MMOs: Impressions of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Warcraft certainly has changed quite a bit over the years. What started out as a Fantasy RTS back in 1994 has evolved into an MMO, novels, comics, board games, a pen-and-paper RPG, and a trading card game. Suffice to say nothing but the MMO really took off with people who weren't already die hard Blizzard and Warcraft fans, but that certainly hasn't stopped Blizzard from still trying. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is the latest F2P entry into the popular Fantasy series that shrinks down the inhabitants of Azeroth into collectable trading cards. Why a card game, you may ask? Because who needs wars, armies, or cataclysmic magic when you can just sit in a tavern, play some card games, and have fun.

Hearthstone features nine playable classes (mage, warrior, shaman, warlock, druid, hunter, paladin, priest, and rogue) each with their own unique cards and class ability. After picking a class and the hero associated with it, the player must then construct a deck of 30 cards comprised of minions and spells from your hero's starting selection as well as any neutral cards you may have. Conveniently, Hearthstone has options for the game to automatically construct a deck or have the game “recommend a card” to help if the player needs it. The game also displays the “mana curve” of each deck to help the player keep a good balance between card costs. There is even a crafting system that allows players to dissolve certain cards for arcane dust and craft copies of cards they already posses.

The game itself starts off with a coin flip to determine who takes the first turn. The player who loses the coin flip goes second, but starts off with 4 cards in their hand instead of 3. From there, both players select any number of cards in their hand they wish to shuffle back into their deck and redraw back to their starting hand size. Every turn, both players accumulate one “mana” which is the resource used to summon minions or cast spells. Each player's maximum mana will increase by one every turn and refill back to full at the start of their turn. There are a few cards that raise maximum mana, but none that remove mana so, ideally, every turn players should be playing higher cost cards or clusters of low cost cards.

Each class comes with a unique ability that costs two mana. Some of these class abilities may seem weak or insignificant, but each can serve an integral purpose. With the right type of deck, these abilities could even change the outcome of a match. Spell cards have a wide variety of effects that trigger once they are played. Some deal damage, some buff minions, some allow the player to draw cards, and some can even be hidden and triggered once your opponent performs a particular action. Weapon cards are attached to your hero and allow them to actually attack until the weapon breaks. Minions come with two stats: attack and health. Simply put: attack is how much damage a minion inflicts and health is how much damage they can take before dying. Almost every minion also comes with an ability and, thankfully, the player can just hover over a card to read details about every ability or effect on it. There aren't too many unique abilities in Hearthstone, so players should be able to grasp what most cards do shortly after the tutorial.

Each player can only have seven minions on the field at a time. This may not seem like much, but quite a few cards are designed with the intent to just deal damage to minions. One player may even find themselves losing minions faster than they be can summoned. When it comes to attacking, minions can target either another minion or the opponent's hero directly. Part of the game's strategy is determining when is a good time to strike your opponent and when it's time to start clearing the field of those pesky minions. Just keep in mind, most minions can not attack the turn they are summoned unless they have an ability that states otherwise. To win, all you have to do is reduce your opponent's health from 30 to 0.

Since this is a F2P game, there is the inclusion of a cash shop; however, it is the farthest from “pay to win” a game can get. After all, this is a card game, so what else would be in the shop but booster packs? Basic Cards are acquired through leveling up each hero, but Expert Cards can only be acquired through booster packs. The player can buy 1 booster pack for 100 gold or buy multiple packs (groups of 2, 7, 15, or 40) with real money. Gold is the in game currency that is awarded for completing daily quests or by winning games. Daily quests have fairly simple tasks such as “kill 30 minions” or “win 3 games with any deck”. Completing these quests will reward the player with 40 gold. Doing the math, this means a player will have accumulated enough gold to buy 2 packs every 5 days without spending a dime. Each pack comes with 5 cards, one of which is a guaranteed rare, but the random nature of the packs means each purchase is still a gamble.

Alternatively, the player can also spend 150 gold or $2 to enter the Arena. The Arena gives the player a choice from one of three classes they can play as. From there, the player is to pick one card from a selection of three until they have a full deck of 30 cards. Once the deck is complete, the player can enter into matchmaking to face other Arena entrants. Each player is allowed three defeats before they are thrown out of the Arena and must buy their way back in to start over. Potentially, the Arena can give out some of the best rewards, or be a waste of time. Like the booster packs, the Arena is also a bit of a gamble, but you are always given a booster pack for trying. A player could just end up losing three times right off the bat and just have payed a little extra for said booster pack. They could also win 6 times and potentially get awarded their entry fee back alongside the booster pack and some arcane dust.

Since Hearthstone is in beta, the game is still rough around the edges. Two rather obvious issues are gold awards from winning games and daily quests. Earlier it was mentioned how winning games can award gold, but this is at the rate of 5 gold for every 5 wins. That is an incredibly miniscule amount of gold for something that takes up at least an hour. Obviously, Blizzard wants players to use the cash shop more over gold, but, regardless, it just makes winning a game less satisfying. The issue with daily quests comes from quests that require the player to win 2 games with whatever deck the game decides. See, this is an issue because there can be times where the game will assign a deck the player may just not have a lot of cards for. This can turn something as simple as winning 2 matches into a nightmare of nearly two dozen losses to superior decks. This problem is further exasperated by the lack of gold won through playing matches. Losing over a dozen games with nothing to show for it can be very frustrating and tedious.

Overall, Hearthstone is a very fun game that still retains the feel of the Warcraft universe. It has a few problems, but they don't often get in the way of enjoyment. The game is fairly simple and the tutorial eases the player into the full aspect of the card game. The game also does a good job of never twisting the player's arm into spending real money. Everything can be obtained with patience and a bit of luck. I would definitely give this a recommendation to anyone that likes Warcraft, trading card games, or both. If nothing else, it's going to be F2P, so you have nothing to lose from just trying it out.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is still in closed beta, but you can sign up here for the chance to receive an invite. Hearthstone's official release will be sometime this year.