Hearthpwn

Hearthstone: Telling a Year Long Narrative Panel

• The Panel starts off with the idea for a year long story. They started with that idea 3 years ago.
• Started with the idea to pull this off, starting with teasers like in the Comics, where Rafaam crowns Togwaggle. They pulled everything together.
• It all began with the teaser trailer, where each villain of the League of E.V.I.L. was introduced, and their different vibes.
• Music then. That part starts with Goblins and Gnomes, much like Dr. Boom,
• 5 years ago everything at Blizzard was EPIC, and doing cute little jingles was a really new idea.
• They pitched the music idea to Chris Metzen and thought they were getting fired, but they kept going with their song and Metzen loved it.
• Throughout the year they kept having meetings to make sure they kept reinforcing the story.
• That eventually lead to Henchmania, the Brawl. They tried to make it like a job interview.
• Some of the Henchmania people made it into the Solo adventure!
• They joke that Dalaran, while being heisted, should have a Steering wheel at the top. Who let Togwaggle drive?!
• They want the players to really be involved.
• Why the League of Explorers as the heroes? They made the most sense, cause they already had the personalities.
• They discuss their favourite Heroes. Reno gets a smattering of applause.
• They discuss Hearth and Home the big cinematic from several years ago. They had people sitting in the audience while it was being pitched and had them stand up and join in on the song.
• The Saviors of Uldum music was about reintroducing the League, but they didn't want it to feel half-baked. It had to be epic.
• Flex-plosion was introduced during the cinematic trailer creation.
• It started with Reno riding on a camel and they kept raising the bar and lowering the brow and kept improving it till they arrived at the Flex-plosion
• This year was a challenge for the cinematics team. They did some 12 cinematics, instead of the more usual 3 or 4.
• There's a risk in doing a year long story that people check out and ruin the effort, so every expansion had to have it's own unique and gripping idea and flavour.
• One of Dave Kossak's favourite moments was George and Karl and their interaction. Where's Karl?!
• They are setting up where they meet again!
• They did a lot of stuff that wasn't necessary for the story, but it helped with the year long narrative, in Brawls and introduction events.
• The league of E.V.I.L. is going to Dragonblight and the Explorers League follow them, which will get told in a story too!
• Reno is a mage, sort of, so he makes a portal, badly, to follow E.V.I.L. and then they end up in a huge aerial fight.
• They did their best to deliver on the most awesome aerial fight ever in the cinematic.
• They knew that there would be lots of Dragons at the end of the Year of the Dragon
• They didn't realize at first but the story obviously needs an ending. They think they arrived at a way to end this year on a note that's good to both the evil and good players.
• The next Adventure will be more linear, to help arriving at a good ending easier. More information to come!
• They layered all the Year Long story over the Holiday stories. The Doom in the Tomb event came together very easily cause the characters were so strong.