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Why was Old-Murkey removed as a collection reward?
For those of you who don't remember, after collecting at least one of each murloc you would be awarded with Old-Murk-Eye (also with captain's parrot if you had one of each pirate, if I am not mistaken).
I remember that he was rotated to wild because there was fear that Anyfin Paladin would be significantly overpowered in standard if he was around.
But even though that was the reasoning for rotating him, what was the reasoning behind removing him as a collection reward and forcing people to craft the card instead of crafting their missing murlocs and as a bonus getting a nice little legendary?
All opinions are welcome, but I would like to hear from a dev assuming they are allowed to disclose this information!
EDIT: TOP 1 on Hearthstone Reddit. You guys are the best and thank you so much for the support. This is not just about Old Murk-Eye but about the Wild format in General.
ALSO Ben Brode was kind enough to reply and share his thoughts on the matter. See below for his post and as ever feel free to post directly to the man. This is an opportunity for the content creators to see that while we do hold an appreciation for future cards we also appreciate the past.
Ben Brode
Hey there!
We had to make a call on "promo" cards: Should they be Standard forever? Or Wild?
I think it could have gone either way, but the opportunity to remove another Charge minion in Standard (Charge has been the cause of a lot of balance issues, historically), was hard to pass up. We also stopped Captain's Parrot from showing up in "random Beast" drops in Standard.
At the end of the day, we felt like Standard would be more fun without those cards. Maybe we should have just nerfed Murk Eye to remove Charge instead, but I actually like that it exists in Wild.
We removed it as a reward because we didn't want players to randomly unlock Wild before our yearly rotation, or before they initiated the unlock themselves by crafting a Wild card. Ideally new players move through the cards in this order: Basic > Classic > Standard-Legal > Wild.
In game design, you can eventually get players to very high levels of complexity, but starting with the most complex thing can turn new players off. We call it the "complexity curve", start with the basics, then layer in complexity. It's why you take Algebra before Calculus, and not the other way around. It's also one of the reasons why new players don't start with everything unlocked.
In some of the comments here I think players see it as a lost opportunity for a free Legendary. If we want to give out some other free Legendary (and that might be a good idea), I don't think doing it for this specific card (Charge, unlock Wild) is the right solution.
Ben Brode
It's not about thinking players will get confused, it's about how much fun vs work the game is. The more concepts we introduce, the more you have to learn, the more work it is. It's why you just jump in and start playing Hearthstone. We don't call it a tutorial. Just play. And we don't start with a rule book. It's more fun to play and slowly learn over time. Of course players can figure it out, but what is the most fun way to layer on the rules of the game?
Ben Brode
Why murk eye and not some other Legendary?
Ben Brode
This is definitely an area of improvement for Hearthstone, totally agree.
Ben Brode
We could, but what's the goal there? Is it to give out a legendary? We can do that much simpler.
Ben Brode
Not sure.
Ben Brode
We could, but is Murk Eye the best Legendary to give out for free?
Ben Brode
At least Patches will someday rotate. We can get an ebb and flow to Standard this way. Classic cards are the baseline, and some of them are great to have around forever. We'll add more Charge minions, I'm sure. But doing it in rotating sets gives us a lot more control.