The game director of Hearthstone speaks plainly. Some players may need a little discouragement – you will find out the reason here.
The YouTube channel screenPLAY met with Hearthstone’s game director Ben Brode a while ago and conducted a fairly casual interview. Several topics came up that hadn’t been discussed elsewhere.
At the beginning of the conversation, they reflected on the origins and the original vision they had for Hearthstone. Since almost all Blizzard employees grew up with collectible card games, they knew how much fun they could be. However, most games are too complex, causing many players to be discouraged beforehand. Hearthstone, therefore, aimed to be simple to handle and to have virtually no entry barrier.
However, this growing complexity will also become a problem for Hearthstone. In the coming years, there will be more and more content, so Hearthstone may eventually look back on tens of thousands of cards. Achieving the balancing act will be the developers’ greatest challenge.
In the meantime, the “goal” for Hearthstone has indeed shifted. The focus is no longer primarily on creating an easy entry, but now on ensuring that players fall in love with the world. Because even this somewhat “absurd” design of the Warcraft universe has its charm that the developers want to convey. This is achieved through quests that will now be introduced in every new expansion, as well as through cards, their illustrations, and voice effects.
A new problem facing the developers is the motivation and self-confidence of new players. It seems that newcomers now quickly set up matches against the AI and switch to the unranked mode.
However, the transition from “unranked” to “ranked” is usually tough and for many players it’s like hitting a pretty hard wall. In the past, new players would have waited at least a week, but today they are in “Ranked” after two or three days. Here, they want to find a way to better prepare newcomers for the hard competition in ranked mode.
The interviewer’s suggestion to simply have Ben Brode pop up in the game saying “You can do nothing!” probably won’t fly. The much simpler alternative would be better matchmaking – so Brode will likely pursue this approach.
Finally, the interview concluded with some “nonsense” questions that pop up when you search Google for Hearthstone.
- What is the best card in the game? Jaraxxus!
- How can I get a beta key for Hearthstone? – Tough question
