The YouTube videos always go up later than the cards. We're not going to wait for the video to come out so we can post them :P
If you go back and look at previous reveal posts, you'll see the videos since they get added in later (99% of the time by FrostyFeet). You're too quick to look at reveals!
The simulator is just for fun. We value goldens like crazy and there are multipliers when you get multiple goldens to make packs go real crazy.
Don't read into it too much :D Just know that each pack opening uses the same rates of appearance as the real deal, we just don't take into account collections or pity timers because to do so would be against the point!
There isn't much we can do about it, unfortunately. Putting it on the homepage doesn't work out and space on our navigation is at a premium. Sticking it under cards is really the best we can do.
A lot of people open a ton of packs each expansion though, so it definitely gets hit! People just don't save the bad packs :D
We might have to do some more site achievements for it. It might also be neat to link the packs on the relevant collectible card pages now that I think about it. Would be a nice spot for some extra promo.
I don't know about a universal wild pack though. I'd much rather be able to make an educated decision on what packs I want to buy. If I wanted to make a mech-style deck, for example, I'd go for Goblins vs Gnomes or Boomsday Project packs before anything else.
I think it would be cool to have a wild pack available though in addition to everything else. It would be a great way to fill in spots, which is also why we probably won't see it, lol.
Really hoping we get Alterac Valley. The snow theme there might be primarily present to make people think we're getting Alterac Valley though, Blizzard could be aiming for a sneak attack there. Though, Darkmoon Faire was also pretty obvious the second we all saw last year's teaser.
Whenever the BNet client won't patch, it means it hasn't gone live yet. Very odd of them to release notes and then not drop the patch, but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.
The team responsible for patching the game is different than the one running content. Plus, all the BlizzCon stuff is pre-recorded so it's not like anyone appearing in the content couldn't be helping with stuff if that was their area (it isn't).
I'm certain they are waiting for things to wrap up a bit more for the day. I do think it's insane to push such a large patch during BlizzCon though. This kinda hurts content creation since you're crowding the most important information.
It isn't pretty as it was never touched beyond the initial barebones site launch but it shows the most recently active peeps. Yeah, we could probably upgrade our search with something to let you search for members. Search is a pain point for the site, we've done a couple of updates to it but it isn't great and I don't know if we want to keep using what we have or find a new solution. TBD
Of course! Any public company that releases numbers is going to cherry-pick them in a way that makes them look good for the shareholders.
For the sake of argument, let's say that every active player was counted 3 times because they logged into NA, EU, and SEA during the year. That still gives us just under 8 million players that logged in and played for the year. There aren't any problems with finding games quickly, even with the playerbase sharded into all the different regions so I don't see a big problem with their numbers.
Hearthstone becomes problematic the day that it takes you a couple of minutes to find a match on the low end.
Though without a doubt we are no longer in the most popular period for Hearthstone. That time sailed ages ago. Players themselves don't matter much though if all the players playing are more engaged.
Naw, although Battlegrounds is huge, and a lot of people streaming to the big numbers now are playing it, it still isn't their main mode. If Battlegrounds shifted to the main mode of Hearthstone for engagement, we'd be seeing them jump onto more monetization for it.
Napkin Math!
Battlegrounds games are around 20 minutes on average. We have 669 million player hours - a single battlegrounds game has 8 players in it which means we're getting around 2 hours played per match. (Estimate since sometimes people drop out quick etc.)
That gives us 334 million matches played in Battlegrounds. Demon Hunters alone had more games played. Granted, DH stat also includes Tavern Brawl and Arena, but those modes are nowhere near as popular as constructed.
Battlegrounds matches played is also probably much higher than that when you consider how many players on the lower end just immediately disconnect or get knocked out super fast. Again though, Napkin math! I think it proves the point though that Constructed is currently the king when it comes to modes.
Yeah, Arena took me for a loop there. Though it is possible that Tavern Brawl is only lower is due to new brawls being a rarity and the brawls that are brought back are definitely not always the fan favourites you'd expect.
Duels released in early access on October 22, 2020. 61.4 million matches in 2 months is not bad at all! We can be certain in that time frame that Tavern Brawl only saw 44 million matches played, give or take a million or two (Total / 12 months * 2), which I know doesn't say much since you're comparing it to Tavern Brawl, but:
I don't think that Duels has to be the most popular mode out there for it to still be successful. I don't play Arena, it's still attracting lots of players though and although people may have their issues with it, it's still a positive force since it retains those players.
We're going to be getting another new mode in Hearthstone soon (not including Classic) and probably another couple after that. The players will spread out more, making some modes maybe look less successful than before, but what we need to care about the most is that Hearthstone as a platform succeeds. Not all modes will apply to all players, heck, I play Battlegrounds more than constructed now and it doesn't really bother me that it happens to be the case (I just get salty when I don't get to play for days at the start of a new expansion and then say screw it when meta is "solved").
The UI is sad though. They really need to rework how the front of the box works. I don't have any major constructive feedback on it, it's just that Hearthstone feels like its just menu after menu when you want to get into something like Battlegrounds. I'd love some shortcuts I could customize on the home, but I know they'd never do it because that's too much interface and could be confusing. At least we're getting 9 more deck slots. How will I ever scroll that far.
Yeah, you'll be able to watch everything via VOD right after each panel ends.
As usual, everything will definitely be covered here and will also make sure we do a large overall recap so you can find everything important very easily. It's gonna be an exciting weekend!
I fully expect this to work like WoW Classic down the line, though doing queues by era would also be cool.
Naxxramas will get added to the pool of cards, and then Goblins vs Gnomes (or both together, but I doubt it). It would give them a chance to legitimately sell the older content to a new audience for minimal dev time which makes it an amazing return on investment.
What I think is most interesting about that though is what it would mean for down the line of Classic. Hear me out.
Let's say Blizzard continues on and rereleases each expansion into Classic Hearthstone - and maybe the original base always remains playable still and they just call each addition "Year of the Blah" - what if they did so without ever rebalancing cards. So that Undertaker nerf? Yeah, it would never be added into the game. It would be another divergence of the Hearthstone timeline, and a damn cool one at that.
Ultimately, I just want to see a rotation, like you said. What they should do is make the rotation that is active in Arena also be active in Duels and then in this new constructed ladder. That way it limits confusion, the newest set will always be playable, and it will give us a chance to see old cards in really weird constructed scenarios. I still love the idea of Classic, and will certainly go play it, but yeah, staying power is questionable.
Luckily we're already familiar with most of them. The big news will be the cards that receive changes and the new ones - mostly the new ones.
Can't wait to see what they've been cooking!
The YouTube videos always go up later than the cards. We're not going to wait for the video to come out so we can post them :P
If you go back and look at previous reveal posts, you'll see the videos since they get added in later (99% of the time by FrostyFeet). You're too quick to look at reveals!
According to the phases, it's sometime in the first phase. My best guess is it'll launch a month or two into the Barrens expac, so May or June.
Yeah, I'm not thrilled with how they're going about the whole mercenaries thing.
There are 10 special mercenaries that are going to be highlighted hardcore. 5 Horde and 5 Alliance.
These characters are all going to get their own "Book of Heroes" style adventure in the "Book of Mercenaries".
Then all of them are in the Mercenaries mode, which has more than just those 10 mercenaries.
I heard you liked mercenaries so I put mercenaries in your mercenaries so you could learn more about mercenaries.
I wish they would have been more creative with the mode name.
The simulator is just for fun. We value goldens like crazy and there are multipliers when you get multiple goldens to make packs go real crazy.
Don't read into it too much :D Just know that each pack opening uses the same rates of appearance as the real deal, we just don't take into account collections or pity timers because to do so would be against the point!
There isn't much we can do about it, unfortunately. Putting it on the homepage doesn't work out and space on our navigation is at a premium. Sticking it under cards is really the best we can do.
A lot of people open a ton of packs each expansion though, so it definitely gets hit! People just don't save the bad packs :D
We might have to do some more site achievements for it. It might also be neat to link the packs on the relevant collectible card pages now that I think about it. Would be a nice spot for some extra promo.
100% would have been nicer to have them earlier!
I don't know about a universal wild pack though. I'd much rather be able to make an educated decision on what packs I want to buy. If I wanted to make a mech-style deck, for example, I'd go for Goblins vs Gnomes or Boomsday Project packs before anything else.
I think it would be cool to have a wild pack available though in addition to everything else. It would be a great way to fill in spots, which is also why we probably won't see it, lol.
Really hoping we get Alterac Valley. The snow theme there might be primarily present to make people think we're getting Alterac Valley though, Blizzard could be aiming for a sneak attack there. Though, Darkmoon Faire was also pretty obvious the second we all saw last year's teaser.
Echoes of Alterac anyone?
Tokens are also found on our card pages. Click through to a card page and look under "Related Cards".
You're right!
I'd rather have more consistent spell damage cards than the RNG with the hero power if we really want SD Shaman to shine.
Whenever the BNet client won't patch, it means it hasn't gone live yet. Very odd of them to release notes and then not drop the patch, but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.
The team responsible for patching the game is different than the one running content. Plus, all the BlizzCon stuff is pre-recorded so it's not like anyone appearing in the content couldn't be helping with stuff if that was their area (it isn't).
I'm certain they are waiting for things to wrap up a bit more for the day. I do think it's insane to push such a large patch during BlizzCon though. This kinda hurts content creation since you're crowding the most important information.
We do have a member list! Its shown under the Forums dropdown.
https://outof.cards/members/
It isn't pretty as it was never touched beyond the initial barebones site launch but it shows the most recently active peeps. Yeah, we could probably upgrade our search with something to let you search for members. Search is a pain point for the site, we've done a couple of updates to it but it isn't great and I don't know if we want to keep using what we have or find a new solution. TBD
Nope.
Of course! Any public company that releases numbers is going to cherry-pick them in a way that makes them look good for the shareholders.
For the sake of argument, let's say that every active player was counted 3 times because they logged into NA, EU, and SEA during the year. That still gives us just under 8 million players that logged in and played for the year. There aren't any problems with finding games quickly, even with the playerbase sharded into all the different regions so I don't see a big problem with their numbers.
Hearthstone becomes problematic the day that it takes you a couple of minutes to find a match on the low end.
Though without a doubt we are no longer in the most popular period for Hearthstone. That time sailed ages ago. Players themselves don't matter much though if all the players playing are more engaged.
Naw, although Battlegrounds is huge, and a lot of people streaming to the big numbers now are playing it, it still isn't their main mode. If Battlegrounds shifted to the main mode of Hearthstone for engagement, we'd be seeing them jump onto more monetization for it.
Napkin Math!
Battlegrounds games are around 20 minutes on average. We have 669 million player hours - a single battlegrounds game has 8 players in it which means we're getting around 2 hours played per match. (Estimate since sometimes people drop out quick etc.)
That gives us 334 million matches played in Battlegrounds. Demon Hunters alone had more games played. Granted, DH stat also includes Tavern Brawl and Arena, but those modes are nowhere near as popular as constructed.
Battlegrounds matches played is also probably much higher than that when you consider how many players on the lower end just immediately disconnect or get knocked out super fast. Again though, Napkin math! I think it proves the point though that Constructed is currently the king when it comes to modes.
Yeah, Arena took me for a loop there. Though it is possible that Tavern Brawl is only lower is due to new brawls being a rarity and the brawls that are brought back are definitely not always the fan favourites you'd expect.
Duels released in early access on October 22, 2020. 61.4 million matches in 2 months is not bad at all! We can be certain in that time frame that Tavern Brawl only saw 44 million matches played, give or take a million or two (Total / 12 months * 2), which I know doesn't say much since you're comparing it to Tavern Brawl, but:
I don't think that Duels has to be the most popular mode out there for it to still be successful. I don't play Arena, it's still attracting lots of players though and although people may have their issues with it, it's still a positive force since it retains those players.
We're going to be getting another new mode in Hearthstone soon (not including Classic) and probably another couple after that. The players will spread out more, making some modes maybe look less successful than before, but what we need to care about the most is that Hearthstone as a platform succeeds. Not all modes will apply to all players, heck, I play Battlegrounds more than constructed now and it doesn't really bother me that it happens to be the case (I just get salty when I don't get to play for days at the start of a new expansion and then say screw it when meta is "solved").
The UI is sad though. They really need to rework how the front of the box works. I don't have any major constructive feedback on it, it's just that Hearthstone feels like its just menu after menu when you want to get into something like Battlegrounds. I'd love some shortcuts I could customize on the home, but I know they'd never do it because that's too much interface and could be confusing. At least we're getting 9 more deck slots. How will I ever scroll that far.
Yeah, you'll be able to watch everything via VOD right after each panel ends.
As usual, everything will definitely be covered here and will also make sure we do a large overall recap so you can find everything important very easily. It's gonna be an exciting weekend!
I fully expect this to work like WoW Classic down the line, though doing queues by era would also be cool.
Naxxramas will get added to the pool of cards, and then Goblins vs Gnomes (or both together, but I doubt it). It would give them a chance to legitimately sell the older content to a new audience for minimal dev time which makes it an amazing return on investment.
What I think is most interesting about that though is what it would mean for down the line of Classic. Hear me out.
Let's say Blizzard continues on and rereleases each expansion into Classic Hearthstone - and maybe the original base always remains playable still and they just call each addition "Year of the Blah" - what if they did so without ever rebalancing cards. So that Undertaker nerf? Yeah, it would never be added into the game. It would be another divergence of the Hearthstone timeline, and a damn cool one at that.
Ultimately, I just want to see a rotation, like you said. What they should do is make the rotation that is active in Arena also be active in Duels and then in this new constructed ladder. That way it limits confusion, the newest set will always be playable, and it will give us a chance to see old cards in really weird constructed scenarios. I still love the idea of Classic, and will certainly go play it, but yeah, staying power is questionable.