Hearthstone Adds Cosmetic Alternate Hero Skins For $10 Each

[Bat Vader]

$10.00 seems like a hefty price to pay for a cosmetic skin. $1.00 would be a much more reasonable price for purely cosmetic stuff.

 

[Bindal]

Wait wait wait...they're selling skins for a card game now? Wow...that's just........wow....

Yes, so what? Where is the problem? The Hero Portrait is among the few things they can add without actually changing the game (the card back being the other thing) and considering it's a full new character in that regards - new lines for all emotes - plus some fancy looking addional animations, I don't see what's wrong with it.
Granted, 10$ is quite a lot and half would be a more reasonable price, but the whole pack itself is still fine.

It's a card game...that now has skins...call me an asshole if you want but that concept is fucking nuts.

If you insist, I do. Because it's not a skin for a card-game, it's a skin for a character, with exclusive animations and quite a few other items and new voice-acting - mainly for the character in question but I suspect that there are probably other cards and characters that interact uniquely with said new character as there are already a few (e.g. Kel'Thuzad has a line for every character if you start a match fitting to their line, some cards have unique summoning lines when played against specific heroes - I wouldn't be surprised if playing the new character against the final boss of the first Blackrock Mountain Wing causes a unique dialogue, for example).
Overpriced with 10 Dollar, 9 Euro or 7 pounds, sure, but still a character-skin.

 

[shrekfan246]

Magni summoning a Kor'Kron Elite (who would then call him "Warchief") just feels super awkward to me.

If that's enough to ruin the theme for you, then I'm pretty sure you should've already been upset by things like Uther summoning Ragnaros and Deathwing or, the Light forfend, Kel'Thuzad. EDIT: Or how about Malfurion summoning Illidan? Thrall summoning Velen? etc. etc. sure they're not all class-specific cards, but it still ruins the thematic consistency as much as having Magni summon the Horde would.

Wait wait wait...they're selling skins for a card game now? Wow...that's just........wow....

Yes, so what? Where is the problem? The Hero Portrait is among the few things they can add without actually changing the game (the card back being the other thing) and considering it's a full new character in that regards - new lines for all emotes - plus some fancy looking addional animations, I don't see what's wrong with it.
Granted, 10$ is quite a lot and half would be a more reasonable price, but the whole pack itself is still fine.

It's a card game...that now has skins...call me an asshole if you want but that concept is fucking nuts.

Like Loop said, the cards have had skins for their backs for like, a year now. Now, most of them don't cost money, but they're also very small cosmetic things.

I don't see what's so wrong with the idea, anyway. I was saying just a few weeks ago that I'd love the ability to change which hero I'm actually playing as without needing to change my class. $10, on the other hand, is a really steep asking price, which is something Blizzard is unfortunately known for at this point. If they're attainable with in-game gold like everything else they've released for Hearthstone so far, then I don't have any problems with this, but if you can only get them with real money I'm going to be annoyed.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Expensive as hell? Yes. Optional as hell? Looks like it. Does it bother me? Nope. I'm just going to pass up on this one quite happily and stick to the content adding stuff.

 

[Bindal]

If they're attainable with in-game gold like everything else they've released for Hearthstone so far, then I don't have any problems with this, but if you can only get them with real money I'm going to be annoyed.

Real money only, already confirmed. It is also the only purchasable content so far that is not affecting the game itself, so it's also acceptable.

 

[shrekfan246]

If they're attainable with in-game gold like everything else they've released for Hearthstone so far, then I don't have any problems with this, but if you can only get them with real money I'm going to be annoyed.

Real money only, already confirmed. It is also the only purchasable content so far that is not affecting the game itself, so it's also acceptable.

Maybe to you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to boycott the game or rage on the internet about it, but it's a free-to-play game. And as much as I like Blizzard, they're one of the worst companies on the market when it comes to implementing real-money store items. It's built off of the exact same Skinner Box design that keeps people playing WoW: you start seeing people playing with these cool new things and want to get it yourself, only to discover that you need to pay the premium price of what, almost two expansion wings? to get a single new Hero skin.

There are also a few obvious slippery slopes that nag in the back of my mind. If this works well for them, what's to stop them from pushing the boundaries further and further until they are locking content that affects the game behind paywalls? Or they could start nickle-and-diming for every little thing; you want a new card back? Cough up $5. New play arena? $7.50. Shiny new platinum animations for cards, or something? $2.99.

It doesn't directly impact how the game actually plays, sure, but it's viewing the game in a limited vacuum to say that it isn't changed at all by these sorts of business decisions.

 

[Lucane]

New avatar, backs of the cards can change, voice acting, animations, variant power up appearance and a new visual area? I'm counting 6 things without rereading the original post as a packaged set, One of these things for $10 would be expensive but for it all to be just cosmetic. It sounds like a fare price enough price and that you're underselling what they offer in your title.

I mean why would they make alternate sets for each character and several brand new animations for them making them a "higher" quality than the default ones for nothing at all? Like someone said it's not new decks (of card face side just the deck back style) so it isn't pay to win divisive content.

 

[EbonBehelit]

If that's enough to ruin the theme for you, then I'm pretty sure you should've already been upset by things like Uther summoning Ragnaros and Deathwing or, the Light forfend, Kel'Thuzad. EDIT: Or how about Malfurion summoning Illidan? Thrall summoning Velen? etc. etc. sure they're not all class-specific cards, but it still ruins the thematic consistency as much as having Magni summon the Horde would.

Y'know, the neutral legendaries actually never occurred to me. Oops.

Even so, it's really just the Kor'Kron's lines being a bit silly to me since the card assumes it's being played by Garrosh. For that matter, It'd be kinda amusing to play a Vol'jin against Muradin and have him gloat about being Warchief regardless.

 

[shrekfan246]

If that's enough to ruin the theme for you, then I'm pretty sure you should've already been upset by things like Uther summoning Ragnaros and Deathwing or, the Light forfend, Kel'Thuzad. EDIT: Or how about Malfurion summoning Illidan? Thrall summoning Velen? etc. etc. sure they're not all class-specific cards, but it still ruins the thematic consistency as much as having Magni summon the Horde would.

Y'know, the neutral legendaries actually never occurred to me. Oops.

Even so, it's really just the Kor'Kron's lines being a bit silly to me since the card assumes it's being played by Garrosh. For that matter, It'd be kinda amusing to play a Vol'jin against Muradin and have him gloat about being Warchief regardless.

I never really thought the card itself was being played under the assumption that it was being ordered around by the Warchief of the Horde. I just figured that was the audio because that's what a Kor'kron Elite would say.

The characters-as-Heroes thing always struck me as more being about nostalgia and familiarity than any sort of lore or thematic element. That's why they have such a varied mix of old and new characters -- Thrall is the Shaman but not Warchief and Garrosh is the Warrior because of Cataclysm and everything that followed it, Jaina is the mage rather than Khadgar who realistically would be a better lore fit, Gul'dan is the Warlock, Valeera is the Rogue, and Uther is the Paladin despite them all being largely absent from Warcraft lore in general for a very long time, and so on.

 

[Bindal]

If that's enough to ruin the theme for you, then I'm pretty sure you should've already been upset by things like Uther summoning Ragnaros and Deathwing or, the Light forfend, Kel'Thuzad. EDIT: Or how about Malfurion summoning Illidan? Thrall summoning Velen? etc. etc. sure they're not all class-specific cards, but it still ruins the thematic consistency as much as having Magni summon the Horde would.

Y'know, the neutral legendaries actually never occurred to me. Oops.

Even so, it's really just the Kor'Kron's lines being a bit silly to me since the card assumes it's being played by Garrosh. For that matter, It'd be kinda amusing to play a Vol'jin against Muradin and have him gloat about being Warchief regardless.

I never really thought the card itself was being played under the assumption that it was being ordered around by the Warchief of the Horde. I just figured that was the audio because that's what a Kor'kron Elite would say.

The characters-as-Heroes thing always struck me as more being about nostalgia and familiarity than any sort of lore or thematic element. That's why they have such a varied mix of old and new characters -- Thrall is the Shaman but not Warchief and Garrosh is the Warrior because of Cataclysm and everything that followed it, Jaina is the mage rather than Khadgar who realistically would be a better lore fit, Gul'dan is the Warlock, Valeera is the Rogue, and Uther is the Paladin despite them all being largely absent from Warcraft lore in general for a very long time, and so on.

To me, Hearthstone is literally what it is: A card game. In WoW, you can even find a few NPCs playing a match (Mage VS Warrior), so Hearthstone might just be the Warcraft counterpart to some real-life trading-card-games with real people.

 

[happyninja42]

Errr..... there's actually a massive thematic issue with this:

The warrior card pool, for example, is almost entirely Horde-based. The Kor'Kron Elite even says "For the Warchief!" and "For Hellscream!"

Well of course it's almost entirely Horde based. Horde is the best, pssh, duuuh! xD

Seriously though, Horde for life!....even though I don't play WoW anymore and haven't since Burning Legion!

OT: This might be an ok price if you got a cluster of them for it. Like you get to pick say, 3 different skins per $10, of your choice. I could see that as being worth it, to some people anyway. Not me. I play Hearthstone, but I happily play it without spending money. I just buy stuff with coins and that's it. Works out just fine for me.

 

[happyninja42]

If that's enough to ruin the theme for you, then I'm pretty sure you should've already been upset by things like Uther summoning Ragnaros and Deathwing or, the Light forfend, Kel'Thuzad. EDIT: Or how about Malfurion summoning Illidan? Thrall summoning Velen? etc. etc. sure they're not all class-specific cards, but it still ruins the thematic consistency as much as having Magni summon the Horde would.

Y'know, the neutral legendaries actually never occurred to me. Oops.

Even so, it's really just the Kor'Kron's lines being a bit silly to me since the card assumes it's being played by Garrosh. For that matter, It'd be kinda amusing to play a Vol'jin against Muradin and have him gloat about being Warchief regardless.

Well the game is supposed to be an "in game" game. That's the whole premise. The cards themselves aren't actually supposed to be those characters being played, it's people playing as those champions. So the faction stuff isn't really a big issue. They're all cards being played by residents of the WoW world, to pass the time and have fun.

 

[shintakie10]

If they're attainable with in-game gold like everything else they've released for Hearthstone so far, then I don't have any problems with this, but if you can only get them with real money I'm going to be annoyed.

Real money only, already confirmed. It is also the only purchasable content so far that is not affecting the game itself, so it's also acceptable.

Maybe to you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to boycott the game or rage on the internet about it, but it's a free-to-play game. And as much as I like Blizzard, they're one of the worst companies on the market when it comes to implementing real-money store items. It's built off of the exact same Skinner Box design that keeps people playing WoW: you start seeing people playing with these cool new things and want to get it yourself, only to discover that you need to pay the premium price of what, almost two expansion wings? to get a single new Hero skin.

There are also a few obvious slippery slopes that nag in the back of my mind. If this works well for them, what's to stop them from pushing the boundaries further and further until they are locking content that affects the game behind paywalls? Or they could start nickle-and-diming for every little thing; you want a new card back? Cough up $5. New play arena? $7.50. Shiny new platinum animations for cards, or something? $2.99.

It doesn't directly impact how the game actually plays, sure, but it's viewing the game in a limited vacuum to say that it isn't changed at all by these sorts of business decisions.

Oh jesus christ. People have been terrified of Blizzard falling down that slippery slope since the WoW TCG had mounts you could get from the loot cards.

If they haven't fallen down that slippery slope after almost a decade I think we can stop worrying about it.

 

[shrekfan246]

If they're attainable with in-game gold like everything else they've released for Hearthstone so far, then I don't have any problems with this, but if you can only get them with real money I'm going to be annoyed.

Real money only, already confirmed. It is also the only purchasable content so far that is not affecting the game itself, so it's also acceptable.

Maybe to you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to boycott the game or rage on the internet about it, but it's a free-to-play game. And as much as I like Blizzard, they're one of the worst companies on the market when it comes to implementing real-money store items. It's built off of the exact same Skinner Box design that keeps people playing WoW: you start seeing people playing with these cool new things and want to get it yourself, only to discover that you need to pay the premium price of what, almost two expansion wings? to get a single new Hero skin.

There are also a few obvious slippery slopes that nag in the back of my mind. If this works well for them, what's to stop them from pushing the boundaries further and further until they are locking content that affects the game behind paywalls? Or they could start nickle-and-diming for every little thing; you want a new card back? Cough up $5. New play arena? $7.50. Shiny new platinum animations for cards, or something? $2.99.

It doesn't directly impact how the game actually plays, sure, but it's viewing the game in a limited vacuum to say that it isn't changed at all by these sorts of business decisions.

Oh jesus christ. People have been terrified of Blizzard falling down that slippery slope since the WoW TCG had mounts you could get from the loot cards.

If they haven't fallen down that slippery slope after almost a decade I think we can stop worrying about it.

I'm sorry, have you seen the stuff they're selling for World of Warcraft? They've been selling pets and mounts for years now, and apparently they've started selling helms, too? It's still all "cosmetic", but so is charging for new arenas, card backs, or animations.

 

[shintakie10]

I'm sorry, have you seen the stuff they're selling for World of Warcraft? They've been selling pets and mounts for years now, and apparently they've started selling helms, too? It's still all "cosmetic", but so is charging for new arenas, card backs, or animations.

And your point is what exactly because mine still stands. In fact, you have just reinforced my point.

They've been at the same point for a decade now. They sell cosmetics that mean nothing, that do nothing and hurt nothing for money. They've done it for a decade almost. The slippery slope has long since passed.

 

[shrekfan246]

I'm sorry, have you seen the stuff they're selling for World of Warcraft? They've been selling pets and mounts for years now, and apparently they've started selling helms, too? It's still all "cosmetic", but so is charging for new arenas, card backs, or animations.

And your point is what exactly because mine still stands. In fact, you have just reinforced my point.

That saying it won't change Hearthstone in any way is demonstrably false, even if it doesn't change the core game. Changing the economy of an online game is always going to impact it in some way.

They've been at the same point for a decade now. They sell cosmetics that mean nothing, that do nothing and hurt nothing for money. They've done it for a decade almost. The slippery slope has long since passed.

They do nothing except incentivize people to spend money.

To be sure, it's a great way for Blizzard to make money. $10 isn't an unreasonable price point for most people, no? Never mind that there are nine Heroes, so if you want the new skins for every one that's a tidy $90 right off the top, all for something that means nothing and does nothing. And then they can continue putting in more new skins for quite a while considering how extensive the lore for the Warcraft universe is.

Yes, you don't have to buy it. But the whole point of free-to-play games and most in-game/cosmetic stores in general is to get people to buy things they don't need. Considering that currently you can get everything in Hearthstone barring a few card backs without spending a dime, it strikes me as more than a little obnoxious that you won't be able to use in-game currency to get new Hero skins.

 

[urlorjkron]

If I'm going to spend 10 USD on a ccg, I'll spend money on Magic. At least that's a physical thing, because as much as I like Hearthstone, it's only installed for when I want to play magic, but am not around other junkies players.

For $10 you could buy MTGO and play that. You get over 1000 cards to start with and most paper cards that are under $5 are less than $.05 for their digital version.

 

[Evil Smurf]

If I'm going to spend 10 USD on a ccg, I'll spend money on Magic. At least that's a physical thing, because as much as I like Hearthstone, it's only installed for when I want to play magic, but am not around other junkies players.

For $10 you could buy MTGO and play that. You get over 1000 cards to start with and most paper cards that are under $5 are less than $.05 for their digital version.

How's commander on MTGO?

 

[Norithics]

Each?? Sheesh, that's a little much. Those card packs not bringin' in enough dollars, Blizzard?

 

[Addison Sage]

I don't $ee what'$ wrong with Blizzard trying to find $ome other avenue$ for income. $ure it $eem$ like yet another needle$$ micro tran$action for people hopele$$ly addicted to their watered down ver$ion of the original WoW card game, but I think they're merely giving the cu$tomer$ what they're a$king for at a rea$onable price.