Number 10: Blizzard bans Abhorrent Taboo
September 17th, 2007: Blizzard disbands extreme erotic roleplaying guild
Blizzard has always had a tough time dealing with sex in the game -- even before we started posting, they took action against an openly homosexual guild in the game, and then had to apologize for the warning. And again, this was a touchy subject: a set of erotic roleplayers in game, in a guild called Abhorrent Taboo, were openly participating in sexual behavior that could be deemed offensive to a huge portion of the game's playerbase: ageplay, bestiality, and other generally offensive forms of sexuality. There was an outcry from many players on the guild's realms, and Blizzard eventually decided to disband the guild.
Which didn't stop them from reforming, and as far as we know, that's where the story stops. Vile Anathema was the guild that reformed from the ashes of AT, and they claimed that while they had been former members of the disbanded guild, they were no longer interested in the kind of erotic roleplaying that AT championed. Blizzard never did take action against Vile Anthema, and the guild is still in the game, if a shell of its former self.
When we reported this story, we made sure not to make any judgement on what the players or Blizzard had chosen to do here. One of the main issues around the disbanding was simply that there's no way to verify anyone's age in the game, so there was no way at all to say who was a consenting adult and who wasn't. Once the issue got widespread attention, Blizzard seemed to back off -- while we posted a few more times about erotic roleplaying, and especially the difference between it and other types of roleplaying, and even the difference between ERP and what Abhorrent Taboo was up to, the issue hasn't come up again since.
On to Number 9: our first real glimpse of Northrend....
