Been playing World of Warcraft for a month now and my subscription is running out - luckily I gathered enough for a token. Started Venthyr covenant on my Alt and to my surprise I came across something sorta chocking during the chapter three of the campaign.
During the quest “Harvester of Desire” you are set out to deliver a message to one of the Countess you need to open up a box and put on a disguise which grants you the buff “The “Help”” which then transform you into one of the humanoid NPC you might know as the Sinfall Attendants.
Knowing the origin of the phrase “The Help”, I couldn’t resist to just let this pass, so as a caucasian man I messaged one of my dearest friends, who happens to be a POC, and send some photos of the buff and model of the disguised - and let me tell you that she was not feeling this.
And I quote, "Obviously they know the words origin and on top of that the help is disguised as some sort of slave/house worker which is even more twisted. Not the fact that the character is a grimling is even worse because at least the character could have been something good looking. But instead it’s portrayed as something dirty and ugly. Historically, it’s disgusting that they let this slide into the game in any way or form. They could have used “The butler” or “The housekeeper” but why specifically use the term “The help?”
Knowing that she said that I could further feel that my gut feeling about this moment in the quest was justified - so I wanted to bring it up - I’ve sent a tweet to Blizzard_ent which I’m waiting for a response but I felt that I should bring it up in the community forum. It was difficult to find a proper category but considering that this was during a quest I guess that this would be sufficient.
Conclusion of this would be that I highly suggest that this should be patched with a simple name changer for that particular moment in the quest - you might think that this will go unnoticed if you have no recollection of that phrase but consider that I, a caucasian, got affected by it, then imagine the effect on POC.
Yes, the Dregers are basically slaves. That should have been obvious way before you got to this quests. Hence the terms “The butler” or “The housekeeper” would be completely misrepresentative. Saying something like that kind of implies that calling slaves, housekeepers is somehow improvement, which I trust is not what you meant.
Does Venthyr aristocracy creating and owning slaves make them bad? Yeah, no duh. They are the bad guys. You must know that if you pay so much attention you even read aura texts. They do plenty other messed up stuff besides this.
Yeah I am fully aware that they are slaves and I can agree with you that calling them butler or housekeeper would be misrepresentative. It’s just specifically calling them “The help” that is sorta bugging me due to its origin.
The word slave comes from slavs, of which many were sold into slavery by conquering people. Why do you think of black people when you meet a (white btw) slave in WoW?
They’re also not technically “people”: They literally spawn from muck pools after you throw some trash into them, and they return there when their “service” is done; some last longer than others.
They’re golems. They’re not even summoned, they’re built. Demon and elemental rights, that warlocks and shamans enslave all the time, should come before this, because unlike dredgers, those are sapient creatures that are enslaved by force, while dredgers are built to suit a particular purpose the same way you’d build a machine. They’re basically talking Roombas.
looks out window no snowflakes coz they are invading the forums again. Heres a thought for you, OP - with High Overlord Hazzikostas as the guy in charge, and also a lawyer by trade, has it crossed your mind that he wouldn’t risk anything like that especially given certain events of last year? Here is a clue- it gave rise to a few movements and some rather unsavoury actions by said movements over law enforcement officers killing a man who I wont mention here in case I get another forum holiday
Of all the covenants I’d say the implication of the Bastion Attendants is more akin to a slave race, considering their only motive in life is to server.
Also Dredgers are trash constructs, as others pointed out they’re literally made out of garbage you toss in a pool of muck and a Dredger comes out.