This is basically something I want to flesh out from yesterday's hearthpwn comments section. For those that didn't see Ben Brode's response to my tweet:
@bdbrode can you think of any downside to keeping gold as a universal currency but changing dust to be expansion specific?
@J_Stowell lots of currencies can make things more complicated.
Here is what we know about the new expansion so far:
- Multiple Blizz sources: at, slightly below, or slightly above 100 ish new cards - Mike Donais on Value town: the cards from the new expansion will have their own separate booster pack
The fact that the new expansion will have its own separate packs doesn't surprise me as someone who has played a lot of physical TCG/CCGs, but I don't know if that is how other online CCGs (Solforge, hex, etc) have done it. Blizzard has a couple of ways in which they can proceed as far as acquiring the cards from the new expansion:
1) change nothing - there is a separate pack that costs 100 gold, all cards from the new expansion can be crafted with the same dust used to craft expert cards, cards keep their current dust values based on rarity.
2) New currency - the new expansion requires new gold to buy packs with (unlikely in my opinion), or a different kind of dust to craft (and therefore the new cards would disenchant with that kind of dust). I think a new dust is more feasible than a new gold.
3) An idea posited by Velerios in the hearthpwn comments - you could stay at one type of dust, but "squish" the dust requirements for the original expert set while keeping it as it is now for the new expansion. For example, after the new expansion releases, Ragnaros would only cost 800 dust to craft, but you would only receive 200 dust if you disenchanted him.
4) You could make it so the new cards weren't craftable, at least temporarily. That would royally stink.
Personally, I think #1 and #4 are unlikely, I thought they would go with #2, but Ben's tweet makes it seem like Blizz is disinclined to consider multiple dust currencies. New dust would make sense to me, because you would eliminate the ability for your current, established player and their large stockpiles of dust (both actual and hidden of all the cards a player owns) to have almost instant access to the best cards of the new expansion. I don't think it would be hard for new players to pick up on this, especially if everything was clearly labelled in the store, but that is a possible concern.
I think the squishing dust idea is pretty ingenious. While it might initially irritate the established player base who paid full dust for all their cards, it's a concession to help new players compete with older players by making everyone have an even playing field to acquire the new cards {edit = more so that new players could get the old cards quicker while not having to DE useful cards in their own collection to get new cards). As someone who is 2400 dust away from having every card in the game, I would be ok with this.
It pretty much has to be #3, or else it will become more and more impractical for new players to join the game as the card pool expands. Just imagine how much time and/or money a new player would have to invest to obtain all the cards needed to play competitively 2 or 3 more expansions down the line.
Along the same line, I think the old packs will cost less gold as well.
My theory would be boosters from the new expansion would cost 100g, same as the current packs.
I do think they will have a seperate dust for the new expansion. This way you can't pool dust and craft everything as it comes out. I would guess then go onto guess that it would be like, "New Dust, for the lastest expansion; Old dust for everything else." Keep it to 2 dusts and a gold, easy peasy for future expansions.
I think it's likely that gold and dust will remain the only two currencies in the game. If I had to guess I would say the current plan is one or two expansions a year along with a raid. I don't have much of a problem with that, although I wish Naxx cards could be crafted after the "event" for it ended.
I expect to see no change to the pricing system or currencies.
A new player still only needs 30 cards for a deck. The size of the card pool doesn't change that. As new cards come in and become viable in competitive decks, old cards will get taken out of those decks. New players can simply ignore the old cards that they don't need. The bigger card pool only costs extra for players who are trying to collect everything, not new players.
I don't see any problem with established players who've invested heavily into the game already being able to get all the cards they need as soon as the new set becomes available.
first, lets make sure a new expansion is even coming out any time soon.
we havnt heard shit, regarding a time line or expansion mechanics and stuff to look forward to. im now starting to think we wont have an expansion this year.
first, lets make sure a new expansion is even coming out any time soon. im now starting to think we wont have an expansion this year.
I think they'll announce an early 2015 release at Blizzcon.
Lets really hope so! My hats in the ring for Feb, because January seems to soon XD, remember how long Nax took?
But I'd like to see either the currencies remain the same, or have a two tiered system (new cards vs old cards). With either system, the currencies will be easy to understand for newcomers and as a f2p game that is fairly important.
And I don't think a change to the system would really slow down the rate people gather cards either, unless they change the cost of packs, because people can choose which pack to buy at any time. Got 100g? Yeah, you can buy an old pack. Got 100g? Yeah, you can get the newest pack too! Got 100g? Sure you can buy some of the first gen cards (Rag, Leaper Gnome, Acoylte of Pain, etc)!
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"Or of course, because you are 'a strong, independent deck builder, who needs no blizzard to tell them what to include', you make your deck deliberately weaker." - Skaduush1
i wish i could not care about no new content. I dont consider naxx an actual expansion as far as im concerned. if we're only gonna get 1 expansion a year and players are fine with that, then i think im gonna be done.
theres no reason they cant keep up with IRL card print in a digital game.
I think it will be same gold, same dust. Old cards/packs may or may not be at a discount. Them having a discount would make it easier for new players to join - seriously, it would be very very difficult for anyone to join the game and play competitively after another expansion if there is no discount because of the amount of cards there are (and because top competitive decks will have cards drawn from all expansion pools).
Pretty sure whatever system they decide to implement will milk more money out of the customer base and theres nothing wrong with that because after all theres servers to maintain, mouths to feed, pockets to fatten up. Which means it wont be the same gold, same dust for new expansion and so on and so forth.
I believe that it will be the same gold and dust, but would not mind if they used the tiered system for the dust like they have in WoW.
I see Blizzard attempting to keep the game as simple as possible for those just entering at any time in the future. I do not feel that the tier system would be that intimidating, but just see Blizzard playing it safer than necessary.
Bliz wants people to actually buy the new cards. If you could just dust all the old card that are useless/obsolete, almost all the old players would be able to use the new cards for free, day 1.
For those people who say that's not a problem/there's no problem with the old dust/gold carrying over, you're not thinking in terms of game sustainability. If nobody buys the new cards, there's no business model, and no business model means no more game in short order. So I believe old dusk carrying over won't happen, at least not without "squishing" or time release or some other factor. You may not care about Bliz making money directly, but as a fan of Hero Academy, I'm all for good games being able to make money.
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This is basically something I want to flesh out from yesterday's hearthpwn comments section. For those that didn't see Ben Brode's response to my tweet:
@bdbrode can you think of any downside to keeping gold as a universal currency but changing dust to be expansion specific?
@J_Stowell lots of currencies can make things more complicated.
Here is what we know about the new expansion so far:
- Multiple Blizz sources: at, slightly below, or slightly above 100 ish new cards
- Mike Donais on Value town: the cards from the new expansion will have their own separate booster pack
The fact that the new expansion will have its own separate packs doesn't surprise me as someone who has played a lot of physical TCG/CCGs, but I don't know if that is how other online CCGs (Solforge, hex, etc) have done it. Blizzard has a couple of ways in which they can proceed as far as acquiring the cards from the new expansion:
1) change nothing - there is a separate pack that costs 100 gold, all cards from the new expansion can be crafted with the same dust used to craft expert cards, cards keep their current dust values based on rarity.
2) New currency - the new expansion requires new gold to buy packs with (unlikely in my opinion), or a different kind of dust to craft (and therefore the new cards would disenchant with that kind of dust). I think a new dust is more feasible than a new gold.
3) An idea posited by Velerios in the hearthpwn comments - you could stay at one type of dust, but "squish" the dust requirements for the original expert set while keeping it as it is now for the new expansion. For example, after the new expansion releases, Ragnaros would only cost 800 dust to craft, but you would only receive 200 dust if you disenchanted him.
4) You could make it so the new cards weren't craftable, at least temporarily. That would royally stink.
Personally, I think #1 and #4 are unlikely, I thought they would go with #2, but Ben's tweet makes it seem like Blizz is disinclined to consider multiple dust currencies. New dust would make sense to me, because you would eliminate the ability for your current, established player and their large stockpiles of dust (both actual and hidden of all the cards a player owns) to have almost instant access to the best cards of the new expansion. I don't think it would be hard for new players to pick up on this, especially if everything was clearly labelled in the store, but that is a possible concern.
I think the squishing dust idea is pretty ingenious. While it might initially irritate the established player base who paid full dust for all their cards, it's a concession to help new players compete with older players by making everyone have an even playing field to acquire the new cards {edit = more so that new players could get the old cards quicker while not having to DE useful cards in their own collection to get new cards). As someone who is 2400 dust away from having every card in the game, I would be ok with this.
Thoughts?
It pretty much has to be #3, or else it will become more and more impractical for new players to join the game as the card pool expands. Just imagine how much time and/or money a new player would have to invest to obtain all the cards needed to play competitively 2 or 3 more expansions down the line.
Along the same line, I think the old packs will cost less gold as well.
I rather think it'll just cost 150g. No dust changes.
Unless gold also becomes cheaper, that doesn't fix the problem where the game become more and more exorbitantly expensive for new players to join.
My theory would be boosters from the new expansion would cost 100g, same as the current packs.
I do think they will have a seperate dust for the new expansion. This way you can't pool dust and craft everything as it comes out. I would guess then go onto guess that it would be like, "New Dust, for the lastest expansion; Old dust for everything else." Keep it to 2 dusts and a gold, easy peasy for future expansions.
Oooooh, I like that a lot actually Trollbert - the fact that there would only be two types of dust always, versus a unique dust for each expansion.
I think it's likely that gold and dust will remain the only two currencies in the game. If I had to guess I would say the current plan is one or two expansions a year along with a raid. I don't have much of a problem with that, although I wish Naxx cards could be crafted after the "event" for it ended.
Being able to craft ALL new cards on day zero is no problem to you? kek.
Why would it be? Anyone who is serious about the game will have the full collection on day 1 (or close to it) anyway.
Also multiple currency makes no sense, I expect new expansion every year, new currency after a few years would create a mess.
I think it will be the same gold but not the same dust
I expect to see no change to the pricing system or currencies.
A new player still only needs 30 cards for a deck. The size of the card pool doesn't change that. As new cards come in and become viable in competitive decks, old cards will get taken out of those decks. New players can simply ignore the old cards that they don't need. The bigger card pool only costs extra for players who are trying to collect everything, not new players.
I don't see any problem with established players who've invested heavily into the game already being able to get all the cards they need as soon as the new set becomes available.
I´m quite certain, it will be this way, Would be the most sensible solution. But no way will new cards require the same old dust.
I think they´ll establish a system like valor/justice in Wow, with new dust/old dust for older tiers. This way the currencies would remain stable.
first, lets make sure a new expansion is even coming out any time soon.
we havnt heard shit, regarding a time line or expansion mechanics and stuff to look forward to. im now starting to think we wont have an expansion this year.
Lets really hope so! My hats in the ring for Feb, because January seems to soon XD, remember how long Nax took?
But I'd like to see either the currencies remain the same, or have a two tiered system (new cards vs old cards). With either system, the currencies will be easy to understand for newcomers and as a f2p game that is fairly important.
And I don't think a change to the system would really slow down the rate people gather cards either, unless they change the cost of packs, because people can choose which pack to buy at any time. Got 100g? Yeah, you can buy an old pack. Got 100g? Yeah, you can get the newest pack too! Got 100g? Sure you can buy some of the first gen cards (Rag, Leaper Gnome, Acoylte of Pain, etc)!
"Or of course, because you are 'a strong, independent deck builder, who needs no blizzard to tell them what to include', you make your deck deliberately weaker." - Skaduush1
i wish i could not care about no new content. I dont consider naxx an actual expansion as far as im concerned. if we're only gonna get 1 expansion a year and players are fine with that, then i think im gonna be done.
theres no reason they cant keep up with IRL card print in a digital game.
I think it will be same gold, same dust. Old cards/packs may or may not be at a discount. Them having a discount would make it easier for new players to join - seriously, it would be very very difficult for anyone to join the game and play competitively after another expansion if there is no discount because of the amount of cards there are (and because top competitive decks will have cards drawn from all expansion pools).
Pretty sure whatever system they decide to implement will milk more money out of the customer base and theres nothing wrong with that because after all theres servers to maintain, mouths to feed, pockets to fatten up. Which means it wont be the same gold, same dust for new expansion and so on and so forth.
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I believe that it will be the same gold and dust, but would not mind if they used the tiered system for the dust like they have in WoW.
I see Blizzard attempting to keep the game as simple as possible for those just entering at any time in the future. I do not feel that the tier system would be that intimidating, but just see Blizzard playing it safer than necessary.
This space for rent.
Same gold, same dust, same cost.
Old sets will be discounted when buying with cash, gold cost will remain the same
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Bliz wants people to actually buy the new cards. If you could just dust all the old card that are useless/obsolete, almost all the old players would be able to use the new cards for free, day 1.
For those people who say that's not a problem/there's no problem with the old dust/gold carrying over, you're not thinking in terms of game sustainability. If nobody buys the new cards, there's no business model, and no business model means no more game in short order. So I believe old dusk carrying over won't happen, at least not without "squishing" or time release or some other factor. You may not care about Bliz making money directly, but as a fan of Hero Academy, I'm all for good games being able to make money.