Just wanted to state the obvious on this one. If we are removing racial slurs against fantasy races to make the game fit in better with modern sensibilities, we are undermining the justification of keeping races faction-locked. If our conflict is only about ideology and lifestyle, and not about race, there is no reason why humans wouldn’t fight for the Conan-lifestyle alongside the orcs, or the orc engineer fighting alongside the dwarf for industrial progress. We need a racial component to keep treating every orc/human as a foe by default. And shifting the racial element to the mindset, that the races can’t get rid of, because of their (magical) biology, doesn’t just undermine the RP element, it also fails at keepig racist reasoning out.
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It seems the Alliance (and specifically, the Humans) finally completely dropped the racial slur “greenskins” against Orcs for the more bland ones like “savages” or “barbarians”.
While apparently they seem more bland insults, I guess technically the racist component of the slur is still there, as not every Orc will be savage or a barbarian of course (barbarian in particular seems to be a reference to warriors), but the only difference is that the racism is now addressing the culture of the Orcs as a whole rather than simply the color of the skin of a single person. I also guess “pinkskins” and “softskins” was dropped by the Orcs as well (especially considering there are races in the Horde with pink skin anyway… 
)
Blizzard probably did it just in order to be safe. Even if the word “greenskin” can’t be offensive to anyone in real life for obvious reasons, it might still be too similar to real-world slurs so it’s better to avoid those situations entirely as someone could still feel offended. As I said I think the racism component of the insult doesn’t really change, it just doesn’t reference the color of the skin of a single Orc anymore but rather the orcish culture as a whole, so factions still have a reason to exist after all.
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…how so? “Orcs are barbarians” might be a racist statement, but things like personally insulting someone as a barbarian or calling the troops you are fighting against at the moment that certainly isn’t. And that’s the context in which the statements are made. They go from using racial features as an insult to using non-racial features as an insult.
I don’t care what the reason is, it has nothing to do with the topic. I am specifically talking about the implications this has, no matter what the intent is.
It makes the conflict harder to buy into. They’ve been neutering and homogenising Horde races for years now so it’s not exactly a new thing, but the most agregious instances from recent memory were around the undead and the characters of Greymane and Turalyon, in BtS, where it basically tried to say “Nah man Undead are cool It’s just that Sylvanas woman, who spoils the bunch.”…
I get it why they removed in universe racial slurs, but the problem is way more in depth. Blizzard is sending very mixed messages, because on one hand the factions are meant to be irreconcilably hateful toward each other making lasting peace an impossibility, but then you have dumb sh*t like Anduin being allowed into Orgrimmar to yap about morality, without getting an axe stuck in his face. So is the Horde hateful or not? Why does Anduin care about the Horde’s morality? Why is Greymane suddenly like “Yep it was Sylvanas all along”??? How did Baine manage to survive two “”“tyranical”"" warchiefs?
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100%.
They’ve been whitewashing the Alliance so much that the faction as a whole has ceased to be interesting. When you perceive your fantasy world through a modern lens rather than through the eyes of an inhabitant of said world you do nothing but diminish the world building, and characters like (pre-Cata) Jaina loses all their edge.
Take something like religion. The average human in Azeroth is likely going to be religeous. Whether the religion is true or merely an interpretation of some magical aspect of the world, that’s kind of besides the point. The religion of “the light” abhors undeath, and most humans will have been taught to think the same. And why shouldn’t they? Look at the Scourge. I bet the average human wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between the Forsaken and the Scourge. The average human will have been programmed throughout life to resent the undead, and there will be very few who are open-minded enough to approach the undead with a different perspective.
When we have stuff like Forsaken meeting their living relatives, and characters like Zelling who very much maintains his humanity, and political and religeous leader figures not treating the undead as something abhorrent – then the fantasy begins to falter. What is a story without conflict? And what conflict is there between the humans and the Forsaken without the prejudiced hatred?
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What I find kinda funny is that this isn’t as much of a problem with non-playable races. We have scores of “primitives” that we are allowed to treat like vermin, even though most of them have shown more than enogh intelligence to deserve moral consideration from a modern pov. The game doesn’t care. Even with culturally relevant groups like Mogu, Vrykul, non-playable trolls or Yaungol we are allowed to hate and slaughter on a whim, without modern morality ever coming into it. Sure, usually there is some kind of provocation going on… but that excuse isn’t allowed to count for playable races anymore, so why would it be relevant here?
They collectively aren’t clever enough to actually apply modern morality to the world they created in a consistent or realistic fashion. But they feel like they need to, because nowadays every piece of entertainment is designed with its supposed cultural influence in mind, which doesn’t need to be proven, they just need to conform to the given norms for the sake of the easily influenced player…
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Indeed and they really should stop trying, it doesn’t work.
They don’t have to even, this isn’t a children’s game, it’s a world of constant war and always had dark themes and questionable content. And the players aren’t stupid, we don’t need someone to take us by the hand and say look, now that’s a bad thing!
And that’s not even what they’re doing with all the changes. Instead they just call things by a nicer name as if this would somehow make a difference. So Trollbane can still hate orcs and trolls but he’s more polite about it now and doesn’t call them racist slurs anymore.
Theresa is still a mindslave but don’t worry, she hasn’t been tortured or lobotomized it’s all good. The Forsaken are actually really nice people.
And if we’re all in fact friends and everything is sunshine and rainbows, why do we keep killing each other? It makes no sense. Mass slaughter is okay as long as we’re nice and pc to each other while doing it? If that’s what “modern morality” is then I can live without it.
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Their opposition to potentially racist or sexist language is basically religious at this point, their opposition to violence merely profane.
Well, obviously the former is more important than the latter nowadays and I’m just too retarded to understand it- which is entirely possible.
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