Hearthpwn

PAX East Developer Interview

PAX East 2014 has conclude and after the announcement of the Curse of Naxxramas, we're all pretty excited  about the new content! BlizzPro's Stephen Stewart got to sit down and chat with Hearthstone's Game Director, Eric Dodds, and Production Director, Jason Chayes, to discuss the new adventure mode in more detail and get some answers on the future of the game. We've got highlights from their interview below, and if you'd like to read it in its entirety, you can find the full interview over on BlizzPro.

If you missed the Curse of Naxxramas announcement, you can find it here.

Quote from Eric Dodds & Jason Chayes

Adventure Mode

•  Adventure mode is you put up against a bunch of AI Boss Battles.
• Each encounter is their own unique challenge.
• Defeating a boss will give you a new card usable in your decks.
• There are five wings in total and the adventure will run over the course of a month.
• Arachnid quarter opens up on week first.
• Construct quarter opens up on week four.
• Defeating the four primary wings will unlock the last wing, which contains two bosses (Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad).
• Each primary wing needs to be purchased separately. Gold and real money amounts are not yet determined.
• The team wanted to put a new keyword in, but decided it was better to get creative with Deathrattle, a common theme in the adventure.
• The new cards should help mix the meta up and bring out some cool new decks.
• Curse of Naxxramas will be coming out on "the heels of the iPad release".
• They feel 30 cards seems like a good amount, it's not too many that will overwhelm new players, but it gives the old players new tricks.
• Heigan's hero power, Eruption, will always target the minion thats the most left on your side of the board.
• They are not sure how the golden versions of adventure cards will be unlocked.

Future Plans

• Spectator mode is coming. More information is coming, stay tuned.
• No plans are in place for legendary cards outside of minions.
• Neutral weapons are not on the todo list. They want to make the classes feel like the WoW classes.
• Now that the game is out of beta, it's better to give players new tools to deal with certain cards rather than adjusting existing cards.
  
• Additional creature types are definitely going to be showing up in the future. More Murlocs. More Pirates.
• They think having a way to play the arena / draft mode outside of the arena would be super cool and fun. Not yet though, other things to take care of first.
• It would be cool to have automated in-game tournaments, again, other stuff to take care of first.
• There are no current plans for a test realm for Hearthstone.

Top 5 Plays of the Week

GiantKiller of 2pPressStart published a new episode of Hearthstone, Top 5 Plays of the Week. This week's top plays come from Tyky, Ponkie, Swiftlame, StarZero, and Hysteria. Congratulations guys on making the cut with some sweet plays!

Funny and Lucky Moments #37

Trolden published a new episode of his Hearthstone Funny and Lucky Moments, a series of videos which highlights hilarious misplays and unbelievable moments from the Hearthstone community. The featured plays in episode 37 come from Shoctologist, Lightsource, TotalBiscuit, and one again, Lightsource!