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@Celestalon Design/Lore question: In WoW Void and Death magic are two very different things, but in HS they are grouped into Shadow. Could you expand on the reasoning behind this decision? Thanks in advance.

@Celestalon Design/Lore question: In WoW Void and Death magic are two very different things, but in HS they are grouped into Shadow. Could you expand on the reasoning behind this decision? Thanks in advance.

  • DrNoOne13
    Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
    @Celestalon Design/Lore question: In WoW Void and Death magic are two very different things, but in HS they are grouped into Shadow. Could you expand on the reasoning behind this decision? Thanks in advance.

    • Chadd Nervigg
      Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
      @DrNoOne13 I could babble for hours about this stuff. The cosmic forces in Warcraft are super epic. But there's a difference between the source of magic and it's "school". Even in WoW, a Void Bolt and a Touch of the Grave are both 'Shadow' school. https://t.co/IEGg4UCoRB

      • Chadd Nervigg
        Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
        @DrNoOne13 Gameplay is a big part of this; it's relevant for gameplay that you can recognize what school something is. Color, form, animation, all play into that. Void and Death magic we've clarified the look of over time to be distinct, but are still obviously similar.

        • Chadd Nervigg
          Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
          @DrNoOne13 You can look at something and think "Yeah, that looks pretty dark and purple and grey, probably shadow.", and that's all you need to know. The people who love lore can be like "Oooh, that's shadowy but with streaks and blue tinges and highlights, so it's void!"

          • Chadd Nervigg
            Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
            @DrNoOne13 The tougher ones are the ones that are hard to identify the school of, or that you need more complex knowledge to identify. Primarily, that's Nature. Nature is kinda a kitchen sink of magical sources. (Also, some schools include non-magical effects, like Fire.)

            • Chadd Nervigg
              Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
              @DrNoOne13 Nature's rough because you just gotta learn all the bizarre totally-not-similar things that belong to Nature. Solar? Lightning? Earth? Toxins? In Hearthstone, we try to skew the setting/characters of a card's art toward common colors and shapes, even if the main thing is unclear.

              • Chadd Nervigg
                Posted 4 years, 3 months ago (Source)
                @DrNoOne13 That's more of a recent thing though. In the past, before we had schools as a gameplay mechanic, we were inconsistent and sometimes outright sloppy. When applying schools to these older spells, we had to make some tough choices. Card name/art are usually the strongest factors.
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