We started with Warcraft III (one of the greatest real time strategy games ever) where you got hundreds upon thousands of hours of enjoyment for the price tag of like 30 dollars (60 dollars for the Frozen Throne expansion) and the game was updated at no cost to the player. Then we got World of Warcraft that took that RTS experience and transformed it into a MMORPG that at some point had 12 million players at its peak, and with all the patches and updates amounted to an amazing shared experience with players across the world for over a decade. Then finally we got hearthstone. Which is like if someone took the concept of warcraft, and decided to fart out a digital card game experience based on it. Don’t get me wrong, Hearthstone equates to hours upon hours of enjoyment for free against players across the world, but when you compare all three experiences, Warcraft RTS and World of Warcraft were really immersive and polished games. Hearthstone is like getting together to play Uno with friends when you are bored and need a break from real games.
When is Blizzard gonna release a game with as much renown as their previous titles? Warcraft Reforged and WOW Classic releases were just sad.
Probably never. The company of old is done.
Hearthstone engenders anger and resentment because we all miss the games we fell in love with.
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I think there is some truth to what you say. That feeling that players once got from WoW is practically gone now. I remember HS’s core audience being a lot less negative in the beginning and praising each expansion.
I don’t know those days will ever return.
I think the anger usualy comes from players that thinks HS is serious competitive game, players that do not accept HS for what it truly is.
Also some players arent ready for CCG monetization - money milking.
I used to be mad because I wanted a game where my “skill” and decision making would make a huge difference and a game where I would get a value for my money.
Then I have realized HS isnt that type of a game I am looking for (skill doesnt impact the performance in significant way, value for cash spent is insignificant) so I am way less mad lately because I have accepted HS for what it trully is - good looking casual game with some insane combos and RNG that can leave you laughing when something crazy happens or when you (or your opponent) makes some crazy turn.
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I didn’t.
But you are around these forums enough to see people who do claim to hate it. Constantly. And yet they keep playing. My question is, why?
Sure. It could also be an issue of sampling bias. Most players who are happy with a game don’t go to the company forums (or the game’s Steam community page) to sing it’s praises. But people who are unhappy certainly do. Does Blizzard have an image problem? Certainly! Between their more lackluster recent titles (like Reforged and BfA) and terrible PR (Blitzchung’s thing, the 800 fired employees, killing HGC), they clearly have issues. But I’m arguing that those issues have little to do with the anger you see in the forums. A lot of that anger is (IMO) much more about people who seem unable to stop playing a game they don’t find fun. And because whatever makes the game unfun isn’t going away, Blizzard’s giveaways don’t matter. Which once again raises the question of why they’re playing a game they hate, and they believe will never get better.
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I agree with almost everything you said. I myself still enjoy playing, although I really dislike the matching. I wonder if players who seem to truly hate the game are only acting out, to vent their anger and then once that is done they can go back to playing? I know I have been guilty of this in the past.
But I think you make good sense with regards to Blizzard’s image.
A lot of self inflicted wounds and a dev team that rarely interacts with it’s player base makes it easy for others to spin the narrative and probably does foster the attitude that whatever free items are offered are nothing compared to the insane profits that blizz makes off the game.
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I feel like people hate losing more than they hate the game (generally); more specifically, they hate how they perceive the losses happening. The game puts the natural desire to be in control of events against the fact that in the game (as in life) events are mostly random… starting from the order the cards are shuffled in to what cards are offered by the designers etc. It’s a stark reality that’s difficult to form illusions around. If you’re not satisfied with what you can control in the game, it’s probably going to suck. Just a guess… but who knows really.
The OP reported me last season multiple multiple times for saying that sooooo many people reached legend status. Blizzard kept reinstating my posts every time. And tens of thousands legend players later here we are.
Blizz is giving away legend status, ingratiating all of those new players. I take every one of this joker’s posts with a grain of salt…
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i think you have the straight of this. But I also think that Blizzard could do a better job of making players feel that the company cares about their opinions and the state of the game.
What are those games? Smaller companies and especially indie developers generally care more for their audience because that’s a big “advantage” that they can have. Blizzard just doesn’t “need” to do this because they’re already a “big player” and has the resources to do all this awesome and amazing stuff which others could not do. That’s probably the reason I’d say.
I personally can just say I really like the game. But yeah, maybe I’m in the minority. I don’t know.
The best example I can give is Path of Exile. Totally F2P and it’s player base is as loyal as they come, even though the game became boring for me several expansions ago.
They seem to have no problem making a profit with a f2p model that keeps their player base loyal and supportive.
I don’t think it would work in HS because in my opinion HS missed the boat with card backs. They should have made monthly’s and achievement backs free and then offered all else for sale.
I think that way they could have been more generous with card packs etc. and the player base likely would have rewarded them by buying additional cosmetics under the perception that they were directly supporting their favorite game.
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The developers Grinding Gear Games don’t even have a german Wikipedia page. So they are clearly much much smaller in scale.
As I said I think Blizzard doesn’t do it because they don’t “need to” and the smaller companies do it because that is one thing they “can take advantage from”.
Yeah, I really like the idea. I also wish they would focus more or even just only on cosmetics.
But the reason is I suspect just because they don’t “need to” as they can get away with doing it this way. You know, “too big to fail”. And they do it how it is currently because it gets them overall more money. I also don’t really like it, but that is what we got.
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A simple example to showcase,
We as players can do a better job on our ladder rank, yet why we don’t?
Same application applies to the company that may lack resources or expertise.
Until we are able to resolve the fundamentals at root, recurring issue will always resurface.
Hearthstone is really not a typical video game, such as Mario and God of War.
You don’t “experience” anything.
The only “fun” factor is to stomp your opponent.
Only one player has “fun”. The other player feels the pain.
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It’s interesting. Blizzard is the only company I’ve felt regularly insulted by, to the point where I do indeed wonder if it’s a marketing strategy to stop the player from taking things for granted.
It doesn’t work for me. I unsubbed from WoW a year ago and haven’t bought a HS pack in 3 years. I actually just had enough of the “we know better” attitude while they wrecked things I used to enjoy. I’m playing other games where I do feel they’re making games for their customer and not their egos.
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I started playing this game beacuse I like TCGs or in this case CCGs, not beacuse of some love for a company nor some nostalgia towards epic fantasy. Over the years it has been blantly shown that the team of creators are mediocre at best, as to their standars of quality and ideas in regards to balance, add to that some very angrying practices like the rigged matchmaking that now a days is not just only known to all but condoned and even celebrated and the fact that every time a new patch rolls up somthing gets screwed in one way or another.
What felt like something that started like a very simple and convinient product that one, as a player, felt good supporting, growed into a moster that’s both horrible and scary in the ways in wich tries to scam their player base out of their money to the point that whenever a “reward” or positive change gets implemeted it just feels like the company saying “throw them some leftovers so that we can keep milking them.”
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Was thinking about this today
I also think it weird they very rarely reply to posters in their official forums but use reddit & twitter instead
I know they get attacked here a lot but it feels like they just abandoned things - their answer (if they ever read this) would probably be about being attacked en masse but then they need to understand that people are passionate and they aren’t addressing things (not advocating rudeness on players’ parts that is just not on)
I also think this constant “release, power creep, nerf, release, power creep, nerf” cycle needs to be addressed - ppl get upset, riled up then “kind of” placated but the cycle continues
I genuinely do not think the devs care anymore - feels like players have more passion for the game - Devs & streamers seem to be fixated on sycophancy and money
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Blizzard is in “milking” mode.
The last real game it made is Starcraft 2.
Lots of smart people loss their “real” jobs in a recession.
Hopefully, they can team up and create small innovative companies to challenge it.
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I think this sentence really captures the essence of the issue. But these people need to be able to see it for themselves, and sadly this toxic codependency blinds the said player to the truth that at the end of the day, what will matter to the video-game company is “did we make some money today?”
I had to take dependency based classes recently as part of a court-ordered program. It’s really alarming how similar even video games can be to other more traditional addictive substances and the effects that these toxic neuroses have on the brain.
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This isn’t true. I’ve had several games that played out, I lost, and were quite fun. But then again I also like playing chess and Civilization 2.
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