The Hearthstone community seems to have no interest in real people. They are creating numerous fake events to get to Nemsy Nimmertot.
Actually, Blizzard had envisioned the Hearthstone event around Nemsy Nimmertot, the new Warlock skin, to be much more fun. The community was supposed to host events in pubs and bars in the real world, so players could meet “in real life” and enjoy a few rounds together, maybe even make new friends.
This is additionally rewarded with the new skin for Warlock, Nemsy Nimmertot. It is only available if you actually participate in such a community event, a Fireside Gathering.
However, “actually participating” means that players have to leave their own four walls, which already caused a lot of displeasure beforehand. Many players complained that they had to travel dozens of kilometers “just for a skin” so that they no longer had to play Gul’dan.
Numerous Fireside Fake Events
And then what had to happen happened: Particularly “resourceful” players simply created a lot of fake events near them (link to the Fireside Gathering page). Gamestop events, pubs, or youth centers were declared as event locations.
However, those who actually wanted to attend the events found themselves at a loss – no one was present on-site, and often the owners of the respective location knew nothing about it. Or on-site there was a single player who simply “simulated” a gathering with multiple devices.
Those who didn’t even want to do that simply coordinated with other players, created a fake event, and then falsely claimed through their GPS data to be at a completely different location.
But even actual events faced problems. Some events were deleted from the database even on the same day. So when dozens of players gathered in the evening, they had to be disappointed to find out that there was neither a Fireside Gathering nor Nemsy Nimmertot to be earned.
Cortyn says: While I think the idea of real-life meetings is good to promote social contacts among players, the implementation here has simply failed. However, it is also difficult for Blizzard to verify the authenticity of every single event. That there would be chaos was apparent from the outset. One can only hope that they learn from these mistakes and establish stricter rules for Fireside Gatherings in the future – or completely relax the rules.
Are you planning to visit one of the Fireside Gatherings? And what do you think of this idea in general?
