Hearthpwn

it is obvious that for hearthstone to be viable as a mobile game (even if it is limited to tablets), it will be released for android as well. given that 2/3 of tablets sold are android based (and the number is always rising while ipad market share is falling), blizzard would be shooting itself in the foot if it didnt release an android version. if you would be looking for a great HS tablet look no further than the 2013 Nexus 7 (https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_7_16gb_2013). by far the most cost effective way to get the job done. also IMO one of the best overall tablets available for any cost. 

i have thought that having one of those cheesy 'story modes' from old fighting games would be amazing with HS. each round has higher levels of AI. maybe some different play modes like speed rounds or mini-puzzles too. 

balancing for ranked mode is broken right now. on top of the general tweaks that need to be done there is also:

- the player base is just terribly small. watch a stream with someone doing constructed at 2am for at least 30 mins and you will probably see at least one repeat opponent. 

- one part of the game that has not been implemented yet are the weekly rewards based on rank. blizzard has said that this is coming. this will balance the rewards in the arena vs. constructed debate. 

Quote from TianZi»

If I were to guess, Masters in HS is probably like 10%+, compared to the 2% of Masters in StarCraft.

i blame some of this on the nature of beta. who knows how many people have activated beta keys on their account and played for 30 minutes and then never pick it up again. I agree that the % of masters ranked players seems very high right now but we are looking at streamers who are generally a) playing a lot, and b) playing in the first place. 

pfff who uses integers anymore? what is this, the 80's?

yes please front page. 

Margucci

If blizzard had the intention of linking the keys to accounts they would have done it already. They won't change anything now. If they had any intention of only awarding keys to accounts with games they would have done that already. In fact, hearthstone is the ONLY beta you can opt into WITHOUT having a game attached tongue account. Try creating a new battle.net account with another email address and you will see. 

Quote from Jacquerel »

Being a long time customer doesn't give you the right to test anything, people who regularly stream are more valuable in betas because they essentially provide free and effective advertising and publicity.

Hence the reason why the first wave was pretty much all to streamers and fan sites. The second wave was almost all a promotional giveaway. Welcome to capitalism my friend. 

I do understand how annoying it is to watch someone who has no idea what they are doing with a key though. However, people who have no idea what they are doing is blizzard's core demographic for thus game. They want to open the genre. The info they are getting from first time card game players is much more important than what you can give them. 

Quote from DukeGrass »

Quote from karl_w_w »

Quote from zeek81 »

So, you do get an advantage from playing in beta.

The advantage you get is much simpler than that. I don't know about you but I play games because they are enjoyable, and HS is clearly enjoyable whether it is in beta or not. People who say you don't get an advantage out of playing beta have apparently forgotten what the purpose of gaming is.

And people who are getting all upset over all this stuff have apparently forgotten what fun is all about...

+1. 

i dont care about collections. i cant wait for arena. whether the game is reset or not arena will still be the same. 

i am aware. however it was very limited numbers. 

they need to add an open all packs option. for the streamers who have opened 500+ packs that will take forever otherwise. 

it was posed on twitter that all the invites have finished going out. 

what i dont understand is why blizz doesnt just give like 100+ keys to communities such as these to hand out to the most active posters. we would be the people who are least likely to sell them (something blizzard is very much against). we would also be the people who would give more feedback on average. i understand building hype.... but people who are already waiting for the game cant be any more hyped up. 

given that there hasnt been anyone posting in this thread that they got one (and we know there are a lot of people checking) i would assume it was mostly a FB contest wave and not too much for battle.net. 

the FB thing was a contest. i wouldnt really consider that a wave. the end date was known before they made an announcement about today. i would hope its at least a few thousand invites in total. 

they really need to open up the invites more. the skill level of the players on the beta now is either mediocre or amazing. the majority of people are wither gaming streamers who really have no experience with TCG/CCG or people who have built themselves up in the HS community who do. they need to get people in the middle so that they can start to balance the cards and heroes.