Heralds of Chaos now open! (Updated: dailyish)

[Panagrammic]

Note @ 3:05pm:

- next week: packs are getting adjusted, and some are going up in price
- essence cap has been raised again
- We're considering changing the way we grant essence at the end of the game. See this thread for details.

[Panagrammic]

New client @ 6:40pm:

- interface for volume for music and effects (but does not work yet)
- in-game controls to control resolution / animation
- bug fixes for some PvP timer issues (specifically, reloading a game will restore the timer to the correct state)
- fixed bug wherein having a unit selected when the timer rolled over would break the interface until the game was reloaded

[Panagrammic]

New client pushed:

- cooldown info
- minimum damage from any attack is now 1 point -- armor / defender / whatnot cannot reduce damage below 1 point.

[Panagrammic]

Pushed @ 12:00pm:

Backend:

- non-focused battles now repeatedly attempt to retreat
- added herald slot label to army editor
- fixed Corwin special to reflect special text
- status effect for 'doomed'
- damage cannot be reduced below 1 for armor and whatnot
- miscellaneous balancing tweaks

Front end:

- numerous UI tweaks in client
- fixes for end-of-game-flow
- added miss sound
- misses now shown as "graze" (it was confusing before)
- edit: fix mismatch between timer and actual time in battle. now, when it says you have 50 seconds, you should actually have 50 seconds. the additional time is based on the number of actions going on in the round (i.e., it gives more time when there are more animations going on).

[Panagrammic]

@ 1:30pm:

More invites sent out. Be nice, etc., etc.

[Panagrammic]

Thursday the 20th @ 4:00pm:

Released a bunch of stuff.

- new client with performance improvements and bug fixes
- new army editor
- updated visuals many places
- new tutorial
- campaign scenarios

More information on accessing the tutorial and the campaign in a bit.

[Panagrammic]

December 28 @ 1:00pm:

- we are inviting lots of new people
- some client fixes pushed yesterday
- new tutorial -- see this thread if you'd like to try it out.
- we're starting to put in campaigns! Note that the final campaigns will have in-game dialogs that explain the scenario, but if you'd like to try one, try this:

Survivor

The portals have been closed, leaving you unable to summon. All you have left is some of the old magic and a bare handful of units. Can you turn certain defeat into victory?

[Panagrammic]

December 28 @ 2:45pm:

Some notes on the campaigns / scenarios:

These are not complete. There needs to be explanatory text at the beginning and end; the rewards need to be adjusted to the difficulty of the campaign; and some of the campaigns have special units (i.e., a princess) that will have different artwork.

Also, some of the campaigns will use your deck, some of the campaigns will use a preset deck.

Nonetheless, here's another to try as well:

Wave Attack

Can you survive the enemy onslaught and break the blockade?

[Panagrammic]

Update @ 3:30 on 1/2:

Happy New Year!

Gabunches of invites being sent out, expect some new players.

Leaderboard PVP rankings have been split into 1-20, 21-30, and 31+.

Another campaign to try:

Protect the Princess

Can you protect the princess and prevent her from being slain by a rebel king?

(Note that the "Princess" doesn't look very princessy(*), this is something that we will fix).

(*) Not really a word. (**)
(**) Yeah, it's in Urban Dictionary, but that doesn't make it a real word.

[Panagrammic]

Update @ 5:00pm:

Fixed some CDN issues that were causing the Princess campaign to not work properly. Please try the princess campaign again if you were running into problems.

[Panagrammic]

Update @ 12:00AM:

Updated client (sound fixes and UI fixes).

[Panagrammic]

Update @ 6:30pm:

Thanks for the bug reports! Client has been updated -- should fix problems reported with battle freezing and whatnot (but please continue to report the bugs if you hit the problem).

[gracewar7]

Hi! It's not Pan, but me, a guest poster. Just a quick note on the recent booster pack changes and upcoming changes to units:

Yes, the pack payouts and pricing have changed.
The bad news is that the payouts are not as generous as they were during the early beta period - but to be fair, the early beta testers had to endure tons of glitches and lag issues, so they deserve to keep whatever they got. Now that we're in a more mature phase of development, it was time to take a harder look at economics.

The good news? We don't expect to do another price hike like the recent one in the near future. We've looked at the data from many different angles and we think this will give HoC a really good chance to blossom into a healthy, long-living game.

We listened to your feedback on the five-star heralds and we're making changes.
We don't want HoC to be a pay-to-win game. The five-star heralds were giving folks too strong an advantage -- it's pretty sweet to start each game with a super powerful unit. Also, heralds are a very important part of the game and keeping most of them at the 5-star rarity level keeps them out of the hands of most players.

So we're going to make a new rule: all heralds must be 3 stars in rarity and balanced for 3 stars in terms of their stats. The following units will be affected:
- Keljana and Succubus will continue to be heralds but their stats and properties will change to reflect a 3 star unit.
- Eldwyn, Knight of 3 Dooms, Jakyr and Zerakl will be turned into 5-star heroes and new heralds will be created to fill their spots for those factions. Each faction will have 3 heralds.

What happens to you if you have these cards? You'll get a message when these changes go into effect, and in addition:
- If you have Keljana or Succubus, you'll get a 5-star hero from that faction to make up for the change.
- If you have any of the other heralds who have been turned into 5-star heroes, you'll get the new 3-star herald that was created for that spot.

We hope this makes up for any surprises. This is a pretty big rule change, but an important one to make for the long-term viability of the game.

Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

[Panagrammic]

Update 1:30pm:

Searching the forums should bring up HoC forum posts now.

[Panagrammic]

Update @ 4:00pm:

- Krylyr should be working again
- A handful of people were given an unreleased rarity 4 card -- that card has been swapped with an existing rarity 4 card.