Blizzard Begins Removing Fired Employees' Names from WoW

Blizzard has started making good on its promise to remove references in World of Warcraft to the names of several former employees involved in recent controversies, including the ongoing lawsuit against Activision Blizzard in California.

After promising to change the name of McCree in Overwatch, references to several employees including Jesse McCree, Jonathan LeCraft, Alex Afrasiabi, and Luis Barriga in WoW are being actively scrubbed. The process is not yet complete, but several of the changes are live according to WoWHead. These changes  include:

• Renaming Marshal McCree to Marshal Patterson and the quest reward is now known as "Patterson's Sparring Gloves"
• "Slippery Romantic Books" will now be listed as written by Noah Scribeson instead of Lawrence LeCraft.
• Senior Scrivener Barriga had his name changed to Senior Scrivener Kinnedius.
• Jessup's Report has been renamed Kharmarn's Report, after the newly renamed NPC.
• Torturer LeCraft has a new name - Torturer Alphonse.
• Quest rewards previously given by Jessera of Mac'Aree are now given by Maatparm. 
• The spell "Summon Crusader LeCraft" is now known as "Summon Crusade Jonathan".

The employees’ dismissal and these changes are a start, but there are still references in the game, such as the city of Mac'Aree and NPC Crafticus Mindbender, but the changes already made do seem likely to mean that more are coming. 

Blizzard does seem to be actively working on the name changes as part of an overall effort to regain trust in light of the lawsuit, though some might question whether these are meaningful or just surface changes while the company continues to fight the lawsuit’s merits. Of course, WoW is still a huge MMORPG and it remains to be seen just how the lawsuit affects things going forward, although development has reportedly slowed in light of the depth of allegations. WoW Classic, in the meantime, is gearing up for the Overlords of Outland update on September 15th.