The anti-White saga of World of Warcraft continues. Last year, I covered the demographic changes going on in Stormwind City. Now, they are backing down from a plan to add KKK symbolism to the game.
The game is about to release patch 9.2 sometime in the near future. This content patch will come with a new top-tier raid – one called “Sepulcher of the First Ones”. One thing coming alongside the new raid is a return of class “tier sets”. This means that each character class will have gear appearances to collect through game play. However, when the planned appearances were released, some online social justice warriors noticed a few things.
The tier set armor originally slated for the Warlock class
Mostly, they noticed that the headgear for the Warlock tier set looks like a klan hood. At the time, my assumption was that Activision Blizzard (the game company) just wanted to offer White people a show of respect or something – and what better way to do that then by offering KKK-themed rewards for raiding?
Raiding is one of World of Warcraft’s best max-level activities.
I don’t even like playing Warlock, it’s probably my least favorite class – but I’d do it if it would let me put together a klan outfit. Unfortunately, a familiar pattern played out: There was criticism and complaints of “tone-deafness” (ableism much?). There was a lot of “just wondering” how this could’ve happened in the first place. There was some arguing about how “isn’t that a picture from the back and not the front so what does the front look like”. And there was kvetching on Twitter that players would have the option to hold in-game klan rallies in full costume. All followed by a corporate statement wherein Activision Blizzard once again resolved to be gayer in the future.
This was an oversight where we hadn’t yet fully reviewed this set from every angle before putting it into the initial test build. We’ve already begun work to adjust the set, and you’ll see changes to it in a forthcoming build of the Eternity’s End PTR [Public Testing Realm].
– Warcraft Devs
Take 2
A December build of the patch added the above change, consisting of a band of black around the head to break up all that White. Turns out, this attempted compromise didn’t make either side happy. Players who find the KKK offensive still thought the general shape was too reminiscent of a “hate group”. Players who wanted the KKK in the game for role-play purposes found it insufficient.
A group of in-game Warlocks having a meeting before a dungeon run. They were talking about “13 do 50” or something like that.
More recently, they released another update which will probably be the final version when the patch goes live. This iteration completely ruined the KKK outfit. The developers clearly caved in to mob pressure here.
Uh, gay.
Ghastly bunny ears. Instead of the pointed hat. This is the kind of thing that happens when creative work is stifled by concerns of social justice.
Actually, I just realized where Activision Blizzard got the idea:
The inspiration for the upcoming Warlock tier set
From the initial patch announcement until now, we went from actual KKK attire in World of Warcraft to something I expect (((Jack ‘Goldman’ Murphy))) to wear.
Remember what they took from us.
