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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Hearthstone: "you don't want things to be equal"

Blizzard reveals why being interesting is more important than equality when it comes to Heroes of Warcraft.

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At this year's Gamescom, a beta version of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft was on the show floor for gamers to try out. Gillen McAllister talks with Hamilton Chu, the title's executive producer, and finds out more about the card game based in the WoW universe.

In particular they discussed the difficulty in balancing a game like this, and making sure that, at the same time, it's fun and exciting: "It's not easy [to balance]. The designers have done a great job designing the entire card pool. And it's not just about balance, it's about making sure each card feels really good, each class feels really good, each kind of spell or creature feels really good. From the numbers of the cards, to the rules, to the art, to the audio. Just making sure that all feels great."

"And then within that, yeah, you worry about balance," Chu continued. "But it's not just balance, because you don't want things to be equal, you want things to be interesting. So how do you make sure that the mage really feels like a mage along with that balance. And then you get the balance, you know what's balanced for these type of players may not be balanced for those type of players. So what's the right thing to do? You don't just mash everything into the middle. You need to make smart decisions about how to balance the overall thing. Plus it's just fun for things to shift the "meta" as we like to call it. What the community understands about the game changes over time, and how they approach different things and the counters to that are dynamic over time. It's a lot of fun to see."

Blizzard's card game is currently in beta (you can sign up here), and the plan is to launch the full game before the end of the year. It's also worth noting that it will be free-to-play. You can also read our preview for more gameplay details.

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