I’ve lived a good life. I’ve had wonderful family, amazing jobs, and food on my plate.
But I haven’t played Hearthstone, and sometimes jealousy still gets the better of me. This week, Chris Perry, MMO Reporter‘s head honcho, joins me on the show this week to brag about playing the game at PAX East and talk about his impressions of the game.
We also take a look at hands-on impressions posted around the web, and talk about the little things that those lucky souls found while playing the game, and how they liked it.
Download The Happy Hearthstone #3: People Who Played It
Subscribe to The Happy Hearthstone Podcast on iTunes or via RSS!
The Links
- Sign up for the beta!
- Watch the trailer
- Watch the announcement video
- Visit the official website
- If you simply must hear Chris and Josh talk together for 50+ more hours
Hello!
- Chris is on the show this week
- Topic: Hands-on impressions from people who’ve played Hearthstone
- Reasons to be happy this week?
Who is Chris?
- Founder of MMO Reporter network
- Cool dude
- Played Hearthstone at PAX
The Hearthstone Panel
- What was it like?
- How excited were people there?
- What was your favorite part?
The PAX Demo Station
- How long was the line?
- Did you overhear people saying anything about their impressions?
- How long did it seem to take to complete a match?
Chris’ impressions
- What mode did you play?
- What hero did you pick
- What was your favorite card you played?
- Any cool special effects?
- How responsive was the UI?
- Seems pretty in the screenshots–pretty in motion, too?
- First impressions: Fun?
- Are people too hyped, not hyped enough, or just right for this?
Other impressions
Simon Sage @ iMore
“For example, you can see which cards your opponent is fiddling with during gameplay.”
Matt Daniel @ Massively
“One last thing I wanna mention is kind of silly, but it made me smile. Since my character was a Horde character, the game’s play area was Horde-themed, with an Orcish hut in one corner, a catapult in another, and so forth. To my surprise, these turned out to be interactable objects, and I could actually drag a rock into the catapult and then fling it at my opponent, or I could poke the Orcish hut and cause it to belch fire from its chimney stack. I don’t know whether my opponent could see it, and it had no effect on the game at all, but it was silly and fun. I appreciate things that are silly and fun.”
Caitlin Cooke @ Desctructoid
“After selecting a hero, players start out with five cards in their hand and are able to switch out one card of their choosing for a random card in the deck (aka the traditional “mulligan” stage). I found this to be a really neat concept that puts the power into the player’s hand vs leaving it up to chance.”
Sardu @ Ten Ton Hammer
“For example, knowing I was up against a mage, I expected that Fell would no doubt have some minor minions to harass me early on while he built up enough mana each round to eventually unleash a ton of direct damage.
Meanwhile, my warlock was less about massive damage throughout but was able to play a game of attrition thanks to a number of minions or abilities that would heal my character. By mid-game I took a gamble and began holding my most damaging cards – those that did X damage to everything on the board – paired with one larger heal. The idea here was that I’d give Fell a false sense of security by allowing him to take my health dangerously low, before pulling out the big guns in two devastating rounds.
That strategy almost worked, but the match had progressed long enough that Fell was able to smack me in the face with two fireballs, each one doing 6 points of direct damage to my avatar. Even though Fell walked away victorious, he also had that “crap, that was a close match!” look on his face as we stepped back from our demo stations.”
Card of the Week
Don’t hit me, hit the big Shield Bearer!
Farewell
- Follow Chris on Twitter
- Win free stuff on Defiance Reporter
- Thanks to Gh0st11_98 for the kind iTunes review!
- What you want to see in future episodes
- What hosts you want to visit the show
Join The Podcast
- SUBSCRIBE to The Happy Hearthstone podcast on iTunes or this RSS feed.
- FOLLOW me on Twitter or Google+
- MEET new Hearthstone friends and discuss deck strategies and the latest game news in our Google+ Community.
- PLAY with us in Hearthstone, whenever we actually get into beta!