Hearthpwn

I am not a Blizzard fanboy, I haven't even preordered the expansion , I will craft the cards that I want , that I think they will be fun and not netdeck as I think the 90% of the accusers of the twitch stream in this thread do.

So, why exactly the stream was bad? Of course everyone can feel a little envious that he couldn't try at the same time as the pros to theorycraft and have fun, but I have a word for you. PATIENCE. I watched like 2-3 hours of the stream and I think it was pretty fun. Especially seeing Kripp  cosplaying Jaina was hilarious lol. 

Now let's talk with facts: 

1) At some point of the stream there were 90k people watching...what? People theorycrafting? The latest Magic gathering tournament gathered at its peak 120k for watching high quality content battles and it was a very well organised stream. I play mainly Hearthstone but I have to give them credits. So, not that much less people to watch some other people just having fun, AND NOT COMPETING. Do you know what is that? It's hype for the new expansion and stale for this f boring stale meta. 

2) Blizzard's preorders I am sure highrocketed after the theorycraft stream. I will not preorded just because I have a decent amount of gold and dust to create like 60% of the cards and leave what I don't want outside of my crafting pool.

3) Let's go to the hot topic....You wanted to have fun theorycrafting your own decks? Really? There are trillions posts already about theorycrafted decks and there are comments on them, so people are searching-exchanging ideas, which I fine pretty healthy. People are going to netdeck pros? REALLY? this is happening from the beginning of Hearthstone because people are either lazy to craft their own, or have limited dust amount, or they just want to play the top tier decks just to win. I just described 90% of Hearthstone players , so 90% of twitch stream accusers here, are probably netdeckers, which are complaining like crybabies that they couldn't theorycraft on their own when they are going to do THE EXACT SAME THING(netdecking on of the pros from their twitch stream) right after expansion launches.

4) It's not like hackers hijacked every electronic device out there and you were unable to shut them down as well. You could just not watch the stream. Accusing a stream but still watching it , it's like accusing companies making chocolates that you eat that they are to be blamed that you get fat, and not accuse yourself for eating them. Grow up.

5). That was a wall of text but I can't stand stupidity , and I can't stand netdeckers as well. I will go play with my Tess Rogue, Dragon Hunter, Shudderwock Battlecry shaman(not elemental) and the other homebrew decks without accusing Disguised Toast for stealing my ideas.LOL

Back to the original topic...

It takes a little bit of fun out of the day 1 experience, but it doesn't bother me too much. When a new expansion releases, I'm not rushing to be among the first to play this or that. Oftentimes, I just opened my packs, got mad about terrible luck, and watched Kripp for the rest of the day. 

I don't get the full set anyway, and I likely won't have all the cards I want to try out right from the packs I purchase either. In the end, I will be playing the game casually, until I can make a list of stuff I want/should craft. Experimenting with limited resources is not that much fun.

As for streamers setting course for what people will play in the end - yeah, that sucks a little bit, but does it really make a big difference? Some people will watch and play whatever the streamers are playing on day 1 regardless, and they just skip the phase where streamers realize themselves what decks are good and bad. Without the pre-release, that's one to three days maximum, before the results would be the same. And most of the day 1 decks, even the week 1 decks are getting dropped eventually.

To me, it really doesn't matter too much if streamers get a day or two before anyone else. It's not like a game I can't play yet and where I could see spoilers. But I can understand that it bothers some people.

I suppose Blizzard looks at other games getting pre-released to popular streamers and see it makes for good promotion. This is something I personally don't get either, and I think it's unnecessary. So, while it doesn't bother me, I can't really think of a good reason why they do it this way in the first place.

It's all in good fun tbh. 

Streamers never coin decks anyway, they're very average at deck building

i understand the blizzard side of things and why they push these events.

doesn‘t change the fact that it fuggen sucks tho..

Loooooooool, way to have a victim mentality, want to join in the fun? just host a fireside gathering,  IT ISN'T THAT HARD. in fact many people just host them on their own homes and even in malls , a friend of mine even hosted one in a mall with free wi-fi with no clear locale, just the mall (source i've gone to this events), this isn't something exclusive to streamers, it's for whomever isnt lazy enough to find the page and just register some rando location with internet access as a fireside event after just a couple of clicks.

You dont even have to organize a super event just tell people you are hosting it, tell them the location and buy a big bag of potato  chips, it isnt hard at all.

Nobody is forcing you to watch the preview.

Secondly, it’s great to see the new cards in action it gives us more insight in wich decks and cards we should invest.

Not preordering because of this. It was a lot of fun to watch Kripp, Kibler, Toast and Trump playing against each other with new cards, but they literally RUINED the whole reason to buy a new expansion with these pre release streams. We already know which cards are good or bad, we've seen the new mechanics in action, we know which deck is better than other deck within a certain class, we know what we overrated and underrated. 

Most of the cards in an expansion only see play in the first week of experimentation. Now that they have taken that away from us, why bother spending 80 dollars for 135 potential new cards of which 20 will see play in a refined meta ? I'll just craft the cards I want with Genn and Baku free dust, since I know exactly which cards I want before I can even play with them, thank you Blizzard for saving me money.

Speak for yourself. 

The preview showed us alot more then theorized on hearthpwn or any other platform. 

And tell me why is the season ruined? 99% of all new upcoming games show there content before launching it?

I will speak for myself now that the preview got me even more hyped because alot of classes has tools to battle aggro.

I totally agree that’s why I didn’t watch any of the thing at blizzard and I don’t watch prereleases or even pack day it ruins my experience and excitement opening the packs.

I personally enjoyed the stream alot. I generally wanted to see what the streamers came up with and see if it lines up with my ideas and see what didn't 

My friends and I were making some decks beforehand to see what we could make up and it was enjoyable to see if we was all on the same wavelengths.

I think people are putting far too much weight into a stream that was mostly for fun. it wasn't some test to see how much conviction you had towards the game. 

Going back to the original topic, I like to start at a low rank when a new expansion because they tend to try new stuff, especially since all the try-hards who want to abuse people playing new cards are often at higher ranks. Some of the most fun I've had in this game are messing around rank 10 with new cards, like highlander quest priest during Un'goro (in wild), A Zerek focused Big priest in Boomsday and then Gonk druid in Rastakhan Rumble. The only time I've ever had a truly bad launch day for an expansion is Un'goro because Quest rogue was maybe 95% of the matches I had for the first 3 days.

On the flip side, I think that having streamers create 'meta decks' beforehand can be fun because then you'll be able to expect a little bit of what your opponent is running. I like playing with new cards and having whacky random matches but I personally get the most enjoyment in the game by taking a deck that is frankly bad (like everyone I've uploaded to this site) and winning through reading the opponent's hand and knowing what to do to play around it. Having a gimped game plan that still is able to pull out on top through superior play is one of the most satisfying things in this game to me.

I think that a person's point of view on this whole prerelease thing comes down to one's mentality of what they find fun. Chances are if someone prefers the whacky nature of friend duels, they won't like the prerelease thing as it'll create a more structured day 1 meta. For those who prefer the more technical aspect of a match, they'll probably enjoy a more structured day 1. Neither side is better than the other (even though I am a bit biased towards the latter and I worry that I made it sound like the other way of plays are for idiots, which is not true) and so I overall impartial to having the streamer prerelease thing.

I did check three of them but only for a few seconds.
I did not want spoilers a lot - 
pre-release Fireside is starting in 139 minutes from now...

Quote from Heroboticus >>

So hear me out...

Giving a select few streamers early access to the latest expansion is leaving a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I feel like they're taking that initial experimentation we all get on release day (finding out cards we hyped are actually trash and vice versa) and giving it to a select few.

I understand this won't be the new meta entirely, but it's on the path towards it - It's the pros and the streamers that tend to build the foundations of the decks we'll all be using in a month or so. 

I know I don't have to watch it, and I can't say it's not enjoyable seeing the new cards in play, it just feels like the hearthstone community is being deprived of that day 1 unpredictably and experimentation.

 

Could be just me though!

 No one played anything that was particularly difficult to build or inspired. In fact, a lot of the builds seemed obviously bad (Allie admitted pretty often that she was just playing new cards).

I think it was fine and fun to watch.

I didn't watch them for that exact reason, I want to have a play around on release day and see what works.

Quote from Teuton >>

I'm impressed that there is such a heated discussion about this, when really the solution is very simple. 

If you want to see gameplay of the new set, watch the stream. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't.

Did anyone complain about cards being revealed before release? It's the same thing, if you looked at those, you know what options are available and can theory craft a deck (or simply netdeck one from this very forum) to play immediately upon release.

If you want to experience the challenge of coming up with your own decks, just don't consume this kind of content. I really don't get why people complain about the mere option to look at cards and gameplay before release, when all they have to do to not "ruin their fun" is not consume it. 

But it seems instead of exercising self control and making individual decisions a lot of people prefer just to shit on everything that they don't like, even though they are not forced to use, buy or play any of it. To those people, what is your issue with people who enjoy having and using that option? Is there anyone who seriously would not have done the stream themselves had they been given the chance? 

Just smells like jealousy and entitlement to me. It's like getting angry at Yankees fans because you like the Red Sox. Has it occurred to you that different people like different things?

Try moderation and self control instead, and let other people enjoy those "spoilers", even if you personally don't like them. 

 /thread

So this is what you choose to complain about? Really? I thought it was a great event, showcased a lot of new strategies and cool cards. Do you think 6 streamers and 2 devs can solidify a meta in 6-8 hours? And then that because everyone who plays hearthstone obviously watched and studied all of their games they will have determined the optimal decks before the expansion launches and now noone will experiment with new cards on day one and everyone will just netdeck.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was a fun event to hype people before the expansion launches and convince people that these new cards and strategies are worth playing. Cause after a full year of odd and even decks, that might be important. Thats what I got out of the event. I want events like these before every expansion now. This made me want to create a prerelease party for the next expac (I can't for this one bc i need to set it up 5 days in advance) because it looked like a lot of fun.

Sorry for rant, but this was a cool event. There is already a thread for your salt.

Complaints about how this ruins the experimentation process ring very hollow to me. It's a handful of streamers playing with new cards, so the sample size alone is too small to reflect any broader meta game. The fact that people watched it means it built hype (even if there are some negative reactions), and that's a good thing for selling cards.

Put down the stones; let's not massively de-rail threads. If you don't have anything constructive to add to the discussion in a civil manner absent of instigation or insults please do us all a favor and reconsider clicking the 'post reply' button.

I imagine the majority of the streamers' audiences are just happy to have some new Hearthstone content to consume.

I suspect the reason they rolled out the red carpet for them relates to how badly the PR has been handled at Blizzard for the last few months.  Also, you saw streamers branching out or outright quitting in favor of Dota Chess and Magic a lot these past few months.  Hearthstone loses a large group of players if the popular streamers quit.  So, they probably felt the need to reward the brand loyalty.

As to whether this is a bad thing in terms of ruining the experience for day one of the new rotation, we might as well be honest here.  The large majority of the player base are playing Kibler or Dog's new deck within a few hours of the new set release.  This was painfully obvious when Boomsday came out and everyone was trying Topsy Turvey priest on day one.  So, I don't see a few days difference really changing the outcome of Day One Meta.

The problem is not the pre-release streams.  The problem is the pre-release card reveals in their entirety.  The meta would be set already whether the streamers got to test things or not.  Most of the top tier stuff is very obvious and doesn't need testing.  

It is beyond stupid to me that they release every single card prior to the launch.  It kills every bit of suspense.  They have to announce some key legendaries and epics just to hype it up, but every single card?  Why?  Why do we need to know about pack filler?  Let there be SOME surprise like "oh hey what is this thing I just opened" instead of "aw man that's the shitty one I saw online" over and over.