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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

There could eventually be more adventures in Hearthstone

If it makes sense in the future, said Ben Thompson.

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In the past, Hearthstone has had single-player content in the form of adventures; solo missions that players had to defeat each wing to unlock the next, supported by some crazy mechanics and rules, along with a bunch of bosses and a narrative to boot. After the release of the One Night in Karazhan adventure though, they scrapped the idea of adventures and made all card releases come in the form of expansions and packs.

We spoke with lead art director Ben Thompson at a Kobolds & Catacombs preview event last week, and we touched on the topic of adventures. They provided players with a guaranteed reward; they knew what cards they'd be receiving, instead of suffering through the randomness and potential duplicates and disappointment that is often contained in packs. We enquired whether Blizzard considered making any more adventure-style content, perhaps as a way for players to have a more reliable way to spend their money, and this is what Thompson had to say:

"I think adventures had a plus and a minus to them in many ways when it came to the kind of value we wanted to put into the game," Thompson explained. "Upside was there was a lot of storytelling components to it, there was certainly a single-player component to that as well, but ultimately we needed to use that as a vehicle to get those 30-ish cards out there, into decks and into the different metas.

"As a result, because it was behind adventure content, the kind of challenges the content had to really present to players was very low. It didn't have a lot of challenge for the very experienced players and there was this feeling that we have to play through the adventure to get to the cards we want. For the single-player players, they enjoyed playing the content and getting the cards, but they felt like it wasn't enough cards to really, as you said, go and start to form decks around.

"Now, by including it as completely free-to-play into each and every set, there's a mission set of content for each and every single-player out there that could be as varied as a dungeon run. We could do more of the typical tiered wing type adventures if it makes sense in the future, but there will always be some mission content ascribed to it, it'll always be free, so the single-player always has that to look forward to, the new player always has that available to them, and then by not putting the cards or any of the content gated behind playing that mission, putting all the value up front, now we get to make those a little bit more challenging.

"Now things like the Dungeon Run are decidedly very difficult, just as the Frozen Throne climb to fight Arthas or The Lich King at the top of the spire was more difficult because there wasn't cards waiting behind that that some players would just never get to because their skill level wasn't there. We kind of get to make some concessions and on the back-end, help new players and give content that is meaningful to experienced players as well and hopefully reach the high end of both."

A detailed response, but perhaps not the one players were looking for. Are you satisfied with the options available to spend money in Hearthstone at the moment?

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

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