A player in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight has highlighted some bizarre priorities within the game's profanity filter. With a strong launch and positive reviews, the newest expansion for World of Warcraft isn't totally free from criticism.
Launched on November 28, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight has enjoyed a solid critical reception as well as the typical post-launch resurgence in the World of Warcraft player base. Boasting smaller stakes and scale than the mired previous expansion, Shadowlands, players are taking to the skies as they uncover the mysteries of the Dragon Isles, reach an increased level cap, and master a completely revamped profession system. As is fairly standard with MMOs and other games as a service, as players delve into the endgame, sorting through the nuanced complexity of new gameplay mechanics, some cracks are bound to show up under the microscope - especially as the expansion's honeymoon phase wears off.
Reddit user mifan has posted their experience with an over-ardent profanity filter in World of Warcraft, which seems to have gotten an ill-conceived tuneup with Dragonflight. It would appear the word 'king' meets the criteria for mature language and is subject to censorship within the game world. Over-enforcement of profanity in World of Warcraft is nothing new, but this most recent example takes the cake for absurdity, given the Alliance's adherence to a monarchal style of governance and literal kings and queens littering the game's cast of past and present characters.
So because 'King' is considered mature language, I'm not allowed to have a bank tab called 'Cooking'??? From wow
Mifan's post on Reddit shows their guild's in-game bank, in which players can name specific tabs for the purpose of informed organization. The screenshot shows a tab labeled 'cooking' and the warning, 'That name contains mature language. Enter a new name.' While this appears to be a clear oversight in World of Warcraft, and most players' best guess is this will be corrected, it does bring to light a long-unsolved issue with Blizzard's current profanity policy. The rest of the Reddit thread is rife with anecdotal examples of profane player names which have slipped through the cracks for years in World of Warcraft. User gneithamer1's guild discord reportedly has an entire channel dedicated to screenshots of names that the profanity filter has missed.
While players are enamored with the majority of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, it remains clear that Blizzard still has its work cut out for it if it wants the current player reception to remain positive. With Dragonflight's first raid tier set to release on December 12, and many content patches to come in 2023, it will be interesting to see how fast the company corrects World of Warcraft issues like these when they arise.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is available now on PC.