Changes to Vanilla Sets, PTR Legendary Buff Off, Fire or Ice DH
Hearthstone UI Design, Mobile Start Screens, Deck Spotlight: Spark's Deadly Tactics
Closed Beta Test Friend Invites Incoming, Upcoming Mount Changes
Patch 6.1 Hotfixes - March 4
Doubleagent - Level 100 Neutral Pandaren
Doubleagent has finally hit level 100!
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
GDC 2015 - How Blizzard's Warcraft Brought Hearthstone to Life
Gamespot has a nice video of the talk Blizzard gave about creating the Hearthstone UI. Some of the highlights are below:
Early Concepts
- The initial game that got approved was Warcraft Legends, with a build called Fire and Ice.
- One concept had players traveling across the world doing single player quests and content.
- The game was initially created entirely in Flash.
- The pre-alpha board was complicated and looked boring.
- Other ideas that came up were an Adventure Book, 3D Cards, Hologram Cards, a board that was a tree stump
- The initial matchmaking screen had an over the top hero selection animation with sound effects, hero voice emotes, and ending with a "Fight" sound.
- The next itteration had a box that opened to a map of the world. You then selected your hero, the map ripped in half to reveal a Google Earth like video of Azeorth, zooming in while showing names of players battling. Once your match was found, both player names were displayed and the somewhat familiar Hearthstone board appeared.
- The box still exists in a more polished form in the live game. Treys and keys are used in the UI to go along with the box theme.
- The box had to sit somewhere, so the team decided it was sitting on a table in a tavern, which you can see in different loading and other screens.
- The same idea was fully realized for Blizzcon, with a very nice Hearthstone tavern stage set.
Physical UI
- The UI started with a flat parchment style UI, then they decided it should be more 3D. Next they made it more physical, added magic, added some charm, and then made it feel valuable and constructed.
- The current trend is building flat UIs, which didn't fit Hearthstone. The team went for a more physical UI, as it fit the game better.
- The physical UI made things like keys, card backs, and card packs feel more valuable.
- Opening a pack of cards is an important part of the experience. The team tried to replicate the physical experience of opening a card pack with the game's sounds and visuals.
- Many parts of the UI bounce or rotate, giving them a more physical feel.
- The physical UI worked out well when the team decided to bring the game to mobile devices. The UI already had a lot of nice elements for touch, such as the cards tilting when you moved them around and clicking the board causing dust to fly up.
- The game has a lot of over the shoulder appeal, which is important for a collectable card game. Someone walking by and seeing you play it will be interested.
- The physical UI is hard to expand. Currently the screen has nine hero slots, but how can it be rearranged for more.
- It took a long time and a lot of tries to get the UI right, but it was important because that is a huge part of the game.
- The physical UI also is designed for flavor over efficiency, to a certain extent.
UI Importance
- Some games come up with mechanics and gameplay and then treat the UI as an afterthought. The Hearthstone team realized that the UI design was as important as the game design.
- If the UI was too complicated, it was a signal to design that things may be too complicated.
- The board could only fit 7 minions as designed, so rather than scaling them down the team capped it at 7.
- Decks were initially 60 cards, with the list on the right scrolling down over three pages. It was too much for new players to keep in their head.
- An older concept allowed for chains, where your opponent could play a card, you could play a card in response to that card, and so on. This was a mess visually and complicated to design and play, so it was removed.
- The team starts with a feature by some simple wireframing, then iterates on it in 2D until it feels right, and then brings in 3D to make sure it will work.
Q&A
- There are no plans to allow modification of Hearthstone like addons allow in WoW.
- There is a UI group that meets and the other teams are taking note of how the physical UI worked well.
- No effects are sacrificed for the mobile versions of Hearthstone, they just optimize them so performance is acceptable.
- Hearthstone on phones is pretty far along and looks awesome, so expect to hear more in the next couple of months.
- The need for more deck slots is a known issue that is under discussion.
NerfNow #1503 - Token
NerfNow #1503 takes a look at the impact of the WoW Token.