Developer Insights: Days of the Frozen Throne with the Live Content Team
With the Days of the Frozen Throne event starting, Blizzard has posted a blog post detailing how they conceptualized it and went forward with the implementation.
Days of the Frozen Throne runs until September 23.
Quote from BlizzardDays of the Frozen Throne is now live, and we know that the Death Knights are crowd favorites, we’re excited to give you some insight into when we were developing this “brawliday!”
Inception
We tinkered with a lot of ideas for Days of the Frozen Throne before it was Days of the Frozen Throne, but none of them felt quite right. So we started looking back at our favorite sets from the Year of the Mammoth.
When we were thinking about timing, we figured the event would land sometime around the one year anniversary of the Knights of the Frozen Throne’s launch. Knights of the Frozen Throne was one of our favorite sets from last year, and what better way to celebrate its anniversary than by bringing it back to the game in such a substantial way? This was also when we came up with the term “brawliday”—one Hearthstone holiday event that lasts for the duration of a brawl.
Inspiration
At this point, the team was facing two challenges: what to name the event, and how to keep it concise but also have it live up to Hearthstone’s standards. The perfect solution occurred to us during our brainstorms.
We were sitting in a room kicking around concepts when it suddenly hit us: we already had (K)nights of the Frozen Throne—what about DAYS of the Frozen Throne? That immediately energized everyone: we went back to our desks and wrote the entire event pitch in one sitting.
Meanwhile, we also had to keep the other teams informed of what would go down during this event. One of the first people we spoke to was Josh Harris, one of our chalkboard artists on the Hearthstone team. He’s the guy who makes some of the awesome brawl chalkboards you see each week! We looked at different iterations of the art for the brawl before settling on what you see in the client right now. Below is one of the first passes at chalkboard art for Duel of the Death Knights.
Development
With Death Knights leading the conceptual charge, it was easy to put to paper exactly how it would work. We wanted players to be able to experience Knights of the Frozen Throne all over again, and we would do that through the brawliday’s quests. And if you’re a new player, or just don’t have all the cards you needed? Well, that was what the brawl is for!
The Duel of the Death Knights brawl you see in the Days of the Frozen Throne brawliday was specifically inspired by the Rise of the Zombies brawl. Seeing just how dramatically playing as a Death Knights changed a player’s Hearthstone experience was very inspiring for us. In Duel of the Death Knights, you start the game as a Death Knight and play with a random deck built from Knights of the Frozen Throne cards.
We also thought that rewarding a Golden Happy Ghoul on log-in would be a fun way to introduce players to the event. We considered other cards for the log-in reward, but we ended up picking the Happy Ghoul because it just fit the Days of the Frozen Throne theme. This little ghoul making snow angels (snow ghouls?) was one of the most lighthearted cards in the entire Knights of the Frozen Throne set, and also one of our favorite golden animations.This also helped us fulfill another goal we had for Days of the Frozen Throne: to make sure that players would be able to fully experience the Knights of the Frozen Throne card set, especially if they were new. It was also something that we kept in mind when designing daily quests for this event. And of course, in typical Hearthstone fashion, we also have a ton of fun playing with words when coming up with quest names! Plays of the Frozen Throne, anyone? See if you can find them all in-game!
Deck The Brawls!
And that was how this happy little brawliday, celebrating one of our favorite sets from the Year of the Mammoth, came to be! We want to create more brawl events like this one in the future, as they’re a good way for us to revisit the things we’ve loved from past sets and to give Hearthstone more micro-events. Be sure to collect your Happy Ghoul for logging in, and in case you’ve yet to complete your Knights of the Frozen Throne collection, check out the Bundle Up Bundle that’s available now.
See you in the Tavern!
Errrr yea they did and he is not talking about in standard play he is talking about this brawl specifically and I did the exact same thing except I had more variation in enemies than he did. Played with Jaina too, she sucks in this brawl with a garbage deck fit for nothing
As much as I appreciate the concept and theme of the Brawl and Blizzard giving 600 to f2p players. The actual implementation is piss poor.
Brawl is full of Jaina Mages that ping their Stonetusk Boar and Leper Gnome on turn 3 to get a Water element and win. Gul'dan and Rexxar is barely holding on to the second place; after that Malfurion, Uther and Garrosh can get some wins due to the weapon/hero power and as usual Anduin is complete garbage along with Valera and Thrall.
Going into the Brawl I had hoped for weak decks for strong DKs like Jaina and Guldan and strong decks for weak DKs like Thrall and Uther. Instead Blizzard went complete retard/lazy and made the decks random. The didn't even test whether the random decks are balanced or not, for one Jaina Mage shouldn't be getting one health minions at any cost.
Now they are making blog posts, patting themselves as if they had done something great. They should be ashamed of themselves that they can't create a fun meta - let alone a balanced one - even when they had all the variables under control.
Perhaps they wanted to simulate the utter dominance of Druid and Priest during KoFt meta, just with Jaina Mage this time.
Eh, i don't want to sound as a hater, but it takes no effort to design such an event.
I am glad it happened, but that's all. No need for an explanation about inspiration and brainstorming - as if it was complicated.
Brawl was basically wasted: they could have at least tinkered the decks to make the encounters have some flavour.
Quests are ok, and i am not here to spit on freebies, but that's it. Just freebies. Calling it an event is a bit too much.
Btw, Fire and Frost Festivals were so much better.
I love the 600 gold, but this brawl was awful. Also I was getting random cards from a ton of sets in my decks when I played, specifically I recall getting Leper Gnome when I played as Jaina. I wasn't getting only Frozen Throne cards.
Un'Goro was anything but underwhelming, many people call it the best expansion ever. Whispers of the Old Gods was very similar. Rotations are supposed to push the newest expansion forward. Witchwood bombed TGT-style all while having rotations and nerfs to go along, while the "official" worst expansion didn't get as much help to be relevant.
Of course Knights of the Frozen Throne is your favorite set, Blizzard. It made you the most money at the time it was released. If Witchwood had that kind of reception, we would see a "Witchwood" special, ultra, most loved and favored-set-by-Blizzard next year. I was truly disappointed to see that the decks used were not built around the DK but random cards. A total missed opportunity there. This does not even allow new players to experience the true power of the DK cards.
Witchwood by definition was supposed to be underwhelming, it's the longest-lasting expansion. Boomsday was meant to be the equivalent to KFT, but the power level of new cards doesn't seem to be able to keep up with the old expansions, the only new card people are putting in is Giggling Inventor.
It feels like Blizzard put more effort into the marketing blog post for the event than the event itself. The Jaina situation would be easy to remedy if they at least specialized the decks somewhat for each class, even if still keeping them random. For example, don't give Jaina any 1-health minions, in fact don't give her any minions in her own deck, give her all spells and make her fight for those elementals. For Anduin, give him a way to generate cheap spells to synergize with his hero power, give him Lyras and radiant elementals. For Uther, give him stuff that refreshes his hero power. For warrior, give him rushers and chargers that benefit from damage, give him minions with RNG battlecry damage, and give him that weapon he equips on battlecry. Heck, give all classes a card that replays their DK battlecry, because some DKs are useless without it.
Guess you missed the post where tournament mode was put on hold "for the foreseeable future".
Or maybe that was sarcasm. In which case I agree.
=D13=
Awesome so you slapped random decks on death knights in about 5 minutes at your desk and called it a day. That is absolutely how this brawl feels.
Now if someone would have created decks that were balanced and fun when starting with your death knight in play. And maybe added some player taunting from the Lich King this could have been a special event.
And how about that free brawl pack this week. Why was it not a frozen throne or even a current set pack?
Brawl never fails to disappoint.
=D13=
the ultimate battle is jaina vs jaina with bad starting hands is like 20 min game for sure
Imagine my surprise when I queued with Paladin hoping to play a fun, pre-built KotFT deck against some others... only to draw into Eggnapper, Meatwagon and Kangor's Endless Army.
I enjoy the themed mini-events and the discounted bundle, but the brawl left much to be desired.
Beginning as a Death Knight is a clear advantage to certain classes and at best mediocre, at worst a disadvantage to others. Several of the Death Knights are powerful in large part due to their battlecry effects, which are lost in this brawl. I would have loved to see better crafted decks and maybe a guaranteed Death Knight draw on any given classes appropriate turn. Token Druid, Deathrattle Hunter, Elemental Mage, Control Paladin and Priest, Deathrattle or Miracle Rogue, Token Shaman, Whirlwind/Self-Injuring Warrior and a Demon Warlock would have been great. These decks could have carried the frozen throne theme and been fun to play. I also feel that "KotFT-themed decks" need not consist of only cards from that set. Viable decks that players without complete collections can enjoy playing would have been great. This seems like an opportunity missed.
give us tournament mode ffs!!
"We took death knights, and gave them random decks." Thanks Blizzard.
Uther and Garrosh didn't have the weapons at first so DK like Guldan, Jaina, and Rexxar ran wild
More events like this: yeah!
More brawls like this: how about no
Sure, it was a great concept. Some actual testing of that concept would have easily demonstrated what a mess it would be. Same as where I work - no ownership, no one accountable for the final project. As much as a knob that BB is, he would never have greenlighted this clown fiesta.
It doesnt even need any testing. I chose Anduin in my first try then i reliazed we get DK's from T1. At this point i immediatly wanted to concede and pick Jaina.
Blizzard being greedy and lazy, this has to be the laziest brawl ever, the decks are random and its even possible to get multiple Dk's which is plain stupid.
I literally went 5-0 with Uther, 4 vs Jaina 1 vs thrall. What is everyone complaining about Jaina for.