This is yet another evidence that they are not making decisions anymore that would make the game better. They are removing /spit to get good press from Kotaku, Polygon, on Twitter, etc. - from people not even playing the game.
From people who don’t even know that you can just /e and write anything to your faction anyway. From people whom they can convince /spit was used frequently towards women of color or something, rather than just stupid tryhards spamming in PvP.
Yet, no addressing of problems the players actually want and would make WoW a nicer, more immersive experience. No option to filter out “WTS” from the group finder, no action against botting, nothing to address boosting.
And I can guarantee you that if removing /spit gets good press on the aforementioned places (and it almost certainly will), then /flirt and /kiss are the next. And maybe /e in general. Taking more and more options away, especially from RP’ers to turn WoW into a sterile hub with automatic queues and minimal flavor and interaction.
I don’t REALLY care about the spit emote itself, but it’s the idea behind it that just rubs me the wrong way. There’s MUCH MUCH MUCH worse things happening among the playerbase that can be labeled as toxic. A little emote is a really stupid thing to focus on imo.
‘There’s worse happening’ fallacies are tiresome. How can you be playing video games or doing X and Y when there’s far bigger issues going on in the world?
Yeah that’s comparing apples to oranges. Not the same thing.
Blizzard is saying they’re addressing ‘toxicity’ issues within the game (which frankly is insulting considering their own situation, but okay), but so far all the things they’ve ‘changed’ are useless things that really don’t do anything to change toxicity issues among the playerbase. It’s just empty gestures towards press and stockholders, honestly.
If you asked me to clean your house and I started by wiping down the sides of your kitchen would you have a go at me for only cleaning the sides and not doing the rest?
Toxicity in online games is a big and complex issue with few easy solutions. This is one area where blizz can probably sort it out super quick low fuss so they start there. You have zero idea what else they plan to do in response to it so acting like this is the bulk of it is just assuming.
Handling other stuff is way more difficult and requires some thought as there’s balance to be struck between reducing toxicity and the gameplay experience becoming oppressive and controlling (and reducing the autonomy of players).
It’s called virtue signaling. They’ve been doing it for a long time now, but it’s what they do to try save a little face with the press, even though people are starting to realize how shallow their attempts really are.
You sit there saying stuff isn’t making a change but there’s a lot of toxic people upset at said change. So, seems it did make a change. Also you don’t think removing NPCs like Alex’s and references to him is a good idea?
The fact that this is on PTR in the first place and it’s less than a week since announced changes… what have you done to combat the things you’re against in that time frame exactly?
Yeah create more dissonance within the playerbase. Great change.
On a personal level I couldn’t care less. The NPCs or references being there does nothing for or against it. They have plenty of real life references in the game that are questionable people at best. But for me the main thing is; the (real) world doesn’t exist of just unicorns and rainbows. Cancel culture is a bad thing imo.
What kind of question is this?
It’s not MY game. I don’t have any power over what is and is not implemented.
If only.
Anyway, my point stands:
Removing a spit emote in a game which is based around war, racism, genocide and other atrocities is inane.
They could’ve changed the spit emote to not be directed at targets anymore. But simply spitting on the ground instead. Spitting onto other players was always disrespectful.
But I’m fine with removing it. I don’t use it anyway.
Absurd logic. I should be able to call other players expletives and harass them then as in a war that’s generally done?
Also races in the game don’t spit on other beings “because they know they bought a shop mount” you have to divorce the basis for the removal from the lore basis here.
The ones to blame are the ones using the emote in the fashion that has nothing to do with the Warcraft setting (because characters in the world don’t know where mounts come from) and they thus ruin what could have been a believable use for everyone else.
No. But if they remove something as utterly innocent as an emote, then they SURE as hell need to make big systemic changes too. ‘Because we shouldn’t have toxicity in a game about war’. Ahuh.
It’s the american way. Nudity, bad. Cursing, bad. Violence, good.
But you know media and people like to use the “remove of spit” to give viewers and make their content go up instead say the truth.
Internet is like that full of fake news or altered ones to make it look more worst than is.
