We definitely have to be getting Alterac Valley for the last expansion. I can't wait to get a new Chillwind Yeti friend from the Alterac region :D
We could even see a lead-up Hillsbrad event or maybe adventure chapter? There are just so many stories they could tell with the area.
So glad we're getting some news though. It feels a bit earlier than I would have expected, but I'm not complaining about it (aside from the Canada Day stream date) because damn, Hearthstone has felt like its been in a bit of a rut lately.
My guess is to give folks something new to do consistently to tide us over until the next set.
That or possible delays earlier in the year with releases meant we were going to see catch up at some point and going forward maybe it'll be every couple of weeks instead, rotating between Mercs and Heroes until heroes is finished.
I want to start off by saying the video hit the feels train real hard. Waking up on Saturday and consuming that as the first bit of content for the day was an emotion rollercoaster.
I think a lot of World of Warcraft players can relate to that start. It was just so magical, diving into the Warcraft universe in an MMO setting. We got to experience the world and create our own story within it. We met new lifelong friends, ran around like chickens with our heads cut off because of inexperience, and just had fun. Experiencing memories again via Classic WoW when it released a couple of years back and then in the animation, damn, that's some powerful stuff.
I don't really have an issue with the cosmetic sales though. There's a lot of online anger about them, and I definitely understand it - I too wish those mounts could get just added to the game itself - but I don't fault a business for milking that bank, especially when it is for cosmetics that don't matter. The level boosts? I also don't find them to be a big deal. In the retail version of the game, it isn't saving folks much time. Classic, the boost to 58 is definitely a huge time saver but I've already got my 60 (well, 70) and so do plenty of other folks that will not go crazy with alts. Getting people back into the game though that didn't make it through Classic and were really waiting for TBC, that's more important to the overall health than a few folks getting angry about it.
I really started my WoW journey in Burning Crusade. I did everything - PVP, Raids, World Stuff - and had the time of my life. That extended into Wrath of the Lich King where I really stepped up the game, got more hardcore about it, became a massive obnoxious dbag. Still though, the game was awesome and I didn't really have many complaints.
Then came Cataclysm. Raids actually weren't that bad. The Firelands daily area had some pretty great quests and rewards and was a great ground for PVP, something we sorta lacked in Wrath when compared to the Isle of Quel'danas in TBC. The expansion lacked content though, mainly due to the revamp of the old world; Not a whole lot to "explore" out in the Cataclysm zones. This was the first expansion of the modern version of leveling that we have where you spend a dozen hours getting to max level and the quests are very streamlined. Although it was a welcome change of pace, looking back on it after playing Classic and TBC again, I wish Blizzard had made it take longer. It felt too much like a rush to max with it going by so fast, unlike the previous expansions. This marked the beginning of the decline.
Mists of Pandaria hits and we're given more improvements in questing up to max level. The pacing felt better than Cataclysm and it was nice having one cohesive land to play on again. Raids were fantastic, PVP was a bit of a pain in the ass (imo), and there was an overwhelming number of things to do in the world. It felt really solid, though plenty of folks didn't come back because they were either soured by Cataclysm or they couldn't get over "pandas in muh game". Admittedly, I was concerned about the Pandaren too, but quickly came to love them, even if I did sometimes poke fun of them. This expansion is the most modern version of the older style of WoW that we have available, one that had many quality of life features. It also introduced challenge modes, the precursor to mythic plus, which was an excellent improvement in giving players more stuff to do at max level. I sometimes wonder how many more players may be playing WoW today if they had of just come back for Mists.
Which leads us into Warlords. Blizzard pulled another Cataclysm and the content sucked. If you weren't raiding, which had some solid content, you could lag your ass out in Ashran or sit in your Garrison. Long wait times between patches, too many promises from Blizzard, and the expansion never really gave us an ending, instead pushing us into Legion to get our end. Warlords was basically just a nightmare that took place during the Legion expansion. It was at this point that my remaining friends, save for a few, gave up on the game. Also, come on, why the hell was Shattrath just a shitty daily hub.
Legion was the good expansion of the good-bad-good-bad alternating releases. Artifact weapons were initially good and so were legendaries but then when it turns out you can't get the stuff you need to succeed, you lose the will to play. Class halls were amazing to sit around in but damn it Blizzard, you spent too much time on a core system, told everyone in the community that WE WERE WRONG about it being junk, and then you did the same shit that has become a trend in World of Warcraft as of late where you finally admit you can't design good systems and we're free to have at it and they'll make it easier to get the things we want. JFC.
Battle of Azeroth was so promising. Uldir was an awesome raid, there were great thematics, and Mythic+ was so much fun. The big issue though? Blizzard once again talked up how much we're going to love doing Island Expeditions and Warfronts and they poured all this development time into those and a reskin of artifact weapons, but as a neck piece that doesn't have a visible model, and then all of it went to hell. People quit. They didn't come back. They did the same shit from Legion, "no you're all wrong" followed by "lol jk we screwed up". Certainly they won't do this again.
Shadowlands. WOW. The last time I had this much fun leveling? I don't know. The last time I was that engaged for a few months at the start of an expansion? Probably Mists of Pandaria. Obviously, we've got a major issue with how garbage the time to first patch is - it comes out next week - but that wasn't the only problem. They clearly stuck all their eggs in the Torghast and Maw baskets and it sucks. 99% of the folks I know that still want to play WoW are not returning for 9.1 and have decided to either play other games or play TBC Classic. Myself? I just want to play TBC and forget Shadowlands exists because I don't want my love for the start of it to sour. I wish this was something you could just blame on Covid. Unfortunately though, they really over-promised and under-delivered... again.
I say all this because WoW's problem isn't corporate greed. Its bad game design.
You can shove as many sparkle ponies, level boosts, and paid features as you want into the game as long as they don't change the max level experience. I'm more than willing to bet majority of people do not care about it or enjoy the services. But when your game loop itself sucks, you're making everyone upset and that's when they're going to start attacking the paid stuff.
What makes me laugh about the paid stuff though is that these are different teams that work on them. Lets use Hearthstone as an example here. When the game is going through a rough patch of balance, you can't be angry with a community manager or an interface engineer when they are posting on the main social account with memes or they updated the shop UI - that doesn't make any sense. The real beef is with a the card designers and folks responsible for balance. Game development teams are huge. Their social folks are so far away from tuning the numbers on a card, its just so illogical to, in your mind, make them responsible. Its infuriating to me when corporate greed is brought up because it almost always is short-sighted as in this example.
If folks truly think the guy that came up with and priced a level boost could have better spent their time on the game and instead balance PVP, maybe they need to find a new hobby or take a course on critical thinking skills.
Anyway, I think modern WoW is actually pretty good. I do not expect to ever see the old experiences again, outside of Classic, but Blizzard needs to figure out their end game more. I think they should also just make everyone super powerful. Works great in ARPGs! Remove the stupid AOE cap so folks can push Mythic+ higher and higher because that stuff is legitimately fun.
Does anyone remember when Diablo 3 had basically 0 legendaries and no real set bonuses? Do you remember when Blizzard then buffed everything and added tons of new stuff in to fill slots with cool powers? Yeah, the game finally became truly fun to play and it was exciting to seek stuff out.
Blizzard could learn a lot from their own games. The current legendary powers in Shadowlands are really cool because they are easier to obtain than the Legion ones and we can slot them into different places instead of it being one single slot. Now, imagine if they actually let us have 3 or 4 of these in our gear at once. We'd feel like the amazing gods we should feel like at this point considering all the badasses we've killed over the years.
Just, disable that shit in PVP since that's the only real reason we can't have tons of fun in PVE. You also end up not running into the problem we saw with Rogues in PVP early in Shadowlands where the covenant powers had to be nerfed because they could essentially one shot other players.
I'll never give up on the game, but I also don't see myself playing WoW in every major patch. New expansion? Sign me the hell up! A couple of months every couple of years is some great fun.
I recommend opening up the stream on your computer and idling it before going to bed. Not ideal if you like to keep your machine off when not in us, but at least you could get your packs!
I don't think it would have been impossible to launch Hearthstone as one unified region, but it may have been easier for them to shard everything into their usual BNet regions. Looking back at when Naxx launched and other older expansions, when it went out in one region first instead of globally, it let them only disturb part of the audience when stuff lit up on fire.
I still remember the community complaints about how one region gets everything first and how it isn't fair. Meanwhile, the launch was horribly butchered and then when it launched in the second and third regions, everything was flawless since they knew what they were doing and had fixed issues so those players got a better experience overall, even if it did mean waiting.
World of Warcraft even sees this still with separate EU and NA launches for content. NA gets raids 24 hours before EU, which is so stupid from the competitive world-first point of view, but when there are issues with certain bosses, EU gets an opportunity to not encounter them. On a mental level, a guild struggling with a boss in NA that is clearly bugged can't be a great experience, which might give the EU folk a slight edge since they didn't have to deal with an unbeatable encounter for hours on end early on in progression. Still though, super unfair all around and it would be nice to have a level, global playing field. I hope that we'll see global raid launches in WoW now with the game potentially becoming regionless.
If we knew what the questions were, we'd have posted them! I'm also very curious because there is certainly some missing context here that can help explain things more.
I can't imagine this being a pay to play mode though. Blizzard wants more people in the Hearthstone ecosystem, especially as it becomes more of a platform to play different games and not just the core Hearthstone. After getting people on board for free, then they can start monetizing stuff.
I'm fully expecting animated heroes in Battlegrounds, just as example of why it makes sense to have Battlegrounds free. Maybe Mercenaries will see some sort of pass that will allow you easier access to some new content kinda like BGs as well.
Oh, they're certainly in-development screenshots, though they are almost certainly weeks or a month old at the point of the survey going out since they prepare these things before they going out to the public. What you pointed out though are fairly minor details - the art positioning looks like its from when they would have used minion frames - though it is kinda weird that they wouldn't fix those couple of problems to just make it look more polished.
Battlefield, I don't know; I think we're missing some extra context. Maybe the battlefield is bare in the earlier stages of your runs or when your mercenaries are still just starting out. If that screenshot is final and representative of the entire end of the product though, I'd hope its just one iteration or as you said, visuals are kinda the last stage of polish.
I'm kinda bummed out that we didn't get to see screenshots of the questions that were being asked. It would have helped so much more in knowing what Blizzard is thinking about with the visuals and descriptions we got to see. Also, its crazy to think we were supposed to get into this mode so long ago.
I don't know; I feel like this is pretty close to what I'd consider final, we're just missing a lot of the context for what stage of a battle the battle screenshot is from.
The map seems pretty solid, and experience at the end of the game must be final (frames are awesome btw).
I don't have real numbers here, but the number of folks buying packs on multiple servers is likely a tiny amount of the revenue pie. People do play on multiple servers, but we're talking the more hardcore audience of the game which is quite small, and only a subset of that is going to be buying packs.
Out of those people that play on multiple servers, many that I know will play F2P on their "second" account (horribly small sample size here) which means Blizzard ain't getting anything from them. Players who play on all 3 servers? Yeah, that's a crazy niche audience when we are talking about putting actual money toward card packs. The super hardcore.
Not everything is about money. The addition of rarity protection across all rarities certainly proves that. I now spend half the money on card packs since I no longer end up with 6 of the same epic card and 2 of the same legendary after pre-orders.
Blizzard is finally looking to escape the grasp of 1996, and sure, there may be a microscopic monetary loss by doing so, but having the entire community connected is worth more than the potential losses. Honestly, I could see them making more money once everything gets combined.
Look at Overwatch as an example. You and your friends play on PC but there's that one other friend or that guy from work that plays games on consoles. They know you play Overwatch on PC but there's no point in picking it up since you can't play together. Well, with cross-play, you can and that means more sales potential for folks in that situation. It is a little different for Hearthstone since we're talking about regions and not device types (the game has always been "cross-play") but there are definitely still situations where you've got internet friends in another region and maybe you don't play Hearthstone as often since you can't play together.
I can vouch for the massive pain in the ass it is to just get Battlegrounds games going within our staff. Some of us, not to name names, won't play on NA or won't play on EU (tutorials? why would I do those) so if we could all just play regardless of region, that'd be a tremendous boost to playing internally. It might not contribute to more spending for any of us, I know we're all fairly consistent in how we spend money in Hearthstone, but it would definitely increase Blizzard's engagement. Better engagement looks better for shareholders and overall should get more earnings, especially as more cosmetics become a thing across other modes.
They'd have to transfer gold over. If you earned it while on a paid Tavern Pass or from paid Arena tickets, that's definitely yours to keep! If they didn't the shit-show might be larger than the tavern pass itself.
But yeah, gaining some progression on other servers for the rewards, if one has the time to do so, is not a bad idea at all.
Except that comment about Wild was more targeted toward China, which won't be a part of Global Battle.net because of the game being run by another provider there. While I don't doubt that effect may trickle out to other Eastern countries, just having more players in the collective pool should help things in the Wild zone.
If you have an Archmage Antonidas on NA and on EU, you should end up with 2 copies of the card should collections get merged. Blizzard couldn't do this any other way because of people spending actual money on multiple servers. It is one thing to get something for free and then having the "two" copies just stay as one, but with money involved, you need to have the ability to dust those cards.
I'd love to see even ranked ladder go global though tbh. Having a single spot for a #1 legend and then figuring out different way of handling possible esports qualifications would be awesome. It would also be really neat to have a unified meta since sometimes you can see some variance between the regions, though not as much as China has seen compared to everywhere else.
I'm hoping we get announcements about Hearthstone globalfication on the run up to the next expansion. I'd also just take this Hearthstone year though so December or even right before Year of the x starts next April, that'd be cool too.
The uniqueness aspect definitely sucks, I think it would have been neat of Blizzard to make the outline of the deck slot golden if you got a card back the first time it was available. It would be a very minor thing to make people stand out while letting everyone enjoy all the card backs.
It does look like some stuff will remain exclusive longer though, the pre-order card backs that are available are ancient history at this point, so that might be the best source of "cool" now.
I won't lie though, it'll be awesome to see people rocking even more card backs on ladder now. A whole new card back meta game just began =)
I believe they go by the amount of money you've been spending on Hearthstone. A sibling of mine who is F2P has only gotten the bottom-tier bundles so far and myself, a definite whale, has gotten every bundle that is max priced. I have another few cases that are similar, but by no means is this exhaustive reasoning behind how they calculate who gets what.
I wish they'd just let everyone pick what bundle they wanted. I understand that has a negative in that people that would be offered 20 packs would probably buy the 20 packs but if they were offered the choice between 10,20, and 30 its possible they've be very happy with just the 10 so that could be a potential loss, but I think its a worthy option regardless. Exact line of thinking with your comment about a tiny fish wanting a huge meal, its sorta shitty they wouldn't be offered that choice.
These bundles are probably all in their own groups, so it'll be the wild one going live and then at another point Year of the Phoenix.
For record's sake, it does look like you can buy these packs normally. Very cool way to deal with filling in spots in wild collections if that's true - we'll need to wait and see!
We definitely have to be getting Alterac Valley for the last expansion. I can't wait to get a new Chillwind Yeti friend from the Alterac region :D
We could even see a lead-up Hillsbrad event or maybe adventure chapter? There are just so many stories they could tell with the area.
So glad we're getting some news though. It feels a bit earlier than I would have expected, but I'm not complaining about it (aside from the Canada Day stream date) because damn, Hearthstone has felt like its been in a bit of a rut lately.
My guess is to give folks something new to do consistently to tide us over until the next set.
That or possible delays earlier in the year with releases meant we were going to see catch up at some point and going forward maybe it'll be every couple of weeks instead, rotating between Mercs and Heroes until heroes is finished.
I want to start off by saying the video hit the feels train real hard. Waking up on Saturday and consuming that as the first bit of content for the day was an emotion rollercoaster.
I think a lot of World of Warcraft players can relate to that start. It was just so magical, diving into the Warcraft universe in an MMO setting. We got to experience the world and create our own story within it. We met new lifelong friends, ran around like chickens with our heads cut off because of inexperience, and just had fun. Experiencing memories again via Classic WoW when it released a couple of years back and then in the animation, damn, that's some powerful stuff.
I don't really have an issue with the cosmetic sales though. There's a lot of online anger about them, and I definitely understand it - I too wish those mounts could get just added to the game itself - but I don't fault a business for milking that bank, especially when it is for cosmetics that don't matter. The level boosts? I also don't find them to be a big deal. In the retail version of the game, it isn't saving folks much time. Classic, the boost to 58 is definitely a huge time saver but I've already got my 60 (well, 70) and so do plenty of other folks that will not go crazy with alts. Getting people back into the game though that didn't make it through Classic and were really waiting for TBC, that's more important to the overall health than a few folks getting angry about it.
I really started my WoW journey in Burning Crusade. I did everything - PVP, Raids, World Stuff - and had the time of my life. That extended into Wrath of the Lich King where I really stepped up the game, got more hardcore about it, became a massive obnoxious dbag. Still though, the game was awesome and I didn't really have many complaints.
Then came Cataclysm. Raids actually weren't that bad. The Firelands daily area had some pretty great quests and rewards and was a great ground for PVP, something we sorta lacked in Wrath when compared to the Isle of Quel'danas in TBC. The expansion lacked content though, mainly due to the revamp of the old world; Not a whole lot to "explore" out in the Cataclysm zones. This was the first expansion of the modern version of leveling that we have where you spend a dozen hours getting to max level and the quests are very streamlined. Although it was a welcome change of pace, looking back on it after playing Classic and TBC again, I wish Blizzard had made it take longer. It felt too much like a rush to max with it going by so fast, unlike the previous expansions. This marked the beginning of the decline.
Mists of Pandaria hits and we're given more improvements in questing up to max level. The pacing felt better than Cataclysm and it was nice having one cohesive land to play on again. Raids were fantastic, PVP was a bit of a pain in the ass (imo), and there was an overwhelming number of things to do in the world. It felt really solid, though plenty of folks didn't come back because they were either soured by Cataclysm or they couldn't get over "pandas in muh game". Admittedly, I was concerned about the Pandaren too, but quickly came to love them, even if I did sometimes poke fun of them. This expansion is the most modern version of the older style of WoW that we have available, one that had many quality of life features. It also introduced challenge modes, the precursor to mythic plus, which was an excellent improvement in giving players more stuff to do at max level. I sometimes wonder how many more players may be playing WoW today if they had of just come back for Mists.
Which leads us into Warlords. Blizzard pulled another Cataclysm and the content sucked. If you weren't raiding, which had some solid content, you could lag your ass out in Ashran or sit in your Garrison. Long wait times between patches, too many promises from Blizzard, and the expansion never really gave us an ending, instead pushing us into Legion to get our end. Warlords was basically just a nightmare that took place during the Legion expansion. It was at this point that my remaining friends, save for a few, gave up on the game. Also, come on, why the hell was Shattrath just a shitty daily hub.
Legion was the good expansion of the good-bad-good-bad alternating releases. Artifact weapons were initially good and so were legendaries but then when it turns out you can't get the stuff you need to succeed, you lose the will to play. Class halls were amazing to sit around in but damn it Blizzard, you spent too much time on a core system, told everyone in the community that WE WERE WRONG about it being junk, and then you did the same shit that has become a trend in World of Warcraft as of late where you finally admit you can't design good systems and we're free to have at it and they'll make it easier to get the things we want. JFC.
Battle of Azeroth was so promising. Uldir was an awesome raid, there were great thematics, and Mythic+ was so much fun. The big issue though? Blizzard once again talked up how much we're going to love doing Island Expeditions and Warfronts and they poured all this development time into those and a reskin of artifact weapons, but as a neck piece that doesn't have a visible model, and then all of it went to hell. People quit. They didn't come back. They did the same shit from Legion, "no you're all wrong" followed by "lol jk we screwed up". Certainly they won't do this again.
Shadowlands. WOW. The last time I had this much fun leveling? I don't know. The last time I was that engaged for a few months at the start of an expansion? Probably Mists of Pandaria. Obviously, we've got a major issue with how garbage the time to first patch is - it comes out next week - but that wasn't the only problem. They clearly stuck all their eggs in the Torghast and Maw baskets and it sucks. 99% of the folks I know that still want to play WoW are not returning for 9.1 and have decided to either play other games or play TBC Classic. Myself? I just want to play TBC and forget Shadowlands exists because I don't want my love for the start of it to sour. I wish this was something you could just blame on Covid. Unfortunately though, they really over-promised and under-delivered... again.
I say all this because WoW's problem isn't corporate greed. Its bad game design.
You can shove as many sparkle ponies, level boosts, and paid features as you want into the game as long as they don't change the max level experience. I'm more than willing to bet majority of people do not care about it or enjoy the services. But when your game loop itself sucks, you're making everyone upset and that's when they're going to start attacking the paid stuff.
What makes me laugh about the paid stuff though is that these are different teams that work on them. Lets use Hearthstone as an example here. When the game is going through a rough patch of balance, you can't be angry with a community manager or an interface engineer when they are posting on the main social account with memes or they updated the shop UI - that doesn't make any sense. The real beef is with a the card designers and folks responsible for balance. Game development teams are huge. Their social folks are so far away from tuning the numbers on a card, its just so illogical to, in your mind, make them responsible. Its infuriating to me when corporate greed is brought up because it almost always is short-sighted as in this example.
If folks truly think the guy that came up with and priced a level boost could have better spent their time on the game and instead balance PVP, maybe they need to find a new hobby or take a course on critical thinking skills.
Anyway, I think modern WoW is actually pretty good. I do not expect to ever see the old experiences again, outside of Classic, but Blizzard needs to figure out their end game more. I think they should also just make everyone super powerful. Works great in ARPGs! Remove the stupid AOE cap so folks can push Mythic+ higher and higher because that stuff is legitimately fun.
Does anyone remember when Diablo 3 had basically 0 legendaries and no real set bonuses? Do you remember when Blizzard then buffed everything and added tons of new stuff in to fill slots with cool powers? Yeah, the game finally became truly fun to play and it was exciting to seek stuff out.
Blizzard could learn a lot from their own games. The current legendary powers in Shadowlands are really cool because they are easier to obtain than the Legion ones and we can slot them into different places instead of it being one single slot. Now, imagine if they actually let us have 3 or 4 of these in our gear at once. We'd feel like the amazing gods we should feel like at this point considering all the badasses we've killed over the years.
Just, disable that shit in PVP since that's the only real reason we can't have tons of fun in PVE. You also end up not running into the problem we saw with Rogues in PVP early in Shadowlands where the covenant powers had to be nerfed because they could essentially one shot other players.
I'll never give up on the game, but I also don't see myself playing WoW in every major patch. New expansion? Sign me the hell up! A couple of months every couple of years is some great fun.
I recommend opening up the stream on your computer and idling it before going to bed. Not ideal if you like to keep your machine off when not in us, but at least you could get your packs!
Blizzard real good when it comes to promoting this fun thing.
7 PM Eastern on the 15th - Let's social post about it!
https://twitter.com/PlayHearthstone/status/1404936801521909762
Meanwhile, in Europe, it's already the 16th.
Nozdormu is messing with their times too.
Amen.
Mana cheating to the extreme we have it now in Hearthstone is absolute bullshit.
I don't think it would have been impossible to launch Hearthstone as one unified region, but it may have been easier for them to shard everything into their usual BNet regions. Looking back at when Naxx launched and other older expansions, when it went out in one region first instead of globally, it let them only disturb part of the audience when stuff lit up on fire.
I still remember the community complaints about how one region gets everything first and how it isn't fair. Meanwhile, the launch was horribly butchered and then when it launched in the second and third regions, everything was flawless since they knew what they were doing and had fixed issues so those players got a better experience overall, even if it did mean waiting.
World of Warcraft even sees this still with separate EU and NA launches for content. NA gets raids 24 hours before EU, which is so stupid from the competitive world-first point of view, but when there are issues with certain bosses, EU gets an opportunity to not encounter them. On a mental level, a guild struggling with a boss in NA that is clearly bugged can't be a great experience, which might give the EU folk a slight edge since they didn't have to deal with an unbeatable encounter for hours on end early on in progression. Still though, super unfair all around and it would be nice to have a level, global playing field. I hope that we'll see global raid launches in WoW now with the game potentially becoming regionless.
If we knew what the questions were, we'd have posted them! I'm also very curious because there is certainly some missing context here that can help explain things more.
No collections in the mode, just like Battlegrounds. There is also no deckbuilding, this is a new type of gameplay.
We don't know a whole lot about the mode yet, here's everything we know so far:
https://outof.cards/hearthstone/guides/92-everything-you-need-to-know-about-hearthstones-mercenaries-game-mode/
I can't imagine this being a pay to play mode though. Blizzard wants more people in the Hearthstone ecosystem, especially as it becomes more of a platform to play different games and not just the core Hearthstone. After getting people on board for free, then they can start monetizing stuff.
I'm fully expecting animated heroes in Battlegrounds, just as example of why it makes sense to have Battlegrounds free. Maybe Mercenaries will see some sort of pass that will allow you easier access to some new content kinda like BGs as well.
Oh, they're certainly in-development screenshots, though they are almost certainly weeks or a month old at the point of the survey going out since they prepare these things before they going out to the public. What you pointed out though are fairly minor details - the art positioning looks like its from when they would have used minion frames - though it is kinda weird that they wouldn't fix those couple of problems to just make it look more polished.
Battlefield, I don't know; I think we're missing some extra context. Maybe the battlefield is bare in the earlier stages of your runs or when your mercenaries are still just starting out. If that screenshot is final and representative of the entire end of the product though, I'd hope its just one iteration or as you said, visuals are kinda the last stage of polish.
I'm kinda bummed out that we didn't get to see screenshots of the questions that were being asked. It would have helped so much more in knowing what Blizzard is thinking about with the visuals and descriptions we got to see. Also, its crazy to think we were supposed to get into this mode so long ago.
I don't know; I feel like this is pretty close to what I'd consider final, we're just missing a lot of the context for what stage of a battle the battle screenshot is from.
The map seems pretty solid, and experience at the end of the game must be final (frames are awesome btw).
I don't have real numbers here, but the number of folks buying packs on multiple servers is likely a tiny amount of the revenue pie. People do play on multiple servers, but we're talking the more hardcore audience of the game which is quite small, and only a subset of that is going to be buying packs.
Out of those people that play on multiple servers, many that I know will play F2P on their "second" account (horribly small sample size here) which means Blizzard ain't getting anything from them. Players who play on all 3 servers? Yeah, that's a crazy niche audience when we are talking about putting actual money toward card packs. The super hardcore.
Not everything is about money. The addition of rarity protection across all rarities certainly proves that. I now spend half the money on card packs since I no longer end up with 6 of the same epic card and 2 of the same legendary after pre-orders.
Blizzard is finally looking to escape the grasp of 1996, and sure, there may be a microscopic monetary loss by doing so, but having the entire community connected is worth more than the potential losses. Honestly, I could see them making more money once everything gets combined.
Look at Overwatch as an example. You and your friends play on PC but there's that one other friend or that guy from work that plays games on consoles. They know you play Overwatch on PC but there's no point in picking it up since you can't play together. Well, with cross-play, you can and that means more sales potential for folks in that situation. It is a little different for Hearthstone since we're talking about regions and not device types (the game has always been "cross-play") but there are definitely still situations where you've got internet friends in another region and maybe you don't play Hearthstone as often since you can't play together.
I can vouch for the massive pain in the ass it is to just get Battlegrounds games going within our staff. Some of us, not to name names, won't play on NA or won't play on EU (tutorials? why would I do those) so if we could all just play regardless of region, that'd be a tremendous boost to playing internally. It might not contribute to more spending for any of us, I know we're all fairly consistent in how we spend money in Hearthstone, but it would definitely increase Blizzard's engagement. Better engagement looks better for shareholders and overall should get more earnings, especially as more cosmetics become a thing across other modes.
They'd have to transfer gold over. If you earned it while on a paid Tavern Pass or from paid Arena tickets, that's definitely yours to keep! If they didn't the shit-show might be larger than the tavern pass itself.
But yeah, gaining some progression on other servers for the rewards, if one has the time to do so, is not a bad idea at all.
Except that comment about Wild was more targeted toward China, which won't be a part of Global Battle.net because of the game being run by another provider there. While I don't doubt that effect may trickle out to other Eastern countries, just having more players in the collective pool should help things in the Wild zone.
If you have an Archmage Antonidas on NA and on EU, you should end up with 2 copies of the card should collections get merged. Blizzard couldn't do this any other way because of people spending actual money on multiple servers. It is one thing to get something for free and then having the "two" copies just stay as one, but with money involved, you need to have the ability to dust those cards.
I'd love to see even ranked ladder go global though tbh. Having a single spot for a #1 legend and then figuring out different way of handling possible esports qualifications would be awesome. It would also be really neat to have a unified meta since sometimes you can see some variance between the regions, though not as much as China has seen compared to everywhere else.
I'm hoping we get announcements about Hearthstone globalfication on the run up to the next expansion. I'd also just take this Hearthstone year though so December or even right before Year of the x starts next April, that'd be cool too.
The uniqueness aspect definitely sucks, I think it would have been neat of Blizzard to make the outline of the deck slot golden if you got a card back the first time it was available. It would be a very minor thing to make people stand out while letting everyone enjoy all the card backs.
It does look like some stuff will remain exclusive longer though, the pre-order card backs that are available are ancient history at this point, so that might be the best source of "cool" now.
I won't lie though, it'll be awesome to see people rocking even more card backs on ladder now. A whole new card back meta game just began =)
I believe they go by the amount of money you've been spending on Hearthstone. A sibling of mine who is F2P has only gotten the bottom-tier bundles so far and myself, a definite whale, has gotten every bundle that is max priced. I have another few cases that are similar, but by no means is this exhaustive reasoning behind how they calculate who gets what.
I wish they'd just let everyone pick what bundle they wanted. I understand that has a negative in that people that would be offered 20 packs would probably buy the 20 packs but if they were offered the choice between 10,20, and 30 its possible they've be very happy with just the 10 so that could be a potential loss, but I think its a worthy option regardless. Exact line of thinking with your comment about a tiny fish wanting a huge meal, its sorta shitty they wouldn't be offered that choice.
These bundles are probably all in their own groups, so it'll be the wild one going live and then at another point Year of the Phoenix.
For record's sake, it does look like you can buy these packs normally. Very cool way to deal with filling in spots in wild collections if that's true - we'll need to wait and see!
To the top with you!
I bumped our article up to the top so people can easily find the cards.
Realistically with how insane this week has been and a Hearthstone mini-set dropping tomorrow, birthday stuff will need to start next week.