Anyone here on the TA forums playing HearthStone yet? http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/ I signed up a few minutes after it was announced. Have to say it has very compelling gameplay. They have taken quite a few ideas from the mobile market, including free-to-play. It's definitely playable for free, but serious players will probably want to invest a bit. Unfortunately the arena is very $$ whichever way you buy access.
It seems like a number of studios are producing digital card games as of late. Are they in the same vein as Magic the Gathering?
From what i've seen (im not in the beta), this is exactly like what World of Warcraft TCG is. Lots of strategy involved in deck building which is what makes it similar to MTG. The differences come from having "Heroes." In MTG, YOU are the planeswalker, and you play the cards. In WoW TCG, you play as the Hero you choose, and your deck will only consist of cards that are compatible with your hero's class, race or alignment. Some heroes excel in leading hordes of summons, some excel in buffing themselves, some heroes are more equipment oriented where the heroes themselves are the ones dealing damage, etc. The strategies were pretty well thought out. I hope that Hearthstone is somewhat similar to WoW TCG, and it would rock.
From what I heard it's very similar to WoW TCG. I'm not sure if the mana system is different though, as I'm totally new to the genre. Gameplay is very addictive, and matches don't last too long, ~10-15 minutes in the Play mode, a little longer in The Arena as people usually think longer and people may not be as familiar with the cards. If you run out of cards you accrue fatigue, which is 1 dmg per turn. You can unlock new cards by leveling up your characters and by purchasing cards with either the in game currency (gold) or packs at various prices. You get gold by winning matches (5g per 5 wins) or completing daily quests (40g). I imagine Blizzard is going to do extremely well with this game, especially since it will be available on iPad (and would fit perfectly there). If any of you get beta access, feel free to add my battle.net account to your friends list. aerth#1783 *edit* This is a good post with pros and cons with the game. I'd agree with pretty much everything here: http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/08/21/what-we-love-and-what-we-hate-about-the-hearthstone-beta/
Here's another for our very own Combat Monsters. First video review of the PC Beta which you can get from www.rubicondev.com/combatmonsters right now. Out on mobile end of september
Make sure you've opted in with your Battle.net account. It will at some point be open beta, so you're bound to get in. Also, I believe they have a specs tool that you can run that might increase your chances of getting in.
After watching the videos about this game on IGN, this is probably going to be the first F2P game I am going to spend money on. Cannot wait for the Ipad version. Well done Blizzard!