[Disabled] Why I stop WoW

Community General Discussion
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Edit :

When I say : Pay more, I talk about IG gold :slight_smile:
When I say : Refund, I talk about virtual gold, for exemple, why, if I equip a 2 hand sword how cost 1500 points I have a refund only in gold ? if for exemple i dont use it for fight and I ask refund ( to npc ) without 5 minutes . thanks for all replies !

Hello everybody,

I want to write a message because I just canceled the renewal of my WOW subscription which ends on January 27th.

Player since Warcraft 1 fell in love with the license to Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3 arrives and with it Frozen Throne, I remember the number of hours invested against my brother (or I had no chance of winning) on this magnificent games, then WoW arrives, the slap, playing with my cousin at the other end of the country, my brother and exploring the world in three, the first view of the imposing Orgrimmar coming out of the canyon, the sumptuous StormWind hidden behind the trees of this beautiful forest.

The years pass, friendships are created on the game and in real life, then the disease takes over, I lose my job at 27 because of vision problems and headaches, I take refuge in games or I find support and support from you, the community, on this forum (or I post with an anonymous Alt), today at 31 I still cannot work again and am qualified as disabled for life.

Why am I telling you all this? I was playing when I felt unwell, I play with the text size at full speed but all the texts are not included, especially the weapon descriptions, I made a mistake buying a two-handed weapon instead with one hand so I launch a request and the GM tells me that the refund is impossible, I ask for help in view of my visual impairment and my headaches (this one prevents me from playing for a long time) and he insists telling me that it’s the rules, well, I feel bad, for years blizzard has been talking about inclusiveness but forced to find that nothing helps when their commercial policy is concerned, in what way 1500 points refunded would have impacted the game?

So I decide to contact Mike Ybarra alias @Qwik on Twitter, after more than 30 messages and support from other players to share (he saw my messages because he clicked on them) no response from him.

I feel bad because I realized it doesn’t end there, are you suffering from vision problem? you will have the nice surprise of having to pay almost 3 gold coins to be able to use: Oversized Bobber in order to fish quietly, 3 gold is not much, but why not put it for free? Or in the options? There were free sex changes for people feeling bad, why should we handicapped people be paid to be able to progress? (reminder: at the time the change of sex was paying, then paying in gold then now free)

What hurts me the most is that Myke Ybara ( @Qwik) claimed to hear our voices but when it doesn’t affect him or a big TV channel doesn’t talk about him he prefers to cover up the matter, the old ones I miss GM, those who took the time to chat with us, with Blizzard’s new policy they are just robots.

To no longer feel out of place is a feeling that I would not wish on anyone, even in a game, thank you to those who have read up to there and nice continuation, the spirit of Warcraft brought me so much and will continue to live in me .

For Azeroth, I leave my paladin’s hammer for another path.

May the light bless you

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It always sucks when we can’t get something over turned that we’d really like to. We all make mistakes for all sorts of reasons and the GMs simply can’t do what you are asking. They have rules they have to follow. Even if Mike Ybarra had sympathised there is nothing he can do to give you what you want. I’m not entirely sure how you know he read your tweet unless he liked it. The man has something like 220k followers and gets a huge amount of traffic on his profile.

I’m not sure what kind of weapon you bought, whether you mean a crafted one or something from a vendor. Many vendors have a grace period to undo a purchase.

There is definitely more room for them to improve accessibility options.

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While your issue sucks this part here is…creepy. Like what?

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It sucks, but honestly: You being disabled really doesn’t have anything to do with the issue. You made a mistake; why that mistake happened, doesn’t matter.

That may sound harsh, but it’s the truth. If they set a precedent of giving people what they want if they start nagging the executives in charge, then they’re treading very dangerous waters. That’s why the policies exist and they exist for everyone.

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I’m sorry for what you’re going through and wish things were different but please understand, Ybarra is not the person to acknowledge or solve individual people’s issues with the game.

Best of luck to you.

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They send me a lot of message for told me they can maybe but they cant maybe try another. so yes I have tried

@Punyelf it’s not so much about sword i dont care but about : why should I pay more for play ? and you have no idea how is fun to dont see a little word in the screen even if you are in biggest size possible

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Please wait some years, disabled people and those with actual illness and real problems will join the inclusivity after all the genders and sexual preference inclusivity package has been completed. Thanks for your patience

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I don’t understand how you’re paying more unless you mean more in game currency. Mistakes happen, to all of us regardless of disabilities. It’s no different for anyone who makes an error. We all have to regrind whatever it is to buy/craft/commission items.

There is no being treated differently, if anything everyone is being treated equally.

I do agree more accessibility options could be added, things like the large bobber for fishing are an excellent point, they aren’t going to add a free pass for making a mistake. I don’t think it’s something worth quitting over but you clearly feel very strongly or at least at this moment you are very angry for your error. In time you may feel differently.

Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck in your gaming adventures :four_leaf_clover:

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I have felt betrayed by the game, by the company, by the people who made it. I remember what that felt like. The first time was the worst; after that I never held the game to the same standards again.

So I have some sense of how you are relating to things right now. And maybe some time off isn’t a bad idea.

And if you do unsub, and find something else to occupy you that gives you as much fun and satisfaction as WoW, I wish you all the best with it! :smiley:

But also, you may find that as the immediate anger fades, that you may forgive the game, and still want to live and play in it, perhaps with lower expectations.

There are two truths I have known since childhood: there is no safety, ever; and everybody is disabled compared to what we could be. We have to make our way as best we can with our stupidity, and our small-mindedness, and our knowledge that it all goes away. If you don’t find a replacement for WoW, perhaps it can still be part of your way.

I wish you well either way. :vulcan_salute:

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True.
They could do with a consultant (or beta tester) with vision issues to guide them.
Having that Dragonriding tutorial in the main campaign was an unnecessary hinderance to many players.
The Transparency on the Character pane, Target pane and around the minimap makes reading some things very difficult. A setting could be added to give these some opacity.
The fonts in the Talent Tree is tiny.

I do have some good addons that make the game more accessible but there are some small things that wouldn’t impact the game much could be done if the will was there.

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One feature they added in DF is the new Interact Key. I use this quite a lot, it saves having to find where the mouse cursor is. I heard somewhere that this keey works for fishing too, so you can listen for the splash and hit the Interact Key and it should haul in your catch. I haven’t tried this yet (my pally alt is my fisher).

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I use the interact key when I can’t find things because they are under other bits of terrain. It’s great for some of the Expedition Scout Packs and Dirt Piles that clip under rock etc.

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With how you speak to others , you are a part of the problem.

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The irony of talking about making the game less toxic with replies like that… :roll_eyes:

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I thought blizz generally was pretty good with refunding items like that if you made a mistake. Maybe they changed over the years or you got a gm wich was in a bad mood and didnt want to give it back.

But the thing is i do understand why blizz might not want to refund this, because i am pretty sure there are plenty of people who made mistakes and try to make excuses like that even though its not true.

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Yes such things can be proven but i honestly dont think that gms of a game would be legally allowed to ask for such personal documentation of a person. Imagine the outrage blizz would get if their staffs starts asking for copies of peoples ids or medical history

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because i doubt blizz wants to make the headlines with another scandal like “blizz-activisions game company demands medical history of customers playing the game”
i do have the expectation of them wanting to legally cover themselves as a big company

A game company shouldnt have the right to ask for medical records of customers. The only people they have the right of asking it from are their employees when its related to their sick days and similair stuff

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You guys have done a terrific job derailing this thread and missing any point.

There’s no realistic way to determine if someone’s disabled, so admins must treat everyone equally and accessibility options must not provide any advantages.

Over the years WoW has become more competitive (you can argue whether it’s for the better but not the fact that it happened). If GMs start refunding such items, the next day you’ll have a dozen players running around with 10 sparks and 5 lariat recipes through some exploit.

Call me elitist, call me a scumbag but to me equality is more important than the game experience of a few individuals.

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Anyway, morality is more important than business. Maybe in EU, where people are so concerned about privacy, because CEO of Facebook did dumb thing, would be concerned, but in USA or other places?

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i think they care about these kind of stuff even more in the usa. because people can literally microwave their cat and then sue the microwave company and win. They dont want lawsuits in the usa because they asked for very private information due toa game. And even in the usa you got stuff like patient confidentiality laws for medical records.

yeah i fully agree, there is a limit to how much can be changed for the sake of disablities. They are after all called disablities because you cant perform as well as someone without this disablity.