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Made in ca
Mekboy on Kustom Deth Kopta




 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
For instance, because I never tire of posting it, this show lots of skin (including naked breasts) but it is not sexualization:
(Beware, trailer for a children movie)
[youtube]


The puritans in the states would freak out and lose their minds over this one. Just look at all the nonsense they said about disney hunchback OMG it's a naked girl in the flames, boycott it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/09/09 20:11:40


 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





Chicago, Illinois

sirlynchmob wrote:


The puritans in the states would freak out and lose their minds over this one. Just look at all the nonsense they said about disney hunchback OMG it's a naked girl in the flames, boycott it.


To be honest that scene is the darkest in all of disney history. Its about pure lust. How an old man wants the flesh of a gypsy woman. And is inner turmoil about it.

So yeah... I mean it was kind of dark. (But it is the best villain song ever)

From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. 
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





sirlynchmob wrote:
The puritans in the states would freak out and lose their minds over this one.

Why, they would succeed in delaying the release of the movie fro 4 years. But they will loose in the end.
Ah, the U.S.

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

A lot of that 'puritanism' is straight up sexism.

   
Made in fr
Trazyn's Museum Curator





on the forum. Obviously

 Asherian Command wrote:
sirlynchmob wrote:


The puritans in the states would freak out and lose their minds over this one. Just look at all the nonsense they said about disney hunchback OMG it's a naked girl in the flames, boycott it.


To be honest that scene is the darkest in all of disney history. Its about pure lust. How an old man wants the flesh of a gypsy woman. And is inner turmoil about it.

So yeah... I mean it was kind of dark. (But it is the best villain song ever)


You mean this?




I love it. It's metal as feth.
I mean, the imagery and animation alone is chilling, and the song adds even more to the atmosphere.

Also, she's not actually naked...she's wearing a night dress.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/09/09 20:20:34


What I have
~4100
~1660

Westwood lives in death!
Peace through power!

A longbeard when it comes to Necrons and WHFB. Grumble Grumble

 
   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

Oh the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I got the pleasure of reading a really, really, good paper on that movie. Of the three men in the movie, two of them treat Esmeralda in a sexist manner (Quasimodo and Frollo both view her as something they've earned or deserve) with Phoebus being the only one of the three to treat Esmeralda as an actual person, valuing her inner and outer beauty while Frollo only values the outer, and Quasimodo the inner.

It was a very intriguing paper

   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





Maybe they have some very strange form of color blindness? I think it is called “ideological bias”.

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
Consigned to the Grim Darkness





USA

 Manchu wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by trends. The impression I get is people who reject criticisms of sexist character design do so by making false equivalence arguments about surface area of exposed skin or zero sum arguments.
"There is a trend of gamemakers thinking it is more important to depict a woman as sexy than as capable" being one example of an argument raised, then responded to by people who have no understanding of the idea of a trend.

The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





Chicago, Illinois

 Melissia wrote:
 Manchu wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by trends. The impression I get is people who reject criticisms of sexist character design do so by making false equivalence arguments about surface area of exposed skin or zero sum arguments.
"There is a trend of gamemakers thinking it is more important to depict a woman as sexy than as capable" being one example of an argument raised, then responded to by people who have no understanding of the idea of a trend.


Yes that is a trend or a cliche in the gaming industry. But over the last few years we've been seeing less and less of that.

Sorta.

From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. 
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





That trend it still strong in the mobas.

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





Chicago, Illinois

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
That trend it still strong in the mobas.


Which ones? Smite I know does, but some of the characters have a reason to be like that.

I remember one of the interviewers was interviewing a Blizzard Rep.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/22/blizzard-on-heroes-of-the-storm-female-designs-in-mobas/

Spoiler:
Blizzard On Heroes Of The Storm, Female Designs In MOBAs

By Nathan Grayson on November 22nd, 2013 at 9:00 pm.Tweet this



Papa Blizzard, Papa Blizzard! Why are Aunt Kerrigan and Uncle Diablo fighting? No, seriously, why? I didn’t even know they were from the same side of the family. Or the same dimension. And yet, for all the “because why not”-ness of the game’s premise, Heroes of the Storm plays quite nicely, taking MOBA mechanics and sanding down the rough edges to a point of real intuitiveness – sculpting a svelte ice swan from a figurative iceberg. I discussed the surprise hit of BlizzCon with game director Dustin Browder, and we touched on everything from business models to plans for a map editor to whether or not Heroes counts as a “casual” MOBA. That was all delightful. Unfortunately, Browder’s perspective on the MOBA genre’s epidemic of absurd, hypersexualized female characters turned out significantly less so.


RPS: What is the Storm? How does one become a hero of it? Is it at all important to any sort of story? A blizzard is a type of storm. Is it just another way to say Heroes of Blizzard?

Browder: Honestly, theories differ. Some people have said that it’s Heroes of Blizzard, because yeah, Blizzard is a storm. Other people have said the Nexus is sort of a storm of worlds crashing together. That’s where it’s come from. And some people just thought it was a cool-sounding word.

Inside the studio, I think you get all three of those answers to where it comes from and what it means.

RPS: Is there any sort of story here – if not with narrations and cut-scenes then through, say, little mid-match character interactions ala League of Legends?

Browder: It’s very light in terms of how it’s done. Heroes meet in the Nexus to battle it out. For glory, for honor, and kind of just for the fun of it. It’s not canon or because Thrall died in some battle and now he can’t be in Orgrimmar or something. It’s very loose. I mean, this is a game where at some point a murloc is gonna get Diablo in a headlock and kill him. It’s not a serious game. It’s not a serious part of the lore.



We’re doing some character interaction stuff, though. We’ve got heroes who will talk back-and-forth to each other. We have a line where Nova kills Arthas, and she’s like, “Who’s the ghost now?” We’ll try to have relationships. We certainly had discussions about Kerrigan and Raynor when they’re on the same team, when they’re on separate teams, etc. So I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with relationships that already exist and ones you might imagine would exist if these characters came together.

RPS: Over the years, I’ve developed a wild theory: Blizzard is not, in fact, an altruistic charity like everyone presumes, but is instead some sort of business. How do you plan on making money off this one?

Browder: At this point, the basic outline I can give you is that we’re probably gonna have a rotation of heroes you can check out or change over time. We’re gonna give you an earned currency you can use to check out or permanently purchase anything you want to use in the game. We’re excited about the idea of – though I’m not sure if we’re going to go this way or not – hero-specific quests that you can complete. Those will earn you things.

We’ve also really geeked out about what the Hearthstone guys did with their quest system. They encouraged people to play as different classes in that game. I don’t have a Druid deck, but I got a quest the other night to be one. Six hours later, I’m playing my new Druid deck and optimizing it. It got me out of my rut of playing my Warrior deck. We’re excited by the idea of maybe doing something similar to that.

We also want to give you additional earned currency for playing with your friends. So if you just went into chat and made a friend, that’s totally OK. We want to get you playing with your buddies, form new relationships, and try new things. Those are the basic values of the system we’re building.

RPS: LoL and DOTA have taken eSports by storm, but how is your Storm going to take eSports by… DOTA? No, that really doesn’t work. Please act as though I said nothing, but randomly answer a question about similar topics stated much more eloquently.

Browder: We’re pretty much going to do what we did with StarCraft II. We’re going to provide the tools, we’re going to provide all the features we have time to create, and we’re going to create the best game possible. Then we’re going to see what the community does with it.



That’s exactly what happened with StarCraft, and now here we are years later doing WCS. This is after years of community development, and we’re looking at it saying, “How can we help this community be stronger and better? How can we help our partners to do better on their end?” So we’re trying to very gently support our community and make sure that they’re as successful as they deserve to be.

It’ll be the same way with Heroes. And if the community takes it to a place where we find ways to help them, then we will come in with everything we can to help them be successful.

RPS: I suppose Heroes of the Storm would also make for a pretty different eSports proposition than LoL or DOTA. It’s streamlined in a way that I think people are enjoying quite a bit, but that also makes it – and this has become a pretty dirty word in the gaming industry – a lot more casual.

Browder: It’s like Hearthstone in that respect. Is that game casual? Yeah, sometimes. But after you play it for a while, is it anymore? It’s a very competitive game. It is, in many ways, simpler than what anyone else has done.

We’ve removed things that we didn’t like in the genre for Heroes, and we’ve added new things to make it even more complicated. Or maybe more challenging, is a better way to put it. It’s not about providing you with 17 choices that are all watered down. It’s about providing a few choices that are each like a nail in your brain. Like, “Oooooof! Which three… [gasps dramatically] I don’t know!” That’s what makes great game design.

I think the game will be competitive. I actually feel like it’s competitive when we play in the office. I don’t feel like it’s very casual. I feel like my need to coordinate with my team over map objectives is enormous. The better team wins, and the worse team loses. We need to come together as a group and win these matches by correct composition, by correct positioning, by hitting skillshots – the whole thing.

But I don’t know where it’s going. You could totally be right.



RPS: It’s certainly an interesting position to be in. So far, the genre has thrived on players who are super dedicated to eating up all sorts of tiny, sometimes arbitrary nuances – both in order to understand the rules and, ultimately, to be best at playing their favorite characters. The best MOBAs fuse the thrill of rapid-fire character building with the long-term satisfaction of learning. I can’t help but wonder if your game can match that level of near-bottomless depth. Do you even want it to?

Browder: That is awesome [that players can have that kind of experience with those games]. There are players who will continue to like that, and they won’t find as much of that in this game, and they won’t like it as much as a result.

RPS: What sort of crowd are you aiming to pull in?

Browder: The crowd that likes Heroes of the Storm.

We don’t really know, to be honest. There’s this belief that we must do a bunch of market research before we start making games. We have all these clever guys and we do all these focus groups. We get this perfect target audience [demographic], this guy, and then we build our games especially for him. But really at Blizzard we build the games we want to play. We build games that get us excited and are aesthetically pleasing to us. They have clean game design. They have pretty art. The code is well-built. We like these things, and we hope they find an audience.

We don’t necessarily want Heroes to be like WoW, but I’m using WoW as a comparison. When they shipped it back in 2004, the biggest MMO at the time was EverQuest. I remember people saying, “EverQuest is the real game, and WoW is just the dumbed-down version of EverQuest.” That was some of the feedback. What WoW had done was remove some things – XP loss on death, the challenges of sitting for a long time to recover, etc – and then it added more in other areas.



It was easy to look at that and be like, “Oh, they just removed some gak.” But once people got into it, they realized there was always other stuff.

That’s what we’re going for. I don’t know if we’ve succeeded. We could totally fail. But we’re trying to create an experience where we’ve gotten rid of some stuff and added other stuff. It’s its own experience. We feel like when we play, it’s very competitive and very scary and there’s a lot of skill involved, but we’ll see.

RPS: Heroes’ maps are already fairly elaborate – at least, insofar as some have “quest”-like objectives and others have multiple locations/tiers – but how crazy are you planning to get with future additions?

Browder: That’s the beauty of having the map editor we have and building a game around different battlegrounds. We want to communicate to players very early that this is not about one map. This is not about a collection of maps. This is about a constantly evolving selection.

It’s a lot like what we did with StarCraft II. We shipped that in 2010, and the general consensus from the community was, “Make Lost Temple, and then go away. We don’t need your maps.” And we were like, “O… OK.” So we made a bunch of maps like Lost Temple. But here we are in 2013, and if we don’t update the map pool every couple of weeks or months, the community is up on us like, “Dude, where’s my new maps?” And that’s right. That’s correct. That’s one way to play with a constantly evolving set of terrain.

We really want to do that with Heroes as well. In 2015 at BlizzCon, you could come in with an idea for a battleground and pitch it to me, and I might say, “Oh, OK. Sounds cool.” I can take that back to the studio, put it into the editor, and have something up in just a couple weeks.



RPS: Surely, then – between that and this game’s origins as a StarCraft editor showcase – the natural conclusion is a Heroes map tool that anyone can use?

Browder: I certainly hope that it is.

We’re talking in the studio about the challenges that we have as a free-to-play game. You know, in StarCraft if you start using the editor to upload pornography, we can ban your game and ban your account, and you’re out. In a free-to-play game, we don’t really have that option. You can always create a new account.

So there are a few hiccups we have to work out in terms of security of the service. But once those are solved, we’ve got some ideas. We just need to decide which ones make the most sense. I think once those are out of the way, you can expect to see an arcade, a map editor, the whole thing. We’d love that as part of our game. I mean, it’s helped create this whole genre. We wouldn’t even be here without that.

[PR motions that time is running low]

RPS: You have some interesting alternate outfits for heroes. Roller Derby Nova, especially, caught my eye. On its own, that’s totally fine – just a silly, goofy thing. A one-off. But it got me thinking about how often MOBAs tend to hyper-sexualize female characters to a generally preposterous degree – that is to say, make it the norm, not a one-off at all – and StarCraft’s own, um, interesting focus choices as of late. How are you planning to approach all of that in Heroes?

Browder: Well, I mean, some of these characters, I would argue, are already hyper-sexualized in a sense. I mean, Kerrigan is wearing heels, right? We’re not sending a message to anybody. We’re just making characters who look cool. Our sensibilities are more comic book than anything else. That’s sort of where we’re at. But I’ll take the feedback. I think it’s very fair feedback.



RPS: I have to add, though, that comics might not be the best point of reference for this sort of thing. I mean, it’s a medium that’s notorious – often in a not-good way – for sexing up female characters and putting them in some fairly gross situations.

Browder: We’re not running for President. We’re not sending a message. No one should look to our game for that.

RPS: But it’s not even about a message. The goal is to let people have fun in an environment where they can feel awesome without being weirded out or even objectified. This is a genre about empowerment. Why shouldn’t everyone feel empowered? That’s what it’s about at the end of the day: letting everyone have a fair chance to feel awesome.

Browder: Uh-huh. Cool. Totally.

[PR says we've run over, tells me I have to leave]

RPS: Thank you for your time.

NOTE: This interview, quite obviously, ended in an uncomfortable place, and I decided to break that down at length in a separate opinion piece. It will be live soon, and I’ll link it here when it’s been posted.

Its kind of funny, because the Designer means well, but the interviewer had another hidden agenda, and only wanted to you know not ask questions about the game, but about sexism.

Which is all in good, but I don't think that is what people are interested in particularly.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/09/09 21:47:38


From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Browder wrote:
We’re not sending a message to anybody.


Creating media does not work that way.
   
Made in fr
Hallowed Canoness





 Asherian Command wrote:
Which ones? Smite I know does, but some of the characters have a reason to be like that.

Smite, LoL, Heroes of Newerth, …
Basically all of them.
Strife, the one I am currently playing, is mostly okay, with only one very sexualized character. The one featured in the tutorial .
 Asherian Command wrote:
I remember one of the interviewers was interviewing a Blizzard Rep.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/22/blizzard-on-heroes-of-the-storm-female-designs-in-mobas/

Spoiler:
Blizzard On Heroes Of The Storm, Female Designs In MOBAs

By Nathan Grayson on November 22nd, 2013 at 9:00 pm.Tweet this



Papa Blizzard, Papa Blizzard! Why are Aunt Kerrigan and Uncle Diablo fighting? No, seriously, why? I didn’t even know they were from the same side of the family. Or the same dimension. And yet, for all the “because why not”-ness of the game’s premise, Heroes of the Storm plays quite nicely, taking MOBA mechanics and sanding down the rough edges to a point of real intuitiveness – sculpting a svelte ice swan from a figurative iceberg. I discussed the surprise hit of BlizzCon with game director Dustin Browder, and we touched on everything from business models to plans for a map editor to whether or not Heroes counts as a “casual” MOBA. That was all delightful. Unfortunately, Browder’s perspective on the MOBA genre’s epidemic of absurd, hypersexualized female characters turned out significantly less so.


RPS: What is the Storm? How does one become a hero of it? Is it at all important to any sort of story? A blizzard is a type of storm. Is it just another way to say Heroes of Blizzard?

Browder: Honestly, theories differ. Some people have said that it’s Heroes of Blizzard, because yeah, Blizzard is a storm. Other people have said the Nexus is sort of a storm of worlds crashing together. That’s where it’s come from. And some people just thought it was a cool-sounding word.

Inside the studio, I think you get all three of those answers to where it comes from and what it means.

RPS: Is there any sort of story here – if not with narrations and cut-scenes then through, say, little mid-match character interactions ala League of Legends?

Browder: It’s very light in terms of how it’s done. Heroes meet in the Nexus to battle it out. For glory, for honor, and kind of just for the fun of it. It’s not canon or because Thrall died in some battle and now he can’t be in Orgrimmar or something. It’s very loose. I mean, this is a game where at some point a murloc is gonna get Diablo in a headlock and kill him. It’s not a serious game. It’s not a serious part of the lore.



We’re doing some character interaction stuff, though. We’ve got heroes who will talk back-and-forth to each other. We have a line where Nova kills Arthas, and she’s like, “Who’s the ghost now?” We’ll try to have relationships. We certainly had discussions about Kerrigan and Raynor when they’re on the same team, when they’re on separate teams, etc. So I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with relationships that already exist and ones you might imagine would exist if these characters came together.

RPS: Over the years, I’ve developed a wild theory: Blizzard is not, in fact, an altruistic charity like everyone presumes, but is instead some sort of business. How do you plan on making money off this one?

Browder: At this point, the basic outline I can give you is that we’re probably gonna have a rotation of heroes you can check out or change over time. We’re gonna give you an earned currency you can use to check out or permanently purchase anything you want to use in the game. We’re excited about the idea of – though I’m not sure if we’re going to go this way or not – hero-specific quests that you can complete. Those will earn you things.

We’ve also really geeked out about what the Hearthstone guys did with their quest system. They encouraged people to play as different classes in that game. I don’t have a Druid deck, but I got a quest the other night to be one. Six hours later, I’m playing my new Druid deck and optimizing it. It got me out of my rut of playing my Warrior deck. We’re excited by the idea of maybe doing something similar to that.

We also want to give you additional earned currency for playing with your friends. So if you just went into chat and made a friend, that’s totally OK. We want to get you playing with your buddies, form new relationships, and try new things. Those are the basic values of the system we’re building.

RPS: LoL and DOTA have taken eSports by storm, but how is your Storm going to take eSports by… DOTA? No, that really doesn’t work. Please act as though I said nothing, but randomly answer a question about similar topics stated much more eloquently.

Browder: We’re pretty much going to do what we did with StarCraft II. We’re going to provide the tools, we’re going to provide all the features we have time to create, and we’re going to create the best game possible. Then we’re going to see what the community does with it.



That’s exactly what happened with StarCraft, and now here we are years later doing WCS. This is after years of community development, and we’re looking at it saying, “How can we help this community be stronger and better? How can we help our partners to do better on their end?” So we’re trying to very gently support our community and make sure that they’re as successful as they deserve to be.

It’ll be the same way with Heroes. And if the community takes it to a place where we find ways to help them, then we will come in with everything we can to help them be successful.

RPS: I suppose Heroes of the Storm would also make for a pretty different eSports proposition than LoL or DOTA. It’s streamlined in a way that I think people are enjoying quite a bit, but that also makes it – and this has become a pretty dirty word in the gaming industry – a lot more casual.

Browder: It’s like Hearthstone in that respect. Is that game casual? Yeah, sometimes. But after you play it for a while, is it anymore? It’s a very competitive game. It is, in many ways, simpler than what anyone else has done.

We’ve removed things that we didn’t like in the genre for Heroes, and we’ve added new things to make it even more complicated. Or maybe more challenging, is a better way to put it. It’s not about providing you with 17 choices that are all watered down. It’s about providing a few choices that are each like a nail in your brain. Like, “Oooooof! Which three… [gasps dramatically] I don’t know!” That’s what makes great game design.

I think the game will be competitive. I actually feel like it’s competitive when we play in the office. I don’t feel like it’s very casual. I feel like my need to coordinate with my team over map objectives is enormous. The better team wins, and the worse team loses. We need to come together as a group and win these matches by correct composition, by correct positioning, by hitting skillshots – the whole thing.

But I don’t know where it’s going. You could totally be right.



RPS: It’s certainly an interesting position to be in. So far, the genre has thrived on players who are super dedicated to eating up all sorts of tiny, sometimes arbitrary nuances – both in order to understand the rules and, ultimately, to be best at playing their favorite characters. The best MOBAs fuse the thrill of rapid-fire character building with the long-term satisfaction of learning. I can’t help but wonder if your game can match that level of near-bottomless depth. Do you even want it to?

Browder: That is awesome [that players can have that kind of experience with those games]. There are players who will continue to like that, and they won’t find as much of that in this game, and they won’t like it as much as a result.

RPS: What sort of crowd are you aiming to pull in?

Browder: The crowd that likes Heroes of the Storm.

We don’t really know, to be honest. There’s this belief that we must do a bunch of market research before we start making games. We have all these clever guys and we do all these focus groups. We get this perfect target audience [demographic], this guy, and then we build our games especially for him. But really at Blizzard we build the games we want to play. We build games that get us excited and are aesthetically pleasing to us. They have clean game design. They have pretty art. The code is well-built. We like these things, and we hope they find an audience.

We don’t necessarily want Heroes to be like WoW, but I’m using WoW as a comparison. When they shipped it back in 2004, the biggest MMO at the time was EverQuest. I remember people saying, “EverQuest is the real game, and WoW is just the dumbed-down version of EverQuest.” That was some of the feedback. What WoW had done was remove some things – XP loss on death, the challenges of sitting for a long time to recover, etc – and then it added more in other areas.



It was easy to look at that and be like, “Oh, they just removed some gak.” But once people got into it, they realized there was always other stuff.

That’s what we’re going for. I don’t know if we’ve succeeded. We could totally fail. But we’re trying to create an experience where we’ve gotten rid of some stuff and added other stuff. It’s its own experience. We feel like when we play, it’s very competitive and very scary and there’s a lot of skill involved, but we’ll see.

RPS: Heroes’ maps are already fairly elaborate – at least, insofar as some have “quest”-like objectives and others have multiple locations/tiers – but how crazy are you planning to get with future additions?

Browder: That’s the beauty of having the map editor we have and building a game around different battlegrounds. We want to communicate to players very early that this is not about one map. This is not about a collection of maps. This is about a constantly evolving selection.

It’s a lot like what we did with StarCraft II. We shipped that in 2010, and the general consensus from the community was, “Make Lost Temple, and then go away. We don’t need your maps.” And we were like, “O… OK.” So we made a bunch of maps like Lost Temple. But here we are in 2013, and if we don’t update the map pool every couple of weeks or months, the community is up on us like, “Dude, where’s my new maps?” And that’s right. That’s correct. That’s one way to play with a constantly evolving set of terrain.

We really want to do that with Heroes as well. In 2015 at BlizzCon, you could come in with an idea for a battleground and pitch it to me, and I might say, “Oh, OK. Sounds cool.” I can take that back to the studio, put it into the editor, and have something up in just a couple weeks.



RPS: Surely, then – between that and this game’s origins as a StarCraft editor showcase – the natural conclusion is a Heroes map tool that anyone can use?

Browder: I certainly hope that it is.

We’re talking in the studio about the challenges that we have as a free-to-play game. You know, in StarCraft if you start using the editor to upload pornography, we can ban your game and ban your account, and you’re out. In a free-to-play game, we don’t really have that option. You can always create a new account.

So there are a few hiccups we have to work out in terms of security of the service. But once those are solved, we’ve got some ideas. We just need to decide which ones make the most sense. I think once those are out of the way, you can expect to see an arcade, a map editor, the whole thing. We’d love that as part of our game. I mean, it’s helped create this whole genre. We wouldn’t even be here without that.

[PR motions that time is running low]

RPS: You have some interesting alternate outfits for heroes. Roller Derby Nova, especially, caught my eye. On its own, that’s totally fine – just a silly, goofy thing. A one-off. But it got me thinking about how often MOBAs tend to hyper-sexualize female characters to a generally preposterous degree – that is to say, make it the norm, not a one-off at all – and StarCraft’s own, um, interesting focus choices as of late. How are you planning to approach all of that in Heroes?

Browder: Well, I mean, some of these characters, I would argue, are already hyper-sexualized in a sense. I mean, Kerrigan is wearing heels, right? We’re not sending a message to anybody. We’re just making characters who look cool. Our sensibilities are more comic book than anything else. That’s sort of where we’re at. But I’ll take the feedback. I think it’s very fair feedback.



RPS: I have to add, though, that comics might not be the best point of reference for this sort of thing. I mean, it’s a medium that’s notorious – often in a not-good way – for sexing up female characters and putting them in some fairly gross situations.

Browder: We’re not running for President. We’re not sending a message. No one should look to our game for that.

RPS: But it’s not even about a message. The goal is to let people have fun in an environment where they can feel awesome without being weirded out or even objectified. This is a genre about empowerment. Why shouldn’t everyone feel empowered? That’s what it’s about at the end of the day: letting everyone have a fair chance to feel awesome.

Browder: Uh-huh. Cool. Totally.

[PR says we've run over, tells me I have to leave]

RPS: Thank you for your time.

NOTE: This interview, quite obviously, ended in an uncomfortable place, and I decided to break that down at length in a separate opinion piece. It will be live soon, and I’ll link it here when it’s been posted.

Its kind of funny, because the Designer means well, but the interviewer had another hidden agenda, and only wanted to you know not ask questions about the game, but about sexism.

Which is all in good, but I don't think that is what people are interested in particularly.

I remember it too. What hidden agenda are you talking about? He did ask tons of question about the game, and he also asked a question about if the game would follow some trend that some people have problem with. Personally, I was interested in that, and I am glad he asked the question. Not every question is going to be about something you personally are interested about.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/09/09 22:29:12


"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:
Which ones? Smite I know does, but some of the characters have a reason to be like that.

Smite, LoL, Heroes of Newerth, …
Basically all of them.
Strife, the one I am currently playing, is mostly okay, with only one very sexualized character. The one featured in the tutorial .
 Asherian Command wrote:
I remember one of the interviewers was interviewing a Blizzard Rep.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/22/blizzard-on-heroes-of-the-storm-female-designs-in-mobas/

Spoiler:
Blizzard On Heroes Of The Storm, Female Designs In MOBAs

By Nathan Grayson on November 22nd, 2013 at 9:00 pm.Tweet this



Papa Blizzard, Papa Blizzard! Why are Aunt Kerrigan and Uncle Diablo fighting? No, seriously, why? I didn’t even know they were from the same side of the family. Or the same dimension. And yet, for all the “because why not”-ness of the game’s premise, Heroes of the Storm plays quite nicely, taking MOBA mechanics and sanding down the rough edges to a point of real intuitiveness – sculpting a svelte ice swan from a figurative iceberg. I discussed the surprise hit of BlizzCon with game director Dustin Browder, and we touched on everything from business models to plans for a map editor to whether or not Heroes counts as a “casual” MOBA. That was all delightful. Unfortunately, Browder’s perspective on the MOBA genre’s epidemic of absurd, hypersexualized female characters turned out significantly less so.


RPS: What is the Storm? How does one become a hero of it? Is it at all important to any sort of story? A blizzard is a type of storm. Is it just another way to say Heroes of Blizzard?

Browder: Honestly, theories differ. Some people have said that it’s Heroes of Blizzard, because yeah, Blizzard is a storm. Other people have said the Nexus is sort of a storm of worlds crashing together. That’s where it’s come from. And some people just thought it was a cool-sounding word.

Inside the studio, I think you get all three of those answers to where it comes from and what it means.

RPS: Is there any sort of story here – if not with narrations and cut-scenes then through, say, little mid-match character interactions ala League of Legends?

Browder: It’s very light in terms of how it’s done. Heroes meet in the Nexus to battle it out. For glory, for honor, and kind of just for the fun of it. It’s not canon or because Thrall died in some battle and now he can’t be in Orgrimmar or something. It’s very loose. I mean, this is a game where at some point a murloc is gonna get Diablo in a headlock and kill him. It’s not a serious game. It’s not a serious part of the lore.



We’re doing some character interaction stuff, though. We’ve got heroes who will talk back-and-forth to each other. We have a line where Nova kills Arthas, and she’s like, “Who’s the ghost now?” We’ll try to have relationships. We certainly had discussions about Kerrigan and Raynor when they’re on the same team, when they’re on separate teams, etc. So I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with relationships that already exist and ones you might imagine would exist if these characters came together.

RPS: Over the years, I’ve developed a wild theory: Blizzard is not, in fact, an altruistic charity like everyone presumes, but is instead some sort of business. How do you plan on making money off this one?

Browder: At this point, the basic outline I can give you is that we’re probably gonna have a rotation of heroes you can check out or change over time. We’re gonna give you an earned currency you can use to check out or permanently purchase anything you want to use in the game. We’re excited about the idea of – though I’m not sure if we’re going to go this way or not – hero-specific quests that you can complete. Those will earn you things.

We’ve also really geeked out about what the Hearthstone guys did with their quest system. They encouraged people to play as different classes in that game. I don’t have a Druid deck, but I got a quest the other night to be one. Six hours later, I’m playing my new Druid deck and optimizing it. It got me out of my rut of playing my Warrior deck. We’re excited by the idea of maybe doing something similar to that.

We also want to give you additional earned currency for playing with your friends. So if you just went into chat and made a friend, that’s totally OK. We want to get you playing with your buddies, form new relationships, and try new things. Those are the basic values of the system we’re building.

RPS: LoL and DOTA have taken eSports by storm, but how is your Storm going to take eSports by… DOTA? No, that really doesn’t work. Please act as though I said nothing, but randomly answer a question about similar topics stated much more eloquently.

Browder: We’re pretty much going to do what we did with StarCraft II. We’re going to provide the tools, we’re going to provide all the features we have time to create, and we’re going to create the best game possible. Then we’re going to see what the community does with it.



That’s exactly what happened with StarCraft, and now here we are years later doing WCS. This is after years of community development, and we’re looking at it saying, “How can we help this community be stronger and better? How can we help our partners to do better on their end?” So we’re trying to very gently support our community and make sure that they’re as successful as they deserve to be.

It’ll be the same way with Heroes. And if the community takes it to a place where we find ways to help them, then we will come in with everything we can to help them be successful.

RPS: I suppose Heroes of the Storm would also make for a pretty different eSports proposition than LoL or DOTA. It’s streamlined in a way that I think people are enjoying quite a bit, but that also makes it – and this has become a pretty dirty word in the gaming industry – a lot more casual.

Browder: It’s like Hearthstone in that respect. Is that game casual? Yeah, sometimes. But after you play it for a while, is it anymore? It’s a very competitive game. It is, in many ways, simpler than what anyone else has done.

We’ve removed things that we didn’t like in the genre for Heroes, and we’ve added new things to make it even more complicated. Or maybe more challenging, is a better way to put it. It’s not about providing you with 17 choices that are all watered down. It’s about providing a few choices that are each like a nail in your brain. Like, “Oooooof! Which three… [gasps dramatically] I don’t know!” That’s what makes great game design.

I think the game will be competitive. I actually feel like it’s competitive when we play in the office. I don’t feel like it’s very casual. I feel like my need to coordinate with my team over map objectives is enormous. The better team wins, and the worse team loses. We need to come together as a group and win these matches by correct composition, by correct positioning, by hitting skillshots – the whole thing.

But I don’t know where it’s going. You could totally be right.



RPS: It’s certainly an interesting position to be in. So far, the genre has thrived on players who are super dedicated to eating up all sorts of tiny, sometimes arbitrary nuances – both in order to understand the rules and, ultimately, to be best at playing their favorite characters. The best MOBAs fuse the thrill of rapid-fire character building with the long-term satisfaction of learning. I can’t help but wonder if your game can match that level of near-bottomless depth. Do you even want it to?

Browder: That is awesome [that players can have that kind of experience with those games]. There are players who will continue to like that, and they won’t find as much of that in this game, and they won’t like it as much as a result.

RPS: What sort of crowd are you aiming to pull in?

Browder: The crowd that likes Heroes of the Storm.

We don’t really know, to be honest. There’s this belief that we must do a bunch of market research before we start making games. We have all these clever guys and we do all these focus groups. We get this perfect target audience [demographic], this guy, and then we build our games especially for him. But really at Blizzard we build the games we want to play. We build games that get us excited and are aesthetically pleasing to us. They have clean game design. They have pretty art. The code is well-built. We like these things, and we hope they find an audience.

We don’t necessarily want Heroes to be like WoW, but I’m using WoW as a comparison. When they shipped it back in 2004, the biggest MMO at the time was EverQuest. I remember people saying, “EverQuest is the real game, and WoW is just the dumbed-down version of EverQuest.” That was some of the feedback. What WoW had done was remove some things – XP loss on death, the challenges of sitting for a long time to recover, etc – and then it added more in other areas.



It was easy to look at that and be like, “Oh, they just removed some gak.” But once people got into it, they realized there was always other stuff.

That’s what we’re going for. I don’t know if we’ve succeeded. We could totally fail. But we’re trying to create an experience where we’ve gotten rid of some stuff and added other stuff. It’s its own experience. We feel like when we play, it’s very competitive and very scary and there’s a lot of skill involved, but we’ll see.

RPS: Heroes’ maps are already fairly elaborate – at least, insofar as some have “quest”-like objectives and others have multiple locations/tiers – but how crazy are you planning to get with future additions?

Browder: That’s the beauty of having the map editor we have and building a game around different battlegrounds. We want to communicate to players very early that this is not about one map. This is not about a collection of maps. This is about a constantly evolving selection.

It’s a lot like what we did with StarCraft II. We shipped that in 2010, and the general consensus from the community was, “Make Lost Temple, and then go away. We don’t need your maps.” And we were like, “O… OK.” So we made a bunch of maps like Lost Temple. But here we are in 2013, and if we don’t update the map pool every couple of weeks or months, the community is up on us like, “Dude, where’s my new maps?” And that’s right. That’s correct. That’s one way to play with a constantly evolving set of terrain.

We really want to do that with Heroes as well. In 2015 at BlizzCon, you could come in with an idea for a battleground and pitch it to me, and I might say, “Oh, OK. Sounds cool.” I can take that back to the studio, put it into the editor, and have something up in just a couple weeks.



RPS: Surely, then – between that and this game’s origins as a StarCraft editor showcase – the natural conclusion is a Heroes map tool that anyone can use?

Browder: I certainly hope that it is.

We’re talking in the studio about the challenges that we have as a free-to-play game. You know, in StarCraft if you start using the editor to upload pornography, we can ban your game and ban your account, and you’re out. In a free-to-play game, we don’t really have that option. You can always create a new account.

So there are a few hiccups we have to work out in terms of security of the service. But once those are solved, we’ve got some ideas. We just need to decide which ones make the most sense. I think once those are out of the way, you can expect to see an arcade, a map editor, the whole thing. We’d love that as part of our game. I mean, it’s helped create this whole genre. We wouldn’t even be here without that.

[PR motions that time is running low]

RPS: You have some interesting alternate outfits for heroes. Roller Derby Nova, especially, caught my eye. On its own, that’s totally fine – just a silly, goofy thing. A one-off. But it got me thinking about how often MOBAs tend to hyper-sexualize female characters to a generally preposterous degree – that is to say, make it the norm, not a one-off at all – and StarCraft’s own, um, interesting focus choices as of late. How are you planning to approach all of that in Heroes?

Browder: Well, I mean, some of these characters, I would argue, are already hyper-sexualized in a sense. I mean, Kerrigan is wearing heels, right? We’re not sending a message to anybody. We’re just making characters who look cool. Our sensibilities are more comic book than anything else. That’s sort of where we’re at. But I’ll take the feedback. I think it’s very fair feedback.



RPS: I have to add, though, that comics might not be the best point of reference for this sort of thing. I mean, it’s a medium that’s notorious – often in a not-good way – for sexing up female characters and putting them in some fairly gross situations.

Browder: We’re not running for President. We’re not sending a message. No one should look to our game for that.

RPS: But it’s not even about a message. The goal is to let people have fun in an environment where they can feel awesome without being weirded out or even objectified. This is a genre about empowerment. Why shouldn’t everyone feel empowered? That’s what it’s about at the end of the day: letting everyone have a fair chance to feel awesome.

Browder: Uh-huh. Cool. Totally.

[PR says we've run over, tells me I have to leave]

RPS: Thank you for your time.

NOTE: This interview, quite obviously, ended in an uncomfortable place, and I decided to break that down at length in a separate opinion piece. It will be live soon, and I’ll link it here when it’s been posted.

Its kind of funny, because the Designer means well, but the interviewer had another hidden agenda, and only wanted to you know not ask questions about the game, but about sexism.

Which is all in good, but I don't think that is what people are interested in particularly.

I remember it too. What hidden agenda are you talking about? He did ask tons of question about the game, and he also asked a question about if the game would follow some trend that some people have problem with. Personally, I was interested in that, and I am glad he asked the question. Not every question is going to be about something you personally are interested about.


Yeah I reread it and found out he had a balanced article.

But the awkward moment when he kept pushing the issue though was kind of funny to me.

And yeah Smite is known for its designs.

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Bristol

 Asherian Command wrote:


Yeah I reread it and found out he had a balanced article.

But the awkward moment when he kept pushing the issue though was kind of funny to me.

And yeah Smite is known for its designs.


Well it's a sign of a good interviewer if they keep pushing until they get an actual answer, I think. Not commenting on that particular interview, just interviews and interviewers in general.

Tempted to post the Paxman/Michael Howard interview but it'd be off topic

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/09/09 22:43:42


The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.

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 Asherian Command wrote:
And yeah Smite is known for its designs.

Smite is like extra-super-bad, but it is a MOBA problem in general. For instance, Heroes of Newerth, look at those outfits: http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/intro#page4 .

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
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Chicago, Illinois

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:
And yeah Smite is known for its designs.

Smite is like extra-super-bad, but it is a MOBA problem in general. For instance, Heroes of Newerth, look at those outfits: http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/intro#page4 .


Wow those are too revealing hahaha.

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Made in fr
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I have absolutely no idea if you are being sarcastic or not .

"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1 
   
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Chicago, Illinois

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have absolutely no idea if you are being sarcastic or not .


If you can see their nipples its a pretty good sign you didn't make your characters correctly.

From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. 
   
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 Asherian Command wrote:
 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have absolutely no idea if you are being sarcastic or not .


If you can see their nipples its a pretty good sign you didn't make your characters correctly.


Wait what? Is that sarcastic?
   
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Chicago, Illinois

nomotog wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:
 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have absolutely no idea if you are being sarcastic or not .


If you can see their nipples its a pretty good sign you didn't make your characters correctly.


Wait what? Is that sarcastic?


Look at the designs O.o

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 Asherian Command wrote:

Look at the designs O.o

They have no nipples. Unless I am looking at the wrong ones. They are skimpy designs, but no nipples.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/09/10 01:49:46


 
   
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Chicago, Illinois

nomotog wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:

Look at the designs O.o

They have no nipples. Unless I am looking at the wrong ones. They are skimpy designs, but no nipples.


http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/intro#page4

I am not talking about the wc3 one. Just check it out. Look at

The ice lady looking one/energy one.

From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. 
   
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 Asherian Command wrote:
nomotog wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:

Look at the designs O.o

They have no nipples. Unless I am looking at the wrong ones. They are skimpy designs, but no nipples.


http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/intro#page4

I am not talking about the wc3 one. Just check it out. Look at

The ice lady looking one/energy one.


Oh star nipples. They say there is no accounting for taste. I liked that design more then the others. They have a kind of neat unearthly look. Though ya they might actually look better without star nipples.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/09/10 02:19:19


 
   
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Chicago, Illinois

nomotog wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:
nomotog wrote:
 Asherian Command wrote:

Look at the designs O.o

They have no nipples. Unless I am looking at the wrong ones. They are skimpy designs, but no nipples.


http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/intro#page4

I am not talking about the wc3 one. Just check it out. Look at

The ice lady looking one/energy one.


Oh star nipples. They say there is no accounting for taste. I liked that design more then the others. They have a kind of neat unearthly look. Though ya they might actually look better without star nipples.


Now you know

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Also, on the topic. Batman: Arkham City.

I can buy that Poison Ivy fights in leaf-panties, I guess, she is supposed to be the seductress etc. But why does Catwoman have a zip-cleavage and more importantly, why does she jump around doing acrobatics in high heels?

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Because Cat Woman.

Even in the comics, wearing what's basically a BDSM-outfit has always been her bag.

She's uh... not a very good character, honestly. lol

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/09/10 10:44:27


 
   
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Chicago, Illinois

 Ashiraya wrote:
Also, on the topic. Batman: Arkham City.

I can buy that Poison Ivy fights in leaf-panties, I guess, she is supposed to be the seductress etc. But why does Catwoman have a zip-cleavage and more importantly, why does she jump around doing acrobatics in high heels?


Good question. I mean, it would be interesting to see a design that is not a BDSM costume. But it might be about the character coming out and displaying her sexuality for the world to see. Or the designer wanted a sexy female in the dark world of batman.

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USA

I don't think I would blame Arkham Asylum for the sexualization of catwoman, I'd blame DC

The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
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Chicago, Illinois

 Melissia wrote:
I don't think I would blame Arkham Asylum for the sexualization of catwoman, I'd blame DC


Yeah right.....

Wait a second. Nevermind. She has yet to not look like a BDSM person.

From whom are unforgiven we bring the mercy of war. 
   
 
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