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The World of Warcraft Map knows no Slovenia. (source)
The Slovenian WoW enthusiast Erunno claims he recently tried to participate in the World of Warcraft Movie Contest, sponsored by Xfire. Basically, players of the game in the U.S. and EU were invited to make in-game movies in the categories of dance, comedy and drama. The deadline was yesterday, and the entrants are competing for thousands of dollars worth of prizes. (Why weren’t there things like this when I was wasting countless hours in front of the NES?)
According to Erunno, when he submitted his movie he got this harsh response:
"World of Warcraft Movie Contest
We are sorry but the following rules need to be followed:
Article 2: The competition is opened to anyone aged 15 or more residing in France, in Belgium, in the United Kingdom or in Luxemburg, or anyone aged 18 or more residing in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, or in other European States, except Vivendi Universal Games International personnel and their family, affiliates or business partners or Xfire, Inc. personnel and their family, affiliates or business partners. The contest is also be co-organized in the United States (see above for US rules.)
More over the rules on: http://www.xfire.com/xf/modules.php?name=XFire&file=cmspage&body=xf_wow_contest_rules
The send movie named: Mug of Ale: Old Member will not take part on the XFire Movie contest. Why? Slovenia is not in the European Union or even in Europe.
We thank you for Understanding,
XFire entertaiment "
Now that’s hardcore. I first thought it might be faked because the English is so poor. (In the last part alone: "Send" instead of "sent," "on" instead of "in," there’s no "your" in front of Understanding, which is also needlessly capitalized) However, the official contest rules are full of similar errors. Since Erunno blames "the French" for the reply, this could have explained the imperfect language.
Some Slovenian WoW gamers have raided the official forums in response, but so far I haven’t seen any official response or apology and admins at Xfire have kindly replied. See the updates below and the comment from Wyndairn!
(Thanks freddie!)
UPDATE: A siteadmin at Xfire has posted this in response:
"Obviously someone is just trying to paint a bad picture of us here at Xfire. I am the only who responds to WoW movie entries and I did not write that letter. Ask anyone that got a rejection letter and they will tell you that it is done in much better taste. We respect all of our users here at Xfire. Here is some logic that might help clear things up:
1. No one here would never spell Xfire "XFire"
2. We are not and have never referred to ourselves as "XFire entertainment"
3. Slovenia is allowed to enter our contest
I hope this clears things up.
–emmbeegee"
UPDATE2: (Sorry, can’t stop myself.) After reading some replies by people at Xfire, it seems that Erunno is probably the victim (or perpetrator) of a hoax. I’ve cleaned up this post a bit to reflect that. Thanks to people at Xfire for taking the time to step in and comment!
Comments
Comments for this post are closed.
Yeah, Mike! Stick it to… the man! Stand up for your fellow gamer. Or something. He he.
Mike, keep quiet, otherwise Jacques Chirac might nuke you! In the holy name of Warcraft!
Everyone should keep sending firm but polite e-mails to these addresses until the company issues an apology:feedback@xfire.comsupport@xfire.compress-request@xfire.comEven if you are not Slovenian, but enjoy this blog, please take a minute or two of your time to help us out!
BTW, if you send them an e-mail, explain to them what this is all about (i.e. what their reply stated, etc.).
As I stated before. It’s nothing bad if a New Yorker doesn’t know where in hell is Slovenia. ;>
hehe dejavu feelinglast spring I attended a seminar in Switzerland with bunch of other, mostly french guys. Then we flew from Geneva directly to Paris. It took me about 10 minutes to explain to a very friendly employee at the airport, that 1st - no I do not need a visa for France (even Personal Identification card would be enough) and 2nd - yes, Slovenia is a member of EU. My suggestion to the creators of future Passports - write with golden letters on the cover: Slovenia - Member of EU since 2004 (like on beer)
As I stated before. It’s nothing bad if a New Yorker doesn’t know where in hell is Slovenia. ;> BigWhale, you should know that we, the tr00 Slovenes, are firmly convinced Slovenia is indeed the center of the world. We take an amazingly high pride in our tiny greatness (or should that be great tininess?), so we, of course, get terribly offended when people do not know where in hell Slovenia is. There simply is no higher insult to us, the tr00 Slovenes. Of course, all of us tr00 Slovenes know exactly where, for example, Vermont is, what its capital’s name is and which states surround it.
Mikey, did you have a NES? Man, I had a ColecoVision, HA! It’d drive in circles around your puny NES… but, and that was a VERY important but, we didn’t have Kung-Fu Master.It was tough, being hardcore in those times.
all this doesn’t surprise me at it is a known fact that the French are ignorant. I have experienced it myself and was totaly shocked by it. And, of course, Americans are no better (also experience). And, yes, I am insulted everytime when i tell people where i’m form and they give me that "look" ("what the hell are you talking about?")
Contests not being available in certain countries isn’t new, nor are ignorant support personell. I say deal with it! Read the rules first, as they happen to apply in this case. There were plenty of contests that I had to forfeit just because I live in Slovenia. Shall we burn some embassies and demand an apology?http://www.wow-slo.com/viewtopic.php?t=3227&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0http://www.xfire.com/xf/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=51466The rules clearly state the following:"Article 2: The competition is opened to anyone aged 15 or more residing in France, in Belgium, in the United Kingdom or in Luxemburg, or anyone aged 18 or more residing in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, or in Ireland […]"Where’s Slovakia?
The rules clearly state the following:"Article 2: The competition
is opened to anyone aged 15 or more residing in France, in Belgium, in
the United Kingdom or in Luxemburg, or anyone aged 18 or more residing
in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, or in Ireland
[…]"It appears that XFire has changed the rules after rejecting an applicant from Slovenia. Classy.
I can forgive Americans and most other non-European nations. It’s a shame they don’t know us, but what the hell… it’s not like we can name all American Federal States by heart, nor all Canadian Provices can we? Let alone a few of those countless islands on the Pacific. But for our fellow Eurpeans to be so ignorant… the same people we share a millenia worth of history with… unfogivable. I always wondered what Euro people who know nothing about Slovenia consider this mysterious lump of land east of Italy and south of Austria really represents. Slovakia? Bits of Ex Yugoslavia? The Atlantis?!
Is the company really French, though? Its site say that it’s based in Menlo Park, CA, and the names of its management team are WASPy.
i-rtfm-regularly: "There were plenty of contests that I had to forfeit just because I live in Slovenia. Shall we burn some embassies and demand an apology?"That’s really not the main issue here. The point is that the company does not consider Slovenia to be a part of the EU or even Europe. I think that we have every right to demand an apology because of that.
Apparently setting something ablaze is the only real answer to the French. The Arabs in poor suburbs of French cities set cars on fire and the the French went "Mon dieu! Nous-avons une minoritee Arabique!" or something like that. maybe if we electricute some frogs (like in the Budweiser commercial) or something like that they’ll get the message
My boyfriend’s (French) father never fails to ask me what kind of food we eat in Latvia.. no wait, Lithuania… no, no, wait, Slovak-, erm, Slovenia. I’m in love, but yeah, electrocute away!
It appears that somebody is f.ucking with our minds. If you click on my name you should get an yahoo cache of rules page from 24. jan, where it clearly states that "The competition is opened to anyone
aged 15 or more residing in France, in Belgium, in the United Kingdom or in
Luxemburg, or anyone aged 18 or more residing in Germany, Austria, Sweden,
Finland, Denmark, Norway, or in Ireland, except Vivendi Universal Games
International personnel…"It seems we got ourselves our very own faked muslim cartoons :)Of course there is always chance that mail exchange dated pre 24. jan.
Ah, poor Slovenes. I suggest burning French flags and looting their embassy :-)That will get their attention
CX2ORE, but if that’s the case, why would Xfire’s representative go out of his/her way to point out that "Slovenia is not in the European Union or even in Europe"? Or do you think that the e-mail itself is a fake?Anyways, why does everyone keep saying that this is a French company? Are we talking about the same Menlo Park, California-based Xfire?
Hummm… Interesting responses. Well being a Slovindian trapped in France for some years now, I guess the position of most of the people on France is kind of harsh. I can’t condemne if someone said that French people are unfriendly : that’s almost the case (except in the case of geeks…). But to say that they are dumb is a little bit unfair : France had over the last century the highest education level in maths & physics-chemistry… but not in Geography for sure :).You should simply blame the persons that created WoW for not entering Slovenia as a country that IS (fortunatly or not) in the European Union.By the way : why lose so much time with a WoW game when you can do so many other things interesting thing in Slovenia ? ( like play out in the snow or chase some lovely girls from Ilirska Bistrica, Celje or Logatec
).
Lol XIOMANGERYeah I can see the headlines already.French Foreign Minister said his country is mounting a major diplomatic push to cool tempers. "We cannot allow this argument to become a battle between cultures," he told reporters.…dang.
Well, I agree that this is being blown a bit out of proportion. But it does seem slightly unfair that every Frenchman (or woman, for that matter) expect the rest of the world where Paris is, but on the other the French (the British, Austrians, Danes, etc) should not be ostricised if some French (or British, Austrian, Danish, etc) ingnoramus do not know all 25 members of EU. I guess its just a matter of common knowledge and some decency
We should declare a patschwitz… No… Uuh, matwa! Err, that thing were you can go out and burn stuff. I know it sounds like this food… Eh, fuck it. WAAR!
the above should read "expects the rest of the world to know where Paris is". sorry
Note for Pengovsky : Don’t get yourself lured by what you see on TV : I was in Slovenia the week when there was some "trouble" in France and feared a bit for parents that live in Paris after what I have seen on Slovenian TV (which usually gives reliable informations).Wasn’t I surprised that nothing really happened around the place where I stayed, while on the news abroad I have seen all the towns in flames ?Nothing really happened : cars burned for sure, a RENAULT industry burned too, as well as 4 or 5 schools.But no harm to local people.And France isn’t a racist country, it’s just a elitist country : you have to get out from certain schools in order to get a certain position in a company (but wait, isn’t it the same in the Us and in Britain? or in Japan?).Let’s face it : France doesen’t really have a good image for Monkey Boy followers, so they are constantly taking the blame over bad things that happen ( take a look over the last films that were aired in the theatres :_The legend of Zorro : the bad guy is a French;_The matrix (reloaded and revolution) : the bad guy is a French!_Sahara : the bad guy is (again) a French (same actor as in the Matrix 2 & 3).So is France getting the Heat for not going into War over Iraq(prononced with a great Texan accent…) by taking the place reserved in films to "Bad Communist Russians of the 80’s" ?Let’s hope it doesen’t take it’s place here for it will just show the intellect of the people using such a dumb excuse ( French= Evil).
Somewhat related: WoW also seems to dislike teh gheys.
Can someone PLEASE explain to me what Xfire has to do with France? I’m really confused here…
God, Michael , I guess we should all switch to our NES or SNES and play some REALLY addictive games that have a great story to offer : SECRET OF MANA OR SECRET OF MANA 2, and of course Zelda 1 !
AZZSI : I don’t have clue about the connection between the French and WoW (altought there is a lof of French that addicted to this game.).
CX20RE got it right. You guys (including Carniola) got pwned.
All this ruckus over nothing. What we should be really resenting the French for is the word Slovene! ;p
@Gazicebear: Noted. And taken to heart. However, while we’re on the subject, elitism and racism can (not necesarely, possibly) walk hand in hand. Especially in a multicultural society. Every nation has its own de-priviliged minority, usually of differend national or cultural descent, sometimes of different skin color.
Personally I have no grudge against the French. I do however have the a grudge against the self-centered point of view. Be it in Slovenia or in France.
@AZ2SI: I have no idea. A classic example of roumor becoming a constructed reality :))
"Players who have advertised their guilds as "GBLT-friendly" have lately been warned off by Blizzard moderators, who cite a rule against sexual discrimination in censoring the players. When pressed for explanations, they offer the genuinely bizarre excuse that if queer players are allowed to tell other players about their sexual orientation, that it might arouse discriminatory or unkind remarks from those players, and that would violate the anti-discrimination rules of the game." I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. You see what political corectness brings us to? In the end, one has not even the balls to say he’s homofobic, and wraps his chauvinism in an even more disgusting hypocrism.
Posted by: CX20RE at February 7, 2006 02:55 PM Gee, that’s a cool nick. If I went the same route, mine would be CX 25 Prestige.
AZ2SI: I think the confusion centers around the fact that Blizzard Europe is in France, as is Vivendi — both are mentioned in the contest rules. The initial complainer also seems to blame the French. The poor English also made me think that it couldn’t possibly come from the United States, although who knows.Big up to CX20RE’s detective skills. I don’t know if the page was changed or not, but if you look here it clearly states:This contest is open to US & European Union contestants only.… meaning a Slovene certainly qualifies…. An interesting mess, it is.
Oh and sorry about the italics everyone. That bug should be fixed soon!
|=|=|: “You guys (including Carniola) got pwned. All this ruckus over nothing.”
How did we get pwned? Because some people were led to believe this was a French company? Or do you think it was all made up? Anyway, thanks for getting rid of the italics!
I just posted an update. A siteadmin is claiming that it’s a hoax and that Slovenia is allowed to compete — even though it’s not listed among the possible countries of residence in the official rules.
Hehe, this reminds me of waiting in the lobby of parliament (party HQ, local council, the hospital with a sick president in it… your pick) and making a "breaking news alert" every time something happens.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought Vivendi was indeed a French company.
Ok, time to cool all the flames here.
To the point - we here at Xfire think this email is a hoax. First off, it IS obvious that Slovenia is part of the European Union. I have no idea why someone might write that it is not, but regardless, that should have been the first indication of something amiss here. Despite what you all may think you know, we are some fairly intelligent and reasonable people here, and when you’re running a contest of this size, you don’t make stupid mistakes like not knowing some basic geography
Second, the whole email just looks fishy. We don’t refer to ourselves as XFire Entertainment, we’re “Xfire, Inc.” or “The Xfire Team”. We all speak English perfectly well (even though many on our team are from Europe), and we wouldn’t be writing an official response in the informal tone of “The send movie named: Mug of Ale: Old Member will not take part on the XFire Movie contest. Why? Slovenia is not in the European Union or even in Europe.”
If I were to guess, I’d guess that someone out there is spoofing an email address or something, and trying to play a prank on a friend’s entry, or a competitor’s entry that they thought might win.
I’d love the person who received this email to contact me (username Wyndairn, obviously) and let me know about what email address they received this from, if we can track down an IP, and figure out what’s going on. I can assure you we here at Xfire are very conscious of our European userbase (including all our Slovenias, woot!) and we’d like to get this resolved asap.
Wyndairn,Thank you for your clarification. As I was one of the first to call for your apology, I also want to be one of the first to apologize for falsely blaming you. I’m really heartened by your attitude and by your willingness to find out who composed that e-mail in your company’s name. Could it have been one of your European partners, which may explain the mentions of France?Michael M.: "A siteadmin is claiming that it’s a hoax and that Slovenia is allowed to compete — even though it’s not listed among the possible countries of residence in the official rules."That may just be a list of countries with age restrictions, rather than a full list of countries that may participate. Legalese isn’t supposed to be ambiguous, but often manages to be just that.
Mystery solved, and Michael (as a good American) loves happy ends, so everybody’s happy
Luka: Boy, do I ever. :) And for all the confusion, I also really like threads like this, where a mystery is very gradually and collectively solved. It’s better than Agatha Christie.
Ok, time to cool all the flames here.
To the point - we here at Xfire
think this email is a hoax. First off, it IS obvious that Slovenia is part of
the European Union. I have no idea why someone might write that it is not, but
regardless, that should have been the first indication of something amiss here.
Despite what you all may think you know, we are some fairly intelligent and
reasonable people here, and when you’re running a contest of this size, you
don’t make stupid mistakes like not knowing some basic geography
Second, the whole email
just looks fishy. We don’t refer to ourselves as XFire Entertainment, we’re
"Xfire, Inc." or "The Xfire Team". We all speak English perfectly well (even
though many on our team are from Europe), and we wouldn’t be writing an official
response in the informal tone of "The send movie named: Mug of Ale: Old Member
will not take part on the XFire Movie contest. Why? Slovenia is not in the
European Union or even in Europe."
If I were to guess, I’d guess that
someone out there is spoofing an email address or something, and trying to play
a prank on a friend’s entry, or a competitor’s entry that they thought might
win.
I’d love the person who received this email to contact me (username
Wyndairn, obviously) and let me know about what email address they received this
from, if we can track down an IP, and figure out what’s going on. I can assure
you we here at Xfire are very conscious of our European userbase (including all
our Slovenias, woot!) and we’d like to get this resolved asap.
A quick question for Wyndairn: Is anyone at Blizzard/Vivendi authorized to send e-mails in Xfire’s name?
Whoops, sorry for the double post
Is there a way I can remove it?
No one at Blizzard has an Xfire domain email address. We’re the only ones who control emails coming from xfire.com. That
said, it’s possible someone could be either spoofing the xfire.com
domain by bouncing the message off our servers, but that’d be pretty
sophisiticated for a prank. Another possibility is that someone just
changed the name on the from account and someone didn’t noticed the
domain wasn’t exactly xfire.com?
La paix revient enfin sur ce cyberespace ! No more War against nations, just everybody happy about the Hercule Poirot’s style of solving the Problem!pengovsky : self-centered ? "Apparently setting something ablaze is the only real answer to the French" or "maybe if we electricute some frogs […] they’ll get the message" is kind of a selfcentered opinion ;).But don’t get me wrong, I’m not a defencer of France, I’m more a defencer of my beautifull Dolenska if someone might ask :)Just like that things are straightened up a bit time to time.
Ah, problem solved then! I am so relieved for you guys being able to participate in the competition! As long as we Serbs are still among the "lower and browner" peoples of the Earth, everything is OK.
i smell the foul Juraj Lisjak behind this! or maybe it was Chriss Kallander?friends!
our foes never rest, and neither should we! they keep thinking of
new ways to harm our beloved carniola, and so should we!
Cornelius: "i smell the foul Juraj Lisjak behind this!"It’s actually "Juraj Lisiak," with a stresica over the s, but Lisjak may actually be more appropriate. ;)Speaking of our old friend Juraj, I recently discovered that his oh-so-objective-and-accurate site Slovakia.org was listed as the official site of Slovakia’s Honorary Consulate in Vancouver, Canada, on various official online listings. This may not be so surprising once you hear that the Consul there is… Stanislav Lisiak (Juraj Lisiak’s dad, from what I gather). Anyway, I send a few e-mails to the friendly Slovenian Embassy in Ottawa, who send a few more e-mails to the Slovak Embassy in Ottawa, and yadda, yadda, yadda… the official links were soon gone. I’m told that the Slovak Embassy also discovered other problems with the site’s content, and, once it became aware of what Slovakia.org was really all about, decided it wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.Don’t get me wrong, if Juraj Lisiak wants to use his site to speculate about history in parallel universes, more power to him, but governments usually don’t want to be involved with such things. And violating major companies’ copyright is another no-no (and a story for another day).
God damn it! Misinformation! I hate that! I’m gonna change myself into SUPER GAZICEBEAR and use MY GEEKY POWERS of summoning some SERVERS over the net to teach a good lesson to slovakia.org
I don’t know if this is a sick joke of some kind, Michael, but there’s a Google add on your page that advertizes a CD of "Songs&Dances from Slovakia."
Aahhh, I know how to spell "sent"! This thing really should have an edit feature. Maybe with these new Slovakia ads from Google…?