I wouldn't even say they were oversexualized, given the purpose of a succubus, it's just the right amount of "sexualized". I never even noticed it on the harpy or secretkeeper, although I'll admit that their new art does fill the space better from a composition standpoint. I don't know about anyone else, but none of these ever aroused me in the slightest. It's not really any worse than a lot of people choose to wear in real life anyway.
I agree with this 100%. Tbh I am more annoyed to see the art of Bite, Headcrack and Deadly Shot being changed than the one of the "oversexualized" female characters. Hearthstone used to refer to (World of) Warcraft with its violence and epic lore moments - now we are slowly seeing a censored, child-friendly card game (Kooky Chemist). And I know there are some cards with way more inadmissible art as Sinti said (Frost Lich Jaina), but I liked Bite and Deadly Shot for their grotesque artwork. The old cards reminded me of the moments, when I used to play a lot of Wotlk when I was a teenager, and I got a sense of nostalgia, whenever I looked at their art. The new versions (or at least some of them) fill me with disappointment.
And I don't want to offend a specific country's culture, but imho it would have been better, if this artwork change only applied in the Chinese region. This would have been similar to the case, when the Forsaken's models looked less bony and the graves were removed in the WoW Chinese servers.
I don't really mind about the card art changes, for the most part the new art looks nice and crisp.
Bit annoyed about the card name changes but people will get used to it soon enough.
I am glad they used similar colour palletes for the cards so you can recognise them at a glance. All except Headcrack.... Blizz clearly realised that nobody plays it and thought "fuck it"
One thing that specially makes me angry is that this invalited their always used argument of 'we don't do this because will confuse our players', but they not only change art and names, but and entire card in Fesltaker without any previous announcement, something that genuinely confuse the playerbase, but really, I blame myself for being surprise of all of that.
I see here some debate over whether people were "offended" by overly sexualized artwork, but I think that misses the point. There is way too much sexualization and objectification of women in art and culture today, and video games are (I'm pretty sure) among the worst offenders. Since these games are played by a lot of young people, and certainly more males than females, they can't help but feed toxic masculinity with this type of art. It's not about what statement it makes, it's just about having these images be commonplace and acceptable. I applaud Blizzard for making these adjustments. As others have noted, there are many more potential candidates (Aviana, etc.).
If you're upset about content changes (a Felstalker and a Succubus are not the same thing), I agree with you. However, ask yourself how important these details are compared to everything else that makes the game great.
I think the bloodshed argument is more straightforward. Are many of us okay with or even fond of the graphic detail in some of the art? Sure. Do we need this to enjoy the game? Certainly not.
"Be excellent to each other." -Bill and Ted
Guff's OwlTK
A Celestial Alignment Druid Deck created by
Pezman. Last updated 1 year, 6 months ago
I see here some debate over whether people were "offended" by overly sexualized artwork, but I think that misses the point. There is way too much sexualization and objectification of women in art and culture today, and video games are (I'm pretty sure) among the worst offenders. Since these games are played by a lot of young people, and certainly more males than females, they can't help but feed toxic masculinity with this type of art. It's not about what statement it makes, it's just about having these images be commonplace and acceptable. I applaud Blizzard for making these adjustments. As others have noted, there are many more potential candidates (Aviana, etc.).
If you're upset about content changes (a Felstalker and a Succubus are not the same thing), I agree with you. However, ask yourself how important these details are compared to everything else that makes the game great.
I think the bloodshed argument is more straightforward. Are many of us okay with or even fond of the graphic detail in some of the art? Sure. Do we need this to enjoy the game? Certainly not.
literally not why they are doing this. Also, way to make yourself look like a clown
Everytime a game changes something for being too sexual, I get reminder of this video:
EDIT (off topic): Is there any way I can put the actual video instead of just the link. The button doesn't seem to work for me.
Edit (sinti): fixed it for you.
Rating cards on coolness factor rather than predicting power because I like screwing up rating averages (and because I suck at predicting real power levels, but we'll ignore that LUL) Wins per class (2/6/22): DH-197; Druid-996; Hunter-91«60; Mage-1056; Paladin-1126; Priest-746; Rogue-961; Shaman-1095; Warlock-871; Warrior-906
One thing that specially makes me angry is that this invalited their always used argument of 'we don't do this because will confuse our players', but they not only change art and names, but and entire card in Fesltaker without any previous announcement, something that genuinely confuse the playerbase, but really, I blame myself for being surprise of all of that.
Just about everything that's been said before, say, Boomsday, is now out of commission. New change of leadership. New rules. It's why they are making fast changes to nerfs, why we get buffs and cards midseason, why old mechanics are returning, and so on. consider everything back in play until they say otherwise in RECENT post.
As far as the overall concept; it's China. China has a VERY different culture from the West and now the big money comes from them instead of us. Expect this to be a normal thing to expect now.
As far as the cards themselves:
I actually like Queen of Pain better. She's more dynamic in her art. The only thing going for the old one is that it's a 'mistress' which only works well in a "oo I sexy demon, wink wink" way. Sidenote: silly to say it's a sexual thing when the Queen is wearing almost nothing compared to the Mistress.
Eviserate: literally took me a few minutes to find what was changed...I think. It's that bit of blood? Literally makes no difference beyond just getting angry at the concept.
Succubus: I'lll admit I'm sad about this one for a second. Though now that I think about it, what IS the concept behind a succubus that steals YOUR card in order to be stronger. Makes more sense for her to have lifesteal or something. So beyond nostalgia, a random beast that's strong but takes your card makes more sense
Windfury Harpy: MUCH better art. She's still basically naked so again "THIS is the anti-sex version?" What has changed is that the new harpy's back isn't broken. Seriously guys LOOK at the old harpy's hip and back and realize bones don't go that way. Now that I see the comparison I REALLY don't want to see the old one around again. It's having that "broken jaw James Bond" feel now.
Secretkeeper: Going to be blunt, new girl is hot, old one always looked meh with a messed up face. You lose all ability to judge art styles if you disagree.*
(*yes I'm joking, but I do so much prefer the new art and always disliked the old one)
Bite: meh. I prefer the old one here. But it works so whatever.
Deadly Shot and Headcrack fail. Flat out. I don't mind changes for decency and morals but you have to keep the theme of the card, which is why I agree with Felstalker over succy. Deadly did the reverse. WTF is the new card demonstrating. Couldn't you..say, just do a shadow effect of an arrow going through a 'target' or..well something other than a random arrow flying through the air? headcrack artwise looks better, but the old one REALLY spelled out what the spell was doing: whacking someone and coming back to whack again.
So yeah, 3 improvements. 3 'meh' acceptables. 2 fails.
Why trade with minions when you can face for...billions?
They literally removed Succubus as a card and replace it with a random demon. LMAO
And Headcrack looks like hot garbage now. Come on, Blizzard
Felstalker is the same card as Succubus, but with "less offensive art" (?) At least until someone starts finding Felstalkers sexual! And the Felstalker pet for Warlocks in WoW is a pretty classic thing related to that class. Similar to Voidwalker.
With that in mind, I get why they changed it to Felstalker, but I'm still a little unsure of why it had to be changed so much instead of just updating the card art. Also, I'm confused by Mistress of Pain being changed to Queen of Pain. Is "mistress" a bad word in some parts of the world?
From what I understand, "mistress" sounds a bit too "BDSM-ish", although I thought that was supposed to be the point. You know, with the whip and everything?
Hilariously, now that they changed the name, they will need to change the flavor text as well, because it made a joke relating to the name.
Flavor text was already updated with the art
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
Very disappointed about the change to [Hearthstone Card (Succubus) Not Found]. It was clearly done for puritanical reasons. Changes to the other sexy chicks bother me less because the sexiness is still here :D
The other, non-sex related are postive. The new arts are much better, even though these cards weren't the worst offenders.
Consecration: How is the art Warcraft-related? It looks like it comes straight from MTG. It's also very ugly.
I see here some debate over whether people were "offended" by overly sexualized artwork, but I think that misses the point. There is way too much sexualization and objectification of women in art and culture today, and video games are (I'm pretty sure) among the worst offenders. Since these games are played by a lot of young people, and certainly more males than females, they can't help but feed toxic masculinity with this type of art. It's not about what statement it makes, it's just about having these images be commonplace and acceptable. I applaud Blizzard for making these adjustments. As others have noted, there are many more potential candidates (Aviana, etc.).
If you're upset about content changes (a Felstalker and a Succubus are not the same thing), I agree with you. However, ask yourself how important these details are compared to everything else that makes the game great.
I think the bloodshed argument is more straightforward. Are many of us okay with or even fond of the graphic detail in some of the art? Sure. Do we need this to enjoy the game? Certainly not.
I am not aware of any causal link between art and behaviour. But I will note with some bemusement how ideologies, religious or secular, have a tendency to veer off into puritanism. It's always the same argument: "ban [art I don't like] because it causes [bad thing]."
Whether that's bikini-clad women causing earthquakes, or scantily-clad harpies causing sexism, it's all a faith-based proposition.
Deadly did the reverse. WTF is the new card demonstrating. Couldn't you..say, just do a shadow effect of an arrow going through a 'target' or..well something other than a random arrow flying through the air?
I like Deadly Shot's art conceptually. It's literally the 'before' of the original picture. It's the ballista arrow that's about to pierce that tauren. It definitely pays homage to the original artwork.
A man is lying on the street, some punks chopped off his head
I agree with this 100%. Tbh I am more annoyed to see the art of Bite, Headcrack and Deadly Shot being changed than the one of the "oversexualized" female characters. Hearthstone used to refer to (World of) Warcraft with its violence and epic lore moments - now we are slowly seeing a censored, child-friendly card game (Kooky Chemist). And I know there are some cards with way more inadmissible art as Sinti said (Frost Lich Jaina), but I liked Bite and Deadly Shot for their grotesque artwork. The old cards reminded me of the moments, when I used to play a lot of Wotlk when I was a teenager, and I got a sense of nostalgia, whenever I looked at their art. The new versions (or at least some of them) fill me with disappointment.
And I don't want to offend a specific country's culture, but imho it would have been better, if this artwork change only applied in the Chinese region. This would have been similar to the case, when the Forsaken's models looked less bony and the graves were removed in the WoW Chinese servers.
A sad day in hearthstone history :(
Practiced a new deck vs. the AI warlock and first thought, "Hey, did they update the AI decks with new stuff?"
Nope, just artwork that offended some government official somewhere.
/New conspiracy theory: Elite Tauren Chieftain was really HOFed because someone hated Rock & Roll ...
//Where's my tortured strawmen, loaves of Scholomance bread on the floor and bags of sand deathrattles, China?
I don't really mind about the card art changes, for the most part the new art looks nice and crisp.
Bit annoyed about the card name changes but people will get used to it soon enough.
I am glad they used similar colour palletes for the cards so you can recognise them at a glance. All except Headcrack.... Blizz clearly realised that nobody plays it and thought "fuck it"
One thing that specially makes me angry is that this invalited their always used argument of 'we don't do this because will confuse our players', but they not only change art and names, but and entire card in Fesltaker without any previous announcement, something that genuinely confuse the playerbase, but really, I blame myself for being surprise of all of that.
Whaat about Aviana though?
I see here some debate over whether people were "offended" by overly sexualized artwork, but I think that misses the point. There is way too much sexualization and objectification of women in art and culture today, and video games are (I'm pretty sure) among the worst offenders. Since these games are played by a lot of young people, and certainly more males than females, they can't help but feed toxic masculinity with this type of art. It's not about what statement it makes, it's just about having these images be commonplace and acceptable. I applaud Blizzard for making these adjustments. As others have noted, there are many more potential candidates (Aviana, etc.).
If you're upset about content changes (a Felstalker and a Succubus are not the same thing), I agree with you. However, ask yourself how important these details are compared to everything else that makes the game great.
I think the bloodshed argument is more straightforward. Are many of us okay with or even fond of the graphic detail in some of the art? Sure. Do we need this to enjoy the game? Certainly not.
"Be excellent to each other." -Bill and Ted
literally not why they are doing this. Also, way to make yourself look like a clown
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Everytime a game changes something for being too sexual, I get reminder of this video:
EDIT (off topic): Is there any way I can put the actual video instead of just the link. The button doesn't seem to work for me.
Edit (sinti): fixed it for you.
Rating cards on coolness factor rather than predicting power because I like screwing up rating averages (and because I suck at predicting real power levels, but we'll ignore that LUL)
Wins per class (2/6/22): DH-197; Druid-996; Hunter-91«60; Mage-1056; Paladin-1126; Priest-746; Rogue-961; Shaman-1095; Warlock-871; Warrior-906
Just about everything that's been said before, say, Boomsday, is now out of commission. New change of leadership. New rules. It's why they are making fast changes to nerfs, why we get buffs and cards midseason, why old mechanics are returning, and so on. consider everything back in play until they say otherwise in RECENT post.
As far as the overall concept; it's China. China has a VERY different culture from the West and now the big money comes from them instead of us. Expect this to be a normal thing to expect now.
As far as the cards themselves:
I actually like Queen of Pain better. She's more dynamic in her art. The only thing going for the old one is that it's a 'mistress' which only works well in a "oo I sexy demon, wink wink" way. Sidenote: silly to say it's a sexual thing when the Queen is wearing almost nothing compared to the Mistress.
Eviserate: literally took me a few minutes to find what was changed...I think. It's that bit of blood? Literally makes no difference beyond just getting angry at the concept.
Succubus: I'lll admit I'm sad about this one for a second. Though now that I think about it, what IS the concept behind a succubus that steals YOUR card in order to be stronger. Makes more sense for her to have lifesteal or something. So beyond nostalgia, a random beast that's strong but takes your card makes more sense
Windfury Harpy: MUCH better art. She's still basically naked so again "THIS is the anti-sex version?" What has changed is that the new harpy's back isn't broken. Seriously guys LOOK at the old harpy's hip and back and realize bones don't go that way. Now that I see the comparison I REALLY don't want to see the old one around again. It's having that "broken jaw James Bond" feel now.
Secretkeeper: Going to be blunt, new girl is hot, old one always looked meh with a messed up face. You lose all ability to judge art styles if you disagree.*
(*yes I'm joking, but I do so much prefer the new art and always disliked the old one)
Bite: meh. I prefer the old one here. But it works so whatever.
Deadly Shot and Headcrack fail. Flat out. I don't mind changes for decency and morals but you have to keep the theme of the card, which is why I agree with Felstalker over succy. Deadly did the reverse. WTF is the new card demonstrating. Couldn't you..say, just do a shadow effect of an arrow going through a 'target' or..well something other than a random arrow flying through the air? headcrack artwise looks better, but the old one REALLY spelled out what the spell was doing: whacking someone and coming back to whack again.
So yeah, 3 improvements. 3 'meh' acceptables. 2 fails.
Why trade with minions when you can face for...billions?
Flavor text was already updated with the art
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
Very disappointed about the change to [Hearthstone Card (Succubus) Not Found]. It was clearly done for puritanical reasons. Changes to the other sexy chicks bother me less because the sexiness is still here :D
The other, non-sex related are postive. The new arts are much better, even though these cards weren't the worst offenders.
Something interesting they could do is card arts that depend on which hero is used. For instance:
EDIT: Shit, I didn't notice the other arts were changed because of the gore. Well, at least the new arts are of better quality I guess.
I am not aware of any causal link between art and behaviour. But I will note with some bemusement how ideologies, religious or secular, have a tendency to veer off into puritanism. It's always the same argument: "ban [art I don't like] because it causes [bad thing]."
Whether that's bikini-clad women causing earthquakes, or scantily-clad harpies causing sexism, it's all a faith-based proposition.
I like Deadly Shot's art conceptually. It's literally the 'before' of the original picture. It's the ballista arrow that's about to pierce that tauren. It definitely pays homage to the original artwork.
A man is lying on the street, some punks chopped off his head
I'm the only one who stops to see if he's dead.
Hmm. Turns out he's dead.
with this new art logic Whirlwind deserves double nerf to the image. Boobs + Blood
lol.
Fucking hate the new art. In every case. Hate the name changes too.
Edit: my bad just seen there is a blog on the main site
I'm pretty sure a compulsive masturbator was triggered so it got nerfed.
Deadly shot should be renamed "Merely a flesh wound shot" (text- He'll be ok, promise) to avoid offending people's sensibilities.
Cuckoldstone