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Blizzard EU Community Summit Developer Q&A

Originally posted by Blizzard

• The game is completely free-to-play, and it is feasible to play at the highest possible level and collect every card without paying a dime. 40% of players in their current test builds who play at that level are examples of such players.
• The game will only have the 9 classes (Warrior, Hunter, Shaman, Warlock, Paladin, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Druid) at the start. Whether the last two classes (Death Knight, Monk) will be added later is undecided, but a possibility.
• The game will feature four unique boards to play at launch: Orgrimmar, Stormwind, Pandaria, and one last board.
• There will be different rarities of cards, and also special "golden versions" of cards - with no functional differences in gameplay except for pure styling. A legendary version of a card is functionally the same as the "basic" version.
• It is possible to get the higher-rarity cards without paying for the game.
• Achievements will reward something, but it's undecided what yet; possibilites include more cards.
• There is no link with World of Warcraft, aside from the shared universe.
• Cards will be earned as you play, the specifics are still undecided.
• Will only feature 1v1 at the start, but may expand to 2v2 and 4v4 later on, depending on community feedback.
• The game will not launch with any eSports features, but this is definitely something they're looking into, i.e. tournament/spectator modes. Depends on community feedback, but high on the request list so far.
• Rankings will be available online, allowing you to compare yourself to your friends and show off your status, decks, etc.
• While the game is a 1v1 (i.e. multiplayer) game, there will be a short introduction to the game, where concepts are introduced, and you unlock the heroes through a very short, and very quick progression ----
• There will be a chance to play against the AI in Normal or Expert mode. Expert mode is hard.
• Medal system in place, used for random matchmaking like with StarCraft -- may also incorporate decks, to match them evenly.
• Future updates will most likely follow along with the WoW universe and updates will be introduced to take that into account (perhaps this means we'll get new boards around the holidays? Special cards? New card packs with new expansions like the TCG? Pure speculation on my end!)
• Trading won't happen. Crafting is the best possible way to keep the game balanced, and to ensure players can get hold of the cards they want through crafting, as opposed to having to shell out dozens of cards for a single, rare card that is highly-coveted. Additionally, the developers value the instant gratification you get from crafting your own cards. This also means every card will be equally valuable, as they can all be disenchanted, and the Arcane Dust can subsequently be used to craft new cards.
• It will be possible to look up recipes for any card directly in-game.
• If you buy cards during the beta (when that hits), those cards will be lost when the game goes live, but you will get unopened packs of cards in the final version rated at the exact amount you spent during beta. You effectively lose nothing.
• Decks will be limited to have a maximum of two of any card, and a maximum of one legendary version of each card (but it is possible to build a full deck of legendary cards... but it "would probably suck").
• There will be class-specific cards, and generic cards that are shared between all classes.
• There will be no "Horde vs. Alliance" combat in Hearthstone, just player vs. player.
• Each Hero will have their own specific power, not multiple powers to choose between.
• Balance is apparently very, very good so far.
• The game is region-locked to your region like all Blizzard games. It's undecided whether it'll be possible to change your region, like in Diablo or StarCraft.
• The game will be in beta when it's ready. Sorry, that's all I could get from it, guys -- but I assure you they're just as pumped to get the beta out as we are to have it.
• The game may be developed on Android later, if there's a lot of interest from the community.
• The Warlock hero power (Life tap) was the hardest to balance, but seems to work very well currently.
• The team have considered how the order of players start out affects balancing later in the game.
• They're considering how best to foster a sense of progression down the line, aside from medals/rankings.
• It takes one game (~10--20 minutes) to unlock each class at the start, sequentially.
• With each class/hero, you will start with a deck containing 30 cards, almost all of which remain competive, even at very high level of play.