It’s been a year since I downloaded the beta client for Blizzard Entertainment’s card game, “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” based upon the MMORPG that stole lives before it. To quickly summarize, it’s a game quite like Magic: The Gathering, in which two players build decks of disparate types and work to eliminate each other. The mechanics are simple, but the cards are numerous, allowing depth and long-term variety beyond the game’s simple randomly drawn card system.
The game maintains interest in spite of its roots. The Warcraft franchise is perhaps one of the most obnoxious and meme-ridden series in existence; nearly every piece of voice acting is grating, much of the art is hideous and the music dulls in comparison to most video games. “Hearthstone” survives these aesthetic elements by being responsive and satisfying in its own inherent qualities. Small elements, like the way a card looks as it’s being played, give the game a cinematic edge over its paper counterparts.
Purporting to be “free to play,” “Hearthstone” is less viable to play for free than “Candy Crush Saga” or “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.” A player is set to compete by spending $25 on the “Curse of Naxxramas” expansion alongside perhaps $5 or $10 in packs. That’s still $5 less than most budget titles on consoles, so I’m willing to defend that as not exploitative, but maybe they really should consider requiring players to buy the expansion to begin at this point.
Seeing the way these cards interact is the reason to endure “Hearthstone’s” more distressing elements. In the world of video games, it’s most comparable to fighting games. The game is a series of choices that begin before the match does, when the player chooses one of the game’s nine classes (including archetypes like Mage, Paladin and Druid) and constructs their deck. In practice, the goal is to make choices that protect yourself and force your opponent to make worse choices. Fighting games, like “Super Smash Bros.” and “Street Fighter,” operate similarly but require well-trained reflexes to execute with expertise. Even strategy games like “StarCraft” or online battle games like “League of Legends” force the players to operate while measuring their “actions per minute” in order to play competitively. “Hearthstone” removes this speed, making for a more accessible high-level experience.
“Hearthstone” has issued only a handful of balance changes over the year it’s been released; apart from two expansions that introduced several new cards, only seven cards have been altered since it officially launched in April. The most recent of these was what seems like a simple change; the “Undertaker” card, released in August, was altered so that its effect would no longer grant it extra health. This, temporarily, has led to the removal of this card from most competitive decks entirely, despite its previous place as one of the most commonly used cards in the game. But what is more interesting is how its removal has changed the role of other cards. The “Undertaker” was best as an early game card, costing next to no resources and growing over time. With it gone for now, slower strategies have more viability, meaning the responses one has to plan are completely different.
This kind of shift is what ultimately leads players to stand by “Hearthstone.” Despite being a game regularly derided as “pay to win” (it’s not, so long as you’re willing to spend money on what equates to a starter set in other card games) and overly random, it is a game whose play swings wildly with the smallest changes. In essence, it’s not the broad strokes that can be painted in an overview, but the nuances of how the game shifts from session to session, the experimentation required to remain successful, and the intuition that comes from standing by the game for some time that make it a rewarding experience. If that sounds like a defense, it probably is one. I’m still getting over being embarrassed by the way every single player avatar seems to sarcastically sneer the words “Well played” in each and every game.
What games have you been playing lately? Let Alex know at alexlovendahl@gmail.com
