Blizzard – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Wed, 24 Jun 2020 12:47:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png Blizzard – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. Blizzard – Nerds on Earth false episodic Blizzard – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. Blizzard – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Mobile Gaming: If you Haven’t Tried Hearthstone, You Must https://nerdsonearth.com/2020/06/hearthstone/ Thu, 25 Jun 2020 12:00:00 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=31507

What is Hearthstone? We give you a primer on this Blizzard mobile app that serves as an excellent time filler with lots of engaging play!

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A whole handful of the Nerds on Earth writing team play Marvel Strike Force, the mobile game that pits 5 Marvel characters against 5 other Marvel characters. A primary reason we love it – although we play independently – is because we commiserate about the game in our Discord channel.

But there is another mobile game I play, and since it has been around for years, new players might pass it by in fear that they’d not know where to begin. So, this article is for folks who may be Hearthstone curious. It’s also for my Nerds on Earth mates, as I’m on a sneaky quest to get them playing as well.

The Basics of Hearthstone

hearthstone main screen
Hearthstone has a wonderful variety of play modes.

Hearthstone is an iOS game from Blizzard, the makers of Starcraft, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and more. And if you have that type of PC/console pedigree and you make a mobile game, then you can bet it has a polish to it.

Hearthstone is a card game very roughly in the same genre as Magic: The Gathering and KeyForge. Players “build decks” of card, digitally of course. And you pit your deck against a matched-up opponent.

It’s in the World of Warcraft universe, so the classes match those in that game. And the cards pull from those characters as well, meaning you might have Priest, Hunter, Druid, and Warrior, among others.

hearthstone quests
A look at quests and the classes of Hearthstone. I’m a filthy casual, so while I have Hunter, Priest, and Shaman leveled up, I’m nowhere close on most classes.

Newly themed cards come roughly every few months, with the oldest sets rolling out of regular use.

The “meta” game, meaning the accepted strategy about the best cards to use, can be competitive. To be clear, you do not need to “pay to play.” But if you are the type of person who absolutely has to match the most competitive decks, you’ll need to buy packs, which are of course opened digitally.

Our human competitiveness tends to have us over-complicate things to point where we need excel sheets and flowcharts. But Hearthstone is really fun for beginners and it is absolutely rewarding with out dabbling in that nonsense of 24/7 Red Bull fueled streams to hit #1.

Hearthstone’s Modes

There are some major modes of gameplay:

  • Regular (competitive and practice) – In this mode, players choose a class and build a deck of 30 cards. Each card has an attack value, a defense value, and some type of keywords special ability. Hearthstone’s excellent matchmaking system connects you with an opponent.
  • Adventure – There is also a “solo mode” that allows you to participate in storyline adventures. These have the same charm you’d expect from a game set in the World of Warcraft universe.
  • Arena – There are also a few modes where you essentially draft on the fly in order to play around and push your luck with different card combinations. Blizzard keeps the game feeling wonderfully fresh, even after several years on market.
  • Battleground – I’m giving this it’s own article. It’s that good.
hearthstone adventure mode

Hearthstone has the famed Blizzard polish. It’s rock-solid. And they’ve done remarkably clever things like limit communication to a handful of pre-generated responses, meaning you aren’t spammed by some disaffected 20-something who has never matured and thinks his banter is funny.

World of Warcraft is nowhere near the must-play game it was a decade ago, but Hearthstone is evidence of the property’s enduring appeal and that the lore could be fully imagined into a mobile game wholly unlike the multiplayer game that serves as inspiration.

I suspect many of you nerds already have the game on your iPads. For those who don’t? I encourage you to give it a try. It’s an excellent 20 minute time filler that doesn’t require sinking hours into it. It allows an enjoyable experience that also allows you to fully engage with your kids and pick up and put down as you wish.

Get more info on Hearthstone here.

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An Introduction to the Battleground Mode in Hearthstone https://nerdsonearth.com/2020/06/battleground-hearthstone/ Thu, 25 Jun 2020 12:00:00 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=31510 hearthstone

We break down Hearthstone's brand new Battleground Mode. This older game still has a few tricks up its sleeves and life in its bones!

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hearthstone

This is an article on Hearthstone, a mobile game developed by Blizzard and first released in…wait, that can’t be right?…huh…yeah…2014, meaning it’s pretty long in the tooth, particularly for a mobile game.

As I’m writing this up, I’m realizing that absolutely nobody will be interested in an article on an old mobile game, not even immediate members of the Nerds on Earth family, particularly my dad who has always thought I was wasting my life by playing too many video games while I should be playing outside. But I’m not a quitter, dad.

Besides, Hearthstone has a new mode called Battleground and it’s so entertaining and engaging that it is absolutely article worthy. So, here we go.

Hearthstone Battleground Mode

Firstly, if you aren’t playing Hearthstone, give it a download. It’s just about the best 10-minute time filler you can get. More on the game here. But we’re here because of the Battleground mode and the fact that my dad was right, I don’t like playing outside, I’d rather write this up behind a keyboard as an avid indoors man is wont to do.

hearthstone battleground hero select screen
Hero selection screen in Hearthstone Battleground mode.

When you first start Battleground, you’ll be given 4 options for a hero. Since there are 24 (and growing) options, you’ll find plenty of variety from game to game. Each hero provides a special power. If it’s available, I choose Nozdormu because it gives a free minion refresh each round. More on that as we go.

A typical early screen.

There is a lot going on in the above photo. At the top, you see the Bartender. The Bartender provides you options of minions you can purchase if you have gold.

  • To the right of the Bartender is the refresh, but you’ll notice it costs you 1 gold.
  • Each minion you purchase is 3 gold.
  • Selling a minion back to the Bartender earns you 1 gold in return.
  • To the left of the Bartender levels up the minions available to you. It goes to level 6 and it gets one gold cheaper each round.

My first purchase was a “Murloc,” who you can see has an attack of 2 and a defense of 3.

Along the left hand side are the 8 players who are battling it out. You get paired up each round in a round robin style. As players are eliminated, the bracket gets smaller.

The above photo is a couple rounds in. You can see I’ve purchased two more minions, both 2-attack, 1-defense pirates.

Various minion types are available to you and you want to get similar types to capitalize on their synergies with one another. By this point I’m thinking I might go all-in on pirates.

The minion types:

  • Beasts – Many of these minions have the deathrattle keyword, which means they summon more beasts when they die.
  • Mechs – Some mechs have deathrattle but they really shine with the divine shield keyword, which effectively gives them one hit worth of armor.
  • Demons – These minions may eat down your overall health in return for powerful upgrades. It’s a push-pull.
  • Pirates – These are the newest minions types and early gameplay has them cycling through quickly as their means of synergizing.
  • Murlocs – These can become powerful in late game due to the poisonous keyword.
  • Dragons – These minions have some fire breathers and some with the taunt keyword.

I got a few more pirates. But notice that although I was out of coins, I “froze” the Bartender’s minions so they’d be available the next round. I have two of the 2-attack and 1-armor pirates and the Bartender has a third.

If you get 3 of the same type, you earn a “golden.” A golden minion does three things: 1. It doubles base numbers, 2. it keeps all stat upgrades, and 3. it gives you the ability to choose a new minion from one per higher. Collecting Goldens is how you can begin to ramp you warband.

Rats! My neighbor came to the door to borrow a socket set. That meant I lost two whole rounds of purchasing, which put me way behind. Notice I only have 4 health left?
I’m able to just barely eke out victories, even as I hold on at 4 health. But if you look at the left column, there are now 3 other players eliminated. I’m hoping to get top 4, which is considered a victory.
This screencap shows me after just getting a victory. I’ll be doing 18 damage against that player’s 27 remaining health. That’s not enough for me to knock him out of the game!
I’m done for. I’ve been holding on at 4 health, but this player is about to do 11 damage against me (see if you can spot how I calculated that). The good news is I was able to hold on, finishing 3rd. That’s considered a win!
My death screen.
hearthstone battleground victory screen 3rd place
My 3rd place finish.

Battlegrounds is a wonderful mode in Hearthstone, proving that even after 6 years, the developers at Blizzard have some tricks up their sleeve.

Pirates are a brand new faction, so content is staying fresh. Like all Blizzard games, everything runs smooth and has an excellent level of polish.

I whole-heartedly encourage you to give it a go. And if you are a long-time Hearthstone player, make sure you give this new mode a try. Info on getting the game is here.

hearthstone battleground victory screen 1st place
I leave you with this, a screencap from my next game. See what could’ve been done if my neighbor hadn’t needed that socket set?

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Revisiting Video Games of the Past: Diablo 3 https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/08/diablo-3/ Mon, 01 Aug 2016 12:00:06 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=8433

Diablo was a huge hit, only to see players quickly drift away. Were the console changes enough to bring players back?

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With the constant deluge of new video games coming out year round, it’s hard to find the time to finish them. Inevitably, some fall by the wayside, another adventure left unfinished. However, it’s sometimes nice to take a step back and revisit one of these forgotten quests.

For me, the most recent instance of this has been Diablo 3.

Revisiting Video Games of the Past: Diablo 3

HereThereBeDragons
Despite what early reactions would suggest, this was not the greatest transgression of Diablo 3.

As with many others, I was pretty excited when Diablo 3 was about to come out. It had been over a decade since Diablo 2 originally released, and we were ready to get back in there and click those demonic hellspawn until they exploded into gore and gold.

When I finally got my hands on Diablo 3, I was instantly hooked all over again. I started off with a monk, ready to crush Diablo’s servants with my righteous fists of kung fu fury.

I arrived in New Tristram, conveniently right when a large group of zombies ambushed the local guardsmen, crushing heads and ripping out demon hearts left and right (or more realistically, punching the air over and over again until my foes’ body parts flew through the air thanks to the overactive physics engine).

Progressing through levels quickly, I loved trying out every new ability I got, especially when I got a cool new rune, turning my regular old punch combos into some sort of flaming, teleporting death storm.

Once I reached the higher levels, though, I found the true horror of Diablo 3: the auction house.

When Diablo 2 came out in the heady days of the year 2000, the internet was still a wild frontier to most people. By the time Diablo 3 came around in 2012, the internet was everything. We had all been through Myspace, migrated to Facebook, then to Google+, then BACK to Facebook, with stops at LinkedIn and Foursquare and Instagram along the way.

At launch, Diablo 3 reflected this new world of interconnected users and a focus on community by having everybody buy and sell all the sweet magical gear they found in a central auction house, both using in-game currency and cold, hard (electronic) cash.

diablo3_auctionhouse1
Like eBay, except you’ll never receive any real stuff. So like early eBay?

As we all learned in school, an economy is basically a balance of two sides: supply and demand. Fortunately for Blizzard, when creating your own virtual economy, you have complete control over one side of that equation. As it turned out, that was unfortunate for the rest of us.

Presumably to keep the auction house an active hub of commerce, the drop rate of wondrous magical items in Diablo 3 seemed far lower than in previous games in the series, somewhere between “once in a blue moon” and “NEVER”.

When playing at higher difficulty levels, the enemies would grow exponentially more powerful, requiring top notch gear simply to be able to survive. However, it never seemed like you received proportionately better equipment to deal with these new issues, perhaps unless you were able to dedicate an excessive amount of time and effort to grinding it out.

I’ve always liked to try to play most big games that come out, so I was unwilling to put in what was needed, instead drifting away to try my hand at new experiences.

A year or so after I quite playing, I saw the news stories go up about Blizzard overhauling the loot system for Diablo 3. I didn’t read far into it at the time, but I did gather that they were removing the auction house completely and aimed to rebalance the loot tables so that all players would get the powerful equipment they needed to face the challenges presented at high levels.

I was intrigued and impressed by their willingness to so drastically change their game post-launch, I did not yet decide to return to the PC version of Diablo 3. I was happy to buy the Ultimate Evil Edition when it was released for next gen consoles soon thereafter, which impressed me with all the changes made to the game to make up for the lack of mouse and keyboard control.

The redesigned inventory and direct joystick control made it feel like a new game, and I played quite a bit of it. This time I started with the new Crusader class, and after reaching level 70 I was introduced to the new Paragon system added since the last time I played, which allows for characters to continue improving through experience gained after reaching the level cap, effectively allowing a character to endlessly gain power.

While it was still obviously the same game I had played on PC years before, the new interface and systems made it feel completely fresh, even earning it a spot on my top 10 that year.

monk_pause
As long as I was gone, he waited loyally for my return.

While I enjoyed the console version immensely, time marched on, and after a few months I moved on to other titles.

Then about a month ago, a friend of mine at work started telling me about how he and his wife were looking to play a good loot driven game, and had decided to go back to Diablo 3. At the time I was between games, so I decided to join them.

They’re PC people, so I downloaded Battle.net, bought Reaper of Souls, and started downloading the game. While waiting to play, I began reading about all the changes they had made to the PC version, which went beyond even what had made its way into the console releases.

The most intriguing part to me was Season mode. When making a new character in Diablo 3, while you do start at level 1, you share all of your gold, crafting NPC levels, gear stash, and paragon levels with other characters you have created, making it easier to level up secondary characters to max level.

With Season mode, you can instead create characters “in season”, which acts as though you had never created characters before, allowing you to work through all the original progress of upgrading your crafters, finding gear recipes, earning achievements, just generally allowing you to relive all those accomplishments you only had with your first character. While that is a worthwhile feature to the mode, there is also a series of tasks tied specifically to each Season that, once accomplished, can earn you unique cosmetic unlocks and a powerful armor set for whatever class you are playing when you complete them.

We started playing in the middle of Season 6, a Crusader, a Demon Hunter, and a Sorcerer teaming up to cleanse the world of evil (but mostly to get that sweet, sweet loot). Almost every night for weeks we got only and just ran through countless mobs of demons, over and over again, filling up the loot tab, breaking it all down into components, then heading out for more.

somanypetsrunning
I eventually changed over to a Witch Doctor. Can’t beat having a zombie army to do all the heavy lifting for you.

Now as Season 6 comes to a close, I sit with a Seasonal Sorcerer, Witch Doctor, and Barbarian, all level 70. With a paragon level just over 300, I have all kinds of flexibility on how to boost them for any given situation. Once the Season closes, all of the characters and progress I made in it will roll over into my normal game, which should help out the monk quite a bit if I ever decide to give him some more time.

When Season 7 starts up, I might start the adventure all over again, running Rift after Rift to grind out those levels. Only time will tell. For now, though, I’m off to try and beat I Am Setsuna before the Fall releases start rolling in. Wish me luck!

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