Announcing Runestones - With Usage and Frequent Questions
After announcing Runestones there were quite a few questions about how they will work and what you can and cannot buy with them and your hard earned Gold. Blizzard has provided some graphics that should make this all a little clearer.
Quote from BlizzardQ: What are Runestones?
A: Runestones will be replacing real money purchases for nearly every product in the Hearthstone shop. Some products, like Pre-Purchase Bundles, the Hearthstone Tavern Pass, and Packs (purchasing more than one at a time) will be able to be purchased with money or Runestones. A few other select products, like packs and cosmetics crafted in the Collection, will remain purchasable with only Gold.
With Runestones we’ll be able to offer additional smaller-scale items, such as the individual Battlegrounds Hero Skins offered in the shop with this patch. Runestones will be available in bundles of various sizes, including quantities that correspond to our major products (like the Battlegrounds Season Pass), so you can buy exactly the quantity needed for that product or you can stock up on more for later. No product costs are changing with this conversion—all prices are staying the same, just converted to Runestones.
Q: Can I earn Runestones in-game?
A: No, there are no plans to earn Runestones in-game.
Q: Is there anything I can use my Gold for in Battlegrounds?
A: No, there are no plans for Battlegrounds to use Gold in any way. Players who don’t want to spend real money or Runestones will still be able to enjoy the free rewards from the Battlegrounds Track.
Bli$$ard are beyond pathetic now. Really sad to see what has happened with what was once the best game studio.
I remember growing up and getting their old classics like WC1,2 and 3 and D1 and D2 and having LAN parties on SC1 also.
How the mighty have fallen.
Exactly! We were trading Diablo heroes using floppy diskettes. And every time you were playing any Blizzard game, it was like completely immersing in that world. The story, the acting, the dialogues, the art, the graphics - everything was top notch! They took their time (even to a fault) for development and releases to new games/sequels, but when stuff came out, it was really best in class. Every other studio was just trying to catch-up, and that's why they have built a huge fanbase over the years.
I am not mad, as nowadays this seems to be the case with just about everything, but it's just sad, because it was something I grew up with and something which was indeed good and making millions of people happy.
I think you'll find this is more the abhorrent tactics and designs of Activision. Blizzard, indeed, used to have integrity and class. They put out some of the best games around, then poof. Activision, along with EA and Epic games are a few of the most egregious users of paid currency and micro transactions.
WILL THE HAVE HOLIDAY DISCOUNTS FOR RUNESTONE BUNDLES DURING BLACK FRIDAY OR SOMETHING LIKE XMAS?! cuz i would consider stocking up but yeah if not this doesn't really feel yeah........
What happens with the gold and dust which you still own?
Well they can be used still, but gold is basically solely for booster packs now. Don't believe there's a dust change. Beyond that everything else is in Runestone payment in essence.
They really REALLY hate the idea of players purchasing out-of-date, 8-year-old adventures for gold or, god forbid, unlocking them for free...
Maybe it's because the old adventures are all more well-written and fun than any of the standard-year, trash-tier new solo content 🤔
When a mobile game adds a new currency, it is always bad for players. You can no longer buy what you want in your local currency. You now have to buy a shitty, intermediate currency, which almost certainly doesn't line up.
Fuck you Blizzard for trying to make obviously cash-grabbing news as good thing for players.
They are lowkey beging ppl to stop playing their games jessus the greed is unreal. So pathetic all what i can say.
Weeeee... I see Activision is ripping pages out of their mobile game department and giving people fake currency you have to use real money to buy. Which means you, the consumer, are getting hosed something fierce since I'll guarantee that the prices for things with Runestones will be juuuuuuust off enough that you're left with odd remainers that are worthless unless you buy more (which then just repeats the cycle).
This is literally nothing more than a blatant attempt to force players to pay up for a game that's now almost a decade old. They're quite literally stripping the ability to use gold for purchases that you could get before this update and forcing you to pry that wallet open for them instead. Every single Adventure I have was bought through hard earned gold as were most all expansions except 3 or so. I even finally shelled out for my first Battleground Perks gold purchase a few weeks ago so I could see what it was like. Now? Now anyone that wants items like that gets bent over the barrel as Activision rifles through their wallet.
Honestly the only thing I'm surprised by is the fact they didn't force you to buy booster packs with Runestones.
I won't like this in any conceivable way no matter it actually affects me at all, at least unless I can get this currency on a fairly decent rate without spending stupid cash.
Q: Can I earn Runestones in-game?
A: No, there are no plans to earn Runestones in-game.
HS is about them leeching our money. This change does exactly nothing. We are just getting entertained to pay up. Hearthstone was always about this. Ofc nothing different from other stuff like Netflix, Sports PPV's or many other games. Difference ? HS is a HELL lot more expensive than most other Games or Services. That's why I've decided to quit end of the year, back to traditional gaming, buy a PS5 game and have the entire thing in my Bookshelf. There is nothing rewarding to play for anyways, competition is placebo and doesn't really exist. They've never introduced real achievements like prize money, they're just greedy as hell since the aquisition from Activi$ion and won't ever share a cent with us.
Congratulations to the streamers and "Pro's" who reversed the Narrative and made a living out of this. But we all know those are few and far between ...
And here comes the paltry justification from Activision about how them screwing you is not really them screwing you.
Next will be them dialing back their scam monetization a bit because they're "listening to players" and then they'll release the rates they always intended to, and everyone will be screwed over but think they aren't because Activision listened. Meanwhile another intermediate currency designed to obfuscate and confuse will be injected into the game.
Just like the replacement of gold quests with exp for their battle pass - which has resulted in me getting less packs every expansion as a F2P player playing the same amount of time each year - they will slowly strangle the F2P players until they reach a breaking point and open the wallet.
well, here's a middle finger to everyone that eventually wanted for adventures to be bought with gold.
they are touching that to be possible to buy it with runestones, but not with gold
its too late
I am not interested in Runestone and they kinda scare me. I will try to explain break down their explanation on why Runestones are "Good for Players" (I don't really think they will be in most cases).
It all comes down to processing fees. To pay for anything with a credit card/debit card, a vendor has to pay a processing fee. That usually is about 1.5% to 3%. This can vary a lot between vendors and dollar amounts. Some can be flat fees per transaction. Credit Card processors do not want to get bogged down with billions of $1.00 transactions that might only net them 2 Cents when they can use the same resources to process an order that makes them $100. They can charge a premium for small charges to prevent this. That is why you will see "Minimum Purchase with Card" signs at small businesses and gas stations.
The same goes for purchases from stores like iTunes and Google play. They will often charge as much as 30% of the income for the purchase to the seller. That is what the whole Epic Games Vs Apple lawsuit was about.
What Blizzard says they want to do is allow players to buy cheaper cosmetics without bundles. Lets take Hero skins for example. Often you would have to buy 4 Skins in a bundle to get any. The reason for this was it cheaper to process 1 transaction for $20 then 4 transactions at $5. The player paid the same amount, but Blizzard lost more money on Fees.
What they "say" they want to do with Runestones is allow the player to have more chose while saving everyone fees. Instead of having to spend $20 on 4 Skins from one style, you can use the Runestones to buy 4 skins from 4 different styles if you want to.
There are a lot of Dangers with this line of thought, but I wanted to let people know what possible positive business reason behind the change was.
Blizzard you are so bad that literally people will stop ue stupid games