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January 13, 2006

Discrimination in World of Warcraft

Category: MMOG, Social / Cultural — David J Edery @ 7:17 pm

Apparently, discrimination is becoming a problem in World of Warcraft. Some players are refusing to accept other players into their group unless they can chat in perfect, unbroken English. This phenomenon is being blamed on a widespread backlash against the practice of gold farming, which is unfairly associated with all non-English speakers in general.

There is nothing new to this. The particulars might be unique, but the basis for this behavior has always been there, lying just under the surface of all multiplayer video games. I will never forget the first time I logged onto a multiplayer server and saw one game session entitled “NO JEWS”. I joined the session, of course (in addition to all our other faults, we Jews can’t follow directions.) I thought I might learn something from the experience, but after 20 very sad minutes, all I’d discovered was a strong correlation between bigotry and the use of foul language.

Gold farming has simply become a handy excuse for some people to indulge in their darker impulses. So what can MMORPG developers do about it? 1) Don’t add fuel to the fire by publishing scathing remarks about the practice of gold farming. If you don’t like it, just deal with it quietly, fairly, and efficiently. 2) Reward diversity. Perhaps groups that are comprised of players from different countries could be rewarded with an experience point bonus? Or perhaps diverse guilds could be rewarded in some way? These are just idle thoughts, but I think the idea is at least worth considering. Bringing people together is one of the most socially-beneficial things an MMOG could ever do. And hey, you might even be able to get some decent PR out of it.

PS. If you haven’t read always_black’s famous short story, Bow Nigger, you really should.

*Update: in response to the unexpected controversy this has generated, I’ve posted a followup for clarification’s sake.

*Update 2: as promised, in response to all the controversy, I’ve written an article for Gamasutra about designing an MMORPG user feedback system, which is meant to address legitimate player concerns about bad teamwork, loot theft, etc.

Digg It

131 Comments »

(Hello, thanks for the link. I followed the referral back.)

I think we have to be very careful in the classification and subsequent punishment/reward of what we perceive to be discriminatory behaviour in online gaming.

Obviously, a huge sign that reads “No Irish” is easy to condemn, but in my experience such things are very, very rare, not least because of the masking or complete lack of visual/audible cues upon which ‘real world’ discrimination is usually based.

What I feel is more difficult, is determining the difference between ’selection’ and baseless hate. It seems to me that selection is the basis, maybe even the reason for, many types of game. Don’t you compete to determine who is ‘the best’ at something?

A professional football team is going to have an amazingly stringent selection process for its players. Those that can’t run, throw, block or tackle to a certain standard are going to be excluded, because we can’t all play in the Superbowl.

So if a WoW group decides to set a language standard, is that really the same as excluding someone because of their skin colour or religion or country of origin? And even if it’s technically possible, should you really try and ‘legislate’ for it through the game code?
Comment by always_black — January 14, 2006 @ 6:18 am
Hi Ian - Thanks for posting. I love your work.

You make some really good points. I think it’s certainly fair to say that “group language standards” are far less insidious than a huge “No Irish” sign. And it’s true that a group might legitimately worry about language issues causing (fatal) miscommunications in-game. I would personally hesitate to accept a group member that spoke extremely poor English for this reason.

However, the fact that this phenomenon has been linked to gold farming implies that party performance issues are not at the root of all such group decisions. And let’s face it, WoW does not demand perfect English; you can handle yourself in a raid just fine without a stunning command of the language. “Don’t attack until he breathes fire.” “Stay by the wall.” This is not the stuff of Shakespeare.

I’m hesitant to dismiss this phenomenon in the same way that I’m hesitant to dismiss a real-world backlash against, say, immigration. People who get angry when their salary is driven down by recent immigrants have a legitimate reason to be concerned, right? From their point of view, their livelihood is being threatened. Unfortunately, that sentiment can fester into uglier things…

As for “legislation via code” — yes, this *is* difficult at best. That’s why (in my examples) I didn’t focus on language… I focused on international diversity. There are plenty of people in other countries who speak decent English (and plenty of Americans who speak other languages). With enough time, I think someone could come up with a solution that rewards diversity in an MMO without forcing uncomfortable alliances onto people. And, of course, the bonus could be small enough that if people *really* wanted to, they could disregard it. That might still be better than nothing. Anyway, suffice to say that I admit this is really tricky; I almost didn’t post the idea, but then I decided that there was value in a dialogue.

Which, thanks to your post, is happening. :)
Comment by David J Edery — January 14, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
My current playground of choice is Second Life, primarily because its open nature and extensive creative tools make it very fertile ground for self-expression. I would venture that the kinds of problems we’re talking about are more prevalent and diverse in an environment like that, simply because there are fewer restrictions on content imposed by the software.

Here concepts such as bias, freedoms of speech and expression, prejudice, self-determination and probably a host of other things that I can’t quite find the vocabularly for, are blurring together in front of me until I can’t seem to be able to tell them apart.

If you’re interested in exploring this some more in a practical context, come by the blacklibrary ( http://www.alwaysblack.com/?p=143 )and I’ll show you some stuff that will make your toes curl.

I’d really appreciate being able to talk about this with someone with a better educational background than I. :)
Comment by always_black — January 14, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
I would point out that in WoW, as in other parts of the fantasy media continuum, has as part of it’s basis, the use of “races” as types. I think that the current popular assumption is that everyone playing these games understands that assigning qualities to game races (intelligence, etc.), and assuming or assigning these same qualities to real world “races” is wrong. Yet you have people, especially kids, who are having the structure of their social world heavily influenced by the structure of the game. What I am suggesting here, is that the use of races in the game may not be as innocuous as it seems, and this may in turn lead to discrimination within the game agains people from other cultures or with different language skills.
Comment by Sam — January 15, 2006 @ 11:48 am
Ian, I’ll definitely stop by the blacklibrary (despite the imminent toe-curling).

Sam, that’s a really interesting observation. I’ll admit that I’m not *too* worried about this; after all, most games give good reason for the system (i.e. a half-giant in D&D probably *should* have bonuses to strength, for obvious reasons. If it didn’t, the game wouldn’t make much sense!) I only get worried when the in-game races are somehow linked to real-life races. Remember the “trade empire” in Phantom Menace … comprised of aliens with vaguely Japanese accents? Now THAT’s messed up!
Comment by David J Edery — January 15, 2006 @ 12:58 pm
Hehe, I actually never thought of the Trade dudes like that. Now you mention it though, didn’t Lucas once say he was going for the old Flash Gordon chapterplay feel…

http://unquietmind.com/images2/ming_merciless.jpg

On the broader subject, I guess it falls back to the old old problem of when exactly IS it OK to discriminate? Assuming that it ever is, which I feel might be the case. I don’t suppose virtual worlds will get it right until at least the rest of human interactivity does. Which won’t be any time soon if history is anything to go by.
Comment by always_black — January 15, 2006 @ 8:26 pm
Yawn… Another example of political correctness getting in the way of good ole common sense. Every joke that is aimed at someone else is “racism”…. give me a break.

When you’re running thorugh azeroth and 100% of the people you see farming gold (in the same place, every day, all day) are chinese and when 100% of the people who bombard you with trade requests out in the middle of nowhere are chinese, it’s really not racism to make jokes about chinese gold farmers. Because 1. it’s mostly true 2. you’re not degrading the entire race and most importantly 3. it’s a joke.

Also, it is not racism to have a group or club (guild in this case) that doesn’t permit just anyone to join. Unless you know the intentions of the person or persons who make those decisions, you can’t really say why. To make assumptions that it is solely because they are racists is immature and naive.
Comment by Yawn — January 17, 2006 @ 9:59 am
I disagree with this. I don’t think there’s any intention to be racist in WOW, it’s just a communication problem. You wouldn’t want someone who can’t speak a word of english or who prefers to use “leet speak” on your team simply because then you couldn’t coordinate your party.

To imply that it’s because of racism based on the widespread practice of goldfarming is simply absurd. Sure everybody hates those gold farmer s but that doesn’t mean they will kick out someone a Chinese guy who can write pretty well.

In gaming, it’s rarely about race, you can’t see the person behind the monintor and that takes away the discriminatory instinct to an extent.

Oh and by the way, you’re dugged.
Comment by Ryan McBride — January 17, 2006 @ 10:50 am
See my earlier comments. Suffice to say, there are problems with the defensive logic offered here. Even if it were true that 100% of gold farmers are Chinese (which is factually incorrect), that does not therefore mean that 100% of Chinese are gold farmers.

I could spend hours trying to convince people that “the joke” isn’t funny, and it probably won’t do a lick of good, so I’ll simply leave it at this: the day you find yourself excluded from a group because of an unfair assumption its members make about you is the day you’ll understand why this is more than just an issue for “sensitive PC types.”

And lastly, let me repeat once again: there is a difference between someone who speaks perfectly passable English and would make a great group member, and someone who speaks almost no English. You do not need perfect grammar to play WoW. In fact, quite a few of the people teasing Chinese players seem to have their own major grammar issues…

(Note: this is the last comment I will post on this thread. I suspect that anything more will prove redundant and/or inflammatory.)
Comment by David J Edery — January 17, 2006 @ 11:12 am
Ok, I have played many online games over the years, and helped develop some. I am one of these people that won’t let you into my group if you can’t speak properly, and according to your little blog i’m racist… lets not just stop there however, I’m also anti-14yrold… nothing irks me more than to have someone join my group talking like n00b I JST FKN PWNED U I M L33T. Now this person, if he joined my group would be booted before any broken english speaking person, (at least they are trying to communicate on an intelligent level. Some people just don’t like having to take 20 minutes to decipher what their group member just said to them.. If i can understand you and you play well then you’ll have no problem with me infact i will likely enjoy playing with you. But just because someone kicks people they can’t understand, that doesn’t make them racist, so G3T A L1F3 U Ub3r n00b cuz U BN pwned. (gosh thats annoying huh?)
Comment by Demandread — January 17, 2006 @ 11:38 am
I do believe I saw this same post on the news sections of MillionDollarBush.com
Comment by Jack O'Trades — January 17, 2006 @ 1:33 pm
I’m slightly offended by this post/entry/blog/whatever. I hate gold farmers. Do I hate everyone who doesn’t speak perfect english in WoW? No. Gold farmers are notorious for not saying a word and rushing into groups of enemies. This is bad. Gold farmers run up to me and send a stream of letters that look something like “magic bread ok ty” “heal” “water ok” “ty ty ty ty” “ok”

These are the people I despise. If someone wants to join my party and they are actually trying to communicate, than I will most likely not think they are a gold farmer. gold farmers get groups killed.

Please do not associate me racist assholes. I just hate the rude gold farmers. they are annoying and get me killed.

Unfortunatly, it’s up to the group if someone is allowed to join. Even if someone wasn’t a gold farmer, if they made to decent attempt to communicate, I would not party with them.
Comment by Pizzini — January 17, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
I have to disagree, it’s group coordination and gameplay that make people selective in who they group with. I’ve been in pickup groups where there are defined tactics layed, out like, “Take out the caster first, then work on melee mobs”. Those work out to our favor. Then there are the pickup groups where you say, “Targeting monster on right”…and one of the players goes for the left one. Was it because they can’t tell left from right, or that they don’t understand english?

Also, there are many players to the MMORPG genre that are used to non-typing Console games. Those games don’t usually require typing, and so instead of a “Yes/No”, answer, they usually hunt and peck ‘y’ or ‘n’…and sometimes they’ll be low on health and type ‘hel plez’.

That’s not discrimination by language barriers, it’s discrimination on who can make a better contribution to the party. I’ve seen a lot of asian players (or french for that matter), who may not speak perfect sentence structure, but they’ll understand group dynamics and how to play along with other people.

Mostly this is discriminatory against people who don’t like to type.
Comment by WowPlayer72 — January 17, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
Why are Chinese speakers playing on English speaking U.S. or European servers?

So the gold they harvest can be sold.

There is no other ‘good’ reason for a player who cannot converse naturally in English to play on a English speaking server.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that 99% of the time the non-English speaker is a gold farmer.
Comment by dave — January 17, 2006 @ 1:46 pm
Attention Whore: Mission Accomplished!
Comment by Vis — January 17, 2006 @ 1:46 pm
Personal experience here: I’ve been in groups/raids where one of the members is a Chinese gold farmer, and I’ve traded with them on many occasions. Most understand the game better than the average player — they do it 40+ hours a week for a living — and most understand English. After all, if they didn’t speak English, they couldn’t trade/haggle/get the best prices.

I Do see a lot of racism on my server. Most of the time it is thinly masked behind the front of “CGF’s promote cheating, and buying/selling gold is bad.” What gives it away is the quick racist jokes that follow.
Comment by hikaru — January 17, 2006 @ 1:47 pm
Personally, I don’t see the issue here. Players can form their own groups, and the groups have every right to choose their members based on whatever criteria they choose. They may be being total dicks by doing so, but it’s their group, so who cares. It’s just like in the real world, people can choose to be friends with and hang out with whomever they choose, and reject whomever else they choose. To anyone who may have been “discriminated” against, tough shit. The world’s not fair.

I can start a group and only allow in 18-20 year old males that are slightly overweight if I want to. Am I needlessly discriminating against thsoe who may be younger and skinnier, sure as hell I am, but I can do that because it’s my group.
Comment by Sean — January 17, 2006 @ 1:54 pm
Consider the flip side. Force people to associate with people they don’t want to associate with (regardless of the reasons, and there are good points on both sides here), and people will leave the game and play some other.

Also, “discrimination” is not bad. We all discriminate, all the time. The negative sense of the term comes from people using inappropriate information to make decisions, not the mere act of making decisions. I’m completely unconvinced that “communication ability” is at all “inappropriate” in this context.

This is a worthy discussion to have, but I’d suggest that the answer is that this is not a problem, and rather unlikely to lead to real problems in the future, either. The root problem here is people taking economic advantage of the game, not the people who don’t want to associate with those people, and due to lack of certain useful clues, have to brush a bit more widely then they might like to.
Comment by Jeremy Bowers — January 17, 2006 @ 1:55 pm
Its common everywhere. I have seen milions of examples on MSN.Zone that other players frlame people that are not fluint in english. Why to point out WoW?
Comment by WoW Master — January 17, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
Similar behavior can be seen in the MOOG Final Fantasy Online. You will frequently see groups looking for additional members with descriptions posted as “Japanese only”.

However, attributing that behavior or similar examples in WOW to racial discrimination is an unfair assumption. The fact is that group coordination in these games is difficult even when all members speak the same language fluently. Communication difficulties can very cause the entire team to fail in their efforts.

“Don’t add fuel to the fire by publishing scathing remarks about the practice of gold farming. If you don’t like it, just deal with it quietly, fairly, and efficiently.”

This suggestion seems to defy logic. Most players are not in any kind of position to ‘deal’ with gold farming. Any solution to this problem usually requires a modification to the game’s mechanics – not something players are allowed to do. Further, suggesting that players should keep quiet about a problem that ruins game play for the majority of the customer base is akin to blaming the victim of a crime.
Comment by Bluejay — January 17, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
There are two very different causes of language discrimination in WoW: 1) dysfunction and 2) resentment.

1) Dysfunction: a significant language barrier means the party does not function well in difficult situations. This can also cause wide gaps in ‘looting’ expectations and the heated fallout when someone unexpectedly nabs a coveted item. People are typically more accepting of the dysfunction and will work to overcome it if everyone is putting in an honest effort toward a common goal.

2) Resentment: Farmers cause problems by a) purposefully looting items to which they have no claim: the “ninja” b) leaving parties in the lurch after they have taken what they want from an area and c) causing unbalance in closed-number areas by farming resources while battles rage (specifically battlegrounds). This causes deep resentment in the players who are motivated by character development and not the potential real-world spoils of farming.

Resentment towards farmers is where the problematic type of discrimination is coming from. Unfortunately, non-english speakers have been branded as the primary offenders, so they’re bearing the weight of the in-game backlash against farming practices. (Personal, anecdotal experience has shown me that some of the worst farmers I’ve encountered speak excellent english - they’re just jerks).

My advice to people with broken or imperfect english (if they can read this!) would be to TELL people you’re not farming, ACT like a respectable, party-oriented player, and keep a robust ‘friends’ list of people you’ve proven yourself to. You’d be surprised how far most people are willing to bend to accommodate and help if they know your intentions are good and you’re just online to have fun.
Comment by Peter Liska — January 17, 2006 @ 2:25 pm
tomayto tomahto when someone is looked down upon because of their race it’s racism. I’ve been in groups where the subjects come up and i’ve stated that i was in fact asian and was promptly kicked. This has happened multiple times.

It’s just sad that the gold farming are giving people an excuse to persue their darker sides (like mentioned before).
Comment by chuck turner — January 17, 2006 @ 2:25 pm
Let’s make sure we understand your position.

Say you’re the group leader. You’re assembling a group for a run through Upper Blackrock Spire with ten people. Everyone arrives and you hit the instance. Part of the way through, you wipe. Oh well, that happens, let’s continue. Two minutes later, you wipe again. Ok, something could be up but let’s just move on. Two minutes later, you wipe again. Something needs to be done. Is a Priest not healing? Is someone pulling too much aggro? Why does the group keep wiping? Your instructions were perfectly clear: Let the Hunter line-of-site pull around this corner, main-assist peels off AoE caster, Druids help the Priests unless you need to hit bear form to peel aggro off someone. How could this go wrong?

It turns out not everyone in your group quite understands the complex manuever you’re proposing. You keep telling him that you’re doing a line-of-site pull, but this isn’t easy to translate to someone that does not understand the language. Maybe he doesn’t speak English very well. Maybe he’s 7 years old and just doesn’t understand. Whateve the reason, if you don’t get rid of him, you’re going to keep wiping.

I think the choice is perfectly clear. The ability to understand and carry out instructions is more important than any ability your character possesses. If you cannot do this, you do not belong in the group. If I was the only English speaker in a group of German, Japanese, Chinese, or [enter your race here], I would expect the same thing. I’ll even go so far as to say I’d feel bad for having caused the wipes to begin with. I knew I couldn’t understand what they were saying so why the hell did I waste their time by joining their group?
Comment by Palehorse — January 17, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
In WOW if you are grouping it is because you are going to be attempting something difficult, most likely a dungeon that will take 2+ hours to complete. If you are already grouping with people you don’t know you are taking it on faith that they are competent. And if they can’t even communicate in broken english minimizing your risk makes perfect sense. And even if they can barely form coherent sentences you will give them a shot because most of the time finding people for a group is difficult. What I am trying to say is you obviously don’t play WOW and you are trying to make a big deal out of anecdotal nothing Yes there are rasicts, bigots and homophobes in WOW but its not systematic.
Comment by Carl — January 17, 2006 @ 2:31 pm
Wow, you’re really blowing this out of proportion.

Forcing people into diversity by an xp bonus wouldn’t help discrimination at all. You’ll have people discriminating against people here in the USA because they want someone from another country due to wanting the XP bonus.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for to have people wanting people in their groups that they can communicate with. It’s not like their naming their guild “NO (Insert favorite racial slur here)”

What is the deal with overly sensitive people like you?
Comment by Michael Curtis — January 17, 2006 @ 2:34 pm
SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE

’nuff said
Comment by Larry — January 17, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
I play an MMORPG called Knight Online (http://www.knightonlineworld.com). KO is almost overrun by turkish players, which makes it very difficult to communicate. I really doubt any group would refuse anyone who can speak english at any fluency. Also, understand that no one speaks perfect english. As such, it is impractical to say that any group requires PERFECT english. Doing some things in MMORPGs can be very complicated, and require massive coordination. When I do something like this, I make sure that everyone in my group can speak english at the same level. Then, I also require that they speak nothing but english while in the group. It is simply logical, not racist. Who wants a group of 8 people that can not understand each other.
Comment by GoatCheez — January 17, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
O RLY?
Comment by ohrly — January 17, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
[...] read more | digg story [...]
Pingback by senorpez » Discrimination in World of Warcraft — January 17, 2006 @ 3:01 pm
The link article is simply an ad for a gold selling site, too bad the site is so horribly done.

As far as discrimination goes, since there are serves located all over the world including china, I’m not sure who is being discriminated against. Of course foreign players are going to be discriminated against on english speaking servers. If I logged on to a server whos primarily language was something other than english and I had a hard time getting a group I wouldn’t be suprised either. It’s hard to coordinate a group if the people in the group can’t understand each other.
Comment by anon — January 17, 2006 @ 3:06 pm
[...] I’ve not heard of this until now, it doesn’t surprise me I guess. [...]
Pingback by Blank Moments » Discrimination in World of Warcraft — January 17, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
Frankly I never understood the point in forcefully associating with idiots. If it’s a matter of discrimination, i.e. they don’t want you in their group, why would you want to play with them anyway? Just to spite them?

Why should the game developers work at a feature designed to forcefully bring people together, when they desperately want to be apart?

As a general rule, secession (each individual is free to follow his own preferences with his own means) is preferable to getting the authorities (be it the State or in this case the programmers) to coerce or simply force everyone in an unpleasant situation.

If I reserve a right not to sell you something because I’m unsure if you’re able to pay (or I won’t approve your credit) how is that different from withholding a transaction for racial reasons, for example? (I’m not advocating racism, only that people should be free to do with their time and money what they like, with who they agree to with) … or maybe you’d also overrule all credit decisions too, in the quest for PC policing the world?

Human freedom is a wonderful thing, but it includes also the freedom to make the wrong choices and be an ass (as these racists are). You can’t have your cake and eat it too (pay lip service to freedom but then turn around and use the State’s power to regulate against it)
Comment by Gabriel Mihalache — January 17, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
lrn2play omfgwtfbbqnoobsauce gg no re
Comment by Leeroy Jenkins — January 17, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
Racism? What about people who are tired of messages like “lrn2play omfgwtfbbqnoobsauce gg no re” all the time. Stop over reacting, silly Jew.
Comment by DiRT — January 17, 2006 @ 3:40 pm
I would say that your data is flawed at best.

Either that or no research was done other than people telling you stories about how they were descriminated against because they didn’t speak perfect english.

Odds are the people telling you those stories tlkd l1k3 th1z!! LOLZORZ!11!!!.

Also, the link to gold-farming is after the fact that people don’t like to team with those who can’t communicate effectively. Most people in WoW already belong to guilds and common groups of friends making them unlikely to team with others in the first place.
Comment by databyss — January 17, 2006 @ 3:40 pm
Id like to add to this list. Dunno if its the same type of discrimination used in your examples, but still. One that im frequent to, discrimination against Dial Up users. Ive been removed and not allowed into several guilds/clans/groups/parties/whatever the hell you choose to call em now for that reason. While it may not be as bad as racial discrimination, Id like to be able to play the entire game too (or at least try).
Comment by seldom — January 17, 2006 @ 3:42 pm
Hi, I understand your views, but they don’t really fit the facts of WOW at all. There are two significant points you’re missing here:

1) There are servers in almost every region of the world. Therefore there is no good reason for someone in China to be playing on the US servers. So there’s no good reason for someone to play on a server that doesnt use their language except to farm gold and ninja loot, both of which greatly hurt the gaming experience, and both of which CAN be helped. Silencing complaints about it does no one any good.

2) A huge part of WOW is grouping, and communication is extremely important in grouping. This isn’t final fantasy where there are scripted multi-lingual messages for everything you can imagine. If someone can’t understand you saying “lets roll on the chest” or “don’t pull that mob until after I take a leak”, it can easily ruin your night by wiping the party or stealing the loot you spent 3 hours trying to get. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 10 year old obnoxious american kid, or a 30 year old chinese guy.
Comment by Eric — January 17, 2006 @ 3:47 pm
only nubs run PUGs
Comment by Leeroy Jenkins — January 17, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
Despite a lot of that being creepy, your ideas arn’t very good. World of Warcraft doesn’t know what colour your skin is or which version of Yhwh you worship (or if your smart, none at all). Any discrimination is done in the game, and they have policies against anything that’s based off of the generic ‘things you can’t change’ list. If someone disciminates against you because of your race/sex/whatever, your supposed to send in a GM note and officially report it.

As for the English thing….some of us don’t want to talk to the itnernet l33t speakers. S’got nothing to do with racism jackass. >.>
Comment by Koushiro — January 17, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
WTF? Give me a break.

L2PLAY NOOB!
Comment by Apollyon — January 17, 2006 @ 4:12 pm
Have you ever played with a gold farmer? I don’t give a crap what color they are Tthey don’t speak english, they are booted from the group. I don’t know how many gold farmers ninja stuff becasue they can’t understand the loot rules. Write something worth something instead of this garbage. Like the overpopulation of servers and the log in problems. If you party with a PUG, make sure they speak english or you will lose good loot. A majority of the gold farmers are from overseas…if they would speak english, they wouldn’t get the boot.
Comment by Zak — January 17, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
Pillow Talk

Today’s dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny … It’s Kerry-180 Tuesday (+ Open Trackbacks)
Trackback by NIF — January 17, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
Well not only is this topic dumb..
this article is dumb. an XP bonus for playing with
players from different areas? Just plain lame.
I clicked this link to read a good well written article,
instead I end up at some attention whores crappy blog.
I can’t believe people dug this..
Comment by ag — January 17, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
Before you start trying to eliminate discrimination in the virtual world why
don’t you work at allowing a representative government that allows the
population to vote on their leaders and laws. Oh wait, you want the rulers to
impose more rules to diswade your perceived negative social behaviors, nm.
Comment by modulus — January 17, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
“Reward diversity. Perhaps groups that are comprised of players from different countries could be rewarded with an experience point bonus?”

Great, just what WoW needs: affirmative action.
Comment by Ganon's Mom — January 17, 2006 @ 4:41 pm
Well, as an avid WoW player, i can see a reason not to let people who cannot speak english into your group. Here is a list of reasons.

1. In an instance, (where you group) it is important to have good communication, and teamwork in a group. If a group cannot work together, then there is a good chance that they will not do well, and lack of communcation could seriously hurt a groups chance for survival

2. Gold Farmers are EVERYWHERE, i get in game whispers all the time to buy gold online, people are spamming trade channels with highly overpriced items, and it just gets annoying. I would not want to be in a group with a person who could be grouping with me just to get items to overprice and sell to get gold.

3. If this person is a gold farmer, then they most likely will ninja loot, (IE take any items of value dropped, and leave the group) This happens alot, and i would hate to spend all of my time trying to get an item, only to have it looted by a farmer.

I do understand that some people are going to be affected by this negatively, and that is bad, but it is an inevitable fact that bad apples are going to ruin it for all non-native english speakers.

But to assume that players are using racism as a major factor for this grouping issue is not smart.
Comment by Jon Jenkins — January 17, 2006 @ 4:49 pm
It’s very interesting to me, that people seem to think that the worst people in the community represent all of us. I myself play with a guild with about 100 active members, and except for myself, 3 of my real life friends, and one brazilian guy, the entire guild is chinese, immigrants to the USA from China. Our voice chat server has several chinese/english only channels. The ironic part of this is, they hate farmers even more than I do, and they’re chinese themselves, and I would hesitate to call them racist against chinese people. The fact is that farmers don’t make the game more fun, and on top of that farming violates the WoW EULA, and so “quietly” dealing with it is just the same as “quietly” letting racism go as far as enforcement goes.

Also as everyone else has said, communication is so important in WoW, and even moreso in other games. There’s plenty of times where you can misread something or even miss a line of text and because of it everyone fails because of one person, even in a group where everyone understands the same language perfectly well. If that same guy was only capable of saying “y” “n” and “ni hao” you’d never get a thing done, and then everyone’s time, including the guy having trouble with his english, and I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate it either, especially if he isn’t a farmer, and just wants to enjoy the game like all of us.
Comment by scrub — January 17, 2006 @ 9:29 pm
Maybe if you researched the subject more, you’d have realized that Chinese players should not be on US or European servers, given that they have their own Chinese servers. Every single gold farmer I have encountered in game has either told me so in broken English, or attempted to communicate using Mandarin Chinese. I know how to recognize this because a friend (chinese) taught me some.

The “discrimination” babbled about comes from the problem that chinese players on US or European servers are mostly all gold farmers. Gold farming is mostly used for reselling on ebay, or other websites. Check out guy4game.com sometime. Not only is selling gold against Blizzard’s Terms of Service, but it ruins the in-game economy as well. These “farmers” stay online for almost all hours of the day, making as much gold as possible. They all work for private companies, who pay them a steady wage to meet a gold quota each day. The private companies (guy4game.com for example) resell the gold to players, allowing lazy, rich players to change their real money into game money. Players who use this practice are generally frowned upon.

A friend who also plays World of Warcraft told me that the gold farming on his server is so bad, that any normal player trying to mine a certain type of ore can’t, becuase of the amount of gold farmers beating them to it. This is just one reason why they are frowned upon.

The other reason, as stated by quite a few of the other commentors, is that they cannot work well in groups. Gold farmers are kicked out of guilds every single day based upon them being unable to work efficiently in groups. Obviously, they wouldn’t be able to use a program like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, which some guilds REQUIRE.

Also, alot of gold farmers don’t know the general looting rules for a standard group. Most that I have encountered see items and take them whenever possible. With this happening numerous times to almost every player, they can’t really be blamed for being cautious.

As for the suggestions you’re giving game developers: obviously you’ve never played World of Warcraft, let alone any MMORPG before. An experience bonus for having a group from different countries? World of Warcraft servers are COUNTRY BASED. A US player cannot see or even connect to Chinese, Korean, or European servers, just like Chinese players cannot see US servers. This means that farmers buy specifically the US version of the game. This means they imported it from the US. Obviously they should not be on US servers.

Your article is ignorance at its finest. lern2research.
Comment by Letifer — January 17, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
Yes David E., that’s what I want more of in my life, some gaming
“Political Correctness Police” monitoring my mouse clicks to make sure
=I= conform to =YOUR= political and cultural worldview.

=You= are doing precisely what you claim you want to abolish -
being a bigot, inflicting =your= beliefs and behavior on others.

The bigot you’re looking for can be seen in a mirror.
Comment by TheBob — January 17, 2006 @ 10:57 pm
The key issue here is one of intent. The players in the linked article are discriminating to prevent gold farming. They are not discriminating because they don’t like the Chinese (although to some that’s a very fine line). How would YOU ensure that your group doesn’t have a gold farmer in its ranks?

The ability to discriminate is a powerful and effective tool and the original article makes it out to be an evil practice. Yes discrimination is bad when you’re using it to weed out a particular race, but discrimination is not bad when you’re using it to weed out gold farmers.

It’s a tough distinction to maintain, but until there’s a better way to differentiate gold farmers from non-gold farmers this method is all the WOW players have.

Think about this, the biggest threat of terrorism to the US comes from the Middle East so how do we protect ourselves? We hopefully don’t do it by discriminating by race, we do it by monitoring calls (ideally with a warrant), watching for suspicious activities, etc… WOW players don’t have the tools available to properly discriminate against gold farmers - which would include monitoring those individuals who farm a certain area, who spam gold sales, who transact large amounts of gold etc…
Comment by Burt — January 17, 2006 @ 10:57 pm
Did you ever have the experience where you played an MMORPG in a party with non English speaking people in it ?
Once you overcome the communications problems you can end up being lumbered with Ninja looters who take every
single piece of good loot with no regard for others & then hide behind “I dont understand” when you try to
change their behaviour. Segregating them is not the way to go but there are many reasons people make groups
with names like english speaking only, people play games for fun. Its no fun struggling to communicate with
people who dont understand you especially if they are beahving in a manner you term “innapropriate” so Gold
Farming is not the only problem general communications problems make the game no fun at all which may explain
this new trend.
Comment by Ernie — January 18, 2006 @ 12:36 am
What you could have written is an interesting commentary on online life.

What you actually wrote was very badly researched FUD. If you had just done the basic research like checking whether Chinese people should be playing on US servers it could’ve looked very different.

The European servers are dividedly clearly into language - English, French or German. That’s not where you’re from, that’s what language you’re expected to speak when playing on it. If you can’t speak that language, you’re not being discriminated against, you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be.

What’s next, claiming discrimination if someone who doesn’t speak a word English can’t follow his English language university course?
Comment by svip — January 18, 2006 @ 5:41 am
I agree with the fact that not being able to understand people in your group being a hinderance on the game play. I’d probably rather join with someone that can speak english because, I speak and type english. If I was french, then I’d probably want to group up with people that are french also, it just a simple factor of comunicating on a common ground. I’ve never played WoW, but I’ve played many MMORPGs that are made by european companies and many of the players all speak different languages, many english speaking players don’t associate with people who speak other languages for the simple fact that they don’t understand each other. Every group/guild/corporation I was part of were all fluent english speakers, and I don’t ever remember there being rules that people had to speak english, because of the simple fact of communicating, and in the one game we had atleast one person from every continent, except the cold one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much against racism, but just because someone speaks a differnet language dosne’t automatically mean they’re of different race either. Let’s face it, how many times have you been on tech support and right away you relize it’s someone over seas that you can hardly understand, and how frustrating is it to deal with them, I’ve had that happen to me with everything from student loan phone support to ISP tech support, and it’s extremely frustrating.
Comment by Hey Sues — January 18, 2006 @ 5:59 am
Facts:

Fact 1: English is the international business language, and the most widely spoken language in the world.

Fact 2: WoW is gay.

Fact 3: 99% MMORPG players live in their parents basement up until the age of 35; after that they either die from forgeting to eat, go to the bathroom, sleep, etc.

Fact 4: Blogs are stupid even down to the word “blog”

Fact 5: This is the stupidest link to ever appear on Digg.com

Fact 6: Who ever made that graphic of the stick figures at the top discriminates against skinny malnurished people with big heads.

Fact 7: No matter what language you speak, if you play mmorgps, you’re a douche.

Fact 8: True diversity dosen’t necesarily come from the color of one’s skin.

Fact 9: Mexican Gold farmers work cheaper.

Fact 10: “leet” speak does not make you cool, and it never will, people hate you in real life for a reason.

There, Now everyone is fairly discriminated against, quit the bitchery.
Comment by Facts — January 18, 2006 @ 6:25 am
Affirmative action in video games?, points for diversity? oh my fucking god, i cant believe this shit was linked to on bluesnews.

Thankfully multiplayer gameplay is based on free association, so silly totalitarian ideas like this are very unlikely to happen.
Comment by NOSTATISTS — January 18, 2006 @ 10:34 am
You know what? I agree 100% with excluding non-English players on US servers from joining my raid.

Let me type it again.

Yes. I fully support discriminating non-English speakers.

Why? Sure, ninja/farming is one very good reason. (And before you argue master looter - no, sorry, there are still problems with master looter in 1.9 - especially with long queues and disconnects.)

But an even more important issue is FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS.

If I had a dime, no, a NICKEL for every time the raid was instructed to wait, hold up, attack this, don’t attack that, and sure enough the non-English twit did the opposite thing and caused a wipe…

Nothing prevents the non-English from soloing, or even joining a group or raid of same-language speakers.

But I refuse to allow ‘em in my group.

Deal with it. Learn to play. Oh, and learn English on an English-server. I certainly wouldn’t expect to log into a non-English server and have them bend over backwards for me.
Comment by dood — January 18, 2006 @ 10:49 am
this is an overgeneralization. there are simple ways to weed out the players who abuse the game, and there are several moderation tools to prevent abuse from players. guilds are able to demote or promote people and the game has master looting abilities to prevent players from “stealing” or “ninjaing” items from the group’s progress.

call it what you will, but if you just spent hundreds of hours trying to gather an item that was stolen i would submit that you’d be reluctant to invite a user back who was exhibiting the same behavior, and didn’t communicate with you or the group. a group of friends just changed guilds after working with a guild whose officers cussed members out and showed no remote sense of leadership or organization. after talking and grouping with guilds that have done a lot more end game content it’s quite simple to conclude that proper communication and maturity are absolutely necessary to progress in this game. most high level guild raiding incorporates the use of teamspeak or ventrillo, and little typing. poorly moderated guilds do not progress in this game because it demands communication, leadership, and organization. remember the game incorporates a monthly fee and a lot of groups are not going to tolerate destructive behavior. if you believe you have been unfairly discriminated against and harassed then you should use the in game help and report the offenders to a game master.

take part in the forum community and report people who have farmed items from the group.

i would submit that the users supporting gold farming are a bigger problem. the game has an economy that can be broken.
Comment by metalaaron — January 18, 2006 @ 11:51 am
I once went to Denny’s and they had a sign “Smoking Section (Tobacco Only)”
I felt extremely discriminated against…
Comment by Alan — January 18, 2006 @ 7:28 pm
[...] Discrimination in World of Warcraft Yeah well…you buy gold! You buy gold now! [via Digg] (tags: warcraft) [...]
Pingback by Mea Culpa » links for 2006-01-19 — January 18, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
Really, you know what I discriminate against most of all, not racial groups or groups that hold to a particular religion…

I discriminate against twat headed self important idiots that have weblogs talking about “racism”. Yeah I really hate those morons, I mean how shit eating polically correct do you have to be in this world…

Could it be that discrimination isn’t against a person’s background but against that person themselves? Oh.. The groups argument… Well tough shit it has always happened and always will happen…
Comment by Whatever — January 18, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
[...] Discrimination in World of Warcraft Yeah well…you buy gold! You buy gold now! [via Digg] (tags: warcraft) [...]
Pingback by Blog-Her » Blog Archive » links for 2006-01-19 — January 18, 2006 @ 11:25 pm
I play WoW and I enjoy it peroid. There are faults there is racism and biggotry

I speak AMERICAN and I dislike gold farmers!

If you really want to get down to it.. I’ve rarely grouped with other “races”
and if I have you know what I didn’t know it and I dont care. if they follow
instruction they stay they repeatedly BEEP-up they go.

and just on a side note I hate people from brazil (not really) but I have
been ninja’d 4 times this month by them.. is it racism? is it countryism. no it’s
plain old HATEISM I hate people who steal from me, wether it’s by raising
prices on the server or by stealing directly from me.

Should I HATE the casual gamer too? they steal my time by not being as well
geared as me or lacking in as much “skill” as me

Come on people it’s a game enjoy it and play it with all it’s faults or dont
it is UP TO YOU no one else is going to make you play a game!
Comment by WoWPlayer — January 19, 2006 @ 8:54 am
It’s common practice to not invite someone who acts immature, talks like “lol can u give me 5 gold plz or ill pk u”, or doesn’t use common English. The common English part is where the so-called ‘discrimination’ gets lumped in.

You are right, there IS discrimination, but it is not aimed towards any nationality or group of people as a whole.
I think the majority of WoW players would agree with me that; if any discrimination takes place; we are trying
to weed the immature and stupid players out of our groups.

Sadly, this also means that some players who do not speak perfect English may be excluded.

If you run the higher end instances or battlegrounds, they require a great deal of focus and communication.
One little mistake in Molten Core could contribute to your whole team dying(called ‘wiping’).

Regarding the term “Chinese farmer,” I really don’t think it would be so commonplace (or even that big a deal) if they would just farm and leave others alone.

No native American bats an eyelash when someone is called an indian giver.

But when the majority of farmers not only do not speak English, are belligerent and even rude (demanding things like conjured food and water), and will GRIEF you by training high-level monsters in the area on you if you so much as come close, I believe they have justly earned the ire directed towards them.
Comment by Erik aka "Reanimus" — January 19, 2006 @ 10:15 am
Dave you’re totally screwed up with the comments here. You read a post on slashdot and think it gives you the right to rip this off and try to make a story out of nothing. There is nothing wrong with controlling who is in your group. My brother runs a guild where he only allows people that they know personally and all of them are American. That’s RACIST?? I can’t believe he does that!!! Some guilds do not allow kids in their guild OH NO THAT’S AGE DISCRIMINATION!!! I’m not saying slanderous and racist comments don’t occur in games. These comments also happen in KKK protests in front of a state capital bldg. They occur all over the internet. Back to your linking of WoW and MMORPG with racism, quit trying to get some mileage out of a blank story with no content or substance.
Comment by DavidEderysDaddy — January 19, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Not being able to speak English is a perfect reason not to let somebody into your group, since communication is a very important part of WoW. If players can not effectively communicate with their party members then they won’t be a valuable addition to the party.
Comment by Jargson — January 19, 2006 @ 10:32 am
Umm, it’s a game man, relax.

Learn2Relax and Learn2Play
Comment by Greg — January 19, 2006 @ 10:48 am
ur all stupid its a game and racism is a part of life get over it and just stop
crying and about the bit of not letting people into ur party cuz they cant speak
good enough english thats not racist at the least its called being smart
whos gonna work better 6 people that cant cleary understand eachother or 6
people that know exactly whats going on. The bottom line is “racism” and every
other thing u can be upset about is a part of life and its never gonna
b a perfect world so just deal with it nothings gonna change
Comment by bob pumpkin — January 19, 2006 @ 11:17 am
World of WarCraft Expansion set of new features:

…new items
…new character classes
…new (no pun), races for alliance and horde
…new dungeons to explore
…new worlds to conquer
…affirmative action
Comment by Stragler — January 19, 2006 @ 11:35 am
in response to bob pumpkin;

yeah, you’re right man, who’s the boh-zoh, who said something about bringing people together, about making the world a better place.
What sort of hog-wash bull is that, right?

Oh my god, people stop it! Stop trying to do positive things.

Just ’cause the world is bad doesn’t mean it can get better. Let’s just accept things just as it is.

My friend the Pumpkin Man got an F on his last term paper, and you know what he said, “Uh, screw it. I give up. No point in trying, I suck at English.
That’s just the way things are, and that’s how they’re always going to be.” That’s the spirit!

Yes, people, you know what, instead of detracting from all the negativity in this world. Let’s just re-inforce it. All together now.

Level 60’s should all just be banned from playing WarCraft, obviously, they have too much time on their hands. Argh, I can’t stand it.

Oh yeah, and those people who happen to exploit a gameplay issue, and benefit from it. Ah, I hate those people too! Dangit.

Ah, I just hate the world, and my life. Who’s with me?!

In case you didn’t noticed, I thought it might be safe to point out the fact that I’m being sarcastic, in hopes of getting my point across.
Comment by Stragler — January 19, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Well look at it this way, if there was an in game race that say could exploit and do something that would benefit their character but hurt the group, and say 90% of that class are using it. Would you group with these people?

Any kind of racism is uncalled for. However, its profiling, the popularity of gold farming has led to this. This isnt just in WoW though so good job grabbing attention just to WoW. I played DAOC and their was a group of chinese players that played for no other reason than to farm gold and sell it online. Say you were hunting a camp, they would just run in and kill everything and take over. The same group has done it in various games. So whenever players see these characters they tend to have bad thoughts.

It’s human instinct. Not everything in life is politically correct nor should it be.
Comment by Twester — January 19, 2006 @ 11:52 am
It’s a hard game to play without clear communication. I’ve met plenty of asian people in the game (because all asians play video games as well) that were decipherable enough and actually very helpful. However, a large percentage of people located in China who play this game are gold farmers. I don’t mean to say something outlandish like 99.9%, but I’d say it is in the 40-60% range… and that is quite a lot. It is not like someone is saying that all black people are drug dealers or something to that extent. This is a recognizable, known problem. The company that creates the game themselves, Blizzard, have recognized this and banned thousands of players for things relating to gold farming. I personally do not have a problem with it, because most of the people in the game that rely on buying gold to make their characters aren’t very good or smart in the first place. Just an FYI, there are oceanic servers for the game as well that have a smaller number of Chinese players just because there is less of a market for gold there. A lot play on American servers. Of course, it’s impossible for me to say whether they are on the american servers because more people play on them or because they are selling gold. Typically in the game they are very easy to recognize due to their similar actions. These people do not do this independantly - they are part of a company so they share in behavior.
Comment by mark — January 19, 2006 @ 12:13 pm
In addition to the mundane issues about communication (which you really can’t dismiss the importance of), it’s worth mentioning that WoW is a roleplaying game as well. At the most basic level, that means that a lot of what a lot of people want from the game is story and interpersonal interaction. As much as I try very hard to have nothing against the average non-english speaker (having dealt with enough in person makes it easier), the default of ‘this person is a farmer/griefer/etc.)’ is surprisingly easy to come by in an MMO.

The storytelling aspect is for me the one and only issue that is a dealbreaker with non-english speakers, however. I can’t interact with these people to tell a story any more than I could read a novel written in a language that I couldn’t understand, or even one I understand poorly. Any of these people may have a great interest to cooperate and have compelling stories to tell, but if I can’t understand them or communicate with them, it very swiftly ruins my experience. Compare it to a novel where every fifth, or every tenth, chapter is written in chinese; or where the footnotes are incomprehensible. At best, you’d skip those chapters or notes, at worst you’d drop the book entirely.
Comment by John — January 19, 2006 @ 12:24 pm
Lol. That picture of the chinese with made me laugh. It’s funny too
because it’s true.

Also… FREEDOM OF SPEECH! Have fun complaining!
Comment by Drawn Equal — January 19, 2006 @ 12:59 pm
you know an easy way to get rid of this problem? get rid of gold. instead, items such as food and water (and armor) will be doled out depending upon a player’s need. that should stop gold farming, and subsequently, the racism that comes from it.
Comment by cappy — January 19, 2006 @ 1:05 pm
The reason why many WoW players “discriminate” on players from Asian countries is for one reason is messes up the economy of their server. With this I mean they “Farm” or gather outstanding amounts of gold, sell it on many sites. When players by this gold they can basicly buy out Auction House (A place where may items are sold and bought in WoW), Putting the items on the AH or Auction house for outrages prices! SO DOWN WITH ASIAN PLAYERS ON AMERICAN AND EURO SERVERS!
Comment by Akines ((A Proud WoW Player)) — January 19, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
“See my earlier comments. Suffice to say, there are problems with the defensive logic offered here. Even if it were true that 100% of gold farmers are Chinese (which is factually incorrect), that does not therefore mean that 100% of Chinese are gold farmers.”

Oh my god, I love the way you say this as if EVERYONE doesnt know that already and you have gained this insight through some secret formula you learned at cambridge. Its not the point AT ALL.

Just THINK about what you are saying!
“Someone wont PLAY with me, he violated my civil rights!”
I cant believe this AMAZINGLY STUPID GARBAGE was linked to on AIM news.

Ive never seen such an attention whoring, impractical, trying-to-look-smart MORON.
Do something useful with your degree or just kill yourself now.
Comment by serpentor — January 19, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
It is simple supply and demand. People demand to buy gold. Someone will supply it. If no one bought the gold, there would be on one to pay the farmer to farm it.
DON’T BUY GOLD.
If everyone does this, there is no problem.

Reality: This will never happen.
Comment by Economy101 — January 19, 2006 @ 2:07 pm
I HATE DWARVES!!!!
ELVES ROCK!!!!
Comment by DwarfHater — January 19, 2006 @ 2:22 pm
Mabey you should play the fucking game before you write this shit up?

Gold farmers RUIN THE GAME. They really screw up the economy.

Your idea to reward people that group with people of other races is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard.

IF YOU PLAYED THE GAME you could relazise that Gold Farmers are a problem and need to be delt with. CAO NI MA!
Comment by Jigzens — January 19, 2006 @ 2:24 pm
I think it’s a little difficult not to racial profile
player’s when the truth of the matter is the majority are Chinese.

J
Comment by Dan — January 19, 2006 @ 2:33 pm
just goes to show how much WoW sucks. you all have been arguing about discrimination for a game that has characters discriminating against each other. damn, get a life people. play something worth playing, get a life worth living.
Comment by Full Sail Student — January 19, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
I have to agree with my colleague, WoW is possibly the worst thing you can to yourself. Hasn’t someone died while playing that game? It is … in fact … a game, so stop crying about discrimination and move on with your vapid lives. It hurts to see such stupidity so wide spread in the world.
Comment by Aaron also a Full Sail Student — January 19, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
Ma cou mi tai ni fou shou! 1000g foa yu WoW un yee $50USD!!

on yee pyay wi Alliance fo shou mai nigga
Comment by Ji Wing Nut Woo — January 19, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
you want buy gold kk?
Comment by Brick — January 19, 2006 @ 2:52 pm
GOld farmers fuck the game up.Roll need when they dont need it. Then you ask them wtf is there problem an dits either no reply are in chinese…….IT PISSES YOU OFF thats why we discriminate…….I dont know one person that does that that isnt a chinese farmer……and who ever wrote that shit up there….you really need a life then to bitch over us haten the chinese gold diggers.
Comment by Senior — January 19, 2006 @ 3:12 pm
He right.
Comment by Hoi Chi Miehn — January 19, 2006 @ 3:14 pm
I no know one eithr
Comment by Hoi Chi Miehn — January 19, 2006 @ 3:14 pm
I’ve got an idea “Senior”, if that really is your name, dumbass … go to school, learn how to type, learn how to spell, learn how to properly use caps locks. If it bothers you so much why not go on their servers and be a gold digger. Sounds like they know what they’re doing and you’re mad because you didn’t think of it first :)
Comment by Aaron also a Full Sail Student — January 19, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
Aaron, you must not have experienced an actual farmer. They screw up the game economy so much and when it comes time for teamwork they try to solo 5 elite mobs by themselves. That makes people angry and as we all know anger can lead to frustration and frustration to hate and hate to racism.
Comment by Joe — January 19, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
Are you all virgins?
Comment by Alec — January 19, 2006 @ 4:01 pm
Im making my return to say ITS JUST A GAME get over it heres adivice for
ALL OF YOU “Shit Happens”
Comment by bob pumpkin — January 19, 2006 @ 4:33 pm
shutup you cunt and get a life, no one cares about you.
ure story sucks btw, chinneese peeps are gay. jp onrly
is gay and black people are gay. My favorite servers
are the white only servers. no stfu and dirty jew
and go stick ure big nose in sumtin else
Comment by rage — January 19, 2006 @ 4:52 pm
hey im back, i just wanted to say wtf.when i play a game i dont a stupid jew on my squad, they dont know anything or how to play.
i was playin CS:S the other day and this jew ran up to be and teamkilled me. after that i fuckin screamed dirty jew and went around my house posting
no jews allowed and then went to kkk.om and
post dirty messages cuz jes suck monster ballz and
whoever wrote this is a fag and a pussy care bear
FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND WHITE POWER!
Comment by rage2 — January 19, 2006 @ 4:59 pm
whats the difference between a pizza and a jew?

only one screams in the oven.

what do u say at night and ure tv starts floatin.

drop it nigger.1!!!11!!111! loller swkates damn jews get a life lol
wow u guyz suck its only a game
Comment by rage2 — January 19, 2006 @ 5:01 pm
I dont want to say I dont “dislike” gold farmers but, they do indeed screw up sometimes… It’s vital to talk to you team and be diverse when working in a group. If someone cant speak english, than they cant take order as in “Kite General Drakkisath”
-Just opinion
Comment by Derek — January 19, 2006 @ 5:02 pm
I think it is simplistic to reduce problems between different cultures as racism. Could it me that there is a problem with people farming gold in World of Warcraft? Could it be that most ot the people happen to be asian? Blizzard’s mission is not to “join the world” or teach us about diversity. It is to provide a quality gaming atmosphere without people altering the game by buying and selling gold. The writer is obviously writing from information gained from other sources and not first hand. I resent those that buy and sell gold. It has nothiing todo with race! Hello, nothing to do with race. Race, gender, age are not factors. If you played the game you would understand.
Comment by iolo — January 19, 2006 @ 5:04 pm
All i shall say is…

1 IN THE PINK

56867965873567854684567845684568546875685485468458679834634565475474567567548546854845845845846784 IN THE STINK
Comment by WTFPWNZORZ — January 19, 2006 @ 5:11 pm
I have to say, in my experience, on AMERICAN servers (blizzard, among with all other MMORPG creators, create servers for specific groups of people), the general impression in joining the American servers is that you will be playing with Americans.

Therefore - it is not too far out to expect that the players on these servers at LEAST speak English - the language of the server. Now, this is not a statement that everyone in America speaks perfect English; however, the “Chinese Farmers” are, in fact, primarily from Asia. And the only reason that they join the American servers, even though they are from Asia, is that the online trade community in America is much larger than over on the Asia-based servers. Therefore - our friends the Chinese farmers go all day, soloing dungeons with their hunters (Yes, 98% of all chinese farmers are hunters, beast/marksman spec usually 30/21 for those who actually play WoW), and they then proceed to sell their spoils on the Auction House to American players, who, on average, are much less economical-based than the Asian players, and more focused on the player-versus-player aspect of the game. THEREFORE - Chinese farmers come to make gold which is then sold online for money. They are economists, in all actuality.

So, while I do not agree with people not native to their country’s servers - I think that Chinese farmers have opened a new branch of economics in WoW. They are to be thanked for a majority of the great items we purchase daily on the Auction House. If they wish to join groups, though, they had better speak English, because I hate nothing more than giving someone orders in an important quest or dungeon, only to have an unintelligable response, and they do nothing related to the task at hand.

Speak the language of your server if you wish to play with the mass populous of the server. That is my point in a nutshell.
Comment by Sean — January 19, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
what jews do is illegal, they farm gold all day in slave shops and get payed half a cent a day. jews are money hungry grubing faggots
they got big noses, and ae out to still our economy. i hate chinesse cuz they steal my phat loot like in BRD this stupid chinesse stole my staff. im like WTF you damn slant eyed bitch speak english or leave earth and live on mars with ure damn alient friends. i know joo serects wtf get a life u chinks. i should go to ure gay country and beat u all up. we already bomb u once dont make us do it again. cuz its the chineese workin and the money hungry jews crackin the whips. like omfg wow its not bad enough peeps play wow 5 hours a day but u play 24/7 for what?!?!?! to make warlock gear cost 1000000000000000000000 gold FUCK YOU i didnt buy any of that i wroked for it unlike you damn chinks. for black peeps, u guyz need to stop being black. omg gay11!11!1111!11!11!111 btw i beat black peeps up in my colledge and steal there lunch money lol. anyways chinks steal my loot and i get pissed , and japs say jp onrly, and martin luther king doesnt deserve a holiday and the south will rise again!!! lol
Comment by rage3 — January 19, 2006 @ 5:20 pm
I think the idea of getting bonuses for having people in ur guild from different countries is ridiculous…..in wow it is against the EULA to not speak the native language of the server u r playing on. “Asian” farmers have ruined the economy on many wow servers and they are notorious for ninja looting. there is nothing more annoying then being whispered buy gold at iamastupidchink.com
Comment by Alex Williamson — January 19, 2006 @ 5:38 pm
This is more a response to Rage3, we bombed the Japanese… not the chinese, we’ve never gone to war or anything with them in the past. As for the farmers… it’s retarded really it is, they rob people of hard earned stuff and make the money system trashed on most servers. Alot of server are becoming the “California” of warcraft because of how high and rediculously much things are going for.
Comment by sevial — January 19, 2006 @ 6:40 pm
I play the game myself and there just isn’t a “fine-line” WoW players won’t cross. This game is starting to turn into an AIM chatroom. It’s more about what nerd can put what nerd down more now. What’s really funny is people pick on these so called “Chineese Gold Farmers” but buy thier gold. It’s more or less young kids around 13 or so, or losers who are over the age of 20 and have never been laid that make retard comments about the farming inside the game. I see it this way, there’s a way to expose money in anything and if you’re smart enough to do it then, to each his own. I wouldn’t worry much about what these “gamers” have to say. Most have no life outside the game and are on from the moment they wake up til the monent they go to sleep. What’s so offensive about what a loser like that thinks?
Comment by Jay — January 19, 2006 @ 6:49 pm
Here’s my 2 cents worth…
Firstly, I think most online games actually reduce or eliminate racism, by virtue of the fact that it’s very difficult to tell what race/sex another player is. Heck, half the time you can’t tell whether the toon you’re questing with is played by a male or female player.

I think the argument that people with poor English spelling are singled out, and treated badly as a minority in terms of race, is also rubbish. There are a large number of people that I see posting in the general channels that can’t spell very well, but it’s in no way indicative of whether they are from an English speaking country or not. Some people simply can’t spell very well.

I don’t think that Blizzard should have to walk on eggshells when persuing people that break their terms of service. People who spend their time gathering all of the game resources in a given area, for cash profit, and restricting genuine players from questing, or saving up those extra few gold to buy their mount, need to be dealt with.

I have to say that Blizzard is doing a good job with dealing with these issues, and of all the online games I’ve tried recently, WoW is by far the best game.

I’ve met a lot of really cool people in the game, and made some good friendships. And I haven’t the faintest clue what race most of my friends in the game are, and don’t really care.
Comment by shaggy — January 19, 2006 @ 7:23 pm
The problem with your article is that you took 2 other articles, neither apparently written by anyone who has done any real research into the issues involved and parroted them without doing your own research. This is just sloppy reporting. The issue with gold farming has to do with the damage it is causing to the in game economy by increasing the in game prices of just about everything and the huge amounts of chat spam the farmers use on some servers to sell their wares. One is damaging to game balance and the other is just damn annoying.

Asking for some level of English has far more to do with determining the maturity level of the player. l33t is usually used by immature players, who will whine/taunt other players constantly, and generally ruin the game experience for the rest of the team. Players who cannot use some level of communication with a team are will more often than not get the entire team wiped

Next time, at least try to do a little research rather than posting this poor excuse for journalism.
Comment by clyde — January 19, 2006 @ 7:35 pm
Sorry, I havent read the subsequent posts on this thread, this is just in response to the start of the thread. It is very easy to point a finger at someone for being racist, and this poster has done this. There is a thing that most humans possess which is called common sense. In my experience in WOW there are good people and bad people. Language, does not matter to me; I even run with some people who are foreign, and cannot speak correct english in vent. I don’t discriminate against foreigners, rather I discriminate against the immoral players who hide behind the web. Some players turn a G into an N a bit too often, resulting in many other sensible, honest players becoming extremely upset. When a player ninjas an item, he or she usually teleports back home, logs off, and lays low for a little while. There is no reasoning with this person, because he does not want a personal relationship or feeling come in the way of his unorthodox behavior. There is no way to reason with the ninja, because he has no face. He has no voice, in the sense that he does not want to talk to you. Too many times have i been duped out of a BOE because a player waited until the end to roll N and then hearthed. I am sick of this faceless, voiceless menace, and so are most others. It is the fact that we cant communicate with the ninja that scares us. These greedy people are the cause of most problems in WOW, since social interaction is extremely important to most players. The guildless friendless are the ones with nothing to lose, but everything to gain when they turn their ninjad items into USD (or yen). This racism is not racism at all, but is concious care to put together a safe and conducive group of people before heading out to an instance. I myself will ask a person to talk, if I notice that he has not said anything during a raid. This is one of the only current methods for discerning ninjas, much like racial profiling in the United States anti-terrorist tacticts. Next time you see someone ask a person with a name like Xiaolixiang to speak an english sentence, realize that it is more of a preventative measure, a background check to make sure that the group does not get screwed over.
Comment by Mahdiz — January 19, 2006 @ 8:02 pm
Just dont have them as Main looters :)…and make sure they dont roll on everything….
Comment by Derek — January 19, 2006 @ 8:20 pm
[...] 2. Rumors & Scuttlebutt: Discrimination is becoming a problem in WOW. Some players are refusing to accept other players into their group unless they can chat in perfect, unbroken English. [...]
Pingback by The Instance! » Blog Archive » THE INSTANCE #3 - Casual / Hardcore peace talks begin on Mount Hyjal! — January 19, 2006 @ 11:01 pm
I think you got it all wrong. I would tend to believe there are people discriminating against people who spel lik a thre yr old. y not? coz ppl r dum. if u playd a gam wit ppl typ’n lik this all the time, u would h8 it 2.
Comment by iB — January 20, 2006 @ 12:57 am
actually the chinese farmers are teaching me something , i can now speak broken english, ive been in tyrs hand the past couple of weeks , and i feel i am now one of them…xi ao wol ?…yes yes that means sell items for 900 gold ……u know how long its taken me to get 200 gold…anyway yes its a game , actually wasnt mario bro’s kinda racist as well with that dang “green’ luigi
Comment by billy bob — January 20, 2006 @ 9:27 am
And to add another thing , i think they feel threatend by my prescence , usually if im ther more than 10 minutes or so , they do that awsome grab 30 mobs and poof kinda deal…well im a warrior and poofing just doesnt happen with me…..this tends to aggravate me :)
Comment by billy bob — January 20, 2006 @ 9:30 am
Chinese Gold farmers, Chinks, better get something straight. “You better act right before you get smacked right” - Will Smith. As the United States proved on two seperate occasions, if you fuck with the USA, you chinks are going to die(remember Hiroshima, NIGGAsaki). To come into an English Speaking server and to harvest, and illegally (violating terms of conditions / code of conduct) distribute non-possessed virtual currency is pretty pathetic. There is a funny article somewhere on the net about some chink who died due to not eating because she was to busy playing world of warcraft. What a joke! Without the stupid you can’t be smart. So as long as you chinks continue to be stupid you continue to make everyone else look smart.
Comment by WhitePower — January 22, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
get back to work, i will burn your feet!
Comment by xray — January 22, 2006 @ 7:17 pm
Why the heck would I want to play a socially-oriented game with someone who I can’t converse with? Not only do I insist on having a common language, but a little role playing wouldn’t hurt either.
Comment by Anonymous — January 22, 2006 @ 11:07 pm
‘Discrimination’ against chinese gold farmers is hardly racism - really it’s nationalism. Pegging this as racism is a uniquely american POV which really points the racism finger back at those who are criticizing. What if it were Ukranian gold farmers? Likely would elicit the same outrage but no one could play the racism card.
Comment by Anonymous — January 24, 2006 @ 8:00 pm
[...] Show Notes PS3 in November With Just 1M Units PlayStation 3, conceptual design? Discrimination in WoW [...]
Pingback by Game Snitch » Blog Archive » Game Snitch Radio episode #7 — January 27, 2006 @ 8:26 pm
Your telling us to play with people that dont understand us? Listen to what you are saying. This is an online game, where communication is everything. We cant have people that dont understand english playing on english servers. We want to have fun playing, not try to figure out what these people are saying. They can join servers for their languages, i dont see a problem. Were not being racist, when it comes down to it, we dont want to wipe, get ninjad, and we just want to have fun playing.
Comment by Anonymous — January 30, 2006 @ 2:05 pm
I play a Night Elf Druid for many reasons. I am also 50 years of age and find that today’s society is way to anal. Now when a white man gets in an arguement with a black man, the white man is racist. It’s that simple. People forget that it’s okay to disagree with someone that’s not the same skin color. As far as WOW and Chinese farmers are concerned - they have and are destroying the servers economies. As far as asking that people wishing to join a guild with a command of the English language is not only not racist, but it’s each guilds right to do what they want and make whatever rules they want. I saw the other day someone complaining about the character molds. Did you know that there are no young Night Elves? Is that racist? Then there’s the complaints on sexism within the game. I laughed so hard I thought I’d lose an organ from laughing that hard.
It’s a game. No one is asking any one to play. You play at your own risk. Blizzard has made it clear that the contents are not for youngsters. Children shouldn’t be playing this game anyways. They belong outside with real people learning how to deal with society and crack pots like the ones that cry racist every chance they get.

There’s nothing stopping anyone from deleting WOW from their hard drives.
Comment by Lunareth — February 8, 2006 @ 3:39 pm
i have run in the the langueg barrier in wow. i have been an english specing person all my
life. my problim has been becuse of dislexia. im slow to read and por at wrighting. this
does make it dificalt to interact in the MMORPG of the world but thats becus your
represented by how well you spell and fast you tiyp. becuse of this thair are some things
i cant do inside of wow becus when i do people start yelling at me for the spelling.
the only people i run in to partisipating in “gold farming” well tiyping english speking
individuals. Tollerence dose need to be exersies for pore spelling and gramer. this
is racely motivated.
Comment by zigfread — February 13, 2006 @ 2:53 pm
This is one of the more ignorant articles I have read in a while. How can I believe you feel so strongly about something you obviously have no clue about? Any credibility or persuasion your arguement could have had is lost by your obvious ignorance of the subject matter. If you want to spark a racism debate, fine. If you want to critique World of Warcraft, that’s fine too. You’re doing a half assed job at both which is laughable. “You know I think greenhouse gasses are very bad and hurting the earth, and I heard in WoW they have continents like we do on earth, and obviously they support the destruction of the envrioment which is just bad. So people in WoW need to act right and love the earth!” If anything all you’ve done is start a little flame war and strengthen the other side of your arguement by your uninformed comments. Congratulations, we’re all a little dumber now.

Cao ni zu zong shi ba da.
Comment by WoW Player — March 14, 2006 @ 3:36 am
‘’shutup you cunt and get a life, no one cares about you.
ure story sucks btw, chinneese peeps are gay. jp onrly
is gay and black people are gay. My favorite servers
are the white only servers. no stfu and dirty jew
and go stick ure big nose in sumtin else”

Cool. That proves ur a complete fucked up kid who does not know what he’s talking about. Ur really fucked up in the brain u trisexual animal fucker retard. Chinese and Black people pawns your little sorry ass. America will no longer be the most powerful nation. All those sry little american dickheads won’t do anything but masturbate.
Comment by Haha — April 12, 2006 @ 6:12 pm
I’ve been playing WOW for 3 months now, and I’m a spanish guy playing at Aggamagan Realm. On this realm eight of every ten players is spanish, and most of them do not speak english enough for a chat (altough they can read the quests if they do it closely and so they can play). That makes that realm a ‘80% Spanish in fact realm’, but of course that is not official, and that is a problem for some english speakers who cannot communicate with 60% of the players (some of the Spanish speakers do also speak English enough).

That have created some english-speakers guilds, and some spanish-speakers guilds, but I have not seen ever a Spaniards Guild or a non-Spaniards Guild. So it is based on the language and the capability of comprenhension, and not in racism. I am myself member of a english-speaking guild, and I’ m a Spaniard.

I think that was a mistake made by Blizzard: they only created realms for the languages where a translation exists. Why? What happens to italians, bulgarians, Czechs, Portuguese, Spaniards, Swedish, Finnish, etc. who can read English enough to play the game but cannot write/read English so fast?

Spelling and grammar problems? Surely, I surely commit mistakes, and I’ve been reading non spanish people in my party speaking awful english. But you just need to be patient when someone is trying to make themselves understood.
Comment by Carlos — April 21, 2006 @ 6:14 am
Grats to the original poster for brining up an important issue. I’ve read these posts and the thing I don’t see addressed is that everyone is blaming the gold farmers, but no one is blaming the buyers. Gold farming wouldn’t exist if no one would buy the stuff, and so the buyers are half the problem. And since most buyers are American, and most Americans are white I don’t ever see any posts about a “goddamn Honky Buyer driving up prices in the AH!”. I’ve been playing WOW since the beginning and I know lots of kids play this game. If you hate gold farmers, fine, but don’t use “Chinese Farmer” as we all know that has a negative and racist connotation. To those of you who say “it’s just a game”, these words really do affect kids and the ignorant.

And to those who of you cursing these Chinese Farmers, don’t hate the player, hate the game. If you could play video games all day long and then have some dude in some other country pay you enough to feed your whole family for a year, you’d be doing the same thing. It’s a fucking awesome business plan. Capitalist Americans SHOULD KNOW THIS. So the next time you blame a Chinese farmer, blame the goddamn honky buyer who’s too lazy to run UBRS and throws down real money to buy the Pristine Hide of the Beast.
Comment by Mike — May 10, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
[...] Un phénomène qui semble se répandre sans aucun contrôle à travers le monde. Dernier exemple en date, World of Warcraft (wow) qui induit bien malgré lui un commerce sans précédent (notamment en Asie et surtout en Chine) à travers les “Gold Farms“. Ces “fermes virtuelles” proposent aux joueurs en échange d’un paiement par carte bleu, d’artificiellement booster leur personnage. Ces dernières, essentiellement chinoises, ont même été à l’origine d’un scandale quasi diplomatique, lorsque wow a tenté de fermer la connexion à tous les joueurs chinois de wow, sans distinction (du fait de ces dérives). Une discrimination que certains de la communauté ont dénoncé. On a pas fini d’entendre parler des mmorpg… (Les links sont en [eng]) [...]
Pingback by egoblog.net » Blog Archive » Gold farms : Économie parallèle et mmorpg ? — May 20, 2006 @ 7:38 am
I am the Chinese, the WOW game. I did not know why the WOW game inventor why doesn\’t let a economic potentiality endlessly catches up with the country (China) the person play such game, lets us gain to more foreign exchange. When your that purple is attaching the evil spirit the weapon and my gate PVP time, really did not know US has killed my gate is any type feeling. No, that is the discrimination. They had not thought my gate, how hasn\’t been able to appear that many game gold coin, how returns lets the gold coin depreciate, has how can let by the least prices play the family to have the best equipment. Perhaps I said too superficial, I the understanding am perhaps insufficient to WOW. But calculated does not have the Chinese to play this game. The world also is returns by such form appears. Only if the world is average. A Chinese says own idea.
Comment by Chinese — July 8, 2006 @ 1:16 am
Oh. My. God.

Elitism in a MMORPG? Shocking. Absolutely shocking.
Comment by Laff. — March 14, 2007 @ 8:51 am
It makes no sense for a non English speaking person to play wow on an English speaking server. Communication in WOW is key for game play and everyone who plays the game knows this. Why would you play here if you cant speak English? There is no good reason.

I have never seen anyone kicked out of a group for being Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, or what not. This is against Blizzards policy, and as in real life, if you are the subject of discrimination or harassment you can go through the proper channels to fight it. I have seen them kicked for either 1) Not listening 2) Ninjaing 3) lack of understanding what is being said. Discrimination is everywhere so why not in WOW. Don’t act all surprised when you find it here, for you would be naive to think else wise. I consider myself lucky to have not encountered it yet but I know its there and know my rights and the avenues to take if and when I see it.

Now, let’s look at some facts about gold farmers:

From WOWWIKKI.com

According to estimates, around 100,000 people in China are employed as gold farmers, as of December 2005. [2] This represents about 0.4% of all online gamers in China. Chinese gold farmers typically work twelve hour shifts, and sometimes up to eighteen hour shifts. Wages depend heavily on location and the size of the gold farming company. One gold farming operation in Chongqing in central China with 23 gold farmers was reported to pay its employees the equivalent of about 120 U.S. dollars per month, while workers at a larger gold farm in Fuzhou earn the equivalent of about 250 U.S. dollars per month. The rising prevalence of gold farming has led to the creation of gold farm brokerages.

Because of reports indicating many gold farmers are located in China they are sometimes referred to as \
Comment by Dave — March 20, 2007 @ 4:38 am
“China farmers”.

Exploitation of the working class and imposing slave wages are whats at the forfront of this issue. Not some 8 year old kid kicking an asian Farmer from a group.So group with a Farmer and aid in SLAVERY. Help him develop his english so he can become a more efficint SLAVE. With this type of glodal slave busniess based in China and backed by over 100,000 people, when does Discrimination turn to truth? When can generalization turn to fact? Not all Asians are farmers…But over 100,000 of them are! Take what you like from that.
Comment by Dave — March 20, 2007 @ 4:40 am
The whole start of this was to do with the way people in mmog games play with each other but was considered to be racism and that people blame gold farmers for there own fault.

The fact of the matter is that most of these games are played by greedy selfish
pathetic children who\\\’s sole purpose it to get what they want and then to show off to everyone else how cool they are because they have such a huge ego and very little conception of what its like in real life at the mature end of the scale, best thing to do is to make a mmog game that is only for people 18+ who most fo the time are mature, at least to the extent it is well worth doing so people like us can play with like minded people instead of stupid greedy children who spoil the game for the more
mature players. You other choice is to keep playing these games and simply only create groups that have people who communicate in the most co

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January 13, 2006

Discrimination in World of Warcraft

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