Info
This page aims to document Hearthstone The Hearthstone icon Hearthstone (formerly known as Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft 1] 2]) is a free-to-play digital collectible card game from Blizzard Entertainment. It was first announced in a presentation by Rob Pardo at the `s design and development, from the cornerstones of its initial conception to present-day philosophies and design paradigms.
For a quick overview of Hearthstone`s milestone events, see the Hearthstone timeline This page aims to chart the major events of Hearthstone, from its initial conception to the introduction of the latest feature. Contents 1 2008 2 2009 3 2010 4 2012 5 2013 6 2014 7 .
Initial development
- Team 5 Team 5 (also known as Blizzard Team 5) are the Blizzard Entertainment development team responsible for Hearthstone. A "small and nimble" team of 15 members for much of the game s original development, the team has are the team behind the development of Hearthstone. Until near the end of the closed beta The Hearthstone beta was the beta test phase in the development of Hearthstone, following the alpha test. The beta test began in its closed phase in the Americas region on Aug. 16th 2013, and in , the team comprised only 15 members, the smallest team at Blizzard. This allowed them to work much more quickly and in different ways.
- Team 5 was created specifically for the development of Hearthstone, with the intention of taking a different approach to game creation than that previously taken by Blizzard in developing its games, with 50+ person teams and multi-year development cycles. Team 5 was created with the intention of working on a smaller scale but at the same level of quality. The mandate for the team was to keep the team very small, and to "think of ways to develop a game that might be non-traditional within Blizzard`s walls". The smaller team required its members to be "old-school" "garage programmers" and able to "wear a lot of different hats", with far less specialization than that typically found in larger teams.
- Hearthstone development began in 2008, along with the assembling of Team 5. Be that as it may, for a long time Team 5 was a very small group mostly focusing on prototyping. Ben Brode Ben Brode Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 3 Attack: 4 Health: 1 Your volume can t be reduced below maximum.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] "There is no way to contain the Brode." - Yong states that his first records are from Jun. 2008, but that "full-on development didn`t start for a while after that". Development by the whole team appears to have started in earnest in spring 2012. Hearthstone was first announced at PAX East in Mar. 2013, reached beta The Hearthstone beta was the beta test phase in the development of Hearthstone, following the alpha test. The beta test began in its closed phase in the Americas region on Aug. 16th 2013, and in in Aug. 2013, and was fully released in Mar. 2014, roughly 6 years after development began.
- The developers and Blizzard in general "have always loved CCGs collectible card games", with some such as Blizzard president Mike Morhaime having played them for more than 20 years.
- It was decided early in the game`s development that Hearthstone would be based in Warcraft, featuring characters, powers and lore from that universe. Many of the team, including Ben Brode Ben Brode Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 3 Attack: 4 Health: 1 Your volume can t be reduced below maximum.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] "There is no way to contain the Brode." - Yong , Eric Dodds Eric Dodds Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 6 Attack: 5 Health: 5 Abilities: Summon Battlecry: Summon a 2/2 Pirate and destroy all Ninjas.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Eric Dodds is a Blizzard employee, and Derek Sakamoto Derek Sakamoto Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 1 Attack: 3 Health: 1 The notorious Footclapper.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Derek Sakamoto is Senior UI Designer on the Team 5 Hearthstone development team. He , had previously worked on World of Warcraft, and many others were "big WoW fans". Hearthstone was inspired by WoW.
- The development team wanted to bring the "great World of Warcraft World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by Blizzard Entertainment. The game was first released Nov. 2004, and has since seen six expansions: The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of flavor" to the game, but also to create a unique Hearthstone flavor that was a little different to World of Warcraft. Lead Designer Eric Dodds Eric Dodds Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 6 Attack: 5 Health: 5 Abilities: Summon Battlecry: Summon a 2/2 Pirate and destroy all Ninjas.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Eric Dodds is a Blizzard employee, explained that this was achieved by taking the `basic recipe` of World of Warcraft, "2 parts epic and maybe 1 part ... whimsical fun", and adding "a few more dashes of charm and whimsy … and maybe even a dash of irreverence," to produce a unique blend that was more comical and light-hearted than World of Warcraft while still drawing from its deep lore roots and epic feeling. The developers also drew on experience playing games like Peggle to imbue a whimsical fun and excitement into the recipe for Hearthstone.
- Hearthstone was initially known as Warcraft Legends. It was a Warcraft Legends build named Fire and Ice that got the game greenlit for development. At the time at which it was greenlit, the game had the rogue and mage classes playable, with warlock a work in progress.
- Early in the game`s development, prior to the beginning of prototyping, deadlines for StarCraft II caused all of Team 5 except Eric Dodds Eric Dodds Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 6 Attack: 5 Health: 5 Abilities: Summon Battlecry: Summon a 2/2 Pirate and destroy all Ninjas.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Eric Dodds is a Blizzard employee, and Ben Brode Ben Brode Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 3 Attack: 4 Health: 1 Your volume can t be reduced below maximum.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] "There is no way to contain the Brode." - Yong to be reassigned to that game for around a year. This isolation allowed the two designers to work in an even more focused way, with only the two of them to settle prototyping decisions, and were able to rapidly progress through myriad design iterations. For a long time Dodds and Brode used only pen and paper to create their prototypes, cutting pieces of paper to create test cards.
- When the rest of the team returned, they discovered that Dodds and Brode had created a working Flash version of the game in their absence. The basic game was complete; according to Dodds, "We pretty much pointed at the computer and said — `the game is done` ... Just remake that game over there." This Flash prototype established the core game for Hearthstone and according to Executive Producer Hamilton Chu Hamilton Chu Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 7 Attack: 9 Health: 5 Was successfully NOT part of the problem! ...most of the time.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Hamilton Chu is a Blizzard employee survived to a surprising degree into the finished product.
- The rest of the team`s "tour of duty" on Starcraft II also had some impact on the development of Hearthstone, with the balanced yet asymmetrical nature of the game`s different races "definitely carrying over into Hearthstone", according to Dodds.
- Finding a seed
- Initial work on the game lacked a central theme or "seed". The developers experimented with many settings and approaches, but eventually decided that none of these were what they wanted for the game. Derek Sakamoto Derek Sakamoto Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 1 Attack: 3 Health: 1 The notorious Footclapper.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Derek Sakamoto is Senior UI Designer on the Team 5 Hearthstone development team. He explains that at that point, "the path to Hearthstone as it is today was not obvious or clear to the team".
- One discarded prototype for the game included a World Map, with the player travelling Azeroth, engaging in single-player quests (similar to what would become adventures Choosing an adventure Game formats Each Standard year, any adventures released prior to the previous calendar year are marked as Wild format. The adventures are removed from the Shop, and players will be unable to ) to unlock new zones. A fully working Flash model of the game existed at this point, including functioning quests created by Ben Brode Ben Brode Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 3 Attack: 4 Health: 1 Your volume can t be reduced below maximum.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] "There is no way to contain the Brode." - Yong .
- Other ideas included "Hearthstone in the forest", "adventure books", and 3D or even holographic cards. Reasons for rejecting these early models included too much complexity and a lack of aliveness in the display.
- When it came to matchmaking, the developers knew they didn`t want to simply have a counter or a `searching for players` message. One prototype involved a representation of Gurubashi Arena, with the two challengers appearing on either side of the arena, while the names of other matches appeared overhead.
- Eventually, following a "super long meeting" between Sakamoto and several of the team`s artists seeking a central vision or "seed" for the game, the idea of a game box emerged. Within the box, a World Map would show other battles taking place across Azeroth, with the player eventually zooming in on their own match in a specific area of the world. Once the player`s battle was found, the game would shift into a gameboard view, taking place within the game box.
- Once the idea of a box was established, this "seed" "grew roots into the team`s minds". The box gave the developers a framework for what they wanted to do with the user interface (UI), with wooden panelling and trays that would fit inside the "jewelry box" or "music box" design, and would go on to influence elements such as the shop The Goblins vs Gnomes tab of the Cards pane The Adventure pane The Heroes pane The Shop is the in-game facility for purchasing new card packs and wings of adventures. Purchases may be made in and even announcement banners. The box also eventually gave rise to the concept of arena keys, with this fitting the box concept. The box theme would later be extended to the rest of the UI.
- The box also provided a solution to concerns about the UI distracting players from the game and breaking immersion. With the game conceptualised as one being played by the denizens of Azeroth themselves, the developers considered it critical that players felt that they were playing the game from within Azeroth, and saw a standard frame UI as "a sure way" to break the immersion of the experience.
- With the central setting of a game box in place, the developers turned to thinking about the wider setting for the game, and where exactly the box was supposed to be situated. It was at this point that the idea of a tavern or inn was struck upon, stimulating another "burst of creativity". The idea of a tavern would go on to become central to the game, with the location even reproduced in the stage design of the 2014 Hearthstone World Championship A map of the qualification process towards the 2016 Hearthstone World Championship. The Hearthstone World Championship is the official Hearthstone world championship and the finale for the Hearthstone Championship Tour. Each year, the Championship gathers .
- Prior the development of the box idea, work on the game`s setting had begun with a "really awful, flat parchment garbage" design. The developers soon decided that the game should be 3D, as well as feeling more physical. This included making the game feel valuable, both as a way to make players feel rewarded for putting time into the game, and as a way of recreating the experience of opening card packs in real-life CCGs. This included constructing the cards themselves using materials such as gems, leather and gold, something which would be impractical and excessively costly to do in real life.
- Once established, this physicality served to unify the interface, through use of common elements such as bouncing and over-rotation. For instance, the shop The Goblins vs Gnomes tab of the Cards pane The Adventure pane The Heroes pane The Shop is the in-game facility for purchasing new card packs and wings of adventures. Purchases may be made in rocks and turns as the player selects packs to buy, with the chosen number of packs falling from the sky and impacting upon the shop board; while announcement banners would go on to be implemented as wooden signs, swinging back and forth. Later elements would expand the range of impressions while maintaining the sense of physicality, such as Goblins vs Gnomes "Goblins and gnomes… goblins and gnomes! Both are super-brilliant - but you would never know! Everything they seem to make is faulty or explodes… Perfecting imperfection - goblins and gnomes!" Wild format Goblins vs Gnomes `s electrical theme, which saw sparks and electric current added to the game`s arena button. This not only provided a central theme for the designers, but helps the game`s presentation feel cohesive, whether players realise it or not.
- The title for Hearthstone itself is taken from World of Warcraft World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by Blizzard Entertainment. The game was first released Nov. 2004, and has since seen six expansions: The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of , where the Hearthstone is an item which allows the player to instantly return to a designated inn or tavern. Conceptually, by setting their Hearthstone to a new location, the player can establish that inn as their new base of operations, or home away from home. Inns also provide an experience buff in the form of the rested bonus, rewarding players for ending their gaming sessions with their characters relaxing at an inn, again reinforcing the concept of inns as homely havens for adventurers. This fits well with the game`s warm and welcoming theme, and also provided the game with its signature icon: the Hearthstone swirl, as seen in the World of Warcraft item.
- For all these reasons, when the name Hearthstone was suggested during one of many "horrendous meetings" trying to find a name for the game, the designers found the name to suggest a desirable sense of warmth, safety, home and friendship, as well as "a lot of symbolism" and art potential.
- Progression
- The initial announcement of the project to the rest of Blizzard was met with "apprehension", "confusion" and uncertainty. According to Production Director Jason Chayes Jason Chayes Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 6 Attack: 7 Health: 6 Enrage: Just kidding! He never Enrages.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Jason Chayes is a Blizzard employee, member of Team 5, and , "selling the game internally was one of our biggest challenges", due to the project`s marked difference to other Blizzard games to date. Eric Dodds Eric Dodds Type: Minion Rarity: Legendary Cost: 6 Attack: 5 Health: 5 Abilities: Summon Battlecry: Summon a 2/2 Pirate and destroy all Ninjas.See this card on Hearthpwn data page] Eric Dodds is a Blizzard employee, states, "When we announced the game a lot of people went, `wow, that`s a little weird that you`re doing that`", while Mike Morhaime describes the reaction as "Why are we making this?" The "evangelizing" process was ultimately achieved through rolling out playable versions of the game to members of the company, layer by layer - first the development team itself, then other development teams, followed by the wider company. Ben Brode describes how as the team were playing test matches, other Blizzard personnel walking past would frequently stop to watch the game play out. When the team held the game`s first internal tournament, there were too many people who wanted to watch, forcing the company to set up "overflow areas" screening the tournament in other conference rooms. By Dec. 2012 there was broad exposure to Hearthstone across Blizzard, with employees "really excited for the game".
- Accessibility was a key focus for Hearthstone from the start. Making a game which was quick to learn and fast-paced to play was an early design goal, as was making a game which appealed to a wide audience. This design was conceived in contrast to many well-known CCGs, with their complex rules, long game times and inaccessibility to those unfamiliar with the genre. The designers envisioned a game you could play a quick session or two of within a 20 minute period, such as during a lunch break.
- The designers also wanted individual cards to be easy to understand even for newer players. This was important so that players gaining new cards could immediately comprehend their function and strategise as to how they might be put into a deck, but also so that players encountering enemy effects during play could immediately understand their abilities and consequences, even if they had never seen the card before. Card text was heavily iterated in order to make cards as easy as possible for players to understand, and in some cases card complexity itself was also toned down, with cards that required too much thought simplified in order to expedite and ease play, both in terms of learning a card`s function and in calculating its outcome.
- With the desire for accessibility and speed came the eventual removal of concepts and mechanics from other CCGs, such as replacing more elaborate and cumbersome resource generation methods such as land cards with the automatically generated mana crystals. Making the players automatically gain a mana crystal each turn allowed the players to focus on more interesting gameplay decisions, but also allowed the game to more quickly reach its "climax" with powerful minions and cards entering play. This served to reduce each game`s ramping-up period, and also to reduce the overall duration of each match.
- This same desire also led to the simplification of card representations, especially minions on the field, and it was found that this worked well. This eventually resulted in the modern form of minion portraits, featuring only a picture and Attack and Health numbers.
- While the developers wanted to make the game accessible, they also wanted make sure it still had depth, giving players a reason to keep playing the game for a long time. With individual cards kept relatively simple, one way they chose to add depth to the game was through the interactions of different cards and effects; though each card was easily understood, the outcome of combining multiple effects could lead to deep and strategic gameplay. The developers worked to build in interesting and strategic interactions between cards.
- Another design intention was for it to be possible for sequences or combinations of cards to produce spectacular and often unforeseen outcomes. The developers wanted a lot of cards to support "player stories", tales of remarkable events which the Blizzard staff themselves began to trade early in development. The team considered these stories to be a strong and positive part of playing the game, even when the player ended up losing the match, and it was a design goal to include cards capable of generating interesting and memorable stories. The designers created many "story cards" with the potential for spectacular stories, but without specific outcomes in mind, and were often surprised to hear reports of unexpected synergies which they had not foreseen.
- The developers wanted to make the game fun to play regardless of whether the player won or lost. In addition to making games faster and shorter, some more frustrating elements from other CCGs were also discarded in favour of a lighter and more fun game. For instance, mechanics which the player was unable to actively counter, such as the ability to destroy the opponent`s resources, or force them to discard their cards, were removed due to being non-participatory and not fun to lose to. The developers also wanted players to enjoy a number of "little victories" each game regardless of the ultimate outcome, such as successfully countering a cunning play by the opponent, and to enjoy the `puzzle` of tackling the state of the board each turn.
- Another featureSpecial attraction that was removed early in development was "Combat Tricks". Similar to secrets A Secret is a spell card that is cast normally but has a delayed, hidden effect, which only takes place when a specific event occurs. When a Secret is played, a Secret icon appears on , these allowed players with active Combat Tricks who attacked their opponent to play a card on their opponent`s turn, disrupting their play. Ultimately it was found that removing Combat Tricks actually made the game more fun, as well as further improving its speed. This dynamic appears to have been partly reworked into secrets A Secret is a spell card that is cast normally but has a delayed, hidden effect, which only takes place when a specific event occurs. When a Secret is played, a Secret icon appears on .
- Early prototyping allowed for experimentation with and ultimately rejection of numerous gameplay styles, including the use of "fortresses". In addition to equipping the hero with weapons and armor, players were able to shelter their hero in a fortress with 20 Health. Players had to destroy the fortress before the enemy hero would "pop out" and they could attack them. Be that as it may, the element was eventually discarded due to strategic issues. The developers even tried a version of the game without minions, but this was quickly discarded.
- Damage over time effects were also considered during prototyping. "Many" of these effects were tried, but ultimately it "just didn`t feel right in Hearthstone.
- The game was designed from the start to be an online game. This allowed the developers to do a lot of things they couldn`t have done with a physical card game, including card effects like those of Nozdormu Nozdormu Set: Classic Type: Minion Subtype: Dragon Rarity: Legendary Cost: 9 Attack: 8 Health: 8 Tags: Ongoing effect Players only have 15 seconds to take their turns.Time to write some flavor text.See this card on , Thoughtsteal Thoughtsteal Set: Classic Type: Spell Class: Priest Rarity: Common Cost: 3 Abilities: Copy, Generate Tags: Random Copy 2 cards from your opponent s deck and put them into your hand."What do you get when you cast and King Mukla King Mukla Set: Classic Type: Minion Subtype: Beast Rarity: Legendary Cost: 3 Attack: 5 Health: 5 Abilities: Battlecry, Generate Tags: Spell-generating Battlecry: Give your opponent 2 Bananas.King Mukla wanders Jaguero Isle, searching for love.See this . A lot of key gameplay and card design decisions were made in order to make the game work well as an online game.
- Despite the online focus of the game, making the game feel physical was an early goal, later implemented mostly through art, animation and sound design. The developers wanted to ensure that the tangible feeling of collecting cards and opening new packs found in CCGs was also present in Hearthstone, despite the game being digital.
- The game was initially experimented with in the form of a physical game. Be that as it may, after this initial phase the game was moved onto a web interface. This would go on to define much of the Hearthstone playing style, with simplicity of display and interactions key to the design.
- The team tried various conceptualisations of what the game itself represented, before hitting upon the idea of the players controlling pieces on a board, with the game taking place in a tavern within the world of Warcraft itself. This went on to affect game board and interface design.
- Hearthstone was initially conceived as a PCPersonal Computer game, due to Blizzard being primarily focused on this platform. Be that as it may, fairly early in development, in response to the growing popularity of games on mobile devices, the team realised that the game could work well on a mobile platform, and later committed to this as a specific goal. For information on the eventual releaseAnnounce and adaptation of Hearthstone for mobile devices, see below.
- Once the team had decided that the game would be released for mobile devices such as iPad, the developers were forced to assess aspects such as interface design with this eventual goal in mind. For instance, featuresSpecial attraction intended to be discovered through mouse-over had to made with an alternate mobile-friendly interaction in mind, in order to ensure that it was possible to later make a mobile version of the game that was intuitive and easy to use, while still matching the game`s PC version. Because this goal was kept in mind through the development process, relatively little redesign was necessary for mobile release.
- The Arena A video explaining the Arena in Hearthstone made by the Curse Gamepedia @@@#@@@YouTube(youtube.com)###@### Channel. The Arena is a game mode where players compete against each other using specially constructed decks to earn substantial rewards. It - originally titled `The Forge` - was first conceived as a way to incorporate `draft mode` style play into the game. Drafting with a physical CCG involved players passing round packs of cards, drawing individual cards until they had each built a deck - something many of the developers enjoyed, but which would be difficult to implement within Hearthstone. To solve this problem, the developers implemented asynchronous drafting, allowing each player to separately - yet randomly - build, or `forge` a unique deck. Early versions of the Forge had players keeping all the cards they drew for their deck. For more background on the Arena`s development process, see Arena#Development.
- Hearthstone originally featured a "graveyard", a location where played cards and destroyed minions would be placed when they were removed from the game. This feature was removed during the game`s alpha The Hearthstone alpha was the alpha test phase in the development of Hearthstone. The alpha test presumably ended on Aug. 16th 2013, when Hearthstone began its closed beta testing phase in the Americas region. An , due to "making the game unnecessarily complex without adding much", when the game was already "deep" enough. The finished game`s battlefields The battlefield (or game board) is where the action takes place, representing the board on which each game is played out. Around the battlefield are various important UI elements, such as each player s hand, deck still feature skull icons next to the players` decks, indicating the previous location of the graveyards. Earlier versions of the graveyards can also be seen in some images of the game`s alpha battlefield designs.
- The developers explored various ways of speeding up the game, including players drawing a card from their deck at the end of their turn, instead of at the beginning. This meant player could spend their opponent`s turn planning how to act next turn, allowing them to make their play more quickly when their turn came around. Be that as it may, in tough situations this system often led to a feeling of powerlessness, since the player would know in advance that they were not going to draw next turn a card that was capable of dealing with the state of the board. Alternatively, the player might know in advance that they would have access to the card they needed,thus taking "the drama and excitement" out of the game.
- Alpha iterations of the game featured 4 or 5 keywords which were later removed from the game. Several minion types Bloodfen Raptor, a simple minion card. A Beast-type minion, it has 3 Attack, 2 Health and a mana cost of 2. Minions are persistent creatures on the battlefield that will fight for their hero. Minion - Blood Elf, Draenei, Dwarf, Gnome, Goblin, Human, Night Elf, Orc, Tauren, Troll, Undead, Worgen, Elemental, Mechanical, Nerubian, Ogre, and Scourge - were also experimented with but eventually removed. `Mechanical` was notably reinstated with Goblins vs Gnomes "Goblins and gnomes… goblins and gnomes! Both are super-brilliant - but you would never know! Everything they seem to make is faulty or explodes… Perfecting imperfection - goblins and gnomes!" Wild format Goblins vs Gnomes as the Mech Mech is a type of minion, depicting mechanical constructs ranging from piloted vehicles to fully sentient mechanical beings. For a list of cards featuring mechanical constructs, see Mechanical art. Contents 1 Background 1.1 Official 2 type, while the Dragon Dragons are a type of minion. Most Dragon synergies involve Battlecries which activate if the controlling player is holding a Dragon card in their hand. There are more legendary Dragons than any other specific minion type was kept in the game despite lacking even a single instance of synergy, due to related cards either being removed during alpha or never implemented. The first Dragon synergies would not be introduced until Blackrock Mountain "Have you heard the rumblings? The mountain stirs once more. Beneath its crags, cliffs and rocks, there s evil in its core. Fire made flesh! Dragon s breath! Teeth and claw and flame! Calling any heroes out , more than a year after full release.
- Heroes
- The game`s starting class was originally hunter The Hunter is one of the nine classes in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, represented by Rexxar and Alleria Windrunner. Contents 1 Heroes 2 Background 3 Hero Power 4 Strategy and gameplay 5 Counters 5.1 Secrets , but it was changed to mage Contents 1 Heroes 2 Overview 3 Background 4 Hero Power 5 Strategy and gameplay 5.1 Common deck types 5.2 Counters 6 Spells 6.1 Uncollectible 7 Minions 7.1 Uncollectible 8 Leveling rewards 8.1 Starting cards 8.2 because the developers wanted to use a non-weapon class, presumably to reduce complexity.
- At one point the base game had two heroes for each class, one representing the Alliance and one representing the Horde. The Alliance warlock was Wilfred Fizzlebang Wilfred Fizzlebang Set: The Grand Tournament Type: Minion Class: Warlock Rarity: Legendary Cost: 6 Attack: 4 Health: 4 Abilities: Modify cost, Modify Hero Power Tags: Hero Power-related, Ongoing effect Cards you draw from your Hero , whose presence helped to inspire the creation of the Lord Jaraxxus minion. This was later reduced to one for each class, although alternate heroes have since added expanded this number.
- In most cases, several possible characters were considered before the final hero for each class was decided. This can be seen in development screenshots (see sections above), with heroes such as Tyrande Whisperwind as priest, Kael`thas Sunstrider as mage, Tirion Fordring as paladin, and Edwin VanCleef as the original rogue. On selecting the right character to represent each class, Ben Brode states "In general it’s hard to find a perfect fit."
- Faction, race and gender representation were also factors in the selection of each class` hero. The original selection of heroes features 7 males and 2 females; 3 humans, 3 1/2 orcs (Rexxar being half-orc, half-ogre), 1 night elf and 1 blood elf; and ties roughly evenly for faction balance. Valeera was chosen for rogue partly due to being a blood elf female, as opposed to options such as Matthias Shaw or Edwin VanCleef (human male, already represented by both Anduin and Uther), or Garona Halforcen (a female half-orc, making the fifth orc hero), specifically in order to add more diversity to the cast of characters.
Videos
Gallery
The precursor of the Finding Opponent screen
An early version of the game`s interface, featuring Tyrande Whisperwind and Tirion Fordring heroes, and what appears to be a Dalaran battlefield
One of the first versions running in the game`s final engine, an earlier iteration of the Stormwind battlefield featuring earlier Jaina Proudmoore art
The hilarious card art used for Acidic Swamp Ooze during the game`s alpha, prior to the commissioning of its current art
An early design for the My Collection screen...