Id love to see Magatha, Yrel, and Tyrande in hearthstone as their class. :D
Your girlfriend can't identify with a character because of their gender? That's... concerning and pretty weird. But other than that, I like your suggestions. Blizzard shouldn't make arbitrary decisions based on gender of characters, since that's by far the least important thing I can think of, but your suggestions are all decent except for Tyrande, who isn't a pure priest and wouldn't fill the role of a priest hero very well.
I felt quite touched by the part where you tried to introduce your GF to HS and I passed through the same dilemma with my ex-wife who tried a night elf but kept running on the walls, lol.Speaking about public appealing to newcomers, it keeps buzzing my mind that as a high profile game company such as Blizz, it tries to appeal to most people so when you are learning about the game you can get caught by the image of a character that resembles you, in this case a female character to appeal the female players, but I can't get it out of my head that until the date I haven't seen in WoW lore any big names for black characters. Feels like there's something absent.Please make no mistake, I'm south american and I'm really fed up with the constant and irritating north american racial problem, whenever I hear about it the more I'm happy to live here where we simply coexist, but speaking about Blizz which actually should appeal to all the kinds of people that comprises their players I think there should be also in Hearthstone some representatives of the black race. It's a good idea to suggest to include ladies into the pack of heroes but I keep feeling that the minority of afroamerican people who play Blizzard games players should have something to stick to.I loved the article. Really insightful.
On the subject: did Blizzard mentioned anything about bringing out new alternative heroes? I enjoy Magni A LOT!
Funnily enough I always prefer playing female characters in my computer games even though I'm male. I guess I just don't play to identify with the character so much as to follow and guide their story.
Your video game character is not an extension of you.
I can understand the desire for a characters gender to match your own. Even if I play female characters, I put myself in their situation, not their character; I cannot imagine myself as a girl, simply put. It´s much easier with a male hero for me. It´s not a problem for Hearthstone, since I don´t really see it as an RPG, but I can understand the desire to extend the RPG-esque notion of relating to your character to any game.
I haven't ever concerned myself with the gender of my Hearthstone hero, but I understand how others might. I certainly identify with my characters in many other games, but some of these suggested heroes don't quite have the name recognition of their alternate gender counterparts.Hunter, Mage, and Priest are all names I recognize after playing WoW for a few years mostly as Horde. Of the others, I have very little idea of who the alternate heroes are. I guess that doesn't mean they wouldn't be fun to play as, with new emotes and such, and I don't have any better suggestions than those in the article.
I totally get it. I never play as a female character unless that's the only we I can do it. I mean, I do not make any distinction between Rogue and Paladin gameplay wise, but if I would ever had the option to play a male Rogue class, I would prefer it. Of course, it's not the same when playing a squad based game, like xcom for example. There I don't care about the gender of my soldiers since their purpose is not to be a representation of myself inside the game.
Reading some of the comments above, I do agree that hearthstone is not actually a role playing game, and I think your girlfriend approached the game from that angle. You are actually in control of a class, and while, your class does make some direct actions like using hero power, attacking with a weapon, or simply emoting, it isn't really a representation of yourself inside the game, so gender shouldn't really matter.
I know this is about Male and Female Hearthstone Heroes but I really want to see Grand Apothecary Putress as a Warlock Hero. With a Green Potion animation for the Life Tap
Personally I would like to see both genders, and both factions represented in each of the classes. Male & Female Alliance as well as Male & Female Horde options eventually.
The female priest graphic looks great, but the druid, shaman, and warlock...wow...sooooo ugly! The warrior could be much better too...it looks like a shemale, but at least it goes with the well-armored brute look somewhat. The graphics should look like one of the characters in the upcoming Warcraft movie if they can tap into that.
This is a bad post. Please don't make Hearthhead a site for social justice warriors.
Hmm... though I consider myself a veteran player I don't see some of these heroes as the most recognizable ones from the Warcraft franchise. I mean, really? Another orc as a warrior? And not even as famous as Garrosh! And who is Celestine? I haven't read nor seen anything about her ingame.I really love Alliance and even Horde lore and I don't know much about some of those heroes. So IMHO other heroes would fit better there as an alternative for the original ones. Tyrande Whisperwind is a good example for a recognizable hero that almost everyone would love or at least would know about. I think that having a recognizable hero is by far more important than having male/female representation for each class. I don't have any problem playing as Jaina, Valeera or Alleria (for example) and I don't see why someone would have any problem playing as Uther or Magni as well... In any case all of them are notable characters from Warcraft whereas characters like Azuka are not as famous as Yrel or the other ones previously mentioned.
Honestly, I assumed that this is what Blizzard was going to do when they started alternate hero skins--but then they went and doubled-down on Warriors being male.I think they missed the boat on that one.Of course, this is also the company that didn't give male/female options until the third Diablo game, so...