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Blizzcon 2014 - Evolving Reaper of Souls Panel - Live Updates
BlizzCon Heroes Developer Interview With Kaeo Milker, BlizzCon Panel Recaps
Blizzcon 2014 Recap

Update: 8:28 PM EDT: Added quote from Yong Woo on addition deck slots.
Update 1:16 PM EST: Added news about GvG card voting!

[Update] Goblins vs Gnomes Card Reveal Voting

Blizzard has pushed an update  to the Goblins vs Gnomes website which allows us to vote on the cards we want to see revealed next! You get to choose between seeing a Goblin or a Gnome card. Explosions, or wacky inventions? It also looks like there is going to be an upcoming DeviantArt contest according to a banner at the bottom of the page.

Also included is the dates  where they will be announcing new cards. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for the rest of November, we will get to see a new card!

Hearthstone Developer Interview

We had a chance to sit down with Hearthstone's Senior Game Designer, Mike Donais, and Production Director, Jayson Chayes at this year's BlizzCon, where we, and other fansites, asked about the new expansion, the features you want, and botting. We've got the interview summarized for you below.

Quote from Blizzard

Cards

• Roughly a third of the new cards are Mech.
• There is no Piloted 2-drop in the game. So you can't Piloted Sky Golem into Piloted Shredder into Piloted 2-drop into summon.
• No collectible neutral spells have been added in the expansion.
• No confirmed changes for Gadgetzan Auctioneer, yet. They know Spare Parts are 1 Mana Spells, it's a concern, they'll watch it.
• They might have a new card which can deal with Secrets. No word on it being neutral or class specific.
• Mechanical Dragonling, Harvest Golem, Alarm-o-Bot, Gelbin's Inventions, and Demolisher will all be Mechs when the expansion hits.
• Ogre Warmaul has been confirmed to be a new collectible weapon.
• Undertaker won't be receiving any changes. He's a large part of the meta right now, but Goblins vs Gnomes might shake it up enough so that he doesn't need to be changed.
• There's more ways to get Spare Parts than just Clockwork Gnome and Tinkertown Technician.

Games & System Design

• They don't want to add too many unobtainable rewards for the game, like getting gold when you reach certain ranks for the first time. Other rewards are on the table, but no news yet.
• No plans for Golden Heroes to come out of Arenas. They like it being tied to a constructed reward.
• Randomness is very important to Hearthstone. It gives you the potential for epic experiences.
• They're going to be careful about adding additional Silence cards to the game. Silence isn't a very fun mechanic when there's a lot of it.
• Arena will only reward you with the Goblins vs Gnomes packs.
• No catch-up mechanisms in place for new players to get up to speed.
• They do think that players will have a natural progression of Classic (Expert) set cards to Goblins vs Gnomes.
• Old quests which awarded Classic Packs will still reward them when the expansion hits.
• No plans on having public beta tests of new expansions, they like the element of surprise.
• The Do Not Disturb feature on Battle.net won't prevent friends from spectating your games, but you can disable match spectating with a checkbox.

Card Backs

• They're okay with players not being able to get all the card backs (like TeSPA). They'd like to do more things in the future where a card back isn't so broadly available.
• Being able to assign a card back to a deck would be an "awesome feature".
• More ways to see your own card backs is good, you don't really get to see them, only your opponent's card back.
• No confirmation that we'll see a Gnome card back for next month's ranked gameplay season. We'll have to wait and see, no spoiling surprises.

The Future

• Android devices will be required to meet a set of minimum system specifications, which will be announced in the future, to be able to play Hearthstone.
• An achievements system is something they could see being added to the game, but not for Goblins vs Gnomes.
• Chat channels aren't off the table, although they don't want you to have many ways to interact with your opponent. Spectator mode is an additional social tool for Hearthstone.
• Different cosmetic versions of Heroes is something the team has been talking about for a while. They're "excited" about the feature, but nothing ready to announce yet.
• No current plans for a different draft format for Hearthstone. They don't want you sitting around waiting for other people to draft with you.
• No plans to allow players to replay the tutorial yet, it's a cool idea though.

Botting

• Over 10,000 accounts were banned from the game for botting.
• Part of the reason why accounts were only temporarily banned for botting in the first ban wave has to do with all the new players of Blizzard games who might not be familiar with Blizzard's policies. Going forward though, zero tolerance; You bot, you're gone for good.

Build Your Own Goblins vs Gnomes Deck

Want to build and share your own Goblins vs Gnomes Deck? We've got all the cards previewed at BlizzCon in our very own deckbuilder.

Goblins vs Gnomes: New Cards

We've got all the cards previewed at BlizzCon available in our card database.

Yong Woo on Deck Slots

Yong Woo, Hearthstone's Senior Producer, was interviewed by PC Gamer at BlizzCon and had this to say about adding additional deck slots. The full interview can be watched below. At 15:35 you can hear the below statement.

Quote from Yong Woo

So, this is something we've been talking about a lot as a team, its not that we're ignoring feedback, we've been debating a lot about it. In some ways its a little bit like bag space in role playing games where no matter how much you have, you're going to always want more. We're kind of in the same mindspace [as before], but we really understand people feel passionate about. It's definitely something we're actively talking about in the team, but its a tricky one. We just want players to understand we haven't made up our minds, but it's really not a straight forward answer. There's a lot to consider here.