Hearthstone
- Thread starter Azrayne
- Start date
SimSimSalabim
Molten Core Raider
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- 351
I remember reading...I don't remember where, but that everybody who opted-in through battle.net will eventually get in to the beta as they are sending out waves to those people.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
- 5,908
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Ya they'll all eventually get in during open beta (open beta will just be everyone who opted in gets in).
Despite the level of polish, there is abundant evidence that this is a beta. My buddy couldn't play for 3 days because Macs would crash on launch. There are still some pretty glaring bugs with crafting (consuming double the amount of materialsANDnot giving the card [rofl]), some minor(ish) bugs like the END TURN button rotating 30 degreesintothe table and making the clickable area very tiny, and the sound echoing and becoming tinny at times.
In any case, if you're even remotely interested you're probably going to enjoy it as much as you think you will. I've never played any other TCG, but there's definitely a satisfying amount of depth and strategy to the game. The matchmaking seems to do a decent job at matching you with challenging opponents, but I have gone on some extended winning streaks before. Supposedly they'll be revealing some of the mechanics of their matchmaking in a blog soon.
I have a love/hate relationship with the Arena. At first I was really excited to be able to select and use cards that I didn't have in my deck, but that novelty wears off pretty quickly. One time I got a mage (one of my favorite classes) and was trying to build a deck around spells and spell power minions similar to my normal deck. I picked up almost every spell but only got 1 spell power minion in all 30 of my choices. The deck was terribly put together, and I lost my first 3 games (in the arena you can win up to 9 but can only lose 3). This was frustrating to say the least, but I think the rewards of the arena (even with 0 wins) probably outweigh the cost of the extra 50 coins (150 coins for arena, 100 coins for an expert pack).
Can anyone do a quick explanation how the facebook beta key works? I thought the only way you could get in was through an email invite, until I saw something on stream saying something about facebook like crap or whatever.
Mist
Eeyore Enthusiast
- 30,488
- 22,401
It's actually exactly like MTG drafts. Going all-in on a particular mechanic or strategy has huge upside but huge potential downside.
People who are good at limited magic frequently have very high win rates in HS Arena from what I've seen.
Mures
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 4,014
- 511
If you like their facebook customer service profile, BlizzardCS, they will post messages daily opening their private message box and you have to be one of the first 10 ppl to send a pm. There were several 100 key batches they also did throughout the last several days for hitting milestones on the number of likes they have, but I think there may only be one more big batch like that, if any. 10s after these messages are posted they have 1,000 likes and thats not taking into consideration facebook bots, so the odds of getting 1 in 10 or even 1 in 100 are extremely low.
Fuck, might as well try. I wasn't even able to send a message until 3 minutes later. This seems so desperate for a fucking key.
Gah, finally at my desk during this BlizzardCS thing and the message button doesn't work. Finally got a message through 2 minutes later, but there were already 1000+ likes...
Mures
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 4,014
- 511
I had the conversation up from trying before so I just had to hit enter to send the message. Of course someone walked up and wanted help right as it was going down, but I still was able to send the message at 2 seconds, it seems pretty random who wins anyway and not the first 200 to send, so here is to hoping I hit the lotto.
Have they given any indication of when they plan to release this? I've been watching Kripp's stream quite a bit since the beta started and it looks like pretty casual fun. Never really played one of these games.
Mures
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 4,014
- 511
No indication of when open beta might be, the hearthstone cm has this to say:
"While we appreciate the fact that many people see the game as finished, it is not. Bugs continue to be reported, which we are vigilant in fixing, and we do see technical issues pop up here and there. There are things that go on behind the scenes as well that the community as a whole does not see that take time to monitor, iterate on and fix. Things still need to be done and there are improvements to be made, which is why we are not in open beta yet.
Having a polished closed beta release really helps us put our focus on the systems that need improvements and bugs that need to be fixed for an eventual release that will be smooth and ready for all to enjoy."
"While we appreciate the fact that many people see the game as finished, it is not. Bugs continue to be reported, which we are vigilant in fixing, and we do see technical issues pop up here and there. There are things that go on behind the scenes as well that the community as a whole does not see that take time to monitor, iterate on and fix. Things still need to be done and there are improvements to be made, which is why we are not in open beta yet.
Having a polished closed beta release really helps us put our focus on the systems that need improvements and bugs that need to be fixed for an eventual release that will be smooth and ready for all to enjoy."
I looked at some streams and I don't get what the big deal is. It's like Magic for little children, extremely dumbed down and with only the most fundamental TCG mechanics. The gameplay is so utterly primitive and straight-forward. I guess anything by Blizzard is going to get a lot of attention, but Hearthstone can't possibly become the next big thing, can it? The mechanics, types of cards and general gameplay is just so absolutely basic and one-faceted that it's even less complex than the M:TG Portal newbie starter's package I once got as a kid.
Mainly it's because creatures are the only permanents and you can kill any enemy creature with such ease that they can't ever be individually important. It all becomes about their power and health, not about interesting abilities and advanced mechanics. I've been watching streams for a week and literally every single game, every game without exception, has been a weenie stomp affair with creature rush as the only possible option. You can choose which of your enemy creatures to attack, almost all non-creature cards deal with creature removal, and most of the classes have innate abilities that deal with creature creation or removal.
Thus, there can never be any kind of combo deck or really any kind of deck that deals in anything other than just amassing more total damage output than your opponent. That seems to be the one and only way to play the game. You can flavor it a little with creatures that buff adjacent minions, or with a lot of damage or removal spells, but the game is set up to absolutely force every deck into the general shape of "get the highest possible combination of attacking power on the board and kill the enemy before he can do the same." That's a sad, pale imitation of any serious TCG.
Mainly it's because creatures are the only permanents and you can kill any enemy creature with such ease that they can't ever be individually important. It all becomes about their power and health, not about interesting abilities and advanced mechanics. I've been watching streams for a week and literally every single game, every game without exception, has been a weenie stomp affair with creature rush as the only possible option. You can choose which of your enemy creatures to attack, almost all non-creature cards deal with creature removal, and most of the classes have innate abilities that deal with creature creation or removal.
Thus, there can never be any kind of combo deck or really any kind of deck that deals in anything other than just amassing more total damage output than your opponent. That seems to be the one and only way to play the game. You can flavor it a little with creatures that buff adjacent minions, or with a lot of damage or removal spells, but the game is set up to absolutely force every deck into the general shape of "get the highest possible combination of attacking power on the board and kill the enemy before he can do the same." That's a sad, pale imitation of any serious TCG.
Nidhogg
Molten Core Raider
- 1,484
- 88
As with all things Blizzard does, they are looking towards the future - keywords ARE primitive because they need to be to encapsulate an audience.
Think back to when MTG had different tiers of booster packs based on player knowledge. Core sets were for beginners, or you could get Expert packs for the Tempest block.
This is no different, except that there is only one block currently - the starting one.
Once they get the technical aspects of the game working, you will see expansion sets with more keywords - you probably wont see anything but "Weenie beatdown" however since the playing board is specifically set to only deal with minions. This isn't to say they won't expand the board or UI to deal with enchantments or other game-state altering effects that linger until you remove it - but again, that's probably an expansion down the line.
I guarantee you Blizzard already has this in mind - MTG has a VERY solid and easy to follow formula. The game itself has it's own complexity through the "hero" that you choose and the special abilities they do and the cards they are allowed to use.
Give it time.
Edit: Oh and still WTB a Key. I know one of you has won the facebook stuff.