What happened to the Innkeeper? He seems like he would've been the obvious choice for the things that Bob is used for. It feels like he's been replaced. Did the voice actor quit or something?
That's a great question, because we talk a lot about this on the team - and the unique "fiction" behind Hearthstone.
Harth (the Innkeeper) runs a tavern in the Warcraft universe, and people go to that tavern and they play Hearthstone. We want the player to feel like they're going to Harth's tavern, like you live in the Warcraft universe with him. When you're playing Hearthstone (especially the solo adventures), you're playing a story - I often say it's like the stories that people who live in the Warcraft universe might tell one another ("What if the Lich King turned Jaina into a Death Knight?" "What if Rafaam stole Dalaran?") You can hear Harth over your shoulder introducing the fight and you can hear the people in the tavern gasping or cheering when minions hit one another.
So, when we were building the Dalaran Heist, we wanted the EVIL characters to stop by a tavern where they could recruit minions. We wanted it to be inside the fiction of a game of Hearthstone: Bob greets them by character name (Reminding Eudora she has a tab, etc.) because he's sharing the same world with them. If they were interacting with Harth, they would be breaking the fiction.
If you're having trouble following that, I think /u/mrt-e put it better earlier in the thread: "It's a tavern within a tavern. Tavernception." (Inn-Ception?)
Thanks for the response Fargo, cool insight. Would you guys ever think about allowing people to pick Harth/Bob for their Innkeeper voice?
I would never say never, because alternate announcers is a really fun feature! BUT, it's unlikely for a couple of reasons - we want Bob to be the "inside the story" presence and Harth to be by the player's side outside the game, and we don't want to cross the streams. Secondly (probably less important), there are ... SO MANY innkeeper lines, because he announces every hero and every boss, so that would be a LOT of VO to record, localize, and add to the game client. So not impossible, but unlikely.
Personally, I'm happy that Bob has become so popular, but to me Harth is always the heart of Hearthstone. "WHHHAAAOOOHH LEGENDARY!!"
Dave Kosak
That's a great question, because we talk a lot about this on the team - and the unique "fiction" behind Hearthstone.
Harth (the Innkeeper) runs a tavern in the Warcraft universe, and people go to that tavern and they play Hearthstone. We want the player to feel like they're going to Harth's tavern, like you live in the Warcraft universe with him. When you're playing Hearthstone (especially the solo adventures), you're playing a story - I often say it's like the stories that people who live in the Warcraft universe might tell one another ("What if the Lich King turned Jaina into a Death Knight?" "What if Rafaam stole Dalaran?") You can hear Harth over your shoulder introducing the fight and you can hear the people in the tavern gasping or cheering when minions hit one another.
So, when we were building the Dalaran Heist, we wanted the EVIL characters to stop by a tavern where they could recruit minions. We wanted it to be inside the fiction of a game of Hearthstone: Bob greets them by character name (Reminding Eudora she has a tab, etc.) because he's sharing the same world with them. If they were interacting with Harth, they would be breaking the fiction.
If you're having trouble following that, I think /u/mrt-e put it better earlier in the thread: "It's a tavern within a tavern. Tavernception." (Inn-Ception?)
Dave Kosak
I would never say never, because alternate announcers is a really fun feature! BUT, it's unlikely for a couple of reasons - we want Bob to be the "inside the story" presence and Harth to be by the player's side outside the game, and we don't want to cross the streams. Secondly (probably less important), there are ... SO MANY innkeeper lines, because he announces every hero and every boss, so that would be a LOT of VO to record, localize, and add to the game client. So not impossible, but unlikely.
Personally, I'm happy that Bob has become so popular, but to me Harth is always the heart of Hearthstone. "WHHHAAAOOOHH LEGENDARY!!"