the quest for diversity in World of Warcraft

the quest for diversity in World of Warcraft


recently, I’ve spent quite a lot of time pondering what an orc would look like with an afro. This, naturally, led to contemplation of an axe-afro-comb combo, and whether such a contraption would fall under blacksmithing or engineering.To get more news about safe wow gold, you can visit lootwowgold official website.

That’s because I’ve been playing Shadowlands, the eighth expansion to World of Warcraft. For Warcraft fans, there’s a lot to be excited about: the new game allows players to explore the afterlife – reviving classic characters such as Kael’thas Sunstrider – and introduces a new style of play in Torghast, a deliciously punishing dungeon that changes each time you visit.

There’s also a clear recruiting drive for new players with a simplified introduction, more straightforward questing and reconfigured character growth, all aimed at making this venerable and complex game less daunting. “It’s a welcoming beginning,” says the game’s director Ion Hazzikostas.

One of the biggest updates, however, is for everyone, old players and new: an overhaul of the game’s representation, with a range of new, more diverse options for characters’ appearances. While WoW players have always been able to choose from a limited range of skin tones, Shadowlands expands these, and adds racially appropriate facial features and hairstyles. In addition, players can now visually represent blindness, and change their gender.With Shadowlands arriving on the 16th anniversary of World of Warcraft’s release, Hazzikostas is well aware the changes were long overdue. “Some of it was technical constraints, going back to the way things were built, and the number of different textures that could be mapped onto a single model from the engine 15 years ago. But those are lines of code that can be changed. And yes, the real question is why didn’t we do it sooner? It’s a good question. We should’ve done this sooner, honestly.”

With millions of players around the world, representation is essential, Hazzikostas says. “Since the start of the game, there’s a portion of our player base that’s been able to make a character that felt like their avatar in Azeroth, but there were many, many of our players – far too many, the majority, in fact – who couldn’t do that. And that’s at the core of why we’ve made this change.”

Rebuilding the game’s ageing infrastructure was just one element. The Warcraft team also needed to reconsider how they interpret the game’s high fantasy setting, balancing the imagination of the genre with the overwhelming diversity of World of Warcraft’s subscribers. “The reality is that Tolkien-derived fantasy, what we call traditional fantasy, so often reflects a western European ethos,” Hazzikostas expands. “It reflects works made for that smaller audience, that has since become globalised. Plenty of people could previously make a stout dwarf or a quirky gnome ... but the skin tones to match the range of our players weren’t there. We’ve changed that.”