While we are on the topic of Battlegrounds, it's worth noting that the other week featured a certain relevant goodbye for the Hearthstone team and the community. It did fly a little under the radar, among all the flashy news of upcoming nerfs and reveals, but it's nonetheless one we feel is too important not to cover in greater detail. Namely - Conor Kou has left the playgrounds.
Quote From Conor Kou I've been given the opportunity to work something exciting and new at Blizzard! Which means that I’ll be taking a little break from working on Hearthstone and will no longer be working on Battlegrounds.It’s been a crazy experience to see Battlegrounds grow from a whacky idea into what it is now. There’s lots of cool content in the works! Can’t wait to see what the great minds of the Hearthstone team come up with for Battlegrounds in the future.
Now, if you're not familiar with the name in question yet call yourself a fan of this particular game mode, you should know we are talking about its main architect here. Why, one who was even proudly dubbed "the visionary" around these parts. If you have never seen the video below, it's recommended viewing: both to learn more about the man himself, and how one idea plus a lot of work could lead to the creation of something as unprecedented as Battlegrounds within Hearthstone.
You know what to do if you ever wish to design your own game mode.
Comments
Someone else also hates BGs as much as I do? Couldn't care less about it. Good that some people enjoy it though!
I don't really "hate it" and had my frenzied phase of playing mostly just BGs for a few months, but that did pass eventually. And since last summer my average has dropped to below 1 game a month. I still get the appeal, yet with limited time all other modes took far greater precedence for me. BGs doesn't feel rewarding in the long run, grinding the rating endlessly.
Thank you for Battlegrounds! <3
Hopefully Battlegrounds becomes a mode that rewards more than a measly amount of xp
"How a tavern brawl became Hearthstone battlegrounds"
How auto chess and tft inspired Hearthstone battlegrounds*
Perhaps it's worthwhile recognising that the fellow is characterising this as "taking a break" from HS - he might return. There are precedents for folks being shifted internally, then unshifted when they are no longer needed in their new "job" - Celestalon was shifted onto HS years ago (I can't remember where he was prior to HS), and solo-ed LoE initial design while other members of the team took holidays. He left HS after LoE and came back years later.
(source = Angry Chicken 400.)
We know that members of the HS team have been shifted internally from developing low-priority assets (we've only seen a few new TBs over the past year) to high-priority (all the expansions have been on-time, if not early, despite work-from-home orders.) It isn't too unlikely that such shifting is also taking place between different teams, in order to keep all the Blizz high-priority stuff on-time.
Yep, that would be what the larger paragraph below the video was exactly about. Of course as long as they all stay at Blizzard, there is always that opportunity to drop back in. And the "little break" could be anything from months to a year or more, depending on the project. It still doesn't look like Donais and Whalen will be free anytime soon.
I'm not too familiar with Celestalon's full history at Blizzard, but I believe he was very involved with World of Warcraft before moving onto HS team permanently. Back in the day such internal movements wouldn't make the news, but he and some others have become very prominent "faces" of the game since.
Every popular game has it's doomsayers. From Fortnite to Fallout, there are always a group of people who cannot help but to complain. It is the one of the few things I have seen consistent in every game, competitive or casual.
What does beta even mean anymore?
Battlegrounds is stil in beta because they are still changing core aspects of the game like the Darkmoon prizes or the variable health system they mentioned a while ago.
Aside from Darkmoon Prizes coming in temporarily, I am actually surprised how little in terms of core mechanics they have touched over the past two expansions (for something that is technically still in beta). Damage calculations, health, etc. Tokens still seem to do stupid things based on random spawns and arbitrarily assigned star/tavern tier amounts.
I'm not necessarily saying that Blizzard did it for this reason, but nowadays I feel like most people who call their games a "beta" just call it that to deflect criticism.
For me "Beta" means "No entry fee and no rewards".
For me beta means marketing scam
It reminds me of Warframe, a game which will always be in beta.
No, I loved that guy. He got the idea for the most creative new thing for Hearthstone for years. I will miss him. I hope he can create some awesome new thing within Blizzard.
Hopefully now we can get some changes to the mech tribe.