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Game Preview: Hearthstone
Collectible card games have been a prominent part of nerd gaming culture since the early '90s. Magic: the Gathering forged a compelling genre and dozens of games have followed in its footsteps. But the past two decades have been a time of technology, and Magic is a decidedly low-tech game. Like chess, it's been moved online in only the strictest emulation of real-world play. The game itself hasn't actually evolved to make use of technology. Enter Blizzard. Many of the developers at Blizzard grew up playing Magic and other CCGs, and it seemed natural that they'd want to design one of their own. But Blizzard is video game company; managing cardboard print runs and scheduling tournaments isn't exactly in their wheelhouse. Thus, we get Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, an entirely digital CCG. It's currently in closed beta test, but open beta is supposedly just around the corner. In this video (with transcript) we take a look at how the game is shaping up.
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This game was boring as heck. Two misses in a row for a company which used to be the best in the industry.
Better still, a no-slashvertizment day to celebrate.
MTG was the original CCG. No other game comes close. The art work won't compare and the game play won't compare.
I thought that's exactly what they did all the time in South Korea with StarCraft and StarCraft 2.
managing cardboard print runs and scheduling tournaments isn't exactly in their wheelhouse.
Maybe if you ignore all their boxed releases and game tournaments they've run over the years.
This hardly qualifies as a preview since the game is available in even its beta form
PC Gaming enthousiast that gives comments, opinions and reviews on Games. I'm just having fun with games while doing let
But Blizzard is video game company; managing cardboard print runs and scheduling tournaments isn't exactly in their wheelhouse.
Just as one example, Blizzard has run tournaments at BlizzCon for years now. You could have found this out with 10 seconds of Googling.
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I got the private beta. It sucked. Boring, uninspired characters. Card artwork needs work. No stories in the cards.
Magic for the iPad was way better, and even that got boring quick.
I'll admit it, I'm mildly surprised to hear Blizzard is still a company, outside of Panda loving, anyway.
Top official in Obama birth mystery killed - Loretta Fuddy
Woman lone fatality in Hawaii plane crash
http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/top-official-in-obama-birth-mystery-killed/
"A key Hawaii official in the dispute over Barack Obama's birth certificate - who lifted state restrictions to allow the White House to present the document to the public - has died in a plane crash.
Loretta Fuddy, the state health department director, was the only fatality among nine people aboard a Cessna Grand Caravan that went down at about 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday while heading to Honolulu.
Richard Schuman, president of Makani Kai Air, told NBC that the other eight people aboard were rescued from the site of the water crash.
KITV-TV in Honolulu reported Fuddy had been on health department business. Keith Yamamoto, the department's deputy director, also was aboard and survived.
Makani Kai officials said it was was the company's first fatality.
WND has reported since before the 2008 election on the dispute over Obama's birth documentation.
Fuddy took over the agency when Gov. Neil Abercrombie took office.
USA Today reported on a statement from Abercrombie.
"Our hearts are broken," he said. "Loretta was deeply loved and respected. She was selfless, utterly dedicated and committed to her colleagues in the Department of Health and to the people of Hawaii. Her knowledge was vast; her counsel and advice always given from her heart as much as from her storehouse of experience."
Recently she had been working on the state's Obamacare website.
On the subject of Obama's background, Abercrombie, who claimed to have had a relationship with Obama's parents in Hawaii as a fellow student, vowed to settle the dispute once and for all but finally gave up, insisting his hands were tied.
Read all the arguments in the birth certificate controversy, in "Where's the Birth Certificate?" and check out the special reports, banners and bumper stickers on the subject.
Abercrombie told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser regarding Obama's birth documentation: "It actually exists in the archives, written down." The London Daily Mail reported, however, Abercrombie "suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health."
Later, Obama asked for copies of the document, and under Fuddy, the state instantly waived a long-claimed ban on reproducing long-form birth certificates. On Fuddy's instructions, copies were produced and delivered to Judith Corley, a private attorney for Obama.
Fuddy had written to Obama: "We hope that issuing you these copies of your original Certificate of Live Birth will end the numerous inquiries received by the Hawaii Department of Health to produce this document."
Immediately after the delivered copy was posted on the White House website, however, numerous computer graphics and software experts declared it fraudulent.
The birth certificate dispute centers on the constitutional requirement that a president be a "natural-born citizen." Some argue that even if Obama was born in Hawaii, he was does not qualify because his father was a Kenyan citizen.
Still a live issue
The one official law enforcement investigation into the issue, conducted on the orders of Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, concluded the document posted by the White House is a forgery.
Arpaio has said the investigation is ongoing and more evidence has been discovered to bolster his team's conclusion.
WND reported Mike Zullo, the lead investigator for Arpaio's Cold Case Posse in Arizona, has contributed evidence to a court case pending before the Alabama Supreme Court.
He has testified that the White House computer image of Obama's birth certificate contains anomalies that are unexplainable unless the document had been fabricated piecemeal by human inter
I've been playing a bit, mostly with friends, and having a blast.
It seems like they could have done it in the browser instead of a full blown application, but it's fine.
The ultimate pay to win game (MTG) invades the realm of computer pay to win games, but this time it's different. It's "freemium."
customcardboxes.com
He makes boxes for CCG players- taking the games online won't help him.
" The game itself hasn't actually evolved to make use of technology."
that is just simply not true1
1. The rules changed to use a stack in 2006
2. Without computers, they would have have been able to bloat the rules to what they are today!
I'm a pretty hardcore RTS gamer (StarCraft II) but holy cow HearthStone is so fun that I've mostly abandoned SC2 in favor of racking up time there instead.
I definitely want the iOS release to hurry up so I can play on my iPad.
The thing that is surprising is, even with only a handful of emotes for communication, people still find ways to BM you :D But seriously, this is a REALLY REALLY fun game, and is going to make Blizzard some ungodly sum of money.
Collectible card games have been a prominent part of nerd gaming culture since the early '90s.
So this, ladies and gentlemen, is what turned nerds into mundanes...
Me Tarzan, you is video game company
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
I stopped listening at, "It's nice to see from a company that's mostly been riding its old IPs for the past 15 years."
You realize this is nothing else other than riding old IP, right? There's very little new and innovative here, and the Warcraft IP has been used more times than a $2 hooker on Fremont street.
The mechanics of this game are about on par with the Pokemon TCG. The game is extremely lacking in player interaction. There are no instant effects. Attacking players choose to attack defending creatures directly, and can completely ignore the defender's board if they want. The game is like dual solitaire. Once you know the range of possible effects that a deck type can produce, it's fairly trivial to play around. Magic players I've seen streaming this game tend to win about 90% of the games they play, and most say it gets boring and repetitive fairly quickly. About the only time they lose is when they leave Arena and face someone who's invested every waking hour grinding for cards. It's pretty hilarious to watch other streamers coming from non-TCG games trying to play and clearly not planning out very far in advance.
As for the summary's criticism:
It can't, won't, and shouldn't. Magic is, first and foremost, a paper card game. WotC has stated repeatedly that the online and digital versions of the game exist to promote and supplement the paper game, not replace it. This is the same stance they've taken on D&D video games: they supplement the tabletop game. Their goal is to get players to graduate from playing online to playing the paper games. It's a good thing, too, because the client software for Magic is pretty shitty. It does the rules just fine, but the interface is consistently terrible. If the game weren't so good, it wouldn't be worthwhile. Fortunately, they've finally brought in real outside help to work on it. They brought in the Duels of the Planeswalker people for the current beta and it's terrible, but supposedly the new team consists of better programmers. Historically their problem has been paying peanuts and expecting gold. We'll see if they can get something usable by the time Hearthstone is out of beta.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Haven't played the game yet but judging from that advertisement,
If I compare it to Mtg:
- no interaction during opponents turn
- no resource management
- no trading of cards
So...the three things that give Magic it's depth and appeal are missing...hmmmm...not sure about this.
As a former Magic player and former WoW player, it tickles a nice spot. I've had fun playing in the beta for over a week now. I get the complaints about the lack of interaction, but it's still a well-polished, fun, casual digital CCG. I do agree that it's "almost" Pay2Win because grinding gold through normal play to get better cards and get into Arena will take you forever, though technically possible. They need to make Arena cheaper, because being the most like a Draft in Magic, it's the most fun for the rush of what you can accomplish with a random bunch of cards given to you as opposed the slow methodical build and tweak gameplay of the normal Play mode.
Just as a heads up. The browser-based (Flash) game Card Hunter is better and is incredibly charismatic and fun. It's also free to play and not pay-to-win. It is like someone worked out what game my brain would like the most and made it.
You can pay to get more treasure and to do special quest maps, and the quality is astronomical for a flash-based program.
Penny Arcade also agrees with me about it being awesome!
Unlike what the review says, if you are playing against another player, you will see what card they have highlighted in their hand. If they are playing a card, but haven't chosen a target, you will see it (face down) floating on the field along with the targets you opponent is picking. Same goes for choosing an attack. This adds to how lively the game is and adds to the bluffing part of the game.
The AI on the other hand seems impossibly fast, playing cards right as they come out, faster than what the UI allows. On the other hand, the AI isn't very good. The AI will often play cards as soon as possible, like doing 1 damage to the player at full health, rather than waiting to kill a minion that only has 1 health.
One issue I do have with the game, is that the rules for some of the cards aren't clear. If you return a silenced minion to your hand you can play it again un-silenced. If you return a polymorphed minion to your hand you get a 1/1 sheep you can cast for 1. Only by playing or watching others play can you find out about these details.
The entire summary could be summarized thus:
"Blizzard made an online collectable card game called "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft," which is similar to "Magic: The Gathering." It is currently in closed beta. Read my review for more info!"
Everything else in that summary was pure filler. Do people believe anyone wants to read all that ancillary nonsense in a summary?
GET TO THE POINT!
Disclaimer: I haven't played pokemon or magic so my experiences are limited.
To address a couple of things you mentioned:
1. No instant effects - Wouldn't secret cards be considered instant?
2. You can completely ignore the defenders board - Don't taunt cards partially prevent this? Most games I've played, it's fairly dangerous to ignore the board and go directly after the hero.
ok ok ok ok If i'm gonna sit, I'll sit....... Como back next month. Bring corn chips, box of diet coke, and two standard cheeseburgers. Let's make it right this time.
Has the gaming industry really not yet reached the point where a female character can be portrayed without enormous breasts spilling out of her costume?
I've got nothing wrong with enormous breasts or skimpy costumes, but is the gaming industry really happy being a male-only endeavor?
Games are filled with adolescent depictions of women and male characters with enormous powerful leg muscles, indicating that the young men who play games must be pretty sexually conflicted. Actually that sounds about right.
Seriously, in Arkham Origins, for some reason Batman's legs are drawn completely out of proportion to the rest of his body. He's supposed to be a big strong guy, but I don't remember him looking like a normal athlete on the top half and Mr Universe on the bottom half.
There are lots of examples of male characters drawn as old and skinny, short and fat, strong and weak, handsome and ugly. But the female characters in those same games are all triple-E cups and dressed as if by Frederick of Hollywood.
And yet, interestingly, if you look at the characters that players design for themselves (when the games give them the opportunity), they tend to look a lot more like normal people. I've seen people playing Saints Row IV as middle-aged black women and balding Hispanic construction workers. And yet, when the developers define the look of the character, it's always the same thing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
D3 was the fastest selling PC game of all time and didn't just break PC sales records, it destroyed them. But yeah, other than that I can see why you'd think it would cause blizzard to fail...
D3 was the fastest selling PC game of all time and didn't just break PC sales records, it destroyed them. But yeah, other than that I can see why you'd think it would cause blizzard to fail...
You are merely quoting initial sales before word of mouth appraisals got going. Initial sales are largely based upon reputation, the actual value of the game itself is a minor factor. You have to look at sales once word of mouth appraisals of the game are flowing to determine a game's actual value.
D3 may very well be a big success. But you are not really offering evidence of that. You are really offering evidence of the success of D2 and WoW and their effect on D3 day one sales. Well, that and the fact that the D3 beta was not a disaster. I suppose a truly disastrous beta could have squandered the D2 and WoW good will. However less-than-big success in the beta would not derail the D2 and WoW good will.
I've played a bit of both, so here's the differences.
* There's no real way to respond on another player's turn, which lessens the strategy, but also means you're not waiting on your effects to resolve forever. Games generally take much less time (~15 minutes at most)
* Not quite as chancy. You just can't win on turn 3. The infinite and quasi-infinite combos of MTG are, as of yet, nonexistant. And there are some *good* combos, but you can't base your deck on channel/fireball as you could during MTG alphas;)
* Harder to keep permanents. All permanents are characters or attached to characters which can be damaged directly via attacking them with your creatures. As a result, utility creatures are much harder to keep alive.
Blizzard's done a great job of making a CCG that actually plays well online by designing it to be that way from the ground up. Unless MTG does a redesign, or at least designs cards specifically to be played online, it will always be a cludgy using a Windows Tablet circa 1999 (or a Windows 8 machine circa now).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Try Path to Exile.
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Combat Monsters is a new indie online CCG I've been enjoying. It's free to play, but you'll need to spend about $5 to really get going. The gameplay is deep, and a 3D board with cute monsters tramping around it doesn't hurt.
It's my first CCG, so I can't compare it to Hearthstone or MtG, but it's been a blast so far.
"The game itself hasn't actually evolved to make use of technology. Enter Blizzard. Many of the developers at Blizzard grew up playing Magic and other CCGs, and it seemed natural that they'd want to design one of their own" I guess you've not discovered Combat Monsters yet. This game actually does advance CCG's by providing proper board-based combat using real 3D characters.