Did Diversity kill Ali?

[Drake M]

I'll start off by stating that I respect everyone's opinion and I'd love to hear about it in the comments.  (after you educate yourself on what happened)

Here's the patch notes log: https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/patch-notes---2402

From today's diversity changes: 

 

 

I would argue the majority of RuneScape's players have been playing for over 5 years (on and off), and for the past 15 years, Runescape has had a witty, stupid humor that isn't found in newer, shinier games. One of the funniest lore pieces in the game is centered around the Kharidian Desert. As the story goes, the mayor of Pollnivneach wrote that his fortune was to be left to 'Ali'. Once no legitimate contender surfaced, Pollnivneans legally changed their names to 'Ali' in an effort to secure that cash money ($$$). There's a long list of Ali's (below) and I'm not sure exactly which ones were changed today.

Spoiler

 

 

Does changing the name of some NPCs take away from the nostalgia that we experience as veteran players? My friends and I used to log in and run around the desert competing to see who could find more Ali's in the allotted time. Did I think as a kid that everyone I meet is going to be named Ali because there were many in the Kharidian Desert, a video game environment? It hits me in the feels to know that I won't get to see all my Ali homies anymore, but I understand that this is necessary for large corporations to do to avoid legal scenarios. 

 

Another one of the changes was the removal of Gypsy from Aris, located in Varrock Square, because "gypsy can be interpreted as a racial slur". I didn't understand that gypsy was a slur, so I searched 'gypsy' and nothing on the first page of 57.3m results was related to anything hateful. It wasn't until after I searched in Urban Dictionary did I find slurs, discrimination and hate becoming involved with the term 'gypsy'. Even on UD, the definitions were focusing on being defined as 'Romani people'. 

Spoiler

Spoiler

This is the  2nd definition on UD, but is the definition with the most cumulative likes and dislikes. Decide for yourself if you agree. 

 

What do you think? Did these changes promote an adaptable and healthy environment to players?

Or 

Did these changes showcase changes made to protect Jagex from future situations? Thoughts?

 

I hope that any discussion on this topic is not one-sided, after all this is for diversity. What's more diverse than opposition? 

[Sir Berry]

IMO it's a dumb change.

 

Political correctness for no good reason strikes again.

 

The lore reason for it is hilarious, and makes even more of a lame change.

[Pizzas]

10 minutes ago, Drake said:

Does changing the name of some NPCs take away from the nostalgia that we experience as veteran players?

Yes. After this update I suddenly had a yearning to go nolife osrs for like 5 days that wasn't there before.

I don't support this change because it makes The Feud quest completely wack. If they made a miniquest afterwards and said that one of the people got the fortune so the rest of everybody changed their name to something else, I'd be cool with it. What I find interesting is that they made an unnecessary change that no players asked for rather than putting that time towards developing content that people want. I'm also pretty surprised that so many people are actually pissed about the change. I've also heard some people say that the change has offended them because their irl name is Ali and Jagex is making that out to sound like a bad thing. I feel like people who said that were making that up but idk they could be telling the truth.

Making senseless changes to the game that nullify the lore is always going to be bad, and it seems like that is what people take issue with. Nobody cares that they changed the Jungle Savage NPC names on Karamja. That doesn't change lore.

[Chopper75]

Honestly being political correct on things these days is getting annoying af 

[Drake M]

6 minutes ago, Pizzas said:

• If they made a miniquest afterwards and said that one of the people got the fortune so the rest of everybody changed their name to something else, I'd be cool with it. 
• I've also heard some people say that the change has offended them because their irl name is Ali and Jagex is making that out to sound like a bad thing. I feel like people who said that were making that up but idk they could be telling the truth.
• Making senseless changes to the game that nullify the lore is always going to be bad, and it seems like that is what people take issue with. Nobody cares that they changed the Jungle Savage NPC names on Karamja. That doesn't change lore.

I love the miniquest idea for the lore  

Idk about the irl name thing, but it is an interesting point I had not considered. 

"Making senseless changes" doesn't sound like something a corporation would spend time on though. There must be a reason this happened, even if it was 1 complaint. I do agree that nullifying old lore is the main issue, even if that lore is so dumb and random like this situation. 

[Cam L]

This is maybe the most stupid update in the history of the game, and I've seen some really fucking stupid ones. 

 

I would love to see a list of all the complaints Jagex has received over the lifetime of the game about how racially/culturally insensitive it is to have all these dudes share the same name. I bet the list of hardcore iron men who have died to desert heat is longer. 

[Drake M]

31 minutes ago, Sir Berry said:

IMO it's a dumb change.

 

Political correctness for no good reason strikes a again.

 

The lore reason for it is hilarious, and makes even more of a lame change.

 

10 minutes ago, Chopper75 said:

Honestly being political correct on things these days is getting annoying af 

 

8 minutes ago, Cam L said:

This is maybe the most stupid update in the history of the game, and I've seen some really fucking stupid ones. 

 

What is the problem with Jagex trying to be PC? As humanitarians shouldn't we all strive to be as PC as possible? 

Does political correctness lead to increased segregation? 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Drake
Added Q3

[Drake M]

@Pizzas Jagex is MobileLodestone racists? They don't care about protecting PC wordage on mobile lodes.

[Drake M]

30 minutes ago, Cam L said:

I would love to see a list of all the complaints Jagex has received over the lifetime of the game about how racially/culturally insensitive it is to have all these dudes share the same name. I bet the list of hardcore iron men who have died to desert heat is longer. 

You Rider bamboozled me with your no "edited" timestamp  

 

That's what I'm saying. How much hate speech did they observe about gypsy aris? I would have never looked in the tent if they hadn't put gypsy in front of her name. 

[Veggie]

Ah, they must have hired a professional useless person to tell them all the things they find "problematic".

 

I'll just drop this here:

 

 

[Red Rat17]

I don't mind it one way or another tbh. Is it dumb? Sure. But aw well. Don't really care one way or another. 

[Douglas]

Well I can tell you that back in the day, having so many NPCs named Ali was a minor annoyance as there were quite a few and so I think I got mixed up once or twice as to who I had to go see. I'm sure that's less of a problem nowadays as they do things like draw boxes around the areas you need to be at on the minimap, though. I remember the gag about the money, yeah it's funny about trying to get that inheritance but until you get to that point it's just odd to have so many people named exactly the same. And if you're a spacebar quester, then you don't even get the giggle from the joke. So as far as the change, I'm fine with it.

 

Spoiler

Although to be fair, if the name in question wasn't "Ali" in particular, it's far less likely that this change would have happened. If there was a gag that at Camelot a dozen people changed their name to "Arthur" in order to inherit Excalibur, it would have garnered far less attention than this (hence, the racism that is baked into this type of thinking).

 

I see their primary motive of this being potential revenue, disguised as "we care". The fact of the matter is that the change endears Jagex to the tiny number of people who are personally offended by this name being used so commonly. Jagex then gets to posture itself as saying how much it "cares" about people, and there's a certain amount of people who really enjoy supporting a good cause on someone else's behalf. With this encouragement, these people may spend further money on Jagex products themselves. It also gives the opportunity for positive news stories/advertisements in those circles. The change also prevents negative news stories from coming out that might damage their potential revenue in these groups. The political opposition to correctness usually doesn't have the teeth for backlash, as very few will care enough about any particular PC change to boycott. You can see exactly what I'm describing in the news post they created this week, where they specifically invited 20 LGBT+ folks to headquarters this past Friday, posing for photo with flags and all. And that's fine, I'm glad they got to visit the HQ, but let's not pretend the timing of it is any coincidence, especially when considering the caption - it is marketing strategy and advertisement.

 

I am not surprised by them going this route, as they do have 20 years of dialogue and content to look through. I'm sure that can be seen as a liability.

[Kris_Kronkle]

It just doesn’t make sense. I have never even once seen even joking complaints about the characters having the same name. There were perfectly valid lore reasons for the names and undoing the names invalidates an entire quest and wahistile’s (whatever that mahjarrats name is) disguise. It just seems like creating work for no reason 

[shallow]

not hardmode solak? f in the chat boys, waiting another week..

 

jk but if someone is mad about this change they surely are trolling, who cares what the npc's are called one way or the other lol

[Kristi]

Were people really even offended that x many npc's had the same name?