Feldon 
Posted by Ttobey on the EQ2 Forums:
Most of the bugs ingame didn’t have very fulls sets of animations, so they wouldn’t work all that well as a warder, but we are working on it.
19 thoughts on “Could Beastlords Get Insect Warders?”
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That doesn’t make sense to me, lore wise, but I suppose you could form a bond with an insect…meh.
As SOE has proven with many things lately, lore takes a backseat to pretty much everything.
If you count the eq1 lore, we’ve already gone past lore with the ability to tame new warder types from our race defaults.
I want them to allow squirrel warders to my Arasai has a proper warder!
I would prefer they don’t do insects. Reason being.. For those with extreme arachnophobia, they can currently avoid zones with spiders on it.. But, if you put in insect warders, they are screwed, as no where will be safe and yes, for some people, even the spiders in game can trigger a synaptic shock.
Well, I’ve said for a while now that the mascot of Velious-era EQ2 is the bug… 😉
Haha Anaogi! Nice.
@Sanpuu
Then those players will have to learn what is real and what is not real.
The last thing we need is to have them taking actions to protect people afraid of spiders, because then it will lead to them doing something else to protect another ‘group’. Then they will remove zones that require people to go underwater for those that have a fear of that. Then the next thing they will do is lock us all in out houses to accomodate people withh agoraphobia. There was already some player on the forums this past year petitioning for them to rename the ‘potion of amnesia’ because they said they had a fear of that. Just no, absolutely not, if this is you or someone you know I’m sorry but the game doesn’t need to bend to accomodate irrational fears.
We could use an underwater Raid zone
I think FreeRealms is perfect for those who don’t want scary encounters. WoW is less scary because it doesn’t use realistic animations. There are choices for people who have phobias.
I am actually scared of spiders in real life, but it’s a fairly easy fear to ignore in a video game. I know that they really can’t come out and crawl on me. I would be scared of zombies, ghosts, manticores, and a host of other things I see in the game, if they were real, too.
Playing is a choice; there are alternatives. If a fear of spiders or whatever else it is impacts a player that much, that just the sight of one made out of pixels causes synaptic shock, seems to me they should not be playing anything serious at all.
This will ultimately screw over Druids
Phobias are very different than just a mild fear. I (probably along with several other people) am afraid of poisonous spiders, but I don’t have arachnophobia. I’m also afraid of man-eating lions, but I do not have an irrational fear of lions. Learning the difference between what’s real and not real makes no difference for someone with an irrational fear. That’s why it’s called an irrational fear, it’s not that arachnophobes are necessarily afraid of being bitten, they are scared of the sight of spiders. Arachnophobia is actually one of the more common phobias among people with phobias. Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to avoid zones with spiders in them. However, as Sanpuu pointed out, bringing in these warders basically makes it impossible to avoid spiders – since they can be anywhere and everywhere.
On a related note, you’re a bit off the point suggesting that we would all be locked into our eq2 houses to accommodate those with agoraphobia. If someone with agoraphobia honestly wanted to stay in their eq2 house without
leaving, they could do so without affecting anyone else, which is different from the beastlord pet scenario under discussion. Your three arguments are not analogous to what Sanpuu was talking about. In all three of the situations you mentioned, players have a method to avoid their fears; spider warders take the ability for people to avoid spiders completely out of their hands. To me, Sampuu’s argument is legitimate.
Point taken, a phobia is not the same as a simple fear.
I am arguing that if you have a phobia that is as severe as described, that would cause you physical harm when seeing a spider on the screen, maybe you can’t play a game with spiders in it, because you are going to encounter one sooner or later. Many (most?) people would disagree with me there, and say I am being insensitive, and there should be less limitations and more accomodations.
Wolf and Sanpuu, you are making the argument that we should accomodate players with phobias by limiting exposure to spiders in the game, and making spider-free zones. Also snakes, then, since that’s also a common phobia.
You are correct, in that spider warders would allow spiders to appear in areas where they never do otherwise, thus discriminating against people with phobias such as described by Sanpuu. Is it better to err on the side of caution, and limit the exposure to known phobia triggers, such as spiders and snakes? I would ask you, isn’t that the reason they are in the game in the first place, which does have an element of shock and horror in most of it? Entire story lines are based around grotesque events and situations…that are meant to frighten and disgust, for the player to ultimately triumph over (or enjoy, I suppose).
If spiders are meant to be scary in the game, then that’s a very good argument for not having them as companions, since that turns them into an ally and not an enemy. That would go for other insects, too. But not all people are afraid of them, and some have spiders as pets in real life (which I find personally horrifying).
I truly dislike spiders, myself, as I mentioned, although I don’t have a phobia I guess since I can tolerate them on a video game. I am fortunate I am able to differentiate between looking at a moving picture and actually seeing a real spider, which does bother me a lot. I avoid spiders whenever possible in my daily life, and they scare the hell out of me, even though I know rationally they aren’t going to hurt me for the most part (obviosuly poisonous ones are harmful). I think a spider warder would not make me very happy, but I could probably tolerate it. I am also afraid of heights, and frankly I have gotten a slight case of vertigo in the game a couple of times. However, I am willing to work with my own issues to play. I also have a firm grasp on reality and know it’s not real. I do think if you can’t deal with something in the game to the point of physical harm, then you should find some other entertainment activity that isn’t stressful.
One more thing … obviously someone wants an insect warder, since the devs are addressing a request for them, so if you don’t want them in the game, send an email or PM to a dev and request them to be left out. I am sure if enough people protest against it, they won’t do it.
Honestly, I think a good solution would be to just allow us the option to hide other people’s pets. I’d think that might be helpful for reducing lag during PQs and raids too, though I’m not a raider so that’s a guess.
The point people are trying to make here is that those who are afraid of spiders/bugs/snakes can currently deal with that fear by avoiding areas where those critters exist. Allowing them to be pets removes that coping mechanism from the game. Allowing us to hide pets retains freedom of choice for all involved. (And incidentally, other fears mentioned here so far – namely hydrophobia and fear of heights – have coping mechanisms built into the game too, in that there are zones that are not underwater and not way up high.)
The problem with them addressing irrational fears such as this is that anyone with any fear of anything would feel they should be afforded the same protection. Fear of birds, poof there goes all the birds from the game, and flying mounts as well. There are recognized fears for everything fear of dark, fear of light, fear of walking, fear of stairs where do you draw the line? I did not say that it wasn’t serious, I said that it is ludicrous to ask or even expect SOE to take any measure to accomodate any of these types of illnesses because it would be a never ending process.
So if you say that Sanpuu has a legitimate argument any of these would be legit arguments as well.
Why would we care about phobias, and not diseases, like alcoholism, they should remove all the alcohol references from the game, they could trigger someone to drink!!!
@ Lempo
You are absolutely correct. There is such an incredible range of phobias that if they were all to be filtered out of a game then you would be looking at a blank screen. Even then, some people have fears of voids so even a blank screen would be threatening.
To the rest of you who jumped on that bandwagon, catering to everyone’s sensitivities is impossible. Its up to the individual to adjust their personal world so they are not exposed to threats. Its is not the responsibility of the world to cater to the individual.
I stopped reading around the spider phobia thing, but if youre seriously scared of spiders, why didnt you say something years ago when they produced the necromancer pet?
Or is a persons upper body glued to a spiders lower body not scary?
To add, the original mage pet you got when you became a summoner was a spider, I believe. I could be wrong though as its been years and years since EQ2 launched.