Just out of curiosity, re; chat filter, have any of you considered that outside of the US the word ‘fag’ can have a legitimate, non offensive use? Perhaps this is why it’s not been added to the chat log filter?
grey_ideas
well it does have other meanings in the same way ‘gay’ has other meanings. cigerettes in the UK are often called fags, and ‘fagging’ was a phrase used in british boarding schools up to about 40 years ago meaning the action of a younger pupil doing chores for the older pupils. but that doesnt hapen anymore so its really just the ciggy reference that it conflicts with.
Still, responding to the response to my response earlier in the thread I do agree, it is a very crappy effort to stop this kind of thing and they could be doing so much more, it does suprise me they havent filtered the word fag given its only other meanings should be just as irrelevant to online gaming. but a crappy effort does not mean they are biased, just crap. They are not encouraging homophobia, they are merely being ineffective at enforcing their own rules against it.
Male Taurens also have the following /flirt messages:
“Free rides for the ladies.”
“You know, older bulls really only have one function.”
“Hey, you into leather?”
Not only is the first definitely heterosexual, they’re all at least a bit risqué. I have absolutely no problem with that - I think they’re funny. The homogenized joke cracked me up. I just think Blizzard is being hypocritical.
A sampling of others:
Male Troll -
/silly
“I hear if you cut off an extremity, it’ll grow back a little bigger. Don’t believe it.”
/flirt
“We trolls mate for life - of course, we believe in frequent reincarnation.”
Male Undead -
/flirt
“Once you go dead, you never go back.” :eek:
Male Orc -
/silly
“Stop poking me! … Well, that was ok.”
/flirt
“That armor looks good on you. It would also look good on my floor.”
“Lady, from the moment I see you I - I did not expect to get this far.” (Note: Not sexual, but decidedly hetero.)
Male Night Elf -
/silly
“Last night I went to an awesome stag party.” (Note: The joke being that Night Elves are one with nature and stuff. It’s a pun on “stag”.)
/flirt
“I hope you’re not afraid of snakes.”
Male Human -
/flirt
“If I said you had a good body, would you hold it against me?”
Male Gnome - (Note: Gnomes are known for their mechanical skills.)
/flirt
“Everybody keeps talking about [Beer Goggles], but I can’t find the plans for them anywhere!”
“Hey, nice apparatus!”
“I like large posteriors, and I cannot prevaricate.”
Male Dwarf -
/silly
“Oh, I’m havin’ a wardrobe malfunction! sproing Oh, there’s me [hammer?]”
(Pretty much all the other male Dwarf /silly’s involve heavy drinking.)
/flirt
“Let’s get on with it then. I’ve got a quest to do in fifteen minutes.”
“Enough with this chit-chat, let’s get to it then.”
“You look pretty, I like your hair, here’s a drink, are you ready now?”
So, to sum up - Blizzard has deliberately loaded their game with sexual innuendo that ranges from silly to risqué, jokes about casual sex and frequent sexual partners, jokes about alcohol used to acquire sex, jokes about penises, jokes about drinking until you fall down, and jokes about necrophilia.
But “GBLT-friendly” is obviously offensive.
see, you were making a good point up until then. blizzard is not saying “GBLT-friendly” is an offensive phrase. you are taking their broad policy on not not differentiating between sexual choice and declaring that this is a direct attack against the GBLT movement when it is designed to achieve the exact opposite. It certainly doesnt work well, i dont think anyones arguing that, but you are seeing persecution where there is none.
From the way you make out blizzard are doing this im starting to imagine the geeks behind blizzard siting in a darkened room behind their respective pc’s plotting ways to stifle all non straight concepts from their realms. its just not sane, they are not evil plotters, they are just normal people holding down normal jobs trying to balance making a profit with keeping their customers happy, unfortunately in this case it sounds like in an attempt to avoid conflict they are in fact creating it.
Blizzard is saying that “GBLT-friendly” insults some people. Maybe you want to split hairs and argue that “insult” isn’t precisely the same as “offend”. I’d rather call a spade a spade.
Obviously, WoW is Blizzard’s game to do with as they wish. I do not believe they deliberately set out to discriminate against homosexuals. Nor have I ever implied that was the case, contrary to your post. They were trying to take the path of least resistance. They were trying to avoid controversy, not cause it. However, they seem to have underestimated the backlash they would recieve.
yep, you are totally correct, the phrasing of that particular statement is mighty dumb (reminds me somewhat of the whole wallmart christmas saga).
Also I must confess i got you confused with the original poster who I feel was directly implying it was some kind of blizzard conspiracy, so apologies for targeting that comment at you (blackKnight)
I look forward to seeing whether blizzard go down the totalitarian route of enforcing their policies accross the board (and as such coming down against the existance of any guild affiliation to sexual preference groups) or whether they choose to use common sense in this instance and rethink the policy on a case by case basis (which in turn leaves them open to all sorts of extra work and possibly legal risks). its a tough one for them, but its their own fault for not thinking through their wording properly (IMHO at least)
As a note, WoW is rated T for TEEN. If young children are being EXPOSED (sounds like a fucking virus) to ADULT ISSUES, I think that’s a problem for which the PARENTS have to take responsibility.
Whenever anyone brings up the, “But I don’t want my children to see it,” I see red. If your kids shouldn’t see it, then don’t LET them. My (not yet a teen) kid plays WoW, and I know what he sees and reads in there, and I also know that it’s MY job to make sure that his exposure to ADULT THEMES OMG doesn’t confuse him or have undue influence on his emotions.
Actually, I do report people for verbal abuse [using profanity] AND I did get a guild shot down because of it’s name … bukake is not an appropriate guild name inculsion.
I will ask someone in /general not to use profanity, then I will /whisper them, and if they still refuse I report them. When told why I dont use the profanity filter, I point out that while there is a filter, profanity is against the TOS. The filter is to catch the accidental use of profanity [in case someone replies in general to a tell by mistake] not so that every little nintendroid can use profanity. IRL I swear like a sailor, but I dont in game. I may be female and married but in game if someone asks if i am female, my general response is that the character i happen to be playing is female. People in my guild know i am female and married [mrAru is in teh same guild] but it is really nobodys business but mine.
I missed you, baby. I’m glad you’re back.
But I’m afraid I might just have to jam my ‘rolleyes’ button and walk away from the keyboard. Don’t your clothes get awfully messy rolling around with strawmen all day? How is ‘LGBT friendly’ in a Guild ad gratuitously sexual? More so than the things Miller and others have mentioned?
Would the “high fantasy” type love bother you if the examples were queer, by any chance?
I think you must adore the attention I so love to lavish on you, because you’re just making up silly excuses to get some more now, aren’t you?
Why in the bloody hell do I want to know your sexual orientation? Will it help me kill dragonkin any faster?
Frankly I dont care if you do your dog, as long as you can play your class.
The straight orientation of many players and characters is in everyone’s face all the time. Does that bother you?
Reading your other posts, as far as I can tell your argument is ‘I like my privacy in the game world, so why does anybody else need anything different?’ I suggest reading through this thread again for answers to that question.
Few quick clarifications/repetitions, for some posters with less than stellar reading comprehension: It’s not my banned queer guild, I don’t even play Warcraft anymore, and I don’t think everyone at Blizzard is secretly wearing a ‘Death to Homos’ t-shirt under their clothes. :rolleyes:
I do have a certain amount of sympathy with the gay members of the WOW community in general, especially with the common use of “fag” and the like as pejoratives, I do however think this has been blown somewhat out of proportion.
As I understand it the restriction is in place only on the public message channels within the game (ie the channels that will automatically open at the bottom of almost everyones screens) these channels are pretty heavily restricted in all sorts of ways and I don’t really see why discussion of peoples sexual activity (of any kind) should be exempt from this, especially in a teen rated game. There doesn’t seem to be anything to stop you from creating a pro gay guild or pro gay chat channels and advertising them elsewhere. My guild certainly doesn’t advertise itself in terms of anyones sexuality but it has at least a couple of openly gay members and that doesn’t seem to cause any problems at all.
I’m not really sure where you’re coming from in sugesting that Blizzard are unwilling to discipline players for anti-gay behavior either, the only time I’ve ever been called a “fag” by another player (or actually heard it used to be honest) I submitted a ticket and got a reply within an hour telling me that the matter would be investigated and the other player would be punished if it were true.
At the end of the day the WOW is a video game designed to allow people to have fun not a forum for people to have yelling matches across Ironforge on various political, religous, or sexual topics and I can’t really fault Blizzard for taking steps to prevent this from occuring.
To be honest a lot of the behavior described on the WOW forums (not the most reliable information source I admit) sounds less like guild recruitment and more like trolling for arguments with moronic homophobic teenagers, something which strikes me as a pretty inefficent way of furthering the GLBT cause.
From the link that Kytheria posted:
I think my irony meter just imploded.
Heterosexuality, however light hearted, juvenile or sexist, pervades WoW. Just looking at the screen when my son plays and the quotes here–it’s really obvious.
Now, he has not said anything about the chatter or the chat–but as a parent I am now concerned. I will question him about this and if neccessary, contact Blizzard myself.
Yes, this is one pissed off soccer mom–and I’m pissed that Blizzard allows this homophobia to go on.
I am aware that 14 year old boys call one another faggot–they did so when I was 14. I am also aware of the pain this can cause some. Hell, insults of any nature are hurtful. That doesn’t mean that we all have to hold hands and sing–it means that we can set limits on the type of language permitted. It helps all those lil guys of 14 and 41 grow up a bit.
It makes no sense for this type of talk to be allowed. And I have to agree with the OP–the ONLY reason it is allowed is because gays are still seen as allowable targets. (as are women, but that’s another thread)
This is disgusting. I don’t care what your fantasy is–and please don’t share it with me. Allowing same sex partners and forbidding sexual slurs shouldn’t ruin your fantasy.
I stop at this point: to not only forbid a group from disclosing their orientation, but also encouraging abuse of the same group (tacit approval of homophobia by not policing trash talk) is unethical, immoral, and frankly, poor business practice, long term. It would cost BLizzard nothing to add “fag” to their profanity filter. It would go a long way in showing their 21st century progressivenss, and it would send a message to other games–a positive message.
Will this stop 14 year old boys from calling one another gay? No–but it’s a step in the right direction. Shit! Can you call a grown black man, “boy” in this game?
Then why is OK to call people fags and queers?
As long as it wasn’t gratuitously sexual. I’m a big fan of the Magic’s Price series by Mercedes Lackey, which features a gay main character. That book probably takes it farther than what would be appropriate for wow, but just two same-sex people having a “sexless” type of Tokien-fantasy relationship wouldn’t be inappropriate in a text log.
One of Blizzard’s reasons for doing so was that they *wouldn’t * get singled out. It’s not a nice world out there. A guild that advertises as GLBWhatever is painting itself with a huge target sign. If that guild was premitted to advertise their sexual preference, they would have gotten even more harrassment. Why expose gay kids who already have low self-esteem to more homophobia online?
Not *all * companies are evil.
I would buy this argument, IF they filtered out the fags and gay insults. They don’t.
Who said all companies are evil? Let’s stick the matter at hand.
Oh, for…please read, I don’t know, you could try - this very fucking thread you’re posting in, for information on how the culture and environment at WoW is already homophobic, with homo jokes built into the actual game, for example.
Martin, just what is your objection to the words ‘GLBT friendly’ in a Guild ad?
Get over it. If you think heterosexuality is controversial in and of itself, then maybe you should stay in a dark room and not come out very often. Homosexuality is controversial, no matter how much we wish it otherwise. Just having the name would bring conflict in the game. Just as having a pro-life/pro-choice guild name. Blizzard doesn’t need to have to cater to that shit. It’s a game. If you feel the need to make a political statement in a virtual world make your own.