Only a few hours separate us from the Hearthstone's next expansion's reveal, which is currently planned for 10 AM PT/19:00 CET. However, it appears that (as usual) someone spilled the beans ahead of time, and this time we're talking about www.buffed.de.
The German gaming site just released an article containing information about the new expansion that indicates it will take place in Alterac Valley - here are some of the most relevant pieces of information:
- The next expansion's name is Divided in Alterac Valley (pending official English translation) and will go live on December 7th.
- The expansion revolves around Alliance versus Horde rivalry.
- Based on which side you'll pick, you can choose between two free golden legendaries - that is happening today!
- The Shaman Elder Drek'Thar of the Frostwolf Clan for the Horde.
- The Mountain King Vanndar Stormpike for the Alliance.
- A brand new Quest system will be introduced: gain Honor Points by playing and winning games!
- The faction that earned the most honor at the end of the event will be declared the winner in the next mini-set, and all players will receive a diamond version of the victorious faction's leader card.
- New Keyword: Honorable Victory - grants unique bonuses for dealing the exact amount of damage needed to kill an enemy, opposite to Overkill.
- Examples are reducing the cost of all spells or gaining stats.
- Hero Cards are back, and they will bring some game-changing effects!
- Hero Cards are going to be some of the Mercenary characters we have seen during this year.
- Example of "game-changing effect" is increasing player's maximum Mana to 20.
Elder Drek'Thar and Vanndar Stormpike (source: wowpedia)
Quote From Buffed A fight for honor. The time has come to take up arms! Starting today, players in Divided in Alterac Valley can choose a faction by choosing one of two free golden legendary cards: the Shaman Elder Drek'Thar of the Frostwolf Clan for the Horde or the Mountain King Vanndar Stormpike for the Alliance.From December 7th to January 11th, each faction will receive unique quests where players will earn Honor Points by playing and winning games. The faction that earned the most honor at the end of the event will be declared the winner in the next mini-set, and all players will receive a diamond version of the victorious faction's leader card.
New Keyword: Honorable Victory. It has never felt better to give a servant the fatal blow. The Honorable Victory keyword grants unique bonuses for dealing the exact amount of damage needed to an enemy, such as reducing the cost of all spells or + 1 / + 1 for each honorable victory.
Mercenary heroes. After a year of battles, the mercenary heroes on both sides are hardened for battle. They are now hero cards with game changing effects - such as increasing a player's maximum mana crystals to 20! With their powerful new battle cries and hero skills, these heroes can decide the outcome of the battle between the Horde and the Alliance.
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Are you excited about these news? Which side are you going to choose? Horde or Alliance? Tell us in the comments below!
Comments
It'll have to be judged on a card to card basis, because if the card has too high or too low an attack value, it might be worthless trying to make it work unless the effect is so powerful it cannot be ignored (much like how octobot is to frenzy).
Besides, its actually easier to accomplish an overkill than otherwise. The idea of wasted damage only works if you get nothing out for your effort. The main problem with overkill, and likely to honorable kill as well, is that unless the card itself has rush its unlikely to ever trigger (and the spell overkill cards being largely shit doesn't help). However we do have Animated Broomstick for another 4 months, so we'll have to see if its worth anyone's while to even bother with it.
The cards will definitely have to stand on their own to deliver the reward for them to be universally good, that is for sure. We shall see.
From my understanding, once you pick a side, whatever you do, you earn honor points for that side. But we will have to wait for an official information about how this is going to work, of course.
@staff Little reminders from an European guy :
The timezone is wrong we now have CET , because summer is over into should then be 18:00 CET.
in Europe we have time change every 6 month beginnings rhe las Saturday in October
We do indeed have CET now, and 10 am Pacific would be 19:00 CET. Because you know, they also had their daylight savings time change over there, on November 7.
But that's not the official timestamp or anything, just what people usually expect Blizzard announcements to happen at as they tend to follow the pattern.
they have that in murrica too? I am shocked I didnt knew this!
Two ppl from EU worked on the article and we still managed to get it wrong :D Time zones are hard, man! :) Thanks, edited.
I'll blame this one on Sinti because he was in charge of the quality check. Definitely not may fault at all.
pls no... pls no.
btw is xyrella horde? or allience?
Based on Mercenary treasures, she is an Alliance, since Alliance treasures buff her. But you know Blizz, it could go either way :)
Xyrella is Alliance. I agree the draenai are almost too interesting to fit with the 'traditional fantasy good guy race' thing the Alliance has going on.
As for the 20 mana thing... let's see who gets it, and if its druid, do they actually need it given they already do something more extreme with Celestial Alignment.
Believe she is Dranei (sp?) So Alliance.
This sounds pretty cool! A welcome change to the normal expansion mode. I'm partial to the Allience, but I imagine the Horde is a lot more popular, so their chances of winning are better.
The keyword doesn't seem strong/interessting. Without Rush it's bad.
Most of it was expected: AV, Hero Cards... I hope they are not to overtuned. But reading about getting 20 mana is concerning.
I'm interessted in the Alliance vs. Horde mechanic though. Wasn't there sth similiar during Gadgetzan with the gangs battling over the city?
Yep, though the Gadgetzan one was very much tied to the meta and naturally favoured the Jade Lotus just because they got the strongest tri-class mechanic. Hopefully the honor point system being tied to quests will be more a metric of people just playing the game than how strong any class or mechanic is, though it does rely somewhat on there being a roughly equal number of players choosing each side, which is difficult to guarantee.
Would love to see the UI on this, although I just have a feeling that it'll still show as 10 mana crystals, just the text changes to 20.
Also, I wonder if you could "technically" get both cards for free. For eg: You choose the Horde Legendary, but then the Alliance wins, so you get the diamond version of the Alliance legendary.
The UI is gonna be pretty simple i think. Remember where they show the overloaded mana crystals? That's where they'll show the 10 extra mana (i.e. with different graphics from the overloaded ones).
This also means that shaman is NOT gonna (ever) recieve the 20 mana buff ;)
What will likely happen would be the winning team gets the diamond legendary while the losers suck their thumbs and sit around the corner. I doubt team5 will allow something like this to happen, because its fairly obvious most players will just opt for the stronger side, so smart guys will just pick the weaker one and score a freebie. It creates this scenario where players will band up and basically throw the contest and as unlikely as it is to work, Im sure team5 wouldn't want something like this happening.
The original Article specifically said that everyone will get a diamond version of the winning teams Leader.
We'll that's all my assumptions thrown out the window. Im looking forward to the reddit and discords on the mass turn 1 concedes events already.
"Horde players go as warrior, alliance as paladin. The signal is a combinations of emotes, which will indicate who will concede"