So, the big PAX East announcement from Blizzard has arrived, and it appears that they are coming out with a side-project based on the Warcraft universe that is a collectable card game. Much like the older members of Blizzard, I was an avid player of Magic the Gathering both when I was in elementary school and the game was still new (I came in around Fallen Empires, and played through Tempest) and later on in college through Magic Online (which I had to use a PC Emulator for) during the Kamigawa, Ravnica, and a bit of the Time Spiral blocks. (Ravnica has got to be the best block they ever did. Wonder how Return to Ravnica is.)
Anyway, even though there is already a CCG for Warcraft, Hearthstone appears to be a fully-digital version. It's free to play, operating by having people buy card packs to build their decks. It actually appears that you can earn more cards simply by playing the game.
One could argue that as a "free to play" game with "microtransactions," Blizzard is dipping their toes into a business model that we all kind of dread WoW would wind up with. On the other hand, an online CCG kind of makes the most sense as a FTP set-up.
I only ever really played Magic as my CCG, so I don't know much about other styles. However, given Blizzard's talent for polish and balance, I think this could prove to be a fun little diversion (though of course there will be some people who get super hardcore about it.)
The emphasis on this game seems to be for casual fun, as embodied by a drunken dwarf who seems to be the game's mascot. I'm sure it will find a place on my dock and see play when I don't feel like logging in to the real WoW.
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