Now, because this is almost certainly going to get the attention of certain people who think they’re clever – there is indeed, a reasonable reason to roll your eyes at this change – and it was covered by Joseph Knoop in PC Gamer.

(Yes, FYI, these images are paintings on the walls of buildings, in an MMORPG)

You’ll note though, that the people who are unimpressed by Blizzard trying to distract from their ongoing lawsuits don’t want the decision reversed, they’re just upset that:

  1. Blizzard is using trivial changes like this to distract from real harm they do to real women on an ongoing basis.
  2. Blizzard could actually have approved these and many meaningful changes at any time – but didn’t do so because they didn’t care about anything but feminist cookies.

The ones who are raging and want the changes reverted on the other hand, well they are worried about two other things.

  1. The sanctity of the sexuality of fictional women who just happen to be appealing to their sexuality as self-absorbed cishet men.
  2. Their validation as the only people in the world who matter, and that their whims are more important than anyone’s needs or interests.

No really:

(Not the lack of concern for people who’s sexuality is empowered men, or who prefer to play their fantasy adventure games without tits and ass in their face)

My main thoughts on this were already summarized very succinctly by Jack Saint in a single, evergreen tweet:

So, my recommended guideline for distinguishing between to two types – since the shitty ones will always claim to be the well meaning ones when called out is:

Are they disappointed that Blizzard has not yet done anything meaningful to help real people who have been suffering due to their obscene behaviour, or are they concerned the imaginary people are no longer interested in helping them fap?

Because trust me, the latter were going to have this reaction regardless.

– wincenworks

WoW Armor Switch

Like with Saint Seiya Online and Riders of Icarus before, we subjected some armor double standard in Blizzard’s MMORPG classic to a switch of designs between genders. 
After all, if those are supposed to be exactly equal in function, then why not make the dudes show off their flesh? 

Jade Set

This was a relatively laid-back stream. I was actually pretty surprised that we had not tackled WoW in a stream before! I ended up picking the Jade Armor just because of that underboob… it was just taunting me… I had to do it. It wasn’t my fault! Please, don’t–!

So besides switching the outfits between the 2 characters, I also switched their facial expressions! I gave the maaale an attractive, nonthreatening smile, while making the lady more intimidating. I also added the at-this-point Patented Icy Redesign Dick. I mean, if we can’t tell he has a penis, how are we supposed to know he’s a man, Blizzard?? How???

-Icy 

Glorious Set

This change was pretty basic copypasting job with adjustments according to character silhouettes. Bonus change was giving the guy’s cool braids to the lady, as she deserves an interesting haircut as well! 

~Ozzie

Red is for the High Inquisitor skin, Blue is additionals from the Celestial Empress skin

Clickbait Title: You Won’t Believe What Character Blizzard is Adding to Heroes of the Storm!

Having blocked out most of my memories of playing World of Warcraft (and I didn’t do raids), I didn’t remember Sally Whitemane, so boy was I surprised to learn she led a religious order!

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I’m not sure how anybody took this character seriously as an authority figure of any kind. Her outfit looks like something out of a fetish lingerie catalog. The HotS design is almost exactly the same as her original WoW model, which really highlights how much effort Blizzard is putting into doing women better.

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Not to mention, her first alternative skin is some kind of scissors accident, rather than, for example, her Horseman version? Yeah, she became one of WoW’s Four Horsemen (the only woman in the current lineup, of course).

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I mean, give her some padding on her exposed stomach, and that would be a fine alternate skin! But she does have a lot of skull motifs all over, so maybe they thought it would be too similar-looking to Sonya’s Death Knight skins.

-Icy

h/t: @evjazurian

So when a recurring character in Overwatch looks vastly different between her 3 appearances, we get told that different artists have different styles, and that Blizzard is allowed to change their character designs over time. But when Alexstrasza, queen of the dragons, gets a makeover and a pair of pants in Heroes of the Storm, there’s outrage on the forums

This is her original WoW model:

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You might notice that her clothes look a lot like Sylvanas’, even after they gave her pants. Even down to keeping the thong!

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They did try to differentiate her with the leg armor and cape, but they couldn’t bring themselves to actually design her properly, despite the fact that they supposedly redesign their characters all the time. She has the exact same coverage as Sylvanas, even down to the upper arm bands. Doing a bingo on her would just be redundant

I’ll give them props for giving her an interesting jawline, but that seems to be the extent of their creativity.

Also, is it just me, or does the jewelry she wears in her dragon form not resemble her humanoid jewelry at all? Even the rings on her horns seem to be different.

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And if the answer is, that’s what she chooses to appear as when she’s not a dragon… well, we already have stuff written up about that.

-Icy

h/t: @ghostoftom

Blood Elves vs. Night Elves… AND BOTH SUCK!

@thenightmarerider submitted: 

Found this on Facebook, and as far as I can tell it’s official art. May as well be, because knowing the history of WoW’s design of female armour, this just fits the bill. Multiple bingos as far as I understand it, simply because OH LIGHT WHY?! And of course, you’d never see a male character caught dead in this stuff, so pretty evident in a bizzare elven fetishisation. 

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But guuuys, Blizzard totally tries to do women better now! 

Because Overwatch does some baby steps in that direction, we should definitely ignore how art like the one above (originally promoting Burning Crusade ten years ago), or this or  this or this still gets officially used to promote World of Warcraft

~Ozzie

So, as exciting as it is that from time to time, Blizzard makes progress in their newest product: Overwatch – I am still more than a little bit bothered that this is the image of a “hunter” that they put forward on their World of Warcraft site.

The game has been updated that much that people are now trying to run bootleg “original build” servers, and they’ve never gotten some better character art for this class than this.

– wincenworks