A Message from the World of Warcraft Team

[Stoy]

A Message from the World of Warcraft Team

It was clear from our team conversations that we wanted to put forth a statement that was representative of the World of Warcraft team’s sentiments. We asked all members of our team to send us their suggestions and feedback on how best to address the community and this is the result.

The past days have been a time of reflection for the World of Warcraft team, spent in conversation and contemplation, full of sadness, pain, and anger, but also hope and resolve. As we heed the brave women who have come forward to share their experiences, we stand committed to taking the actions necessary to ensure we are providing an inclusive, welcoming, and safe environment both for our team and for our players in Azeroth. Those of us in leadership understand that it is not our place to judge when we have achieved our goals, but rather for our team and our community to let us know when we still have more to do.

While we turn to our team for guidance in our internal work to protect marginalized groups and hold accountable those who threaten them, we also want to take immediate action in Azeroth to remove references that are not appropriate for our world. This work has been underway, and you will be seeing several such changes to both Shadowlands and WoW Classic in the coming days.

We know that in order to rebuild trust, we must earn it with our actions in the weeks and months to come. But we go forward knowing that we share the same vision as our community about creating a place where people of all genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and backgrounds can thrive and proudly call home.

--The World of Warcraft Team

[Exkrementor]

Ah shit, here goes the Swifty NPC again. Good night, sweet prince.

[xblubbx]

"we also want to take immediate action in Azeroth to remove references that are not appropriate for our world"

I have a bad feeling about this.

[Video Games]

Ok. This literally does nothing and is just more twitter warrior pandering

[Magnagarde]

Good to know that removing certain references is at the top of their agenda, not actual improvements to the game.

[aceperson]

you must earn it in the weeks and months to come? try years. you've ignored your players, insulted figureheads of the community, harassed your employees, bowed to the chinese communist regime when hong kong is an individual entity separate from china, AND constantly had worse and worse game design. this company will be lucky if they get trust back AT ALL.

[damonskye]

I'm certain this is primarily about the references to Alex Afrasiabi throughout the game.

[aceperson]

Good to know that removing certain references is at the top of their agenda, not actual improvements of their game.

it's been said by a dev on twitter that work on games is basically halted for now. they weren't working on wow anyways.

[RoKPaNda]

I'm okay with this.

[Vellus]

Good lord, yet another tone-deaf response. No one is asking for this and this accomplishes nothing - all that is being asked for is for Blizzard to take harassment complaints seriously and make changes to ensure employees are treating each other with respect and dignity. What a joke

[Fraggle]

You don't earn respect taking old references out of old video games, you earn it by treating everyone fairly and not taking advantage of others.

[Cosmic Janitor]

"we also want to take immediate action in Azeroth to remove references that are not appropriate for our world"

I have a bad feeling about this.

Afrasabi's NPCs supposedly no longer spawn.

[RoKPaNda]

you must earn it in the weeks and months to come? try years. you've ignored your players, insulted figureheads of the community, harassed your employees, bowed to the chinese communist regime when hong kong is an individual entity separate from china, AND constantly had worse and worse game design. this company will be lucky if they get trust back AT ALL.

You realize that most of the community will forget about this real quick just like they did with the HK situation yeah? Speaking of which, this is about the lawsuit allegations specifically, not all of your personal grievances against WoW / Blizzard / Whatever. They didn't lose anyone's trust because one employee shittalked Asmon on Twitter for example lol.

[Buffbringer]

Making changes = removing jokes and references that most people didn't care about and turning the game into a "safe space".

People demanding that don't even play the game, they just complain. Instead, you'll drive players that just want a good game away, and with them, their money.

Good job learning nothing from all of this...

[tikcol]

How about dealing with the real life perverts in your company?

What you gonna do ? Remove Field Marshal Afrasiabi from the game? WOWWWWWWW ThaT'S sO VIRTUOUS OF UUuu

[Gadzooks]

DAF if you remove NPCs. Start removing employees.

It's just more meaningless platitudes and nonsense from the WoW team. I wonder how many of the lower level members of Team 2 agree with this? Or have any faith real change will be made, considering an ATVI executive said yesterday on an internal zoom call for employees to rely on systems in their company that have already completely failed everyone?

The past days have been a time of reflection for the World of Warcraft team, spent in conversation and contemplation, full of sadness, pain, and anger, but also hope and resolve.

Maybe I'm cynical, but that last bit? That's pure happy horseshit. This sounds exactly like more meaningless JAB/Ion "We'll do better" platitudes. This is a "Please don't unsubscribe!" post.

[hydrium]

So their plan to fix alienating their employees and build trust with the public is to further alienate employees and the public?

This is advanced stupid. I'm not sure it can even be properly calculated.

[Femininity]

Same old canned, bullshit PR response with a stale coat of paint. What a joke.

[Spike`]

Too soon for "This would cost us a raid tier" ?

[Askyl]

you must earn it in the weeks and months to come? try years. you've ignored your players, insulted figureheads of the community, harassed your employees, bowed to the chinese communist regime when hong kong is an individual entity separate from china, AND constantly had worse and worse game design. this company will be lucky if they get trust back AT ALL.

Dude, look at both Ubisoft and Riot. Took a few months and no one cares. They fired a few people and replace some dude here and there and everythings gucci. People don't really care, they just like the drama.