Hearthstone Audio Clips in database is an odd metric to showcase.
Last month as a sort of ninja-update, our database now has audio files for Hearthstone cards and this information is a part of our patch import pipeline so it'll stay up to date. Nothing about it was a planned update, if just sort of happened by accident when making adjustments to some of our datamining tools - a happy little accident as Bob Ross would say.
There are a few cards that are missing audio still, but for the most part, you'll be able to find sounds for new cards when new patches drop! Once we've got most of those figured out, we'll open up a forum thread to collect feedback on sounds that are missing so we can go and weed out the remaining conditions.
I'm excited to have that on the site because it adds more value to our database pages. Once we get Mercenary audio mapped properly, we'll be sure to carry that on over to the Mercenary-specific pages too.
Also, I'd like to skin an audio player instead of relying on the browser-specific ones. Browser ones don't match the site very and they're a bit on the large side :P
Probably a form of categorization that starts early on so it is obvious what kind of voicelines need to be recorded. The reason why a card or hero name may not be used though is due to those likely not being finalized until later in the process, so sticking to generics + the card's internal ID = GG.
Almost everything that is new in the client ends up on our homepage shortly after patches go up so for the most part, that's already true. Sometimes we do hold back on some information though to better time it with something else.
I also don't want to get too in-depth with some stuff because the fewer people that understand how stuff works, the more beneficial it is for us from a traffic POV. Damn balancing acts.
We should be front paging this soonish thanks to Aesan - but props for posting about this on the forums (discussion ftw!) because we don't always cover every single community-run event.
Some great players taking part though and Cora is going to be donating any winnings so that's awesome of her.
Also, no one get angry at Aesan if he doesn't get it up, you can get angry at me instead. I feel bad for saying he's going to do it when it's possible that he could run into scheduling problems - we've all been there at some point.
Ah, scrolled down the comments more and learned something new. I had no idea this was a thing and that is awesome. We need that legislation everywhere!
Yeah, I dislike the bundles. The Rexxar skin is rad but I'm not a big fan of the others in the bundle. I do like all the "cheer" skins though, but damn that's a high price to pay =/
For real though, there were people in the past who hit that disenchant button on mobile because "you said the patch was live". The absence of critical thinking is too damn high with that those people.
Grandmasters was too tough to get into and there were less opportunities for good players to make any money playing competitive Hearthstone because of it. Better players should, in theory, always get into the paid events now and they have a higher chance of getting into relevant events which means it won't feel so bad to not be a GM.
YouTube drops will indeed be a thing! World Championship being a mainline esports event means it won't be on Twitch at all, which is a shame because YouTube still sucks at streaming (seriously, just copy Twitch's layout and push discoverability).
To earn the drops:
Watch 2 hours of the stream to earn one Fractured in Alterac Valley pack
Watch 2 more hours (4 in total) to earn another Fractured in Alterac Valley pack.
Frosty wrapped up our survival guide a couple hours ago and it will be going live later this afternoon/early evening (needs a thumbnail, decks are coming first though).
FWIW I still see them in my shop, but these bundles took a while to appear for everyone when they launched on Tuesday. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a temporary error and you'll see them again with a relog.
We didn't immediately post about them because I wasn't sure how they were being handled out. We stopped posting about tailored bundles with the previous wave of them since there's too many of them and its just too chaotic to figure out how many bundles are live. Recent client data has shown that they have no problems adding 20+ bundle licenses to the game in a single patch, most of which would never be offered to someone. So frustrating but their "random" bundles clearly work better than the old version of them since they can target us with deals that they think we'll pickup.
The Rank 1 AV bundles though do appear to be given to everyone though, it just took time for them to go out. I didn't get them in my shop until around 4 hours after they were first spotted.
Yeah I'm very curious if we'll ever get to that point. Probably when there's a crazy number of skins for each of the heroes.
Battlegrounds being monetized purely off cosmetics does put them in a bit of a weird spot to continue supporting the mode if they just give stuff out for "free".
If we were going to take a position and not post about deals because of the stuff going on with Blizzard's higher-ups, then we would just stop posting about Hearthstone completely. Though at our core we're a community site, news is a big part of that and we like to keep people informed. If we're going to not post about deals in the shop then maybe we shouldn't post about decks that use lots of the new cards either because we're just trying to push it into people's minds that they need to buy the cards to be successful.
What's going on at Blizzard is disgusting on so many levels and I personally believe that Kotick should be removed from his position at the head of the company. But Kotick and other higher-ups aren't the only people at the company. In fact, if things don't change and all the Blizzard products stopped being profitable, I believe there is a decent chance hiring would stop and they might start letting some people go. You can still support the people that work on the games you love while thinking that the people at the top there are a bunch of assholes. Though its not like buying stuff is like a charity handout either, you are getting something in return. If you like or want something and you can afford it, buy it.
The politics at the company will eventually sort themselves out and if anyone doesn't think so, I recommend they stop playing the games completely because everything Blizzard releases is a live service product so if the company shuts down, any money or time invested into the games goes away. Not to say that time investment is completely wasted though as long as you were having fun.
And I agree, everyone is welcome to make their own opinions. Mine is that we're treating everything as business as usual because I'm not trying to create a cesspool - quite the opposite. We'll report on the biggest of the news items at Blizzard because I believe everyone should know what is happening, but we're not going to report on every single detail because at the end of the day, its mentally draining and there's days where our entire front page or Hearthstone portal would be nothing but "what did Blizzard management mess up today".
We are pushing out a deploy now and we're going to be reverting to our original video ad provider.
We'll probably give the new unit a shot again in the future but its still too early and problems need to be worked out. I know our ads are annoying but they keep the site online and my, hopeful, goal is that ads we do display aren't a major pain in the ass.
Hearthstone Audio Clips in database is an odd metric to showcase.
Last month as a sort of ninja-update, our database now has audio files for Hearthstone cards and this information is a part of our patch import pipeline so it'll stay up to date. Nothing about it was a planned update, if just sort of happened by accident when making adjustments to some of our datamining tools - a happy little accident as Bob Ross would say.
There are a few cards that are missing audio still, but for the most part, you'll be able to find sounds for new cards when new patches drop! Once we've got most of those figured out, we'll open up a forum thread to collect feedback on sounds that are missing so we can go and weed out the remaining conditions.
I'm excited to have that on the site because it adds more value to our database pages. Once we get Mercenary audio mapped properly, we'll be sure to carry that on over to the Mercenary-specific pages too.
Also, I'd like to skin an audio player instead of relying on the browser-specific ones. Browser ones don't match the site very and they're a bit on the large side :P
Probably a form of categorization that starts early on so it is obvious what kind of voicelines need to be recorded. The reason why a card or hero name may not be used though is due to those likely not being finalized until later in the process, so sticking to generics + the card's internal ID = GG.
Almost everything that is new in the client ends up on our homepage shortly after patches go up so for the most part, that's already true. Sometimes we do hold back on some information though to better time it with something else.
I also don't want to get too in-depth with some stuff because the fewer people that understand how stuff works, the more beneficial it is for us from a traffic POV. Damn balancing acts.
We should be front paging this soonish thanks to Aesan - but props for posting about this on the forums (discussion ftw!) because we don't always cover every single community-run event.
Some great players taking part though and Cora is going to be donating any winnings so that's awesome of her.
Also, no one get angry at Aesan if he doesn't get it up, you can get angry at me instead. I feel bad for saying he's going to do it when it's possible that he could run into scheduling problems - we've all been there at some point.
Ah, scrolled down the comments more and learned something new. I had no idea this was a thing and that is awesome. We need that legislation everywhere!
Damn, Brazil OP!
Yeah, I dislike the bundles. The Rexxar skin is rad but I'm not a big fan of the others in the bundle. I do like all the "cheer" skins though, but damn that's a high price to pay =/
100% the right call!
For real though, there were people in the past who hit that disenchant button on mobile because "you said the patch was live". The absence of critical thinking is too damn high with that those people.
Ah yes, the Hearthstone community way! :D
FWIW Blizzard is late on the patch atm so it isn't live on Battle.net client yet. Yay scheduled news posts based on assumptions.
Just be smart. If you hit the button to get into the disenchant options and it doesn't show you 1600 dust, don't press disenchant yet!
I know the feels. I just hit mass disenchant last week =(
Thoughts:
Grandmasters was too tough to get into and there were less opportunities for good players to make any money playing competitive Hearthstone because of it. Better players should, in theory, always get into the paid events now and they have a higher chance of getting into relevant events which means it won't feel so bad to not be a GM.
YouTube drops will indeed be a thing! World Championship being a mainline esports event means it won't be on Twitch at all, which is a shame because YouTube still sucks at streaming (seriously, just copy Twitch's layout and push discoverability).
To earn the drops:
Frosty wrapped up our survival guide a couple hours ago and it will be going live later this afternoon/early evening (needs a thumbnail, decks are coming first though).
FWIW I still see them in my shop, but these bundles took a while to appear for everyone when they launched on Tuesday. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a temporary error and you'll see them again with a relog.
We didn't immediately post about them because I wasn't sure how they were being handled out. We stopped posting about tailored bundles with the previous wave of them since there's too many of them and its just too chaotic to figure out how many bundles are live. Recent client data has shown that they have no problems adding 20+ bundle licenses to the game in a single patch, most of which would never be offered to someone. So frustrating but their "random" bundles clearly work better than the old version of them since they can target us with deals that they think we'll pickup.
The Rank 1 AV bundles though do appear to be given to everyone though, it just took time for them to go out. I didn't get them in my shop until around 4 hours after they were first spotted.
Yeah I'm very curious if we'll ever get to that point. Probably when there's a crazy number of skins for each of the heroes.
Battlegrounds being monetized purely off cosmetics does put them in a bit of a weird spot to continue supporting the mode if they just give stuff out for "free".
If we were going to take a position and not post about deals because of the stuff going on with Blizzard's higher-ups, then we would just stop posting about Hearthstone completely. Though at our core we're a community site, news is a big part of that and we like to keep people informed. If we're going to not post about deals in the shop then maybe we shouldn't post about decks that use lots of the new cards either because we're just trying to push it into people's minds that they need to buy the cards to be successful.
What's going on at Blizzard is disgusting on so many levels and I personally believe that Kotick should be removed from his position at the head of the company. But Kotick and other higher-ups aren't the only people at the company. In fact, if things don't change and all the Blizzard products stopped being profitable, I believe there is a decent chance hiring would stop and they might start letting some people go. You can still support the people that work on the games you love while thinking that the people at the top there are a bunch of assholes. Though its not like buying stuff is like a charity handout either, you are getting something in return. If you like or want something and you can afford it, buy it.
The politics at the company will eventually sort themselves out and if anyone doesn't think so, I recommend they stop playing the games completely because everything Blizzard releases is a live service product so if the company shuts down, any money or time invested into the games goes away. Not to say that time investment is completely wasted though as long as you were having fun.
And I agree, everyone is welcome to make their own opinions. Mine is that we're treating everything as business as usual because I'm not trying to create a cesspool - quite the opposite. We'll report on the biggest of the news items at Blizzard because I believe everyone should know what is happening, but we're not going to report on every single detail because at the end of the day, its mentally draining and there's days where our entire front page or Hearthstone portal would be nothing but "what did Blizzard management mess up today".
We are pushing out a deploy now and we're going to be reverting to our original video ad provider.
We'll probably give the new unit a shot again in the future but its still too early and problems need to be worked out. I know our ads are annoying but they keep the site online and my, hopeful, goal is that ads we do display aren't a major pain in the ass.
You can upload screenshots to Imgur or another image sharing service and put links here. You may DM their links to me instead as well.