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In preparation for both the Year of the Mammoth beginning at the end of March and the next expansion of Journey to Un’Goro, Hearthstone has today had a patch to set up the foundation for both, as well as addressing some bug fixes and a few balance issues to Small Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws. A number of tweaks are also in now, fitting some of the changes proposed during a Developer Q and A a few weeks back.
Patch notes are as follows:
This update begins preparations for the Year of the Mammoth celebration that kicks off at the end of March.
Pre-purchase for Journey to Un’Goro, Hearthstone’s latest expansion, is now available! You can pre-purchase 50 card packs and get the Fossil card back for $49.99 USD.
Ranked Play
Upon achieving certain milestones in Ranked Play, it will no longer be possible to lose ranks beyond those milestones for that season. The milestones are Rank 20, 15, 10, 5, and Legend.
Arena
Creating decks for the Arena will now feature Standard cards only. Arena runs that were started prior to the patch will still include Wild cards.
Rares, Epics, and Legendaries will be offered more frequently during Arena deckbuilding.
Spells will now show up with a higher frequency.
Neutral Basic / Classic cards will appear less often.
If you own a Golden version of a card, the first copy you draft will be Golden. If you own multiple Golden copies of a card, all copies you draft will be Golden.
Balance Updates
Small-time Buccaneer’s health reduced from 2 to 1.
The mana cost of Spirit Claws increased from 1 to 2.
General
Added some memory optimizations.
Improved matchmaking for new players.
We are testing an update to the account creation process for mobile players. This will minimize the overhead associated with creating a new Battle.net account, and will be available in limited release.
Maximum in-game music volume has been capped in order to retain the best audio quality.
[Android] We made some optimizations to Android distribution, allowing for a smaller install size and smoother patching in the future.
Bug Fixes
Resolved inconsistencies in the way that Small Time Buccaneer’s Attack interacts with effects such as those generated by Humility, Keeper of Uldaman, and Crazed Alchemist.
Resolved an issue where a Kazakus potion spell cards could appear blank when copied by a minion or spell effect.
Knuckles will now correctly use its effect when under the effects of Misdirection.
Addressed an issue with the interaction of Wrath’s card draw timing in conjunction with Daring Reporter.
Snipe will now correctly trigger after Potion of Polymorph.
Djinni of Zephyrs will now correctly copy spells buffed by spell damage.
Bouncing Blade will now correctly continue bouncing after clearing a Divine Shield.
Resolved an issue where seasonal reward cards could take a while to show up in the Collection Manager.
Searching the Collection Manager with a class name will now correctly display Tri-Class cards.
Resolved issues that could slow or stop payment authentication when using the in-game Shop.
Fixed many minor visual issues and some card text inconsistencies.
It’d already been speculated that Hearthstone’s next expansion would be taking us to Un’Goro, and today that was confirmed along with the title which is Journey to Un’Goro, not Lost Secrets of Un’Goro as had been previously though (although there’s every chance that Lost Secrets had been its work-in-progress title).
Like every expansion so far, a whole load of new cards will be coming into the game – 135 this time. It will also add some new mechanics to the game, as well as a new ‘family’ of Minion.
The first of the new mechanics are a new type of Legendary card – Quest cards. Previously all Legendaries were Minions, but Quest cards are like spells you can play to start a ‘quest’. Each ‘quest’ has an objective you need to complete along with a reward that comes from it, and the quest is visible to both players so it’s perfectly possible for your opponent to take measures to try and thwart you in it. So far the only one that’s been revealed is Awaken the Makers, with special Legendary Minion Amara, Warden of Hope as the reward for completing it. As you can see below, a 5-cost 8/8 with Taunt and a Battlecry that sets your Hero to 40 hitpoints? Quite the powerful card.
Another new mechanic being introduced with this expansion, and in a way fitting for the theme, is a new keyword: Adapt. When an Adapt card is played, you are given a choice of 3 randomly chosen buff options for the card from the pool of ten different buffs, and you can choose one to apply. This could lead to Minions and Spells that could be used in any number of different ways in the same deck, although some might be put of with the RNG nature of it.
Finally, the new ‘family’ of Minion is the Elemental. Obviously we’ve had some Elementals introduced in previous expansions (and I guess they’ll be updated when Un’Goro goes live), but now we have our first designed-as Elemental Minion – Pyros, who keeps coming back stronger and stronger each time they are killed for up to 3 different versions.
Like with previous expansions you can purchase a 50-pack-bundle of Un’Goro packs before the release for $49.99/£34.99 and get a unique card back too. The expansion will be coming out some time in April, and we can expect to see more card reveals in March.
It’s time for a weekly look into gaming campaigns on Kickstarter.
Starting off as always with a little update on some of our previously covered campaigns, we don’t have any finished campaigns or met goals this week but we still have some good news. Sunless Skies is 3 days away from its campaign end and has already made over 3 times its goal, mainly owing to how popular the game it is a sequel to (Sunless Seas) did. It should be just as good if not better. RUiN is still left with 9 days to go, but it has just under a tenth of its goal to make up in that time, which is perfectly manageable.
There’s some not so good news though, and two of our previously covered campaigns are running out of time with a lot to do still. Aegis: Innocence has only made one-sixth of its goal so far and has just over a week to go; while Pillow Zombies TD has 38 hours to go and almost $27,000 left of its goal to make. Needless to say the latter probably won’t make it but I still have hopes for Aegis: Innocence. It’s a game about a guardian against nightmares who takes the form of a warrior teddy bear, what’s not to love?
First up, we have a card game about oppressive states and underground churches.
An underground church is struggling to survive in a state that wants to hunt down and stamp out all members. A game for 3-6 players, each player starts off with a role card and seven randomly chosen experience cards that determines loyalty to either the State or the Church. At the end of the game, the Church will win if the majority of players are loyal to it and at least one is not in prison, while the State wins otherwise.
UNAUTHORIZED has a $3,000 target, of which it has already more than doubled. It has 9 more days to go to raised even more.
Next up we have a turn-based RPG inspired by the 8 and 16-bit eras.
Behind the Rose is described as being ‘surreal’ and takes place in a world known as Starcross, in which a Heavenly Queen once ruled. One day though an entity came taking the form of the Dark Beast and raising the population as Undeads, bringing forth Demons. When the Heavenly Queen confronted the Dark Beast, she was able to drive them back to Starcross Mountain, only to fall victim to a trap and become sealed away, leaving Starcross cursed without her. Now you seek to release her and save Starcross.
Behind the Rose has 26 days to go to make its $10,000 goal, of which is has raised $2,227 so far.
Third, we have this game which takes place in Russia at the beginning of the last century.
Hand-drawn and consisting of turn-based strategy play, Legion 1917 sets you in a story-driven environment as you make choices to progress forward. The country of Russia is in the grip of civil war and an empire falling to bits, as a new government rising seems to be at war with its own people. You must make your way across the landscape, fighting, talking and surviving to hopefully find a train back to your own home.
Legion 1917: Rise of the Bolsheviks has made €2,267 of its €65,000 goal, with 29 days to go.
Finally we have a 2D survival game in which you are alone on a derelict spacecraft, but not alone.
Listed as a “a story driven sci-fi action/exploration/survival game” on the campaign page, Xenomorph sees you having to make use of the resources left behind by the last crew to craft, survive and fight off alien monster still alive on the craft. The view is a pixel-based top-down style, and you must uncover the story of the last crew and just what happened. Besides being attacked by aliens, probably.
Xenomorph has a £6,000 target with 17 days to go. It has made £258 so far.
