by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Eric Dodds is trying to do a 20m presentation in 8m. PAX East has been awesome for Hearthstone, fireside gatherings are great!

Quick review of everything we’ve done so far, but what’s happening right now?

Impending Phone Release:

Is it possible to make the game be a AAA title on phones? Dodds says yes. It’s in alpha internally, and players are saying they’re playing it more there now than how much they were playing before. Screenshots of how the UI has been shifted to work on a mobile platform look slick and as solid as you can get.

Within the next couple of MONTHS it’ll be out on phone. Get hype.

Quick review of Curse of Naxxramas and how it worked as an adventure. It really helped to shift the meta and gave the opportunity to explore a space in the Warcraft universe.

New Adventure Mode: Blackrock Mountain!

Mechanically it’ll play like Naxxramas, with new bosses to fight, new heroic bosses, new cards that you earn from the bosses and class challenges to overcome. Major difference? A very different vibe. There are two epic forces that are inhabiting this space: the Dark Iron dwarves summon in Ragnaros, who then enslaved the Dark Irons. What’s standing in the way of Ragnaros? Nefarian, at the other end of the mountain, with all of his Blackrock orcs and evil alchemists. The one thing they hate more than the heroes trying to stop them is each other.

Five wings, seventeen bosses:

• Blackrock Depths: Fight the Dark Iron dwarves, first line of defense for Ragnaros
  1. Grim Guzzler (Fight Coren Direbrew!)
  2. The Dark Iron Arena (Fight tons of legendary minions)
  3. Dark Iron Emperor
• Molten Core is the next wing after that.

The new board has a lot of new doodads to play with: upgrade weapons, play with lava, do other silliness.

Card Preview:

31 New Cards

Dark Iron Skulker (5/Rogue-R) 4/3 —  Battlecry; Deal 2 damage to all undamaged enemy minions.

Grim Patron (5/Neutral-R) 3/3 — Whenever this minion survives damage, summon another Grim Patron.

Rise of the Dragons: Lots of cards are being added to support the theme of dragons in the game, hence several cards that are predicated off having dragons in your hand.

Blackwing Technician (3/Neutral-C) 2/4 — Battlecry: If you’re holding a dragon, gain +1/+1.

Hungry Dragon (4/Neutral-C) 5/6 — Battlecry: Summon a random 1-cost minion for your opponent.

Rend Blackhand (7/Neutral-L) 8/4 — Battlecry: If you’re holding a Dragon, destroy a Legendary minion.

Cardbacks and Release Timing:

The three datamined cardbacks have been explained: The Season cardback for March is already clear, the Blackwing cardback is for clearing heroic modes in the mountain, and the Molten Core cardback is the pre-order exclusive. Speaking of that:

March 19th/20th: You can pre-order Blackrock Mountain, and you’ll get the exclusive cardback. And the adventure releases NEXT MONTH.

More details as we get them, so keep it locked here.