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Blizzard posts official BlizzCon schedule
You've got your tickets purchased, your hotel arrangements squared away, your bags all packed. You're ready for BlizzCon this year! But leaving aside the fact that you can probably unpack your bags now as you've still got a month to go, what are you actually going to be doing at BlizzCon? That's what you can find out by taking a gander at the official schedule, which tracks the events of the day on both Friday and Saturday for World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Hearthstone, and Diablo III. A floor map is also available so that congoers can get a feel for the layout before arrival, although that's of less interest to fans planning on taking advantage of the streaming options available for the convention. If you're thinking of buying a virtual ticket for the high-quality streams, take a look at the schedule and see if it's stuff you want to watch streaming live. Unless, as we said, you've already got your bags packed to go in person.
Blizzard highlights Hearthstone crafts
Hearthstone's Community team has come out with a new feature that highlights arts and crafts among the Hearthstone community. There are those among the players that are enthusiastic about the online card game who are not only having fun playing the game, but are ridiculously talented, turning their creative energies to crafting all sorts of fun items after the game they love to play. This is the first of what I hope is many posts featuring the Hearthstone community's creative efforts -- and man, are these some incredible projects. Two different recipes are highlighted in the video, a Hearthstone-themed roll cake, and some incredibly cute caramel-filled Hearthstone chocolates. What I love is that both recipes are actually tutorial videos, so those of you that want to try your hand at making these at home can do so. I've never actually made a roll cake before because they always seemed to be pretty complicated, but the video certainly has me wanting to try. Chocolates, on the other hand, are pretty easy to work with in comparison. If you're looking for creative holiday gift ideas for your gamer friends, you might want to check that video out. Also highlighted in the post are three absolutely gorgeous crafted items. There's a Heartstone in a box, as well as the lovely candle-holder shown in the header image above. The third is a jaw-dropping reconstruction of the Hearthstone box featured when you begin the game. To check out all of the arts and crafts, head to the official site. If you've got any creative Hearthstone crafts of your own that you'd like to share, be sure to post on the official forums and show them off.
Joystiq Weekly: The Cryptarch grows a heart, Alien: Isolation review, N64 turns 18 and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Between the Nintendo 64's birthday and the Pokemon TCG iPad app reminding us that our childhood card games no longer have to be played with expensive, holographic pieces of paper, we're teetering toward a slight meltdown. When did we swap out our trapper keepers for a stack of bills? Why did we have to give up Saturday morning cartoons, again? What do you mean there's more to save up for in life beyond booster packs and video games? Sorry, we'll do our best to get a grip. This week brought more than a halting reminder of time's unstoppable march, though! Bungie tweaked a few loot-related settings in Destiny, we reviewed Alien: Isolation, Skylanders Trap Team and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and we explored the weirdest stages of the N64's now-adult life. Those stories and more are waiting for you after the break!
Hearthstone set for an expansion with over 100 new cards
Hearthstone's little trip to Naxxramas went pretty well, but the game is headed for something bigger. An expansion has been confirmed to be in the works for the game, as we first reported during PAX Prime this year. Production Director Jason Chayes has now revealed that the expansion will add over 100 new cards with a central theme tying all of the additions together, far more than the 30-odd cards added to the game during the Curse of Naxxramas adventure series. Chayes told Polygon that one of the big concerns for the team is making sure that the pace of new content for the game neither bores veteran players nor overwhelms new arrivals, making an expansion something of a challenging prospect. If the expansion goes well, the plan will be to mix up full expansions and single-player challenges over the course of a year, giving players more things to look forward to. No hard and fast details have been announced yet, but expected them in the near future.
Hearthstone's first expansion will add more than 100 cards
A forthcoming expansion for Blizzard's mobile and PC CCG Hearthstone will add more than 100 new cards for players to collect, Polygon reports. Hearthstone's first fully fledged expansion follows up on the recent launch of Curse of Naxxramas, a single-player add-on that introduced new bosses and a handful of exclusive cards. Production director Jason Chayes told Polygon that the expansion's new content will roll out in waves, to preserve the game's pacing and to ensure accessibility for newcomers. "One of the things that we spend a lot of time talking about is pacing," Chayes said. "Not just the pacing of the game as it is, but pacing of the rollout of new content. We really want to make sure the pacing is great not just for seasoned Hearthstone players but for new players coming into the game too." Chayes notes that further details regarding Hearthstone's expansion will be announced "very soon." [Image: Blizzard]
How Blizzard is improving World of Warcraft's e-sports appeal
World of Warcraft is no stranger to e-sports, though its cousins deeper in the Blizzard family tree have fared far better. During the Hearthstone qualifiers at last weekend's DreamHack Stockholm, Blizzard Senior Manager of eSports Kim Phan spoke to PCGamesN about the challenges faced by World of Warcraft in the e-sports subgenre. "I can definitely say that WoW 3v3 Arena right now is kind of hard to watch, in the form that it is, and so there are things that we want to evaluate," she explained. "World of Warcraft was obviously created well before e-sports blew up to the way it is now. We knew there was a competitive element to World of Warcraft, and then it just kind of blew up from there. Warlords of Draenor's upcoming spectator mode is intended to address the difficulty of following arena matches, but Blizzard isn't stopping there. Even raids might be worth watching, Phan says. "Ideas have been brought up like Battlegrounds. People enjoy watching live raids at BlizzCon. What makes something an e-sport really depends on what people want to see. We are taking a close look into how we can better support e-sports."
Hearthstone in real life is beautiful, but complicated
Ever wonder what it would be like to feel the virtual cards from Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft in your hands? Well, Chinese bootleggers have you covered, friend. Website Games in Asia recently discovered and played a physical version of Blizzard's digital card game, and the results were ... well, let's just say that being a digital game has its advantages. "What would be a thirty-second turn in the digital game took up the better part of five minutes here. But most heinous was the set-up time," Games in Asia reports. "Thankfully the bulk of the work doesn't need to be repeated once you've set the game up once, but it still took close to two hours the first time before we could even start playing." The reason for such lengthy playtime seems to be that the physcial version has far more moving parts, icons and tokens to keep track of. Games in Asia called it a "fun novelty." We don't know about that, but those cards sure do look nice in the real world. [Image: Blizzard]
Perfect Ten: What Titan's death means for the industry and you
Blizzard's fans are in mourning this weekend and its competition is no doubt rejoicing after the World of Warcraft developer finally cancelled its seven-years-in-the-making Titan MMO. Word on the street is that Titan was a little too similar to what Bungie came up with in Destiny, although all the studio itself will say is that it ultimately wasn't fun. So Titan joins Starcraft Ghost and Warcraft Adventures in the Blizzard graveyard. It's a loss for those who were hoping to see what Blizz could do outside of World of Warcraft in the MMO space. But what does this cancellation mean for Blizzard, the industry, and us as MMO gamers? I have a few thoughts, although I'll pre-empt them by predicting that your life will most likely go on just the same it did before this momentous announcement.
China bootlegs Hearthstone cards into the real world
Blizzard has yet to release Hearthstone cards outside of their native virtual playground, but where American corporations fail, Chinese bootleggers are more than happy to step in. Games In Asia has a lengthy report on a knock-off Chinese Hearthstone game, though "knock-off" doesn't properly describe the item. It would be more accurate to say that the bootleggers took the basic tenets of the Hearthstone virtual game then did their best to translate those ideas to a more traditional board game environment. As you'd expect, the artwork and most of the gameplay is swiped directly from Blizzard, but Games In Asia claims that legit assets can't save bootleg Hearthstone from the pitfalls of having so much cardboard to manage. "If playing this physical version (and watching it be played) taught me one thing, it's this: the digital game is incredibly good at streamlining." We aren't about to link to a site selling counterfeit goods, but Games In Asia claims that those of you willing to track down this weird piece of pop cultural ephemera should expect to pay about $50 for the game. Alternately, you can play the original version of Hearthstone on an iPad, PC or Mac at no cost. [Image: Activision Blizzard]
BlizzCon 2014 in-game goodies sneak peek
Last week, we had our first glimpse at Grommloc, the BlizzCon 2014 in-game pet. Today, Blizzard has revealed the remaining in-game rewards. Hearthstone Blizzard Entertainment-themed card back. The design incorporates elements from the compass inlaid around the infamous orc statue. StarCraft II New portraits and a Heroes of the Storm-themed decal. One portrait depicts Hierarch Artanis. The other is yet to be unveiled. Diablo III Warlords of Draenor-themed weapon transmogrifications. Each class will receive its own weapon, but only the demon hunter, barbarian, and monk are displayed. Kargath's bladefist and Blackhand's hammer are easily recognizable in the image. Only available for Windows/Mac version of the game. Heroes of the Storm Nexus Mount and Nexus Brawler portrait The official BlizzCon site has a more detailed image of each than you see in the header above. It being BlizzCon and all, we can't help but wildly speculate a little: given the protoss theme of the StarCraft portrait, and the fact that one of the portraits is still veiled in mystery, could we finally see a Legacy of the Void announcement? Nearly three years passed between the launch of Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm. Half of that time has passed since Heart of the Swarm's release, which would make this pretty good timing for an announcement -- though certainly not a release date.
Most Hearthstone players don't surpass rank 15
If you follow any number of prominent Hearthstone players, your perception of ranked play might be a little skewed. Being above rank 10 -- or even top 5 -- seems perfectly standard. When you play the game yourself, frustration mounts quickly because you can barely make it into the teens. However, Blizzard has recently stated you may be better than you think. According to the stats they've released, 75% of players are between rank 15 and 25. Only 2% of players are in the top 5 ranks, with only 0.5% of the playerbase at the Legend rank. While Hearthstone had no difficulty hitting 20 million registered players, I often wonder if competitive games based on ranked played have issues with retention. When ranked play is the central game option, the simple nature of the beast means the majority of your players will sit at the lowest rungs of the ladder. The truly dedicated will invest significant time and energy into overcoming that hurdle, but certainly not everyone. The answer isn't to give people free victories, but is there another way to keep them engaged? If you're interested in the full infographic, it can be found below or on Battle.net.
Raptr shows MMOs and MOBAs dominating the top 20 in August
Raptr's tracking of play choices among the service's gamers in August paints a picture of a wide love for MMOs and MOBAs. World of Warcraft holds a respectable #2 spot, followed by Final Fantasy XIV (#10), Warframe (#11), Guild Wars 2 (#12), Star Wars: The Old Republic (#14), and Firefall (#20). However, former Raptr #6 holder, WildStar, has dropped out of Raptr's top 20 entirely. "With a late July release, Firefall made a 40-spot jump into the top 20 for August. Not too surprisingly, Firefall is converting more players from fellow F2P shooter Warframe than any other game, with Dota 2 coming in second," Raptr posted. Other online titles fleshed out the list, such as League of Legends (#1), Dota 2 (#3), SMITE (#5), and World of Tanks (#13). Card battler Hearthstone is still hanging onto the top 10 at #8.
Hearthstone boasts 20 million registered players
Does it ever seem like there's an endless flow of players in Hearthstone? There's not. But there are quite a lot of players, with Blizzard Entertainment announcing today that the game has broken 20 million registered accounts. If those were all people with real cards, that would be... a lot of cards. Like, at least a dozen. The game launched on the iPad in April and is aiming at an Android tablet release in the near future, as well as expanding to iOS/Android phones. Hearthstone will also have its first world championship at Blizzcon this year, with contestants fighting for a $250,000 prize pool. [Source: Blizzard Entertainment press release]
Hearthstone nerfing Leeroy Jenkins, Starving Buzzard
At first I saw the overpowered Leeroy Jenkins nerfing and was all: YAAAAAYYYYYY! Then I saw the tweak to the card-creation bonanza of Starving Buzzard and cried in cataclysmic rage toward the heavens. An upcoming "balance change" for Blizzard's collectible card game Hearthstone will see two abundant strategies require some tweaking. The card that potentially caused 20+ points of damage as part of a nefarious combination play, Leeroy Jenkins, will now cost one mana more. At least he's got chicken. Not Angry Chicken, mind you.
Hearthstone expansion coming 'soon'
The release of just a handful of new cards with Hearthstone's Curse of Naxxramas had a notable impact on competitive play -- the priest deck is considered by some to be a powerhouse with a suite of deathrattles, for example. That's often the case with collectible card games such as these, so an inevitable expansion has the potential to make Hearthstone feel like a whole new game again. Eric Dodds, Hearthstone's lead designer, told our sister site Joystiq at PAX Prime that just such an expansion is coming "soon." It seems likely an official expansion announcement awaits us at BlizzCon. We have to wonder what approach they'll take with an influx of new cards. Power creep is always a concern -- Curse of Naxxramas's relatively few, deathrattle-themed cards is one thing, but the addition of a hundred new cards might be something else altogether. An oodle of new cards needs to hold some allure over the old ones to draw players in, but does Hearthstone have room for that many additions, given its simple rule set? An increase in base power-per-mana would be one approach, but unlikely to be endearing to players. That works fine in MMOs, but not card games. Brand new mechanics are also possible, something beyond Battlecry, Deathrattle, and Charge. Other CCGs have attempted to modify their tournament rules to limit the use of cards from previous sets or hold tournaments/ladders where only specific sets are allowed for use in play, requiring competitive players to dip into each and every set. That feels like a very un-Blizzard thing to do, but a CCG is new territory for them. Who knows?
BlizzCon offers up virtual tickets
If you really want to check out BlizzCon but can't quite manage a flight out to California, a solution is available. Virtual tickets are now available from Blizzard for $39.99, allowing you to watch the panels, the competitions, and the events live from the comfort of your own home. Sure, you won't get to actually be packed in the convention hall, but this way no one cares whether you're wearing pants or not, so you even come out ahead. Purchasing a virtual ticket will give you access to bonus in-game goods for World of Warcraft, Diablo III, StarCraft II, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone, although the details are not yet available. All of the streams are also available in high definition and can be re-watched, so you needn't worry about missing something. If you've already purchased a physical ticket, you still have access to a virtual ticket as well, so you can still take advantage of the streaming. Everyone who wants to attend can at least get something like that experience.
Hearthstone announces its sixth season and a new card back
Are you ready for the sixth season of competitive Hearthstone play? Because it's live right now, complete with a new card back for players to show off. This season offers a nautical look with the Pirate back available through September. Players who have hit at least Rank 20 or higher in ranked play mode will be awarded the card back at the end of the month. As in previous months, success in ranked play will earn you bonuses toward the next season, but even if you start at or above Rank 20 this season you'll need to play at least one ranked match to earn the new card back. Fortunately, you have plenty of time to do just that if you want your deck to tell opponents that they'd better buckle their swashes.
Hearthstone expansion coming 'soon,' iPhone and Android versions by end of year
Eric Dodds, lead designer for Blizzard's digital card game/spare time killer, Hearthstone, told Joystiq at PAX Prime that an expansion for the game will be coming "soon." The expansion will add new cards and lots of them - more than 100, actually. Unfortunately for those who enjoyed taking on the hordes of the undead in Curse of Naxxramas, the expansion will not feature additional single-player content. Dodds clarified that Naxxramas is an "adventure," while what's coming is an "expansion." Still, don't rule out more adventures in the future; Dodds said that, while Hearthstone is "primarily a PvP game," the single-player content allows the game's designers to steer players into trying new classes and strategies. The goal is that players will take those strategies into the multiplayer arena, but even if they don't, it provides an avenue where players can think differently than they're used to. As for those iPhone and Android versions? "Still in progress," Dodds told Joystiq. But they should be *ahem* ready to ride by the end of the year. [Image: Blizzard]
PAX Prime 2014: Hearthstone eyes an expansion
The PAX Prime Blizzard booth was one of the larger and more populated venues on the show floor this year. A slow-moving line wrapped around it as players waited eagerly to try out Warlords of Draenor or to see Heroes of the Storm for the first time. Yet it was Hearthstone -- a free-to-play game available to anyone at anytime -- that was winning gamers over. I talked with Game Director Eric Dodds about how this small project at Blizzard blew up into a great success story. He said that when the team noticed that Twitch livestreams of Hearthstone were drawing in thousands and tens of thousands of viewers is when the studio knew that it had a hit on its hands.
World of Warcraft's Chinese partner sees increase in profit and revenue
Earlier this month, Blizzard claimed that a "disproportionate" amount of its 800,000 lost World of Warcraft subscribers were from the east. While that may be, China is doing quite well with the studio's games. Gamasutra reports that Blizzard's partner in the region, NetEase, posted a "modest rise" in both profit and revenue during the second quarter. The company reported revenue of $376.6M, a rise of 13% from last year. This financial summary includes NetEase's own titles along with World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Hearthstone. Hearthstone was singled out as a "strong earner" due to its recent launch in the region. Both Blizzard and NetEase are working to bring Diablo III and Heroes of the Storm to the country in the future.
