Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
[Column] Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: On Hating Warcraft and Loving Hearthstone
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
Is it possible to hate Warcraft and yet love Hearthstone? It sure seems like it! Read on for our thoughts.
I hate Warcraft. I have since I first saw my friend playing Warcraft 2 at his house back when I was a teenager. My disdain for the series continued when I tried to play Warcraft 3 and, of course, when World of Warcraft took the world by storm in 2004. Yet, here I am roughly a week into the closed beta of Hearthstone and I’m having a great time. Sure, I find myself annoyed as I’ve always been with the Warcraft style of humor. I cringe every time I hear a Murloc’s arblgarbl or “Mind if I roll need?!” whenever I play a Loot Hoarder card, but I’m still addicted to the game.
Read more of Michael Bitton's On Hating Warcraft and Loving Hearthstone.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Bill, I can never understand people who go out of their way to say they hate "game". If a game is not to your tastes, then there are lots of others out there.
Some peoples hate for a game can easily slide into disdain for the people who do like it - and that's never a good road to travel.
Look at all these people who fail to read and here to spam....
On topic, I don't understand how could someone hate warcraft. The lore was so rich, deep and fun before WoW. The WC3 campaign was such a blast to play, one of the best campaign of any RTS so far. And wc2 was a really awesome game too back in the days. I guess you either never been an RTS fan or you just never took time to follow the story.
LOL
If there are any real people behind these new accounts jumping on this thread, good luck and have fun.
(edit: whoops - I guess this comment doesn't make much sense if you are only reading it now)
If Blizzard is good at anything, it's making 'niche' genres accessible to a much broader audience. They introduced millions of new players to RTS games with the Warcraft and Starcraft series. (I know people who have only played two games in their entire lives: Pac Man and Starcraft.) They made one of the most widely played action adventure games in the Diablo franchise. Then, of course, they opened the world of MMOs to millions and millions of people who had no idea what the acronym even stood for.
I can't help but feel Hearthstone is following suit perfectly.
There's no barrier of entry - it's free for anyone to try. It's solely a video game, meaning there's no obligation to dump hundreds of dollars on packs of real cards. The game hands you 8 basic starter decks and introduces to you to every class in a no-pressure environment against AI then advanced AI. Even playing against other players is a lot less stressful than many people have come to expect. Matches are super quick, lasting between 5 and 15 minutes, making it even more accessible for quick pick-up matches than popular MOBA games like DOTA 2 and League of Legends. There's no chat, so no chance for harassment. And there's no obvious penalty for losing. You simply quickly move on to the next game. In Arena, you're rewarded well enough to not demoralize you even if you go 0-3.
On top of that, there's all the lighthearted humor and lore of the Warcraft universe which creates an air of familiarity to the millions of people who have interacted with Warcraft at one time or another but who may never have played a TCG or CCG before.
Is this proof of the existence of a parallel universe? That's not quite how it happened in my reality.
Interesting… I was enjoying the hell out of Everquest and Star Wars: Galaxies before WoW was even announced. Granted, WoW became the BIGGEST MMO and still holds the title, but it absolutely did not bring MMOs into the fold… And in many ways, it helped destroy many of the elements we loved about MMOs prior to its arrival by catering to heavily to casuals. Which is fine… Just saying.
I agree with OP though… Hearthstone is going to breathe new life into this genre and I fully expect an active player base in the millions shortly after launch. I’ll give WoW crap all day long, but Blizzard is a solid studio and has a long history of well-polished games. Hearthstone will be HUGELY successful for years to come… Not a doubt in my mind about that.
And… OMG look at all these bots/idiots posting their favorite heroes!!! I hope all of their names get excluded from the actual contest because these aren’t real people… Even if they are, they aren’t!
"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils." - Louis Hector Berlioz
Plus one! +1!
I loved Warcraft 1 and I liked 2. I did not quite get into 3 at all. And I hated WoW because I hate MMORPGs.
But I love Hearthstone, just as much as I did love Warcraft 1 back in the day!
You didn't like Warcraft RTS games and MTG. Your views are dead to me Bitton, lol.
Warcraft is just the story world where all those version of the game happen. Heck, there could be a warcraft themed chess or monopoly (and there probably is), and it has no reflection on what you think about the game itself. You could love chess, yet hate monopoly too. Now my honest warning:
Veteran Card player here. Phases of Card games:
1) Learning the rules + initial lust
2) Finding your personal likes + looking for "best deck for all occasions"
3) Deciding to invest to get that "holy grail" deck.
4) Realizing it is a huge waste of money since there will always be new cards and your deck will never be up to par, unless you are investing tons of money. Or spend tons of money in tournaments to get super rare (powerful) cards.
5) Either quit, or go back to 3.
I have quit card games, even though at one point I had spent tons of money on actual cards, and at one point, digital cards, when I played in the EQ2 version of the game.
My 2cp: Play the game as far as you can get (and stand) without spending a dime, and then quit. The moment you spend even 1 penny, it will suck you in to spend more, until you realize your mistake and have to quit cold turkey or go broke.
I totally agree EXCEPT…
My buddy has earned like 10 booster packs through playing, not spending a dime, over the course of a month or so.
Imagine having been able to earn 10 packs of Magic: The Gathering cards a month just by playing. Also, you are earning XP for both yourself and each of your classes (sense of progression), you get like 300 bonus gold for every 100 wins, and you can disenchant cards and/or win arena matches to get dust and create EXACTLY the next card you want in your collection.
Will I spend money on this game? Yes… Here and there, absolutely.
Will I spend anywhere NEAR as much as I needed to with M:TG? No way… There’s zero reason to do so."Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils." - Louis Hector Berlioz
Not everyone lacks self restraint or lives above their means.
Mikey... that only works out if boosters are filled with "all" possible cards at all times. Historically, new expansions will not be offered to be purchased with in game money. Same with individual new cards, or specially, tournament cards.
The catch is not the initial launch cards... it is what happens down the line. Getting certain cards will either get prohibitively time consuming, or will only be available to you if some amount of money from your part is given.
Again, card games are fun, but the player has to be very careful where he treads, as it can lead to much waste.
I actually haven't seen a need to spend money at all. Even if you only log in to do the daily + get 3 wins every day (these goals usually coincide with each other), you earn enough gold to buy a new pack every other day. Additionally, as you said, you get 300g for every 100 wins (this is 9g per 3 wins, which effectively nearly doubles the 10g per 3 wins you receive along the way).
More importantly, if you're like me, you never buy booster packs for 100g. Instead, you spend 150g for an arena ticket. At the end of your arena run, you get a booster pack anyway; so you're essentially spending 50g for everything else you earn in the arena. If you earn back 50g + some dust in addition to the booster pack, it can be seen as a 'successful' arena run. (This is, of course, on top of the inherent fun of being able to play with a new deck consisting of cards you don't even own yet that comes with playing arena.) You can, however, earn way more than 50g and a bunch of dust if you do really well. In fact, you can earn more than 150g, effectively allowing you to continue playing arenas forever.
Now, in one sense, this can seem like infinite free packs, dust, and gradually accumulating gold. Well, it does take skill (but it's awesome that the game rewards skill, isn't it?) and, more importantly, time. You don't just automatically receive the booster pack, 150+g, and dust; you have to play at least 9 to 11 games (a 9-0 record being the fastest, 8-3 being the longest). But with the speed at which games are played, I feel like I'm constantly opening new packs.
As far as paying to purchase new packs, I don't think I could ever justify it. All these reasons aside, I'm fully aware that I could drop 20 bucks and get absolutely nothing useful out of it. I'd feel like the biggest piece of s**t if I spent $20 and got nothing I wanted. It would feel like I just donated money to a wealthy company that has more money than it needs for no good reason. No thanks.
I don't hate any game,i don't even look at games like that.What i do hate is lazy and cheap developers.I won't use the word hate but i don't like the fact Blizzard makes a lot of money selling off weak effort game design.
I played MTG when it first came out,i loved it and played a lot for about 7 years but it was nothing more than GREED that ruined the entire game and lack of vision to see it's mistakes.
No matter what i think,FACT is the MTG series is not doing well at all,the online version has very few players and SOE's attempt has also failed.There has also been quite a few others try their hand at this genre and all but failed,so is this really SMART work by Blizzard or just a real cheap effort ?
My opinion is that going a a small team shows how little effort they wanted to invest in it.Also this is basically a failed genre so why invest at all?I believe Blizzard truly believes they could sell anything to their faithful followers.There is not even any risk because they have such a small team,the core game design is VERY cheap/cost effective and to run the game will also be pennies a day.
So bottom line is that even if the game fails as SOE's attempt did,they will most likely make enough money of the Blizzard logo alone in the early stages to not worry about failure.
IMO this will be the PROOF that Wow was not supported because it was a good game,it is merely a ton of loyal followers buying anything Blizzard sells because this is a failed genre and what Blizzard is doing is NOT as good as MTG's effort nor SOE's effort.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It doesn't seem to me that Hearthstone relies too much on the lore of the warcraft series, and of course mechanistically it's not like any previous "warcraft" title.
I've never played any C/TCGs and never had any particular desire to do so, but Hearthstone appears to fill the niche of a quick yet competitive game that can be played whenever you happen to have some spare time. That's what is appealing to me about the game. P
Yeah, and then you play it for hours and wonder where the time went. I've been trying to get in some Battlefield 4, but I end up spending the entirety of my gaming time every night playing this friggin' thing.