Definitely interested in this, and I signed up for the beta. I played the WoW CCG for a while, and I enjoyed it quite a bit (except for the way that each expansion was flat-out more powerful than the one before). It looks like this has similar, though simpler, mechanics. I also like the way they plan to implement card purchases (if you buy packs in the beta, you get that many unopened packs credited to you when the collections wipe at launch). I think this has potential.
Some good coverage at Polygon and WoW Insider. One of the interesting aspects is that this certainly isn’t a trading card game, in that the cards can’t be traded between players. Instead, excess cards can be disenchanted (more Arcane Dust!) and then used to craft other cards that you want.
I’ve long wanted Blizzard to do something like Legends of Norrath (particularly if it were integrated with WoW the way Legends of Norrath is with EQII - i.e., you get cards for subscribing to the MMO and sometimes cards will grant cosmetic MMO stuff), but I still really hate the CCG business model. This isn’t as ridiculously expensive as some, but it still has the same issues, albeit mitigated slightly by crafting.
I’m not sure we have enough info to rant about the business model. The only info out there right now is that everything can eventually be earned in-game without spending anything, LoL-style. And if you play in Forge mode, even if you have some uber card available, it won’t necessarily appear in every game. Reality might temper the sunny outlook, but I’m not seeing the normal CCG issues here.
It’s still a business model built around paying money for packs of random cards.
I tried this out at PaxEast. I love Blizzard work, and still play WoW, but I was not exactly overly excited about the announcement. After playing, I could see myself getting it and playing more of it. The idea of being able to play this on my couch, against online opponents, and working up a ladder is appealing to me.
I spoke with a member of the development team casually for about 15minutes later about the different pieces they put in and the flavor they put in to it, etc. His enthusiasm pretty much pushed me over the end in terms of if I want to play this or not. And it’s a definite. Some of the more difficult cards to get/create have some crazy interactions with one another. So long as they can balance these combo’s it’s going to be a neat card game.
And the game play is similar to MtG only in the sense that you have 2 “wizards” that you’re trying to kill, and you take turns. Monsters are directly attacked, Mana is simply generated once a turn, where you get 1 more mana than the previous turn.
WTF is… for Hearthstone closed beta.
Oh my. That looks crazy polished and fun.
The UI is awesome. It has such physical weight to it. The way the cards and your character smash into other things when they attack is so satisfying to watch. Many spells have custom animations that whiz around the screen. Even when it isn’t your turn, when your opponents mouses over cards and select actions, you see it, so it feels like you are watching them think. You don’t just see the final decided action. For example if they pick a monster and then target an untargetable card on your side, you see the attack arrow point to that card while they read the error message, and then see them move the arrow to a different card they can attack.
Can’t tell if the game itself has a ton of depth. They do have drafting, it’s called the Arena, and you enter for a fee in gold (costs about as much as a 1.5 boosters I believe) and then make a deck by selection one of 3 cards, 30 times. Then you play others doing the same until you lose 3 times, and get some kind of reward based on how much you won. Pretty neat way to do drafting without having to organize explicit tournaments.
Darn. I wasn’t expecting to be interested, but ended up watching 6 hours of streaming this weekend. (And I’m not usually big on watching streaming of anything ^^)
Color me surprised that this looks interesting. I think I shall have to keep an eye on this one.
I thought this looked good even back when they first announced, and I’m pleased to have this back on my radar. Thanks for the link!
I’ve been hooked by this ever since the first media drop. Really looking forward to its release!
So… anyone have an in for getting beta invites? ;)
I haven’t tried signing up for the beta, but the process apparently starts on the [I]HearthStone[/I] webpage.
Nope, luck of the draw, but I just got in.
I would be interested to know how much you can realistically expect to earn in gold from the daily quests, logging in once a day, etc. If it’s enough to play in the Arena a few times a week I’d be satisfied.
Edit: It’s 40g for the daily quest, + 1g per win.
So four days of daily quests to get 150g Arena entrance fee. Not sure if that’s enough for me… we’ll see.
As it turns out, I’d gotten an invite literally one minute before posting this. I just hadn’t seen it yet.
So hey, quick tip, you can fireball yourself. It’s embarrassing.
Super polished, oozes charm, but it’s still a collectable card game. I’m sure it’ll do well.
It seems fast and fun enough, I will check it out once the beta is more open.