#18 - The Angry Chicken: “It’s Pronounced Saveech”
• Garrett • Dills • Jocelyn
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Intro: Welcome to The Angry Chicken!
It was Dills’ birthday last week and I missed it. I am a terrible friend and cohost. Happy belated birthday to Dills!
News
Hearthstone Developer Interviews
Hearthstone developers Ben Brode and Eric Dodds doled out interviews to several sites this week, including Hearthpwn.com. We have a link to the entire interview in our show notes, but here's the highlights:
Headlines
- There are going to be class specific cards that are obtained from adventures.
- Spectator mode will not be ready for release, but it is high on the priority list based on community feedback.
- There are no plans to implement an API available to the community, but if many people want it, they can look at implementing it. (This would directly help with things like Dills' janky spreadsheet solution for tracking game stats - Tash) (yes, it's JANKY - Tash)
- arenamastery.com
Release
- Battle.net Global Play should be available at release.
- The reconnect feature should also be available and it is currently being worked on.
- Card backs and Golden heroes are rewards which are being implemented for launch.
Economy / Rewards
- There are no specifics to announce yet regarding the new heroes which will be introduced for real money. The concept is currently in the early stages.
- The developers are very happy at the current state at which players earn gold and get packs. The real reward for Hearthstone should be playing the game! (Yes, but earning gold and spending it directly contributes to playing the game! :) - Tash)
Game Design
- There is about a three percent advantage for going first over going second. Less of an advantage at lower levels of play. (Lack of understanding how to exploit tempo advantages at lower ranks? - Tash)
- There are currently no plans to implement an armor cap for heroes.
- Dragon cards originally worked together a bit through a "guy who would interact with them", but it never made the cut.
- Dragons are iconic and cool Warcraft characters, they deserve the flair.
- Card races are cool, and we might see more of them in the future.
- They are happy with the way Pirates turned out, not every card race has to work like the Murlocs.
- Nine deck slots keeps things manageable, and works with the UI design philosophy of making it feel physical. (Maybe allowing copy/paste of "deck codes" from fan sites to quickly build a deck would get around this limitation? Or maybe that encourages 'prebuilt' mentality too much, which was something WoW has battled in the past - Tash)
Adventure Mode
- The structure for adventures is still in the works.
- Rewards for adventures are cards (20-30) and getting to experience the adventure itself.
- Adventures are played against the AI. The human component of them comes from the experiences on the ladder.
- There are no current plans for co-op adventures.
- The team is working hard on balancing the new cards to keep them interesting but not overpowered.
...and another interview with Brode and Dodds, this time from IHearthU.com:
Dodds: "...really what we’re doing right now is while we’re trying to finish the game we’re paying a lot of attention to the eSports community and seeing what features are most important. As we do that, we’re going to go “Okay, these are the things we really have to get in there” and then start working on that shortly after ship. Exactly when we get in what feature depends because there’s a whole lot of features people are looking for."
In response to questions about random cards like Nat Pagle and Tinkmaster, Ben Brode:
"You know, I’d actually like to talk about randomness a bit. Randomness doesn’t necessarily reduce the amount of skill a game requires. You could imagine that if you could order the cards in your deck and play them out, you could learn the order of those cards and how to play them correctly. But REALLY good players will be able to think on their feet and figure out how to solve a board state that they’ve never seen before or ANYONE’S ever seen before. That’s a really tough thing to do and randomness actually gives you a lot of disparate and different board states that you’ve never seen or thought of before. The best players can take advantage of randomness better than other players. I think even with random effects, it doesn’t necessarily reduce the skill required to play the game. In fact, I think it increases the amount of skill required if you do it correctly. Let’s take Tinkmaster. In Tinkmaster’s case, you can Tinkmaster your opponents minion and hope it’s a 1-1 or you can use the battlecry so that no matter what that minion turns into you’re in a better position. If you save a card that can deal with a 5-5, you can plan around it to make it beneficial to you."
Links
Cool site that runs constant tournaments for fun!
Haven’t fully tested this but it seems really cool. I would love to hear what you guys think about this and I will be testing it as well.
Links
Strategy
Legendary Replacements (Joce loves this!!!)
There’s a great article on ihearthu.com by a poster named TheWaterBoiler which has some great suggestions for what to use in place of legendaries when netdecking. Let’s go through them shall we?
http://ihearthu.com/not-so-legendary-the-legendary-replacement-guide/
Crazy Game Stories
Milkshake Drinking at its Finest!
Hey TAC Crew!
Here's my crazy game story. I was quick-leveling after the reset with my cheap Warlock Murloc deck when I came across a Priest. Turn 6 I had him down to 11 life when I summoned Elite Tauren Chieftan. Then I dropped Murloc Tidecaller and coined Grimscale Oracle. Turn 7, the priest Thoughtsteals me and drops a Tidecaller he took from me and Power Word Death's my ETC. My Turn 7 I play Warleader and I Am Murloc to fill my board and attack his face down to 1 health. Turn 8, he plays his own Warleader that he also stole from me and his own I Am Murloc that ETC gave him, summoning 5 Murlocs which brought his Tidecaller up to 19 attack and he hit me in the face with it to bring me down to 1 and Holy Smited me in the face for the win. He drank my milkshake! He drank it UP!
Love the show, keep it up!
JMTibbles
p.s. Happy Birthday Dills!
For the other two, how about the Deathwing (Joce) and Faceless Manipulator (Garrett) plays from the Tourney? (Below)
apDrop (Rogue) vs Kisstafer (Warlock)
apDrop plays out all his cards (2 Argent Squires, Azure Drake, Bloodmage Thalnos, The Black Knight). Kisstafer has no cards except Deathwing. Bring on Turn 10. Kisstafer threatens apDrop, throws down Deathwing (destroys only the one Dark Iron Dwarf that was in his hand)... *side note: Deathwing gives your opponent a card?* and passes it back to apDrop. apDrop top decks Tinkmaster, and to add insult to injury turns Deathwing into a squirrel. apDrop comes back to win the game with Leeroy Jenkins. *side note #2: I have never seen so many Leeroys as I saw this weekend!*
apDrop (Mage) vs Savjz (Druid)
Savjz plays Ancient of War and roots him, making it a 5/10 with Taunt. apDrop buffs his Loot Hoarder with the Dark Iron Dwarf and attacks for 4, then Frostbolts for 3 more damage. Savjz then heals the Ancient, plays a Faceless Manipulator and then has 2 5/10s with taunt on the board, which actually gets a “Welp” out of apDrop. apDrop goes straight to the face with a Pyro. Savjz then pulls and plays a Rag. Between Rag, the Ancients and a hero power next turn, that’s game!
Emails
Brys
Hey guys and Jocelyn,
I've started playing more constructed after the recent reset and I'm not sure where to start to put together a good couple of decks. Dills often mentions finding new decks but I don't see a link to them on the latest show notes. Where do you find new decks? And when you mention cool new decks could you link to them from the show notes?
Chad H
I have a question on how the observer mode would work. I could see it being used as a way to cheat. What would stop someone from having 2 accounts and having the second account observe your match. You would be able to see your opponents hand.
Love the show.
Craig
Hey folks,
Just wanted to give a public shout-out to Dills and let everyone know how awesome a personalized training session with him is. We spent time working on fundamentals, constructed deck building and arena draft. It was a great experience and well worth the donation. I was considering just buying decks with my money, but you can always earn cards and you can’t earn a Dills ;)
In case other people are thinking of doing a session, perhaps Dills could talk about the info etc. I sent him ahead of time and how people might prepare so they get the most out of their time?
Keep it up!
Outro
iTunes Thanks
- Thosmorg (Canada)
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. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio. Go to mobile.alphageekradio.com.
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
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