Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[wallydubbs]

I’m the same, I just see monsters and couldn’t care less if an orc etc is male or female.
But we’ve reached a timeline of peak identity politics. When we were growing up we were told not to see race or sex, and to treat everyone equally. But the woke movement hates all that. Now we really, really, really have to see race and sex, at all times and in everything we do. We have to engage in racialised thinking, or else.
I remember seeing an article on BBC about Game of Thrones in which the author was literally rating all new episodes by counting up the number of times females characters got to speak. We have reached the bottom the barrel for this kind of witless, lowest common denominator nonsense. At least I hope it’s the bottom.

The dialogue of the whole series dropped to a minimum at the later seasons, as it became more about mug shots for the actors and incoherent story lines, thank you very much Dumb and Dumber.

At this point, it seems Lord of the Rings has left me numb when it comes to Goblin and Orc gender. But when the game first came out I was 6 years old, so I'm not sure I even knew what an Orc was. Yet the baffling thing to me, at the time, was why is the Elf human sized? At this point the only concept I had of elves were the little guys that help Santa make the toys. I expected them to be more Goblin sized.

But about 10 years ago I started writing a fantasy novel based on what memories I had of the games Hero Quest and Dark World growing up, fit with even Zargon's name. Had it ever got published there would've been some copyright infringement. I reasoned obvious difference between Tolkien's Orcs and the ones in this game due to some form of baldness or mange. But in writing, I did come up with the concept of Female orcs and goblins. Feeling that "Orc women" and "female goblins" were too wordy, I gave the races their own terms for feminine versions, like adding "wo" to "man" makes woman. The Female version I came up with were Orcwives and Goblinas, and a female Elf I referred to as Sheelves. I gave all species gender specific names except for Angel's, I decided they didn't need gender identity.

[Kurgan]

Someone, all of us, should get Leathaface a nice thank you gift for tracking the sales.

Thank you!

Also, I agree with mystic, i love the variety. It's the Druid and Orc bard that bother me for all of the reasons already stated.

That said, just an opinion. I am still very excited for this.

Question - it's been a few years since I busted out my paints. Will they be dried up, and is there a way to salvage or restore them? I'd hate to have to buy them all again. Or is there a better way to store them?

Sealed, air tight containers. I have some matte acrylics that are completed dried up , but my gloss and mixed acrylics (same type of container, snap caps) have been in storage just as long (about 2 years) and are perfect.

For dried up acrylics, I would tend to just throw them out BUT...(Oil paints are so $$$ I would do everything possible to salvage what I could of them!)

This article might help... or at least be a starting point.. Image below, first row, dried up... second row good, last row good. The gloss paints seem to last the longest! These are cheaper paints from Walmart and Hobby Lobby, as opposed to the fancy expensive game shop acrylics.

[Pancho]

Personally, I'm super excited for the new version. I love the inclusion of the female mini options, I'm loving all the new characters, and I'm super excited for new quests and my first opportunity to have any of the expansions. I really hope they bring out the other expansions down the line, and continue to provide new and exciting content for HeroQuest in the future.

I'm honestly pretty surprised by all the negativity toward the product, but I suppose I shouldn't be. Hostility toward change is a pretty common thing in old school gaming communities. Heck, even the World of Warcraft community (which isn't very old at all by our standards) just saw a decent amount of complaints by adding darker skin color options for their elves. Here, I'm seeing complaints about women and orcs.

I'm happy that you'll be able to play some of the expansions, and I can definitely see why you're excited by the news. I'm struggling to see why you have love for the new characters though. If you haven't played any of the expansions, or much Heroquest at all, that could explain why you can't see why the new Heroes are so jarring to people who have played this game a lot, or why you wouldn't see how the setting for the existing game is being casually undermined.

That said, there is more going on here than just hostility to the new mini's. They are just bonus figures really, and in my opinion its not primarily about them. Without the far bigger issues with the botched re-lease (regional availability, Kickstarter etc) then I think a lot of us would have gone much softer on the dodgy anime-style figures and the decline in the box cover art. We would have still heavily critiqued the bonus content, but again, I think it would have been softer. I think in a nutshell the biggest issue for people like me is that we've yet to see any real evidence that the new owners/designers of the game actually played it or loved it. I give them MASSIVE credit for getting Steve Baker slightly involved though, I will definitely praise them for that.

[Darkfox190]

Personally, I'm super excited for the new version. I love the inclusion of the female mini options, I'm loving all the new characters, and I'm super excited for new quests and my first opportunity to have any of the expansions. I really hope they bring out the other expansions down the line, and continue to provide new and exciting content for HeroQuest in the future.

I'm honestly pretty surprised by all the negativity toward the product, but I suppose I shouldn't be. Hostility toward change is a pretty common thing in old school gaming communities. Heck, even the World of Warcraft community (which isn't very old at all by our standards) just saw a decent amount of complaints by adding darker skin color options for their elves. Here, I'm seeing complaints about women and orcs.

I'm happy that you'll be able to play the expansions, and I can definitely see why you're excited by the news. I'm struggling to see why you have love for the new characters though. If you haven't played any of the expansions, or much Heroquest at all, that could explain why you can't see why the new Heroes are so jarring to people who have played this game a lot, or why you wouldn't see how the setting for the existing game is being casually undermined.

That said, there is more going on here than just hostility to the new mini's. They are just bonus figures really, and in my opinion its not primarily about them. Without the far bigger issues with the botched re-lease (regional availability, Kickstarter etc) then I think a lot of us would have gone much softer on the dodgy anime-style figures and the decline in the box cover art. We would have still heavily critiqued the bonus content, but again, I think it would have been softer.

Oh I've played a ton of HeroQuest, and I've played through the scenarios of the expansions thanks to print outs and using paper "minis" to replace the new stuff, but I never had the opportunity to own the real things. And I do understand that the new heroes are different - But to be quite honest? I believe the hostility would be there no matter what they were. People have had HeroQuest, as it was, for a long time. They've had decades to build it up in their heads, to create their image of it set in stone. And while I do prefer the old art style for the box, and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the minis, I'm also looking at this like I look at new editions of Dungeons & Dragons - A new version of the game, not a replacement for the old. The original hasn't gone anywhere.

Games Workshop isn't going to allow anyone to use their toys (especially with a board game of their own on the market in direct competition), so Hasbro had two choices. Do nothing with HeroQuest, or change things. Personally? I'm happy with them changing things if it means I can get my friends into the game.

As far as the other points... The regional release and crowdfunding style seems to mostly stem from this being an unproven product. HeroQuest hasn't been on the market in a long time. A limited test release in this fashion makes sense. And they worked with retailers to bring it to more regions after the initial release, too - As far as the rest of Europe goes, you can blame the "25th Anniversary Edition" scam for squatting on the trademark and making it impossible for Hasbro to bring there.

And I have no real problems with the art. It fits the market appeal of today - Sword and Sorcery is practically a dead genre anymore, while high fantasy has a broader appeal. The new art style will attract more attention with younger audiences if the product does make it to retail shelves, where as the old art style would get it passed over as a "retro" product. The old minis would get looked at as boring by younger people, while the new ones are more dynamic. Don't get me wrong, I love sword and sorcery, I love the old style minis, but I'm also part of the young target market the game needs to appeal to, to survive beyond an initial re-release for the old-school crowd.

If you want a future for HeroQuest, this is the way to go. Otherwise, it will just remain another good, but largely unknown game of yesterday.

[Kurgan]

Are the models going to be color coded or all the same dull gray?

Will it be available in retail stores (not just online or at high end Hobby Game shops)?

It seems like the availability is changing... there are websites shipping it to the UK, NZ, OZ, not just US and Canada.

I would like to know what the Equipment cards look like.. do they include the EU equipment pieces or just the NA ones? That would make a big difference in gameplay balance.

Others may disagree but I care less about the addon characters. They just don't entice me if they feel like they don't fit.

My biggest qualm with the new set is the design of the miniatures overall. Only a few of them look good and like they fit the theme of the game to me.

[ajjohnsen]

I think the majority of the content is excellent, especially the multi pose minis and bonus minis etc. Im hoping for some minor tweaks as well to clear up some of the long argued rule ambiguities

That being said, I think the new hero's are easily the worst part of the game. They seem phoned in to me. I'd venture the "designers" spent all of about <1 hour coming up with them and it shows. The mechanics are slightly modified versions of ones we already had for the existing hero's

I think they could've done soooo much better coming up with different hero's and mechanics than what we have. Something simple would've been to modify the mercenaries or something. Seems like they tried too hard while simultaneously not trying at all if that makes sense

[elvyler]

Personally, I'm super excited for the new version. I love the inclusion of the female mini options, I'm loving all the new characters, and I'm super excited for new quests and my first opportunity to have any of the expansions. I really hope they bring out the other expansions down the line, and continue to provide new and exciting content for HeroQuest in the future.

I'm honestly pretty surprised by all the negativity toward the product, but I suppose I shouldn't be. Hostility toward change is a pretty common thing in old school gaming communities. Heck, even the World of Warcraft community (which isn't very old at all by our standards) just saw a decent amount of complaints by adding darker skin color options for their elves. Here, I'm seeing complaints about women and orcs.

I'm happy that you'll be able to play some of the expansions, and I can definitely see why you're excited by the news. I'm struggling to see why you have love for the new characters though. If you haven't played any of the expansions, or much Heroquest at all, that could explain why you can't see why the new Heroes are so jarring to people who have played this game a lot, or why you wouldn't see how the setting for the existing game is being casually undermined.

That said, there is more going on here than just hostility to the new mini's. They are just bonus figures really, and in my opinion its not primarily about them. Without the far bigger issues with the botched re-lease (regional availability, Kickstarter etc) then I think a lot of us would have gone much softer on the dodgy anime-style figures and the decline in the box cover art. We would have still heavily critiqued the bonus content, but again, I think it would have been softer. I think in a nutshell the biggest issue for people like me is that we've yet to see any real evidence that the new owners/designers of the game actually played it or loved it. I give them MASSIVE credit for getting Steve Baker slightly involved though, I will definitely praise them for that.

I don't think that fans would have been completely satisfied unless they got a completely unchanged direct reprint of the game. And even then, I'm sure some fans would have complained because they wanted something slightly updated.

As for the comments about the new owners: Avalon Hill is a part of Hasbro. When the game originally came out in 1989, it was published by MB, which is also owned by Hasn't, since 1984. So really, hasn't HeroQuest always been owned by Hasbro?

[Oftkilted]

I don't think that fans would have been completely satisfied unless they got a completely unchanged direct reprint of the game. And even then, I'm sure some fans would have complained because they wanted something slightly updated.

As for the comments about the new owners: Avalon Hill is a part of Hasbro. When the game originally came out in 1989, it was published by MB, which is also owned by Hasn't, since 1984. So really, hasn't HeroQuest always been owned by Hasbro?

Nope. Hasbro let the HeroQuest trademark lapse in 1997. And it was then taken over by others. Avalon Hill didn’t pick up the trademark until 2020.

Here’s an article by Chaosium on the trademark https://www.chaosium.com/blogmoon-desig ... to-hasbro/

[cornixt]

Anyone here first play HeroQuest and think where are the female monsters? That wasn’t even a thought. They were just monsters. Are they male or female? Who knows, who cares... Now this new version is all about it. I just don’t get it. Even Kessandria used the same stand-in figure and no one cared.

I’m the same, I just see monsters and couldn’t care less if an orc etc is male or female.
But we’ve reached a timeline of peak identity politics. When we were growing up we were told not to see race or sex, and to treat everyone equally.

But it didn't happen. Notice how HQ was entirely male (or indeterminate) for the base set and first two expansions? This was the problem; sexism and racism was so pervasive that people were blind to it. The men were the do-ers, the women just looked pretty. There were rare examples that began to reverse that trend, but they were very unusual for the time.

But the woke movement hates all that. Now we really, really, really have to see race and sex, at all times and in everything we do. We have to engage in racialised thinking, or else.

Noticing bias is the first step to fixing it. If you were a young black girl then you might have noticed it more, given how so few examples of people who looked like you there were in pop culture.

Regardless, I think the new Heroquest lore will be paper thin. You might get a page of text about what the bad guy is doing, but you won't get a history/biology of Orcs or the opinions on demonic possession by country folk. The old edition was only fleshed out due to the existence of Warhammer, but this has none of that. Maybe it will be set vaguely in D&D world and people can draw inspiration from that instead.

[Orc26]

HasbroQuest is going to be set on Genericland.
It won't be swords and sorcery, it won't really have a modernized setting, it is just going to be Good Humans + friends Vs. Bad Humans + friends.