Hearthpwn

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Hotfix for Stimpacks and Long Queues, Into the Nexus #31 - Be the Boss
Armory Stats - MoP Challenge Modes, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, DLC #469

7:30 PM EST: The Developer AMA is now over and we've categorized the responses. See below!

Hearthstone on Android Rolls Out

Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are getting it first! You can find it on Google Play.

Quote from Blizzard

The Hearthstone Android tablet rollout begins! As part of the first phase of our Android launch, players in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand can now download Hearthstone for free on Google Play—and in the coming days, we’ll be fully rolling out Hearthstone worldwide on the Amazon Appstore for Android and Google Play.

You’ll have the complete Hearthstone experience at your fingertips, so get ready to engage in the mech-fueled antics of Goblins vs Gnomes and explore the haunted halls of the Curse of Naxxramas adventure on your little-green-robot-powered Android tablet.

But wait, there’s more! As an added bonus for giving Hearthstone a go on your Android tablet, you’ll earn a free pack of Classic cards. All you need to do to redeem your free pack of cards is play a game of Hearthstone in any mode on your Android tablet, and BAM, you’ll be busting open a new pack in no time. Win or lose, you’ll earn your free card pack just by enjoying a game of Hearthstone in Play, Arena, or Practice mode.  

As always, your card collection and progress will be shared across all devices used to access your Hearthstone account, so everything will be waiting for you when you launch Hearthstone from your Android tablet.

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Worried that your tablet can’t run Hearthstone? Check out our support site article for the minimum requirements. And for those of you itching to sling cards from your phone, we’re still polishing all the necessary mana crystals and calibrating mechanics, but we’ll have more news for you early next year

Hearthstone Developer AMA Recap

The Developer AMA has concluded. We've recapped the important stuff right here, or you can check out our full transcript here. You can also view the AMA here.

Quote from Blizzard

Cards & Balance

• It's too early on in GvG to make any changes to cards right now. They're always watching though. (Zeriyah)
• Flame Leviathan was born when the team wanted to try out an on draw effect. (Yong Woo)
• Sabotage - Used to be 6 mana, Destroy an enemy minion and all copies of it in your opponent's hand and deck. (Ben Brode)
• They're considering changing Bane of Doom to include GvG demons, but it's something that they have to be careful with because it puts the demon directly into play instead of your hand. (Zeriyah)

Game Design

• Each class should feel distinct and full of flavor. Tribal themes (Shaman getting some Murlocs, Rogue getting Pirates) is a great way of doing this. (Yong Woo)
• Different teams are working on different stages of an expansion. When effects and engineering wraps up, the design team is already concepting out the next set of content. (Yong Woo)
• Rotating card sets as more content is released is something that can be addressed at a later date. The team feels they're still far away from doing it though. (Yong Woo)
• They're still discussing the frequency of content releases. (Ben Brode)
• When choosing art for a new card, first they look through all the WoW art they have access to, and if they don't find something perfect, then the art team will make something brand new based on specs from the designers. (Yong Woo)
• They are aware of the feedback surrounding the second player's hand in spectator mode being upside down. No changes cited. (Zeriyah)
• They would like to improve the Casual Mode experience. The new player experience is very important to them. (Zeriyah)
• Can't be targeted by Spells or Hero Powers may receive a keyword one day, but not yet. "Untargetable" and "Ethereal" have been discussed as possible replacements. (Ben Brode)
• Hearthstone will be compatible with all payment methods supported by Google Play. (Yong Woo)

Bugs

• Brand new players shouldn't be matched up against players with massive collections, but some issues have been found and are being worked on. (Ben Brode)
• The delay on secret activation is a bug and will be fixed in an upcoming patch. (Ben Brode)

Community Requests

Nothing below has been officially confirmed for release.

• More Deck Slots: They have "cool ideas" on how they can give power-users more deck slots. "I think we can make magic happen somehow". (Ben Brode)
• Tournament Mode: They're looking into new ways that players could get together and compete with each other, but ideas are still in the early stage. (Yong Woo)
• Quests: They would like to add more daily quests to the game. (Yong Woo)
• Replays: They are not currently working on a replay feature. (Yong Woo)
• More Gold: o plans to add more ways to obtain gold at this time. (Ben Brode)
• Ben agrees that something that merged your golden and normal cards into the same card stack would be cool. (Ben Brode) [Example]
• Displaying a total of how complete your collection is has been something they've wanted to add for a while. (Ben Brode)
• If cosmetic unlockables are something that the Hearthstone community would be really excited about, it's something we can look into! (Yong Woo)
• "Seems like a cool idea" - Ben Brode on new fun game modes. (Ben Brode)
• New classes are hard to figure out. It would be "friggin' rad", but you'd be less likely to get class specific cards you want, and balance gets trickier. (Ben Brode)
• No immediate plans for 2v2 mode. It is discussed over lunch at times though. (Yong Woo)
• They'll discuss doing a sound panel during BlizzCon. The sound team would love it. (Yong Woo)
• Being able to use your golden cards and portraits in the arena is something the team is excited to do when they find the time. (Yong Woo)

Dev AMA Transcript

We've transcribed the entire AMA over on the forums!