Fireside Gatherings 2019 - Real Life Rewards, Fireside Home, Tavern vs Tavern
Fireside Gatherings are getting some new features and a boost for 2019! Read on to find out more.
- Care packages Blizzard sends out to some gatherings will be themed around expansions.
- There will be exclusive items available through Fireside Gatherings, though some may become available later on.
- Pre-release events will continue.
- Fireside Home is essentially what Unlisted Fireside gatherings are. They'll have "frequent reminders" throughout the year on how you can enjoy them.
- Tavern vs Tavern returns for 2019! More details will be provided in the second half of 2019
- Blizzard continues their partnerships with the Microsoft Store and Tespa.
Blog Post
Quote from BlizzardWe’ve been a little silent on the Fireside Gathering front recently, but that’s because we’ve been hard at work getting it ready for a big year! If you’ve never attended one before, Fireside Gatherings are a great opportunity to get together with friends old and new to play Hearthstone.
A key focus for us in the Year of the Dragon is to communicate with you ahead of big upcoming changes. We also want to be more flexible when it comes to about making changes that we think will lead to better experiences. So without further ado, here’s what’s in store for Fireside Gatherings this year!
Real Life Rewards
We’re telling a big story in Hearthstone this year, and Fireside Gatherings will be a substantial part of that through campaigns timed to coincide with expansion launches. We typically send out care packages for Fireside Gathering campaigns, full of cuddly plushies and other goodies you can find on the Blizzard Gear store.
This year, we want to treat you to care packages themed around expansions. The items in these packages be available in limited quantities, but they’ll be available to taverns worldwide. Some of them will be Fireside Gatherings timed-exclusives, meaning you can only get them at Fireside Gatherings. (These exclusives may become available through other methods at a later date, though; we’d like everyone to have a chance to get a hold of them!) We know that many of you have enjoyed the Gear Store goodies, so let us know what you think of the new care packages as they start to go out. o go out.
Pre-Release events—which are typically held on weekends, and allow you to open your packs and play with new cards ahead of an expansion’s launch date—will also continue in the Year of the Dragon. If you haven’t been able to attend one yet, remember that you can now also host your very own Pre-Release event from the comfort of your own home.
Which brings us to…
Fireside Home
While public Fireside Gatherings are still a great way to play, we’ve found that the more informal, friendly atmosphere of a smaller event can be welcoming to players just picking up Hearthstone. They can also be a great playground for the budding innkeeper, who might want to figure out their routine before going big. And best of all, you’ll be able to bring all that Hearthstone fun (not to mention your friends!) into the comfort of your own home.
We debuted unlisted Fireside Gatherings last year, but want even more people to be able to enjoy this feature. We’ll have more frequent reminders on how you can best enjoy your Fireside at Home this year. Here’s a little reminder to get you started:
- A Fireside Home will be able to receive Nemsy Necrofizzle if they fulfill all hosting prerequisites. This means having an established Tavern! Learn more about how to establish your tavern here.
- Fireside Home events will be eligible for the Fireside Gatherings card back.
- You can create a Fireside Home event and host it in the same day.
- Fireside Home events will have access to the same Fireside Brawls as public Fireside Gatherings, and that includes Pre-Release features!
- A Fireside Home will be visible on the website only to the innkeeper hosting it. The Fireside Gathering itself will be visible in the game client, and attendees will be able to search and find it in the client as well.
Tavern vs. Tavern
They came, they saw, they conquered. In 2017, we held a Tavern vs. Tavern competition for North America. The team from The Cave walked away the winners. This year, it could be your tavern!
We’ll be hosting a wider Tavern vs. Tavern tournament this time around that’ll allow for participation from around the world. It’ll kick off later in the year, so look for more details (including the full ruleset) in the second half of 2019.
North America Partnerships
In North America, we’ll be partnering with Tespa and Microsoft Stores to bring the Fireside Gathering experience to a whole new group of players.
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Stores offer a curated selection of PCs, gaming consoles, tools, and software, all over the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. And now, they’ll also be hosting regular Fireside Gatherings! The Microsoft Store Fireside Gatherings program kicked off with the Rise of Shadows Pre-Release, and participating stores will continue to run monthly Fireside Gatherings the first Wednesday of each month, from 5:30pm – 9:00pm in their local timezones.
You can pre-register for the festivities and get exact event dates and times here. NNote that registration does not guarantee a seat at the table—it’s first come, first served, so be sure to arrive early to ensure your spot. Participating in a Microsoft Fireside Gathering may even win you Classic Card Packs or Microsoft Store Gift Cards!
Tespa
We’re teaming up with our friends at Tespa to provide an array of heart-filled, Hearthstoney experiences, starting with the Tespa Rise of Shadows campaign. There will be more fun to come when the Fall academic year begins, so keep your eyes open! If you’re a student and you want to learn more about Tespa, find a chapter near you.
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Posted May 8, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Stop saying "Stop saying "the community" like you know what they want", like you know what everyone wants. Perpetuate example of non-progression in game development and game community health. The game has been getting stale for quite some time now, and the argument is just that. Your argument is not even constructive, and provides no suggestion or improvement.
I'd personally, like MANY OTHERS, would like to see new game modes. Tavern Brawl was that, but these are limited and are only available in a 5 day period, with a 2 day downtime. Some of these game modes that were featured, I'd say, should be staples. I personally would love to challenge someone with the tavern brawls that were featured in the past, but that isn't a thing, and would require me to wait for that specific game mode to appear in later tavern brawls.
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Posted May 10, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)You want those things? Cool. As long as you don't pretend that you speak for everyone (or 'the community') then we don't have a problem.
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Posted May 7, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)If you add 2v2 mode I will cry. Please blizzard. Tournament mode would be cool too, but 2v2 would be lit.
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Posted May 7, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)since the talk is all about new game modes:
i'd like to see something co-op. be it adventures or like these tavern brawls, but co-op is something me and my wife are missing in the game...
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Make a new game mode please Blizzard. The game has remained formatically the same since 2015. Don't say bullshit like it takes a lot of time and the community doesn't know what they want. Things like platinum portraits and recorded achievments along with new game modes have been things the community has wanted for ages. Blizzards found a format that works and is enjoyable, but instead of building upon it and excercising the full of Hearthstone's potential they do just enough to get by. It just annoys me, as the game could be so much better if Blizzard just tried new things and gave the community some of the things they've always wanted in Hearthstone.
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Posted May 7, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Stop saying "the community" like you know what they want. The people who post on here and on reddit are only an extremely narrow sample of the Hearthstone community as a whole. What we want might be very different to what the majority of the player base want.
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Posted May 8, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Almost every gamer of every game wants multiplayer mode on whatever game they are playing.
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Most of this stuff is already in the game. This post they're making is completely a waste of time! I'm really annoyed there is no new rewards for Fireside Gatherings as I have been organizing some at my local pub, and some at my house when I want to open packs early.
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Posted May 7, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)They depend on us creating bonds over the game, so that we have that sense of belonging in a community with similar needs to ours, interests etc. That way it would be harder to let go of the game, since that might mean letting go of our new "friends". Like a couple that cannot get a divorce for the sake of their children.
I think it's an excellent marketing strategy on their behalf, alongside with the money-grabbing one. That way we'll need to spend more on the game, in order to have at least a decent experience, if we chose to stick around. It sadly speaks volumes about how alienated we've become and how companies show interest in abusing that for their gains.
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)So basically if I live outside of US Im still screwed over for gatherings right?
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)nope, western europe with nemsy here, just look for hearthstone tournaments/gatherings in bigger towns close to u (look for game pubs)
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Posted May 7, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Why would you be?
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Posted May 7, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)if you are smart enough you can use fake gps to change location and join gathering
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I can confirm real life themed rewards. At the ros pre release just about everyone that attended got a purple "villain" mask (kind of like what Robin wore in the Adam West old school Batman series). They also gave out purple capes. So everyone could get in touch with their inner villain, even though some folks don't need any help with that. I think it was a great reward for showing up to the gathering and as much as I love getting free packs (virtual rewards), its good to get physical rewards as well every once in a while.
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)New features? Hahahaha MTG Arena is laughing. Blizzards luck is that HS is an established sucess. If both games were launching at the same time guess who would've taken the cake?
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Guess what, nobody cares!!, the actual situation is, Hearthstone is a popular game, and you are losing your time aswering a post from a game you clearly don't like
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)+1
this is true, so stop asking for a tournament mode.
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)I've played tournaments in other card games, and it seems to be both feasible and interesting.
While I can't speak for the community, I can say that I know some of the features I'd like to see:
- Tournament Mode
-Other Constructed formats besides Standard and Wild
-Auto-Squelch
-Option to craft card-backs, even if cost is high
-More deck slots, even as a purchasable option
-Multi-player content
-The Return of Adventures, which introduce roughly 20 new cards and have a low cost, shaking up the meta a bit.
-Monthly emails with stats (they sent me one of these, not sure what happened)
-A "first win of the day" bonus, perhaps 50-100 gold
-Another limited mode besides Arena, like Draft or Sealed
Those are off the top of my head, not in priority order or anything. Anyway, there are a lot of things HS Devs could work on that I think a lot of the community would really enjoy.
Cheers!
Chantry
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Actually i will like to try out tournament mode.
What's the use of hosting tournaments if they are mainly cater for 'professional'? Like all the global games etc?
To me, they are nice to watch but it will be something I will never experience. It's not like we are not good enough but more like we do not have the time to go playing full time or commit more than X hours a day to HS. It feels like a disconnection to the events. Something we will never know.
Dev should try to bring the experience to more casual players.
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Posted May 6, 2019 (Rise of Shadows)Who is the smart guy downvoting all the comments...