coca-cola will be fine because their product isn't niche so them losing a few people who might not buy coke is no big deal. For Blizzard and specifically wow? Not so sure. Their market isn't getting any bigger and wow is already a niche product, so I don't really know who changes like this will attract or what it does other than virtue signal to internal stakeholders that they care about the wahmen and they gays or some shit

Oh get back in the basement with your cup of bleach....

[Triginhil]

The snowflake generation finally grew up and got jobs at blizzard is all. Gone are the days of a fantasy game being fantasy. Instead, political correctness has to infiltrate every aspect of our lives for the next 30 or so years. It's fine, if they wont change the game for the better and instead focus on brownie points, they'll go broke even quicker.

[MoanaLisa]

It also doesn't change the fact that few if any of these changes are "woke" and, as I've pointed out previously, are what amounts to corporate trolling which y'all are buying wholesale.

"Woke" has become a useless buzz word. Everyone thinks it's a different thing. So are all the criticisms of virtue-signaling. The most angry posters are virtue-signaling like crazy. The virtues aren't really thought of as virtues though and it's a meaningless phrase in this context.

You are correct that Blizzard's changes are all simple, easy, quick and useful to put up a visible demonstration that they are trying to change. Ultimately they mean nothing which is why this making a mountain out of an ant hill has been so revealing.

The meaningful change, if it ever happens, will take a long time because a corporate culture that's been as loose as Blizzard's will not change that easily. The larger picture that arises out of this is that for all of Blizzard's reassurances that there are valid reasons why delays happen and why things don't always go well, it's very easy to see that the developer office is undisciplined, prone to distraction, and ultimately not professional. In one sense they've worn that as a badge of honor leading everyone to believe that Blizzard is a great place to work. It may well have been and it might be in the future. Right now though it's pretty clear that the last dozen years of Blizzard's work has led to lots of waste, delays—"We'll release it when it's ready" is pretty clearly a nicer version of "We have no real idea when we'll release it because we can't hit our deadlines."—broken projects (Titan), cancellations (many known, likely more unknown), many consecutive years of no new product at all, missed opportunities in emerging markets (mobile is the main one) and lately releases of product that was unfinished (WC3).

So it will be a while. Culture change can further break a broken company. We'll see how the new leadership at the top of Blizzard manages. It's a lot.

Everyone hates Bobby Kotick. I get that. But if I were Bobby Kotick I would be up Blizzard management's ass every single day reminding them that their performance over the last years has been unacceptable and that something like this lawsuit was inevitable. He bears some fault for mismanaging Blizzard's management himself.

[Th3Scourge]

Oh get back in the basement with your cup of bleach....

oooo sick burn idiot

[Elegiac]

Open your eyes. The entire premise of these changes are due to woke politics.

No, the entire premise of the changes is Blizzard got exposed as having a highly toxic work environment due to a bunch of predatory shitheels and they are trying to save face by showing that the company no longer has values in common with said predatory shitheels.

That does not, however, mean that their "newfound values" actually resemble anything woke or progressive. They represent what a corporation thinks woke/progressive people want, which (not coincidentally) has a lot more in common with a conservative caricature of woke/progressive people.

[Shadowferal]

I think a significant part of WoW's success was when it launched.

If WoW launched this year - even if the version when it was most popular - would it even last a year? Some would call it another FF14 killer, and others would laugh at them.

There was a lot of dissatisfaction with Everquest at the time.

[mbit]

"Woke" has become a useless buzz word. Everyone thinks it's a different thing. So are all the criticisms of virtue-signaling. The most angry posters are virtue-signaling like crazy. The virtues aren't really thought of as virtues though and it's a meaningless phrase in this context.

You are correct that Blizzard's changes are all simple, easy, quick and useful to put up a visible demonstration that they are trying to change. Ultimately they mean nothing which is why this making a mountain out of an ant hill has been so revealing.

Woke simply became the umbrella term for pretense activism.
People who don't do things cause they came to their own conclusion it's the right thing to do but simply either follow the activism trends just like fashion trends or people who simply pretend to be part of the group for brownie points. This is especially true for cali where blizz sits as they have laws that mandate woke activism for corporations with monetary benefits. So corps have to play pretend in cali because getting money is what they are all about.

[MoanaLisa]

Woke simply became the umbrella term for pretense activism.

Fine. My point is that if that's the accepted definition it's politically neutral. There's pretense activism happening on every part of the political spectrum, especially at either end. Call it what it is.

[mbit]

Fine. My point is that if that's the accepted definition it's politically neutral. There's pretense activism happening on every part of the political spectrum, especially at either end. Call it what it is.

Its political neutral but you dont get any government benefits going towards the other extreme.
And as there is only incentive to act woke in one direction the use also follows being limited in one direction.
Edit: actually this is in scope of west. The woke in other parts of the world do act the opposite direction.

[sam86]

Between the recent changes to old content in WoW Retail and the inclusion of Classic (plus ways to keep Classic refreshed) it seems like Blizzard is telling its aging playerbase to fuck off from Retail in an appeal for new fans from a modern age with different social sensibilities and values.

Considering how much of the “aging fanbase” exists on this site, how do you feel about this?

literally a guild that play classic wow since its release until now left official wow classic servers due to 1502 boost sales due to tokens, i don't think they want even the most die hard loyal fans to even play, just whales and boosters

[Th3Scourge]

No, the entire premise of the changes is Blizzard got exposed as having a highly toxic work environment due to a bunch of predatory shitheels and they are trying to save face by showing that the company no longer has values in common with said predatory shitheels.

To any rational person, changing the name of consorts created by a tyrannical emperor, or replacing paintings of women with bowls of fruit is done purely because they think it will give them social credit with an audience that does not give two flying fucks about the game

Not one single player ever asked for these changes. Players are rational enough to run through the Den of Mortal Delights and not feel the desire to go rape a concubine. These changes are purely because of woke ideologues within Blizzard that feel emboldened by the lawsuit to go carte blanche and remove anything that offends their precious sensibilities.

At the end of the day, thanks to garrison gold, I have enough gold to buy 4 years worth of wow tokens at their current prices, plus any expansion if I chose to restart my sub in the future so at least they'll never get another dime from me again

[Empower]

Fine. My point is that if that's the accepted definition it's politically neutral. There's pretense activism happening on every part of the political spectrum, especially at either end. Call it what it is.

I don't think its moved in the other direction since the early 90s this isn't both sides... I mean it could well turn into that but one side wont be trendy for another year or two.

[Warning]

I think it's not even that important why these changes are being made. The problem is many of them are actually bad changes that show Blizzard still has no clue about what is and what isn't acceptable or proper behaviour. If someone shows you a line with the words "shitbag (or a bunch of worse words), fruit bowl, rainbow, cereal and bikini" and tells you to cross out the things that aren't proper and you cross out bikini as well then you did not actually pass the test in my book.

As it stands I don't think I'm ever coming back to WoW, because I don't want this overreach and creepy puritanism to be rewarded. Fix your corporate culture and fire harassers and bullies, but if you try to tell me that something like the Love Rocket was so wrong all along that it shouldn't be in game and I shouldn't have been okay with it all this time then you can get fked. There has to be some kind of example made so studios can actually understand the line and I can't think of a better company to get burned to the ground as an example than Blizzard right now.

[Osmeric]

Ask yourself: if these things had never been in the game, would that have made the game significantly less attractive?

If you are being honest, the answer to that question is "no". So why should removing them be a problem?

[Empower]

Ask yourself: if these things had never been in the game, would that have made the game significantly less attractive?

If you are being honest, the answer to that question is "no". So why should removing them be a problem?

I've lived a fairly short life to most here I'm only in my mid 20s. I've never experienced the slippery slope as a fallacy. Every inch you give to these freaks they take a mile if you ever drop that mind set you lose the game,movie, book series you enjoyed eventually.

[Thontor]

I'm a 39 year old man that has been playing this game for almost 15 years... everything they are doing in Retail WoW appeals to my social sensibilities and values, which have changed over the years. I'd probably be more upset at the changes if I were my 24 year old self than I am now. but I've grown more understanding and empathetic and I find the changes to be either good or irrelevant to my experience playing the game.

[Spicymemer]

I'm a 39 year old man that has been playing this game for almost 15 years... everything they are doing in Retail WoW appeals to my social sensibilities and values, which have changed over the years. I'd probably be more upset at the changes if I were my 24 year old self than I am now. but I've grown more understanding and empathetic and I find the changes to be either good or irrelevant to my experience playing the game.

You sound like a cuck.

Videogames are not for virtue signaling.