3:41 PM EDT: You'll be able to set a favourite hero for each class. The favourite hero will be used in play mode and arena. (Source)
2:49 PM EDT: Added clarifications: no bundles, emotes will use old categories, gifting.
2:24 PM EDT: Cleaned up the post. Added clarification confirming no new gameboards.
1:58 PM EDT: Added clarification that new heroes are animated whether the hero is golden or not.
1:22 PM EDT: Added a couple of clarifications to the post regarding release schedule and deck slots (not happening)
New Heroes are Coming! Magni Bronzebeard Confirmed
New Heroes are coming to Hearthstone! Magni Bronzebeard has been confirmed to be the second Warrior hero.
- Heroes can be bought for $9.99 USD per hero ($12.99 AUD, 8.99€ EUR, 6.99£ GBP). (Source)
- Heroes are purely cosmetic. They use the same class cards that are in the current game and use the same hero power.
- The hero package includes the new Hero, a special hero-exclusive Card Back, and unique hero-specific Emotes.
- You'll be able to set a favourite hero for each class. The favourite hero will be used in play mode and arena. (Source)
Hero Details
- The portraits come animated by default, unlike the base heroes.
- When they enter the game, it plays a special animation.
- Heroes come equipped with unique emotes.
- The new emotes will use the same categories as the old ones. (Greetings, Thanks..) (Source)
- The area surrounding the hero, the tray, is themed to match the hero. (Source)
- Each Hero has a unique Hero Power animation. (Source)
- The Hero Power border will become golden once you have achieved 500 wins with the class of that Hero. Otherwise, it is wooden. (Source)
- Example: If you've obtained 500 wins with Garrosh, that's 500 Warrior wins which would give you golden hero power Magni.
Further Clarifications
- The new heroes do not come with new deck slots. (Source)
- No new gameboards are included with the new heroes. (Source)
- Heroes will not all be released at the same time. (Source)
- There are no current plans for releasing a bundled discount. (Source)
- There are no current plans to allow for gifting of portraits, or other content. (Source)
Quote from Blizzard“Well, look who it is!”
Some new faces have just shown up at the inn! Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft is happy to welcome new Heroes as they pull up a chair at the game table!
These new Heroes put a fresh face on the classes you know and love, and bring along some unique surprises of their own.
Picture Perfect
These new Hearthstone Heroes will feature beautifully detailed animated Hero portraits, including all-new art never before seen in the Blizzard universe. The first new Hero we’re introducing is a famed Warrior—the mighty King of Ironforge himself, Magni Bronzebeard!
Aside from the vibrant new Hero portrait artwork, these new Heroes also come with unique Hero power animations. Magni’s version of the Warrior’s “Armor Up!” Hero Power is sure to reinforce the fact that his majesty is not to be trifled with!
New Heroes also come with unique emotes and voices that convey their individual personalities, a play area featuring a custom visual theme, and nifty “entering the game” animations so you can greet (or intimidate) your next opponent in style.
If that wasn’t enough, new Heroes also come with a unique card back that will impress even the mightiest of dwarven kings! The steadfast “Magni” card back is added to your collection immediately after purchasing the Magni Bronzebeard Hero, and can be used with any deck of your choice.
New Heroes will be available for purchase from the in-game Shop for $9.99 USD! Usurp the traitorous Garrosh Hellscream and bring down the hammers of dwarven justice with Magni Bronzebeard; the first new Warrior Hero for Hearthstone—coming soon!
New Heroes do not add new cards to your collection or change the classes’ activated Hero Power and are not considered new classes.
$10 per hero.... that's like a UI change!!! Blizz is being cheap, it seems they taking inspiration from Steve jobs!
10 bucks for a new hero portrait?
ahahahahahahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHA....no.
So 10$ for one skin!
Sorry Blizzard but no thanks! if it was 10 bucks for all skins i might consider, but for only one i just pass!
I just got this :/ https://twitter.com/CM_Zeriyah/status/606517980554502144
Really surprised people are excited for this... It adds no gameplay value what-so-ever. Its a skin. It doesnt change the game in the slightest. $10 for a trivial portrait and a handful of voice overs does not bode well for what a real new hero would cost.'
I was REALLY excited when I saw Magni was going to be a Hero. Then I saw he had Garrosh's power. And Garrosh's cards. And realized its not Magni as a hero, its Garrosh in a Magni costume.
In LoL $10 nets you 1380 Riot points, which gives you an enhanced skin with minor changes to the model, major changes to the model skin, the effects, sounds/voice, and the animations. In Hearthstone, $10 nets you an "animated" portrait (in quotes because its really a motion tweened image with particle effects), new voice over, and a new animation for the power which looked like it could have been done in a day or two by a single tech artist.
Lets be honest, Blizzard is allowing you to buy a gold portrait for those who dont want to grind 800 - 1500 matches per hero without taking away anything from those who already have. They added in some new bells and whistles to sweeten the deal. Thats great for people who want that sort of thing. But I really want some new gameplay stuff from a company that likes to mention its motto is "Gameplay First".
Portrait isn't gold by default. Releasing this doesn't mean they aren't working on new gameplay stuff. They aren't Garrosh's, they are the Warrior classes, which Magni is a part of. You also get a card back with your purchase.
Finally, it isn't supposed to add gameplay value. It's a cosmetic DLC for either those who want to support Blizzard by paying money, or those who are tired of seeing the same Hero every game. And having a new Hero cost money would cause a shistorm Blizzard wouldn't want, and would bring up impossible balancing issues. Any new classes would have to be free, or purchasable with gold, with the way Hearthstone works.
New heroes would cause "impossible balancing issues?" Do you honestly believe that? As a game programmer/designer for about a decade now I can assure you that you are wrong. It would require work, probably lots of it, but thats the point of having game designers.
Blizzard offering new heroes for gold and money would be fine. The game is fully funded, they arent hurting for money, and many will pay cash. They can even inflate the amount of gold it takes so it makes sense for most people to pay cash. If a new hero comes with even a few new class cards (30+ or so, same as an adventure), its completely worth it at a sizable purchase price.
Dont say "This is good for the game because money." If they make a fortune on portraits, good for them. But it wont make the game better, because they wont be making money on the game itself, but on impulse buys. They will focus more on that than the game. Again, Ive been doing this for a decade now, I know how this works.
"Any new classes should be free" is based on what? Im guessing you havent done much game development with major studios before. The amount of work that goes into a new hero in an established game can be immense, hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee costs alone. If the hero is free they have to make that cost elsewhere, like make the hero part of an adventure that has an inflated cost or something.
And before you say "But if they make enough money on the portrait, then they can release the hero for free!", I can guarantee you it doesnt work like that. Accounting will NOT ever see it like that. The new item must make up its own cost. A previous item making tons of money will not allow them to charge less for a future item. That is how every company of that size operates, and I have worked with the people in Blizzard long enough to know they are no different.
You can disagree, but I know this from my time in the industry. If youre basing your thoughts on how you feel it should work, reality will not be kind.
I'm not basing my thoughts on any industry knowledge, I'm basing them on my knowledge of the human mind, and it's thoughts towards a Pay2Win concept.
When I say 'impossible balancing issues', I'm not saying that they couldn't make a new hero that was relatively balanced - I'm sure this is entirely possible, especially for a company as large as Blizzard. What I was trying to say was that they couldn't make a character that was so perfectly balanced that people who didn't purchase it wouldn't feel it was OP, but at the same people who did would also feel it wasn't UP.
I'm not saying they would have to make it free - I did mention that being able to pay for it with gold would help a little - but having new characters be impossible to play without paying money is asking for riots, in terms of competition. What if the new class has the best deck? How do they make it fair for people who want to play Ranked, but can't beat it?
And of course, I defer to your knowledge in terms of the industry - it's actually pretty interesting to hear your perspective.
And now I must apologise. I didn't mention in my previous post that, yes, I agree that $10 is ludicrously expensive for cosmetic DLC. I was so busy correcting you on certain things that I forgot to agree with you - I'm annoying and smartass-y like that. I feel that $5 would probably be fine, but honestly, why would Blizzard ever feel the need to make them that price if they think they can get away with higher? That's simple business. Shitty, bad for the consumer business, but simple business.
This is literal GARBAGE at it's finest. You're paying $10.00 for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. We've talked on this forum about a whole new class with it's own ability and class cards; instead we get a -pay-only cosmetic change to the warrior class... it's as if Blizzard is openly wondering if we will pay for ANY CRAP they put into the game, useful or not. No way I would spend a dime on this; it makes it worse I half saw this on their Facebook page and thought we were finally getting the brand new hero class most of us have been salivating for.
What a god damn disappointment.
I will never understand this mindset. This isn't some mandatory purchase. You don't have to buy it if you don't want it. I myself probably won't, at least at first.
This doesn't mean that Blizzard isn't working on other things for the game, just that they're releasing this now. It's like half the people on these forums have never heard of a cosmetic DLC. These types of things have been in games for about a decade.
And so???
Go and watch AngryJoeShow Evolve or Mortal Kombat X Review and tell me that the lame aesthetic micro-transaction model isn't killing the videogame industry. This needs to stop, for real.
And so???
Go and watch AngryJoeShow Evolve or Mortal Kombat X Review and tell me that the lame aesthetic micro-transaction model isn't killing the videogame industry. This needs to stop, for real.
The difference between this and Evolve is that this game is free to play - I agree wholeheartedly that it's ludicrous to expect massive amounts of money for cosmetic DLC when you've already paid or a full-priced game, and it's even worse if actual gameplay affecting content is locked behind a paywall.
But for Hearthstone, this is one of the ways Blizzard can actually make money from the game. Is it overpriced as hell? Yes. Do I understand why? Yes, it's good business. Am I going to buy any of it at that price? Probably not.
My main gripe is that people think that this somehow detracted from time spent on actual content, which makes no sense. I fully agree that it costs too much, but it's just an extra. We're still getting our other content.
This news is not that bad, but I am still disapointed.. I was expecting a bit of change in the gameplay, like new hero powers :(
Still gonna get the new champ :p
Does anybody knows something about the next expansion?
There's no info about any new content yet.
I´m so impatient.
Cheers ^^
I guess that 9,99$ for each hero is too expensive. It would be better if it was a price for all of them.
I think its usual HS intro, so nothing special here.
It's true, i've just seen Arthas picture in "Goblins and Gnomes" launch video. But i still waiting for a death knight announcement soon. I hope so :)