#9 - The Angry Chicken: “Title”
w/ Ben Brode
• Garrett • Dills • Jocelyn
Sponsors:
The Angry Chicken is proudly sponsored by Doghouse Systems.com. If you use the code TAC at checkout, you will get double memory on your next Doghouse System.
Intro: Welcome to The Angry Chicken! The Hearthstone podcast for try-hards.
Ben Brode Interview
BlizzCon
Development
The Future
Here is the Team Liquid post Ben was talking about in the interview regarding the mistakes that were made during the Innkeeper’s Invitational:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=436654
News
Beta Testers survey points to many possible new features
Some of the options for game features
Options for premium features
Links
2P Hearthstone Tournament
“We are glad that we join hands with 17173 (the biggest game media in China) to host this cross-region Hearthstone Tournament. There will be qualifier in both NA and CN server. Top 4 players of each qualifier form a team. We will offer North American players 4 Chinese Hearthstone Accounts. (one account per player and these 4 accounts have all cards, which can build any of your decks).The winner team will win 20,000RMB (about 3,200 dollars). Let’s see who will take their best shot at winning the honor.”
Prizes
Winning Team: 20,000 RMB ( about $3,200)
Runner-up Team: 10,000 RMB (about $1,641)
Schedule
Registration: 13th Nov – 29th Nov PST
NA Qualifier: 1st Dec (ro128 to ro32)– 2nd Dec (ro32 to ro1) 2PM PST
Grand Final: 7th Dec, 8PM PST
Links
Emails
Jayson
Hello All,
Been playing a lot of Arena lately and would like to get your comments on deck building. Do you think that the choice between 3 cards is sufficient? It makes it terribly difficult to make a deck with variety. I'm finding that to be competitive I have to make the same aggro deck regardless of which hero I choose. Would a choice between say 5-6 cards allow more flexibility in deck design?
Similarly, do you feel the hero powers add enough play style to be competitive for each deck design? For example, in Magic (I was a huge Magic player for years) you could draft a blue/white deck and use bounce or wrath effects to retain board control against both aggro and control decks. Running black or red allows controlled removal with either aggro or pump effects as win conditions and are also equally viable in control or aggro games. I feel in the current arena setting if I don't have a creature on board by turn 2 it's almost an autoscoop and definitely by turn 3. It's almost impossible to catch up.
Arthur
Wants to talk about possible expansions.
We have at this point of time in Hearthstone a total of 251 cards, 138 Class and 113 Neutral. With about 15 cards per class with one Legendary per class (except the Shaman and Druid with 16 and 17 class cards), and 25 Neutral Legendaries.
The Meat:
If an Expansion comes out my suggestion to bring it in line with the existing game is to sell the expansion for $10. Now with the procurement of the expansion the individual will receive three free packs that will only contain the new expansion cards. One new Hero (either the Death Knight or Monk since those are the only two classes that haven’t been added to the game as of yet), which will contain one new legendary and 20 class cards.
The expansion will also contain 36 new Neutral cards, five new class cards per class and 4 new legendaries (the legendaries will be part of the total of the Neutral cards). This will bring altogether 203 class cards and 149 Neutral cards with a grand total to 342 cards. To me this seems like a lot of material for a fair price, and like you have said before it has to be balanced.
If there’s time:
I am inquisitive about a certain thing, and that is with Cryptozoic. Cryptozoic who made the original T.C.G. for Blizzard had, what they called Loot cards which were pets, mounts or vanity items for the World of Warcraft game. Is Blizzard hindered from using the same thing for Hearthstone? I can not see Blizzard approving the idea of a card like the Swift Spectral Tiger Mount card being sold anywhere between $600 to $1000. What I can see is that Blizzard selling that card on their online store for $25 dollars and it being a dual purpose, you get a Hearthstone Epic card and a in game mount for W.O.W. This can be done with the existing pets and mounts that are in game as well. I would personally like to see Lil’ Ragnaros card come into play with a voice of a three year old saying “You woke me to soon”. Now these cards would be Gold Epic or Rare cards (Legendaries might be to powerful). I don’t think it should be craftable in game it would take away from the in game store. But they could not make or break a game. Even “Dill’s” who doesn’t like to spend money in the online store would think twice on whether or not to spend money for something like this.
Outro
iTunes Thanks
The Angry Chicken is a production of Amove.tv and the Frogpants Studios. You can see more about this and all the other A-move shows at Amove.tv. And make sure to check out all the other fine show over at Frogpants.com as well! You can also email the show at
Catch the live show Monday nights at 10pm Eastern on Twitch.tv/Amovetv.
Follow the show on Twitter @TACpodcast
Follow Garrett on @GarrettArt
Follow Dills @WillieDills
Follow Jocelyn @GISgamer
Thanks to Brian Griffith, the musician responsible for our intro music. He can be found at briangriffithmusic.com or @briangriffith on twitter.
NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.
Dill’s where else can everyone find you?
The Instance - The World of Warcraft podcast so you don’t have to
TortureCast - A podcast by and for fans of the San Francisco Giants
MGA MedioCast - A podcast about the Mediocre Golf Association
And Joce where can you be found?
The Gamers’ Inn
DogHouse Network
Don’t forget to check out our sponsors:
Our code, TAC, will get you double-memory on your next Doghouse gaming rig.