WEBVTT 00:01.000 --> 00:05.000 Hello everyone, I'm here at BlizzCon and I'm here with Nathan Lyons-Smith and Tyler Beelman 00:05.000 --> 00:11.000 and we're here talking Hearthstone. Now, not to beat around the bush, but you guys have a big anniversary coming up. 00:11.000 --> 00:17.000 Ten years of Hearthstone. Makes me feel very old to say that, I've been playing since launch. 00:17.000 --> 00:23.000 What does ten years of Hearthstone mean to you guys and do you have any really fond memories from the time you've had with the game? 00:23.000 --> 00:28.000 Ten years is a long time to have a game and have a live service 00:28.000 --> 00:32.000 and somebody who wasn't at Blizzard when the game launched 00:32.000 --> 00:37.000 and heard about the announcement, knew Blizzard makes the best online games 00:37.000 --> 00:40.000 and they were going to make a game for me, they were going to make a card game. 00:40.000 --> 00:44.000 Fell in love with it then, played through beta, played every month since. 00:44.000 --> 00:50.000 So as a player and a fan, I am thankful and excited for all the cool content and experiences and features I've played. 00:50.000 --> 00:55.000 As a developer, I'm excited to be celebrating our tenth birthday next year. 00:55.000 --> 01:00.000 Looking forward to looking back at ten years of Hearthstone and the surprises and fun that we've got planned. 01:00.000 --> 01:03.000 Yeah, so I've been with the team for seven months. 01:03.000 --> 01:07.000 So not super long, I don't have as many fond memories of the development. 01:07.000 --> 01:12.000 But of course as a fan and being able to come at it and be able to step behind the curtain 01:12.000 --> 01:18.000 and actually start to see how the team makes the game, the passion the team has for the game 01:18.000 --> 01:23.000 and I feel really lucky to be here as we're going to celebrate that tenth anniversary 01:23.000 --> 01:28.000 alongside the anniversary of World of Warcraft and the Warcraft franchise in general. 01:28.000 --> 01:34.000 So it's an exciting time and we have some great surprises planned. 01:34.000 --> 01:36.000 Actually a really good point there, Tyler. 01:36.000 --> 01:40.000 It'll be Hearthstone's tenth anniversary, World of Warcraft's twentieth anniversary 01:40.000 --> 01:43.000 and the Warcraft franchise's thirtieth anniversary. 01:43.000 --> 01:47.000 And as we're all working as part of the Warcraft franchise, 01:47.000 --> 01:52.000 figuring out what sort of Easter eggs and references and fun you might find across the Warcraft franchise. 01:52.000 --> 01:54.000 So of course nothing to share now. 01:54.000 --> 01:57.000 We'll do all of that next year. 01:57.000 --> 02:02.000 But we're excited to go celebrate the various birthdays. 02:02.000 --> 02:07.000 And not to leave Rumble out, they'll be celebrating their first birthday next year. 02:07.000 --> 02:08.000 So it'll be fun. 02:08.000 --> 02:13.000 There's a lot of synergy I guess with the Warcraft universe as you've touched upon there. 02:13.000 --> 02:17.000 But we also get our own characters within Hearthstone, 02:17.000 --> 02:20.000 characters that have been built up over the course of time, namely Reno. 02:21.000 --> 02:25.000 We're getting his origins this time around with Shadow in the Badlands. 02:25.000 --> 02:30.000 Why now for the origin story of the Leaver Explorers 02:30.000 --> 02:34.000 and what is going to make this a different expansion from a narrative perspective? 02:34.000 --> 02:38.000 Yeah, Showdown in the Badlands is coming. 02:38.000 --> 02:43.000 We are very excited to talk about the origins of Reno and Elise. 02:44.000 --> 02:50.000 When thinking about the kind of story we wanted to tell in that environment, 02:50.000 --> 02:52.000 we knew we wanted to do a Wild West thing. 02:52.000 --> 02:55.000 We knew we wanted to put it in the Badlands and Blood Rock. 02:55.000 --> 03:01.000 And we were trying to figure out how to bring players along on that journey 03:01.000 --> 03:06.000 and show them a new face with this Wild West component. 03:06.000 --> 03:09.000 It made a lot of sense for us to visit those characters. 03:10.000 --> 03:13.000 But it didn't make sense to go with them as we know them. 03:13.000 --> 03:14.000 It made sense to go back. 03:14.000 --> 03:20.000 And also just because the Wild West is a historical context, 03:20.000 --> 03:23.000 it lined up really nicely to be able to do that. 03:23.000 --> 03:25.000 And then it became a question of asking, 03:25.000 --> 03:28.000 what are they doing there and why does it matter? 03:28.000 --> 03:32.000 And so the narrative around the mining company going for the Azerite 03:32.000 --> 03:36.000 and the good guy outlaws trying to stop them, 03:36.000 --> 03:40.000 it all started to form together into a really nice mix of the narrative. 03:40.000 --> 03:43.000 So we're excited for players to get to see all the cards, 03:43.000 --> 03:47.000 to get to read the flavor text, to see how this all came together. 03:47.000 --> 03:50.000 And then, of course, you never know what the future might hold 03:50.000 --> 03:53.000 for our friends Reno and Elise. 03:53.000 --> 03:55.000 Something that I always love about Hearthstone 03:55.000 --> 03:57.000 is you guys are really thematic with the things that you add in 03:57.000 --> 03:59.000 as mechanics for the expansion. 03:59.000 --> 04:02.000 So this time around we've got Quickdraw and we've got Excavate. 04:02.000 --> 04:07.000 Quickdraw I want to touch upon seems like it's going to be a mechanic 04:07.000 --> 04:11.000 that's encouraging you to spend your cards quickly, 04:11.000 --> 04:14.000 to get more cards quickly, and maybe rushing through your deck 04:14.000 --> 04:17.000 which could help certain decks more, help certain classes more. 04:17.000 --> 04:19.000 Is this something that's intended? 04:19.000 --> 04:22.000 And will we see a quicker format of the game with Quickdraw coming in? 04:22.000 --> 04:23.000 Great point. 04:23.000 --> 04:27.000 I think if you look across the three major mechanical themes 04:27.000 --> 04:31.000 of Showdown in the Badlands, you have Quickdraw, as you mentioned. 04:31.000 --> 04:35.000 I think you will see people drawing and playing to get those bonuses. 04:35.000 --> 04:38.000 A lot of hand manipulation stuff in Hearthstone 04:38.000 --> 04:40.000 forces you to look at things a little differently. 04:40.000 --> 04:43.000 This one in particular is very simple, very elegant mechanic. 04:43.000 --> 04:45.000 Draw it, play it for the bonus. 04:45.000 --> 04:49.000 But if you compare that to Excavate, which you need to excavate, 04:49.000 --> 04:52.000 the first time you excavate you get a treasure of a certain quality, 04:52.000 --> 04:55.000 the lowest sort of quality, one-cost quality. 04:55.000 --> 04:57.000 Then the next time, a two-cost quality up to three, 04:57.000 --> 05:00.000 and then four if you're in the right class. 05:00.000 --> 05:01.000 That is a more deliberate pace. 05:01.000 --> 05:04.000 That's actually something that's going to take a little time to formulate. 05:04.000 --> 05:06.000 And if you're really going hard into Excavate, 05:06.000 --> 05:08.000 you're not going to realize those benefits for a while. 05:08.000 --> 05:10.000 And then on the third hand, if there's a third hand, 05:10.000 --> 05:14.000 you have the singletons that are coming with the outlaws. 05:14.000 --> 05:16.000 And that is a deck-building constraint 05:16.000 --> 05:18.000 that forces you to think creatively 05:18.000 --> 05:20.000 about how to accomplish your victory condition. 05:20.000 --> 05:21.000 What are you trying to do? 05:21.000 --> 05:24.000 Maybe without the depth of tools that you would get 05:24.000 --> 05:26.000 if you were able to do the two ofs in every case. 05:26.000 --> 05:29.000 So it is a pretty nice stew of different things. 05:29.000 --> 05:31.000 I don't think the format will look especially faster 05:31.000 --> 05:33.000 just as a result of Quickdraw, 05:33.000 --> 05:36.000 but I do think you'll see aggro, combo, and control 05:36.000 --> 05:38.000 all sort of having different flavors 05:38.000 --> 05:40.000 of these three mechanics woven through them. 05:40.000 --> 05:42.000 And the classes we picked for each of these 05:42.000 --> 05:46.000 is a very deliberate sort of leaning into 05:46.000 --> 05:49.000 whether it be the singletons or whether it be the Excavates. 05:49.000 --> 05:50.000 And just sort of following up 05:50.000 --> 05:52.000 while we're on Quickdraw and Excavate, 05:52.000 --> 05:56.000 are the rewards for Excavate going to be more RNG 05:56.000 --> 05:58.000 or will we know what we're getting every single time 05:58.000 --> 06:01.000 and being able to sort of plan our game ahead through it? 06:01.000 --> 06:04.000 There is a pool at each quality level. 06:04.000 --> 06:07.000 And then at the highest level, it is class-themed. 06:07.000 --> 06:10.000 And so there is a small amount of RNG 06:10.000 --> 06:12.000 in the sense that the one cost is a pool of, 06:12.000 --> 06:15.000 I want to say five or six, I don't remember exactly. 06:15.000 --> 06:17.000 And they're all very utility-focused. 06:17.000 --> 06:19.000 They're things you'd kind of want at any moment. 06:19.000 --> 06:21.000 And then it gets more and more specific 06:21.000 --> 06:23.000 and more and more powerful as you go. 06:23.000 --> 06:25.000 And so if your deck is really relying on those deeper Excavates, 06:25.000 --> 06:27.000 you're going to have to sort of really lean in. 06:28.000 --> 06:32.000 So there is an element of RNG to it that will be there. 06:32.000 --> 06:36.000 But at the lower rarity levels, it's not, 06:36.000 --> 06:37.000 I wouldn't say it's punishing 06:37.000 --> 06:40.000 because they're very utility-focused items. 06:40.000 --> 06:43.000 In the What's Next panel that we did yesterday, 06:43.000 --> 06:46.000 if you want to take a look or point people at it, 06:46.000 --> 06:47.000 they did a great job of showing, 06:47.000 --> 06:50.000 I think we showed all of the Excavate cards at each level. 06:50.000 --> 06:52.000 And so you can kind of get a picture of it from that. 06:52.000 --> 06:54.000 Do you guys have any sort of personal favorites, 06:54.000 --> 06:57.000 maybe cards that have been revealed as yet, 06:57.000 --> 06:59.000 that's coming out in the expansion? 06:59.000 --> 07:01.000 So any sort of card that you're really excited to see? 07:01.000 --> 07:04.000 Early on, as we were looking at art, 07:04.000 --> 07:06.000 I saw the Ma and Pa art. 07:06.000 --> 07:08.000 Tyler here is wearing a shirt. 07:08.000 --> 07:12.000 One of the things that I work on in my role, 07:12.000 --> 07:15.000 it's actually passionate about helping the team have good morale. 07:15.000 --> 07:18.000 And so I work with the Culture Club and SWAG. 07:18.000 --> 07:23.000 And so I had an ask from, I think, the BlizzCon group, 07:23.000 --> 07:26.000 hey, what art piece should we use to make a shirt? 07:26.000 --> 07:27.000 And I had seen that one. 07:27.000 --> 07:31.000 I'm like, we should obviously make the American Gothic version 07:31.000 --> 07:33.000 that we have of Ma and Pa into the shirt. 07:33.000 --> 07:34.000 And so we did that for the team. 07:34.000 --> 07:36.000 Tyler's wearing the Dev Team shirt. 07:36.000 --> 07:38.000 I think these are available on the Gear Store. 07:38.000 --> 07:41.000 But that in particular, the art, 07:41.000 --> 07:47.000 it takes a thing in the real world, 07:47.000 --> 07:49.000 puts Hearthstone spin on it, makes it fun, 07:49.000 --> 07:52.000 them being the undead characters here. 07:52.000 --> 07:54.000 It just really felt so Hearthstone to me. 07:54.000 --> 07:56.000 It was like, yeah, that's the art piece we should choose. 07:56.000 --> 07:58.000 Saw a bunch of folks wearing it from the team, 07:58.000 --> 07:59.000 and it feels awesome. 07:59.000 --> 08:02.000 The card also, I think, is a lot of fun, 08:02.000 --> 08:04.000 playing on corpses and whatnot. 08:04.000 --> 08:07.000 And so I think I have at least a few more wins 08:07.000 --> 08:09.000 to get to my 500 for Death Knight. 08:09.000 --> 08:12.000 And so I'll be excited to go and try that with Ma and Pa. 08:12.000 --> 08:17.000 We showed off the 1616 Slumbering Slagmaw yesterday 08:17.000 --> 08:19.000 at the panel. 08:19.000 --> 08:21.000 The reason I'm bringing it up is because 08:21.000 --> 08:23.000 it's one of our signature cards. 08:23.000 --> 08:26.000 And so you get the full-bleed piece of art 08:26.000 --> 08:30.000 in addition to the fact that it's just this behemoth 08:30.000 --> 08:34.000 that literally the crowd gasped when they saw the stats on it. 08:34.000 --> 08:36.000 So there's some things for everybody. 08:36.000 --> 08:38.000 There's things for people who want the big numbers 08:38.000 --> 08:39.000 and the big stats. 08:39.000 --> 08:41.000 There's things for the more combo-y players. 08:41.000 --> 08:43.000 There's some stuff with the elementals 08:43.000 --> 08:47.000 that allow you to split elementals into two pieces. 08:47.000 --> 08:48.000 And there's just a lot going on 08:48.000 --> 08:50.000 for all the different types of players. 08:50.000 --> 08:52.000 We think we had a lot of success in Titans 08:52.000 --> 08:54.000 sort of by every measure, 08:54.000 --> 08:56.000 and our preliminary indicators 08:56.000 --> 08:58.000 shown on the Badlands is going to be even better. 08:58.000 --> 09:01.000 So we're really happy with the expansion. 09:01.000 --> 09:03.000 Moving on from that then, 09:03.000 --> 09:06.000 and going with the theme of card designs, 09:06.000 --> 09:09.000 how do you guys always keep up with something fresh? 09:09.000 --> 09:11.000 And do you look back at what's been done 09:11.000 --> 09:14.000 in previous expansions to maybe help move on? 09:14.000 --> 09:16.000 And do you have a list of things 09:16.000 --> 09:18.000 that maybe you've got that we haven't done that yet? 09:18.000 --> 09:20.000 Let's get that one ready for the next expansion. 09:20.000 --> 09:22.000 First thing is shout out the design team. 09:22.000 --> 09:24.000 The card set design team is incredible. 09:24.000 --> 09:27.000 We have a relatively young team 09:27.000 --> 09:29.000 who sort of are like, 09:29.000 --> 09:31.000 I think we figured out like the third generation 09:31.000 --> 09:33.000 of sort of design teams over the 10 years. 09:33.000 --> 09:37.000 And they're native sort of card gamers 09:37.000 --> 09:39.000 from birth in a lot of ways. 09:39.000 --> 09:42.000 And so they have tons of excitement 09:42.000 --> 09:43.000 and passion for the game. 09:43.000 --> 09:45.000 They're very in touch with the community. 09:45.000 --> 09:47.000 So they're a great barometer of what will work 09:47.000 --> 09:49.000 and what won't work. 09:49.000 --> 09:52.000 There is a repository of ideas 09:52.000 --> 09:54.000 that sort of floats around and exists, 09:54.000 --> 09:57.000 but it's never that we mandate, 09:57.000 --> 09:59.000 hey, you have to use something off this list 09:59.000 --> 10:00.000 or you have to do that. 10:00.000 --> 10:03.000 The process is a little bit more organic than that. 10:03.000 --> 10:05.000 It has a lot to do with the theme. 10:05.000 --> 10:07.000 The theme gets decided as the first thing. 10:07.000 --> 10:09.000 And once the theme is decided, 10:09.000 --> 10:12.000 then we figure out what mechanically do we want to do 10:12.000 --> 10:16.000 that really expresses the theme as well as we can. 10:17.000 --> 10:20.000 And then what are the secondary mechanics 10:20.000 --> 10:23.000 that will sort of reinforce that and build it out? 10:23.000 --> 10:26.000 So what also happens is as we go, a lot changes. 10:26.000 --> 10:29.000 We spend quite a bit of time in what we call a blue sky phase 10:29.000 --> 10:31.000 where we're just trying things. 10:31.000 --> 10:34.000 And the team is really good at rapidly prototyping ideas. 10:34.000 --> 10:36.000 So even if they're things we've never done before, 10:36.000 --> 10:38.000 they're able to leverage the engine 10:38.000 --> 10:40.000 and be able to try different things. 10:40.000 --> 10:41.000 And if you can't get all the way there, 10:41.000 --> 10:43.000 you can at least get a flavor of whether it's there. 10:43.000 --> 10:46.000 So they're throwing away stuff very rapidly. 10:46.000 --> 10:48.000 They're trying things and throwing away trying it 10:48.000 --> 10:49.000 and then something will stick 10:49.000 --> 10:51.000 and that will sort of form the nucleus of it. 10:51.000 --> 10:54.000 So there is a repository of ideas. 10:54.000 --> 10:56.000 There's a repository of technology that we've built 10:56.000 --> 10:57.000 that we can lean into. 10:57.000 --> 11:00.000 But the team generally finds it 11:00.000 --> 11:04.000 as sort of its own unique snowflake every time. 11:04.000 --> 11:06.000 They're able to get there faster 11:06.000 --> 11:09.000 because there's a lot of inherent knowledge in the team. 11:09.000 --> 11:11.000 They do a lot of play testing 11:11.000 --> 11:14.000 and sharing of information, quite a lot. 11:14.000 --> 11:20.000 And so the process is very hardened 11:20.000 --> 11:22.000 in the steps that we take, 11:22.000 --> 11:25.000 but the magic that happens inside the steps is great. 11:25.000 --> 11:29.000 And that process has allowed us to put out 11:29.000 --> 11:32.000 three high-quality card sets a year for a long time 11:32.000 --> 11:36.000 that are going to continue to be amazing in the future. 11:36.000 --> 11:40.000 We talked about how we'll come up with an idea, 11:40.000 --> 11:42.000 make a prototype, play test it, see if it's fun. 11:42.000 --> 11:44.000 Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 11:44.000 --> 11:47.000 We put it back in and then pull things out later 11:47.000 --> 11:48.000 and try them further. 11:48.000 --> 11:52.000 A good example of that actually is a year ago 11:52.000 --> 11:53.000 for Murder at Castle Nathorea, 11:53.000 --> 11:56.000 we shipped the first location-type card. 11:56.000 --> 11:58.000 And locations went through a lot of iteration 11:58.000 --> 11:59.000 internally on the team. 11:59.000 --> 12:02.000 The first thought was that you would put a minion 12:02.000 --> 12:05.000 in the location and mechanically from the design side, 12:05.000 --> 12:06.000 like, okay, that's cool. 12:06.000 --> 12:08.000 I can imagine what we would do there. 12:08.000 --> 12:10.000 But one of the best parts about Hearthstone 12:10.000 --> 12:14.000 is the intuitiveness of the UI and the low complexity 12:14.000 --> 12:16.000 of this is how the game should be played. 12:16.000 --> 12:18.000 And it turns out putting a minion inside of something else 12:18.000 --> 12:21.000 on the board actually got very complicated. 12:21.000 --> 12:22.000 Like, what are you representing? 12:22.000 --> 12:23.000 How are you doing it? 12:23.000 --> 12:24.000 How are you showing all the information you need 12:24.000 --> 12:26.000 to the player? 12:26.000 --> 12:27.000 And they went through some iteration there 12:27.000 --> 12:29.000 and didn't quite land on a thing, 12:29.000 --> 12:31.000 and so it went on the shelf. 12:31.000 --> 12:34.000 And then it got dusted off again as we got into, 12:34.000 --> 12:36.000 again, Murder at Castle Nathorea. 12:36.000 --> 12:37.000 And they're like, okay, what if this is just like 12:37.000 --> 12:39.000 a thing on the board and then you can use to activate it 12:39.000 --> 12:41.000 and it needs some amount of charges? 12:41.000 --> 12:44.000 And so we ended up shipping that version of it. 12:44.000 --> 12:47.000 And so, yeah, there's kind of like 12:47.000 --> 12:50.000 that blue sky ideation iteration happens on, 12:50.000 --> 12:53.000 we'll say, paper, and then there's the, 12:53.000 --> 12:55.000 oh, how do we partner with the UI UX team 12:55.000 --> 12:58.000 to really bring that to life in such a way 12:58.000 --> 13:01.000 that feels so intuitive and correct to players? 13:01.000 --> 13:02.000 And when we hit on both of those, 13:02.000 --> 13:04.000 we know we've got something really awesome. 13:04.000 --> 13:06.000 And so a lot goes into this. 13:06.000 --> 13:09.000 It certainly is not a, like, okay, time to do expansion, 13:09.000 --> 13:10.000 go figure out a thing and go ship it. 13:10.000 --> 13:12.000 No, there's like a lot of constant iteration 13:12.000 --> 13:14.000 such that we can always come up with something 13:14.000 --> 13:17.000 so cool and flavorful and thematic, 13:17.000 --> 13:19.000 tying in, again, Quick Draw and Excavate, 13:19.000 --> 13:22.000 I think really hitting both the flavor 13:22.000 --> 13:24.000 and the mechanic of how they work. 13:24.000 --> 13:26.000 Just feel totally right. 13:27.000 --> 13:30.000 Just, yeah, feels like it's gonna be really easy 13:30.000 --> 13:32.000 for players to come back in and understand. 13:32.000 --> 13:35.000 Something else that I personally really like about Hearthstone 13:35.000 --> 13:37.000 and something that keeps me going is that it feels like 13:37.000 --> 13:39.000 you can just sort of come back in at any point. 13:39.000 --> 13:42.000 And we're seeing this now more than ever with catch-up packs. 13:42.000 --> 13:45.000 Could you speak a bit more about sort of maybe 13:45.000 --> 13:47.000 for someone who might just notice the word catch-up pack 13:47.000 --> 13:50.000 and think about coming back, how will those allow you 13:50.000 --> 13:53.000 to sort of build a viable deck quite easily? 13:53.000 --> 13:56.000 And will they be sort of, how accessible will they be 13:56.000 --> 13:59.000 for maybe new players as well as current players? 13:59.000 --> 14:02.000 We're constantly looking at feedback from player community, 14:02.000 --> 14:07.000 surveying players, getting them, having them answer like, 14:07.000 --> 14:09.000 hey, what do you want to come back? 14:09.000 --> 14:14.000 Or what are you thinking you maybe need to get a friend 14:14.000 --> 14:16.000 in the game? 14:16.000 --> 14:18.000 And one of the things we hear is the, 14:18.000 --> 14:21.000 oh, there's so many expansions, I need cards from all of them 14:21.000 --> 14:23.000 even though maybe I'm excited about the new theme 14:23.000 --> 14:24.000 that you've got, right? 14:24.000 --> 14:28.000 So concretely, if you're really into Westerns and card games, 14:28.000 --> 14:30.000 you're like, showdown in the Badlands sounds awesome, 14:30.000 --> 14:31.000 heck yeah. 14:31.000 --> 14:33.000 I played a Western card game, by the way. 14:33.000 --> 14:35.000 Anyways, like, so I'm into that, that sounds great. 14:35.000 --> 14:37.000 Oh, but I got to go get cards, you know, 14:37.000 --> 14:40.000 all the way from April of 2022. 14:40.000 --> 14:42.000 Like, oh, shoot, that's a lot of stuff. 14:42.000 --> 14:44.000 No, maybe I won't come back. 14:44.000 --> 14:46.000 And so we understood this is like a pretty important 14:46.000 --> 14:50.000 player problem, and I tasked the team about a year ago, 14:50.000 --> 14:53.000 hey, this is a problem, let's go figure out some 14:53.000 --> 14:57.000 really awesome solutions that players can easily understand 14:57.000 --> 14:59.000 and we'll excite them to come back to the game. 14:59.000 --> 15:03.000 And so brainstormed, came up with a bunch of ideas, 15:03.000 --> 15:06.000 went through some modeling on how do we think this will affect 15:06.000 --> 15:08.000 player engagement, how do we think this will affect players 15:08.000 --> 15:10.000 coming into the game, how do we think this will affect 15:10.000 --> 15:13.000 our business, and came up with a few ideas, 15:13.000 --> 15:17.000 did some testing of surveys with actual players. 15:17.000 --> 15:20.000 Shout out to our community for finding those and posting 15:20.000 --> 15:23.000 their commentary on it, and it's interesting and fun 15:23.000 --> 15:25.000 to read all those ideas, because behind the scenes 15:25.000 --> 15:26.000 we know we're actually just trying to solve 15:26.000 --> 15:28.000 this player problem. 15:28.000 --> 15:32.000 And then maybe March this year, I don't actually remember 15:32.000 --> 15:35.000 when, we were like, hey, what if we did something 15:35.000 --> 15:36.000 related to packs, right? 15:36.000 --> 15:39.000 We have packs already, and we then brainstormed 15:39.000 --> 15:43.000 a bunch of things related to, you know, packs. 15:43.000 --> 15:45.000 And so like an early example was, well, if you open 15:45.000 --> 15:49.000 a pack from the current expansion, we also open 15:49.000 --> 15:52.000 another pack for you from other past expansions. 15:52.000 --> 15:55.000 And like, okay, how do we communicate that with UI? 15:55.000 --> 15:58.000 Like, oh, actually that seems kind of complicated, right? 15:58.000 --> 16:01.000 So that sort of UI intuitiveness matters a lot to us too, 16:01.000 --> 16:03.000 and so then we went further, and like, what if it was 16:03.000 --> 16:05.000 just a pack that had a bunch of cards in it? 16:05.000 --> 16:07.000 And like, oh, okay, like what would that look like, 16:07.000 --> 16:09.000 and how do we communicate which sets and whatnot? 16:09.000 --> 16:11.000 And I think the team's done a really good job 16:11.000 --> 16:14.000 of highlighting, you know, this type of catch-a-pack, 16:14.000 --> 16:16.000 these five icons rotating through it. 16:16.000 --> 16:18.000 Right now we only have one, so it's really clear 16:18.000 --> 16:21.000 catch-a-packs comes with the five expansions 16:21.000 --> 16:23.000 in standard before Showdown in the Badlands. 16:23.000 --> 16:26.000 But it should be a really easy-to-grok 16:26.000 --> 16:29.000 and easy-to-understand experience of get these, 16:29.000 --> 16:32.000 open them, and then it's going to fill in your collection, right? 16:32.000 --> 16:33.000 It's going to look at your collection completion 16:33.000 --> 16:35.000 from each of those past five expansions 16:35.000 --> 16:37.000 and give you between one and ten cards 16:37.000 --> 16:41.000 to help you get caught up and really fill in your collection 16:41.000 --> 16:43.000 in each of those expansions, which is great 16:43.000 --> 16:45.000 because that's what players need to combine 16:45.000 --> 16:47.000 with the new Showdown in the Badlands content 16:47.000 --> 16:50.000 to go have fun right now. 16:50.000 --> 16:55.000 When we go live on the 14th, we're giving everybody a couple. 16:55.000 --> 16:57.000 If you're at BlizzCon or hit the virtual ticket, 16:57.000 --> 16:58.000 you get a few more. 16:58.000 --> 16:59.000 We're running a free event. 16:59.000 --> 17:02.000 I think you can get five more just participating in the event. 17:02.000 --> 17:05.000 Of course, if you pre-purchase, we put some in there. 17:05.000 --> 17:08.000 Some players saw that as soon as we launched the pre-purchase. 17:08.000 --> 17:10.000 And so, yeah, that's a spoiler. 17:10.000 --> 17:12.000 That's what it was. 17:12.000 --> 17:15.000 And glad to have that be known there. 17:15.000 --> 17:19.000 And then as we do typically when we launch new content, 17:19.000 --> 17:21.000 there's like a, hey, new expansion. 17:21.000 --> 17:23.000 Here's the new bundle. 17:23.000 --> 17:26.000 And we're going to bundle those together with Badlands packs 17:26.000 --> 17:27.000 because that's their purpose, right? 17:27.000 --> 17:28.000 You're excited about Badlands. 17:28.000 --> 17:29.000 Come get the Badlands content. 17:29.000 --> 17:31.000 But you also need to fill in this collection. 17:31.000 --> 17:32.000 And it's great for new players. 17:32.000 --> 17:34.000 It's great for lapsed players that have missed 17:34.000 --> 17:36.000 some of those expansions because they're going to fill in 17:36.000 --> 17:38.000 the expansions that they missed. 17:39.000 --> 17:43.000 We don't know exactly what other forms this will exist. 17:43.000 --> 17:44.000 I think there's a bundle with gold, 17:44.000 --> 17:47.000 but we're not going to have these infinitely purchasable 17:47.000 --> 17:49.000 at expansion or release because we don't know exactly 17:49.000 --> 17:51.000 how they're going to be used yet. 17:51.000 --> 17:54.000 So think of this as like version one of this new experiment 17:54.000 --> 17:56.000 to see if we can get a lot of players to come in 17:56.000 --> 17:58.000 and check out the game and make it easy for them 17:58.000 --> 18:01.000 to come back by offering this type of product. 18:01.000 --> 18:02.000 And then we're going to take that information, 18:02.000 --> 18:05.000 player sentiment, the community feedback, 18:05.000 --> 18:07.000 probably another set of surveys, 18:07.000 --> 18:08.000 and then our internal data say, 18:08.000 --> 18:11.000 okay, what do we want to do and tweak for next year? 18:11.000 --> 18:13.000 We're in the business of getting a lot of players in 18:13.000 --> 18:14.000 and having fun in Hearthstone. 18:14.000 --> 18:17.000 And so always trying new, unique, innovative ways 18:17.000 --> 18:20.000 to make that easy, especially leaning in on the digital space 18:20.000 --> 18:23.000 of our ability to say, you're missing this expansion, 18:23.000 --> 18:26.000 but not this expansion, so we'll give you content 18:26.000 --> 18:27.000 from the expansion you're missing. 18:27.000 --> 18:30.000 It really allows us to help fulfill that player goal 18:30.000 --> 18:31.000 of collecting the cards they're missing 18:31.000 --> 18:33.000 and then go have fun in the new expansion. 18:33.000 --> 18:35.000 We've talked a lot about Shadow in the Badlands, 18:35.000 --> 18:37.000 the new expansion for regular Hearthstone, 18:37.000 --> 18:41.000 but there's also been a big information drop 18:41.000 --> 18:42.000 on Battlegrounds, the fact that we've now got 18:42.000 --> 18:44.000 Battlegrounds duos. 18:44.000 --> 18:47.000 What was the design choice behind that 18:47.000 --> 18:51.000 and why is now the best time for Battleground duos, basically? 18:51.000 --> 18:54.000 So we, as game makers, and especially at Blizzard, 18:54.000 --> 18:56.000 are interested in connecting players together 18:56.000 --> 18:58.000 in ways that are new and interesting 18:58.000 --> 19:00.000 and allow you to make new friends, 19:00.000 --> 19:01.000 make lifelong friends. 19:01.000 --> 19:04.000 That is part of the Blizzard design values and culture. 19:04.000 --> 19:07.000 Hearthstone has been looking for a while 19:07.000 --> 19:09.000 to figure out how can we allow people 19:09.000 --> 19:11.000 a more purely competitive, sorry, 19:11.000 --> 19:13.000 more purely cooperative, the opposite, 19:13.000 --> 19:16.000 a more purely cooperative experience 19:16.000 --> 19:17.000 supported by the game itself, 19:17.000 --> 19:19.000 where there's no workarounds, no hacks, 19:19.000 --> 19:22.000 no anything that you can partner up with someone 19:22.000 --> 19:25.000 that you know or someone you don't. 19:25.000 --> 19:27.000 We do allow you to queue up by yourself. 19:27.000 --> 19:30.000 We'll pair you with someone else who's also in the queue 19:30.000 --> 19:35.000 and allow you to play together, strategize together, 19:35.000 --> 19:39.000 share cards, or minions in this case, 19:39.000 --> 19:41.000 and sort of try to be successful. 19:41.000 --> 19:45.000 So the time was right because it's been an ongoing strategy 19:45.000 --> 19:47.000 that the team has been trying to satisfy 19:47.000 --> 19:48.000 because we believe in it. 19:48.000 --> 19:52.000 We believe in the power of bringing people together. 19:52.000 --> 19:55.000 And there's prototyping kind of always happening on the team. 19:55.000 --> 19:58.000 It's a culture where there's lots of opportunities 19:58.000 --> 20:01.000 for folks to just try stuff, to just hack things together. 20:01.000 --> 20:05.000 And so this particular effort the team brought 20:05.000 --> 20:07.000 to the leadership team, the Battlegrounds team 20:07.000 --> 20:10.000 had hacked together a version of this and said, 20:10.000 --> 20:13.000 we think that this could be fun to play together. 20:13.000 --> 20:15.000 This was not the first time the team had seen stuff, 20:15.000 --> 20:17.000 but it was one that when it came to us, we were like, 20:17.000 --> 20:19.000 oh, it was very immediately apparent 20:19.000 --> 20:21.000 that there's something magical here. 20:21.000 --> 20:23.000 There's something great here. 20:23.000 --> 20:25.000 And it's something we can add to the genre. 20:25.000 --> 20:27.000 It's something we can add to Battlegrounds 20:27.000 --> 20:30.000 that allows you to relate to each other in a new way, 20:30.000 --> 20:31.000 make new friends. 20:31.000 --> 20:33.000 We're so thrilled that we were able to bring it 20:33.000 --> 20:38.000 to the floor here at BlizzCon to get even more feedback 20:38.000 --> 20:41.000 because we're still a little ways from launch. 20:41.000 --> 20:44.000 So we're going to be able to get feedback from people 20:44.000 --> 20:46.000 about does the communication system, 20:46.000 --> 20:48.000 we have a ping system that lets you 20:48.000 --> 20:49.000 ping stuff on the other board. 20:49.000 --> 20:51.000 Say, I want that, I don't want this. 20:51.000 --> 20:53.000 Is that sufficient for players to be able 20:53.000 --> 20:55.000 to communicate to each other? 20:55.000 --> 20:57.000 How does it feel to get what you want from your partner 20:57.000 --> 20:59.000 or not get what you want from your partner? 20:59.000 --> 21:01.000 So we're going to have the chance to iterate 21:01.000 --> 21:02.000 and make it even better. 21:02.000 --> 21:05.000 So I think the next time a great mode comes 21:05.000 --> 21:07.000 across our doorstep, we will figure out 21:07.000 --> 21:09.000 how to invest in it and make it. 21:09.000 --> 21:11.000 You see that in Hearthstone a lot. 21:11.000 --> 21:14.000 So the time is now because the team brought it to us 21:14.000 --> 21:16.000 and we're so thankful that they did. 21:16.000 --> 21:19.000 And then they really busted it to get it here 21:19.000 --> 21:21.000 and make it to quality. 21:21.000 --> 21:23.000 They worked really hard. 21:24.000 --> 21:26.000 I can't think of a good word to say 21:26.000 --> 21:28.000 other than what I'm trying to say. 21:28.000 --> 21:30.000 Anyway, the time is now because they brought it to us 21:30.000 --> 21:32.000 and it was great and we invested in it. 21:32.000 --> 21:35.000 Shout out to the team for ideating, 21:35.000 --> 21:37.000 prototyping, making the fun thing, 21:37.000 --> 21:40.000 and then working their butts off 21:40.000 --> 21:42.000 to make sure there was a demo. 21:42.000 --> 21:44.000 Make sure there's a demo at BlizzCon. 21:44.000 --> 21:47.000 Don't have a concrete ship for this next year again, 21:47.000 --> 21:48.000 Tyler pointed out. 21:48.000 --> 21:52.000 The interaction between players is important 21:52.000 --> 21:53.000 to make sure we get right. 21:53.000 --> 21:55.000 So excited to have the demo, get the feedback, 21:55.000 --> 21:57.000 and then figure out how to get all that incorporated 21:57.000 --> 21:59.000 such that when it launches, 21:59.000 --> 22:01.000 there's a really great experience for players. 22:01.000 --> 22:03.000 Guys, thank you so much for your time.