The other day I noticed that as part of the 6.6 update, Kitsune got completely new card art. Is there any interesting story behind that?
The new art is good too, I just for the moment miss the old one.
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Good catch @Stratelier! The old art wasnât bad but we just thought Kitsune should have looked more appealing especially as itâs an early game Troop so we wanted it to look nicer.
So we gave it to one of our in house illustrators to go crazy with it 
Voila - new Kitsune
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The priorities at what unprofitable nonsense devs work on and what bugs they ignore completely (to even acknowledge) ⌠(since years) is consistent as always. Sad and frustrating.
But Iâm sure this was exactly what this game desperately needed!!!1
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Our artists are full time artists, they donât program, they donât know how to program, no one wants them trying to solve bugs. This change did not require a single programmer so didnât take any time away from bug fixing/development.
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Prior Kitsune art for comparison, v6.2 update
From gowdb.com
âŚbecause apparently I never snapped a screenshot of Kitsuneâs card art. The prior art had more of a mystical feel to it, where this one has more of a realist look â the eyes of course making a huge difference. (Also trying to not suggest that stating âin-houseâ here somehow implies the previous art was not also in-house)
Hah, I saw a YouTube video just the other day discussing â10 things video game developers wish players understoodâ and this was precisely the first item they discussed â that âthe developersâ are not a single uniform entity and their various differing roles are often NOT interchangeable with each other.
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The artists typically do a fantastic job, too!
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I will throw a little crazy idea, but maybe maybe kitsune original art was a copyright violation. And yes i donât know which could be the source. Cause there is a lot of outdated or very low quality art. Just my opinion. But yeah changing a troop art is not a silly afterthought.
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I agree. I love both version!
So for the record keeping propose, before everything is updated and replaced, here is full art of both versions!
While Iâm at it, letâs record the change of ZhuâKari background too!
And bonus, light spoiler aheadâŚ
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can the artists upload/implement new gfx themself? without it being double checked by anyone of your âsmall teamâ? also you took some time to luxuriate in someone noticing what youâve âaccomplishedâ in the forum. but okay, Iâm not here to judge.
not at all that it looks bad or any complaints regarding the art, just some brotlose kunst 
hopefully we get enthusiasm for some âearly game bugsâ being fixed too because surely you want the game to work correctly for everybody, maybe even for year long players? That would be very much âappealingâ too.
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Seriously? Copy and replace an art in the database take less than 3 seconds. You donât even need to be a programmer to do that, or in your opinion, they should take that 3 second to fix bug instead?
Why canât you just admit youâre wrong and move on instead of digging yourself deeper in your mistakes just for trying to win?
Yeah, almost like itâs her job? She is a community manager, so discussing with the player about the change in the game is just what she do. And if you think she should not post that and go fix more bugs Instead, then maybe you really should what that video Stratelier share.
Her job is not limiting to only reporting bugs, you know?
Whatâs wrong with unprofitable art? Every weekly glory troop is also unprofitable, do you prefer them to stop doing that and just release a black square every week instead?
Every arts improve the aesthetic of the game, make it more appealing to players, thus bringing in more player, and in long term, profit.
When they release new content thatâs unprofitable, you complain, but if they release more pass instead, you will also complain. I swear, there is no way to satisfy people like you.
And your point being? She already report the bug, itâs up to the actual programmers to make change now. What do you think youâre going to accomplish by bashing her about sharing art process, beside wasting everyoneâs time?
Surely there are a lot of thing that could be better in the game, and they really need some constructive criticism to improve the playerâs experience to be better, but youâre not part of that process. Youâre just complaining for the sake of it, getting like for witty reply, and tearing down other peopleâs work for no reason.
You guys are lucky you still have Hawx to do guide for you. In a way, Iâm okay with Taranâs and Garyâs site still not updating their database after more than a week, because like Hawx, they actually put in hard work for the community with people like you who clearly donât deserve it.
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The forum moderation is paid to listen to the complaints about the game. It is their job (and honestly, I doubt, it would be any different, if hawx was in the same position). With the non-amounts of communication, the developers allow, there is not much else, they can do, than to be a lightning rod, that deflects the problems about the game into nowhere. Or ignores them as well, in hopes, that they will go away by themselves.
A simple and honest âWe are just regular players with a fancy title and a bit of leverage here on an associated website, we canât know, if and when a troop is released, or if a bug gets fixed, or if it is a bug at allâ would of course help to clear matters, but it would run the risk to clear up things too well and stop players from bringing their anger to a place, where it ultimately does not matter.
I missed the point to jump off this mess many years ago. And I canât tell, how much I hate myself every time, I start this game. Maybe itâs a natural reaction to it.
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If you genuinely hate yourself whenever you start the game, Iâd really recommend uninstalling. Iâm not trying to be rude or tell you what to do. I work in the mental health field and have witnessed very real addiction - one of the signs of addiction is continuing doing something even when there are only negative consequences for doing so.
Iâm hoping your statement was simply an exaggeration, but if not, make sure youâre taking care of yourself, friend. Well, take care of yourself either way, I suppose 
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Your knowledge on the topic of time really should be more accurate.
Nothing to âadmitâ only because I donât satisfy your opinion, I donât have a shovel and also no âdirty handsâ.
How is it explained to be absent whenever reasonable questions about the game are asked which would involve official statements?
There is. If some year-long major existing bugs would finally get acknowledged and fixed like with daily deal offers that would be a nice start. Further it would be nice to not spread wrong information in any official newsposts. Also I did not complain about a pass. Especially the 10 week campaign passes are fairly priced.
But sure, lets just make up a âyou canât be satisfiedâ-claim.
Sure, lets just make up more stuff, now your opinion is fixated on Iâm âbashingâ.
The fact that youâd like to exclude speaks volumes about you, thankfully you donât get to decide about that. You can obviously opt to âblockâ me anytime. Feel free to report my posting above which you clearly disliked and that seemingly rattled you. I donât have any problem with being reviewed.
Okay.
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Itâs far more likely a project manager assigned one of the artists to redesign Kitsuneâs art as a planned inclusion for the 6.6 update, then approved the result for merging into the finalized assets list. Which would not require/impose work on the programming team as itâs not an actual code change, just an asset swap (especially assuming if assets are designed according to certain templates).
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For further insight into how replacing existing art works:
You name the file the same way the old file was named. Delete or rename the old art in the project. Then drag and drop the new art into place. This way you keep both versions in our files but the new version will replace the old version in the game project when the next builds are done.
So itâs basically a drag and drop to replace art. The person who does the builds is already doing the builds so it doesnât add more work to their plate as theyâre already doing the thing.
No programming knowledge necessary for this.
However, our artists are also experienced in using Unity (the game engine we use) so if they need to implement new art they can also do that, again without needing to know how to program.
We do have technical artsists who are hired to bridge the divide between programming and art, but their jobs are more technical art like optimisation which requires being able to program and knowing how to keep things looking good so you need an eye for both as well as developing tools for the artists as well as many other tasks where both art and programming knowledge is needed for the task at hand. This is a full time job which is 100% necessary to keep the game running nicely on everyoneâs devices and also keeping the art team efficient with tools as doing art by itself is a full time job when weâre releasing new content every week. We donât pull Tech Artists off Tech Art and onto gameplay dev, those are 2 quite different areas of expertise. A gameplay dev wonât necessarily know how to do Tech Art tasks well, and a Tech Artist may not have ever done gameplay programming. Of course thereâs exceptions, it depends on each individualâs work and study background.
If you are interested in the different game development roles and how game dev teams are structured there are some great youtube videos out there and I definitely would encourage you to watch them if youâre interested in how things work behind the scenes. I obviously love this stuff so itâs cool when other people take interest and want to talk about it in a generic way (I canât sit here discussing the minute details of IP2âs every inner working, but weâre not exactly reinventing the wheel over here anyway so the youtube videos cover it).
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Very interesting discussion. Iâm just waiting for 6.7 beta 
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new legendary troop:
the Black Square.
base attack: do magic +x damage. do 2x damage to light troops. create x square gems.
this has to be one of the more amusing tautologies i have seen.
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Oh no you havenât.
Oh no, Iâll re-open the bug 
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