World A case for being better to bats

I'll preface by knowing it's probably shouting into a void, But here we go nonetheless.

Bats in Real Life are small, Friendly, Highly Intelligent , and one of the most vital parts of many world ecosystems beyond the Plants themselves. They provide necessary, and Life-saving ( in the case of Mosquitos ) Pest control. Bat Fertilizer is so Environmentally friendly and effective that it almost comes at a gold standard in places reliant on agriculture. Not to mention the little fuzzy friends aren't particularly fond of being around Big, clumsy humans if they can help it.

Bats in media, and particularly in video games, are Highly stigmatized and undeservedly attacked for.. being Nocturnal, and occasionally having diseases ( That they only spread when humans Ruin their homes, Hurt them, or otherwise harm their populations) .

Being said I was fairly dissapointed By the over-use of bats as flying enemies when I've seen things Like Sentient Mushroom Clumps, Pigs that throw Fire, Piggybacking Spiders, and Fire elementals that straight-up look like tiny dudes ( Fire pets)

With all the creativity and love going into this game, We could have at least made a Flying enemy type that doesn't reinforce and compound Blatantly incorrect things about the world's only flying mammals. ( It's also A Painful Cliche to observe, but That's more a matter of Opinion)

Why not make The bulk of flying Enemies wasps? Or elementals? Animals that Actually Act aggressively unprompted. There's Certainly No want for Functional Air-based Mob models with the addition of Allays and Bees to the game some time ago

 

if bats are small and friendly then why does batman kill homeless people

 

Because Batman is an out-of-Touch Rich Man with No understanding of Nature.

 

At the school library, there is a sign for Halloween reading "bats are dangerous books are not" (which is stupid, a dictionary to your head hurts much more than a bat). I thought for about this for about a second before realizing:
Bats have a negative kill count.
Bats eat insects that cause disease, thus limiting the spread of those diseases - diseases which are often fatal.
As for diseases that people get from bats... that's because the people are going after the bats, not the other way around.
Out of over 1,400 species, one type of bat drinks mammal blood - usually from pigs and cows, not people.
Bats are also attacked by several diseases that humans can't get, but spread quickly through bat populations.

That said, Wynncraft is a fantasy game - if it wants to have aggressive bats, go ahead - but pointing out oh yeah, actually, bats aren't aggressive in real life, please don't kill them would be a good thing to do.

 

3 Species of bat drink Blood! ( I know this is pedantic I'm sorry )

- Common vampire bat ( Absolutely adorable little fella ) from pigs, cows, boars, etc.

- White winged vampire bat ( Also adorable ) eat from birds primarily , as with the next ones

- Hairy legged vampire bat ( These guys kinda look like goofy fuzz potatoes but they are Almost agonizingly cute ) - They feed from Birds primarily! including Chickens.

 

Y'know what? Sure. I can get behind this. It always rubs the me the wrong way when games just make random animals out to be aggressive enemies. I'm gonna also have to stand up for wasps here: they're short-tempered but generally don't attack you if you don't mess with them or their nest.

 

I like bats too, but I think it's a little silly to try removing them like this. It's like saying "Witches should not be featured in media because of all the innocent people who were burnt at the stake after being accused of being one". It's a fantasy game. Things don't have to be realistic. If it bothers you that much, it would instead be better to suggest adding peaceful bat mobs to the game. There was a cool suggestion about a year ago suggesting that random birds and stuff should be added, maybe bats could spawn at night if that idea were to come into fruition

 

edited to specify mammal blood because people are mammals and birds are not so that works

 

Also, did you make a forums account just to make this thread?

 

He isn't small, he is human sized, that's why.

 

I think this same criticism would apply to almost every in game enemy based off a real animal

 

Except they DO address the witch thing, In the ' Maltic Well ' Questline.

Right down to the Well people wanting you to kill her because ' She's ugly and does magic ' . Even the actual Child at the center of the thing was like " She was nice and gave me cookies "

And if all you took out of that was some EXP then that's on you for missing the point of that whole thing.

I Also don't see many witches in Wynncraft at all. Maybe I'm not high enough level. But i've seen mad scientists, Occultists ( Vastly different from Witches) , Mummies and Some weird Anime-girl attempt at the Ferryman, Charon . ( kehehe?? )

The point is that the writers DO seem mindful of stereotypes, save for the bat ones.

 

Actually, the quest "Lexdale witch trials" addresses the whole witch thing better

That wasn't my point though, my point was that it's better to try delivering a message that bats are harmless than to remove them outright. Fictional hostile bats can exist in the game, but there should probably be a balance. There are lots of hostile pigs, birds etc in the game but there are also peaceful or scared versions that show a more realistic depiction of the animal. For an animal like bats that people associate with being "scary" (even though bats are not scary at all, just look at pipistrelles) there should probably be peaceful variants scattered around. Maybe even an NPC in some town who tells the player about bats, although i don't see something like that fitting in the game unless it was some "bat researcher" NPC. And I think one of the better ways to do this is to simply use my last suggestion, which was to add environmental bats at night.

 

This post just comes across as virtue signaling imo. Media and especially not Wynncraft out of all things don’t deserve blame for villianizing bats for the simple fact that they’re out of touch with reality as others mentioned. It can even be in the reverse as well. For example, hippos kill way more people than sharks do annually (500 vs. ~60) yet sharks are a lot more villianized than hippos are in media. Does that mean that writers and producers should go out of their way to demonize hippos then? No, because it’s just a waste of time and limits how they want to tell their own stories.

I’ve seen Mojang use similar arguments with why sharks shouldn’t be added into the game because they’re an endangered species and it would give them a negative stereotype. But a kid (or anyone) isn’t going to see a shark in Minecraft and be like, “I’m going to rent a boat and hunt sharks irl.” The reasons why sharks and other creatures like bats actually get killed are far beyond any video game like habitat loss for farming, overfishing, and climate change. Nor do they promote actually harmful ideas like rhino horn boosting your libido. Yet they still added polar bears, and you need to actually kill one in Minecraft to get the Monster Hunter achievement. Should Wynncraft and Minecraft then remove polar bears or drastically changed then? No, bc again it’s just fiction.

TL;DR It’s just pointless, petty, and often contradictory to make changes like this and it more often than not comes across as virtue signaling and limits the creativity of the CT.

 

You could instead consider that not everything that has a point Is " virtue Signalling" When you mistakenly believe it " Limits Creativity "

using bats as villains in games is the exact opposite of creative. To the point it's an aggressively Overused Cliche that's Literally begging for any stroke of genuine Creativity to change up the status quo.

" Oh we need a night flying enemy " - " let's use bats "

" Oh we need to make this place look spooky " - " bats it is "

Like, Claiming it's a Limiting, virtue signalling act is borderline laughable But I want to be as polite as is affordable in order to clarify.

 

If Wynncraft had a standard where they could only use bats for that, then yes that would be limiting creativity. They don’t though, and most mobs in the game don’t use bats anyway. And I’m definitely not saying they should have that standard. You on the other hand want to actively prohibit the use of bats as an enemy in the game on a faulty basis. Bats, like spiders and sharks, are just scary animals and there is really nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t give people grief for using bats when they literally fly and are spooky. I can make the same arguments as you for why spiders shouldn’t be used as enemies in the game, but that’s not going to stop spiders being spooky to most people nor will help spiders irl. It’s as laughable as telling your neighbors they shouldn’t put bats up for their Halloween decorations because they’re being unfairly portrayed as spooky and are mistreated irl. It’s just silly at best and pompous at worst.

Also why do you capitalize random words? It makes it harder to read and makes me think you’re not being serious anymore.

 

I mean the exact same argument could be made for wolves, if not even moreso because the perception of them as hostile lead to the destruction of ecosystems

 

is this a homestuck roleplay

 

Wynncraft please add bat quest thanks

 

No this is just the only fanart of this character I have that Isn't like , Somewhat suggestive or Too big to set as an avatar. I have a buddy that does sprites for a thing.

As for the bats they're apparently the universe's biggest hyperfixation for me so.. yeah.