This isn't the first time the Chinese version of Hearthstone has received special features not available elsewhere in the world. Chinese players will be able to compete in tournaments and earn a special Battlenet points currency.
This client addon feature is currently in beta and only available in China as it is not "Blizzard Official" but rather "NetEase Official".
Special thanks to czhihong for breaking the news and translating the original blog post.
How Tournaments Work in Chinese Hearthstone
- A special client must be installed (windows only). Think of it like running a third-party decktracker, just this is from the company who runs the game in China.
- Login to Hearthstone with the special client open and you can compete.
- The client allows you to watch your replays and view past tournament results.
- Tournaments use the Standard, Last Hero Standing BO3 format.
- Players play 15 rounds. These rounds can be played at any time during the 3 day tournament.
- Decks can be changed between rounds but not during your current round.
- Zayle, Shadow Cloak and Whizbang the Wonderful cannot be used.
According to YingDi, more formats outside of just Standard will be supported in the future. The first tournaments being held will take place this weekend (16-18 August 2019, 1700 to 2200 CST daily).
The Custom Interface
Featuring the special tournament button that becomes active with the addon, the rules, deck selection, matchmaking, opponent found, current standings, and past results.
Prizes
- 1st to 10th – 388 Battlenet points
- 11th to 500th – 60 Battlenet points
- 501st to 1000th – 30 Battlenet points
You can also get 15 Battlenet points for taking a feedback survey.
What are Battlenet Points?
This has been updated with corrected information. Thanks to ZelKnow for pointing it out.
Battlenet Points are a currency that are equal to Chinese Yuan (CNY). 1 Battlenet point is equivalent to 1 CNY, of which 388 are required to purchase 60 Hearthstone packs. The top 10 in the beta tournament will therefore receive some 60 packs should they choose to spend their points/money on them. Not bad!
What are Reward Points?
Battle.net has a secondary, special rewards currency available only in China. By purchasing digital goods, you'll accumulate reward points and can then redeem them for things like Hearthstone card packs, rare World of Warcraft TCG mounts, and Heroes of the Storm skins. You can check out the official redemption website.
Comments
Wow... I had no idea they had a point system like this over in China.
Curious - is it possible to move your WoW account over to the Chinese servers and obtain these mounts through the point system then move back?
I would love something like this for casual use. I've hosted a number of Fireside Gatherings, and a couple times we attempted a small tourney. It's really hard to create and run a simple bracket efficiently.
Don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand it can be looked at like they're testing the waters in China without risking damaging the Western market but at the same time, we have to wait while China gets to play that game mode?
Everything that happens in China is separate from the west, being run by a contracted provider. I doubt Blizzard has any oversight in what they are doing with the game, considering everything different about Hearthstone over there for the past few years has not shown up here.
I'm pretty sure we're about to hit year 4 of Hearthstone in China having replays as a first-party feature.
It's wrong! Battlenet Points are not the same as the Reward Points which are used for redeeming. 1 Battlenet Point = 1 Chinese Yuan, and 388 Battlenet Points = 60 packs. And people can get Reward Points equal to the money they deposit.
I did some more digging and you're right. I'm glad this was pointed out so we didn't report on it again as this isn't the first time I have. Thank you!
Seriously? Blizz allows NetEase to do this for them because they and I'm paraphrasing big time but "weren't able to do so". They really need to address this now that it is made public on the internet. This is bad publicity for them in the west, which I might add, is where they are freaking based....
Man, that reward system is brutal. If you win first place four times you are rewarded 3 packs.
You don't have to be placed first, in order to obtain those 388 points. Being in the top 10 is still enough. But I strongly agree with your comment. The reward system is messed up - whoever gets placed 11th or lower, gets so few points, that those could be easily ignored. And the prices of some items are abysmal. A mount in WoW (the white raptor/horse) is worth less than a single hs pack (which will probably give you 40 dust, if you already have most of the cards from that set).
So they use Chinese is Guinea Pigs... i see
This is the exactly type of stuff Hearthstone would be getting with any kind of competent game developper (Hearthstone is licensed by a Chinese company). They also have offcial replay functions, deck trackers etc.
Unfortunately the west is stuck with team 5
Perhaps this was done with Blizzard's blessing as a way to test the waters. Many people asked for tournament mode but Blizz is still unsure about it. If this experiment works in China i think they'll start working on an official tournament mode. If this fails in China... then i doubt Hearthstone will ever get this mode.
Is it weird that the thing I got most out of this was the fact that rare WoW tcg mounts are being made even less exclusive?
Nothing like grinding out millions of gold (pre Garrison farm abuse) to get cool rare mounts just for them to be purchasable via points from other Blizzard games down the road. I mean I stopped playing but with hindsight it is a semi slap in the face to serious collectors who ground out gold for months getting these rare items.
Just my 2 cents.
That is pretty cool. With the amount of players in China it makes sense to playtest something as important as Tournament mode with a large sample of players. I can wait until they make this an official addition worldwide.
So we Westerns are getting discriminated.....AGAIN??
Fuck you Blizzard, give us our card art back you piece of shit.
You can draw a bone without censorship. C
So we should only care if we live in China Good to know. An what ever happened to multiple legendary quests during the expansion launch. I only ever got 1...
There was no official announcement from Blizz about anything other than the login legendary reward. With all due respect, Out of Cards info was wrong in regards to the 3 packs connected to a brawl but right in regards to the 3 packs connected with the Quest. Simple as that. Maybe the brawl packs will come with the release of the solo content...who knows
I may have been mistaken since I only got 1 quest for 1 pack and saw some threads floating around reddit with people claiming to have the same issue. Again I could be completely wrong.
Uhh, how were we wrong?
We still haven't seen special brawls, and Blizzard even stated we were going to have some special Uldum brawls. That's what those quests are for, not some random duplicate brawl that we've seen for a couple of weeks.
Blizzard doesn't just add random quests to the game.
Edit: I should add nowhere did I say it was a launch day thing or even launch week. I'm smart enough to not do that with datamined information.