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Valve's Artifact Card "Crack the Whip" [Update: card name changed to Coordinated Assault]
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
I mean to be fair, the Black Hero literally "gets the whip" like.. to use. Against whoever.
Yeah.....basically this. Don't think it is intentional but not sure how it got past
In all fairness to them it is the black character that is cracking the whip but with how PC culture is these days should've seen it 10 miles away
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YEAH seriously! Why not just light and dark? Wouldn't that avoid a lot of these problems?
To be honest, I'm tired of people complaining about stuff being offensive wah wah too. But this so clearly has has racist connotations that I'm surprised Valve's team even approved this. Like how dumb can they be.
Considering the card? None. It's got to be unintentional but it's completely ridiculous that nobody thought this was not something they should be putting on their card.
I mean, it's worked for MtG for a while now, even with them having the Fear keyword associated with the black color. It's just the combination of "whipping" and "Black Hero" that creates this issue.
It's clearly a MTG Color School where black arts are necromancy, Blue aquamancy, et cet.
Just rename this card, not the whole school of magic. Or reclassify it in a different color to avoid the obvious troubling implications.
You think people in this thread thought the card literally referenced black people...?
Magic doesn't use the term 'Black hero'. That's the critical difference, it personalises things.
Seems completely harmless. If any of you actually read the card, it's giving the hero a whip basically.
Videogame industry seems to still have issues with homogenous dev population.
Are there any black devs on the Artifact team? If so, I'm wondering what's their reaction.
Are there any black devs on the Artifact team? If so, I'm wondering what's their reaction.
It does sometimes use black creatures/tokens/permanents and so on, though I guess in that case it can seem more impersonal. But the way the game is set up, I don't think they can get away from using "[Color] Hero" without making things confusing for players.
wild that your reading comprehension skills only apply to artifact card descriptions and not posts on this forum
User warned: Disingenuous and bad faith argument
Talk about over reacting, once again.
It can be seen as racist thing if you really dig it, and oh yeah ERA does dig racism out of everything possible.
Just because 1 thing have whip and black in the same sentence it means its racist? oh boi.
It can be seen as racist thing if you really dig it, and oh yeah ERA does dig racism out of everything possible.
Just because 1 thing have whip and black in the same sentence it means its racist? oh boi.
Yes.
EDIT: Again, I'm sure this was unintentional, but they should still fix it.
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I don't think anyone reasonable is saying whoever made this card is racist, the optics are just bad. Bad enough for Valve to change the name of the card? Probably.
Yeah, you really have to dig hard to see the potential problem in this. Must be why it passed through any vetting. Really have to reach to see it.
Folks keep stating "it was a mistake"... wouldn't have happened had they actually had some "diversity".
Shouldn't be hard to change the name of the card, it helps it's still in closed alpha so I'm sure they'll change it.
Eh, I don't know about intentional. That unit already existed in DOTA 2 and it used a whip. They put it in the game and found that Black fit the card better mechanically. Of course, the name with that combination is just sad but it does seem like "just" a massive oversight.
Eh, I don't know about intentional. That unit already existed in DOTA 2 and it used a whip. They put it in the game and found that Black fit the card better mechanically. Of course, the name with that combination is just sad but it does seem like "just" a massive oversight.
It was intentional in that they didn't just let some sort of random algorithm write the card and posted it without checking it, but I sincerely doubt there was any actual malice behind the creation of the card.
I was on a design team for a parade project a few years ago, and we had to come up with an idea for a float to be used by the special needs association here in town. The parade has a western theme, so we work-shopped a bunch of ideas and eventually came up with a design for a float that looked like an old timey western jail. We had just started creating our technical drawings when we realized that the optics of parading a bunch of special needs kids in what is essentially a giant cage wouldn't play well.
Did anyone on our team intend to create something offensive? No, absolutely not. Would it have looked really bad if we finished the project using our original designs? Absolutely.
You're right that there's a non-zero chance that this is the work of a racist trying to push an agenda, but I don't see any value in not just assuming this is an unfortunate mistake for now. As long as they change it, who cares?
Even if intentional by one dumbass, how does the rest of the team miss that? Like damn huge blindspot lol.
I mean, clearly Valve doesn't have many black employees.
I see two issues at play here.
The first issue is the unfortunate coincidence of this game's terminology ("Black ______", "Blue _______", etc.) making for unintended language hiccups that are out of context. Everybody understands that and this is a simple fix. I would give the benefit of the doubt to a game developer who has stared at these words as game mechanisms and not given thought to them out of the context of the game.
The bigger issue here is the depiction of or participation in slavery in a game, and this is independent of whether it's a "Black Hero" named on the card or a "Green Hero", or whether the characters in the art are human or lizards. Anybody designing any games really should give more thought to the specter they're raising when they're handling slavery as a topic (or a playable option!) in their game. Slavery is an abhorrent practice that should not be welcome openly.
So what I would ask Valve is, in their review process of these cards, I understand the coincidence of using color names as your game terms, but the card name and the art is deliberate, and was any of that a thing that got a question mark at any point?
The first issue is the unfortunate coincidence of this game's terminology ("Black ______", "Blue _______", etc.) making for unintended language hiccups that are out of context. Everybody understands that and this is a simple fix. I would give the benefit of the doubt to a game developer who has stared at these words as game mechanisms and not given thought to them out of the context of the game.
The bigger issue here is the depiction of or participation in slavery in a game, and this is independent of whether it's a "Black Hero" named on the card or a "Green Hero", or whether the characters in the art are human or lizards. Anybody designing any games really should give more thought to the specter they're raising when they're handling slavery as a topic (or a playable option!) in their game. Slavery is an abhorrent practice that should not be welcome openly.
So what I would ask Valve is, in their review process of these cards, I understand the coincidence of using color names as your game terms, but the card name and the art is deliberate, and was any of that a thing that got a question mark at any point?
OP
OP
There it is. Quite refreshing to see Valve responding quickly to criticism.
The image at least refers to a group of creeps that's been in Dota 2 since at least 2010 I think. The combination with the wording of a "black hero" is still unfortunate.
I guess since it's a image of a dude with a whip and the text uses wording of "black hero". Those creatures aren't black though.