Let my Orc shoulders grow

We male Orcs are especially proud of our powerful, broad shoulders. I love my shoulder pieces-- I once ran UBRS countless times (and I do mean countless times-- just ask my guild, who I dragged through with me) just to get the Pauldrons of Elements. We have broad, towering, expansive shoulder armor, and we are respected, loved, and feared because of it. Your male Orc Warlocks, your Warriors, your Shamans, Rogues and Hunters all stand proud knowing that each of our shoulder pieces is as big as our head.
Or at least they were. Now, after the patch, they're small, a fraction of their former size. They're diminuitive, tiny, and a paltry shadow of what they should be. They're-- dare I say it-- puny and pathetic. We are male Orcs! Like Thrall, we are the real heroes of Warcraft. We're the ones who rage into battle at a moment's notice. If anyone deserves gigantic shoulders, it's us. We are true heroes, sung and unsung-- we are Orc males, and our shoulders must be large, majestic, and befitting of our muscular stature. Blizzard has acknowledged the bug, sure, and they say it'll be fixed in the next major patch.
But this-- this, my friends, is a true injustice. The next time you see your favorite male Orc, don't make jokes about whether size matters or not. Resist the urge to mention "shrinkage." We are our shoulders, their size, their width, their girth-- when they suffer, we suffer as well.
[ Thanks to all who sent this in-- I feel your pain, my brethren! ]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Humor






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zaldor Jul 10th 2007 5:45PM
I just logged into the game not 20 minutes ago to find my beautiful epic PvP shoulders don't even stick above my head anymore. WTF! Blizz is making a big mistake not fixing this asap. I don't even feel like playing my main (an Orc warrior) until the next major patch, because every where I go I get /laughed at.
Lokse Jul 10th 2007 5:53PM
LOL, great post! I totally agree (even though all my orcs are female because I can't stand the big shoulders personally.)
Lokse Jul 10th 2007 5:57PM
UPDATE: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=174632399&postId=1744078939&sid=1#18
Blue has responded that it is a bug.
Baluki Jul 10th 2007 5:59PM
What kind of weird, Rube Goldberg-esque programming does Blizzard use that causes such bizarre bugs all the time? They fix a bug with one thing, and a completely unrelated issue pops up.
I've always said that every Blizzard patch is two steps forward, one step back.
R. Knight Jul 10th 2007 6:09PM
Never rolled in Orc so I can't relate.... but
These sort of "odd bugs" that come about from time to time... did it ever occur to someone that maybe they did it on purpose, its a silly change they figure and they'd give it a shot. If the mob rages against it, they say, "Feature? What feature? This my friend is a BUG. We'll fix that for you right now..." And back as Blizz headquaters, they are sitting there going, "Darn, that was a really bad idea, whose idea was that anyway...?"
Doyce Jul 10th 2007 6:52PM
It's a simple New Coke/Classic Coke switch.
You start with the real, actual, Coke formula.
You introduce New Coke. New Coke sucks. You know new Coke sucks, but you release it anyway.
Everyone on the planet complains. You wait a few months, then make a show of how you listen to your client base and "go back to the old formula."
The "old formula" is actually the new, cheaper (than the real formula), almost-but-not-quite formula that you wanted to use in the first place.
Since it's almost the same as the original (corn syrup instead of cane sugar), and the public's been forced to drink nothing but the interim swill for a few months, they don't have the real thing to compare it to anymore, and don't notice.
How does any of this apply?
1. Blizzard wants to reduce orc shoulders size.
2. Blizzard releases a ridiculous resizing. They leave the "bug" in place until the "next major release," at which point they will "fix" the shoulders by setting the size ratio to the reduced size they wanted in the first place.
3. Everyone will be so thrilled not to look like a ridiculous clown for the first time in two months, many won't notice that the shoulders aren't actually back to the same size.
Big Dan Jul 10th 2007 7:17PM
Beware!!! This stinks of alliance plot.
Quickly, my rogues get to SW, IF, Dar... ahhh nothing ever goes down in Darnassus but send Leeroy anyway. The gnomes have been tampering with the game engine again. They are trying to follow through with their elaborate plan to nerf the Horde!! Be on guard.
Tim Jul 10th 2007 7:27PM
I'm loving the Power Rangers reference (did anyone else catch that?).
Darkstampede Jul 10th 2007 8:05PM
How could Blizzard let this happen, or if it's the other. How can they think that was a good idea. If it's there fault they should not wait for the next major patch god pounded! They should treat this like any other bug they cause. " What we created a bug by fixing another!? Severs down for the day!" I am one lv away from finally hitting 70, Now it's not gonna feel epic without my awsome shoulders that WERE bigger than my head.
Tobiathin Jul 10th 2007 8:31PM
@7
No! I'm a night Elf! I didn't do anything!!!
I told you already! I'm not covering or stalling for the gnomes!!!
No! Not the Female Orcs! ANYTHING BUT THE FEMALE ORCS!!! *Runs*
rick gregory Jul 10th 2007 10:35PM
I'd take this farm more seriously if the photo you used above didn't have the orc wearing a skirt and fluffy slippers....
Julia Jul 10th 2007 11:20PM
This made my night - hilarious. I can't relate, because I don't play a male char, nor an Orc, but I can laugh :) (Not AT you, of course, but with everyone else)
Dustin Jul 10th 2007 11:49PM
Hey i agree this is messed up like he said orcs are supose to have the super insane shoulders now it looks like were wering gnome shoulder pads well i hope they fix this prob soon
Okoloth Jul 11th 2007 7:14AM
The phenomenon of 'fix a bug with one thing, and a completely unrelated issue pops up' is an everyday thing with object-oriented software development, more so on large projects like World of Warcraft.
If you think about it the reason is pretty simple, on large projects there are normally multiple teams working on different sections of the code simultaneously. Thanks to object-oriented programming a lot of the code is shared between the 'game server' team and the 'game client' team.
With object-oriented programming comes 'inheritence' i.e. common functionality to two similar pieces of code can be placed into some 'parent' code they both inherit. A simple example is the programming code for guns, bows and other ranged weapons, they share a lot in common and it would be crazy to copy & paste the code in each case. More likely there is a 'ranged weapon' piece of parent code that each type of weapon inherits and customises. This technique is not just limited to game items either; it will be throughout all the game code.
The bottom line is that one of the teams were fixing a bug in one of these many pieces of parent or great-grand-parent code, and it caused unexpected results in some distant child code from the other team.
It happens all the time, the larger the project the greater the chances of it happening. In fact, a significant amount of 'original' code from the 1994 Warcraft is probably still in there (somewhere), and there are probably no programmers there today who worked on the first version of the code. This leaves great tomes of code that most of the programmers don't understand enough to risk breaking it.
Just my €0.02
ben1778 Jul 11th 2007 9:48AM
Now it sounds like all those Dranei in Shatt are actually laughing at the new Orc shoulders. I know I was, even though I have an orc alt, its still too good to pass up.
Male Orc Warlock T5 shoulders looked hysterical. The skulls on the spikes were the size of a chipmunk or rat skull. LOL
Paw Jul 11th 2007 10:09AM
All the comic artists that contribute regularly now have some fodder to work with. I can picture more than a few comics depicting a gnome pointing and laughing at an orc in his newly recrafted Shoulders of the Gnat.
Zbeebs Jul 11th 2007 11:07AM
So I'm looking at my shoulders, wondering what the hell happened, when I notice the tag: "Dry Clean Only". Doh!
Xerves Jul 11th 2007 5:19PM
Yea,all this thing about shoulder pads makes me wish there was a "Hide shoulders" button ... i am ashamed of my orc warrior now .. i saw a human with bigger shoulders .. that is just wrong .. i mean they look like i looted them off a gnome
Mel Jul 11th 2007 11:00PM
You cannot imagine the fun I had today, running through Orgrimmar, pointing and laughing my little Belf ass off. Very entertaining cosmetical bug.
SaxxonPike Jul 12th 2007 11:58AM
I've got these: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27995 - it seems my D-cup shoulder bras have been reduced to a B! This is an outrage!