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Valve's Artifact Card "Crack the Whip" [Update: card name changed to Coordinated Assault]

Razor Mom

Razor Mom

Member
Jan 2, 2018
2,546
United Kingdom
This is extremely unfortunate. Kind of feel for the dev team because after years of churning away on mechanics and stuff, you do absolutely end up blind to things that are otherwise really obvious from an outside perspective. And sometimes you end up with... Well... This.
 
Hagi

Hagi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,950
Minsc said:
They could fix this by renaming the card, but if black hero is a recurring target, they'll inevitably run in to more issues as cards are created that target black heroes. I think they're just going to have to replace the black hero to be another color going by this thread, though white hero doesn't sound any better, or most other colors, like yellow hero.
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They will be fine just changing the name and making sure there's no cards that target black heroes with racist connotations in the name. Shouldn't be that difficult.
 
Darryl M R

Darryl M R

The Spectacular PlayStation-Man
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,718
Stygr said:
So i don't find the issue, these creeps are already available in Dota 2 and they have a whip.
It's just a coincidence, people are reading too much into this.
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Posts like yours are some of the lowest effort posts on this forum.

No one is arguing it is anything more than a coincidence. One that happened due to not having enough diverse perspective in the creation of the card.
 
DSP

DSP

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,120
Razor Mom said:
This is extremely unfortunate. Kind of feel for the dev team because after years of churning away on mechanics and stuff, you do absolutely end up blind to things that are otherwise really obvious from an outside perspective. And sometimes you end up with... Well... This.
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They had the game in close beta for several months now, nobody told them this? Hundreds of players are playing with these cards already. I find that hard to believe.
 
Sober

Sober

Member
Oct 25, 2017
951
Stygr said:
This is what Valve means with "Black hero"
This has nothing to do with skin color, at all

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Well yeah, but the problem is a mixture of "didn't think it through" on top of "MTG took all the good terms and we can't use them" that I've seen on plenty of MTG-alikes.

"Crack the whip" and "Black Hero" are basically the conflation of these two problems unfortunately.
 
0451

0451

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,190
Canada
Just rename it "Foreman's Order" or something. That way they don't have to change the art of the Kobold Foreman.
 
Won

Won

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,426
I assume the are going to drop calling the colours just by the colours and replace it with some flavor.

Even if they "fix" this, they are not gonna be able to write around it forever.
 
Eumi

Eumi

Member
Nov 3, 2017
3,518
Stygr said:
So i don't find the issue, these creeps are already available in Dota 2 and they have a whip.
It's just a coincidence, people are reading too much into this.
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I think maybe it's you reading too much into these responses.

Of course it's a coincidence. Everyone knows that.
 
Razor Mom

Razor Mom

Member
Jan 2, 2018
2,546
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FullMetalTech said:
Still a Black Hero .. in chains is not any better. I know they mean something else though.Not sure how theyreally let this stuff pass.
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I'm guessing they've colour coded in terms of things like "black magic" and "dark arts" etc etc. That is, black meaning morbid or evil. But I guess if there was a bubonic plague today, "the black death" would probably give the wrong connotations too. Black Friday? Still, obviously it's a bad look.
 
mjc

mjc

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
5,879
Oh god, Valve.

lmao this cannot be real. How did nobody even think about changing that.
 
0451

0451

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,190
Canada
Janna OP said:
classic valve
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Were there other instances of unintentional racism?

Razor Mom said:
I'm guessing they've colour coded in terms of things like "black magic" and "dark arts" etc etc. That is, black meaning morbid or evil. But I guess if there was a bubonic plague today, "the black death" would probably give the wrong connotations too. Black Friday? Still, obviously it's a bad look.
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It's an issue that MTG has had to deal with since it's inception but I feel they've done a good job, at least since I've played, not pairing the Black cards with any keywords, lore, flavour and mechanics that could be misinterpreted or misrepresented. This card will singlehandedly ruin any Twitch chat the second it's drawn or played.
 
Ebullientprism

Ebullientprism

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Oct 25, 2017
3,529
Holy fuck lol. I am sure it will get changed but it is kinda hilarious.
 

Deleted member 8561

user requested account closure
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Stygr said:
So i don't find the issue, these creeps are already available in Dota 2 and they have a whip.
It's just a coincidence, people are reading too much into this.
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Nobody is reading too much into it, they are literally reading the card and going "wow this sounds horrible"


Stygr said:
But Lich is not black and he is not chained in an oppressive way.
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Lich/Lore
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Oh ok you're just trolling
 
HylianSeven

HylianSeven

Shin Megami TC - Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,028
I'm willing to bet this was a mistake and hopefully they realize the backlash and fix it.

Dumb question: Would it be better if they just changed the name to "Intense Training" or something like that?
 
PSqueak

PSqueak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,464
Oof, that's what happens when you're so deep into the game's gameplay mechanics that you completely neglect to see how that sounds out of context.
 
jph139

jph139

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
14,365
Having your game based around colors always brings out situations like this. At least this was 100% unintentional - Magic's had way worse in the past. Still have no idea how Invoke Prejudice slipped under the radar:

62.jpg
 
Regiruler

Regiruler

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,279
United States
This is one of the benefits of using an elemental system like yugioh instead of a color system like Magic.
jph139 said:
Having your game based around colors always brings out situations like this. At least this was 100% unintentional - Magic's had way worse in the past. Still have no idea how Invoke Prejudice slipped under the radar:
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That's not slipping under the radar. That's barreling through the war zone at full speed. THEY HAVE POINTED HOODS FOR FUCKS SAKE.
 
JudgeN

JudgeN

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Oct 25, 2017
265
I knew exactly what it means when I read it but I guess we going to do this? What an age we live in.
 

Deleted member 8196

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User warned: Disingenuous and bad faith argument
TheLostBigBoss said:
Oh ok you're just trolling
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No, since i'm used to play Magic, i already know: "Black Card" is not refering to race or ethnicity, and as a Dota 2 player, these creeps already exist, i don't see problem with the card itself, but if you guys think it's wrong well, you have the right to protest. I just showed to people what a Black Card is, nothing more.
 

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Stygr said:
No, since i'm used to play Magic, i already know: "Black Card" is not refering to race or ethnicity, and as a Dota 2 player, these creeps already exist, i don't see problem with the card itself, but if you guys think it's wrong well, you have the right to protest. I just showed to people what a Black Card is, nothing more.
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Nobody is saying it's referring to race or ethnicity in the context, learn how to read.
 

Deleted member 3058

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Stygr said:
No, since i'm used to play Magic, i already know: "Black Card" is not refering to race or ethnicity, and as a Dota 2 player, these creeps already exist, i don't see problem with the card itself, but if you guys think it's wrong well, you have the right to protest. I just showed to people what a Black Card is, nothing more.
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Dude

No one is protesting.

We all know that black cards don't refer to people with dark skin. No one thinks this is intentionally racist.

But a lot of us think that if they had a more diverse staff someone would have picked up on this card's issues before they tweeted it out to the entire world.
 
Gestault

Gestault

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Oct 26, 2017
13,356
I don't believe for a second that no one in their pipeline didn't see that for exactly what it is as they worked through producing it. Even if it was originally a just a happenstance, there's a reason humans are involved in the creative process.
 
Mad

Mad

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Oct 25, 2017
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As having worked on digital card games before (Foreign ones specifically) we had like 7-8? layers per card and the text was one of them so it was easy enough to change but as it's the internet it's going to explode get huge, get fixed/changed people will go "Hey remember xyz" and say "Yeah that was pretty bad, I think"
 
Eumi

Eumi

Member
Nov 3, 2017
3,518
Stygr said:
No, since i'm used to play Magic, i already know: "Black Card" is not refering to race or ethnicity, and as a Dota 2 player, these creeps already exist, i don't see problem with the card itself, but if you guys think it's wrong well, you have the right to protest. I just showed to people what a Black Card is, nothing more.
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Nobody thought it was referring to skin colour. I don't know how you thought they did.
 
LucidMomentum

LucidMomentum

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Nov 18, 2017
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This is why MTG typically uses the Mana symbol and not the color name of the Mana so as to make these situations not come up.
 
Teclis

Teclis

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User Banned (1 Month): Dismissive post in a sensitive topic. Junior account.
That's Era for you up in arms over something stupid. There is no racism here but you all found some to conjure up amazing.
 
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