Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is Blizzard's first F2P

Blizzard announced Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft today at PAX East. The free-to-play online collectible card game is set in the Warcraft universe.

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Today at Blizzard's PAX East panel, the company announced Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. The collectible card strategy game is Blizzard's first stab at the free-to-play model, allowing players to compete as heroes from nine WoW classes, all set in the Warcraft universe.

In a series of video demonstrations, Blizzard showed off opening a "pack" of cards, trashing duplicate cards to make a more powerful one, and the deck-building tools. The game will either suggest cards that you might want to put in your deck, or just auto-create a deck by type. Playing one-on-one online battles will boost your medal ranking, which is managed through Battle.net. The game is aiming for a spectator element as well, as Blizzard showed off a game match with shoutcasting commentary.

Blizzard says it will have roughly 300 cards available at launch, among common, rare, epic, and legendary types. Each pack, which can be earned or purchased, will net you five cards. The brief glimpse at game showed an animated board with a battle between a Mage and a Warrior.

It will launch on Windows and Mac first, then iPad shortly thereafter. Blizzard is planning a beta this summer, with a release later this year. If you're attending PAX East, you can play it on PC and iPad this weekend.

The game is being developed by a separate Blizzard team of about 15 members, who are tasked with faster development cycles and experimental games instead of the studio's usual big-budget titles.

You can sign up for the beta and the newly launched official site.

Editor-In-Chief
From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 22, 2013 7:25 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is Blizzard's first F2P.

    Blizzard announced Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft today at PAX East. The free-to-play online collectible card game is set in the Warcraft universe.

    • reply
      March 22, 2013 7:26 AM

      freemium is a better term as packs cost $1/each

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      March 22, 2013 7:34 AM

      [deleted]

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        March 22, 2013 8:19 AM

        I hope its not "Titan"

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        March 22, 2013 8:26 AM

        "collectible card game "

        it couldnt possibly be any more underwhelming.

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          March 22, 2013 8:33 AM

          Unless you're me and it couldn't possibly be any more exciting!

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            March 22, 2013 9:53 AM

            I agree. It looks nice. Hoepfully this will force Wizards of the Coast to spend more resources on Magic Online.

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              March 22, 2013 9:56 AM

              I really wish Magic Online could just use Magic 2013's interface, albeit with more cards (obviously).

              It's just so much nicer looking.

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          March 22, 2013 1:15 PM

          Yeah -_-

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        March 22, 2013 10:24 AM

        Their "hype" consisted of like two sentences.

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          March 22, 2013 10:45 AM

          [deleted]

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            March 22, 2013 11:48 AM

            So two sentences, a Title, and a date. They hardly spun up the huge hype wheel they usually do. This was never going to be some earth shattering announcement, or they would have saved it for Blizzcon later this year.

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      March 22, 2013 8:40 AM

      Is it compatible with their existing card game? Does this mean that they might be dropping it?

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      March 22, 2013 8:43 AM

      The game is being developed by a separate Blizzard team of about 15 members, who are tasked with faster development cycles and experimental games instead of the studio's usual big-budget titles.

      I'm not a CCG fan, but the thought of a team at Blizzard just spitting out small experimental stuff is very cool.

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        March 22, 2013 1:24 PM

        Agreed, if this is one of the things we get out of it so be it. As long as some one over there is trying to inovate instead of rehash I'll be happy.

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      March 22, 2013 8:51 AM

      All that buildup for this? Wtf is this shit :(

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        March 22, 2013 8:56 AM

        What build up? All I remember was "We have something new to show you", followed by them saying "It's not an MMO or Titan", and the Blizzard DOTA wouldn't be new.

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          March 22, 2013 9:26 AM

          We (friends) kinda went kinda nuts on just the announcement, so i guess it is our own fault. Still... meh. :(

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      March 22, 2013 9:21 AM

      All that money they have, and what do they make? A virtual card game. Whatever...?

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      March 22, 2013 9:22 AM

      [deleted]

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      March 22, 2013 9:27 AM

      I'm going to try it. I just got into magic recently and a simplified version I could play with my wife sounds awesome.

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      March 22, 2013 9:32 AM

      Somewhat interested.

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      March 22, 2013 9:47 AM

      Sounds cool to me.

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      March 22, 2013 10:29 AM

      I think this looks pretty sweet. Especially if it's on iPad. The presentation, UI and animations look really awesome. We will see if the gameplay hold up, and we will see just how annoying their in-app purchase nagging is.

      It may also make Wizard's of the Coast realize how shitty the Duels of the Planeswalkers UI is.

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        March 22, 2013 4:00 PM

        Duels of the Planeswalkers has the worst UI ever. Why should theirs be so bad while Ascension's and most other's be so good?

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          March 22, 2013 5:06 PM

          And slow as balls on an iPad too. I'm sure blizzard will do better.

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            March 22, 2013 5:24 PM

            I'm certain of it, DoP is the exception to the rule. Why is everything else so smooth and intuitive?

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      March 22, 2013 11:32 AM

      ugh, not another card game

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      March 22, 2013 11:55 AM

      Yo Blizzard...EA Sports called. They want their Ultimate Team back!

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      March 22, 2013 12:12 PM

      I was hoping for Thrall Desktop Stories and Raynor Desktop Adventures for the Windows operating system

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      March 22, 2013 1:24 PM

      yeah. woo. cards woo. can't wait to play some cards.

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        March 22, 2013 1:49 PM

        To be fair, it might be a decent ipad game.

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          March 22, 2013 1:57 PM

          we have a laptop with a rotatable touch screen, should be good

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        March 22, 2013 2:22 PM

        also can't wait to hear people pronounce it "hurth stone" and make me want to kill myself

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          March 22, 2013 2:33 PM

          That's one that anyone with a basic understanding of English should be able to pronounce, but sometimes I wish the place names in games like WoW came with a damn pronunciation guide. I mean, how the fuck do you say "Auchindoun", really?

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            March 22, 2013 2:57 PM

            Aw-kin-doon? Aw-kin-down? Aw-SHIN-doon? lol, no idea I always wondered that myself.

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              March 22, 2013 3:00 PM

              I always pronounced it "Aw-kin-down" in my head but I'm not even remotely convinced that that's correct.

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            March 22, 2013 2:58 PM

            I eventually settled on pronouncing that as "fuck the Shadow Labyrinth"

            Seriously, I always said it as "O-kin-do-in"

            I think because it was easy to say that way haha

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      March 22, 2013 2:26 PM

      what is happening to blizzard

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        March 22, 2013 2:32 PM

        They've had a CCG version of WoW for several years now, this isn't exactly out of the blue or unsurprising.

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        March 22, 2013 2:34 PM

        they're making games and making money?

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          March 22, 2013 2:48 PM

          just strange to see them make small games thats all

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            March 22, 2013 7:04 PM

            Yeah, I can see that. I think its awesome though and I wish they would have more smaller games. They certainly have the staff and money to do so.

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      March 22, 2013 2:55 PM

      All they need to do is have this game give you mounts and pets in WoW to make this a massive success.

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      March 22, 2013 3:08 PM

      [deleted]

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        March 22, 2013 3:20 PM

        I must agree. The "blind buy" model is such a deterrent for me when it comes to card packs.

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          March 22, 2013 4:49 PM

          [deleted]

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            March 22, 2013 6:04 PM

            Oh really? So it's possible to "build" the rare?

            That's my main gripe: games should be determined by a player’s deck building skills and play strategies, rather than who spent the most money in pursuit of hard-to-find ultra rare cards.

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      March 22, 2013 3:14 PM

      Be kind of neat is if you can acquire cards for this game via intergame activity. IE playing Battlegrounds on WoW and earning enough honor/rep

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      March 22, 2013 3:15 PM

      Posting to indicate how much I don't care.

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      March 22, 2013 3:22 PM

      Buying the crap out of this on iPad

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      March 22, 2013 4:39 PM

      I am so fucking pumped to play this. It is right up my alley and it looks great. Summertime needs to happen yesterday.

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      March 22, 2013 6:28 PM

      I love the idea of the Forge mode. Its basically draft/sealed, something I haven't seen in any of the other iOS or PC card games I've played.

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      March 22, 2013 6:45 PM

      [deleted]

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