Succubus - Is now called Felstalker. I’m guessing that having an attractive looking female is a no no in 2019. And yet someone failed to take into account that in her place there is not a demon. So breasts no we can’t have the kids look at that but demons are fine.
Mistress of Pain - We can’t have the word “mistress” so it’s changed to queen it shows authority and grace. Also lets add some armor and add a big pointy thing so the “queen” can look good as she inflicts pain. I wonder how long it will take for the word pain to be changed to discomfort.
Windfury Harpy - More breasts QUICK reduce the size and cover them up! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Secret Keeper - The thin sporty look is out. And she is thick now. Yey?
Eviscerate - The word literally means disembowel… You’d think that there’s be some bleeding involved.
Bite - It’s a huge cat biting something. Same as Eviscerate some blood is to be expected.
Deadly Shoot - So I’m guessing that someone that identifies as a tauren was offended…
Headcrack - This one is just bad. The old art was amazing and the rogue was hitting a zombie.
TLTR: The old art is good the new one is not. This change is pointless.
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Queen of Pain is a strong and independent woman! She is stunning and brave!
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The new Windfury Harpy art is at least decent and old Headcrack art is especially on the phone just a red blur. If the card gets even played.
They ruined both Succubus cards. Felstalker at least looks nice, butwhy? New Mistress/Queen of Pain looks dumb as hell.
Secretkeeper is butchered.
New Deadly Shot has a solid art, but I’ll miss the old timey looking one. IT LOOKED DEADLY.
Bite and Evis are pointless. Evis even more. It’s telling they only made it more PG because that card art is timeless.
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I don’t like the change. Not one bit. Are the current millenial generation such a bunch of p*ssies that they can’t handle some cleavage and a little bit of blood?
If this was an OPTIONAL thing you can toggle on or off, I wouldn’t care. But, for obvious reasons, that’s not going to be the case.
Secretkeeper’s new art actually looks better in my opinion, so I give them that. Headcrack looks better too. I think I’m most upset about Deadly Shot’s artwork. The new one is just ‘meh’ in comparison. Doesn’t have the same powerful impact anymore. And certainly doesn’t look nearly as ‘deadly’. If only it was a card no one ever plays anyway…
And if this really is for the Chinese people only or something; why not just make these changes to that region only and leave the rest untouched?
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Although I like the art, I’m not defending the changes, but rather bringing a bit of nuance to the discussion.
Hearthstone is a mobile game. Age rates are a big deal for discoverability of an app. Developers will walk the extra mile because an app that can’t be discovered in the store is a failed app. This said, Hearthstone could be the most well known game in the world. If they don’t meet Apple’s and Google’s age rating it will not appear in the stores and even if they do parents may not want to install it to their kids, and rightfully so.
I’m not defending the changes, nor the developers decisions. Assuming the reasons you guys pointed out are true (and let’s be honest, it’s likely they are) there may be a valid commercial reason for the changes, even if we don’t like or approve.
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That is a valid point. However they can at least explain why they did it. And warn us about it. And about the art they can add and option “use original art”.v Also this censorship is starting to get bothersome. What’s next I wonder. It always starts with “good” intentions and somehow slowly leads to book burning. An extreme example perhaps but that is how you boil the frog… slowly.
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Yeah, I agree. I have many issues with the current state of public discourse and, to be honest, there’s quite a bit of virtue signalling from companies which is just marketing, really. That and exploiting the controversy. I saw a pack of salt labelled as non-GMO… I mean… there are no genes to modify in salt. I won’t reject that there’s objectification of women in any entertainment industry, but when we get to a point when there’s a problem with folklore figures like Succubus, maybe we’re going a bit too far.
I have no opinion regarding warning ahead. Regarding the option of having “old” art, if I was the producer of the game I’d oppose it, to be honest. Extra maintenance, extra resources…
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I’d agree on the old art part but…
First the redrawing of the art took up resources in the first place.
Second this is one of the biggest studios in the world not some indie developer that has one artist and one programmer.
Third this game is making millions and has paid for it’s development who knows how many times over.
And yes we are reaching unprecedented levels of virtue signaling. The worst part is that the people they are pandering to do not care about the products and don’t support them.
The point is any USA company has lost the plot on the PC front these days. The example was the Democrat line up about transgender woman having abortions. Think they can not have abortions in the first place as they were born male. The thing is all of line up agreed that says it all.
Who ever doing these make over needs to be re trained and quickly before they become a laughing stock.
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Bro what the hell?!!! I didnt even notice any of these until i saw this post. These new ones are horrible.
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@WarGreymon, fully agree with what you said. Just want to clarify that when I said “resources” I meant having extra resources (art, sound, etc) in the game. Not an issue on PC but it’s a pretty bloated game for mobile. But it’s “just” a technicality, you are right, of course.
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Look, I’m not gonna sit here and defend censorship but, to play devils advocate, what difference does it really make? Are you now going to stop playing hearthstone because you can’t see secretkeepers a$$ anymore? Would you have never played the game if the card art was like this from the beginning? I honestly think people make WAYYYYY too big a deal out of this stuff to be honest
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I think it’s very weird you care at all really. It’s a drawing, come off it.
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You may of missed the point its happening across the board and its like a power creep. It starts off small then gets bigger and bigger before you know its total. Blizzard seems to have double standards and are being forced to change HS to comply with a certain country but in WOW they have removed the transmog option and you can walk around practically naked in game.
As a student of History the one thing that happens history repeats itself does not matter how small if its in gaming or society. Censorship leads to many other things and if you think its small now , well.
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It’s happening in games that have no age restriction on them and, to be honest, how is that a bad thing? You want blood and gore and boobs hanging out? Go and play GTA. Blizzard’s games have ALWAYS tried to be friendly to all ages, and if that means toning things down a touch so as to be more PC…why is that such a bad thing? It’s not like people play games like this for the boobs and the gore is it? Or do you agree with over-sexualising and objectifying women?
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As a mum and woman am not a social warrior but I do find it silly people can not see whats happening in game art design correction. A body is a body if you find looking at half naked woman is sexualising you may have a problem with being to PC. Woman in life decide what they want and not to be told.
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Well as a mother, you should be able to appreciate the changes to half naked women being displayed on cards on a game that 10-15 year old children play
Its a card game and your making a point on what they look like after 5 years of no change. Maybe we should leave it as it is people have different views and its card game not a political forum.
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To be fair I never had a problem with my daughter playing Hearthstone when she was 8/9 years old.
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But you’re not on here screaming from the rooftops about what a disgrace it is that Blizzard have de-sensitised a handful of cards. The point is, they have changed a few cards to make them a little more acceptable to younger ages and other cultures and people are coming on here acting like someone just killed their puppy.
I just think peoples priorities are a little screwed up tbh
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