Hearthstone to Get New Blackrock Mountain Adventure, Phone Demo

s0osleepie

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Hearthstone to Get New Blackrock Mountain Adventure, Phone Demo



Announced during Blizzard's PAX East panel, the new "Blackrock Mountain Adventure" will bring players into what was once the most dangerous place in Azeroth.

Players of Blizzard's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft can rejoice, for a new Adventure mode will be released next month.

Announced today during Blizzard's PAX East panel, the "Blackrock Mountain Adventure" will bring players into what was once the most dangerous place in Azeroth, where loot rewards of 31 new cards will be available for the taking, evolving the Hearthstone metagame once again. Players will come face-to-face with infamous characters from the Warcraft universe as Blackrock Mountain is a hotly contested area between the forces of Ragnaros with his Dark Iron servants, and Nefarian with his orc minions. I can hear the fond memories of UBRS raids flowing through the internet as we speak.

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But, that's not all! Gamers on the go can soon get their Hearthstone fix from anywhere. Blizzard also announced Hearthstone will soon be available "in the next couple of months" for both Android and iPhones. Panel attendees saw screenshots of it in action, but no live builds or demos.

The new adventure drops this April and will follow the same pricing structure as Hearthstone's first Adventure, Naxxramas. Players can gain access to the entire Adventure for $24.99 or they can choose to pay per wing for 700 in-game or $6.99. Blizzard's first Adventure was plagued with order processing failures, locking players out of the content for days, but this time around they will be offering pre-orders for real money only, which can be purchased starting March 19. Your reward? An exclusive card back.


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Luthor55555

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Good to know! some of these cards look super interesting, like the card that summons another of itself if it survives damage. Seems like it would be amazing for warrior or mage and I look forward to seeing all the new cards! can I say a meta shift is needed? Although I wonder how long it will be until Old decks become good again (like miracle rogue).

Now its time to start saving that gold...
 

The Wykydtron

"Emotions are very important!"
Sep 23, 2010
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Holy shit, is this a Dragon deck themed expansion? Some of those cards hint at it obviously. My Deathwing/Alextraza/Ysera combo needed some more Dragon friends aside from the double Azure Drakes. Hopefully a Dragon deck proves more successful than the attempted Demon Warlock decks that people tried then went back to Zoolock and Handlock because it's just not really good enough even with the new Demons. I mean yeah if you get a Floating Watcher or two on the board and they happen to have no removal in their hand, it's practically GG but Floating Watcher is the exception because it's so bloody good. LOOK AT THIS, WHAT IS THIS EVEN?!

 

Davroth

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Apr 27, 2011
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I'm slightly annoyed with Hearthstone. I was all over that game when Naxxramas hit, because the new cards seemed to move away from the whole "lol random" nature of the game beforehand. But then Gnomes vs Goblins hit and most of the good cards from that expansion have random components to it.

And now this new expansion, it's a little early to call, but the spoilered cards have a far more deliberate feel to it. I don't know, I guess I actually want to play Magic but don't have the money for it, and this game is not the perfect substitute. That said, I look forward to new cards I guess. XD
 

MoltenSilver

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So the solution of 'Don't worry we fixed the payment system by allowing preorders!' took precedence over solving 'Don't worry we fixed the servers so you can actually play the content day 1!'
I mean I don't think anyone was under the illusion Blizzard was any different but I've never seen them wear it on their sleeve so blatantly before. Not really seeing the incentive to pre-order when it probably still won't be actually playable the day it comes out.
 

Ukomba

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I'm particularly excited about the new solo adventure. Some of the most fun I've had was beating heroic Naxxramas.
 

Battenberg

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MoltenSilver said:
So the solution of 'Don't worry we fixed the payment system by allowing preorders!' took precedence over solving 'Don't worry we fixed the servers so you can actually play the content day 1!'
I mean I don't think anyone was under the illusion Blizzard was any different but I've never seen them wear it on their sleeve so blatantly before. Not really seeing the incentive to pre-order when it probably still won't be actually playable the day it comes out.
But you get a free exclusive card back with it!

As much as I'm enjoying Hearthstone I am slightly worried that another expansion with a load of cards which are effectively behind a pay wall (yes I know you can buy with gold but saving up that much gold takes hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours playtime) is that it will become less and less free to play and closer to a subscription model. Just take Naxx. Just about every major deck build out there right now uses at least one card from Naxx, typically more. If this expansion brings another collection of cards that have the same level of impact on the meta anyone f2p'ing will be further excluded from any kind of constructed play.

Obviously Blizzard wants to make money and Hearthstone is easily the best f2p game out there imo but it's going to become very unengaging for new players if they flat out can't win matches outside of arena.
 

Ukomba

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Battenberg said:
MoltenSilver said:
So the solution of 'Don't worry we fixed the payment system by allowing preorders!' took precedence over solving 'Don't worry we fixed the servers so you can actually play the content day 1!'
I mean I don't think anyone was under the illusion Blizzard was any different but I've never seen them wear it on their sleeve so blatantly before. Not really seeing the incentive to pre-order when it probably still won't be actually playable the day it comes out.
But you get a free exclusive card back with it!

As much as I'm enjoying Hearthstone I am slightly worried that another expansion with a load of cards which are effectively behind a pay wall (yes I know you can buy with gold but saving up that much gold takes hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours playtime) is that it will become less and less free to play and closer to a subscription model. Just take Naxx. Just about every major deck build out there right now uses at least one card from Naxx, typically more. If this expansion brings another collection of cards that have the same level of impact on the meta anyone f2p'ing will be further excluded from any kind of constructed play.

Obviously Blizzard wants to make money and Hearthstone is easily the best f2p game out there imo but it's going to become very unengaging for new players if they flat out can't win matches outside of arena.
Each wing of Naxxramas cost about as much as a player could earn in a week doing just quests. As a f2per myself, I've never felt all that hindered in competing. Net Decking is a bigger issue than the pay wall imo.

That said, new player accessibility is always an issue, I'd say ranked mode is supposed to solve that, but smurfing kind of ruins that.
 

Battenberg

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Aug 16, 2012
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Ukomba said:
Battenberg said:
MoltenSilver said:
So the solution of 'Don't worry we fixed the payment system by allowing preorders!' took precedence over solving 'Don't worry we fixed the servers so you can actually play the content day 1!'
I mean I don't think anyone was under the illusion Blizzard was any different but I've never seen them wear it on their sleeve so blatantly before. Not really seeing the incentive to pre-order when it probably still won't be actually playable the day it comes out.
But you get a free exclusive card back with it!

As much as I'm enjoying Hearthstone I am slightly worried that another expansion with a load of cards which are effectively behind a pay wall (yes I know you can buy with gold but saving up that much gold takes hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours playtime) is that it will become less and less free to play and closer to a subscription model. Just take Naxx. Just about every major deck build out there right now uses at least one card from Naxx, typically more. If this expansion brings another collection of cards that have the same level of impact on the meta anyone f2p'ing will be further excluded from any kind of constructed play.

Obviously Blizzard wants to make money and Hearthstone is easily the best f2p game out there imo but it's going to become very unengaging for new players if they flat out can't win matches outside of arena.
Each wing of Naxxramas cost about as much as a player could earn in a week doing just quests. As a f2per myself, I've never felt all that hindered in competing. Net Decking is a bigger issue than the pay wall imo.

That said, new player accessibility is always an issue, I'd say ranked mode is supposed to solve that, but smurfing kind of ruins that.
Even if you got all 60 gold reward quests you wouldn't make 700 gold in a week without spending a huge amount of time getting the less than substantial 3 wins gold reward. Without spending a lot of time grinding for the minimal reward you get every third win (which gets dull fast when you're just starting out and have a severely limited card pool) I'd say it's probably closer to 2 weeks per wing. That's 2 weeks doing nothing but daily quests for one fifth of one adventure and the cards that come with it. Even if you get it down to a week and a half for each wing that works out at over 50 days of only getting play constructed and not getting any more card packs which, as I pointed out, isn't a whole lot of fun and certainly wouldn't endear the game to a beginner.

If this wing proves to contain similarly essential cards you have to spend twice as long getting core cards so 3 months+ without arena or buying packs by which time another adventure may well have come out and the cycle starts again. As it stands the game isn't unplayable without those Naxx cards by any means but as time goes on adding more cards this way is surely going to have a negative impact on how enjoyable the game can be without spending money on it.
 

MoltenSilver

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Ukomba said:
Battenberg said:
MoltenSilver said:
So the solution of 'Don't worry we fixed the payment system by allowing preorders!' took precedence over solving 'Don't worry we fixed the servers so you can actually play the content day 1!'
I mean I don't think anyone was under the illusion Blizzard was any different but I've never seen them wear it on their sleeve so blatantly before. Not really seeing the incentive to pre-order when it probably still won't be actually playable the day it comes out.
But you get a free exclusive card back with it!

As much as I'm enjoying Hearthstone I am slightly worried that another expansion with a load of cards which are effectively behind a pay wall (yes I know you can buy with gold but saving up that much gold takes hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours playtime) is that it will become less and less free to play and closer to a subscription model. Just take Naxx. Just about every major deck build out there right now uses at least one card from Naxx, typically more. If this expansion brings another collection of cards that have the same level of impact on the meta anyone f2p'ing will be further excluded from any kind of constructed play.

Obviously Blizzard wants to make money and Hearthstone is easily the best f2p game out there imo but it's going to become very unengaging for new players if they flat out can't win matches outside of arena.
Each wing of Naxxramas cost about as much as a player could earn in a week doing just quests. As a f2per myself, I've never felt all that hindered in competing. Net Decking is a bigger issue than the pay wall imo.

That said, new player accessibility is always an issue, I'd say ranked mode is supposed to solve that, but smurfing kind of ruins that.
Honestly I could see a potential way this wouldn't be a problem; if new players were matches against other new players, people with similar card pools, then it could work out like any sane person would expect the game to: with you earning more cards bit by bit as the people around you do as well, eventually splitting apart up or down due to how quickly they pick up the skills.

Unfortunately, so long as HS's matchmaking continues to be completely incompetent lunacy, your assessment of HS becoming more and more behind a pay-wall is entirely accurate in my opinion.

While some have suggested matchmaking should be based on dust-value of the deck being played that's obviously not a good idea since among two equally skilled players a low dust deck can absolutely win or even have the superior matchup (Compare that some hunter decks can outperform control-warrior win-rate-wise is proof of that). However, I have another idea I've been wondering how practical or impractical it would be: What if rather than the specific dust value of your deck, it's the dust value of your entire collection that could be taken as a factor in the under-the-hood matchmaking; would adding that as part of the calculations in matchmaking result in less lopsided matchups?

Edit: at the very least I wish Blizzard would add an option scale that lets you tweak whether you want to get into a match as fast as possible or let it take a lot of time to get a much closer matchup.

The other major problem is that you get no progress just from playing (ie. losing), which actively discourages doing anything except playing the most optimal deck, and anyone who goes on a long streak of unlucky matchups or draws will find themselves with none of the resources required to feel any sense of progress. Maybe Blizzard should add some kind of chart that shows the 9 classes listed from most to least played the previous day, make the most popular ones pay off less gold for winning or losing, while the least popular ones pay off more gold for winning and some for losing.
 

Grumman

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Ukomba said:
Net Decking is a bigger issue than the pay wall imo.
Net Decking is a symptom, not the cause. There is too much variance in the power of the cards, both between cards (Silverback Patriach, anyone?) and within certain cards themselves (Sneed's Old Shredder into Kel'Thusad, anyone?). Every card should be powerful enough to have a place in at least one top tier deck, and no card should be powerful enough to have a place in every top tier deck. Do that, and Net Decking doesn't actually cause a significant reduction in deck diversity. You still wouldn't see any decks combing Unleash The Hounds and Wild Pyromancer, but that's no big loss.

On the revealed cards themselves: I dislike the templating on Blackwing Technician and Rend Blackhand. For both cards, I would make it "Battlecry: Reveal all Dragons in your hand. If you're holding a dragon, do X."
 

Gizen

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Grumman said:
Every card should be powerful enough to have a place in at least one top tier deck, and no card should be powerful enough to have a place in every top tier deck.
The thing is, even the most successful and well-designed CCGs have never been able to pull this off, and likely never will. It's simply not realistically feasible.
 

Grumman

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Gizen said:
Grumman said:
Every card should be powerful enough to have a place in at least one top tier deck, and no card should be powerful enough to have a place in every top tier deck.
The thing is, even the most successful and well-designed CCGs have never been able to pull this off, and likely never will. It's simply not realistically feasible.
It's infeasible for a physical CCG, but only because reactionary patches are impossible when dealing with a physical product that cannot be updated remotely. When Cawblade was a thing in M:tG, the only tools available to Wizards of the Coast were the outright ban (which they used to remove Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic from the format) or putting a hoser in the next set. Blizzard, on the other hand, can simply declare by decree "Soulfire now costs 1 mana" and have it take effect everywhere and instantaneously. If I was in charge of balancing Hearthstone, I'd be collecting data about how often each card shows up in a deck that beats an opponent who is at Legend rank. Pick whichever card has the lowest pick rate, see if I can come up with a good way to buff it - preferably in an interesting way - then move onto the next card.

Even nerfs can be interesting if you do them right. A simple 1 mana increase to the cost is boring, but turning Gadgetzan Auctioneer into a profiteer who charges extra for swift delivery (read: the drawn card costs (1) more if you need to cast it this turn) and you've reduced its power but made it more characterful.
 

Gizen

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Grumman said:
Gizen said:
Grumman said:
Every card should be powerful enough to have a place in at least one top tier deck, and no card should be powerful enough to have a place in every top tier deck.
The thing is, even the most successful and well-designed CCGs have never been able to pull this off, and likely never will. It's simply not realistically feasible.
It's infeasible for a physical CCG, but only because reactionary patches are impossible when dealing with a physical product that cannot be updated remotely. When Cawblade was a thing in M:tG, the only tools available to Wizards of the Coast were the outright ban (which they used to remove Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic from the format) or putting a hoser in the next set. Blizzard, on the other hand, can simply declare by decree "Soulfire now costs 1 mana" and have it take effect everywhere and instantaneously. If I was in charge of balancing Hearthstone, I'd be collecting data about how often each card shows up in a deck that beats an opponent who is at Legend rank. Pick whichever card has the lowest pick rate, see if I can come up with a good way to buff it - preferably in an interesting way - then move onto the next card.

Even nerfs can be interesting if you do them right. A simple 1 mana increase to the cost is boring, but turning Gadgetzan Auctioneer into a profiteer who charges extra for swift delivery (read: the drawn card costs (1) more if you need to cast it this turn) and you've reduced its power but made it more characterful.
Yes, but, the thing about that is that even with reactionary patches, this still simply isn't always feasible. The difference between a card that is a must-play and a card that is utterly unplayable can quite often be a single point of power, toughness, or cost. Change a card too much and you might as well have made a whole new card entirely. Combine this with the need to give an extra bit of oomph to higher rarity cards to justify their higher rarity, and you wind up with a situation where it's virtually impossible to make sure every single card has value. Simply put, there will always be some cards that are just bad, and the amount of time and effort that would go into making them playable would often be better put to use developping the next set (since, as an f2p game, they need to constantly be churning out new content). Of course, this doesn't apply to overpowered cards, and the ability to patch-nerf something that's out of line is indeed crucial, but buff things that are underperforming is just not something you'll ever really be able to expect.
 

babinro

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Battenberg said:
As much as I'm enjoying Hearthstone I am slightly worried that another expansion with a load of cards which are effectively behind a pay wall (yes I know you can buy with gold but saving up that much gold takes hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours playtime) is that it will become less and less free to play and closer to a subscription model. Just take Naxx. Just about every major deck build out there right now uses at least one card from Naxx, typically more. If this expansion brings another collection of cards that have the same level of impact on the meta anyone f2p'ing will be further excluded from any kind of constructed play.
I disagree entirely given the fact that proper sets (expert set or GvG set) are FAR more punishing to the F2P gamer than these adventures could ever hope to be. You can typically earn the gold to unlock a single wing in under 2 weeks of daily questing. That's less than 3 months of play time to unlock an entire wing and I'm using conservative numbers here.

It typically takes LONGER to even get a single legendary card in a base set by comparison. Let alone the a USEFUL legendary card or the necessary epics to building a good deck. If Hearthstone is alienating F2P gamers..it's absolutely through their proper sets.

As for the spoiled cards....

Rend Blackhand (Legendary)
7 Mana (8/4)
Effect - Battecry: If you're holding a Dragon, destroy a Legendary Minion.


Seems straight up terrible. The card would be solid without the condition of a dragon but needing a dragon in your hand makes this thing awful. This is of course assuming we don't see a rise of dragon decks like we did with deathrattle and mechs.

Even if dragons become a staple card type...do you really want to be holding dragon cards in hand until turn 7 to get the most out of this guy? If you happen to have an 8+ drop dragon festering in your hand when you've drawn this card then great but in reality I don't see this working out so smoothly.

Dark Iron Skulker (Rogue Rare)
5 Mana (4/3)
Effect - Battlecry: Deal 2 damage to all undamaged enemy minions.


I'm disappointed that this shares a mana slot with Abomination...would have loved to see this class card as a 4 drop (3/2 body) to really make it stand out. Either way this card is solid. Can't really complain about a 2nd AoE option for the Rogue class. Good stuff.

Grim Patron (Rare)
5 Mana (3/3)
Effect - Whenever this minion survives damage, summon another Grim Patron.


I could see aggro warrior having fun with this because of whirlwind, bouncing blades, inner rage and the like...but this feels like a gimmick card at best. It's a fun concept so I approve. Should really be a 4 drop if it wants to appeal to all classes as a neutral card.

Hungry Dragon (Common - Dragon)
4 Mana (5/6)
Effect - Summon a random 1-cost minion for your opponent.


Yikes. This thing seems POWERFUL especially when used by druids, mages, rogues and maybe muster paladins. I could see this having a big impact on the game. I also like how you could combo him with Mind Control Tech. Fun times. Enjoy your first MUST have card of this adventure mode.

Blackwing Technician (Common)
3 Mana (2/4)
Effect - Battlecry: If you're holding a Dragon, gain +1/+1


Potentially strong card. 3 for a 2/4 is already among the better stat configurations IMO. If you can make it a 3/5 than it's great value for the cost. I consider this weaker than Tinkertown Technician but this card isn't confined to aggro decks exclusively either.

I'm a little concerned about Hungry Dragon's impact on the game but overall this seems like a solid start.
Looking forward to future card reveals.
 

gonenow

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Battenberg said:
Ukomba said:
Battenberg said:
MoltenSilver said:
So the solution of 'Don't worry we fixed the payment system by allowing preorders!' took precedence over solving 'Don't worry we fixed the servers so you can actually play the content day 1!'
I mean I don't think anyone was under the illusion Blizzard was any different but I've never seen them wear it on their sleeve so blatantly before. Not really seeing the incentive to pre-order when it probably still won't be actually playable the day it comes out.
But you get a free exclusive card back with it!

As much as I'm enjoying Hearthstone I am slightly worried that another expansion with a load of cards which are effectively behind a pay wall (yes I know you can buy with gold but saving up that much gold takes hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours playtime) is that it will become less and less free to play and closer to a subscription model. Just take Naxx. Just about every major deck build out there right now uses at least one card from Naxx, typically more. If this expansion brings another collection of cards that have the same level of impact on the meta anyone f2p'ing will be further excluded from any kind of constructed play.

Obviously Blizzard wants to make money and Hearthstone is easily the best f2p game out there imo but it's going to become very unengaging for new players if they flat out can't win matches outside of arena.
Each wing of Naxxramas cost about as much as a player could earn in a week doing just quests. As a f2per myself, I've never felt all that hindered in competing. Net Decking is a bigger issue than the pay wall imo.

That said, new player accessibility is always an issue, I'd say ranked mode is supposed to solve that, but smurfing kind of ruins that.
Even if you got all 60 gold reward quests you wouldn't make 700 gold in a week without spending a huge amount of time getting the less than substantial 3 wins gold reward. Without spending a lot of time grinding for the minimal reward you get every third win (which gets dull fast when you're just starting out and have a severely limited card pool) I'd say it's probably closer to 2 weeks per wing. That's 2 weeks doing nothing but daily quests for one fifth of one adventure and the cards that come with it. Even if you get it down to a week and a half for each wing that works out at over 50 days of only getting play constructed and not getting any more card packs which, as I pointed out, isn't a whole lot of fun and certainly wouldn't endear the game to a beginner.

If this wing proves to contain similarly essential cards you have to spend twice as long getting core cards so 3 months+ without arena or buying packs by which time another adventure may well have come out and the cycle starts again. As it stands the game isn't unplayable without those Naxx cards by any means but as time goes on adding more cards this way is surely going to have a negative impact on how enjoyable the game can be without spending money on it.
I dunno how much you know about hearthstone but most people kinda realised that the ranked ladder is broken and it is pointless to rank up as it only slows your gold income so everyone has started to trade wins against one another at rank 20 by conceding after every win making it very quick to hit the 100 gold a day gold cap (3 hours generally give or take).
 

Grumman

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Gizen said:
Combine this with the need to give an extra bit of oomph to higher rarity cards to justify their higher rarity...
No. Absolutely not. Thinking like that is how you make shitty, pay to win games. Lower rarity cards should be easier to use (either because they are less complex mechanically, or because they are generalists) so that a beginner is not immediately overwhelmed by the complexities of building and playing a deck. They should not be weaker.
 

Grumman

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babinro said:
Grim Patron (Rare)
5 Mana (3/3)
Effect - Whenever this minion survives damage, summon another Grim Patron.


I could see aggro warrior having fun with this because of whirlwind, bouncing blades, inner rage and the like...but this feels like a gimmick card at best. It's a fun concept so I approve. Should really be a 4 drop if it wants to appeal to all classes as a neutral card.
Mage, Warrior and Priest all have the potential to make use of this card. The Mage's hero ability effectively gains a second mode: "(2): Summon a 3/2 Grim Patron". The Warrior, as you say, is very good at doing 1 damage to their own minions. And Priest has the potential to keep running Grim Patron into things, healing it up, then doing it again.