Hearthpwn

Dear Wall-of-text Person:

If you had actually read more of the thread, you would have seen many of your points mentioned later in the conversation, and in particular, you would have seen that I reversed my own position on the business model.

You can save yourself a lot of time writing by spending more time reading.

Quote from N0Sp00n22 >>

 I tend to agree.  I currently play Hearthstone and Magic: Arena.  At least at this point, I can't see the point in adding a third game; or "replacing" one of these games w/ LoR.  I've already put so much time and money into HS and MtGA...plus I enjoy both of these so why would I spend time and money on another game when I am already happy with the ones I have?

 My feeling is that it can't hurt to spend a small amount of time to see if I like it, since it's free.

If I enjoy it more than one of the other games I'm playing, then I will absolutely take a break from the game I don't enjoy as much.

Quote from Lulchina >>

 Because this just shows how ******** the entire community is. People screech about HS being pay2win but when a new game literally gives you a payment model where you can buy specific cards then suddenly it isn't pay2win.

 Because that is not what "pay to win" means.

But that's super classy using a disability as an insult.

Quote from QurcusRobur >>

The main reason for me to stay playing hs is a bad one. I Spend 5 years grinding out a massive collection, mostly free to play, that i am not willing to through away now that I can always play pretty much every interesting deck. and i will not switch the card game for that reason. As long as hs doesnt die, I want LoR to perform great, bc that forces blizz to step up their game.If it is the hs killer, I will simply stop card games

 You understand that you can play both, right?

Or even take a temporary break from Hearthstone and come back later, and all your cards will still be there?

Quote from Lulchina >>

 I agree, you do look like an idiot.

The point is that you can still buy wild cards. You can still buy advantage over others, no matter how minuscule do you believe it to be.

 I don't think you know what pay-to-win means.

Pay-to-win is when the person who spends the most money has a distinct advantage, even over someone else who spent slightly less money.

The mere ability to purchase cards with cash isn't enough.

The fact that a free-to-play player can be up and running with a fully fleshed-out deck in very little time totally negates the ability of a paying player to "buy wins."

What advantage do you get when you buy cards, then? You may be able to build a more diverse collection more quickly, but that's not going to help you in any individual match. On a per-match basis, the only cards that matter are the 40 that are in your deck.

The correct label would be pay-for-variety, not pay-to-win, as a paying player will be able to experience a wider variety of decks. Even this minor perk disappears as the free player's collection catches up.

Quote from tParabol >>

I dont think it will be the "HS killer" cuz simply its not that similar in gameplay. I think Lor its similar to MTG more than anything and even if it was like HS still i dont think its that easy to kill HS whatever ppl say.

 I'm not sure why anyone cares whether it's a Hearthstone killer or not. When I'm looking at a game, I don't ask, "Will this be more popular than that other game?" I do ask, "Does this look like fun to me?" That's all that matters.

After watching a few games, I realized that Runeterra is basically Magic minus all the things I hate about Magic: land management, units healing every turn, and gang-blocking. I worry that the Champion-based deckbuilding is going to make it feel a little same-y after a while, but there are plenty of combinations to experiment with.

Then there's the issue of this preview event giving the experts a lot of time to solve the game before launch. I think that should be everyone's biggest concern. Launching with a meta that's already stale could be a huge turn-off. I'm guessing they'll add and/or change a lot of cards by then, but I hope it's enough.

Quote from IambicAvenger >>

 

 Before signing off, I also want to quickly address the point you bring up about the absurdity of F2P. The devs have said that there will be cosmetic content for sale (e.g. customizing card backs and your pet, maybe those emote stickers), and there is a gate-limited way to buy wildcards on a weekly basis. I think that's actually a pretty good strategy for monetizing - by making the only game-relevant content for sale wildcards, I think they'll actually be able to convince traditionally F2P players to spend a little bit to get exactly the cards they're after (rather than a bunch of random packs), and selling cosmetics works well for a lot of games without compromising the content of the game.

 After writing what I did, it occurred to me that the people who make LoL will probably do a much, much, MUCH better job at this aspect of monetization than Blizzard does with Hearthstone.

If they do, the game is not doomed at all, and the f2p-friendly card acquisition is actually pretty smart.

I personally can't imagine spending as much on cosmetics as I have spent on cards, but I can see that this model might make up for that by snagging a few bucks from those who might not otherwise spend any money at all.

Having watched a few games on YouTube, I think the main hurdle now is making the game more viewer-friendly from an esports perspective (if they are interested in that). Even once you're somewhat familiar with the Runeterra cards, both Magic and Hearthstone are a LOT easier to follow as a spectator.

Quote from loshmi123 >>

it wont be a "hearthstone killer" couse hearthstone is already dead. im expecting it to be alot more

 Is it just me, or is it super weird that someone would post over 200 times on the forums of a fan site for a dead game?

Or even once, for that matter.

I just read up on the way cards are acquired in Runeterra, and I can say with some confidence that the game is utterly doomed.

By limiting the number of cards you can create with a weekly cap, they are essentially saying the people who have been playing the longest and logging in every day are automatically going to have the biggest collections.

That may seem great at first -- keeps things from being all "pay to win" as the kids like to say these days.

However, think down the road a bit. This model is going to be a huge turn-off for new players. No one is going to want to pick up a new game if there is literally no way to catch up with veterans. People complain about it enough in Hearthstone, saying it's a crime that you have to pay money to be able to compete. Well, in Runeterra, you literally cannot compete at all until you've put in your time!

Maybe I'm mistaken about how all of this works, or maybe I missed a piece of the puzzle. But as I understand the system now, it's terrible and the game will never have whales, meaning it will never make any money.

If publishers would stop all the pretense of "free to play" and just admit that games actually cost money -- that they need to have a cost in order to survive -- we could move to a model where people just pay one set price and get all the cards. We need to set aside this collectible model as a relic of gaming history. It kind of made sense for physical cards, but it will never make sense for digital ones.