Maybe also the hated Tortollan deck adds a bit more to the frustration…
Did you buy the new Jaina and the mage pack? What is your opinion on this matter?
The latest pack offer in Hearthstone is annoying many players. They are angry and accuse Blizzard: “You were too lazy.”
For many players, it was a nice surprise when Blizzard suddenly offered a new package in the Hearthstone shop. If you are a fan of mages, you might consider the pack offer a really good deal. But now there has been harsh criticism from the fans. Was Blizzard too lazy to create a “real” hero?
What kind of pack is this? The “Scholar Jaina” pack costs 10 euros and offers 5 mage packs. These are special card packs that only contain mage cards from the current Standard expansions. Additionally, there is a new portrait for Jaina, specifically her “Scholar” look. Usually, such a new image comes with standalone emotes, new animations, and occasionally special quotes when using special abilities.
In most cases, there is also a unique card back included that thematically fits the new hero design.
Why are players angry? Because Jaina does not meet the expectations of a “new hero skin”. Complaints have been piling up in the Hearthstone subreddit for days. Because essentially, “Scholar Jaina” is just a new GIF animation. This means:
- It does not use its own emotes
- It has no unique animations
- There are no special interactions
- It does not have its own card back
Additionally, Scholar Jaina doesn’t even have the “standard” interactions with other heroes. When two mages face off in Hearthstone, the second mage typically uses a modified greeting so that both heroes do not start the game with the same call. But this is not the case with Scholar Jaina; she simply uses the standard greeting.
Players particularly lack understanding for the absence of new voice lines. Because these Jaina has in her small solo adventure and it would have been easy to simply couple them to the new portrait.
Accordingly, players are currently quite disappointed. Besides many complaints, there are also some memes where players list their demands, like this one:
Listen up Blizzard! this are our demands for all hero portraits! Otherwise Lady Jaina will pay for it. from r/hearthstone
Basically, the opinion seems to be clear: New hero skins should always come with their own sound effects and animations. Many players fear that Blizzard will “simply become lazy” and release heroes only as GIF animations.
This is what Blizzard says: Blizzard had already commented on the incident after just a few hours. Chadd Nervig, one of the initial game designers of Hearthstone, explained that Blizzard could indeed add voice lines if the community wants it.
He also stated that they decided not to use the voice lines from the adventure because they only cover a part of the interactions. To keep it coherent, they used the entire standard Jaina set.
Maybe also the hated Tortollan deck adds a bit more to the frustration…
Did you buy the new Jaina and the mage pack? What is your opinion on this matter?
