It's something, and I hope it's in good faith. It's not the same as a firm selected by a company-wide DEI organization (my own workplace - a non-union medium sized NPO - just did this - both the democratic employee org and their selection of the third party firm), and it's not clear that the firm is there to look at HR enforcement and upper management or if they'll simply be the third party facilitating "listening sessions." I will hope for the best, while recognizing the performative politics that people detest are most likely to come from corporate.
I played for a few hours last night, and I'm sort of blown away by how much better the meta-structure of the client is than Hearthstone. Rewards/quests/events/cosmetics/game-modes, etc. is so damn professional. I had to refresh myself on how all it worked (rounds vs. turns, being able to attack the same turn you play a unit), but gameplay was definitely fun, and a nice change of pace. I'll be playing for a few weeks minimum.
I have to say that I still like Hearthstone's collection manager more than any other game I've played, and I'm still not clear on the best way to start collecting cards from LoR expansions I've missed. It's a weird thing knowing the rewards are WAY better than Hearthstone, but still not really understanding the lack of packs. Still LoR's gameplay is really the best combination of MTG and Hearthstone I've ever seen. I think it'll take a week before my brain catches up to all the keywords, abilities, and artwork.
Compare and contrast the employees' demands to the actions announced by the CEO. Employees' demands:
An end to mandatory arbitration clauses in all employee contracts, current and future. Arbitration clauses protect abusers and limit the ability of victims to seek restitution.
The adoption of recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and promotion policies designed to improve representation among employees at all levels, agreed upon by employees in a company-wide Diversity, Equity & Inclusion organization. Current practices have led to women, in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups that are vulnerable to gender discrimination not being hired fairly for new roles when compared to men.
Publication of data on relative compensation (including equity grants and profit sharing), promotion rates, and salary ranges for employees of all genders and ethnicities at the company. Current practices have led to aforementioned groups not being paid or promoted fairly.
Empower a company-wide Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion task force to hire a third party to audit ABK's reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff. It is imperative to identify how current systems have failed to prevent employee harassment, and to propose new solutions to address these issues.
CEO's Promises:
1. Employee Support. We will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action. To strengthen our capabilities in this area we are adding additional senior staff and other resources to both the Compliance team and the Employee Relations team.
2. Listening Sessions. We know many of you have inspired ideas on how to improve our culture. We will be creating safe spaces, moderated by third parties, for you to speak out and share areas for improvement.
3. Personnel Changes. We are immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the Company. Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated.
4. Hiring Practices. Earlier this year I sent an email requiring all hiring managers to ensure they have diverse candidate slates for all open positions. We will be adding compliance resources to ensure that our hiring managers are in fact adhering to this directive.
5. In-game Changes. We have heard the input from employee and player communities that some of our in-game content is inappropriate. We are removing that content.
A) Removal of arbitration clauses vs. promises of more internal investigations. This should be self-explanatory. You can usually sue your employer if they grossly violate your rights, but arbitration clauses funnel everything into unaccountable internal investigations.
B) Hiring and diversity. A company-wide, participatory DEI organization vs. literally "I sent an email."
C) Accountability. The employees want a third party firm to evaluate "reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff" vs. a threat from the CEO to fire anyone who impeded with an internal investigation. Reflect deeply on the wording of that last part because it could easily be used for retaliation against staff who actually brought legitimate complaints.
D) Publication of hard data on promotions and salary vs. listening sessions.
E) Removal of in-game content vs. ??? - No way to evaluate this right now, but I have some more thoughts.
We're all familiar with the backlash (real or troll) to the real efforts of people in the gaming industry to make it genuinely a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive place. The term SJW gets thrown around a lot, and I'd say it's similar in concept to the term "virtue-signaling." The idea that "keyboard warriors" simply want to pontificate on the "politically correct" issues, get some upvotes, but don't care about the real-world. And typically the people invoking these terms have been dismissive of the civil complaint, and angry that we're still talking about it instead of the game. But I hope a close reading of these statements allows people to realize that the employees are very much making concrete, real-world demands, and corporate is the one invoking a lot of good language (I would defend large parts of Kotick's letter if I thought it was remotely sincere or in good-faith) in the service of making themselves look good.
Which brings me back to that letter E) above. There's a good argument to be made about in-game representation, hyper-sexualization, the broader culture in games etc., but... that's not the argument the employees are making. To me, including that in THIS letter, the day before the ActiBlizzWalkout over real-world working conditions, is red-meat for the cultural backlash. It's the CEO of the company hoping to provoke a reaction in the community and player-base so they get pissed at the employees for demanding, I don't know, artwork or NPC changes?, when they're actually demanding to not be bound by feudal arbitration contracts. Don't fall for it.
It might be time to revisit LoR for me. I haven't played since the Beta. I liked it, but it was too much to keep up with it and Hearthstone. But, sickening civil lawsuit and bungled launch aside, I'm not particularly hyped for Stormwind. The Questlines and weapons aren't intriguing me very much, and while this isn't much of a bold prediction, it's really clear that aggro is going to rule the new Stormwind meta (Druid and Hunter alone are getting some insane support for the best archetypes in the game).
With Runeterra surprise-releasing Mercenaries (Slay the Spire PvE ripoff) in two days, seems like now might be a good time to see how the game has changed.
If this is actually part of coordinated work-stoppages or slow downs on the part of the employees, then the best thing to do is to direct your ire at the upper management that's created such an insane culture. The issues outlined in the complaint require immediate internal actions well before a lawsuit like this is resolved. The entire reason HR evolved from running payroll and administering benefits into a department that could effectively address workplace abuse and harassment is because companies were paying out huge suits throughout the 90s. A behemoth like Activision-Blizzard crippling HR like this, leading to decades of gross behavior*, means they not only should be sued like any other corporate giant, but that some heads need to roll, and new leadership brought in at a high level. That means board and shareholder involvement, and they're only going to take notice if huge public deadlines are missed. I'm not saying that's what's happening here - I have 0 inside information - but if the Hearthstone team really is intentionally scuttling the release, then they should be supported by the community, not condemned. If your para-social relationship with the game and its developers is strong enough to care what they think, then you should care how they're treated, and how they think the company, at the highest levels, needs to respond.
*For those that want to argue about what's been proven or not, please read up on what a grand jury is, read the complaint in-full, and reflect on the sheer amount of evidence the State of California already has in their possession before a civil complaint like this is filed.
Hey guys, just got back from the future, and I only had time to watch one YouTube video. I saw MarkMcKz absolutely destroy his opponent with an OTK enabled by playing six of these in one game. Completely busted. Will definitely be meta.
Just finished replaying it. The answer is no. The last Death Knight puzzle has a very, very easy solution where you simply deal three damage with Shadow Council Necrolyte (Shadowlight Scholar) to the spirit by burning a Soul Fragment and then Soul Rend everything. But the spirit has text in this challenge saying that if it reaches 20 health it becomes one with the fallen soldier. All that means is that it auto-dies at 20 health. So that happened and then I cleared the rest with Soul Rend anyway. A little dissapointing, but I agree with the other super positive assessments that this adventure had great character and content.
Is there a secret on the last puzzle where you're creating Death Knights? It was super easy to clear the minions, way too easy, but there was flavor text that talked about boosting the health of the spirit up to 20. I cleared the board thinking I had to hit the requirement and the story advanced, but I was thinking of going back for another playthrough if there was actually something cool to solve.
Yeah, it's bad design on its face. People shouldn't be defending it. To be fair though, Tickatus is WAY better than this Questline and both it and Il'Gynoth will render it completely irrelevant if it even hits high 40s WRs.
Good analysis, and I think the Questline will be terrible. My issue with printing a card like this is that if it ever becomes consistent, it's completely non-interactive. You can see C'Thun The Shattered coming and try to drop enough minion health to absorb his 30-damage. I dislike OTK combos that can deal more than ~45-60 damage (looking at you Il'Gynoth) OR cards that make the fatigue game irrelevant (Jade Idol). This is both. Mecha'Thun is the most similar card, and that was still way, way more interactive than this design. Again, I'm not actually worried about this card being meta, but I dislike the design.
Gibberling: Raise the cost to 2-mana. Yeah, it nukes the card, but oh well.
Raise Dead: Reduce damage to 2. Reduce effect to 1-friendly minion. Yeah, it still might be abusable, but would you rather your opponent get TWO Venomous Scorpid from this card?
Sethekk Veilweaver: Raise attack to 3. Raise cost to 3. This is the card that really goes infinite. Making it cost slightly more along with a nerf to Raise Dead should stop early and mid-game over-generation.
Tradeable seems like a busted mechanic in certain decks independent of the card effect. I'm curious to know if Tradeable triggers combos in Rogue. Fire Sale is the best card shown, and maybe the Rustrot Viper replaces Ooze. Potentially a huge change to the game, and I wonder if the mechanic will continue beyond this expansion.
0-attack item-weapons. Yes. Great. Excellent theming. No idea if these or others will be good, but it should be a more common card-type. Opens up a lot of design space, and I'm glad it's being revisited after Kobolds & Catacombs.
Mounts? Yes. Spikeridged Steed was great, and I like how these work the same.
Quests with super-powered rewards? Which ones will we hate and which ones will we love? Which will get nerfed? Either way, I like how the mechanics are a bit different this time around. Great way to keep the mercenaries lore going.
Peasant? Looks like some drunk fell off a caravan. 0/5.
They keep hyping Mercenaries and Battlegrounds as modes that aren't dependent on your collection. That's Arena too! And the game mode is already great! They just need to make it F2P or at least cheaper now that it's no longer 1 of 2 game modes like it was at launch 7 years ago.
Puffcap Pup is going to be the MVP for these poison decks. Strong card on its own.
Good.
It's something, and I hope it's in good faith. It's not the same as a firm selected by a company-wide DEI organization (my own workplace - a non-union medium sized NPO - just did this - both the democratic employee org and their selection of the third party firm), and it's not clear that the firm is there to look at HR enforcement and upper management or if they'll simply be the third party facilitating "listening sessions." I will hope for the best, while recognizing the performative politics that people detest are most likely to come from corporate.
I played for a few hours last night, and I'm sort of blown away by how much better the meta-structure of the client is than Hearthstone. Rewards/quests/events/cosmetics/game-modes, etc. is so damn professional. I had to refresh myself on how all it worked (rounds vs. turns, being able to attack the same turn you play a unit), but gameplay was definitely fun, and a nice change of pace. I'll be playing for a few weeks minimum.
I have to say that I still like Hearthstone's collection manager more than any other game I've played, and I'm still not clear on the best way to start collecting cards from LoR expansions I've missed. It's a weird thing knowing the rewards are WAY better than Hearthstone, but still not really understanding the lack of packs. Still LoR's gameplay is really the best combination of MTG and Hearthstone I've ever seen. I think it'll take a week before my brain catches up to all the keywords, abilities, and artwork.
Compare and contrast the employees' demands to the actions announced by the CEO. Employees' demands:
CEO's Promises:
A) Removal of arbitration clauses vs. promises of more internal investigations. This should be self-explanatory. You can usually sue your employer if they grossly violate your rights, but arbitration clauses funnel everything into unaccountable internal investigations.
B) Hiring and diversity. A company-wide, participatory DEI organization vs. literally "I sent an email."
C) Accountability. The employees want a third party firm to evaluate "reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff" vs. a threat from the CEO to fire anyone who impeded with an internal investigation. Reflect deeply on the wording of that last part because it could easily be used for retaliation against staff who actually brought legitimate complaints.
D) Publication of hard data on promotions and salary vs. listening sessions.
E) Removal of in-game content vs. ??? - No way to evaluate this right now, but I have some more thoughts.
We're all familiar with the backlash (real or troll) to the real efforts of people in the gaming industry to make it genuinely a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive place. The term SJW gets thrown around a lot, and I'd say it's similar in concept to the term "virtue-signaling." The idea that "keyboard warriors" simply want to pontificate on the "politically correct" issues, get some upvotes, but don't care about the real-world. And typically the people invoking these terms have been dismissive of the civil complaint, and angry that we're still talking about it instead of the game. But I hope a close reading of these statements allows people to realize that the employees are very much making concrete, real-world demands, and corporate is the one invoking a lot of good language (I would defend large parts of Kotick's letter if I thought it was remotely sincere or in good-faith) in the service of making themselves look good.
Which brings me back to that letter E) above. There's a good argument to be made about in-game representation, hyper-sexualization, the broader culture in games etc., but... that's not the argument the employees are making. To me, including that in THIS letter, the day before the ActiBlizzWalkout over real-world working conditions, is red-meat for the cultural backlash. It's the CEO of the company hoping to provoke a reaction in the community and player-base so they get pissed at the employees for demanding, I don't know, artwork or NPC changes?, when they're actually demanding to not be bound by feudal arbitration contracts. Don't fall for it.
Good for them! I'm genuinely encouraged by this.
It might be time to revisit LoR for me. I haven't played since the Beta. I liked it, but it was too much to keep up with it and Hearthstone. But, sickening civil lawsuit and bungled launch aside, I'm not particularly hyped for Stormwind. The Questlines and weapons aren't intriguing me very much, and while this isn't much of a bold prediction, it's really clear that aggro is going to rule the new Stormwind meta (Druid and Hunter alone are getting some insane support for the best archetypes in the game).
With Runeterra surprise-releasing Mercenaries (Slay the Spire PvE ripoff) in two days, seems like now might be a good time to see how the game has changed.
I can't believe this isn't restricted to targeting minions. 7 damage to the face, every time.
If this is actually part of coordinated work-stoppages or slow downs on the part of the employees, then the best thing to do is to direct your ire at the upper management that's created such an insane culture. The issues outlined in the complaint require immediate internal actions well before a lawsuit like this is resolved. The entire reason HR evolved from running payroll and administering benefits into a department that could effectively address workplace abuse and harassment is because companies were paying out huge suits throughout the 90s. A behemoth like Activision-Blizzard crippling HR like this, leading to decades of gross behavior*, means they not only should be sued like any other corporate giant, but that some heads need to roll, and new leadership brought in at a high level. That means board and shareholder involvement, and they're only going to take notice if huge public deadlines are missed. I'm not saying that's what's happening here - I have 0 inside information - but if the Hearthstone team really is intentionally scuttling the release, then they should be supported by the community, not condemned. If your para-social relationship with the game and its developers is strong enough to care what they think, then you should care how they're treated, and how they think the company, at the highest levels, needs to respond.
*For those that want to argue about what's been proven or not, please read up on what a grand jury is, read the complaint in-full, and reflect on the sheer amount of evidence the State of California already has in their possession before a civil complaint like this is filed.
Hey guys, just got back from the future, and I only had time to watch one YouTube video. I saw MarkMcKz absolutely destroy his opponent with an OTK enabled by playing six of these in one game. Completely busted. Will definitely be meta.
Exactly the same. I thought there was a 50% chance to reduce the cost of a card by 2. As is, completely unplayable.
Just finished replaying it. The answer is no. The last Death Knight puzzle has a very, very easy solution where you simply deal three damage with Shadow Council Necrolyte (Shadowlight Scholar) to the spirit by burning a Soul Fragment and then Soul Rend everything. But the spirit has text in this challenge saying that if it reaches 20 health it becomes one with the fallen soldier. All that means is that it auto-dies at 20 health. So that happened and then I cleared the rest with Soul Rend anyway. A little dissapointing, but I agree with the other super positive assessments that this adventure had great character and content.
Is there a secret on the last puzzle where you're creating Death Knights? It was super easy to clear the minions, way too easy, but there was flavor text that talked about boosting the health of the spirit up to 20. I cleared the board thinking I had to hit the requirement and the story advanced, but I was thinking of going back for another playthrough if there was actually something cool to solve.
Agreed. Same for Mok'Nathal Lion. I love this card so much more than the Priest Questline. This is what a ridiculous win-condition should look like.
Yeah, it's bad design on its face. People shouldn't be defending it. To be fair though, Tickatus is WAY better than this Questline and both it and Il'Gynoth will render it completely irrelevant if it even hits high 40s WRs.
Good analysis, and I think the Questline will be terrible. My issue with printing a card like this is that if it ever becomes consistent, it's completely non-interactive. You can see C'Thun The Shattered coming and try to drop enough minion health to absorb his 30-damage. I dislike OTK combos that can deal more than ~45-60 damage (looking at you Il'Gynoth) OR cards that make the fatigue game irrelevant (Jade Idol). This is both. Mecha'Thun is the most similar card, and that was still way, way more interactive than this design. Again, I'm not actually worried about this card being meta, but I dislike the design.
Wow, Nozdormu is OP.
I'd personally change:
Gibberling: Raise the cost to 2-mana. Yeah, it nukes the card, but oh well.
Raise Dead: Reduce damage to 2. Reduce effect to 1-friendly minion. Yeah, it still might be abusable, but would you rather your opponent get TWO Venomous Scorpid from this card?
Sethekk Veilweaver: Raise attack to 3. Raise cost to 3. This is the card that really goes infinite. Making it cost slightly more along with a nerf to Raise Dead should stop early and mid-game over-generation.
Overall super positive first impressions.
Tradeable seems like a busted mechanic in certain decks independent of the card effect. I'm curious to know if Tradeable triggers combos in Rogue. Fire Sale is the best card shown, and maybe the Rustrot Viper replaces Ooze. Potentially a huge change to the game, and I wonder if the mechanic will continue beyond this expansion.
0-attack item-weapons. Yes. Great. Excellent theming. No idea if these or others will be good, but it should be a more common card-type. Opens up a lot of design space, and I'm glad it's being revisited after Kobolds & Catacombs.
Mounts? Yes. Spikeridged Steed was great, and I like how these work the same.
Quests with super-powered rewards? Which ones will we hate and which ones will we love? Which will get nerfed? Either way, I like how the mechanics are a bit different this time around. Great way to keep the mercenaries lore going.
Peasant? Looks like some drunk fell off a caravan. 0/5.
They keep hyping Mercenaries and Battlegrounds as modes that aren't dependent on your collection. That's Arena too! And the game mode is already great! They just need to make it F2P or at least cheaper now that it's no longer 1 of 2 game modes like it was at launch 7 years ago.