On the Blizzard Front
Posted by Azuriel
Remember when I talked about Blizzard news? Seems like just… today.
The big Hearthstone news is that the pricing information for the upcoming mini-expansion, Curse of Naxxramas, was revealed supposed to be revealed today. Normally, snarky posts like mine are kind of the reason Blizzard isn’t more forthcoming with information and release dates… but, you know, Naxx is still (?) going to be released this month. While I can understand how bugs and other issues can delay something’s release, the delay on pricing strikes me as odd. Like… is there still some debate? What variables could possibly be involved?
On average, someone can earn 420g per week by doing a daily quest, er, daily. There was “leak” a few days ago on some French website that suggests 600g per wing was the pricepoint. Going by the date stamps, the leak occurred after the announcement that July 1st wasn’t going to be the price reveal, although I’m not sure whether that strengthens or weakens the conspiracy theory that Blizzard is doing some roundabout market research. I suppose things might get awkward if Blizzard ultimately revealed that the actual price was 1000g or whatever, but again, I’m not sure what a few more days gets them. Other than people stockpiling gold for a few more days and possibly using real monies to purchase packs. /tinfoil
As a note of possible interest, I pretty much stopped logging on to Hearthstone more than a month ago. While I would like to say that it was because of the current absurdly non-interactive metagame (Miracle Rogues and Freeze Mages and Control Warriors, oh my!), the truth is a bit more mundane. Specifically, I was getting tired of getting creamed by netdecks. I don’t have anything against netdecking per se – it’s largely inevitable regardless – but it sort of necessitates a specific counter-strategy I don’t find particularly compelling anymore. “Warlock daily? I guess I’m playing Zoo or Handlock.” Sure, I could skip those quests or play my own goofy deck. And I did, for a while. But 420g doesn’t seem all that much when you go 3-8 every day. So I stopped. And like any MMO, the cessation of daily log-ins heralds the end.
I’ll be back for Naxxramas though, assuming the gold price isn’t absurd.
Posted on July 2, 2014, in Hearthstone and tagged Freeze Mage, Metagame, Miracle Rogue, Naxx, Netdeck, Price. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
In An Age 
I got this feeling the gold price will be higher than anticipated. The main goal after all, is to get people to spend real money. Sure there are side goals, like keeping people interacting with Blizzard games, but they are trying to monetize the game.
I too took a long break from HS, but have recently been playing casually. Usually a couple games every other night or so.
The exp seems interesting, but if it requires me to either grind way too much gold, or spend silly real money to unlock, there is a good chance I’ll just stop playing. Hard to say how much is too much, but you just sorta know it.
LikeLike
Same here. The way I figure things, either my current 1400g stockpile will be enough to coast through the wings (assuming I start doing dailies again), or it won’t… in which case, I’ll stop again.
All things considered though, I almost feel like a high gold price to encourage RMT would backfire for Hearthstone. There should be a big enough incentive to purchase packs with money just getting the Legendary cards.
LikeLike
I stopped logging in as well, even if it’s still on my desktop. I had fun in the beginning, but as the metagame crystallizes the games started to seem all identical, with everyone playing the same cards. When I start to feel that after two turns I can guess what will happen later the game is not interesting anymore. Also, I’m “F2P” (meaning I did not spend money), and I never did full grinding of quests, so I’m very low on legendaries, as a result several matches are even more random than they should be: unless I draw the right stuff to handle the legendaries, I’m dead…. end-of-story.
I’ll probably log in to play one wing if it’s free, otherwise I won’t bother.
LikeLike
I played HS and had some fun, but PVP with anonymous strangers just holds no interest for me. Unfortunately, PVP is the only way to do the dailies. If that changes with Naxxramas I might start again.
LikeLike