🚀 go-pugleaf

On 24 Oct 2013 12:46:06 GMT, Urbin <urbin@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On Thu, 10 Oct 2013 14:32:22 +0100, Catriona R wrote:
>>  On 10 Oct 2013 05:58:17 GMT, Urbin <urbin@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> >On Thu, 10 Oct 2013 01:15:48 +0100, Catriona R wrote:
>> >>  Anyone tried Hearthstone yet? Seems a new beta wave went out the last
>> >>  day or so as I got an invite yesterday.
>> >
>> >I'd love to, but alas no invite yet. Maybe in the next wave.
>> 
>>  Shame, hope you get in next wave then!
>
>Yay, I got my beta invite last night. Downloaded and installed it right away
>and then started it up for a "quick look". Next thing I new it was almost
>four hours later and my wife on her way from bed to the toilet and back
>discretly asked if I hadn't mentioned something about an early night ;-)

Yay! And lol, that's been my experience at times too, "just one more
game" and several hours pass ;-)

>I beat the first five tutorial characters with large margins and even
>managed to beat Illidan (though that was by the narrowest of margins) so I
>figured it was pretty eaasy. Created a custom deck and proceeded to practise
>mode to "quickly" unlock the other classes ;-) After I'd had my behind
>handed to me by Rexxor the hunter half a dozen times I decided to try using
>a basic deck but got beat badly again several times. Had a go agains Guldan
>and beat him easily on my first attempt. I then lost against Thrall a few
>times and lost twice against Anduin.

Hehe Rexxar can be a pain, yeah - if you don't have AOE to counter the
million minions he put up, it's tricky! Mage is a decent class for
that though, I love planting a Kobold Geomancer (spelldmg +1) followed
by Arcane Explosion (1 dmg aoe, increased to 2 by the Geomancer) for a
cheap nuke, else Flamestrike (4 dmg, buffed to 5 by Geomancer) to
really annoy someone who lined up several big minions :-)

>I then had a go at Play mode. In the first game I was beaten soundly, then I
>beat a Pally by a rather large margin and a mage by the narrowest of margins
>before losing to a priest.
>
>At that time I was called to bed by the powers that lurk :-)

Hehe. I've played 4 of the classes now and tend to get beat a fair
bit, but I'm improving anyway. Playing other players is pretty fun,
although matchmaking varies wildly; sometimes I get steamrollered,
other times I seem to dominate. Then occasionally I get a really
really close game, I love those as you know you got a good match that
time.

>Anyway, it's an easy enough game to grasp the basics but I guess like with
>Magic the Gathering the secret will be with deck building if you want to be
>really good. 

Yeah, I think so, although luck also plays a part - often the card
that'd be perfect to solve a situation I'm in, isn't in my hand lol.
My decks probably aren't the greatest, given my lack of experience of
this type of game, but they're fairly decent for the level I'm at. The
hardest thing is the card limit, as I'm always finding myself wanting
to use more cards than I can fit into a deck!

>In any case, it's another cool game by Blizzard that appeals to
>my completist streak (unlock all classes, level each up to level 10 (or
>isn't that the cap?), collect all basic decks etc... Unlike WoW it's
>something that can easily be played for just fifteen minutes or so, which
>suits my real life situation better.

Cap is 60 ;-) 10 just unlocks the basic cards, after that it's
cosmetic really, you get upgraded versions of each card as you level;
same abilities but fancier graphics, so no big deal. Reaching 20-ish
is fairly fast; I've got mage and paladin that far anyway, but I think
it takes a fair bit longer to reach the top.

You can also try collecting all non-basic cards, you can buy decks for
100g each, else enter the arena for 150g and have a decent chance at
winning a few decks, plus disenchanting extra cards and crafting
missing ones helps. Arena is really fun, you get to select a deck from
a random choice of cards it gives you (it puts up 3, you pick 1, and
it does that for all 30 cards), meaning you can try out some cards you
may not have yet. I've only tried that twice so far but it's fun and
I'm about even on wins and losses, so good enough!

>I'll certainly keep playing the beta.
>
>Does anyone know if there is the possibility to play against specific
>players (say against someone who is on the friends list)?

I *think* it may be possible to challenge a Battle.net friend who is
online, but I don't know for sure, as none of my friends are in the
beta.