I was slightly betting on Blizzard not refunding it. The headlines, and interviews with mainstream media that want to dunk on Blizzard I'd offer to give, would have been wild.
I know when a lot of companies say that line, it usually ends up being some negative effect or its at least perceived that way. I do think BlizzCon needs some serious reform though.
I know people who have gone there and have not felt safe. Sometimes it brings out some of the stalker-types and other related people and it becomes a bad environment for fun. By extension, this makes folks not feel welcome. People at Blizzard in charge of BlizzCon need to not brush aside complaints (which they have done in the past) and actually take action against dangerous people.
Inclusivity is also important. Even just on the side of the European, Asian, and Australian fans, BlizzCon (physical) is not a very easy to access event which has been a very unfortunate because there isn't any other big Blizzard party (gamescom was the closest Europe had to a BlizzCon, and that's a stretch). Blizzard needs to figure out the satellite BlizzCon stuff so there can be multiple events going on at the same time, opening up everything to more of the world.
The side that most consider when looking at being inclusive though, marginalized groups of people, I'm honestly not sure what has gone wrong here with BlizzCon, outside of some presenters in the past making poor comments. Maybe that is all that needs to change and that would be something easy to accomplish by fixing the underlying issues at the company. If there is something bigger picture though within the community (and not Blizzard itself, we already know the hellscape that they are atm) that's hurting BlizzCon, I am not currently aware of any issues that were being experienced by folks at the convention (outside of aforementioned safety problems) and would love to be enlightened.
All datamining has pointed to a Deadmines theme though, and it makes a ton of sense since Stormwind's set was originally going to take place in Westfall but blizzard decided not to because of a lack of character variance. Yeah, not much going on in Westfall that would make for a ton of fresh characters.
I still think we could have done a better job at dropping more content for everyone since we clearly can't rely on Blizzard to paint the real picture. Is it actually our problem? No, not at all. But whenever we have the data, I believe we should do the absolute most with it.
Heya! Its certainly interesting but not something that needed to be covered for the launch. There's tons of stuff to sift through in the original patch of Mercenaries data, I recommend looking through it if its something that interests you!
It is something we'll report on on the coming week or two when things calm down and we do some more cleanup on all the Mercenaries stuff across the site. I wish I had infinite time in the day (and the audience had an infinite attention span) to make good use of it all.
There was a comment someone left on a previous article about similar stuff with Mercs datamining and I had responded to it as well but I just wanted to make it clear - us not covering something was not done because of Blizzard asking us not to. Just a time or scheduling thing! You might actually be surprised to know how often we just schedule stuff in advance, but that's another bag of worms for another day, lol.
They were pissed because they didn't get to control something they wanted control over. And, yeah, that's shitty.
Though, looking at the messaging they did put out, I don't really feel that bad for them. Folks would have gone into Mercenaries with even less information. I especially "enjoyed" the part where they, on launch day, decided to push out info on freebies, twitch drops, and login bonuses in a big mega post right when the game went live.
I fail to comprehend how that was a good idea. You offered not much in the run up, why not drum up some excitement and hour or two before the launch so people could focus on, you know, the big launch. Instead, you've put content out that is going to get missed by people. You could have prior communicated the questline to folks so they got to be excited about the free packs they'd soon open. Gaaaah!
Yeah, streamers aren't very critical of the game and it's kinda sad. I'm not saying people should be causing unrest for the sake of drumming up toxic mobs, but you know so many people are too afraid to comment on anything remotely negative. Everything is perfect in Hearthstone! And hey, not every audience needs to be aware of stuff thats bad with the game, not everyone needs to be like the Kripp and Zeddys, but it really feels like some people have their noses so brown that it gives the community team a power over the rest of the bunch. I'd just love to see people not pretending everything is so perfect. Social media is such a shit show. Everyone protects themselves in their own bubble and forgets about the rest of it. Watching the "Hearthstone is perfect" echo chambers is sad. Great game, but far, far from it.
Although I am disappointed by how bad Blizzard is at managing the public part, I'll never let them get me down. We're in it for the long haul with a community I'm happy to be a part of and if they continue to make blunders, I'll make sure we're there to hold them accountable.
Gaming overall does need less negativity, but damn there's something important about telling it like it is sometimes.
Yeah, there's definitely a ton that is involved. I am incredibly thankful that we have so many other wonderful people on the team that help with the coverage and great content that gets pushed out. I'm proud that my name isn't attached to everything anymore because I know alone, I simply couldn't do it. We've been getting better, more regular, and in general stronger as time goes on at figuring out exactly what we want to be and that's great. With others on the team focusing more than ever before on content, it has allowed me to fix some of our tech debt, work on new features, and most importantly, give the business side of the site more attention.
I appreciate you not running adblock. I know how bad the experience can be at times and I wish it didn't have to be. I don't regret adding our video unit to the site because it doubled the amount of money the site brings in, which in turn made it much more viable for folks to work on content, but damn was that tough from a "pain in the ass" standpoint. I find ads insufferable and wish we didn't have to run them but at the end of the day, I think folks understand that and if they don't, they join the adblock party anyway and are somewhat oblivious to it all. Though, I do sometimes wonder how much better we could be doing if it wasn't for adblock.
As far as growth on the Hearthstone team goes though, yeah, they've been doing a ton of it. I know they've had a lot of problems over the years just because they grew so fast. There was also some hesitation to touch the game, see little to no balance changes for so long when it was very clearly needed. I don't know if that came from papa Blizz that wanted stuff to stay the same because it was still consistently bringing in money or if it really was the developers at the time feeling like things were fine and they really truly believed in the "digital but we want it to feel like paper" aspect of Hearthstone. Or, maybe something else entirely.
They've done a great job at growing with the game and having modes like Battlegrounds and Mercenaries is absolutely fantastic. Before Battlegrounds, there was little reason to login, at least for myself on the rare chance I get to play something in Hearthstone, when the meta was stale (which is like 2 weeks after an expac drops, or at least that was typically the case). Now Mercenaries makes it even harder to avoid Hearthstone since in theory, there is always something to do for everyone. Watching the platform mature has been a bit of a treat, even though it has been filled with frustration in seeing stuff one might consider to be a simple change or fix completely avoided (nothing is every truly simple).
I don't feel like I've been mistreated though and definitely do not feel like I've ever been in the wrong. When stuff be public, you got no one to blame but yourself! Though as I did say, I do regret not posting more datamined stuff and much earlier.
I won't spoil stuff too much but you can expect more. I hope by the end of it we don't have pushback telling us we are mad lads and lasses. I'm still blown away by how well they do - we definitely need to get better at doing them outside of site events.
I'd like to! The last time I did a guide though was all the way back for the Samsung promotion and I believe all the emulators have changed quite a bit so it'll take quite a bit of time to test them all out and see which one ends up being the most friendly.
I could write a client patch faster, in the same way that Hearthstone Access works. lol. The only downside is people would be sketched out patching their clients, even temporarily. The odds of Blizzard banning for such a thing, historically speaking, is 0. Though, folks, you should never download and execute code you don't trust the source for. Remember that!
Is this the 5 o'clock free site achievements giveaway?
I was slightly betting on Blizzard not refunding it. The headlines, and interviews with mainstream media that want to dunk on Blizzard I'd offer to give, would have been wild.
I know when a lot of companies say that line, it usually ends up being some negative effect or its at least perceived that way. I do think BlizzCon needs some serious reform though.
I know people who have gone there and have not felt safe. Sometimes it brings out some of the stalker-types and other related people and it becomes a bad environment for fun. By extension, this makes folks not feel welcome. People at Blizzard in charge of BlizzCon need to not brush aside complaints (which they have done in the past) and actually take action against dangerous people.
Inclusivity is also important. Even just on the side of the European, Asian, and Australian fans, BlizzCon (physical) is not a very easy to access event which has been a very unfortunate because there isn't any other big Blizzard party (gamescom was the closest Europe had to a BlizzCon, and that's a stretch). Blizzard needs to figure out the satellite BlizzCon stuff so there can be multiple events going on at the same time, opening up everything to more of the world.
The side that most consider when looking at being inclusive though, marginalized groups of people, I'm honestly not sure what has gone wrong here with BlizzCon, outside of some presenters in the past making poor comments. Maybe that is all that needs to change and that would be something easy to accomplish by fixing the underlying issues at the company. If there is something bigger picture though within the community (and not Blizzard itself, we already know the hellscape that they are atm) that's hurting BlizzCon, I am not currently aware of any issues that were being experienced by folks at the convention (outside of aforementioned safety problems) and would love to be enlightened.
FWIW Original art by Michael Loda for this video
Hmmmmmmm.
I'm holding out for some more harvesters. Harvest Golem needs some friends!
When asked by the press while being carried away in handcuffs, Bobby yelled
"It was a mistake! I didn't mean it!"
Just kidding, everyone knows billionaires don't do time.
If it isn't Deadmines, Avalon will eat a shoe.
All datamining has pointed to a Deadmines theme though, and it makes a ton of sense since Stormwind's set was originally going to take place in Westfall but blizzard decided not to because of a lack of character variance. Yeah, not much going on in Westfall that would make for a ton of fresh characters.
More are still coming for Oozefest!
We'll try to make these a more regular, non-event occurrence too.
I know we certainly have some talented artists within our population, but give it a go anyway! Carving pumpkins is always super fun :D
I still think we could have done a better job at dropping more content for everyone since we clearly can't rely on Blizzard to paint the real picture. Is it actually our problem? No, not at all. But whenever we have the data, I believe we should do the absolute most with it.
Heya! Its certainly interesting but not something that needed to be covered for the launch. There's tons of stuff to sift through in the original patch of Mercenaries data, I recommend looking through it if its something that interests you!
Here is a link to our card database (everything in Hearthstone is basically just a card object) with the proper patch filter.
https://outof.cards/hearthstone/cards/?added_in_patch=179
It is something we'll report on on the coming week or two when things calm down and we do some more cleanup on all the Mercenaries stuff across the site. I wish I had infinite time in the day (and the audience had an infinite attention span) to make good use of it all.
There was a comment someone left on a previous article about similar stuff with Mercs datamining and I had responded to it as well but I just wanted to make it clear - us not covering something was not done because of Blizzard asking us not to. Just a time or scheduling thing! You might actually be surprised to know how often we just schedule stuff in advance, but that's another bag of worms for another day, lol.
They were pissed because they didn't get to control something they wanted control over. And, yeah, that's shitty.
Though, looking at the messaging they did put out, I don't really feel that bad for them. Folks would have gone into Mercenaries with even less information. I especially "enjoyed" the part where they, on launch day, decided to push out info on freebies, twitch drops, and login bonuses in a big mega post right when the game went live.
I fail to comprehend how that was a good idea. You offered not much in the run up, why not drum up some excitement and hour or two before the launch so people could focus on, you know, the big launch. Instead, you've put content out that is going to get missed by people. You could have prior communicated the questline to folks so they got to be excited about the free packs they'd soon open. Gaaaah!
Yeah, streamers aren't very critical of the game and it's kinda sad. I'm not saying people should be causing unrest for the sake of drumming up toxic mobs, but you know so many people are too afraid to comment on anything remotely negative. Everything is perfect in Hearthstone! And hey, not every audience needs to be aware of stuff thats bad with the game, not everyone needs to be like the Kripp and Zeddys, but it really feels like some people have their noses so brown that it gives the community team a power over the rest of the bunch. I'd just love to see people not pretending everything is so perfect. Social media is such a shit show. Everyone protects themselves in their own bubble and forgets about the rest of it. Watching the "Hearthstone is perfect" echo chambers is sad. Great game, but far, far from it.
Although I am disappointed by how bad Blizzard is at managing the public part, I'll never let them get me down. We're in it for the long haul with a community I'm happy to be a part of and if they continue to make blunders, I'll make sure we're there to hold them accountable.
Gaming overall does need less negativity, but damn there's something important about telling it like it is sometimes.
Thanks!
I appreciate your kind words =)
Yeah, there's definitely a ton that is involved. I am incredibly thankful that we have so many other wonderful people on the team that help with the coverage and great content that gets pushed out. I'm proud that my name isn't attached to everything anymore because I know alone, I simply couldn't do it. We've been getting better, more regular, and in general stronger as time goes on at figuring out exactly what we want to be and that's great. With others on the team focusing more than ever before on content, it has allowed me to fix some of our tech debt, work on new features, and most importantly, give the business side of the site more attention.
I appreciate you not running adblock. I know how bad the experience can be at times and I wish it didn't have to be. I don't regret adding our video unit to the site because it doubled the amount of money the site brings in, which in turn made it much more viable for folks to work on content, but damn was that tough from a "pain in the ass" standpoint. I find ads insufferable and wish we didn't have to run them but at the end of the day, I think folks understand that and if they don't, they join the adblock party anyway and are somewhat oblivious to it all. Though, I do sometimes wonder how much better we could be doing if it wasn't for adblock.
As far as growth on the Hearthstone team goes though, yeah, they've been doing a ton of it. I know they've had a lot of problems over the years just because they grew so fast. There was also some hesitation to touch the game, see little to no balance changes for so long when it was very clearly needed. I don't know if that came from papa Blizz that wanted stuff to stay the same because it was still consistently bringing in money or if it really was the developers at the time feeling like things were fine and they really truly believed in the "digital but we want it to feel like paper" aspect of Hearthstone. Or, maybe something else entirely.
They've done a great job at growing with the game and having modes like Battlegrounds and Mercenaries is absolutely fantastic. Before Battlegrounds, there was little reason to login, at least for myself on the rare chance I get to play something in Hearthstone, when the meta was stale (which is like 2 weeks after an expac drops, or at least that was typically the case). Now Mercenaries makes it even harder to avoid Hearthstone since in theory, there is always something to do for everyone. Watching the platform mature has been a bit of a treat, even though it has been filled with frustration in seeing stuff one might consider to be a simple change or fix completely avoided (nothing is every truly simple).
I don't feel like I've been mistreated though and definitely do not feel like I've ever been in the wrong. When stuff be public, you got no one to blame but yourself! Though as I did say, I do regret not posting more datamined stuff and much earlier.
Glad you enjoyed it, and thank you!
Shit. Detective Psymon was on the case.
Well I can tell you that all the achievements aren't in yet. Though they might be tonight so I guess that'll give most of it away.
Its against the spirit!
I won't spoil stuff too much but you can expect more. I hope by the end of it we don't have pushback telling us we are mad lads and lasses. I'm still blown away by how well they do - we definitely need to get better at doing them outside of site events.
Nothing has changed with it /shrug
Good to hear it though!
I'd like to! The last time I did a guide though was all the way back for the Samsung promotion and I believe all the emulators have changed quite a bit so it'll take quite a bit of time to test them all out and see which one ends up being the most friendly.
I could write a client patch faster, in the same way that Hearthstone Access works. lol. The only downside is people would be sketched out patching their clients, even temporarily. The odds of Blizzard banning for such a thing, historically speaking, is 0. Though, folks, you should never download and execute code you don't trust the source for. Remember that!