I think some new details may come out for the new year, like their plans for the classic set, but I'm not expecting full-on expansion announcements. Maybe a name.
The pricing is a bit nuts considering it is more expensive than BlizzCon's normal Virtual Ticket bundle, but there also is more stuff.
Nice to see the essentials pack. It feels like most people can get something out of this.
The Heroic Pack is what you'd expect from BlizzCon and its roughly the right price.
The Epic pack is crazy good value if you play WoW and one of the other games included in that price point.
For people only playing Hearthstone, this bundle isn't very worth it.
For myself, who plays World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and I occasionally dabble in other Blizzard games, the Epic bundle makes so much sense. I'm already happy about getting the Heroic pack because I've got a WoW mount + pet (which I would buy for that price alone because the mount looks amazing), so just looking at the Epic pack:
It is $25 more (CAD) to go from Heroic to Epic.
1 month of WoW time is $18 CAD.
That means the 5 golden packs, to me, are only going to cost $7.
I don't really care about D3 Transmog, nor the golden OW boxes.
The inclusion of a 15% coupon on the Blizzard store is kinda nice. I don't really think I'll be buying anything anytime soon, but if people want something specific, it can be worth quite a bit of value. (Coupons can't be used for statues FWIW)
I know this is a bit old at this point but I believe Wizards just had a much smaller device pool at the start of the launch to see how it all was going to work. They lowered the requirements and expanded the pool late yesterday (12 hrs ago), does your phone qualify now?
Sorry Pezman, this is being done specifically so we can target a broader audience and to get more targetted discussion on each of the different subjects. Believe me, I'd love to just have a single post up covering everything that happens but the reality of the content game on the web these days doesn't make that a smart move. Headlines are tailored to getting picked up on the various platforms and algorithms which is less possible when we mash everything together.
Luckily, as you said, it isn't too often that we have to go crazy splitting stuff up. For the very large content drops though, I do think we could do a better job at following everything up with a singular recap more often. Splitting stuff into 2-3, maybe even 4 articles wouldn't really warrant it, but you can be on us doing a large recap for BlizzConline and then whenever we get information about the new year, which will almost without a doubt be chunked into at least half a done headlines.
I can't disagree that this would be great, but there are a few moving pieces that makes this harder to do which is why I like us simply spotlighting community-made decks on the homepage and news feed instead, as Sinti pointed out.
The big one is communication. It can already be difficult to connect with the folks on the team due to timezones, it becomes much harder with potentially new people every week, using private messages and hopes that they respond. The amount of outreach to make it happen might be wasted time that could be better spent elsewhere. By keeping these big spotlights on the team, we have better control over what goes out and when it goes out. Also, this is all going to lead to something else in the near future which isn't going to be as open as creating a deck and writing a guide is; We're just getting things started.
While communication is the big one, we've also got stupid laws. Although our site terms and conditions make it quite clear that people are only allowed to post content they create on the site (not copy-pasting other people's stuff), that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen and it can be hard to vet this kind of stuff. If we link a deck in a round-up that includes content the user didn't make, so what? We'll delete the offending content and have someone else write a bit on it. If we make a whole news article out of it though, that article gets to vanish. There's a certain level of trust we have with people on the team, after all, they are bound by very different legal terms than anyone that just creates an account on the site, which makes needing a proper vetting process less required. Back to the terms and conditions though, we do have the authority to modify and reproduce content everyone creates on here. If we wanted to copy someone's deck guide and post it as a news article, we'd be more than entitled to doing so and no one could do anything about it if they no longer wanted it on the site. Realistically, I don't even see anything coming down to that, but it would be a bit of a dick move though so I really don't want to touch it.
I'm glad people are enjoying the longer-form content though and I hope that it encourages people to write some of it themselves. We don't have enough people writing good guides outside of the staff so if we can get to the point where that is more common, it would be fantastic.
I do want to open up our revenue sharing program to select deck creators in the future though, along with ownership related stuff so people can't just go on a blast and wipeout everything they've created on the site, so if that's something people are interested in, create some top-quality content to start building a portfolio to show us you know your stuff on a game knowledge side and on the other side of content formatting. I can't give you any specifics on it because it isn't something I'm ready to talk about yet (I'm still going through content creator applications from our last recruitment drive, it sucks being the head for everything at times :P) but when the time comes, we'll definitely make some kind of announcement and make it very clear what kind of criteria we're looking for.
We're in the final snowstorm and it's a big one! Until February starts, we've got less than ideal driving conditions and you'll be able to earn 100 snowflakes per day. Bank them for next year's event, spend them, or spread the love by throwing snowballs.
The store will remain open for the first two weeks in February, closing on Valentine's day.
Its a cache problem with some shared caches on avatars in a few parts of the site. The whole thing needs a huge revamp which I hope I can get to soon because it looks so bad >.>
Chrome on iOS isn't actually any different than Safari when it comes to the rendering engine. Apple doesn't allow other browsers to bring their own engines, I believe due to security concerns. Though there aren't too many differences between the base of Chrome and Safari, Firefox is also forced to use the Safari engine on iOS which is quite a bit different than the Gecko engine that runs under Firefox.
Silly Apple =(
Apparently, we can just put the normal image in with the video tags though and iOS should display the static version instead of the animated that it should. I'll make sure we get that out in the near future. This is also an issue with our golden cards so they'll need that love too.
By the way, we have a special bbcode available for cardbacks that isn't documented (seriously, how often would you need to embed one compared to a card).
{cardback}name or id{/cardback}
Will embed the webm version of the card back into your posts. Just be sure to use square brackets instead of the curlybois. Id numbers can be found in URLs, much like they can be for cards, if you want to use those instead of names.
Aye, I was sad that Frostmourne got zero love. I would have ninja'd it onto the list if I wanted to go full bias :D
The trio of Death Knight card backs are all actually really good. I wish it was possible to showcase multiple card backs in a match somehow. Like, maybe piles of cards at the side of the board just so I can really flex on my opponent. Blizzard, I'll pay $5 a slot to unlock said piles.
Ah, damn it Apple. You know, you'd assume that in 2021 they'd actually support webm in their browser. What a damn joke. For all the time they spent on enabling privacy across their hardware, would it really kill them to get up to date with web standards?
I thought once every other browser supported webm, we had won the format war.
It might work on Safari 14/14.3. It appears there is partial support for the codecs so if you aren't up to date, give that a shot!
Another amazing Draenei card back! Seriously though, Blizzard, can the other races get some love? hahaha
I don't see a world where we don't get all the ranked card backs to return, it'll just be a matter of time so I hope you're still around when it shows up again!
I finally opened my copy of the Year of the Mammoth book over the weekend and yeah, the books really are amazing. There's some sweet concept art I had never seen for the set logos and the Knights of the Frozen throne logo, in particular, felt like "what were they even considering with this one". So great to see that development insight.
Also, Frost Lich Jaina in all her glory is an excellent sight to the eyes!
Oh and my favourite part about the art books as someone who has been using some of this art for content creation over the past 7 years is that I can think about almost every time and way I've used each of the pieces for banners, headers, news article images, and more.
Just a couple of months for Year of the Raven which is gonna be awesome!
I thought I actually removed that a while back, that's my bad.
It's not going to happen at this point so please spend away. January has just been too busy and stuff was not prepared in advance for the release. Poor judgment on my part assuming there would be some time to knock out a load of more rewards.
Snowflakes will still be usable next event though all old (current) rewards will have their costs increased so you are better off buying old rewards now (this was mentioned during the Halloween event).
I think some new details may come out for the new year, like their plans for the classic set, but I'm not expecting full-on expansion announcements. Maybe a name.
The new mode is definitely a given.
The pricing is a bit nuts considering it is more expensive than BlizzCon's normal Virtual Ticket bundle, but there also is more stuff.
For people only playing Hearthstone, this bundle isn't very worth it.
For myself, who plays World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and I occasionally dabble in other Blizzard games, the Epic bundle makes so much sense. I'm already happy about getting the Heroic pack because I've got a WoW mount + pet (which I would buy for that price alone because the mount looks amazing), so just looking at the Epic pack:
The inclusion of a 15% coupon on the Blizzard store is kinda nice. I don't really think I'll be buying anything anytime soon, but if people want something specific, it can be worth quite a bit of value. (Coupons can't be used for statues FWIW)
I'll be grabbing the epic pack and enjoying it.
I know this is a bit old at this point but I believe Wizards just had a much smaller device pool at the start of the launch to see how it all was going to work. They lowered the requirements and expanded the pool late yesterday (12 hrs ago), does your phone qualify now?
The Battlegrounds part is the only one I'm looking forward to!
Sorry Pezman, this is being done specifically so we can target a broader audience and to get more targetted discussion on each of the different subjects. Believe me, I'd love to just have a single post up covering everything that happens but the reality of the content game on the web these days doesn't make that a smart move. Headlines are tailored to getting picked up on the various platforms and algorithms which is less possible when we mash everything together.
Luckily, as you said, it isn't too often that we have to go crazy splitting stuff up. For the very large content drops though, I do think we could do a better job at following everything up with a singular recap more often. Splitting stuff into 2-3, maybe even 4 articles wouldn't really warrant it, but you can be on us doing a large recap for BlizzConline and then whenever we get information about the new year, which will almost without a doubt be chunked into at least half a done headlines.
Thanks for the love and feedback!
I can't disagree that this would be great, but there are a few moving pieces that makes this harder to do which is why I like us simply spotlighting community-made decks on the homepage and news feed instead, as Sinti pointed out.
The big one is communication. It can already be difficult to connect with the folks on the team due to timezones, it becomes much harder with potentially new people every week, using private messages and hopes that they respond. The amount of outreach to make it happen might be wasted time that could be better spent elsewhere. By keeping these big spotlights on the team, we have better control over what goes out and when it goes out. Also, this is all going to lead to something else in the near future which isn't going to be as open as creating a deck and writing a guide is; We're just getting things started.
While communication is the big one, we've also got stupid laws. Although our site terms and conditions make it quite clear that people are only allowed to post content they create on the site (not copy-pasting other people's stuff), that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen and it can be hard to vet this kind of stuff. If we link a deck in a round-up that includes content the user didn't make, so what? We'll delete the offending content and have someone else write a bit on it. If we make a whole news article out of it though, that article gets to vanish. There's a certain level of trust we have with people on the team, after all, they are bound by very different legal terms than anyone that just creates an account on the site, which makes needing a proper vetting process less required. Back to the terms and conditions though, we do have the authority to modify and reproduce content everyone creates on here. If we wanted to copy someone's deck guide and post it as a news article, we'd be more than entitled to doing so and no one could do anything about it if they no longer wanted it on the site. Realistically, I don't even see anything coming down to that, but it would be a bit of a dick move though so I really don't want to touch it.
I'm glad people are enjoying the longer-form content though and I hope that it encourages people to write some of it themselves. We don't have enough people writing good guides outside of the staff so if we can get to the point where that is more common, it would be fantastic.
I do want to open up our revenue sharing program to select deck creators in the future though, along with ownership related stuff so people can't just go on a blast and wipeout everything they've created on the site, so if that's something people are interested in, create some top-quality content to start building a portfolio to show us you know your stuff on a game knowledge side and on the other side of content formatting. I can't give you any specifics on it because it isn't something I'm ready to talk about yet (I'm still going through content creator applications from our last recruitment drive, it sucks being the head for everything at times :P) but when the time comes, we'll definitely make some kind of announcement and make it very clear what kind of criteria we're looking for.
Can confirm, Dean is correct. Down with M&C!
Yeah, honestly, Wretched Tiller is a junk card anyway so why can't they just leave it in its grave? lol
My guess is they foresee additional issues in the future with Hysteria so it makes more sense to change it instead.
Heads up!
We're in the final snowstorm and it's a big one! Until February starts, we've got less than ideal driving conditions and you'll be able to earn 100 snowflakes per day. Bank them for next year's event, spend them, or spread the love by throwing snowballs.
The store will remain open for the first two weeks in February, closing on Valentine's day.
Its a cache problem with some shared caches on avatars in a few parts of the site. The whole thing needs a huge revamp which I hope I can get to soon because it looks so bad >.>
Chrome on iOS isn't actually any different than Safari when it comes to the rendering engine. Apple doesn't allow other browsers to bring their own engines, I believe due to security concerns. Though there aren't too many differences between the base of Chrome and Safari, Firefox is also forced to use the Safari engine on iOS which is quite a bit different than the Gecko engine that runs under Firefox.
Silly Apple =(
Apparently, we can just put the normal image in with the video tags though and iOS should display the static version instead of the animated that it should. I'll make sure we get that out in the near future. This is also an issue with our golden cards so they'll need that love too.
By the way, we have a special bbcode available for cardbacks that isn't documented (seriously, how often would you need to embed one compared to a card).
{cardback}name or id{/cardback}
Will embed the webm version of the card back into your posts. Just be sure to use square brackets instead of the curlybois. Id numbers can be found in URLs, much like they can be for cards, if you want to use those instead of names.
Aye, I was sad that Frostmourne got zero love. I would have ninja'd it onto the list if I wanted to go full bias :D
The trio of Death Knight card backs are all actually really good. I wish it was possible to showcase multiple card backs in a match somehow. Like, maybe piles of cards at the side of the board just so I can really flex on my opponent. Blizzard, I'll pay $5 a slot to unlock said piles.
Ah, damn it Apple. You know, you'd assume that in 2021 they'd actually support webm in their browser. What a damn joke. For all the time they spent on enabling privacy across their hardware, would it really kill them to get up to date with web standards?
I thought once every other browser supported webm, we had won the format war.
It might work on Safari 14/14.3. It appears there is partial support for the codecs so if you aren't up to date, give that a shot!
The pizza card back is... special. Needs pineapple.
Also, olives don't belong on a pie!
Another amazing Draenei card back! Seriously though, Blizzard, can the other races get some love? hahaha
I don't see a world where we don't get all the ranked card backs to return, it'll just be a matter of time so I hope you're still around when it shows up again!
Go visit the card back pages and rate them all. If enough people do, we'll do a proper highlight =)
I finally opened my copy of the Year of the Mammoth book over the weekend and yeah, the books really are amazing. There's some sweet concept art I had never seen for the set logos and the Knights of the Frozen throne logo, in particular, felt like "what were they even considering with this one". So great to see that development insight.
Also, Frost Lich Jaina in all her glory is an excellent sight to the eyes!
Oh and my favourite part about the art books as someone who has been using some of this art for content creation over the past 7 years is that I can think about almost every time and way I've used each of the pieces for banners, headers, news article images, and more.
Just a couple of months for Year of the Raven which is gonna be awesome!
Thanks! I've been so damn good with it so far >.>
I thought I actually removed that a while back, that's my bad.
It's not going to happen at this point so please spend away. January has just been too busy and stuff was not prepared in advance for the release. Poor judgment on my part assuming there would be some time to knock out a load of more rewards.
Snowflakes will still be usable next event though all old (current) rewards will have their costs increased so you are better off buying old rewards now (this was mentioned during the Halloween event).