Hey Flux, sorry to hear about the site "shutting down" (i.e. merging into Out of Games). I left HearthPwn when you created Out of Cards and for awhile OOC was my home for Hearthstone related news, banter, and discussion. (Reddit has been and will always be a hot mess with any large traction game, too much background noise and bias to have any effective discussion)
As you probably have noticed this is the first time I've posted in quite awhile (over a year at least if I recall). I stopped playing Hearthstone after the Alterac Valley exansion. The Sunken City expansion just didn't hit home for me and I felt like the set expansions were getting redundant.
Blizzard scandals aside, I do think the main issue with all Blizzard game is just a lack of vision AND direction for each game. They have no long term plans for any of their games, including their latest pet project Diablo 4. Their communication is extremely lackluster, their only way to limp along is just be re-hashing the same IP's over and over again (Diablo expansion, Overwatch 2 Re-brand/re-release, WoW Classic)
Anyhow Blizzard rants aside, I'll give OOG a shot. Though you mentioned something that always did confuse me. Why *didn't* HearthPwn shut down? I don't remember the specifics, but I remember that the reason you and others left HearthPwn was ….somewhat political. And I don't know if you have either the patience or the ability to clarify that here. And that's ok if you can't.
But them not shutting down did put a hamper in this site's ability to gain more traction than it did. Anyhow I'm glad to see the site won't completely go away and even if most my time is no longer spent playing card games, I hope OOG will see more coverage of popular upcoming titles soon!
On the one hand I do agree that this diamond skin for purchase is horrendously overpriced. On the other hand, it's a purely optional cosmetic and whales are gonna whale, so why care if someone wants to dump that much money on a diamond skin?
A report system would solve a lot of issues, but there is no intention for that. Maybe under MS rule, though the costs are probably not justified.
I mean, imagine how much spaghetti code they have since there are so many bugs all the time and stupid ones too (which means their database is all over the place, with hidden logic and other similar things). Bringing in a new system would probably make the bnet launcher stop working and your game crash on most interactions with it.
While i liked the ideas of this article, i think everyone just overcomplicates everything. Why have guilds in HS? Lets move away from WoW please. What do we really want? A way to complete quests with other people and a way to talk to other people. No need to even give specific rewards - the goal is NOT to fake-force everyone into joining a group/guild (and we know a lot care about cosmetics).
*Nods* Yea, I agree with that. Upvote. We don't need emulated WoW guilds in a 1-on-1 card battler.
Quote From Author
All we need is a lobby and moderated chat rooms. Ofc, listing priority for people near your area or in the same country as yourself. Sure, chat is gonna be full of "LF daily quest X - need to spectate you". Or "LF spectator that can provide some gameplay tips too".
True interaction comes when people help each-other willingly. I don't see myself being in a tavern with 49 other people just for the sake of it (also, how do i find THAT tavern which is suited for me?). Sure, in that lobby we could create chatrooms with 100+ people if we wanted to - but it depends how many people can spectate you at once.
And the rewards they get for wasting their time with you. See, it's a rather hard thing to do when this game forces you to play a lot to achieve anything. If it were designed in a way to allow your collection to actually be useful (instead of 2% of it), then it would be a nice system to have
*Nods* Also agree. Forcing systems for people to interact purely for cosmetics doesn't create genuine connections. I'd argue that true interaction happens when people work collaboratively. Which, sad to say, doesn't happen except for the random "boss" brawls that we get.
Quote From Author
But it's not. The game is specifically tailored for whales to keep it going, and for the parents' debit cards. What would they gain out of a system like this? Well, nothing really. They'd be forced to give away more rewards so that more people actually use it (beyond the fringe cases that will be online in the lobby just for chatting and wasting time). More rewards equal less money in the short term.
And Blizzard's leadership is(was?) clearly on a run to maximize short term profits over investments, because it/he wanted to fill those pockets before going away (either to jail, or post-MS era). These kinds of people are the true crooks and the reason why we can't have nice things in most games anymore.
And there's the downvote material. ALL card games are designed to induce players to buy the cards, that's why they are card games. And yes, "free2play" digital games frequently survive off whales purchases, that's nothing new. What was UNNECESSARY for the conversation was the comment regarding "parent's debit cards". First off, YOUR parents are more likely to have a credit card if they were going to allow you to use it for online purchases (it's easier for them to contest purchases via credit cards, than debit cards). Secondly, the assumption that somehow everyone who plays is a kid? Rude. Totally rude. And then there's the tinfoil hat theory that they were "on the run" to maximize profits before they went to jail? What??
Can you cancel the free trial after taking the rewards? to stretch the 7 days long enough to cover until September? I wouldn't think that's possible, but if it is that's basically giving everything away for free.
Subscription to prime is 6 bucks per month. Just curious, is there anyone here who would spend 6 bucks just to get these things?
Prime Gaming is free to those who have an amazon prime subscription. (This includes Amazon Prime Video, as well as Prime Delivery, and Prime Gaming). To me that is worth it because my wife and I order so much stuff on Amazon anyways. I wouldn't subscribe to prime gaming alone, but because it's baked into my normal prime membership it's fine and I enjoy the perks it gives me on Twitch.
So when are they going to replace/rework the treasures for rotated stuff? Like priests' droplet of insanity? And the corruption card? (I may be mis-remembering) (not that it ever really saw play)
It's only on the bottom until you use another shuffle mechanic right? If they include/introduce any other shuffle/insert card into your deck mechanics than the whole deck gets reshuffled and your dredge cards could in theory be anywhere at that point. Just pointing that out as a way to get around the "dredge" mechanic since it does seem rather lackluster.
Anything that is purely a store of value, like Bitcoin, is useless overall and eventually, people are going to figure that out. A store of value is stupid if you can't actually do anything with it. Crypto Commerce could have been a thing if these people could make the transactions dirt cheap and quick.
I fully agree there. I've been saying this for awhile that if the only value in cryptocurrencies is to hold them as an investment opportunity then they have ultimately failed at their primary goal: to be a currency. Now all they are is gimmicks for Matt Damon to push during super bowl ads.
Quote From Flux
Why you'd jump to thinking I'm going to ban you for disagreeing with me, I can't say I understand. The only people who get banned on here are spammers and bigots.
Sorry, I guess I jumped the gun on your reaction due to the vitriolic and uninformed responses I've gotten elsewhere, both on the internet and in real life. Whenever I've countered the NFT/blockchain craze in conversation, I've gotten either hostile responses (online) or investment bro responses (in real life) from people who have no business being anywhere near a computer.
Quote From Flux
In an age where people can't be bothered to do 3 seconds of research, it's quite frustrating.
Yea, that is definitely the most frustrating aspect.
I'm really surprised and disappointed to see you shilling for NFT's flux. I respect you as a member of this site, and the admin of it, but hugely disappointed to see this long drawn out post that essentially boils down to "I support NFT's because I have a stake in them, and anyone who disagrees is an idiotic twitter nut".
I don't pretend to understand the entire concept, but I've read a number of articles on the reality of them, as well as podcasts/youtube videos in an attempt to understand them so I can make an informed decision.
People had blockchain which was really only useful to run unregulated security trading without paying taxes (“Bitcoin”) but really wanted to use it somewhere. Since in the 10 years blockchains have existed no real use case has emerged they just basically reshaped a problem (the web is centralized and controlled by a few companies) forced blockchain into it and claimed to have a solution. They do not and this marks another year where blockchain has not found a use case aside from tax fraud.
NFTs are a strange grift and they are not even necessary for anything. If it really was about selling digital art we’ve been doing that for ages. Fortnite and all kinds of free to play games sell you cosmetic items for real money. People also have been selling digital art for a while. The game Diablo even had a marketplace to sell the digital objects you earned to other players. NFTs are not a revolution but a cumbersome reimplementation of things we already did or are already doing better and more efficiently.
In short, NFTs don’t quite do what they are advertised as doing (to give unique and identifiable ownership of a digital item), they sit in a legal grey area (the ‘ownership’ they promise is not regulated by any legislation, and they are ripe for exploitation by scammers, money launderers, and tax evaders), they are not actually fully decentralized and P2P based (as their movement and display still relies on centralized APIs), and, like any blockchain-based technology, they are (at least as long as a “proof-of-work” algorithm remains the principal consensus-maker for the authentication of new blocks) environmentally problematic to say the least.
…
Secondly. the artworld-related NFT scene — for the time being, the primary stage for NFTs to shine — is nothing more than a huge speculative bubble, mostly exploited by waning celebrities looking to make themselves relevant and richer, financial whales smelling huge profits in a highly volatile market, self-appointed hyper-capitalist gurus and influencers, and libertarian crypto bros making money flipping worthless pixels. Surely, there are also many honest artists who would like to ride the NFT wave to make a living out of their work, as well as small, gullible investors with disposable income who hope for sizeable returns by being early adopters of the next big thing in tech.
Quote From We Deserve Better 2
It follows that gamers see the threat of a gradual introduction of NFTs into videogames as yet another method for developers to make a profit, by creating an artificial scarcity of unique digital assets, grounded on an environmentally unsustainable technology.
On a compute basis, blockchain networks don’t scale except by becoming the very same plutocratic and centralized systems they allegedly were designed to replace. There is an absurd cost to trying to do censorship resistant computation. In this regime there is a hard incentive to minimize program execution time because the entire network is forced to recompute every single program as part of it’s insanely wasteful process of attempting to reach consensus about a giant global state machine. This inevitably drives the cost per program instruction into the stratosphere. The Ethereum virtual machine has the equivalent computational power of an Atari 2600 from the 1970s except it runs on casino chips that cost $500 a pop and every few minutes we have to reload it like a slot machine to buy a few more cycles.
Warning TWO HOUR VIDEO. I was only able to watch half it but it's informative as hell.
And to sum it all up... (from we deserve better)
Today’s NFTs cannot maintain their promises. They are not revolutionary solutions for today’s problems, for all they do is replicate already-existent exploitative structures while relying on a different, even more problematic, technological infrastructure. They ultimately amount to a grift, yet another avenue for the environmentally-damaging accumulation of capital in the hands of the few, and should both be condemned and abandoned. We should rather be open to the possibility that tomorrow, there will be a better method of securing ownership of, and agency over, our digital assets — most notably, our personal information, extracted from the capitalist process of financialization of everything — maintaining some of the promises made by NFTs, but free from their toxic baggage.
@flux. Why you would be pro NFT/pro digital currency is beyond me. There's really no reason. Hype/hope for new technology to propel is into the next digital revolution? Sure. But *specifically* NFT/digital currency/web3 (as they currently stand). Hell no.
Like I said, I don't claim to understand the specific tech behind it, but I do attempt to read up and educate myself. New technology, especially in this day and age is guilty until proven innocent (i.e. reliable, safe, secure, user friendly, etc etc)
If the only thing my dissenting post here has earned me is a site ban and you to collect another pair of boots from that ban, so be it.
I really dislike this card from a flavor perspective. What the hell is mage doing with Mechs? Mages grow themselves gills, invoke giant water elementals, put themselves in an air bubble or even transform into an aquatic demon from another dimension. But not mechs.
I know mech mage was a thing on GvG before anyone say it. But justifying a mistake with a past mistake isn't valid.
And specially mechs like this one. I'd buy it if these mechs had crazy transform effects or were fueled by arcane magic. But this is not the case. This is a warrior card. From every perspective.
Most of the "mage/mech" hybridization comes from gnomes (hence goblins vs gnomes expansion) who dabbled in mechanical mastery as well as arcane mastery. You see this more in outland with "constructs" of mechanical design being powered by magic. Sometimes that powering is implied, sometimes assumed, sometimes explicitly mentioned, but in all cases it's the hybridization of mech+magic.
Tempest Keep in Outland is probably the most explicit area I can think of that had a high number of mechs and magic beings combined (along with most of netherstorm). Lastly another example is Fel Reaver, mechanical monstrosities that were powered by fel magic.
In any case, I think you're getting way too worked up over the perceived lore (or in your view, the lack thereof). But wanted to mention that plenty of precedent has existed in world of warcraft for years.
It is one of the myriad reasons I will not be purchasing the bundle. I am not happy with the direction the game is taking. I am not happy with the lack of transparency and communication from Team 5 to the players outside of Battlegrounds. I also don't have $80USD burning a hole in my pocket as of right now and even if I did, the previous points stand and I would prefer to vote with my wallet. The fact the cosmetic is for a class that is bottom-of-the-barrel bad right now is just the real sinker of that deal.
I didn't ask for, let alone demand anything. It's amazing you can see through all my rationale and assume I am demanding the game and cosmetics be catered to my personal whims, though.
Should take that show on a road, you'd make a killing.
Nah, your take is bad and you should feel bad. PrivateNightmare is 100% correct. Also, voting with your wallet but still playing the game is ...a laughable take at best. IF you are so disenfranchised with the game/company: stop playing. Not purchasing anything but continuing to play the game still gives them player retention metrics which in their eyes is a win. See Hulk Meme
As for your other "points" (if they can even be called that), wut? No-one purchases cosmetic/bundles based on their meta presence. Literally No One. (Well except for you clearly). And "lack of communication outside battlegrounds"? I don't even know where to begin with this. By "lack of communication" do you mean patches? Because they have been doing that. Or by lack of communication do you mean "balance changes I don't agree with". Or, since you are apparently so entitled and narcissistic; perhaps you believe Blizzard should have a direct line of communication to YOU specifically before making any announcements or balance changes? That's probably it isn't it?
(Direct footage of Blizzard employee following "DoingTheObvious" 's orders)
Attempting to be snarky because someone called you out on your hot take and making comments like "take that act on the road" all smack of someone desperately projecting their own insecurities onto others and attempting at all costs to "win the internet" in every conversation.
Comparing Elden Ring to Hearthstone is like comparing a Honda Civic to a bottle of wine from a farmer's market. They aren't even related except with the word "game". Not sure why people are even trying to compare the two. Just stop already.
According to what I've heard it's still "in beta". It still shows up in my android store as part of the "pre-registration" group.
At this point, I'm actually sure that the delays have caused more annoyance than the "don't you guys have phones" fiasco. (Though to be perfectly honest, that whole thing, while tactfully a bad decision by the devs, was an inevitable outcome to the gaming industry)
I mean, side-ranting for a second about that blizzcon fiasco: "Out of season joke" is just about as a grandstanding as saying "don't you guys have phones"
In either case, Blizzard is gonna have to do something super special/interesting to get my attention with a warcraft mobile game...because as it stands now, if I wanted to play WoW, I'd be playing burning crusade classic. Except I need a daily 4 hour time sink/2nd job like I need a hole in my head.
Oh, seems like there is going to be a new maze. Except that this time it also includes enemies, shops and treasure chests and more. Whoever designed and programmed this had way too much spare time.
Agreed. I also STRONGLY feel like these "mystery" puzzles aren't that much fun. If they were puzzles in the sense that the average user could figure them out (similar to the puzzle mode we got under single adventures) then sure that would be one thing, but the obscure references to things just does not scratch me in a wrong way.
And I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this opinion, but the whole "let's make something that's crowdsourced" is never a good idea IMO. Crowdsourcing intelligence is fun *on occasion*, but every expansion getting some puzzle that takes ages...99% of people will just copy the steps from a guide, and isn't *actually* fun to execute just screams like poor game design.
There are far more interesting and fun easter eggs in the game. I'd rather them put in easter egg interactions (or more) into the boards, or spend time making new interactions between existing cards that they used to do more often.
Yes, I know it's not required, yes I know that it's just a card back. It still doesn't seem like a fun activity if the average user isn't going to be able to figure it out on their own.
To put it another way: If this type of obscure and tedious "easter egg" was in any other game, most people would be review bombing the game: but because it's Blizzard/Hearthstone it's given a free pass.
I bet this is just the beginning. Chi-Ji is just the first I'd imagine. If you'd like to look at a current progression chart for Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes ( I game I invested both a ton of time into, as well as *thousands* of dollars.) Then look at this:
Granted the game has been out for awhile now, but that's a fairly updated (as of end of last year) farming guide infographic. And each "legendary" or equivalent character requires usually 2-3 new characters, in addition to 3 old characters. Now Mercs is vastly different, and I suspect that the grind will not be as nearly bad as SWGOH is...
...but it does give you an idea/taste of what a farming progression path could possibly look like.
Not that I necessarily blame the players, but did the people who were abusing this honestly think that it was intended to get multiple ice blocks via brann/buddy interactions?
These types of "plays" while not necessarily the players fault for finding them, are one of those borderline gray areas where I feel like they should get some sort of slap on the wrist.
Somebody manually tagged Whelp Bonker as a Whelp lol.
I too find this hilarious cause it means someone went "CTRL+F "whelp", Assign asset tag *whelp* to all, Save."
What's gonna be even more hilarious is when they go through the audit logs and find out who did it. I bet that person is gonna get ribbed so much by their coworkers.
Hey Flux, sorry to hear about the site "shutting down" (i.e. merging into Out of Games). I left HearthPwn when you created Out of Cards and for awhile OOC was my home for Hearthstone related news, banter, and discussion. (Reddit has been and will always be a hot mess with any large traction game, too much background noise and bias to have any effective discussion)
As you probably have noticed this is the first time I've posted in quite awhile (over a year at least if I recall). I stopped playing Hearthstone after the Alterac Valley exansion. The Sunken City expansion just didn't hit home for me and I felt like the set expansions were getting redundant.
Blizzard scandals aside, I do think the main issue with all Blizzard game is just a lack of vision AND direction for each game. They have no long term plans for any of their games, including their latest pet project Diablo 4. Their communication is extremely lackluster, their only way to limp along is just be re-hashing the same IP's over and over again (Diablo expansion, Overwatch 2 Re-brand/re-release, WoW Classic)
Anyhow Blizzard rants aside, I'll give OOG a shot. Though you mentioned something that always did confuse me. Why *didn't* HearthPwn shut down? I don't remember the specifics, but I remember that the reason you and others left HearthPwn was ….somewhat political. And I don't know if you have either the patience or the ability to clarify that here. And that's ok if you can't.
But them not shutting down did put a hamper in this site's ability to gain more traction than it did. Anyhow I'm glad to see the site won't completely go away and even if most my time is no longer spent playing card games, I hope OOG will see more coverage of popular upcoming titles soon!
On the one hand I do agree that this diamond skin for purchase is horrendously overpriced. On the other hand, it's a purely optional cosmetic and whales are gonna whale, so why care if someone wants to dump that much money on a diamond skin?
I really don't get these weird obsessions with hooktusk...
*Nods* Yea, I agree with that. Upvote. We don't need emulated WoW guilds in a 1-on-1 card battler.
*Nods* Also agree. Forcing systems for people to interact purely for cosmetics doesn't create genuine connections. I'd argue that true interaction happens when people work collaboratively. Which, sad to say, doesn't happen except for the random "boss" brawls that we get.
And there's the downvote material. ALL card games are designed to induce players to buy the cards, that's why they are card games. And yes, "free2play" digital games frequently survive off whales purchases, that's nothing new. What was UNNECESSARY for the conversation was the comment regarding "parent's debit cards". First off, YOUR parents are more likely to have a credit card if they were going to allow you to use it for online purchases (it's easier for them to contest purchases via credit cards, than debit cards). Secondly, the assumption that somehow everyone who plays is a kid? Rude. Totally rude. And then there's the tinfoil hat theory that they were "on the run" to maximize profits before they went to jail? What??
Prime Gaming is free to those who have an amazon prime subscription. (This includes Amazon Prime Video, as well as Prime Delivery, and Prime Gaming). To me that is worth it because my wife and I order so much stuff on Amazon anyways. I wouldn't subscribe to prime gaming alone, but because it's baked into my normal prime membership it's fine and I enjoy the perks it gives me on Twitch.
So when are they going to replace/rework the treasures for rotated stuff? Like priests' droplet of insanity? And the corruption card? (I may be mis-remembering) (not that it ever really saw play)
It's only on the bottom until you use another shuffle mechanic right? If they include/introduce any other shuffle/insert card into your deck mechanics than the whole deck gets reshuffled and your dredge cards could in theory be anywhere at that point. Just pointing that out as a way to get around the "dredge" mechanic since it does seem rather lackluster.
I fully agree there. I've been saying this for awhile that if the only value in cryptocurrencies is to hold them as an investment opportunity then they have ultimately failed at their primary goal: to be a currency. Now all they are is gimmicks for Matt Damon to push during super bowl ads.
Sorry, I guess I jumped the gun on your reaction due to the vitriolic and uninformed responses I've gotten elsewhere, both on the internet and in real life. Whenever I've countered the NFT/blockchain craze in conversation, I've gotten either hostile responses (online) or investment bro responses (in real life) from people who have no business being anywhere near a computer.
Yea, that is definitely the most frustrating aspect.
I'm really surprised and disappointed to see you shilling for NFT's flux. I respect you as a member of this site, and the admin of it, but hugely disappointed to see this long drawn out post that essentially boils down to "I support NFT's because I have a stake in them, and anyone who disagrees is an idiotic twitter nut".
I don't pretend to understand the entire concept, but I've read a number of articles on the reality of them, as well as podcasts/youtube videos in an attempt to understand them so I can make an informed decision.
https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/amp/
https://tripleampersand.org/deserve-better-nfts/
https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/web3-bullshit.html
https://chhopsky.substack.com/p/nft-fantasy-why-items-as-nfts-does?s=r
Lastly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g&t=2s
Warning TWO HOUR VIDEO. I was only able to watch half it but it's informative as hell.
And to sum it all up... (from we deserve better)
Today’s NFTs cannot maintain their promises. They are not revolutionary solutions for today’s problems, for all they do is replicate already-existent exploitative structures while relying on a different, even more problematic, technological infrastructure. They ultimately amount to a grift, yet another avenue for the environmentally-damaging accumulation of capital in the hands of the few, and should both be condemned and abandoned. We should rather be open to the possibility that tomorrow, there will be a better method of securing ownership of, and agency over, our digital assets — most notably, our personal information, extracted from the capitalist process of financialization of everything — maintaining some of the promises made by NFTs, but free from their toxic baggage.
@flux. Why you would be pro NFT/pro digital currency is beyond me. There's really no reason. Hype/hope for new technology to propel is into the next digital revolution? Sure. But *specifically* NFT/digital currency/web3 (as they currently stand). Hell no.
Like I said, I don't claim to understand the specific tech behind it, but I do attempt to read up and educate myself. New technology, especially in this day and age is guilty until proven innocent (i.e. reliable, safe, secure, user friendly, etc etc)
If the only thing my dissenting post here has earned me is a site ban and you to collect another pair of boots from that ban, so be it.
Blizzard wording consistency strikes again!
Most of the "mage/mech" hybridization comes from gnomes (hence goblins vs gnomes expansion) who dabbled in mechanical mastery as well as arcane mastery. You see this more in outland with "constructs" of mechanical design being powered by magic. Sometimes that powering is implied, sometimes assumed, sometimes explicitly mentioned, but in all cases it's the hybridization of mech+magic.
Tempest Keep in Outland is probably the most explicit area I can think of that had a high number of mechs and magic beings combined (along with most of netherstorm). Lastly another example is Fel Reaver, mechanical monstrosities that were powered by fel magic.
In any case, I think you're getting way too worked up over the perceived lore (or in your view, the lack thereof). But wanted to mention that plenty of precedent has existed in world of warcraft for years.
Nah, your take is bad and you should feel bad. PrivateNightmare is 100% correct. Also, voting with your wallet but still playing the game is ...a laughable take at best. IF you are so disenfranchised with the game/company: stop playing. Not purchasing anything but continuing to play the game still gives them player retention metrics which in their eyes is a win. See Hulk Meme
As for your other "points" (if they can even be called that), wut? No-one purchases cosmetic/bundles based on their meta presence. Literally No One. (Well except for you clearly). And "lack of communication outside battlegrounds"? I don't even know where to begin with this. By "lack of communication" do you mean patches? Because they have been doing that. Or by lack of communication do you mean "balance changes I don't agree with". Or, since you are apparently so entitled and narcissistic; perhaps you believe Blizzard should have a direct line of communication to YOU specifically before making any announcements or balance changes? That's probably it isn't it?
(Direct footage of Blizzard employee following "DoingTheObvious" 's orders)
Attempting to be snarky because someone called you out on your hot take and making comments like "take that act on the road" all smack of someone desperately projecting their own insecurities onto others and attempting at all costs to "win the internet" in every conversation.
Comparing Elden Ring to Hearthstone is like comparing a Honda Civic to a bottle of wine from a farmer's market. They aren't even related except with the word "game". Not sure why people are even trying to compare the two. Just stop already.
According to what I've heard it's still "in beta". It still shows up in my android store as part of the "pre-registration" group.
At this point, I'm actually sure that the delays have caused more annoyance than the "don't you guys have phones" fiasco. (Though to be perfectly honest, that whole thing, while tactfully a bad decision by the devs, was an inevitable outcome to the gaming industry)
I mean, side-ranting for a second about that blizzcon fiasco: "Out of season joke" is just about as a grandstanding as saying "don't you guys have phones"
In either case, Blizzard is gonna have to do something super special/interesting to get my attention with a warcraft mobile game...because as it stands now, if I wanted to play WoW, I'd be playing burning crusade classic. Except I need a daily 4 hour time sink/2nd job like I need a hole in my head.
Agreed. I also STRONGLY feel like these "mystery" puzzles aren't that much fun. If they were puzzles in the sense that the average user could figure them out (similar to the puzzle mode we got under single adventures) then sure that would be one thing, but the obscure references to things just does not scratch me in a wrong way.
And I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this opinion, but the whole "let's make something that's crowdsourced" is never a good idea IMO. Crowdsourcing intelligence is fun *on occasion*, but every expansion getting some puzzle that takes ages...99% of people will just copy the steps from a guide, and isn't *actually* fun to execute just screams like poor game design.
There are far more interesting and fun easter eggs in the game. I'd rather them put in easter egg interactions (or more) into the boards, or spend time making new interactions between existing cards that they used to do more often.
Yes, I know it's not required, yes I know that it's just a card back. It still doesn't seem like a fun activity if the average user isn't going to be able to figure it out on their own.
To put it another way: If this type of obscure and tedious "easter egg" was in any other game, most people would be review bombing the game: but because it's Blizzard/Hearthstone it's given a free pass.
I bet this is just the beginning. Chi-Ji is just the first I'd imagine. If you'd like to look at a current progression chart for Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes ( I game I invested both a ton of time into, as well as *thousands* of dollars.) Then look at this:
Granted the game has been out for awhile now, but that's a fairly updated (as of end of last year) farming guide infographic. And each "legendary" or equivalent character requires usually 2-3 new characters, in addition to 3 old characters. Now Mercs is vastly different, and I suspect that the grind will not be as nearly bad as SWGOH is...
...but it does give you an idea/taste of what a farming progression path could possibly look like.
Not that I necessarily blame the players, but did the people who were abusing this honestly think that it was intended to get multiple ice blocks via brann/buddy interactions?
These types of "plays" while not necessarily the players fault for finding them, are one of those borderline gray areas where I feel like they should get some sort of slap on the wrist.
I too find this hilarious cause it means someone went "CTRL+F "whelp", Assign asset tag *whelp* to all, Save."
What's gonna be even more hilarious is when they go through the audit logs and find out who did it. I bet that person is gonna get ribbed so much by their coworkers.
Welcome to the wide word of software development.