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Gwaer managed to catch up with Chris Woods immediately after the HexTCG PVE Design Panel. He got Chris to answer questions on the following topics (questions sourced from the HexTCG.com forums):
Note: the images in the slide show at the top of this post are 4x the size of the ones I posted previously – higher quality card images FTW!
The DragonCon 2013 HexTCG PVE Design panel featured Cory Jones (President & CCO, Cryptozoic), Chris Woods (Magical Creature, Cryptozoic), and Ben Stoll (Game Designer, Cryptozoic). I’ve posted the audio from the panel to SoundCloud. You’ll find quite a few PVE card spoilers (dungeon [Arena of Souls, Information Control] and raid [Vengeful Figment, Ruby Golem, Voodoo Doll, Gront's Favorite Pet]), a walkthrough of the plans for the “Junkyard Dog” dungeon, information about “Pudgington Hallow”, a spirited Q&A session, and much more!
You can also see all of the slides (thanks, Cory!) Chris talked to in the slideshow above this blog entry – they are displayed in the correct order starting with the HexTCG Key Art slide and ending with the HexTCG logo. Notably, compared to the PVP panel slides these are much less easier to follow without the context of the panel audio. In a day or two I’ll upload a video to YouTube marrying the audio and the presentation to make it even easier to follow along.
The DragonCon 2013 HexTCG PVP Design panel featured Cory Jones (President & CCO, Cryptozoic), Ben Stoll (Game Designer [PVP Lead], Cryptozoic), and Chris Woods (Magical Creature, Cryptozoic). I’ve posted the RAW and UNEDITED audio from the panel to SoundCloud. You’ll find quite a few card spoilers, and lots of new info about CZE’s plan for the game, including the news that Alpha will last for “months” before it switches to Beta (rather than the oft-repeated “3 weeks” comment that Cory made during the Kickstarter).
You can also see all of the slides (thanks, Cory!) Cory and Ben talked to in the slideshow above this blog entry – they are displayed in the correct order starting with the HexTCG Key Art slide and ending with the HexTCG logo. Sometime tomorrow I’ll upload a video to YouTube marrying the audio and the presentation to make it even easier to follow along.
After the panel I had the chance to catch up with Cory. He provided a couple of additional interesting tidbits. There are well over 20K backers at this point with more than 14K unique – that’s definitely higher than I thought given our perception of how many multi-pledgers there were. Also, Alpha access will be granted in phases. However, there won’t be an appreciable time difference (no more than a couple of days) between the different phases. They’re still working out the details on who gets slightly earlier access – some combination of level of Kickstarter tier and when you made your pledge most likely.
Remember to enter our iPad giveaway!
The DragonCon 2013 Kickstarting Videogames panel (AKA “How we Kickstarted Hex with special guest star Chris Avellone”) featured Cory Jones (President & CCO, Cryptozoic), Chris Woods (Magical Creature, Cryptozoic), Ben Stoll (Game Designer, Cryptozoic), Chris Avellone (Creative Director, Obsidian Entertainment), and Chris Polk. I’ve posted the the RAW and UNEDITED audio from the panel to SoundCloud. No HexTCG card spoilers or new information, but worth a listen to relive the first 30 days or so of HexTCG’s introduction to the world through Kickstarter, explore the teams’ motivations, and get their views on their relationship with their backers.
I’ll create an edited version later in the week with just the HexTCG Kickstarter-related questions and comments!
Luckily I got my DragonCon 2013 badge in time to make it to the MMO Design 101 Panel featuring Cory (as well as Eric Bakutis [Game Designer, Elder Scroll Online], Jonathan LeCraft [Senior Game Designer, WoW], and Alex Mayberry [Lead Producer, Diablo III]). I’ve posted the the RAW and UNEDITED audio from the panel to SoundCloud. It’s not necessarily specific to HexTCG, but there are a couple of interesting points made by Cory that definitely relate to HexTCG.
DragonCon 2013: MMO Design Panel
I’ll create an edited version later in the week with just Cory’s HexTCG-related soundbites!
Hex Vault is at DragonCon! I’m planning to post interviews with the CZE folks, audio recordings of the Hex-related panels (MMO Design, Kickstarter, PVP, and PVP), and anything else that might be of interest to the Hex community…
Stay tuned…
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Greetings, and welcome to my guest “Card Mechanics” article on Hex Vault! Colin asked me to write up a more thorough concept design of a mechanic I proposed on the forums. It was going off of an idea vickrpg had of a “splitting” troop.
The idea around this mechanic is to help make a traditional “slime monster”, though it could be used for any number of unique creatures – including vickrpg’s original idea of a “band” troop where the band splits off into its individual members.
The idea involves adding 2 keywords – Divide and Combine.
Divide X [Quick Action] – this troop splits into X <name> troops, with the original attack and defense evenly divided (or unevenly, if it’s not an even division) among those X troops. The divided troops will also have and abilities the original troop had, and they share their “state” (attacking, blocking, exhausted) with the original troop.
Combine [Quick Action] – combine all other troops in play under your control with the same name into one troop. All attack and defense from each troop is added for the new troop’s defense, and any abilities any one troop has are retained on the new troop.
Hands up all those who think Chris (the only guy in the puppy pen) should be fixing bugs in the HexTCG UI rather than playing with puppies?
Just kidding, Chris! 
You definitely deserve a break after your superhuman efforts at GenCon…
Puppy party today at Cryptozoic! A little de-stress from the convention season. pic.twitter.com/VQcQZxw7Jx
— HexTCG (@HexTCG) August 27, 2013
I wanted to take a few minutes to let everyone know what we have in store for Hex Vault as we march towards Alpha and Beta. Here are some of the exciting new features you can expect to see from Hex Vault in the coming months:
Hex Vault will be featuring weekly giveaways once Beta starts! Each week you’ll need to do an online scavenger hunt for the combination to the Vault. Of course, the best way to stay informed about HexTCG and hunt down fragments of the combination will be to keep up with articles posted on Hex Vault. The first person to crack the combination each week will win a prize! Anyone who cracks the vault after the weekly winner will have an opportunity to enter a drawing to win another prize.
BossHoss will be authoring an original comic about HexTCG and the Hex Community. Each issue will be a great story with wonderful art, as well as an opportunity to learn something about Hex (and maybe even spot cameos of CZE employees and community members!).
Hex Hero is a series inspired by the FNM Hero series. As such, the concept will be rather similar – the Hex Hero is a new player with no cards, no friends, and a limited budget. However, he has a goal – to accomplish what is thought to be the holy grail of TCG: Going Infinite. You can see a full description of Hex Hero here.
If you’ve been following Hex Vault, you’ve already seen the first 2 Card Mechanics articles! Myself or a guest contributor will be covering existing or proposed Hex mechanics in a series of articles that you can expect to see weekly on Hex Vault. I’ve already been inundated with ideas for mechanics – definitely worth keeping an eye out for whatever we dream up next!
Once Alpha starts we’ll be posting gameplay videos, draft videos, etc. For many of the gameplay videos we post raw footage of, we’ll also be posting edited versions with analysis and commentary (including showing both sides of key match-ups). We’ve started a PVP Team and many of our members will be streaming frequently so that you can follow along as we refine constructed decks and get ready for the larger tournaments. You won’t want to miss this content – most of the guys on the team have significant TCG experience and have already shown an intricate understanding of what it takes to win at the highest levels in both Constructed and Limited.
In addition to our extensive PVP coverage, we also plan to provide PVE strategies too. Hints, tips, walkthroughs – whatever you need in you quest to conquer all the HexTCG has to offer.
Hopefully our GenCon 2013 coverage gave you an idea of what to expect when we visit conventions where HexTCG has a presence. We’ll be making it to as many Hex-related conventions as possible and brining you reports, pictures, interviews, and videos that will be of interest to the Hex community.
Thank you for visiting Hex Vault! I hope you’ll come back in the future to catch up on everything that’s going on in the HexTCG community!
Colin