Hearthpwn

Yeah! A way easier way to Explore Un'Goro.

Quote from thepowrofcheese >>

Honestly guys, I know everyone is excited about continuing their expansions, but the poll threads should be about the current entries from this and the last polls. Adding potential future cards could sway votes. The discussion thread should have been left unlocked to allow additional conversation.

Not to derail from the competition, but I think KFT is looking great. Fatespinner, Bring It On!, Dead Man's Hand, Cryostasis, Shadowblade, Coldwraith, Sindragosa, and Nerubian Unraveler are all really sweet cards.

Edit: seeing those names in purple text is making me realize how much dust I'm going to be burning reaaaal soon.

Alright, so before I get eliminated and look super salty, I want to express some ideas about these long-form competitions.

Is eliminating competitors actually a good way to do this? Each round, we have a number of people make it through, only to find themselves unable to complete the next phase. Hell, I was nearly among that number this round. But as the rounds continue, and the participation drops, the competition becomes increasingly less interesting. Maybe the first culling felt good, but since then I question whether it actually improves the competition.

If there is a positive benefit, the discussion threads get easier to follow with fewer participants. But with 10ish people going on to the next round, those discussion threads are going to get pretty quiet. 

What if the polls occurred every round, and then your score from each round was tallied at the end? This would still give the competition a phase structure, to make the project easier to handle, but without forcing people out. I'm sure there are people who were eliminated who would still be participating, and given we've had drop outs, its kind of a shame that they aren't still around. Further, if people are reaaaally intent on winning the competition, and only find motivation through the possibility of winning, they'll be able to track their scores from round to round, and see whether they have a reasonable chance of winning in future rounds.

tldr: what if the competition wasn't formatted around elimination, but just scoring.

Edit: Some stats

• 20,000 views on phase 1 discussion thread
• 17,000 views on phase 2 discussion thread
• 7,000 views on phase 3 discussion thread
• 9,000 views on phase 1 submission thread
• 8,000 views on phase 2 submission thread
• 2,000 views on phase 3 submission thread
• 600 views on phase 3 poll 1 thread (so far).

What this tells me is that the primary audience for the competition are the competitors themselves. As we eliminate competitors, we eliminate large amounts of traffic to the competition. If this were a spectator sport, it'd make sense to use elimination. But when most spectators are apparently competitors, it makes no sense to use elimination over pure scoring.

I kind of wish the old discussion thread didn't lock. This doesn't feel like the place for us to keep workshopping new cards for the next round. Also, this thread will lock when Poll 2 goes up in a day or so.

Going to review these entries in Poll 1 later today. This stuff is looking good!

Oh nice, I forgot that this round would show our cards like this. I like the idea of slimming down the entries, but is 180 pixel width really necessary? I think 250 would look better, but I've got bad vision, so maybe it's just me. Anyone else find themselves rescaling this page and zooming in to view the cards?

THE STORY SO FAR

THE DRAGONBLIGHT

The endless dragon boneyard known as the Dragonblight is a sacred site to dragonkind and contains vast power. Within the endless wilderness, Galakrond the Dragonfather hunts his children, devouring their bones and gaining power. Neltharaku the Worm, leader of the demonic Netherdrakes, scours the graveyard reanimating the bones long dead dragons by infusing them with raw energy from the Twisting Nether. But Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, father of the Black Dragonflight, he will become Deathwing, seeks to guard the bones of his fallen brothers, preventing Galakrond, Neltharaku and others from abusing the resting spirits.

KEYWORD SPOTLIGHT: Dragongrave

THE CARDS:

HUNTER CARDS

SHAMAN CARDS

WARLOCK CARDS

Ugh fuck me. Didn't get mine up last night, barely got it up today. I'm noticing one glaring error, I labeled my Shaman Cards as Hunter Cards.

Don't procrastinate kids!

Edit: aaaand I'm noticing other typos and I forgot to link to my neutral cards. weeeeeeeeeeeee

Quote from RazorOfArtorias >>

Quote from nobravery >>

Quote from RazorOfArtorias >>

I just want to finish my Loa cycle so feedback is appreciated because they are a bit hard to balance! (Maybe I can't survive to this Phase III but I want to end my Expansion!)

Phase IV - Hunter, Mage and Shaman

Lore 🡳

• Legba is a master of swift motion. Through him, the shadowhunter learns to move with great speed, and bestow great speed and grace to his allies.
• Har'koa is one of the Loa goddesses of the Drakkari, taking the form of a great Snow leopard. Her mate is Loque'nahak, who wanders far from home. After the Drakkari turned on their gods Har'koa was the last of the gods to be subdued and the trolls were quick use her power in order to curse her children. After freeing her children Har'koa sends adventures to help other loa. 
• Hakkar the Soulflayer, Blood God of the Gurubashi trolls, is a malevolent and destructive creature that controls the Gurubashi Empire's fallen capital of Zul'Gurub. He is an actual deity, and Wild God, known in the troll pantheon as the Loa of Blood.

Phase V - Paladin, Warlock and Druid

Lore 🡳

• Pogeyan is a haunched mountain lion found west of the Tkashi Ruins in Northern Stranglethorn. Unlike her fellow spirits, Pogeyan is a ferocity pet that hunters can tame. The element he represents is Fire.
• Shadra, also known as Elortha no Shadra, is a spider that is worshipped by the Witherbark trolls in the Hinterlands and by the Zandalari. The trolls use her venom as a powerful poison for their weapons. Shadra, the spider, is one of the Primal Jungle Gods in the troll pantheon. Like the other Loa, Shadra is held against her will. She is represented on Azeroth through a champion of her choosing, a position held by High Priestess Mar'li.

• Shirvallah, the tiger, is one of the Primal Jungle Gods in the troll pantheon. Like the other Loa, Shirvallah is held against his will. He is represented on Azeroth through a champion of his choosing, a position formerly held by High Priest Thekal.

Phase III - Warrior, Priest and Rogue

Lore 🡳

• Tortolla is the turtle demigod and, much like Malorne and Goldrinn, an Ancient guardian. He is the patron ancient to all creatures who move effortlessly between land and sea. He is one of the oldest of the Ancients, having been alive since the time of the Titans. Due to that, he speaks in an old language that has been long forgotten.
• Hethiss, the Snake, is one of the Primal Jungle Gods in the troll pantheon. Like the other Loa, Hethiss is held against his will. He is represented on Azeroth through a Champion of his choosing, a position currently held by High Priest Venoxis.
• Halazzi is the lynx god of the Amani trolls. Is the only loa to not have adopted the name of his host. Instead, the host seemingly having adopted the loa's name (which might have been the case of the other Amani loa, as it would be an odd practice).

 I think making this series is not a good attempt. These cards might attract voters to be honest, but none of them is interesting if you actually have them added to the game.

You make these cards for flavor, not for gameplay. Most of them are unplayable - not because of the stats, but because they are 9 mana minions that don't fit into either a competitive deck or a fun deck. Try building a deck and playtest these. You'll see how poor these cards do in improving the players' gaming experience.

Since this is a competition where votes are the only thing that matters, it is justifiable that you make unplayable cards with great flavor, but I strong suggest you don't do this. I remember that you once said you are a professional game designer. Do something professional then.

Thanks for the feedback but I really like the flavor and the MTG like cycle style. You are right and maybe 9 mana is too much to be playable. I'm thinking about reduce their cost to 7 or 6 mana and change the stats. And yes, I'm a Game Designer but this is like my 3rd month creating cards, I'm still learning and this is my first expansion ever!

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

I think I had a little too much fun with the "A Special Thanks to:" section.

@ Soulbattle: thanks for the feedback. 

@ ZardozSpeaks: you are right it needs some re-balancing. First Idea was a 4/6 not a 5/6. It might work best with curator stats and cost.

Quote from ShadowsOfSense >>

The thing that you seem to be stuck on is that it isn't 'meaningful game design'. Yeah, surprisingly enough putting a bunch of restrictions on what kind of card you want people to create isn't a normal way of designing a card game. This is just for fun. The rules this week are that cards must draw a card or cards for somebody, and include a number. The extra rule is just there as a warning that that specific example would be subversion of the rules, really.

Hello and welcome to the lovely Fan Creations section here on our wonderful HearthPwn Forums! This Primer aims to help you get started in fan card creation, providing you with the resources you need to create whatever interesting ideas are buzzing around in your head.

Whether you're looking for lore help, balancing tips and tricks, or just plain old where to start, we've got you covered.

Section I: The Basics

While it's highly unlikley you've managed to stumble upon this Primer without the basic game knowledge of Hearthstone, it's always best to start at the very beginning, so here we go!

There are currently four (4) different types of cards you might be interested in making, along with two (2) other gameplay elements that might have crossed your mind - Minions, Weapons, Spells and Hero Cards, along with Hero Powers and Heroes themselves. See the examples below.

Minions are creatures that are summoned to the battlefield and attack enemy minions and the enemy hero.

Weapons can be equipped by certain classes and used to attack enemy minions or the enemy hero.

Spells are used to trigger various immediate effects, from damaging to healing to card draw.

Hero Cards are cards that replace your hero with a new one, granting a new Hero Power.

Hero Powers are unique abilities each Hero has that can be used once per turn at the cost of mana.

Heroes are the characters we play as. Reducing an enemy Hero to 0 Health wins you the game.

To find a full list of all of the cards of each type in the game at the moment, click the bolded words above, or search for yourself in our card database.

Section II: Balancing and Mechanics

The links below will take you to a wide variety of resources to help you get to grips with various balancing concepts. Note that sticking strictly to stat point systems when designing cards can be helpful, but can also be a hindrance, since some combinations of effects or cards can be vastly more important to some classes than others - Warlocks and Rogues, for example, value self-healing far more highly than any other class.

Also note that we can't verify how well these threads and blogs will translate to current Hearthstone, as many of them were written quite a while ago. If you know of any other good balancing resources, feel free to let us know!

Custom Hearthstone Reddit - Minion Balance
A huge thanks to dorian467 for this: a nice overview and analysis of how to calculate the cost of minions based on Keywords and other effects.

Custom Hearthstone Reddit - Other Balance Resources
Theres a great deal of really useful stuff here, including user and Blizzard blogs about balance philosophy.

Hearthstone 'Colour Chart'
For anyone that wants a quick overview of how the nine Hearthstone Heroes differentiate from one antoher (Keywords, Mechanics etc.), here is a nice set of images to show you!

Weapon Balance
A rough pricing model for Weapons in Hearthstone - a huge shout-out to Triskaidekaphilia for this Thread!

Class Development and Discussion Thread
While primarily a thread for collaborating with others, getting help creating a class and helping them in return, the initial post also contains some valuable insight into the basics of designing a Hearthstone class.

Searchstone.io
Looking for a quick way to check the wording of a card, or to find all the cards with certain stats? Searchstone is a good alternative to our own database of cards, and features all the collectible cards in the game.

Fan Creations Grammar Guide
Phoenixfeather created a handy-dandy guide to Hearthstone Grammar (with input from the rest of the mods) for anyone looking to make their cards extra perfect. Comes with a free quiz to test yourself!

Section III: Lore and Theming

While its fun to imagine what it would be like if Pokemon were included in Hearthstone, or the heroes of Overwatch, many people want to create as authentic a Hearthstone card as possible, and that means delving into the lore of the Warcraft universe. This can be daunting for people who know very little, so here are some resources to help you.

WoWpedia - A good resource for information on all the characters of WoW, along with Warcraft itself.

WoW Wiki - A different source for WoW and Warcraft information, so you can crosscheck between them.

The Lore Help Thread - Got a burning question that you can't seem to find a satisfactory answer to? Throw it in the lore thread, and one of our kind forum members will help you with their own knowledge from their presumably extensive WoW career.

Section IV - Artwork

It's the art that makes the card! While Hearthstone does have a wide variety of art styles shown, these places are a good place to start looking for art until you get a feel for what sort of art works on Hearthstone cards, and can scour the internet yourself. Again, reference pages for artwork are more than welcome, so if you know of any, let me know and we'll add them.

WoW TCG - Card Browser
All cards from the Wow TCG are too at your disposal! Filters are available on the sidebar to narrow down to specific cards you are after. You'll have to edit and crop cards to grab the artwork you need however.

WoW TCG - WoWcards
Another repository for finding cards from the WoW TCG should you need it. The artwork can be a little blurred, and you'd have to do the cropping yourself, but if in doubt, they have the artist listed for each card and Google is a wonderful tool.

aiDen's Hearthstone Gallery - Fan Creations Thread
Fellow Hearthpwn user, aiDen, has handpicked over 4000 pieces of Artwork specifically for creating fan-made Hearthstone cards! Each image has a tag for easy searching, so you'd be mad not to have a look at this amazing collection of artwork right now!

DeviantArt - Hearthstone GvG Contest 2014
A Goblins Vs Gnomes art contest was held back in 2014, showcasing some spectacular user created art for the expansion. Be sure to check this out!

(Note: The polite thing to do is to reference the artist for any art that isn't yours in your creations)

Section V - Generating Hearthstone Cards

Now that you've got your art and your lore down, and you know the ins and outs of the kinds of cards you want to create, it's time to actually start making them! Luckily for us, there's a fantastic tool available.

HearthCards
HearthCards is an amazing tool, kept well up to date with all the latest in Hearthstone. Choose from any type of card, any of the 9 existing classes along with many fanmade ones, and any of the expansion watermarks, including multiple fanmade ones as well. You can even click the 'import' button and type an existing card name to have it appear in the generator if buffing or nerfing cards is your thing.

If you're looking for help figuring out some of HearthCards nuances, check out this thread on changing the colours of stat points. There's other hidden features to it, so try messing around and see what you can come up with (HINT: Try typing in boxes that appear to be greyed out).

List of Common Mistakes
A Google Docs list maintained by the creator of HearthCards listing common mistakes people make when designing cards. This offers help making sure you're cards look as authentic as possible.

HearthCards is completely free to use, although your card won't be kept in their servers forever - you'll have to rehost it. Speaking of which...

Section VI - Image Hosting

As mentioned before, HearthCards won't keep your cards forever, so its best to rehost them on another site. Here's a bunch of the more popular ones! (Note that some of these sites may require you to sign up to use them).

Imgur
(A handy Chrome Extension is available here that allows quick capturing and uploading of images.)
TinyPic
PhotoBucket
ImageShack

Using these websites also allows you to directly embed images into the Forums without the need for pesky attachments! To do so, click on the Icon depicted below. From there, you can adjust the size of your image.

For those of you wondering, yes, this is an image of the old card creation guide by BerserkMidget08, from which a large portion of this content has been taken. If you want to check out the original, here's a link.

Section VII - Posting to HearthPwn

Now that you've got the hand of creating cards, you'll want to share them with the rest of the forums!

If you're looking to create your own thread, check out this thread on Presentation Tools for the forums. These can make your thread look extra professional! It also includes some handy hints for Hearthcards card creation.

Stuck on ideas for what cards to create? Why not try joining the fun at the Make the Card game thread. In it, the last poster will specify a requirement that the next card has to meet. You make the next card, you get to decide on a requirement for someone else to make a card by. Helping get those creative juices flowing for everyone!

Looking to create an entire Hearthstone class? Why not swing by the aforementioned Class Development and Discussion Thread to get opinions on your concept and help others out at the same time.

Well done for making it to the end! Feel free to suggest any additions to this you think would be good, and if you have any questions about the forums or need any help, don't hesitate to PM one of the mods and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Have fun!

In regards to switching up the format for the next big competition, its something we can look into. Some initial points of concern:

• Keeping many of our entrants - lets say 100 people - becomes a big strain on us as mods to run the competition. That's what, 10 polls each round to keep them clean looking? 5 polls if you don't mind sifting through 20 entries of stuff per poll? Do we run polls simultaneously or one after another? Then we also have to make sure we're keeping track of whatever scoring method we're using - and that that scoring method is fair - across all the rounds.
• Another issue - yes, less people are casually checking in per round, some of which is likely down to lack of exposure due to upcoming expansion, but I don't know that people would be interested in checking multiple polls per round, with many different entrants. It's just so much work for the casual viewer. Compared to now, where there's just a few entries and they can digest them easily.
• Finally, since we'd obviously keep our scoring method open and be revealing the number of votes after each round for transparency, people would be able to see who's leading. Many people might just drop out after seeing they didn't get that many points and don't think its worth it. We'd end up with weird, uneven numbers of competitors, and due to the low retention of multiple polls I can't help but feel that a few people would be obviously in the lead the whole way through.

As I said, totally willing to consider switching it up, but those are just my initial hesitancies with that specific idea.

Quote from ZardozSpeaks >>

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

HERE'S A 2x6 CHART IF ANYONE NEEDS IT! JUST COPY AND PASTE!

ALSO, HERE'S A 2x2 ONE!

IF YOU NEED ANYTHING SPECIFIC, JUST ASK! <3

 testing ur tablez.

Is it possible to adjust the width of each column? Say I wanted the left column taking 2/3 the page, and the right column with 1/3?

wwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaam	asdfwda2443sdfa