Even as World of Warcraft players grapple with the high drama that is PictureGate, there’s another part of the game that’s being phased out as well: emotes. Blizzard announced that it has plans to retire a group of gesture slash commands that have been linked to toxic behavior.
In Patch 9.1.5, the studio is retiring such emotes as “kick,” “moan,” and “stink,” while changing a few others so that they can’t be used while targeting specific players. A few new emotes (huzzah, magnificent, impressed, and wince) are being introduced in their stead. So get your jollies spitting on people now, because those heady days are about to end.
“Some of these emotes seem to have harmless intentions at a glance,” Blizzard said, “but when used while targeting another player, their intentions can turn unexpectedly suggestive or intrusive. We’ve made adjustments to these emotes with negative connotations towards another player, while also adding a few new ones.”
Some other changes that have landed on the test realms include the glowy hands for Nightborne characters that we mentioned yesterday, a reduced cost for ultimate battle-training stones, and an increase in the drop rate for ore and some other materials.
